This page is part of the N0NJY General Class self-study course for Technician operators upgrading to General.
Everything in this section comes from real HF operating experience — the kind of knowledge that does not appear in any question pool and is rarely written down. Read it carefully. The exam gets you a license. This section gets you on the air without embarrassing yourself or causing problems for others.
Before you transmit anything — a CQ call, a response to a CQ, anything at all — you must listen to the frequency first. This is not just an FCC rule. It is the single most important operating habit you can develop, and it is the one new HF operators most consistently fail to follow.
On VHF FM through a repeater, the system handles coordination for you. On HF there is no such system. A frequency that sounds completely empty to you may have two stations in a contact that you simply cannot hear because of your antenna, your location, or the current propagation. If you transmit on top of them, you have caused interference to operators who were there first — and you had no idea you were doing it.
Listen for at least 30 seconds before transmitting, longer on a busy band. Before calling CQ, ask if the frequency is in use: "Is this frequency in use?" Wait. If you hear nothing, ask once more. Then proceed. This takes less than a minute and prevents you from being that operator.
The second most common problem with new HF operators is the opposite of the first: they are afraid to transmit at all. They sit and listen for weeks, convincing themselves they are not ready. They are waiting to feel confident before getting on the air. The problem is that confidence only comes from getting on the air.
Nobody sounds polished on their first HF contact. Nobody. Experienced operators know this and make allowances for it. If you hear someone call CQ, respond. If you stumble over your callsign, say it again. If you lose your place, a simple "Please stand by" gives you a moment to collect yourself. The HF bands are full of patient operators who genuinely enjoy working new licensees.
When you give your callsign in less-than-perfect conditions, phonetics ensure each letter is understood. The ITU phonetic alphabet is the international standard, and it is what every amateur operator worldwide is expected to use.
| Letter | ITU Word | Letter | ITU Word |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Alfa | N | November |
| B | Bravo | O | Oscar |
| C | Charlie | P | Papa |
| D | Delta | Q | Quebec |
| E | Echo | R | Romeo |
| F | Foxtrot | S | Sierra |
| G | Golf | T | Tango |
| H | Hotel | U | Uniform |
| I | India | V | Victor |
| J | Juliett | W | Whiskey |
| K | Kilo | X | X-ray |
| L | Lima | Y | Yankee |
| M | Mike | Z | Zulu |
Do not improvise. You will hear operators using "America" for A, "Boston" for B, or "New York" for N. Some of it is habit, some regional tradition. None of it is correct. An operator in Japan or Germany has learned November, not Nancy. Use the standard.
The callsign N0NJY is given as: November Zero November Juliett Yankee. Practice your own callsign in ITU phonetics until it is completely automatic.
FCC Part 97 requires you to identify at the end of each contact and at least every ten minutes during a contact. Your callsign is the only legally acceptable identification. No nickname, no handle, no club name satisfies this requirement.
Most operators identify more frequently than required, and that is fine. What you want to avoid is losing track of time during a long ragchew and drifting well past ten minutes without identifying. Set a mental habit: every time you turn it over to the other station, consider whether ten minutes is approaching. If it is, give your callsign before throwing it back.
You do not need phonetics every time you identify. In a clear, stable contact, your callsign spoken normally is perfectly acceptable. Use phonetics when conditions are marginal, at the start of a contact, and whenever there is any doubt the other station has your callsign right.
At some point you will be in the middle of a contact on a clear frequency when suddenly another station appears — and they are convinced that you are causing the interference. Both sides can be right. Neither is necessarily at fault. This is one of the most misunderstood situations in HF operating and it causes more unnecessary conflict than almost anything else on the bands.
Here is what is happening. HF propagation is constantly changing. When you established your contact an hour ago, the skip zone between you and a group 2,000 miles away put them completely out of range. Then the ionosphere shifted, the skip zone shortened, and suddenly you can all hear each other. You were both on the frequency. Neither group did anything wrong.
The correct response is calm negotiation, not escalation. One group moves a few kilohertz. It costs nothing. What you should never do is key up and tell the other station to get off your frequency in an aggressive tone. No amateur operator has an exclusive claim to any frequency. This is written directly into Part 97.
A basic HF SSB contact follows a recognizable pattern. Knowing this pattern before your first contact removes most of the uncertainty that makes new operators hesitant.
Check that the frequency is clear. Then:
"CQ CQ CQ, this is November Zero November Juliett Yankee, N0NJY, calling CQ and standing by."
Keep it to two or three CQ repetitions followed by your callsign. Do not call CQ for thirty seconds straight. Long CQ calls are poor practice and mark you as inexperienced. If nobody responds after two or three calls, wait a moment, then try again or move to a different frequency.
When you hear a CQ you want to answer:
"W1ABC, this is November Zero November Juliett Yankee, N0NJY, over."
Give their callsign once, then your callsign once in phonetics. That is all. Do not give a long introduction. In marginal conditions or a pileup, shorter is better.
