Welcome to the 2nd edition of the radio conference. This conference is
about radio, all aspects of it: hardware or theory or procedures; amateur
or professional; tube or transistor; audio or video or data; microwave or
megawave; AM, FM or other modes. If it is transmitted and received as
electromagnetic waves, we discuss it here.

    Your Fairwitnesses are Jim Reuter (omni), AA8IJ, and Rane Curl
(rcurl), N8REG. We are both licensed ratio amateurs, who enjoy the hobby
and derive from it both personal enjoyment and the pleasure of serving the
community with public service and emergency communications. 

    We dedicate this conference to the pioneers of radio: James Clerk
Maxwell, who derived the theory of radio propagation; Heinrich Hertz, who
demonstrated "Maxwell's Equations"; Nikola Tesla, who envisioned radio
broadcasting;  Guglielmo Marconi, for the first transoceanic radio
telegraphy; Sir Alexander Fleming and Lee deForest, for their inventions
leading to the vacuum tube; Reginald Fessinden, for the first broadcast of
voice and music; the genius of radio reception, Edwin Howard Armstrong,
who invented practical radio receiver circuits and also FM transmission
and reception; and to Philo T. Farnsworth, for his basic inventions for
television. 

    Please, come in and introduce yourself, and tell us what aspect of
radio you enjoy. Is it being a "ham" (radio amateur), a radio listener
interested in the technology or content, or perhaps making your living in
a radio field? By meeting here we will all further one another's knowledge
and interests. 

123 responses total.

The 1st edition of the radio conference is available as  oldradio. We
would be glad to link over new (short), and active, items from oldradio,
or particularly valuable archive items.

I just had  nice chat last night, with a student from Bulgaria, studying in
England, who mentioned that he was hoping to put together a 2 hour Internet
radio show, all the students there had that opportunity.  I told him to check
out grex radio item 203.  Could we link it, since it has some useful info on
web sites and hardware needs, or would Rane or someone like to summarize the
useful stuff at the beginning of a new Internet Radio item?  (The chat was
in Bulgarian, that was a real challenge!)

Since you are particularly interested in internet radio, would you like
to start a new item here for it, and summarize the pertinent info
from oldradio, or would you prefer oldradio203 to just be linked here?
Your choice.

Please link it.  The reason I asked for help in summarizing is that I do not
understand much of the vocabulary and hardware involved.  Thanks.
Oh, and that's a nice intro to this new conference.  I will go back and read
it again and try to understand it.

Please explain the references in your intro to: video radio, megawave radio,
other modes.

video is a subset of radio - radio is communication by electromagnetic
signals. It doesn't matter what is communicated. "Megawave" is a coinage:
but since "microwave" means very short waves - down to millimeters -
megawave would imply very long waves, and radio is used at wave lengths
into tens of kilometers (for communication with submarines, in
particular). 

"Modes" refer to the type of modulation. AM and FM are well known, but
there are also phase, continuous wave (CW - usually code), frequency-shift
keying (FSK), minimum FSK (MFSK), single side-band (SSB), teletype (RTTY),
many forms of spread-spectrum, digital modes (e.g.  packet), and others.
They all have advantages for different applications. At this point....I
should really refer you to the ARRL Handbook for general expositions on
each - or watch these pages when hams start digging into the topics. 

If by video radio you mean television, I agree that, in most cases 'it doesn't
matter what is being communicated', TV is a vehicle for the advertising.
Omni gave us an ARRL handbook which I should find time to look at.  Thanks.

You are speaking of commercial TV. Amateur TV (ATV) is popular, and ARROW
has an ATV repeater (though I'm not sure how its being used now - I don't
have the equipment to use it). Amateurs use radio to talk to each other...
and ATV to look at each other :>. 

COuld you start an item on ATV and explain how it works?  I had never heard
of it.  (ANd I apologize to TV fans, I did not mean to imply that all TV is
devoid of information content.)  Is this something new, since camcorders?

I haven't done it...so here is an appeal to any hams working with ATV
to enter an item called Amateur Television, and tell us what they do.

Getting back to introductions...

