I got into ham radio because I am interested in being able to communicate with others as a hobby. In the early – mid 90s I ran a dial-up BBS. I wanted to get a ham license but I didn’t know where or how to find the info I needed to get licensed.
Recently got a Starlink mini and I’ve used it for slow Internet, browsing and low resolution, YouTube videos. If you do a SOTA or POTA activation, you can spot yourself when you’re away from APRS unless your call sign is K8MRD.
In a regionalized emergency situation, you might not necessarily want to talk to other hams. You might wanna talk to friends or family that are not hams. In those cases you can text or call or send email to communicate that you’re OK in a hurricane or earthquake situation.
Starlink mini has the roam plan for $50 which gives approximately 50 GB of data transfer in a month. you can go full service (unlimited) on the room plan for $165 a month. You can also put your Starlink mini into standby mode for five dollars a month and receive 500 kB per second unlimited per month.
I did some testing in the standby mode and can easily browse the Internet and view low resolution 240p video on YouTube.
The communications capabilities we have today compared to when I was a young person are absolutely amazing. Times are good for those of us in the communications hobby.