What can you do?

People ask me what you can do in ham radio. They often wrongly mistake it with CB - and that you can just talk to truckers.
So I've come up with a list of some of the aspects of the hobby, along with some YouTube links.

To get this out of the way though: You won't find the love of your life on it, and it won't make you rich.

Some things you can do are:

• Talk to someone
• Talk to kings, presidents, emirs, astronauts, TV personalities, musicians, etc
• Talk to someone through a repeater
• Talk to someone via satellite
• Talk to someone on the other side of the world by bouncing your signal off the ionosphere
• Talk to someone on the other side of the world who is walking around
• Talk to someone on the other side of the world who is in a car
• Talk to someone on the other side of the world who is on a ship
• Talk to someone on the other side of the world who is in an aircraft
• Talk to someone who is in space
• Take part in contests
• Take part in direction finding contests
• Bounce signals off meteor trails
• Bounce signals off aircraft
• Take part in Summits On The Air
• Take part in Islands On The Air
• Take part in Youngsters On The Air
• Help out with Jamboree On The Air
• Go on a holiday with a few mates to a remote desert island, take some equipment and antennas with you, and claim it's a "DXpedition"

But if you don't want to speak to anyone, you can:

• Use Morse code
• Use Digital modes (with a computer):
•   RTTY
•   PSK31
•   Olivia
•   Hellschrieber
•   JT-65
•   Digital voice
•   WSPR
• Bounce signals off the moon
• Connect to the internet thousands of miles away from anywhere
• Use DMR
• Packet radio
• APRS
• Build an antenna out of bits of wire
• Use a weather balloon for an antenna
• Use a kite for an antenna
• Or other ingenious ways to get an antenna up
• Send images
• Send television
• Help out with emergencies

And of course, you can make stuff

• Build a receiver from a razor blade and a pencil
• Build transmitters
• Build an antenna, say out of a tape measure
• Build a satellite
• Invent a new modulation technique
• Design a new type of antenna

So what can't you do?

• Make money from it or use it for commercial purposes.
• Play music or broadcast to "anyone who might be listening".
• Use any form of encryption.
• And it's generally considered bad form to swear, or talk about controversial things like politics, religion, etc