No, it wasn’t called “hacking” back then: it was called “scientific hooliganism”. Let’s talk about Marconi, Nevil Maskelyne, and a demonstration that didn’t go as planned:
I’m indebted to Sungook Hong’s wonderful book “Wireless”, which helped me track down some of the more obscure sources here — and to the British Library, whose incredible archives and microfilm tapes helped me find the original newspapers and journals you see in the video.
For those not familiar with Tom Scott, he’s a British geek comedian, YouTuber, programmer, and formerly the presenter of Gadget Geeks on Sky One. He lives in London and is originally from Nottinghamshire. Tom publishes some fantastic science related clips on YouTube, such as:
In the URL of each YouTube video is the 11-character video ID, unique for each video. Can they ever run out? Just how many videos can YouTube handle? To work it out, we need to talk about counting systems, and about something called Base 64.
Welcome to Innovative Space Logistics, in the Netherlands: they invited me inside their clean room to see an actual CubeSat satellite that’s going into space soon! (No, this isn’t a sponsored video: I paid my own way there!) Go look at their site: http://isilaunch.com – and if you need to send something into space, get in touch with them!
Visit Tom’s fantastic YouTube channel here. Follow him on Twitter here and Facebook here.
The Wireless Institute of Australia (WIA) has sent a sympathy message to our colleagues in Belgium, a country hit by the recent terrorist bombings. The two nations have been close since World War 1, where Australian soldiers fought with them, and repeated the effort in WWII.
Through its IARU member society UBA (Royal Belgian Amateur Radio Union), it was part of the WIA ANZAC 100 program, to commemorative the Centenary of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs).
The letter was to Philippe Haverhelst ON8PV, who told us about how many Australians now visit Polygon Wood, the ‘Brothers in Arms’ memorial and stop at the ANZAC Rest Cafe, often tracing the footsteps of family members who served in the area.
To honour the Polygon Wood and its memorial, a commemorative callsign OP0PPY was activated on April 25, 2015 – ANZAC Day. The WIA letter of sympathy reads: “We are saddened to hear the news of the terrorist attacks in your country. This is short note is to say that our thoughts and prayers are with you, the Belgian people and those who have been lost or injured by these despicable acts. We stand in solidarity with the Belgian people as we have done in years previous.”
It was signed by Fred Swainston, Vice President, Wireless Institute of Australia.
Philippe ON8PV, in his reply has expressed thanks for the WIA support “in these difficult times”, and echoes disbelief at that it involved public places knowing that there were children present.
The WIA thoughts were sent by him to the UBA President, Claude van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie ON7TK.
More on the ANZAC 100 involvement by that and other stations can be read here.
It’s no secret that a modern radio transceiver has more in common with your average laptop computer than your faithful old TS-440S. The proliferation of SDR and DSP technologies now enables modest midrange ($1-$2k) transceivers to do things that were once the realm of $10k plus radios that we used to dream would one day (gloriously) adorn our shacks. Here’s the object of my (unlicensed) desire from my teenage years, the Icom ICR-9000 – Clive Robertson had one, and wrote a special review of it for Amateur Radio Action in August 1991!
Look at that glorious monochrome cathode ray tube!
If you’d told me back then that in 25 years I’d get most of its features with a $20 peripheral that would connect to my PC, and that all the RF processing would occur in software, I’d have dismissed you as a nutter very, very quickly.
Of course, times change and the march of technology rolls on. Today we have internet connected digital voice modes, colour touch screen control panels, USB computer interfaces, advanced noise reduction & filtering and colour spectrum scopes – all of which are driven by embedded software (technically software in hardware, aka firmware)
2016 has bought us the first 100% SDR based rig from one of the “Big Three” – have a look at the new Icom IC-7300 – the first direct sampling radio where RF signals are directly converted to digital data before being processed in a FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array). Direct sampling simplifies circuit construction and reduces noise that can mask weak signals, makes for a smaller radio and gives us a stunning real-time spectrum scope as a bonus. This radio redefines what’s possible in an $1800 rig in both features and performance, and it’s only going to better as the software driving it is tweaked over time.
