Been listening for a few months to analog to get the hang of amateur radio. I’m set up to take my license test in a couple weeks.
Now I get analog, but digital is a whole new ballgame. I’d like to listen if possible to some talk on my Ailuence HD1 (got it cheap at an estate sale), but since I don’t have a dmr id number, I’m not quite sure how to go about it. I can’t find much about listening to ham radio without a license.
Can anyone help me?
You do not need a digital ID to listen, and to be frank, you don’t legally need one to transmit. However, the network needs it to work out who you are and route you through it, but transmit rules worldwide, just need a Government issued callsign - not an ID.
Secondly, the whole point of amateur radio is for unlicenced people to listen in to. It’s the ethos of the whole hobby. Licence to transmit, no licence for receive. The US tightened up their rules recently so many radios became technically illegal, but on the ham bands, that’s the part that’s legal. Get the frequencies, the colour codes, the talk groups and other local info and listen away.