Foundations of Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I looked in my diary and noticed that it was the anniversary of my first solo flight. If that's not familiar to you, it means I got in an aeroplane on my own for the first time, taxied to the end of the runway, made a radio call to warn all the other pilots, took off, flew a circuit and landed safely. All the essentials for flying a plane. It occurred to...

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I accidentally learnt something new. I know, it's crazy, sometimes I surprise myself. I received an email that announced an activity from something called WWROF, more specifically, the World Wide Radio Operators Foundation. It caught my eye, because it was announcing a webinar about an upcoming contest, as it happens the largest annual amateur contest, th...

Foundations of Amateur Radio As you might know I enjoy doing contests, actually that's an understatement; I LOVE doing contests. I think that they represent an excellent way to learn about operating procedure, propagation, band selection, antenna direction, callsign recognition and dealing with adverse operating environments. In short, I think that contesting teaches you lots about amateur radio i...

Foundations of Amateur Radio About a year or so ago I received a message from a friend of mine. The message asked if I would have or could find a use for some amateur radio gear from their active amateur father who became a silent key. That started a sequence of events that leads us here, today. In the year that followed that message I became the grateful owner and archivist of an amateur shack th...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Lessons Learnt Learning to me is an ongoing process. For some reason that's not a universal experience. I've met people who cram for an exam, pass their test, get the certificate and hang out their shingle. The retained knowledge is spotty and vigorously defended as the final word on the topic. It's never been like that for me. I tend to walk through life intensely cur...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Going on an outing After my fun and games working out how to manage power for a temporary radio set-up, away from my shack and normal infrastructure, I had the pleasure of actually going out to get on air and make some noise. A national contest was on offer and it's always been a favourite of mine. It's simple to log, you can work as much or as little as you like and t...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Planning for an outing Recently I had the opportunity to use a new radio whilst I was far away from my shack. It wasn't unexpected, I took the radio with me, planned for the experience and packed light with intent. My original packing included a 10m length of coax, my analyser, some antenna weights, wire, rope, power leads, BNC adaptors, barrel connectors and a balun....

Foundations of Amateur Radio Boating adventures The other day I was on a boat. That's right, me, on a floating thing, on the water, the ocean actually, steering and everything. I should confess that when I was younger I spent most weekends sailing as a sea scout in Holland. Managed to become a bootsen, that's the bunny in charge of a boat. Sea scouts, zee verkenners, was also my very first introdu...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Gate-keeping, special people and bullies. One of the recurring topics in my experience of amateur radio is that associated with people who use the hobby as an excuse to sow discontent. That comes in many forms, at the extreme end it's harassment, but it also comes in the form of gatekeepers and nay-sayers. It's important to realise that while this behaviour is not limi...

Foundations of Amateur Radio New Entrants are Everywhere The hobby of amateur radio has been around for a long time. It was here before I was born and it will be here after I become a silent key. The same is true for you. While there is a recurring discussion about the death of the hobby, the reality is that our community changes continually. People come and go all the time. Reasons for change are...

Foundations of Amateur Radio What's in a Watt? We need more power. I'm giving her all she's got, Captain! She cannae take anymore. I'm sure your Scottish ancestors are rolling in their graves right now, but in our community of radio amateurs we have a tendency to advocate the use of more power. More power fixes all problems and hides all sins. Another way to look at that is to think of the station...

Foundations of Amateur Radio It broke and now what? Imagine you're a new amateur. You've woken up in the middle of the night because insomnia seems like a good way to use amateur radio as an excuse to get on air and make some noise. You turn on the radio, key up the transmitter and the next thing you know it's dark. The breaker that powers your radio popped and there's no more glow coming from the...

Foundations of Amateur Radio What's in a word? When you join a new community you learn very quickly that each community has its own language. A word in one community has a different or extra meaning in another. For example, the word "Snowflake" in one community might refer to a phenomenon related to water and freezing, in another community it refers to a person who is sensitive, easily hurt and of...

Foundations of Amateur Radio How far can I talk on radio? A question that regularly hits the enquiring minds of people who are not (yet) radio amateurs is one about distance. For both amateurs and those who are not ye) inducted into our community the concept of distance speaks in ways that other parts of our hobby don't. It's a simple concept, between these two points, how far can you talk? The in...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Recently there was a discussion on social media about the legality of various types of transmissions. Before I get into the specifics, it's worth looking at some of the rules around this. I will point out that this isn't exhaustive, but it gives you an idea of what I'm talking about. In Australia, the rules about this are encapsulated in the Radiocommunications Licence...

Foundations of Amateur Radio What would you do if you found that at random times your garage door opener didn't work, or the Wi-Fi network dropped out, or you couldn't switch off a light with an RF controller? That's the position I found myself in and the times at which this was happening were madly unpredictable. One moment everything would work fine and the next all things radio would just stop....

Foundations of Amateur Radio For some time I've been explaining how some of the internal workings of a Software Defined Radio operate with a view to getting into the nitty gritty of the why and the how. This exploration is happening within the context of a world where there are countless choices for selecting a radio to match your budget. Increasingly that selection process starts with a simple qu...

Foundations of Amateur Radio From time to time our hobby changes. While the idea that we're all a bunch of old men playing with spark gap transmitters, or using strange noises to the annoyance of others, the reality of amateur radio is markedly different from that stereotype. The changes we experience come from many different sources. As amateurs we're always trying something new, inventing things...

Foundations of Amateur Radio It seems my analogy with milk glasses hit a nerve when I explained some of the inner workings of a simple Analogue to Digital Converter, also known as an A/D Converter or ADC as part of my exploration into Software Defined Radio. Thank you for your comments, suggestions and corrections. I did make an error when I said, grab eight of them and you'll have a byte, I'll ge...

Foundations of Amateur Radio One of the unsung hero components of a Software Defined Radio is the A/D or Analogue to Digital converter. Its job is to convert the analogue signal that's coming in via the antenna into a digital signal that is processed by software. I've talked about the difference between analogue and digital before and many explanations talk about converting things into zero and on...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Today I'm going to go sideways to move forward. In amateur radio we consider circuits, components such as transistors, inductors, capacitors, crystals and how they're connected to each other. The framework in which that exists is embodied by the field of electronics and how these components can be mixed together to shape a radio that you can build or buy. In a software...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Over the past few weeks I've been describing how some of the fundamental concepts of software defined radio work and how some of these operate and interact with each other. You might think of some of these ideas and technologies as unrelated to the hobby of amateur radio, or not relevant to traditionally built radios. Nothing could be further from the truth. Before I g...

Foundations of Amateur Radio As a quick recap of what I've discussed before, a Software Defined Radio is a tool that essentially measures the voltage at the base of an antenna system and sends that to a computer for processing. The faster you measure, or sample, the better the representation of what's coming in via the antenna. The traditional view is that you need to sample at least twice as high...

Foundations of Amateur Radio If you were asked to make an image of the Sydney harbour bridge and only use four dots, the viewer might struggle to determine what was the bridge, the sky, the water and the Sydney Opera House. Regardless of the number of colours available to you, the number of dots would not be enough information for most people. You might have a nice piece of art on your hands, but...

Foundations of Amateur Radio If you measure the voltage at the base of an antenna and record the readings, you end up with a collection of numbers that represent the voltage over time. These numbers, or samples, can be used to represent the antenna signal inside a computer. An antenna system voltage is an example of an analogue signal, continuous over time, the recorded readings, the samples are a...