Ham Radio

[Murphyv310]

Hi.
Mike I too don't like the word Ham, just makes you think of "hamfisted".
My experiences with Radio Amateurs over the years has been very mixed from really helpful and genuine to downright rude and demeaning, of course human nature has these differences anyway. I've also worked with a couple over the years and one was entertaining to say the least.
Looking back to the conception of Radio, many amateurs were at the forefront of it, I do believe that now it is far less the case. The exams especially in the early stages do not encourage any DIY construction and this to my mind defeats the whole reason of the hobby.

[Nowhere-Man]

The fun side for me would be building a set although the cost side could bite at the present time. For me the essence of the amateur field is the inventive and exploratory side. Ultimately advances were made by construction and the theory came after as a means of explaining stuff via graphs and maths. Only snag is nowadays I face a daunting amount of work - 2 boats to sort out and scores of unfinished repair projects. I am right now fitting a water pump so my radio work will come late tonight.

[Terry]

Back in the mid 60s we had a local amateur, Reg, an ex PLA* copper who'd worked with us for a while as a storeman. After he left we knocked up a one-valve converter to receive Top Band on any MW receiver and used to listen to the local net every morning.

We always knew when Reg was around because, while he was getting his transmitter on-channel, some of the output of his oscillator went up the spout! We would here a high pitched beat zooming down to zero beat ready for action.

Reg was old school - none of this new fangled alpha bravo international phonetic alphabet for Reg!

He would come on with his Essex accent announcing "This is George free easy George Johnny ..."

Happy days!

* Port of London Authority - in Reg's case, Tilbury Dock.

[Nowhere-Man]

I was looking at reactance modulation. It's in the FM chapter. I was thrown by a grid capacitor that later I figured out merely represented inter-electrode reactance. The bottom line was phase in currents were used to modulate a carrier but I haven't digested it yet. I'm amazed by how much I don't yet know in HAM. Fortunately it's not necessary for repair work but I like to try and exercise my brain at night. By day I am working plumbing my boat and sawing timber.