Hi, all.  I've had an amateur license for 26 years; I was first 
licensed as WN8KTZ back in the old days.  I upgraded to General class
as WB8KTZ shortly after. I obtained this 6 call when I upgraded to
Advanced class when I lived in California.

To tell you the truth, I haven't been all that active over the past
26 years.  I've worked a little HF and a little 2M, but I haven't
been on HF for quite a while.

I do want to get more active on the HF bands, though, especially now
that the sunspot cycle is on the upswing.  My latest scheme is to 
build a little battery-powered 10M QRP rig to take on bike tours this
summer. A little rig and a 10M dipole should fit nicely into a duffel
bag or pannier, and with the sunspots on the rise, I should be able
to do OK with it.

Do more sunspots improve reception somehow?

Yep!  More ions in the inosphere to reflect radio signals from!

To expand...long distance radio communication (DX) is possible because
the radio waves "skip" off the ionosphere back to earth back to
the ionosphere...and so on around the world. Or, put another way, the
space between earth and the ionosphere is a "wave guide". If there were
no ionosphere, radio waves would just pass out into space, and would
not reach much beyond the horizon (I say "much" as there are other
mechanisms that lead to some guidance of radio waves long the surface).

   I might as well introduce myself.

   My name is Jim Reuter, and my callsign is AA8IJ. I sort of backed into the
hobby as a result of my dad's involvement. In 1975, my dad got the bright idea
that he would finally get his ham license, something he started in the mid
50's while a cadet in the Civil Air Patrol. His block was the code, he just
didn't get it, of course he had other things on his mind, like trying to get
married despite his mother and sister, and my mom's dad.
   In 1975, he finally passed the test and was issued the call letters WD8PBM,
which is ghastly in CW. He was so happy he went out and bought a TS-820S and
the appropriate antenna. Of course he never did get the nerve to transmit his
call letters into the ether, but he did do an awful lot of listening. He died
as a result of being hit by a car. 
   In 1988, I had the bright(?) idea of getting a ham license of my own. I
didn't dig the code back when Dad was doing it, and I certainly didn't in 88.
But I hoped that the FCC had saw the light and dropped that silly stuff in
the name of being modern. No such luck. I did learn that it was easier to get
licensed because Ronald Reagan had eliminated the need for people like me to
be exposed to the cruelty of the FCC's code exams. 
   I took novice classes that were offered by the Arrow, and thanks to the
help and encouragement that I recieved, I passed, and was issued KB8HXC which
was just as awful as my father's. This was the sole inspiration to pass my
Tech. 
   Ever since I got the license, I had the goal of going as far as I could.
I was excited enough to struggle through learning the 13, which was a bear,
and then going on to pass the 20 which was like Mt Everest, but persistance
paid off, and I did it in 3.5 yrs. I have heard that some people take 20 yrs
to attain the Extra, and some even say that what is gained is not worth the
work. Those people are wrong. The work is worth it. 
  In 1992, I was tired of doing the Greyhound thing, which was to arise at
5am, shower, get a cab to the bus station and travel to the test site in
Albion, which gave tests at 9 sharp. The bus arrived at 9:10. I called every
Extra in the Arrow roster and asked if they would be interested in doing
exams. Some said no, but others said yes, and on Feb 22 we gave our first
exam. Now, 8 yrs later, we hold exams every month on Saturday. It is easier
to get a ham license, you no longer have to know the code, and I thought that
I would be opposed to that, but after seeing people like Klaus coming into
the hobby, I changed my mind on that issue. I now encourage people to start
out with the no-code and go farther if that is what they want to do.
   I got a nice reward last year. One of the people I was helping, got his
Extra. I'm on cloud 9 because of that. I don't do much operating, but I use
my talents on helping the Arrow become a better and stronger club. I think
my Dad would've approved of what I have been doing and what I did.

        My name is Tim Ryan.  Used to work in braodcast radio.  It
drove me sane.
        Am am really more interested in the braodcast radio items.

