It already exists in the form of LORAN. It was recently announced that the LORAN system was going to be continued and modernized.
More discussion
here.
"GPS has become the navigation and location electronics of choice today, but that old standby Loran is making a comeback, for "just in case" emergencies. GPS can be easily jammed, at least at the local level, wheras Loran takes a a lot of sophisticated and powerful gear."
The answer is never. The power limit was, and still is, 4 watts of carrier power for amplitude or 12 watts PEP for single side band. See the rules and regulations and note rules 9 and 10.
The other problem, even if the power limits are followed, is that some idiots have the idea that any amount of over modulation helps them be heard better so they get a "power boost" amplified microphone. They need to listen to their own transmitter from someone else's receiver. Oh, and those echo gadgets are another impediment to understanding what they are trying to say, if, indeed, it's anything worth listening to in the beginning. I only use a CB on the road when I'm on a long trip. It has definitely saved me time and aggravation, but it sure would be nice if it was cleaned up, both in signal quality and operator quality.
Beyond that, I agree with what you say. Reasonable rules and reasonable and effective enforcement are necessary to avoid chaos and unusability.
BPL is a horrible idea. At anything much above quite low frequencies, power lines are huge antennas.
If your listening device uses capacitive coupling, then there's no current drain to draw down the nominal 50 volts across an on-hook POTS line. Radio Shack used to sell a little box that coupled like that and also would turn on a recorder when the line went off-hook. Also, since it's a listening only device, there's no risk of being overheard while breathing heavily.
It's almost identical, but has more RAM. I recently put it to very good use by loaning it to a friend who had a vocal cord infection and was told not to talk (or sing) for 2 months. She's a great typist so it became her notepad for communicating to others. She loves it.
My dad and grandfather did that posthumously..
on
A Home Lab/Shop For Kids?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
They were both dead by the time I was three in 1949, but between them they left a few boxes of electronics parts, a Hallicrafters shortwave receiver and a nice pair of WW2 headphones. My dad was a radio operator in the Air Corps who opened a radio repair shop after the war, but passed away from cancer almost before getting it started. My grandfather was a tinkerer in his spare time with a variety of interests.
By the time I was ten, I was listening to the shortwave radio and learning about ham radio by reading about it. The librarian noticed that I was checking out books about radio and introduced me to her brother, who was a ham. I passed my first FCC test the next year and have now been a ham 50 years. Because of this early influence, I also pursued an electrical engineering career that has been very good to me.
My point is that it only takes a nudge to see where interests lie. I was very lucky that my family went with the flow and encouraged me. The times are different now, but the principle applies.
I just installed Xubuntu 8.04 on that setup this weekend and it works OK. Hardly lightening fast feeling after coming off a c2d with 2 Gigs of RAM, but definitely usable. It's going into the guest room for, well, guests to use if they didn't bring a laptop of their own. Usually guests only need a browser, so it's perfect. If they need to print something, I've got networked printers.
my wife was awake for the 5.2 and was at her computer working on a writing assignment. She immediately went to the USGS site to check out what had happened and then filed an online report there of where she was and what she experienced.
I was awake and in my office for the 4.6 aftershock. It rattled some things, but nothing fell off shelves, etc. No panic, although I did have some thoughts about the 100+ year old brick wall of the adjoining building that forms one side of my office.
up high in the clear with a good low-loss feedline. When I was a kid, we lived in the sticks. The nearest UHF channel was about 35 miles away. We got good reception from that as well as two stations that were about 50 miles away by having a 4 element bowtie antenna that was on a 30 foot guyed mast on top of a two story house. I figure 60 feet up. That was back in the days when the TVs used tubes!
Try not to use the cheap old flat 300 ohm twinlead. It's pretty lossy at UHF frequencies. If you can get foam filled twinlead, that's better. I see that Radio Shack 15-1175 is foam filled and is under $20 for 100 feet.
If I drive around town you can still see a few of them on masts. They were the standard UHF antenna from the late 50's on. They work well and have reasonable bandwidth, too. I've got a small two element one in like new condition that I bought at Radio Shack several years ago.
I've still got one of those on my bench along with a Triplett 630, that was similar and, IMO, a little better meter. Of course, too, I'm a ham and still home-brew some tube type rigs and maintain some older radios like my Hammarlund HQ-129X and Collins 75A-2 receivers from the late 40's and early 50's.
