Ham Radio Myths

PLEEEEZE....let's not let this interesting new topic be hijacked by the "CW or no CW" debate. (It's pointless, everyone knows a CW iron man is the epitome of the Real Amateur). Just kidding (even though it's true).

I also am interested in LDEs. I can relate an experience with them around 1989 on 40 M CW. Over the course of several hours one evening (during which I also observed zillions of "whistlers" -- which are not supposed to be heard above LF and, on rare occasions, MF frequencies), I heard delayed echos of my own signal. At first I thought it was another operator, so I made several back-to-back QSYs. Each time I stopped on a new frequency, I sent one dit. As long as one to two seconds later, I heard the dit "echoed," at a slighty different pitch, suggesting Doppler. I phoned a friend and had him come up on the band to confirm this. He heard what was happening with my sigs but as I recall, was not able to reproduce it from his location about ten miles North, at much lower elevation, on an much more low-angle antenna of opposite polarization to mine.

Some time thereafter, I read in an updated edition of ther ARRL Handbook that contrary to decades of prevailing wisdom, it had been demonstrated that under certain circumstances, backscatter had been observed on frequencies as high as 40 meters.

I don't know for certain what the explanation was, but the simultaneous loud presence of whistlers on 40 led me to ponder whether the Earth's magnetic lines of force were acrting as conductors for the radio energy -- a concept with which both Tesla and the Pentagon's HAARP project experimented.

And the "Woopdecker" also known as Over the Horizon RADAR (OHR) supposedly operated under the principle of HF backscatter -- thought the whoe notion of OHR was later revealed to be a cover story for what the Russians and Americans were actually up to, somehting aboput which I canot recall the actual purpose.

Does anyone have any anectdotes or knoweldge
on the subject of HF LDEs to share?

HF LDEs -- fact or myth?

73,

Kevin Hunt WA7VTD
Oregon

 

This is from a movie called "On The Beach". Not sure when it was released.

The story of the movie is set in a post-nuclear war America. The only survivors are military men in submarines, or something like that. They spend months tracking down this signal, only to discover that it's source is a coke bottle tied to a window blind.

Great movie, I'll have to dig it out and watch it when I finish moving.

 

Yes LDEs exist, there are records of LDEs going back into the 20's, and I spoke to a telecoms engineer who had recorded them back in the 80s.
One author in the 70s even related the echos to astronomical maps and theorised that they were due to a spacecraft from an alien race that was parked in a Langrangian orbit and was trying to contact the us ! I believe he got out more with the money thus earned !!

The movie "On the beach" I believe was circa 1965 and had one G.Peck as the sub captain, new the story but never saw the film sadly
as it caught my imagination.

73s Ken

 

NCTs should NEVER have any say so in club matters, should only speak when spoken to and should be seen and not heard.


Must be a myth. I am currently a member of the Board of Directors with my local club, and also an NCT.. I guess the OT's in the club thought I would be suitable for the job, code or not.

 

 

Well, the CW / Non CW debate has diluted yet another potentially cool discussion.

Thanks for the QRM, guys.

 

Polluted.

Which brings me to the poll! If there aren't any further votes, it'll be closed soon.

Pro Code testing 53
Anti Code testing 22

So far the NCI types are not faring well...

Is CW important enough to Ham Radio to continue using it on the exam?

 

The novel "On The Beach" was written by Neville Shute about 1957. The original movie was from around that time, perhaps as late as 1960.

There was a remake of the movie in the early 90's where the same scenario was in place except it was a laptop that sent ASCII data over the air whenever the sun shone upon a solar cell.

Interesting movie about the possible psychological effects of a post nuclear war world. But like "Alas Babylon" written by Pat Frank in 1959, the likelihood of survival as suggested in these books is about 45 years out of date.

Still very good reading/viewing indeed.

 

Nope.  Quite a variety of commercial rigs on the air in 1966.  Collins, Hammarlund, Hallicrafters, Multi-Elmac, Johnson, just to name a few off the top of the head.  Of course, the Heathkits were everywhere, but the instructions were so good, you really didn't have to know a lot of electronics to build one.  The air was also full of homebrew and rigs built from QST or Handbook instructions.  But those were in the minority.

CB had also been around for 8 years.

 

I read the book and saw the movie (On The Beach). It is a very good story except for the downer ending. There was only one sub and the crew travled the world trying to find life and found none. All of their familes were dead, the only survivers were on that one Nuke sub. The end comes when the depressed crew decide to leave the hatch open and submerge, ending it all.

Yep, it was the wind and a Coke bottle that sent the random code.

Good movie, depressing ending.

There is another book that is fairly current, called "The Last Ship" and once again the only survivers of a nuke exchange are crews of one Russian nuke sub and one American nuke surface ship. Of course the war was between USA and USSR. I won't give away the entire story except to say only the two ships survive, the American ship has a mixed crew of men and woman but they discover the men are all sterile and the Russian crew is all male and are not sterile. Plenty of supplies are located at a secret base near one of the poles. There are very few places on the face of the Earth that are not radioactive. The human race needs to survive... oh what to do? Not the best book I have read because of the writers style but it is an interesting story.

Getting a bit back to the main topic, I am an Extra class, I passed the 20 WPM code test, I've built and done just about everything ham radio has to offer, I like CW but rarely get on with it. I think CW is just another language and it is good to know (I wish I knew Spanish better). My wife is a NCT and I love her very much.

As Bill Murry said in one of his "camp" movies, and he was talking about beating the teams of a rival camp... "it just doesn't matter".

Oh yes, I am also an avid movie goer and have read hundreds of books, maybe thousands, have written technical articles and have been published many times. I retired a year ago, and all of the stupid agruments about code mean almost nothing to me. The "myths" about flashing lights and long delay echo's only tell me that the questioner needs more technical education. Of course radio waves can go around the world, what would stop them? The time delay for a echo off of the moon is around 2 seconds. RF excites the phosphor in lights quite easily. Even regular bulbs will glow if there is enough RF and enough power wiring to act as an antenna. There are good hams and bad hams and everything in between. CW is not a factor.

Let's see, what did I miss.....?

 

I am in COMPLETE agreement.
And I will second that motion if we all could go to the rifle range instead of the pond.

 

My mom recently had a pace maker put in. They say she should stay away from Amateur radio & microwave ovens. Does Amateur Radio really cause problems and if so how does she know while driving she is going to pass an Amateur operators shack running 1500 watts. And which bands are going to affect it if any or at all. And if so can filtering be installed in the pace maker? This is a Myth I hope gets busted!
                                                Thanks