Having fun with amateur radio
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UNESCO’s World Radio Day was yesterday, February 13. I know I’m a day late with this one, but there’s still some interesting information to be communicated. The World Radio Day website notes,
13 February is World Radio Day — a day to celebrate radio as a medium; to improve international cooperation between broadcasters; and to encourage major networks and community radio alike to promote access to information and freedom of expression over the airwaves.
While it’s mostly about radio broadcasting, amateur radio does get a mention. In the article, “Shortwave Broadcasting – Challenges and Opportunities,” the author, Oldrich Cip, says,
Amateur radio enthusiasts have traditionally used shortwave communications to share information during emergencies when other communications systems fail. This practice is recognised and appreciated both by the public and the regulating bodies responsible for managing radio frequency spectrum. In contrast, professional broadcast facilities, whose transmitters are 10 to 100 times more powerful than those of amateur operators, are rarely used in emergencies.
As an aside, Cip is the director of the High-Frequency Coordinating Committee (HFCC). The goal of the HFCC is to coordinate shortwave frequency use and minimize broadcaster interference. Their website has some interesting information, and is worth a look for those of you into SWLing.
Here are three interesting items that I found out about by reading my e-mail:
Morse Code Chart, including Phillips Punctuation. At right is a chart, showing the American Morse Code with Phillips punctuation. According to the book, A treatise on telegraphy, published in 1901, “The Phillips punctuation has superseded the Morse for punctuations, and and is much more complete and systematic. Except for submarine telegraphy, the Morse code for letters and numerals and the Phillips code for punctuation are used throughout the United States and Canada.” Click on the image for a larger, more readable chart.
WITCH gets a reboot. The world’s oldest digital computer was brought back to life by engineers at The National Museum of Computing in Buckinghamshire, England. The computer was first turned on in 1951 and uses 480 relays and 828 vacuum tubes called Dekatrons, which store ten discreet values. EETimes also ran a story on this computer.
First Visible LED Demoed 50 Years Ago. Since we’re doing history today, here’s a link to a Wired article marking the first demonstration of an LED that emitted visible light. The article notes, “In the February 1963 issue of Reader’s Digest, Holonyak predicted that the LED would eventually replace incandescent bulbs. Bold words from a man who worked for GE, a company founded by Thomas Edison.” We’re finally getting around to this 50 years later.
How to Listen to Real Spy Broadcasts Now. Lifehacker shows you how to dial in to numbers stations and the like. The article says, “The behavior of shortwave radio in the atmosphere makes it ideal for long range radio transmission. You can send messages on a given frequency all over the world, and most people who use shortwave radio use it to communicate with ships at sea and people in locations all over the world.”
The Twittersphere is kind of like the ionosphere. It helps you make contact with other hams and brings you news from far and wide. Here are a few interesting links that I found on Twitter in the last day or so:
Global Pirate HF Weekend 14-15.1.2012. This station lists pirate SW radio stations that it expects to be on the air this weekend. They include one using the callsign WEMP. Look for it between 15.005 – 15.095 MHz. They’ll be broadcasting with 100 W to Europe: 12.00 – 16.00 UTC – (check 15.010 or 15.040 or 15.090 MHz).
The Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories Zener Diode Tutorial. Confused about zener diodes and how they work? Read this.
Monitor your Ham Radio transmitter with an oscilloscope. In this video, Alan, W2AEW builds a little adapter that lets you connect your transmitter output to a scope input so that you can see how clean its output is.
In an interview this morning, David Ensor, the new director of the Voice of America said,
We mentioned shortwave radio. You know, it is less and less useful, and there’s a certain amount of money being spent on it that should move quickly, and I will try to accelerate that process, into, you know, new media, into Internet sites that are mobile device-friendly, into satellite television broadcasts that can reach in some of these countries. So, we’re working on that hard.
It was also reported that they are going to discontinue their broadcasts in Mandarin and Cantonese.
What are they going to replace these services with? Facebook and Twitter, of course.
Radio World is a magazine for radio managers and engineers, but occasionally they have articles of interest to radio amateurs as well. The latest article to catch my eye was “Distance Made the Ear Grow Fonder.” This is a collection of replies to an earlier article, “AM Radio: My First Real Love.”
Both are reminiscences of AM radio in the old days. Just as the author logged all of the clear channel stations west of the Mississippi, I logged them east of the Mississippi. My favorites were WBZ in Boston and WCAU in Philadelphia. Both of those stations had talk radio shows before Detroit did, and I enjoyed listening to it. Radio was my window to the world.
Nowadays, more stations play syndicated content and there’s less local content, even on the clear channel stations. That’s our loss truly.
An Australian newspaper reports that a Dutch amateur has been monitoring and Twittering about the Libyan military campaign, specifically an operation. The article starts:
A DUTCH ham radio operator has been able to learn about a psychological US special forces operation undertaken as part of an international military campaign designed to establish a no-fly zone over Libya.
Listening to his radio, this ham operator from the Netherlands was able to monitor radio exchanges between civilian and military flights in the region and make his findings public on his Twitter account @FMCNL.
Hunched over his radio, he listens in on unencrypted exchanges among military aircraft and their air traffic control centres.
The messages contain information about the location of the planes, which is necessary to avoid collisions between military and civilian aircraft.
You can read the entire article at http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/ham-operator-reveals-us-psyops-broadcast/story-e6frfku0-1226025610252#ixzz1HKwuV0Ur.
IW5EDI lists some of the HF frequencies used in the campaign, including:
He notes, “I’ve found these frequencies mentioned on some yahoo groups dedicated to milcom (military radio communications), but we know that all important communications are encripted and use satellite. So dont’ expect to hear any interesting communication.”
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Bob, KD8THG
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