Hello Martin
On 24 May 2012, at 12:30, Martin McCormick <[email protected]> wrote:
• I would almost bet money that was the 405-line system. There would have
still been a huge number of them around in 1969 what with color only 2 years
old. Your antenna would have been rather large compared with the almost tiny
antenna needed for
UHF reception.
Firstly, colour is spelled with a U, in our lingo anyway, but that subject has
been raked over many many times and my spouse is currently snarling with anger
because you used the American spelling. I say that very tongue in cheek; he's
only joking. ;-)
Yes, our old TV was indeed the old VHF type; but when we got our first colour
TV it had inputs for 2 antennas because the transition to UHF was originally
planned to take place much sooner than it did. So for a while we had 2 antennas
up on the chimney stack.
• Of course, American children would never have pressured their parents
to spend more money on a color TV. And, if you
believe that, I have a certain bridge in New York City which can be yours for
an amazingly low price.
I do not believe it for a nano-second. I know my brother wasn't a part of the
rebellion as he was only 2 years old at the time. But my 2 sisters and I gave
our long-suffering parents hell because we couldn't watch Felix The Cat, Skooby
Do, the Flintstones and other such things in colour. Eventually my mother
persuaded my father to exceed, just to avoid the need for headache tablets and
ear plugs necessitated by the whining of their three daughters who, at times,
made such a high frequency noise that the local bat population was probably
having trouble with their inbuilt navigation systems. ;-)
• That is Correct.
Refers to the amateur 2M band I presume?
• Oh yes! All of us radio amateurs live for something like this.
Gordon is just saying that it's time to get his radio set up again.
Unfortunately he only has a dual-band vertical antenna up these days because
his VHF, UHF and HF antennae fell victim to stormy weather a couple of years
ago. His Kenwood TS850S HF transceiver also has a problem with it which he
doesn't think is economical to repair these days. Since his use of HF would be
severely restricted owing to the fact that our current next door neighbours
wouldn't agree to him stringing something like a trapped dipole over their
garden, and since a beam is now also out of the question, it isn't worth the
investment in HF equipment.
• Don't worry about all the little details, but our atmosphere is like a
layered cake. We live in the troposphere which extends to about ten miles above
our heads and is responsible for what we call surface weather such as clouds,
rain and snow, and thunderstorms. It doesn't normally do much to radio except
for the static in lightning storms, but there is an
effect called tropospheric ducting which occurs when there is a hard boundary
between warm, moist air and cold dry air. This can bend radio signals the same
way that glass and water bend light and it effects signals in VHF, UHF and even
microwaves, causing them to travel for sometimes over a thousand miles instead
of just shooting off in to space as they normally would.
Gordon has a very dreamy expression on his face right now.
• Here in the middle US, we don't get many tropo openings as they are
called, but we still do get them and they are
spectacular. You might hear signals on VHF and UHF from 4 or 5-hundred miles
away or more. The UHF television channels
suddenly fill up with signals from surrounding states and two-way radio systems
began to experience strong and usually
un-wanted neighbors they weren't supposed to have.
I'm sure that's fun. Yes; we'll have to see what we can do about setting his
equipment back up again.
Above the troposphere and stratosphere, we begin the ionosphere or what
some refer to as the magnetosphere. It starts
about 60 miles above us and extends outward to maybe 300 or 400 miles or 600 or
700 KM. By this point, the air is almost nonexistent and is mostly stray
molecules of oxygen, nitrogen and other air gases. The sky is pitch black all
the time and you are in near space but those atoms and occasional molecules
become ionized or charged by the Sun and begin reflecting radio
signals back to Earth.
I'm starting to get a bit interested in radio myself actually. Not broadcast
radio, I mean things like amateur radio and listening to stuff which you
wouldn't normally hear. My late sister Donna had a scanner at one time and we
used to listen to Gordon and others chatting on VHF and UHF. I wish I'd heard
one of these phenomena at work; and maybe I will get a chance too this summer.
Martin; I've removed, but did read, the rest of your message. I guess I can sum
it up with only one word; fascinating! And that isn't meant in any way
sarcastically. I just don't have the time to comment just now as Gordon wants
to get on with opening his new toy.
Lynne
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