I've still got and use two rotary dial phones, a 500 series 2 line and a 302 from 1947 with the two line feature, too. One thing about the rotary dial phones is that they work during the occasional power outages when the powered cordless phones don't.
In my day job, I still write and maintain a lot of assembly code that runs dedicated industrial controllers.
I've given up on my buggy whip making, though.
since about 1985. I designed a system back then, using plastic fiber and off-the-shelf HP transmitter and receiver modules, to pass data between elevator controllers where they are in a coordinated group. Isolation was the main reason, but it's also very convenient. We're still producing the same system today. It's convenient that it uses visible light and termination is very easy since the fibers are relative large. We're using relatively low data rates and the maximum distance I've got to handle is less than 100 feet.
I last flew on 9-10-2001. Yes, the day before the infamous 9-11, from Laguardia. It's not the terrorists, it's the hassle that dissuaded me from flying after that. I don't need to travel internationally and, since I'm in the middle of the country, it's not too bad to drive anywhere. Washington in a day, Florida in a day and a half, Phoenix or Vegas in two.
In 1965 I had a military surplus model 15 teletype machine connected to my shortwave ham rig through a "Terminal Unit" (TU) which is what we would call today, a modem. I chatted with other hams all over the world on 20 meters and locals on 80. I even had an unattended mode that only turned on the motor of the teletype machine when a TTY signal appeared on the calling frequency. So, in a sense it could function as email, although the message was read by everyone who monitored that frequency with the appropriate gear so perhaps it was more like a bulletin board.
Have any of you read "The Victorian Internet"? It's a book about the telegraph system, which, among the operators, was an instant messaging system, too.
I'm in the older demographic, obviously from my above comment, and I dislike IM and chat very much. It takes too much concentration. I'd much rather take my time in making a reply. I actually have a MySpace page, just to see what it was all about. I don't use it.
Back in the 60's when I graduated from high school, I had two interests, electronics and archaeology. It didn't take a lot of head scratching to figure out where the money was... Engineering. I don't regret the choice I made. I did take some elective anthropology courses and now I'm involved in archaeology as part of a foundation that my wife and I helped get off the ground to support some archeological work that wouldn't get funding otherwise.
I was at T.I. as a calculator design Engineer from 1972 until late 1975 before moving over to the corporate research lab to work on magnetic bubble memories. I worked on several different scientific and business models and was the project engineer for the rare TI-150, the only handheld model to use a plasma (neon) display. I still have one of the prototypes here at my desk in good working condition. I did parts of the electrical design of the magnetic card readers for the SR-52 and SR-60 as well as parts of the main board design for the latter. All that and lots of work on other models, too. Fun projects, good people to work with and fond memories. If any of my old co-workers from that time are reading this, you can get in touch via the web site my nickname links to.
Are not particularly practical for FM. Yes, an AM radio can demodulate FM through a technique known as "slope detection". Crystal radios bandwidth slope is so spread out that, even if crystal radios worked well at 88 to 108 MHz frequencies, the recovered modulation would be so small as to not be usable, even though that's wide-band FM. Years ago I had some reasonable luck receiving FM broadcast signals with a home built super-regenerative receiver using a single tube, but that's far from being a crystal set.
I've got a fair amount of experience with crystal sets for the AM broadcast band and even short-wave to a lesser extent. I built the wonderful Heathkit CR-1 back when I was about 11 years old and was able to receive stations from all across the US and even Cuba in the Winter. I built a number of them from scratch, too. Lots of fun, even today, but you do have to have an outside antenna and a ground for them to work at all well.
It's the new axis of evil. MPAA, RIAA, Disney, Business Software Alliance, and Microsoft. It's a rogue's gallery of the companies that we hate for their jack booted tromping on the little guys. I guess they are conveniently ignoring copyright law as written when it comes to fair use. Next step massive lobbying in congress to change it. Naw, they'd never be able to buy our upright legislators...would they?
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Besides, just as SCO has been proven to have done, Novell has distributed Linux under the GPL so they would have no claim anyway.
It already exists in the form of LORAN . It was recently announced that the LORAN system was going to be continued and modernized .
