Handbook, chapter 13. Your first contact
The hardest part of a first contact is not the equipment. The antenna is up, the SWR is fine, the band is alive. The hard part is pressing the PTT, because it is not clear what to say.
The good news: there is not much to say, and the order is always the same. The words change, the order does not. Learn the order and the rest will come by itself, from the first contacts you hear.
Five moves and the contact is made
On the air a callsign is said letter by letter: UR3PKI — Uniform Romeo Three Papa Kilo India.
Type in your own callsign and look at your own contact rather than somebody else's example.
In red is what you say. Note the second move: the other station begins with your callsign, not its own. That is not politeness but a way of letting you know the reply is for you — there could be three other people on the frequency.
The same five moves in words
| Who | What goes out on the air | What for |
|---|---|---|
| You | «CQ, CQ, this is UR3PKI, Ukraine Radio Three Papa Kilo India, over» | the call. Callsign letter by letter, or nobody will write it down |
| Them | «UR3PKI, this is UT0UI» | the reply. Your callsign first, theirs second |
| You | «UT0UI, this is UR3PKI, thanks for coming back, your report is 59, name Petro, QTH Kropyvnytskyi, how copy?» | report, name, town |
| Them | «UR3PKI, this is UT0UI, your report is 59, Vitalii, Kyiv, thanks for the contact» | the same in return |
| You | «Thanks for the contact, 73, UR3PKI listening on the band» | the sign-off, and who stays on the frequency |
That is all. Ninety seconds. After that, whatever you like: antenna, power, weather, radio — but only once the required part has been said, because a contact counts as having taken place precisely after callsigns and reports have been exchanged.
Before you press the PTT
Three things, and they are exactly where newcomers spoil the first impression they make.
Listen. For a minute, better for five. You will hear the rhythm of the band, the phrases people use, and whether there is anyone to call at all.
Ask whether the frequency is in use. You do not hear everyone the other station hears: the classic case is a pair already working on the frequency, of whom you can hear one but not the other. The phrase is short: «Is this frequency in use? This is UR3PKI». If there is silence, go ahead.
Do not call CQ on top of someone else's contact. It is the one thing people really are told off for on the air.
The phonetic alphabet
A callsign said as bare letters is never copied: «bee», «cee», «dee» sound the same even in a clean channel, let alone in noise. So each letter has a word of its own.
| A–I | J–R | S–Z |
|---|---|---|
| A Alfa | J Juliett | S Sierra |
| B Bravo | K Kilo | T Tango |
| C Charlie | L Lima | U Uniform |
| D Delta | M Mike | V Victor |
| E Echo | N November | W Whiskey |
| F Foxtrot | O Oscar | X X-ray |
| G Golf | P Papa | Y Yankee |
| H Hotel | Q Quebec | Z Zulu |
| I India | R Romeo |
Digits are said as they are: one, two, three… Aviation has special forms for three and nine («tree», «niner»); on the amateur bands they are hardly ever used.
When you are not being picked up on the tenth attempt, the standard alphabet often loses out to a «geographic» one: Ukraine, Radio, Papa, Kilo, India instead of Uniform, Romeo… Place names are longer, more resonant and cut through noise better. This is not a breach of anything — it is what works. Start with the standard set, and on the second go use whatever gets through.
The report: RS for voice, RST for CW
A report is two digits (on voice) or three (on CW):
- R — readability, 1–5. How much of it you could make out. 5 means all of it, effortlessly.
- S — strength, 1–9. The same thing the S meter needle shows.
- T — tone, 1–9. For CW only: whether the tone is clean or rough and hum-laden. These days it is almost always 9, because synthesisers do not rasp.
Hence «59» on voice and «599» on CW. And hence the main caveat: 59 is given almost always, regardless of what the meter says. It is a courtesy formula, not a measurement.
What to do about it. In an ordinary contact, nothing: give 59 and do not complicate matters. But if the other station asks about the quality, or you are adjusting something, an honest report is worth more than a polite one: «readability four, strength five, with fading» is information; «59» is not.
Where the S points came from and why one point is six decibels is in chapter 6.
