2nd May 2026
When I was growing up, we lived next door to an engineer who worked for Nimbus Records, the first company in the UK to produce CDs. In his spare time, if he wasn't washing his car, he was building things like remote controlled boats and model cars. He's the person that first got me excited about electronics and is at least partly responsible for me disassembling various household appliances (their subsequent re-assembly was often less successful). He was also the first person to introduce me to amateur radio.
Around the same time, I was given a cheap radio I could use to receive transmissions, listening in to the control tower at the nearest airport, but there was a problem.
Growing up in the 90s meant growing up with the internet exploding into the public consciousness, and my interest in radio took a back seat. The internet didn't have widespread video calling yet (the first version of Skype didn't arrive until 2003), but you could already trade instant messages with friends around the world in fractions of a second. You no longer needed arcane radio knowledge, long bits of wire dangling from your rooftop, or any form of licence.
Using the internet today doesn't require any understanding about how it works - you can have a high definition video call with someone on the other side of the world at the click of a button. The same thing cannot be said for amateur radio. To hold an audible conversation with someone beyond the other side of town, you need to understand; what frequencies are available for you to use; what type of antenna you need and what size it needs to be in order to transmit on a particular frequency; and how those radio waves will propagate through the atmosphere.
Coming back to amateur radio, I assumed it was only used for holding voice conversations, but just as the internet is not the same place it was when I first discovered it, so the world of radio has moved on. There are people trying to; build their own radios, design new forms of antenna, bounce radio signals off the moon, transmit digital data via radio waves and much more. For people who like to understand how the world works, radio offers a lot of extremely deep rabbit-holes to venture down.
My first step would be to get the Foundation Licence. As well as purchasing the RSGB (Radio Society of Great Britain) Foundation Licence manual, which covers all the material you need to learn, I found a local amateur radio club that runs courses to help people pass the exam. The course only cost £10 and lasted two full days. At that price it was worth it just for a copy of the slides they presented, but having the full attention of two experienced amateurs who we could ask questions was worth its weight in gold. It depends on how you learn best; if you would prefer to watch a series on YouTube, then there are undoubtedly plenty of videos there to get you through. If you learn things better by reading them printed in black and white, then the manual is all you need. Maybe it's some combination of all three.
There are eight topics covered by the foundation licence; technical aspects, transmitters & receivers, feeders & antennas, propagation, licensing conditions, operating practices & procedures, electromagnetic compatibility, and safety.
If you can blow the dust off your memories of your GCSE Physics class, you should be fine with most of the technical aspects. It covers simple electrical circuits and components, and some basic electrical theory, like Ohm's Law.
The sections on transmitters & receivers and feeders & antennas build on the technical aspects with some of the practicalities of communicating with radio. You need to learn the different components of transmitters and receivers and what role each of them plays in transmitting your voice via a radio wave. For antennas, you only learn about four different types, but it seems like this is an entire discipline on its own.
Propagation explores how radio waves travel through different layers of the atmosphere, as well as how the weather and atmosphere conditions restrict, or extend, their range.
The licensing conditions cover what you are and aren't allowed to do with your licence, and how you are permitted to operate. Operating practices & procedures builds on this by discussing the frequency ranges that are available for amateur use, as well as some of the traditions and etiquette of amateur radio.
Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) is concerned with how radio waves may interact with other pieces of equipment and how to mitigate against it. It mostly seems to boil down to the lesson that; your radio can cause interference with other electrical equipment when you transmit, so don't be an arrogant pig if someone thinks you may be disturbing them watching the latest episode of Love Island.
Can you wire a mains plug? Use a ladder safely? If so, you've got a large portion of the safety section covered.
The test itself comprises 26 multiple-choice questions, of which you need to get at least 19 correct in order to pass.
As it was described to me; the foundation licence teaches you just enough to not be a nuisance on the airwaves. The barrier to entry is clearly being kept as low as possible in order to encourage anyone, including kids, to give it a try. They say that you don't start learning to drive until you pass your driving test, and radio feels the same. Passing the foundation test is just the first step on a journey with so many possible paths. I'm excited to see what's out there and learn more.
M7YWS
