In this episode, I join Martin Butler M1MRB, Caryn Eve Murray KD2GUT, and Edmund Spicer M0MNG to discuss the following:
This episode’s feature is GB0ROC Bunkers on the Air Station.
In this episode, I join Martin Butler M1MRB, Caryn Eve Murray KD2GUT, and Edmund Spicer M0MNG to discuss the following:
This episode’s feature is GB0ROC Bunkers on the Air Station.
This post is shamelessly ripped off from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) website. Before you jump all over me, anything published by the U.S. government is in the public domain.
If you’ve seen the movie Titanic starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, then you’ve watched the star-crossed lovers’ untimely end and the tragic sinking of the Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Titanic. What the movie didn’t show is that radio played a role in the ship’s communication efforts — though it lacked standards that could have saved many more lives.
The tragedy of the Titanic raised awareness that improvements to wireless communication were needed and led to new regulations and legislation by Congress to improve wireless technology, radio equipment and standards for maritime navigation. Leading the charge to make this happen was the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The RMS Titanic was a luxury passenger liner making its first trans-Atlantic voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City. The ship was an impressive 269 meters long, just a little shorter than the 300-meter height of the Eiffel tower (minus the tip). In the late evening hours of April 14, 1912, the Titanic struck an iceberg about 640 kilometers (400 miles) off the coast of Newfoundland. By 2:20 a.m. on April 15, the ship had sunk, and only about 710 people survived. More than 1,500 people, including passengers and crew, were lost.
When I first moved to Ann Arbor in 1985, I drove down Hoover St. and thought I was in heaven. Right next to one another was Purchase Radio and a bike shop whose name I forget. These were my two biggest hobbies at the time.
The bike shop, as I recall, didn’t last long at that location. Purchase Radio, however, persisted until 2007, at which point it closed because the last proprietor–the founder’s son-in-law–decided to retire. I actually thought about buying the business, but for one reason or another, that just wasn’t to be.
The building has been vacant since then……until now anyway. I drove by there yesterday, and discovered that the building had been razed.
I don’t know what’s planned for that site, but life moves on.
I hate to sound like a curmudgeon, but I would like to again encourage all you new operators out there to learn basic standard operating procedures. They became standard operating procedures for a reason. They really do make contacts easier.
I bring this up now because more and more I’m running across operators who don’t seem to know them or just ignore them. About a week ago, I worked a relative newcomer to amateur radio. He replied to my CQ by just sending his callsign one time. This was wrong on two counts:
Since he didn’t send my call sign, I didn’t know if he was replying to me or not.
Since he only sent my call sign once, I didn’t get it all. There was a burst of noise as he was sending his call, and I missed one of the letters in his suffix.
In this case, the standard operating procedure is to send the other station’s call three times, then “DE,” then your call three times. So, if your call is W1ABC and you’re replying to my CQ, send, “ KB6NU KB6NU KB6NU DE W1ABC W1ABC W1ABC.”
Last weekend, I took part in four state QSO parties: Nebraska, New Mexico, Georgia, and North Dakota. I only managed to work one station in NE, but I did work at least two in the other contests. The Georgia QSO Party was by far the most active. I managed to work 35 Georgia stations in a couple hours of work.
This weekend, the Michigan and Ontario QSO Parties will take place. Listen for me on 20 meters, 40 meters, and 80 meters. I’ll most be on CW, but I’ll work some phone, too.
Last night, I had one of those great, unexpected experiences that sometime happens in amateur radio. At about 11:00 pm (0300Z), I was thinking about hitting the sack, but wasn’t quite tired enough yet. So, I decided to head down to the shack and see what was happening on 40 meters.
The band was fairly busy with stations working the CWops CWT, but I noticed a station on 7022 kHz calling “CQ MRD.” It wasn’t real strong, but workable, and when I heard the call sign—K6KPH—I decided that I had to work them. As it turns out, MRD stands for “Maritime Radio Day,” and it is held annually on April 14, the day that the Titanic sank in 1912.
For those of you that don’t know, K6KPH is the station of the Maritime Radio Historical Society. The station is located on the site of the the historic ex-RCA coast station KPH, which is now part of the Point Reyes National Seashore, part of the National Park Service. Here’s a cool video of the station.
After working K6KPH, I heard II3IQW calling CQ MRD on 7020 kHz. I was actually copying II3IQW better than I was copying K6KPH, so working them was easier. Ennio, the operator of II3IQX, was commemorating IQX, the coastal radio station at Trieste, Italy. There’s a short, but interesting history of this station on the II3IQX QRZ page.
You learn things related to ham radio in some of the oddest places. For example, in the January/February 2021 issue Michigan History, I found the article, “Wright Here in Michigan’s Twin Cities.” Now, I’m not a big Frank Lloyd Wright fan, but my interest was certainly piqued when I read that Howard Anthony, the founder of the Heath Company, had owned a Wright-designed home in St. Joseph, MI, which borders Benton Harbor.
Stephen W. Smith, the article’s author writes:
What Frank Lloyd Wright was to architecture in 1950, Howard Anthony was to electronics: an innovator.
