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 …

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 …

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 ot…

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 o…

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…

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 co…

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 oth…

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 …

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 an…

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…

We think of radio as operating on a specific frequency. We select an antenna resonant on a single band. We configure the radio for that same band and then turn the dial …

If you've been around the hobby in the past decade, you may have come across the invention of a Software Defined Radio, or SDR. You might even own one and if you've look…

Previously I've spoken about the dynamic nature of your station. Even if from day to day use, nothing changes, things around you are always in flux. Propagation changes,…

Our day to day life is full of communication. We listen, although less and less, to the radio for news and entertainment, sometimes mixed together as food and games for …

When you get your amateur radio license you become part of a select group of humans who are required to notify authorities if you happen to hear an emergency transmissio…

If the thought of keying up a microphone has you break out in a cold sweat, or the notion of making a mistake sends you into fits of anxiety, the idea of performance in …

A topic that rarely if ever gets any serious air-time is the humble station log. It's a process where you track what contacts you've made with whom, when and what condit…

On Thursday the 3rd of July 2008 at 6 minutes to 7 at night a developer called Dan KK7DS started to scratch an itch and published the results. The next morning before br…

I grew up with Lego, plastic blocks that you can put together in infinite variety. My oldest Lego kit hails from 1964, kit 324: House with Garage and it's still in prett…

The transceiver you use to get on air and make noise needs power to operate. The traditional voltage for our amateur equipment is 13.8 Volts. Why not 12 Volts you ask. T…