Your First Radio After Passing General

Passing General is the biggest single step in amateur radio, because it opens most of HF and HF is what makes the hobby global rather than local. It is also the moment when the most money gets spent in the wrong place, so this page is mostly about where the budget should go.

The one thing to understand before spending anything

The antenna decides how well your station works, not the radio. This is not modesty about equipment or a way of letting cheap gear off the hook. Receiver performance in modern transceivers has been good for two decades, and the differences between a mid-range radio and an expensive one are real but small. The difference between a well built resonant antenna at a sensible height and a compromise antenna at 15 ft is enormous, and it applies to everything you hear as well as everything you send.

So the practical advice, which runs against how most people shop: pick a competent radio and stop optimising it, then spend your remaining attention and money on the antenna, the height and the feedline.

What a first HF station actually consists of

1. A 100 W HF transceiver. Any current model from a major manufacturer is competent. See the HF transceivers for beginners roundup.
2. A resonant wire antenna. A dipole if you have two supports, an end-fed half wave if you have one. The wire antenna roundup covers both, and the dipole length calculator tells you how long to cut it.
3. Low-loss coax. LMR-400 class for anything over about 50 ft. Feedline takes something away from every contact permanently, so this is not the place to save. See best coax.
4. A common-mode choke. The part most new HF stations are missing, and the reason RF ends up in the shack and the SWR reading moves when you touch the radio. See baluns and chokes.
5. A 30 A power supply. A 100 W radio draws over 20 A on transmit peaks. See power supplies.

The complete build, with every item priced and linked, is the first HF station.

Where to put the antenna, given a normal garden

Height beats length, and both beat antenna type. If you can only get 25 ft up, a 20 metre dipole at 25 ft will do more for you than a 40 metre dipole at 12 ft, because at a low height a large fraction of your signal goes upward rather than toward the horizon. Work out what your height buys you on the antenna height calculator.

An end-fed half wave is the antenna that makes HF possible on a small property, because it needs one high support and one anchor rather than two supports at the same height. That is why it has become the default first HF antenna, and it is a genuinely good antenna rather than only a convenient one.

Which bands to start on

• 20 metres in daylight. Long paths, always busy, and a dipole for it is only about 33 ft.
• 40 metres after dark, for regional and national contacts. Comes alive in the evening.
• 17 and 15 metres when conditions are good, and both are pleasantly uncrowded.
• 80 metres is rewarding and demands a large antenna, so most people come to it later.
• Check what you may use where on the US band plan.

What not to buy yet

• An amplifier. Quadrupling power gains one S-unit; raising the antenna often gains more for less. See HF amplifiers for the arithmetic.
• An expensive antenna tuner, until you know whether your antenna needs one.
• A second radio. One good HF radio and a better antenna beats two compromised stations.
• A tower. Wire antennas in trees have made millions of contacts, and a tower is a serious project with real hazards.

Related

• First HF station build, priced and linked
• General class licence, what it grants
• First radio after Technician, if you skipped ahead
• Your first HF contact
• Amateur Extra, when you are ready