After noting that the company actually started selling aircraft parts, and then aircraft kits, it started selling electronic kits after World War II, taking advantage of the supply of surplus military electronic components.
[Anthony] acquired parts to construct an oscilloscope—an instrument that tests and displays voltage over time—and soon, the company offered a kit for consumers to construct their own device for a fraction of the cost of a manufactured one.
Smith writes about a newspaper article describing the house’s design:
Considering Wright’s involvement, it was a given that the house was ‘of unique design.’ Despite claiming that the ‘over-all structure will be of an odd shape, one extremely difficult to describe,’ the article did, in fact, describe the design for the house in great detail, including its extensive use of natural materials, such as Wisconsin limestone and cypress; its nonuniform angles and construction into a hillside; and its features intended to make the house seem spacious—namely ‘the slanting roof interior, the huge fireplace, and partitions between some of the rooms which do not reach entirely to the slanting ceiling.’ The article also noted that Anthony’s new house would include a laboratory.
How cool is that?
While researching this post, I also came across an interesting QRZ.Com post by Dave, W7UU, describing his visit to Riverside Cemetery, in Cass County, MI, where Howard Anthony is buried. As you may know, Howard Anthony died at the age of 42, in an airplane crash.
In this post, Dave describes how he cleaned up the gravesite and installed a laser-engraved photo of Anthony on the headstone, as well as his visit to the Heathkit factory. It’s quite an interesting post.
CONCORD, CA — A Concord teen won the 2020 Congressional App Challenge – CAC – for California’s 11th District. The CAC is a public initiative to encourage young people to learn how to code in an effort to inspire creativity and encourage interest in STEM — Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics — education. The winner of the challenge was Sean Donelan, who lives in Concord and attends Northgate High School. Donelan designed and created, “NetHam: The Public Service Event Coordinator’s Third Hand.”
It was June of 1917 and the United States was at war. The first American infantry troops had arrived in Europe that month and stateside manufacturers were working around the clock to keep up with wartime demand. In Schenectady, N.Y., the sprawling General Electric plant, which employed 20,000 workers, hired a few dozen students from nearby Union College for the summer. This included Wendell Wilford King, a brilliant 20-year-old North Troy local who had just finished his freshman year studying electrical engineering. Instead of having him work in the yard like most college hires, he was put on a drill press.
Imagine this: you have just encountered an intense cyclone—a storm so strong that it has damaged buildings, uprooted trees, brought down electric poles and power lines, and destroyed everything in its path. The electricity is already down, and all your usual modes of communication—cell phones, landlines, the internet—have stopped functioning. What do you do in such a situation? How do you make those emergency calls for medical assistance? How do you seek immediate help after being completely cut-off from the rest of the world?
Be it natural disasters like cyclones and earthquakes, or man-made ones like bomb-blasts or terror attacks, the loss of communication in such times can often push a delicate situation from bad to worse; it can often be the difference between life and death.
But even in such blacked-out circumstances, a glimmer of sunshine can be found, and contact with the outside world can be established through a mode of communication that many wrongly believe to be obsolete: radio. On the occasion of the 2021 World Radio Day—an international United Nations observance held on February 13 every year—let us explore the underappreciated yet ever-so-crucial role played by amateur radio and the supermen that operate it, in saving lives during calamities.
Finally, a good reason to visit Rhode Island (just kidding, just kidding)….Dan
E. GREENWICH, RI – For nearly 60 years, a small sign on Frenchtown Road has led visitors to a historic collection of ancient machines, one of East Greenwich’s best-kept secrets. This just-passed fall, the New England Wireless and Steam Museum turned outward – using a new technology (the internet) to share its collection of communication devices and steam engines with the wider world.
Museum director Randy Snow says he hopes the new video program will spread appreciation for mechanics and engineering: “We’re trying to hold onto those tangible skills, those lost arts, that aren’t taught anymore.”
This sounds like a good activity for any club…..Dan
HALIFAX, NS — With the sound of Saturday’s noon gun from atop Citadel Hill, John Bignell was off and running. Or at least his handheld radio set was as the Halifax Amateur Radio Club’s Get on the Air winter event got underway. Dozens of radio operators around the city switched on their home transmitters or took to the snow-covered streets with portable units to make as many contacts as possible before the 4 p.m. deadline.
About two years ago a friend handed me a small blue device that plugs into the USB port of a computer. As he handed it to me he said it would completely change the way I thought of radio. I grew up in a household where radio was important. It enabled my immigrant parents, who had left western Europe for the Antipodes in the wake of the Second World War, to listen over shortwave to broadcasts from their home country. As such, radio and antennas were commonplace to me, and I remember building crystal sets to pull in whatever signals I could. Eventually that led me to getting my amateur radio operator certificate in Canada.
I’m working with an author who is working on amateur radio reference book. It will have a glossary of terms, a list of Q-signals, and some other good stuff. Yesterday, he sent me a link to the Wikipedia page for Samuel Morse, the inventor of the Morse Code. He asked, “Would this be useful? Can we use it?”