More discussion here . "GPS has become the navigation and location electronics of choice today, but that old standby Loran is making a comeback, for "just in case" emergencies. GPS can be easily jammed, at least at the local level, wheras Loran takes a a lot of sophisticated and powerful gear."
The answer is never. The power limit was, and still is, 4 watts of carrier power for amplitude or 12 watts PEP for single side band. See the rules and regulations and note rules 9 and 10.
The other problem, even if the power limits are followed, is that some idiots have the idea that any amount of over modulation helps them be heard better so they get a "power boost" amplified microphone. They need to listen to their own transmitter from someone else's receiver. Oh, and those echo gadgets are another impediment to understanding what they are trying to say, if, indeed, it's anything worth listening to in the beginning. I only use a CB on the road when I'm on a long trip. It has definitely saved me time and aggravation, but it sure would be nice if it was cleaned up, both in signal quality and operator quality.
Beyond that, I agree with what you say. Reasonable rules and reasonable and effective enforcement are necessary to avoid chaos and unusability.
BPL is a horrible idea. At anything much above quite low frequencies, power lines are huge antennas.
If your listening device uses capacitive coupling, then there's no current drain to draw down the nominal 50 volts across an on-hook POTS line. Radio Shack used to sell a little box that coupled like that and also would turn on a recorder when the line went off-hook. Also, since it's a listening only device, there's no risk of being overheard while breathing heavily.
It's almost identical, but has more RAM. I recently put it to very good use by loaning it to a friend who had a vocal cord infection and was told not to talk (or sing) for 2 months. She's a great typist so it became her notepad for communicating to others. She loves it.
They were both dead by the time I was three in 1949, but between them they left a few boxes of electronics parts, a Hallicrafters shortwave receiver and a nice pair of WW2 headphones. My dad was a radio operator in the Air Corps who opened a radio repair shop after the war, but passed away from cancer almost before getting it started. My grandfather was a tinkerer in his spare time with a variety of interests.
By the time I was ten, I was listening to the shortwave radio and learning about ham radio by reading about it. The librarian noticed that I was checking out books about radio and introduced me to her brother, who was a ham. I passed my first FCC test the next year and have now been a ham 50 years. Because of this early influence, I also pursued an electrical engineering career that has been very good to me.
My point is that it only takes a nudge to see where interests lie. I was very lucky that my family went with the flow and encouraged me. The times are different now, but the principle applies.
I just installed Xubuntu 8.04 on that setup this weekend and it works OK. Hardly lightening fast feeling after coming off a c2d with 2 Gigs of RAM, but definitely usable. It's going into the guest room for, well, guests to use if they didn't bring a laptop of their own. Usually guests only need a browser, so it's perfect. If they need to print something, I've got networked printers.
my wife was awake for the 5.2 and was at her computer working on a writing assignment. She immediately went to the USGS site to check out what had happened and then filed an online report there of where she was and what she experienced.
I was awake and in my office for the 4.6 aftershock. It rattled some things, but nothing fell off shelves, etc. No panic, although I did have some thoughts about the 100+ year old brick wall of the adjoining building that forms one side of my office.
ever want to host with those bandits? It'd be like hosting with Microsoft only worse.
just sit on the patent to keep anyone from doing it. They do promise to do no evil, right?
up high in the clear with a good low-loss feedline. When I was a kid, we lived in the sticks. The nearest UHF channel was about 35 miles away. We got good reception from that as well as two stations that were about 50 miles away by having a 4 element bowtie antenna that was on a 30 foot guyed mast on top of a two story house. I figure 60 feet up. That was back in the days when the TVs used tubes!
Try not to use the cheap old flat 300 ohm twinlead. It's pretty lossy at UHF frequencies. If you can get foam filled twinlead, that's better. I see that Radio Shack 15-1175 is foam filled and is under $20 for 100 feet.
If I drive around town you can still see a few of them on masts. They were the standard UHF antenna from the late 50's on. They work well and have reasonable bandwidth, too. I've got a small two element one in like new condition that I bought at Radio Shack several years ago.
is still an oxymoron.
