SHORTWAVE RADIO
I realized last night that my CCrane Skywave SSB radio can only tune to shortwave and not VHF/UHF (even though it tunes to FM which is in the VHF spectrum (30MHz – 300MHz). It would be cool if it would tune into nearby frequencies because then you could listen to nearby frequencies kind of like a scanner. For example, I listen to a repeater at around 146 mhz and hear the space station.
AMATEUR RADIO
I’m glad I got that cheap BaoFeng handheld radio – not only has it let me listen to some non-shortwave frequencies (and frequences more used by local communications like rescue, etc) but yesterday I was in the mountains and guess what didn’t work – the cellphone! But guess what did work – my handheld radio! I was able to hear stuff in Boulder all the way up the canyon in Ward (maybe using a repeater?) but still it worked.
I’ve taken a keen interest in learning the science and math surrounding being a ham radio operator. In our day of computers being connected (and my early years without them being connected) I think its cool that you don’t need any infrastructure to communicate with radios – just power, a transmitter, and a receiver. That’s it. No internet, not bazillion computers, etc. Very raw.