Once contact is established, a typical casual HF exchange includes a signal report, your name, your location (city and state minimum), and brief station information (rig, antenna, power). From there the contact can be as short or as long as both parties want.
"W1ABC, it has been a pleasure. 73, this is N0NJY, November Zero November Juliett Yankee, clear."
"73" means best regards. "Clear" means you are leaving the frequency. Do not say "over and out" — that is a movie trope. "Over" means you expect a reply. "Out" means the contact is finished. Using both together is contradictory.
On HF voice you use the RS system (Readability and Strength). CW adds a third digit for Tone.
Readability (1–5): 1=unreadable, 3=readable with difficulty, 5=perfectly readable.
Strength (1–9): 1=barely perceptible, 5=fairly good, 9=extremely strong.
A report of 59 (spoken "five nine") means perfectly readable at extremely strong signal strength. You will hear "59" given reflexively as a courtesy on almost every contact. Try to give honest reports instead — a "57" or "44" tells the other operator something genuinely useful about their signal.
Understanding propagation theory is one thing. Knowing how to check actual conditions before you sit down to operate is another skill entirely, and it makes you a dramatically more effective HF operator.
The K-index measures geomagnetic disturbance. When it rises above 4, propagation at mid-to-high latitudes degrades significantly. At K=5 or higher (a geomagnetic storm), HF bands at higher latitudes can go dead for hours. When 20 meters sounds empty despite a high SFI, check the K-index first.
The greyline is the boundary between the sunlit and dark sides of Earth. For roughly 30 minutes on each side of local sunrise and sunset, the D layer — which absorbs lower HF frequencies during the day — is either disappearing or has not yet formed. During this window, 160, 80, and 40 meters can produce remarkable long-path propagation. Stations that are unworkable at any other time become reachable. This is not luck. It is a predictable physical phenomenon that experienced operators exploit routinely.
On the East Coast of the United States, the greyline at sunrise produces a window for working Europe and Africa on 40 meters with signals that may be 20 dB stronger than at any other time of day.
Every community has norms enforced by social pressure rather than rules. Violating these will not get you fined, but they will get you a reputation. The amateur radio community has a long memory.
By convention, the lower portion of the phone band on 20, 15, and 10 meters is treated as a DX window where DX stations are worked. A domestic ragchew in this area creates interference for operators trying to work rare DX. On 20 meters, stay above 14.225 MHz for domestic contacts.
When a DX station is operating split, they transmit on one frequency and listen on another. Transmitting on their frequency accomplishes nothing — they are not listening there — and blocks other stations from hearing them. Listen for "listening up 5" or similar instructions before calling.
Q-codes were developed for CW. On SSB phone, most are unnecessary — just say what you mean. However, these are used so universally that you need to know them:
A splattery, over-driven SSB signal is the audio equivalent of spraying a fire hose on your neighbors. If people tell you your signal is wide, listen to them. Back off the microphone gain. Check your ALC — if it is pegged continuously, you are overdriving the transmitter. A clean 100-watt signal carries further than a distorted 150-watt signal, and it does not cause interference to adjacent frequencies.
A rare DX station attracts a pileup — dozens or hundreds of stations all calling at once. Working a pileup is a skill. Doing it wrong just makes things worse for everyone.
Listen first. Before calling, listen long enough to understand the pattern. Is the DX working stations by region? By callsign suffix? Understanding this dramatically improves your odds.
Transmit on their listening frequency. If the DX says "listening up five to ten," set your transmit VFO to five to ten kHz above their transmit frequency. Do not transmit on their transmit frequency.
Give your callsign once, clearly, then wait. In a pileup, give your full callsign once in phonetics. Then stop. Do not repeat it four times. Do not transmit while the DX station is transmitting. The operators who work the DX are invariably the disciplined ones.
The following covers G2 subelement topics as tested in the 2023–2027 FCC General Class question pool.
QSK (Full Break-In): Receiver opens between every dit and dah — you can hear signals during your own transmission. Superior technique but increases relay wear. Semi break-in opens the receiver only between complete characters.
Five specific channels only, not a continuous allocation. Maximum 100W ERP. USB phone, CW, and certain digital modes only. Common exam frequency: 5.332 MHz.
ARES is ARRL-organized. RACES is organized with civil defense agencies. Use plain language in emergency nets — not amateur codes the served agency may not understand.
Q1 (G2A01) — Which sideband is most commonly used for voice on frequencies of 14 MHz or higher?
Q2 (G2C01) — Which of the following is true of QSK operation in CW?
Q3 (G2B09) — Who determines the order of precedence for stations checking into a directed net?
Q4 (G2A02) — Which mode is most commonly used for HF voice communications?
Q5 (G2B01) — Which of the following is true concerning access to frequencies?
Q6 (G2D01) — What is the purpose of QRP operation?
Q7 (G2E01) — Which mode is most commonly used for FT8 transmissions?
Q8 (G2A05) — Which is a common frequency for 60-meter amateur operations?