I've still got one of those on my bench along with a Triplett 630, that was similar and, IMO, a little better meter. Of course, too, I'm a ham and still home-brew some tube type rigs and maintain some older radios like my Hammarlund HQ-129X and Collins 75A-2 receivers from the late 40's and early 50's.
I've still got and use two rotary dial phones, a 500 series 2 line and a 302 from 1947 with the two line feature, too. One thing about the rotary dial phones is that they work during the occasional power outages when the powered cordless phones don't.
In my day job, I still write and maintain a lot of assembly code that runs dedicated industrial controllers.
I've given up on my buggy whip making, though.
since about 1985. I designed a system back then, using plastic fiber and off-the-shelf HP transmitter and receiver modules, to pass data between elevator controllers where they are in a coordinated group. Isolation was the main reason, but it's also very convenient. We're still producing the same system today. It's convenient that it uses visible light and termination is very easy since the fibers are relative large. We're using relatively low data rates and the maximum distance I've got to handle is less than 100 feet.
I last flew on 9-10-2001. Yes, the day before the infamous 9-11, from Laguardia. It's not the terrorists, it's the hassle that dissuaded me from flying after that. I don't need to travel internationally and, since I'm in the middle of the country, it's not too bad to drive anywhere. Washington in a day, Florida in a day and a half, Phoenix or Vegas in two.
It's Best Buy. WTF did you expect?
In 1965 I had a military surplus model 15 teletype machine connected to my shortwave ham rig through a "Terminal Unit" (TU) which is what we would call today, a modem. I chatted with other hams all over the world on 20 meters and locals on 80. I even had an unattended mode that only turned on the motor of the teletype machine when a TTY signal appeared on the calling frequency. So, in a sense it could function as email, although the message was read by everyone who monitored that frequency with the appropriate gear so perhaps it was more like a bulletin board.
Have any of you read "The Victorian Internet"? It's a book about the telegraph system, which, among the operators, was an instant messaging system, too.
I'm in the older demographic, obviously from my above comment, and I dislike IM and chat very much. It takes too much concentration. I'd much rather take my time in making a reply. I actually have a MySpace page, just to see what it was all about. I don't use it.
Prior Art
Back in the 60's when I graduated from high school, I had two interests, electronics and archaeology. It didn't take a lot of head scratching to figure out where the money was... Engineering. I don't regret the choice I made. I did take some elective anthropology courses and now I'm involved in archaeology as part of a foundation that my wife and I helped get off the ground to support some archeological work that wouldn't get funding otherwise.
I was at T.I. as a calculator design Engineer from 1972 until late 1975 before moving over to the corporate research lab to work on magnetic bubble memories. I worked on several different scientific and business models and was the project engineer for the rare TI-150, the only handheld model to use a plasma (neon) display. I still have one of the prototypes here at my desk in good working condition. I did parts of the electrical design of the magnetic card readers for the SR-52 and SR-60 as well as parts of the main board design for the latter. All that and lots of work on other models, too. Fun projects, good people to work with and fond memories. If any of my old co-workers from that time are reading this, you can get in touch via the web site my nickname links to.
SLAPP the professor up side of the head with a PR/legal cluestick.
Are not particularly practical for FM. Yes, an AM radio can demodulate FM through a technique known as "slope detection". Crystal radios bandwidth slope is so spread out that, even if crystal radios worked well at 88 to 108 MHz frequencies, the recovered modulation would be so small as to not be usable, even though that's wide-band FM. Years ago I had some reasonable luck receiving FM broadcast signals with a home built super-regenerative receiver using a single tube, but that's far from being a crystal set.
I've got a fair amount of experience with crystal sets for the AM broadcast band and even short-wave to a lesser extent. I built the wonderful Heathkit CR-1 back when I was about 11 years old and was able to receive stations from all across the US and even Cuba in the Winter. I built a number of them from scratch, too. Lots of fun, even today, but you do have to have an outside antenna and a ground for them to work at all well.
You don't have to have lots of money to be evil, but it sure helps.
It's the new axis of evil. MPAA, RIAA, Disney, Business Software Alliance, and Microsoft. It's a rogue's gallery of the companies that we hate for their jack booted tromping on the little guys. I guess they are conveniently ignoring copyright law as written when it comes to fair use. Next step massive lobbying in congress to change it. Naw, they'd never be able to buy our upright legislators...would they?