ID

No Privacy

AF5NP Encode/Encrypt, ID, Privacy

New or prospective hams should know that there is no expectation of privacy in amateur radio.  Anything that you communicate legally can be received by other people.

Ham radio involves transmitting intelligence (voice, Morse code, text data, pictures) to be received and understood somewhere else.  By its nature when you transmit a RF signal it goes out into the world (maybe beyond) where anybody with the proper equipment can receive it.

If you are transmitting on a repeater or other well-used frequency someone else is likely to copy you.    However, the chances of someone monitoring a random frequency and mode is rather slim.  People scanning repeaters or tuning around the HF bands may listen but if what they hear isn’t interesting they may move on.  So the likelihood of your QSO being listened to depends on frequency, mode, and content.  Basically, others can listen but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are doing so.

Hams cannot legally encrypt or disguise their messages for privacy as this violates rules against secretive transmissions.

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The two reasonable exceptions are when sending control commands to orbiting amateur satellite repeaters and when operating a hobby model such as a RC airplane.

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Digital (RTTY, PSK, JT, FT, Olivia and the like) and video (ATV, SSTV) signals cannot be interpreted by ear so there is some privacy from the general public listening in.  But anyone with the right equipment can decode these and follow along.  While these modes are technically encoded, they are not secretive because they are commonly used.

You also cannot secure privacy via anonymity.  Stations at both ends of a message must legally identify themselves

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Of course, if someone really wants to be secretive and violate US amateur radio Part 97 rules by encrypting their transmissions or not identifying, that is a possibility.  We hope that all hams choose to play it straight and follow the rules, in which case anything that you say over the air can be picked up.

Our best advice is to not worry about privacy.  Don’t say anything over the air that you don’t want others to hear.  If you must do so, use a different means of communication.

Kerchunking

AF5NP Ham-Speak, ID, Identify/Identification, Illegal, Key, Mic (rophone), PTT (push to talk), Repeater
The practice of briefly keying a microphone (hitting the push-to-talk/PTT button) to see if a repeater responds with a courtesy tone is commonly known as kerchunking (or ker-chunking) in ham-speak.
handmic     Kerchunk2
Don’t do it!  Don’t be a kerchunker, even though it’s often a quick and convenient way of verifying that you can hit a repeater.
For one, it is technically illegal.  All transmissions must be identified (with rare exceptions).
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Just because you hear it happening and the probability of getting caught is very low doesn’t make it right.
Kerchunk
However, the main reason not to key a mic without identifying yourself is that it
is both annoying and disruptive.  It’s bad etiquette and almost always discouraged in published guidelines by the repeater owner.
Kerchunk3
If you really want to test your connection to a repeater, take the extra second to speak your call sign into the mic. Or say “testing”, followed by your call sign.  Or ID and ask for a signal report, which will give you even more info than just to hear a courtesy tone.
On a related note, if you want to test transmit power or SWR or something like that, consider using a simplex frequency to avoid tying up a repeater.