Tag: sparc

“Q” codes were originally created around 1909 as a list abbreviations by the British Government to communicate with British ships and coast stations. The “Q” codes had a list of 45 codes and facilitated the communication between people who speak different languages. At the Third International Radiotelegraph Convention in London (1 July 1912) it was signed into the Service Regulations and on 3 July 1913 became a rule for use.

To distinguish the use of “Q” codes transmitted as questions from those transmitted as statements, operators used the Morse question “INT” (dit dit dah dit dah) as a prefix to the “Q” code.

Source … Wikipedia

Known as class B emission by the International Telecommunications Union, Damped Wave has been prohibited since 1930 due to its wide bandwidth and additional electrical noise. The transmission wave started at max signal and tapered off to zero for each key. The Spark Gap Transmitter and Damped Wave were last used in 1920 and replaced by Vacuum Tube Transmitters…

Source… Wikipedia (Damped Wave) …… Wikipedia (Continuous Wave)

The Spurious Emission Band seems to be interesting, one key note is that one of the members just happens to be the president one of this months trivia questions, below you will find some links to an interview and also to RAWilsonTV which seems to be the main channel for the band on YouTube…

Ham Talk Live Episode 62

RAWilsonTV

The leap second refers to the slowing of the earths rotation (known as UT1) in relation to time. UTC (constant universal time) can be read by the position of the sun but since the advent of the atomic clock (known as TAI) which is for the most part constant from the time it was started, …. Click Here For more information and the 2 clockshttps://www.timeanddate.com/time/leap-seconds-background.html

Below is the Sparks at Sea Brochure, its really good….

Sparks

Source: VWOA website

Loyd and Iris Colvin from the YASME.org photo gallery, many good pictures are on that site including the original YASME sailboat.

Excerpt from the About Us Page on Yasme.org:

Danny retired from active DXpeditioning in 1963. At about that time, the famous husband and wife team, Lloyd Colvin, W6KG (SK), and Iris Colvin, W6QL (SK), began what they called the “Yasme Round the World DX-Pedition” under the auspices of the Yasme Foundation. Over the next almost 30 years, the Colvins would eventually operate from over 200 DXCC countries. Yasme volunteers served as their QSL manager, issuing hundreds of thousands of distinctive Yasme QSL cards.

Supported by a sizable bequest from the Colvins’ estate in 1998, Yasme’s activities today are conducted by a Board of Directors made up of volunteers who hold or have held responsible positions in business, law and technical areas.

Source … YASME.ORG

The era of the professional wireless operator has ended. CW communications has all but disappeared from anywhere other than the amateur radio community. The maritime, airline, military, and telecommunications industries no longer employ radio operators. Computers, digital technology, cellular networks, and satellites provide reliable communications capabilities over every inch of the Earth’s surface with a reliability and reach that would have been beyond anyone’s wildest imaginations ninety years ago. In 2015, the Board of Directors of the VWOA formally redefinined the organization. It is no longer a membership organization of active and retired radio operators. – from the VWOA website

Source… Veterans Wireless Operations Association

Also called a “beam antenna”, or “parasitic array”, the Yagi is very widely used as a high-gain antenna on the HF, VHF and UHF bands. It has moderate to high gain which depends on the number of elements used, typically limited to about 20 dBi, linear polarization,  unidirectional (end-fire) beam pattern with high front-to-back ratio of up to 20 db. and is lightweight, inexpensive and simple to construct. The bandwidth of a Yagi antenna, the frequency range over which it has high gain, is narrow, a few percent of the center frequency, and decreases with increasing gain,  so it is often used in fixed-frequency applications. The largest and best-known use is as rooftop terrestrial television antennas, but it is also used for point-to-point fixed communication links, in radar antennas,^[ and for long distance shortwave communication by shortwave broadcasting stations and radio armatures.

Source… Wikipedia