We’re having enough trouble getting this book done without adding material to it, so I jokingly replied, “Maybe this is the start of your next book, something like Profiles in Amateur Radio, short biographies of the 10 most important figures in the history of amateur radio.” I did mean it as a joke, but the more I think about it, the more I like this idea. I’m thinking maybe short biographies of perhaps the ten most influential people in the history of amateur radio.
The question, then, is who are these ten people? Here’s a list that I’ve come up with off the top of my head:
I’d love to get your input on this. Please email me with your recommendations, or comment below.
Having said that, I like this video because W0QE is an engineer and he brings that experience to this video. He talks my language. He points out some of the shortcomings of the unit he bought (and nanoVNAs in general), but overall thinks they are worthwhile tools.
This is a good look at one of our most basic operating practices.
This is an amusing look back on ham radio in the 1970s.
This was originally published on the National Institute of Science and Technology’s blog, Taking Measure.
Even if you weren’t able to watch the recent Super Bowl on TV, you could still listen to the play-by-play commentary on the radio. But radio does more than just broadcasting sporting events or playing music. It plays a major role in emergency response, navigation and science.
The word “radio,” however, didn’t become part of our regular vocabulary until 1911, and it happened thanks in part to J. Howard Dellinger, a radio scientist at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), the agency that became the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This came about when the second International Radiotelegraph Conference was being planned in London, and a professor sent Dellinger a paper that he was going to present to the conference for review.
At the time, “wireless” was used as the term for radio communication, especially by the British. However, NIST was charged with revising standards in preparation for the conference, and Dellinger suggested that the professor use “radio,” which was already becoming a popular word in the U.S., instead of “wireless.” The professor agreed, and the word “radio” went on to become the universally accepted term.
Dellinger not only played a role in popularizing the word “radio,” but he also played a role in the first radio work done at NIST. A commercial company asked NIST to calibrate a wavemeter, a device developed by one of its engineers that measures electromagnetic waves like those of radio. Dellinger was known as the wireless expert and took on the project of calibrating the first radio instrument at NIST.
But for radio to become mainstream, it first had to be commercialized, which began with its introduction into households. However, the challenge was building a radio set that used the electrical current, called alternating current (AC), which powered lights, fans and kitchen appliances when plugged into wall sockets. The predecessor to this technology was developed and patented by two researchers, Percival D. Lowell and Francis W. Dunmore, at NBS in 1922. They called their invention the “mousetrap.”
The “mousetrap” was a receiver for a radio amplifier that could run on AC. This was considered a breakthrough because at that time radios were only able to be powered by direct current (DC) provided by batteries. These batteries were bulky and heavy, had to be charged from time to time and were considered dangerous because of the acid used in them. The researchers’ prototype meant the radio could be used in homes without causing damage and with the same performance quality.
Lowell and Dunmore filed two more patents together for other innovations, and for the “mousetrap” they sold the rights to the Dubilier Condenser Corporation. Little did they know that, because there was no uniform policy on patents issued to government employees, their actions would result in more than a decade of litigation over who legally had the rights to the patent.
While they were tied up in court, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) developed its own model of the AC radio in 1926. Its model later became the first AC-powered radio sold to consumers.
During the early years of flight navigation, NIST was doing research to assist pilots while they were flying and landing. Pilots needed three things to get their bearings when flying “blind,” meaning it’s foggy, too dark or too cloudy to see. They needed to know the longitudinal position, altitude and speed of the aircraft, which were all achieved by various beacons installed in the plane. The remaining issue was that there were two frequencies the pilot constantly had to switch between the frequency that the Department of Commerce used to send weather information to planes and ships, which sometimes caused interference for pilots, and the frequency the radio beacon operated on, which gave altitude and other information.
Dunmore created a prototype, but Harry Diamond, a radio engineer who joined NIST in 1927, completed the device, called the radio guidance system. Diamond solved the problem by developing a separate device that allowed for voice communication to the pilot without receiving any outside interference from ships’ radios.
A Curtiss Fledgling, a trainer aircraft developed for the U.S. Navy, was equipped with the device, and flight tests were performed between NIST’s experimental air station at College Park, Maryland, and Newark Airport in New Jersey in foggy weather. After a series of successful tests were performed, the device was turned over to be used by the Department of Commerce in 1933.
While mostly intended for serious users, some of NIST’s journals and publications were popular with the public. One such book, titled The Principles Underlying Radio Communication, covered topics such as elementary electricity, radio circuits and electromagnetic waves and was also published as a textbook for soldiers in the U.S. Army. The famous inventor Thomas Edison received a copy from NIST and wrote a letter thanking the first director, Samuel W. Stratton, for publishing it, saying it was “the greatest book on this subject that I have ever read.”
As these and other examples show, NIST had a significant influence on radio research between 1911 and 1933. However, NIST’s radio work didn’t end with the first blind landing. NIST would continue to contribute to the field leading up to and during World War II, and research continues to this day in areas such as 5G, public safety communications and spectrum sharing.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alex Boss is a general assignment writer in the NIST Public Affairs Office and covers standard reference materials (SRM). She has a B.S. in biology from Rhodes College and an M.A. in health and…