The Q codes you will need
Q codes come from CW, where every extra character costs time. On voice they are used less, but these ten are heard constantly:
The key thing about Q codes that the tables do not say: each one has two meanings. With a question mark it is a question; without one it is an answer or a statement. That is not a detail: QRZ? means «who is calling me?», while QRZ without the mark means «you are being called by such-and-such a station».
| Code | Question | Statement |
|---|---|---|
| QRL | is this frequency in use? | the frequency is in use, I am working here |
| QRZ | who is calling me? | you are being called by… |
| QTH | where are you? | I am located at… |
| QSB | is my signal fading? | your signal is fading |
| QRM | are you being interfered with by other stations? | I am being interfered with by other stations |
| QRN | are you troubled by static? | I am troubled by static |
| QSY | shall I change frequency? | change to… |
| QRP / QRO | shall I decrease / increase power? | I am running low / high power |
| QSL | do you acknowledge receipt? | I acknowledge receipt |
| QRT | shall I stop sending? | I am closing down |
| QRV | are you ready? | I am ready |
| QRX | when will you call again? | stand by, I will call you |
And two numbers that are not Q codes but are used just as often: 73 — «best regards» (exactly that, without «seventy-threes to you» and without a plural), and 88 — «love and kisses», said to women.
Through a repeater: this is how most people make their first contacts
A handheld on two metres reaches about five kilometres across a town, and that is that. A repeater changes it: it sits up high, listens on one frequency and simultaneously transmits on another, so your five watts cover the whole region.
What you need to know in order to use one:
- two frequencies and an offset. You transmit on the input and listen on the output; the difference between them is fixed for the band, and the radio applies it for you if you switch the right mode on;
- a tone is often required. Many repeaters open only on a sub-audible tone (CTCSS). If you do not know the tone, you will not open the repeater however loudly you shout;
- the list of repeaters for your region comes from the local amateur radio organisation.
And separately, the rules that are stricter there than on HF, because the resource is shared:
Pause after every transmission. A second or two. This is not politeness but mechanics: otherwise nobody can break in with something urgent, and the repeater itself does not get to reset its timer.
Be brief. There is one repeater for everyone, and a long conversation about the weather blocks it for the people who need it now.
If you can work direct, work direct. Two fixed stations in the same town hear each other perfectly well on simplex. The repeater exists for those who are mobile or behind a hill.
Repeaters belong to somebody. They are installed and maintained at the expense of individuals or clubs. They are not infrastructure that appeared on its own.
On-air etiquette, briefly and to the point
Rules that are posted nowhere, but whose breach is noticed at once.
Give your full callsign. At the start, at the end, and every ten to fifteen minutes if the conversation runs long. Shortening your callsign to its last two letters is a habit worth losing straight away.
Do not break into someone else's conversation. If you must, wait for a pause and give your callsign. Once, calmly.
Politics, religion and commerce stay off the air. This is nobody's whim: amateur radio is not a broadcasting medium and is not for advertising, and the bands were allocated on exactly that condition.
Music and recordings are not transmitted. Voice, CW, the permitted digital modes — and that is all.
Help newcomers. You recognise them by the hesitancy in their first words. Once, somebody did not let go of the PTT on you either, when you were fumbling the phonetics.
When nobody hears you
The commonest situation of your first month. What to do:
- Do not repeat the whole sentence. Repeat the callsign only, letter by letter.
- Wait for a pause. Half of all failed calls are calls made on top of somebody else's transmission.
- Try later or on another band. Often it is not about you but about propagation — a station you hear perfectly may not hear you at all if you are in its skip zone.
A contest is the same contact, just without the words
In a contest people speak differently: «UR3PKI, 59, 14» and that is it. No name, no town, no weather — because a hundred contacts have to be made in an hour.
That is not different manners but a different task. Do not take offence at not being «talked to», and do not talk about your antenna in a contest either: you are taking time from the queue that is waiting.
And on CW?
The order is the same, the words are different and shorter: DE instead of «this is», K instead of «over», TU instead of «thank you». Every formula has its reason, and they are taken apart separately, with sound and piece by piece:
- The structure of a CW contact — the same exchange, with your own callsign, broken into parts and given a voice.
- The Morse code tree — how the code itself is built.
And write it down straight away
A contact that is not in your log does not exist: not for awards, not for confirmations, and not for you six months from now. What exactly to record and where is in chapter 14.
Next — chapter 14, locator and log: what to write down about the contact you have just made.