The pre-order brigade don’t have many sleeps left now, maybe a fortnight to go!
Another rig that’s really popular in our club is the Yaesu FT-991. It ticks all the boxes with its all-band all-mode design, advanced DSP, compact size, inbuilt tuner, C4FM digital support and colour touch screen (all for around $1600).
There’s a bear in there, and a chair as well!
It’s a good performer, but it was plagued by software issues in its early days which have been addressed over time with the release of upgraded firmware that’s able to be applied by the end user. The FT-991 has no less than 4 firmware components: Main, DSP, TFT Display & C4FM. To date there have been 8 revisions of the firmware with countless bug fixes, performance improvements and some notable feature additions. If you haven’t upgraded, you’re missing out.
If you’ve got a modern radio (base, mobile or handheld), particularly from the “Big Three”, then be sure to regularly check the manufacturers webpage for firmware updates. After all, it’s a free upgrade for your precious (and no doubt expensive) rig. When applying upgrades, read the firmware update instructions (twice!) before commencing an upgrade and it’s always a good idea to have a PC based backup of your rig’s settings on hand (as a firmware update often requires a factory reset on completion).
It’s a brave new world. If it’s driven by software, it can be upgraded, improved, bugs can be fixed, new capabilities can be added and (for better or worse) it can be hacked.
Just a reminder that the Oxley Region Amateur Radio Club station VK2BOR will be operating from the club’s Communications Caravan at McInherney Park all day on Saturday the 19th of March 2016. Club members and visitors are invited to participate in an enjoyable day.
The caravan will be set up from 8 am onwards in the car park at McInherney Park. Come and help with the set up and enjoy a delicious bacon and egg breakfast from the barbeque expertly prepared by Richard VK2CHC who will also prepare a delicious sausage sizzle lunch on the barbeque under the covered picnic area in the park. Tea, coffee and soft drinks will be available in the caravan all day. The Field Day contest operation commences at mid day. The club will operate for 6 hours.
To get to McInherney Park simply follow Park Street past Settlement City. Immediately after crossing the bridge, turn left at River Park Road which is the turn off to Jordan’s Boatshed. Follow River Park Road but turn right at McInherney Close which is just before the end of River Park Road. If you end up at the end of River Park Road you have gone too far. McInherney Close is a short street and just before Jordan’s Boatshed you will see the club’s caravan in the park car park on your left hand side. Park in the car park and join in the activities.
Don’t forget the club’s Friday get together at 7 pm on Friday night the 18th of March 2016 in the SES building in Central Road Port Macquarie. It will be an interesting evening. You might get a chance to look at the new Raspberry Pi 3. The logistics and strategy for the John Moyle Memorial Field Day on Saturday will be discussed. Enjoy a tea or coffee in great company. Members and visitors are all welcome.
TEDTalks are undoubtedly one of the best things to have graced the internet in the past decade. If you’re not familiar with TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), they hold conferences where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give talks of 18 minutes or less on any subject of their choosing, which they then publish via YouTube for anyone with an internet connection to watch for free. There’s over 2100 talks now available – if you haven’t seen them you should venture down the rabbit hole (but have some free time)!
TED have now created TED-Ed, its youth and education initiative. Every TED-Ed Original Video represents a creative collaboration between experts. Such experts may include TED Speakers and TED Fellows, as well as educators, designers, animators, screenwriters, directors, science writers, historians, journalists and editors. These original animated videos, paired with questions and resources, make up what they refer to as TED-Ed Lessons.
These too are fabulous! Several videos relevant to our hobby include:
Is Radiation Dangerous?
Electric Vocabulary
Light waves, visible and invisible
And, as the final mindbender – the best explanation of Space/Time I’ve seen – how are you on Galilean transformations, Lorentz transformations & contractions and time dilation?
The fundamentals of space-time
Part 2 is here, and finally part 3 is here. Venture down the TED-Ed rabbit hole here, I guarantee you’ll learn something interesting!
