Ham Stuff Who What Where Amateur Radio
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Ham radio operators have so a lot of dissimilar operating modes and proficiencies in their tool chest; it is many times hard to determine where to focus your attention. This will provide the reader with a short primer on operating characteristics in the VHF and UHF novice radio bands. Amateurs who operate in the VHF and UHF region of the spectrum are many times referred to as weak signal operators. Most frequent is the 2 meter band. This is because they are many times pushing the envelope of capablenesses in this region of the frequency spectrum and as such oftentimes are working with very weak signal amount of energy from other ham radio operators. To operate with great success in this environs hams ordinarily turn to higher power stations, very sensible receivers and much larger and higher antennas. In the VHF and UHF bands, the height of the antenna is critical as well as the gain of the antenna. Antennas in the VHF and UHF range applied for weak signal communications are closely always YAGI antennas with numerous elements. These antennas may reach and often exceed 25 feet in length. They likewise are very directive in terms of signal strength, which means you need to be pointing the antenna in the geographical area in which you want to communicate. Pointing of the antenna is done a lot of ways, some use what is called the “Arm-strong” method where you turn the antenna by hand, this is impractical in most cases however. Hams rely on rotators to both turn the antenna and know in what direction it is pointing. For weak signal work most amateurs rely on either Single Side Band (SSB) or Continuous Wave (CW) modes. However, now with computers and specialized software available, hams are competent to implement what are known as digital modes to commune using very weak signals. Using digital signal processing software, known as DSP, hams may commune in instances where the humane ear could not listen the signal, but the computer and software makes it possible to pull the signal right out of the noise!!! So far we have discussed “terrestrial” communications on the VHF and UHF bands, meaning the signal was point to point amidst two ground stations. There are other modes applied in the VHF/UHF region that go beyond just terrestrial communications. They are Earth-Moon-Earth or EME and Meteor scatter modes of operation. EME involves bouncing a signal off the Moon, and meteor scatter is reflecting the radio signals off the ionized trail from meteors entering the earth’s atmosphere! There are even hams radio satellites in orbit around the world which hams use to commune over long distances in the VHF/UHF bands. The satellite basically operates as a “repeater” in space, where the signal goes up to the satellite and is retransmitted to another ham well beyond normal line of sight for the VHF/UHF bands. Amazing stuff is going on all time in the world of novice radio, get involved today! Between choice of operating bands, on a weekly basis contests and working very distant exotic stations on the other side of the world, novice radio remains an stimulating sparetime activity today. |