Hi I just took the no code teck test and passed, I was working for novice,
sence I do enjuy shooting skip on 10mtr, I just asumed donig it the right way
(with a ligit call sign) but no matter what I did I just couldent seem to get
the hand of CW, do you know of any programs books or teckneks I should try
to learn code?

  Practice, practice, practice.

  (more later)

   Lookup kb6mt either in the callbook or on the web, and send him $20.
His code course will help you pass the Extra code, but you have to dedicate
yourself to the task. It worked for me, and if it can work on a person who
didn't get all a's in school, it will work for you. This course is so good,
your dog will pick the code up ;)

Congratulations, Logan!

When I was brushing up my code to take the 5 wpm tech+ test I used a
program called GGTE (Morse Tutor) - and I read road signs in dits and dahs
when I drove. But I have lapsed in the training as I don't currently have
a goal that uses code. I've been most interested in ham radio for public
service, lately, and there is no need for regular use of code there. I'd
also have to go well beyond 13 wpm to get involved in traffic nets.

welcome to Mingming nestling sky site in china:http://mingming.yeah.net/
zhanjiang ocean university in  china:http://zjocean.yeah.net/
thank you!
I am a Ham too!
welcome to E_mail me(kissboy@163.net)
I am glad to receive you!
     _______________________________________MINgmingCwCw--VP9zchina____ 

What is your call, mingming?

I'm kinda wondering if some of the 900MHz RF linked computer equipment I
program at work is getting interfered with... anybody got a spectrum analyser,
or another good way to check for occasional interference?

  All you really need is a good frequency counter. They are much less
expensive than spectrum analyzers, and usually just what the doctor ordered.

...but still not totally cheap, and what the heck else would I use it for?

  The portable frequency counters have antennas on the top of them
and when placed near a source of rf, they read out that frequency.
I would imagine that one could be had for about $200. I'll look in my ham
catalogs for exact prices and models.

The Opto Scout is under $200 I believe.  www.optoelectronics.com I think.

You can use the frequency counter for tuning your guitar (or whatever).
Mine is a FC-1200 from ALFA Electronics, for $130. Works fine.

So how would such a unit handle several closely spaced carrier waves?

  I checked in one of my catalogs, and I found 4, priced from $149 to $349.

  You can check out http://www.hro.com for more details.

  scratch that. Try http://www.hamradiooutlet.com

RE#29  You could, but you could end up with some not very musical
tunings.

Why? Tuning is just setting a frequency. You have to choose the right
frequencies, musically, of course. 

Counters will not handle signals with several frequencies of significant
amplitude. They just count zero-crossings, so higher frequencies win. 

Actually, I think I should restate the problem.

I've got some RF-based computer gear.  It communicates over radio, and
sometimes it refuses to work, as if somebody else was crudding up the same
frequency.

I know what frequency my stuff uses (900Mhz, some items do 902MHz).  How can
I test for somebody else using that frequency?  

Turn off your stuff and turn on a radio that receives in the same band,
and scan. There may be a number of interfering signals. I just turned
on my counter and in the 10-1250 MHz range it likes signals fluctuating
around 838-842 MHz. Cellular? In the 10-500 MHz range, it likes 226-228 MHz.
Oh wait! If I hold the antenna closer to this computer it likes ca. 146 MHz.
Below 10 MHz, it finds 13KHz - near the monitor. This is all pretty
meaningless.

<slap on forehead>  Please Ignore the idiot in the front row.  Sorry Rane,
I was thinking of people who only view tuning as "mathmatical", of course
if you know the right frequencies......

Has anyone listened to 1630am? We listened from A2 to the zoo a few
mondays ago. Eastbound M14 just past Domino's we started to pick up the
signal from M14 and I275. North I 275 it started to fade and was replaced
by I-275 and I-696. East I-696 was replaced by I-696 and Telegraph, which
started to break up and fade badly in the concrete ditch. Just started to
get I-696 and I-75 as we got to the zoo. This is the traffic advisory
system, tho there were no warnings, just locations being broadcast.
'Finding" stuff like this still thrills me, even after years of listening.

Is there an affordable radio receiver that will listen to 900MHz and perhaps
also around 170MHz?  

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss