Ham Stakes: Repurposing consumer electronics for amateur radio

For anyone who likes electronics, ham radio offers plenty of different avenues to explore and experiment with the radio spectrum in new ways, both on Earth and in space. For more than 100 years, radio amateurs (hams) have been adapting, making, hacking, modifying, and repairing radio- and nonradio-related items to use while engaged in their wireless communication hobby [1]. Hams have a long reputation of helping and teaching each other to understand and use radio technology, and this practice continues today. There are more than 700,000 licensed hams in the United States and about three million worldwide [2]. Hams experiment, modify, and adapt many forms of consumer, military, broadcast, and other electronics products, such as computer network routers (wired and wireless), military radar system components, and long-distance telecommunications equipment, to innovate how they communicate with each other.