This question often occurs with newly licensed radio amateurs, and may occur from time to time with those who have been licensed for a few years. One of your first avenues to find out an answer to a question may be your local amateur radio club. Often times there are members of the local club who can give an authoritative answer to your questions as well as direct you to periodicals whether a print version or online to qualify what they tell you and provide even more information. Of course, if you want, you can just jump online and find out some information to your questions but remember you may still need some clarification to the answers you find and again that is where the knowledge of long time radio amateurs can help clear up your new questions.
One of the online resources which may be of interest is the “ARRL The Doctor is In” podcast. You do not need to register or be an ARRL member to listen to these informative programs. Direct your browser to http://www.arrl.org/doctor . This is an audio presentation that you can listen to over your computer or tablet. There is an archive of a number of topics from previous episodes, listed toward the bottom of the page. Listening to these will likely generate even more questions but it shows you are learning and are interesting in learning! Take those questions to your local club or find an amateur radio operator who has some background relative the topic of you question.
You may have noticed that I tend to stress that you should talk to someone who is knowledgeable. Too often folks tend to have their personal perspectives color answers on given issues which may still be 100% accurate but since you are asking you likely will have a bit of a problem weeding out the biased answers, wrong answers and technically correct answers. The person you are getting your information from sometimes will say that a certain answer is their personal feelings toward a topic and then further inform you of where their perspective is coming from. Consider that the perspective may come from a personal experience, sometimes with very interesting and informative explanations!
This is only a couple ideas of what to do as a newly licensed amateur radio operator. The hobby is very diverse in what you can get involved in. For starters please give the podcast a try, it may surprise you it what is available to learn from it. Along with the podcast remember there is likely an amateur radio club reasonably close to you where you can find answers to your questions as well as meet others who are in the same hobby.
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