Learn about radio from the brainiacs at MIT
In January, the MIT Radio Society (W1MX, MIT’s Amateur Radio Club) and the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Dept. hosted a lecture series on everything radio, taught by speakers from the MIT Haystack Observatory, CWRU, and Nokia. The talks cover covered a wide variety of topics, including signal modulation, radio propagation, software-defined radio, radar, radio astronomy, cellular communications, and 5G. I haven’t watched them all, but the ones I have watched are pretty good.
On this page, you’ll find links to videos of all the topics. The video below is titled, “The Ionosphere, Shortwave Radio, and Propagation.”
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If you have an amateur radio station, chances are you’ll have an RFI problem at some point. All that RF floating around is one reason why we use shielded cables. The basic idea is to keep unwanted RF from affecting signals that we don’t want to be affected and to keep signals in the cables from affecting signals in other cables and devices.
This Nuts and Volts article by Ward Silver, N0AX, explains how shielding and shielded cables work and how to use them. Here’s one bit of practical advice to keep in mind:
NEVER bring a shield through a shielded enclosure. A shield should always be connected to the outside of a metal enclosure. By bringing the shield through the wall of the enclosure, you create a terrific pathway for RF to get in and out. And it will!
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