About HamRadioSetup.com
A reference site for getting licensed and getting a station working.
The short answer
HamRadioSetup.com publishes free calculators, reference charts and complete station builds for amateur radio. Content is researched from published specifications, FCC rules and verified owner reports rather than personal testing, and every page says so.
HamRadioSetup.com exists to answer two questions well. What do I need to get licensed, and what do I actually buy to get on the air without wasting money on the wrong part of the station.
What is here
- Licensing, covering Technician, General and Amateur Extra: what each grants, what the exam covers, what it costs, and how to find a session.
- Calculators for antenna dimensions, coax loss, SWR, impedance matching, power supply sizing, battery runtime and RF exposure distance.
- Complete station builds at four budgets, every item priced and linked with a running total.
- Gear roundups organised by job rather than by price bracket.
- Reference charts, including the US band plan, coax loss tables and RF exposure limits.
- Safety, covering the three hazards that cause real harm.
How recommendations are made
Researched, not tested in person. Specifications, FCC rules, manufacturer documentation, published measurement data and verified owner reports. Every page states this, because implying an operating history the site does not have would be spotted immediately by anyone who has been licensed for a week.
In practice that means the pages lean on things you can verify: a formula, a loss figure per hundred feet at a stated frequency, a published gain, a current draw. Where something is genuinely a judgement call it is written as one.
The one opinion the whole site is built on
Antenna and feedline before the radio. It is the most useful thing anyone told me about this hobby and the thing new operators most often get backwards, partly because the alternative advice sells more expensive equipment. A modest transceiver feeding a well built wire antenna at a sensible height will outperform an expensive rig feeding a compromise antenna, and no amount of receiver quality closes that gap.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, particularly a formula, a band edge, a licence privilege or anything on the safety pages, please say so through the contact page. Corrections to technical figures are made quickly, because a wrong number in a calculator is worse than no calculator.
How the site earns
Affiliate commissions on qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. That never decides which product gets recommended, and the site regularly names the cheaper option or tells readers to skip a category. Full detail on the affiliate disclosure page.
Common questions
Questions people ask about this
Do you test the radios you recommend?
No, and the site says so on every page. Recommendations here come from published specifications, FCC rules, manufacturer documentation, published measurement data such as receiver performance testing, and verified owner reports. That is a different thing from personal testing and it would be dishonest to present it as the same. It is also why the pages lean on numbers you can check rather than on impressions.
Why does the site tell me to buy the antenna before the radio?
Because it is true at every budget in this hobby, and because the opposite advice sells more expensive radios. Receiver performance has been good for two decades. A compromise antenna is a permanent penalty on every contact you attempt, while a modest radio on a well built wire antenna works genuinely well. The ordering runs through every build and roundup here.
Are the calculators reliable?
They apply standard published formulas correctly, and each one shows the formula so you can check it. They are planning aids rather than certifications. An antenna calculator cannot see your ground conductivity, your height above it, nearby metal, or your actual coax condition, all of which move the real answer. Cut long and trim, and treat the RF exposure result as an input to your own evaluation rather than a substitute for it.
Who runs this site?
It is published by Cozy River Studios, which runs a number of calculator and reference sites in hobby and home categories. The aim on each is the same: get the arithmetic right, publish the tables people actually need, and be straightforward about how the site earns.
Keeping your own cut lengths, SWR sweeps and exposure record? The Station Build & Antenna Planner is the paid version of these pages: 8 printable worksheets you fill in with your own numbers, plus the full PDF, $29.
Disclaimer Researched guidance for planning purposes, not professional engineering, electrical or legal advice. Antenna work, RF exposure, mast and tower work, grounding and battery handling all carry real risk that depends on your specific site and installation. Verify anything safety-critical against current FCC rules, the National Electrical Code and the manufacturer's own documentation, and hire a professional where the job calls for one. We research equipment from published specifications, regulatory documents and verified owner reviews rather than claiming hands-on testing we have not done.