History
Amateur Radio History
Back in September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first 'super computer with a hard disc.
It weighed a whopping ton and stored 5Mb of data.
A far cry from today's 8Gb USB memory stick now, or even a 3GS iPhone with its 32Gb memory capacity.
The 90th anniversary of a broadcast to the world by Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba is being celebrated with special event callsign GB90MZX 12-15 June.
The Marconi New Street factory was built in 1912 and used to manufacture high power transmitters, had the callsign MZX for test transmissions.
Many hundreds of people who had wireless sets left over from WWI and enthusiasts who had built their own crystal sets would tune in to the transmissions that consisted of readings from the newspapers and railway timetables.
Dame Nellie was approached and agreed to perform on the broadcasts for a fee of 1,000.
She sang for 15 minutes or so initially. Then after more transmitter was adjust sang another series of songs.
This event was advertised in advance it is duly referred to as the "First live public entertainment broadcast in the world by a celebrity".
The Chelmsford Amateur Radio Society (CARS) will be commemorating this with special callsign GB90MZX
From time to time there are reports of supposedly delayed radio broadcasts that have floated around the ether, or maybe reflected back from deep space, to suddenly re-appear decades later without rhyme or reason.
US pilots in the Vietnam War reported picking up messages from the Korean conflict a decade earlier. There have been similar reports of delayed signals over the years.
Now from Scotland comes a report of a vintage wireless set that has begun playing sounds from World War II, with witnesses claiming to hear Winston Churchill speeches and Glenn Miller big-band music.
A valve table-top radio receiver is part of a museum at the Montrose Air Station in Angus.
Museum trustee 72-year old Bob Sutherland is the latest to hear the music coming out of the radio, albeit it at a low volume.
Technicians tried to determine the source of the random broadcasts that can last up to half an hour, but they could not explain the freak reception, particularly seeing the radio doesn't even have a plug attached to its power cable.
Montrose Air Station is no stranger to paranormal happenings. The wireless broadcasts are now added to phantom footsteps, doors opening without reason, aircraft engine sounds and ghostly figures including the sighting of a pilot in full flying kit.
http://www.rafmontrose.org.uk/
An article in the December, 2009 issue of Lo-Key, the journal of the Australian CW QRP Club, noted the important work of an Australian radio amateur.
The only Australian earthquake in recorded history to have claimed human lives struck east coast Newcastle, the nation’s 6th largest city on 28 December 1989.
Major Rowley Shears G8KW was Secretary to the British Signal Communications Board in Hamburg Germany and instrumental in achieving the re-introduction of amateur radio in that country after World War
Many of new radio amateurs, particularly those who have not come up from the ranks of shortwave listening, will not know about two standard time and frequency stations that operate 24/7.
We take for granted today hand-held radios, but few would realise that the first handie-talkie was developed 69 years ago during World War II.
It’s 40-years ago that Apollo 11 set off for the Moon. Four days later about 600
million people watched in amazement on television.
Near Vertical Incidence Skywave (NVIS) is a short range skywave propagation method that uses very high radiation angle antennas to achieve communications beyond that of the groundwave.
