[KB6NU] Amateur radio in the news: The birth of radio astronomy, ham radio still has a role, local club preserves radio history

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KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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Amateur radio in the news: The birth of radio astronomy, ham radio still
has a role, local club preserves radio history

Posted: 25 Jul 2022 05:34 AM PDT
https://www.kb6nu.com/amateur-radio-in-the-news-the-birth-of-radio-astronomy-ham-radio-still-has-a-role-local-club-preserves-radio-history/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

The birth of radio astronomy

Back in the 1930s radio communication was opening up the world. For the
first time it was becoming technically possible for a person in any country
to communicate with anyone else on the planet.

One of the companies working on this new communications frontier was Bell
Labs, in New Jersey. To help them design the new system, they gave one of
their engineers, Karl Jansky, the job of identifying sources of
interference that could affect the new services. Over the following months
he identified the radio static from thunderstorms and other natural
phenomena, and the countless forms of manmade interference.

Intriguingly, he found that when this interference was absent, he could
hear a steady hiss, which went away if he disconnected the antenna. He
scanned with the antenna and found the direction in which the hiss was
strongest, and found, to his surprise that during the day the interference
peak moved from east to west. After months of work he concluded the culprit
was the Milky Way, with the strongest signals coming from the direction of
the constellation Sagittarius. Jansky had discovered cosmic radio waves,
that the Milky Way is a radio source, and the strongest emissions come from
the direction of the centre of our galaxy.
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HAM radio still has a role in our modern age



TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) When severe weather is in the forecast, a
sometimes-forgotten group of people tune in to help relay important
information. The technology behind HAM radios is about 130 years old, but
the simplicity of that form of communication makes it very durable, and a
reliable backup during emergencies.




“HAM Radio is pretty much if everything else fails. No cell phones, no
internet, anything like that. Amateur radio can still get out and send
messages to whomever would need them,” explained Brenda Krukowski, a HAM
radio operator with Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES).


Local Amateur Radio Club preserves radio history

Today, most people take radio for granted as they have been able to listen
to music and news like it has always been there. However, if you could to
go back before the turn of the century and turn on one of today’s radios,
all you would hear would be silence and static. It was only after the turn
of the century when you might even hear only Morse Code dits and dahls then
used to communicate as voice was not yet possible.

Recently, Highland Amateur Radio Association member Dr. David Gunderman
notified the Club his father, Robert, needed to relocate to a smaller
residence and wanted to donate his early “home-brewed” radio equipment to
an organization who would not only honor those early radio pioneers but
preserve the equipment he designed and built for future generations (with
an interest in early radio history) to enjoy and appreciate.

Thus, a different and challenging project was undertaken by the Highland
County Club.




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still has a role, local club preserves radio history appeared first on
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