More About Radio Electronics
With the Sojourner Pathfinders doing the Radio Electronics honor and building a cool little transceiver, you may be interested in more info.
The purpose of this honor is to introduce pathfinders to a part of God's creation by using electricity to do something interesting. It involves electronic components, soldering, radio topics, and Morse code. A lot for 3 or 4 evenings of about an hour each.
About the radio: It is a real Morse code transceiver. It can send Morse code signals and receive signals. With a proper antenna (about 130 ft long!) it can transmit about 300 miles. Without an antenna it needs to be within a few inches of the next radio.
The other fun thing introduced by this honor is the Ameteur Radio licenses. This radio transmits at 4.00 MHz which is on the General Class frequency bands. The FCC requires a license to transmit on this band. With a license, a person can do a lot of fun stuff on the airwaves including talking to people in other countries.
Here are details of the Amateur radio licensing:
1. The first license is the Technician License. There is a study book titled "The ARRL Ham Radio License Manual" $25 at www.arrl.org, but it might be cheaper at Amazon or Buy.com.
The Technician license exam is 35 questions, and the questions in the study book are the exact questions on the exam. So by reading the book and learning to answer the questions, you can be assured of passing. When ready to take the test, an exam location can be found at http://www.arrl.org/arrlvec/examsearch.phtml. One example is at the www.microhams.com club at Microsoft that has classes and gives exams. That is where I took my exams.
The technician license gives the ability to transmit at 144 MHz and 440 MHz which are the VHF and UHF bands.
2. The little radio we are building operates at 4 MHz, so it needs both the Technician license and the General License. The study book is "The ARRL General Class License Manual". $25.
The General exam is also 35 questions, but it is straight forward after learning the material in the book. There are a few simple equations, and a calculator is allowed.
To see what the test questions are like, there are some practice online tests at http://www.qrz.com/p/testing.pl
Let me know if you have any questions,
Russell
Login to post comments