70th Anniversary FM Commemorative Broadcast 109
Anonym1ty writes "A special commemorative FM broadcast Saturday, June 11, at noon (EDT) will mark the 70th anniversary of Edwin H. Armstrong's first public demonstration of wideband frequency modulation (FM). The transmission, from Experimental Station WA2XMN (reminiscent of Armstrong's W2XMN call sign) will be on Armstrong's original 42.8 MHz frequency and will emanate from his landmark 400-foot Alpine Tower in NJ. The program will tell the tale of FM's difficult birth, as well as its impact on present-day communications and will include excerpts from a recording of a 1941 test broadcast of the New England Yankee Network. For those unable to receive 42.8 MHz FM, the broadcast is being retransmitted by WFDU-FM on 89.1 MHz and via the Web. Rebroadcasts will take place June 14 and 16 at 7 PM (EDT)"
Clear channel (Score:3, Insightful)
Wonder if he saw that coming...
Also available (Score:1)
Radio (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Radio (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Radio (Score:5, Informative)
Well, FM was and is still important. Popular modulation schemes include both frequency modulation and amplitude modulation, but either is appropriate in different settings.
One advantage to FM is its relative immunity to certain kinds of noise (often noise is additive, and hence the amplitude is affected directly by noise whereas the frequency is less affected).
FM is the precursor to (and was at the time) more noise and jam-resistant schemes. The tradeoff is it requires greater bandwidth than AM to transmit a given signal.
Check out this wikipedia link to find out more about different MODULATION [wikipedia.org] schemes...
Re:Radio (Score:2)
Re:Radio (Score:2)
Seeing the mention of Marconi in his bio... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Seeing the mention of Marconi in his bio... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Seeing the mention of Marconi in his bio... (Score:1, Funny)
( ) BeOS
( ) Hydrogen-filled Dirigibles
( ) Alpha Microprocessors
( ) Bell Labs
( ) VAX/VMS
( ) Betamax
(X) Nikola Tesla
( ) Xerox PARC
( ) Alan Turing
( ) Amiga
You can pick up your prize at the front desk.
Re:Seeing the mention of Marconi in his bio... (Score:2)
Re:Seeing the mention of Marconi in his bio... (Score:4, Interesting)
Because Marconi knew how to work public relations and his supporters. Its the same reason that Edison gets so much credit when Tesla had more to do with how we use electricty today than Edison ever did.
For a good example, look at how the Smithsonian treats Marconi and Edison in relation to how they treat Tesla. Then look at the records and see how much money Marconi and Edison supporters and family donate to the Smithsonian.
Tesla was so busy actually inventing useful things that he didn't have time to work the press. Since Marconi and Edison didn't do all that much themselves, they had plenty of time to "press the flesh".
Re:Seeing the mention of Marconi in his bio... (Score:2)
So what you're saying is that our PHB's actually are more important than the guys getting their hands dirty?
Damn, that sucks.
Re:Seeing the mention of Marconi in his bio... (Score:2)
No, but the boss gets the credit, the marketing guys get the budget, and the sales guys make all the money. Techies get all the toys
Welcome to Dick Chaney's America!
Little Known Fact (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, he was the worlds first FM Shock Jock.
for us linux users (Score:5, Informative)
mplayer -cache 128 http://64.92.199.76/WFDU-FM [64.92.199.76]
--
I hope we can setup some mirrors so during the broadcast they don't get slashdotted. anybody know how to convert asf to mp3? if so someone setup a mother stream. I am writing up a script right now for dynamic redirection on their server.
Re:for us linux users (Score:1)
Re:for us linux users (Score:1)
AM v. FM (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:AM v. FM (Score:2)
I highly recommend the book Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard Armstrong by Lawrence Lessing, if one is fortunate enough to find a copy. (I bought my Bantam Books paperback copy some 30 years ago.)
Advantages of AM's susceptibility to interference (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Advantages of AM's susceptibility to interferen (Score:1, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Advantages of AM's susceptibility to interferen (Score:1)
A Vacuum-tube Radio... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A Vacuum-tube Radio... (Score:2)
The local PBS channel had to go cable-only because their transmitter had a 50-year-old vacuum tube that finally gave out. Constructing a brand new vacuum tube would've cost thousands of dollars, and upgrading the tower equipment would've been a lot more. The old technology works great but the replacement cost can be a
Re:A Vacuum-tube Radio... (Score:1)
My MIL was going to throw it out when we were cleaning out her mother's house. Everything is intact, and it's sitting here in the living room, fitting in with the rest of the furniture.
I've just never come up with the stones to pull the tubes, map their location, dust everything, etc. Everything which needs to be done before I'm willing to plug it in. On top of that, electricity is one of my three phobias. If I ground myself wi
Anyone got any idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Anyone got any idea... (Score:1)
Re:Anyone got any idea... (Score:3, Informative)
The way radio works is that your car radio has to "tune" to the frequencies that you are listening to. Tuning means you have a little pure-tone synthesizer in your car that produces pure tones at different frequencies.
Now the real reason why it doesn't tune that low in frequency is because there is virtually no demand to listen to amateur radio bands. And it costs money to make that synthesizer generate more frequencies than required. So you have to pay more money to tune into those frequencies, in the
42.8 MHz is not in a ham band.. (Score:3, Informative)
As was pointed out above, most scanner radios will receive that frequency just fine.
Re:42.8 MHz is not in a ham band.. (Score:2)
I suspect commercial FM radio wouldn't really be viable without stereo as well
Re:Anyone got any idea... (Score:2, Informative)
and tell me what 42.8 has to do with amateur radio.
Re:Anyone got any idea... (Score:1)
Sorry, it's land mobile / government exclusive (in the USA), dunno what that means. But whatever. It is of no use to Sony to make a tuner to work with 42.8 MHz. Thought it was amateur because of the nostalgic broadcast on it; not something I'd expect in other bands.
And you might have problems with BPL because... well... what is BPL?
Re:Anyone got any idea... (Score:2)
Re:Anyone got any idea... (Score:2)
The great thing is, that these systems take the program audio - that
In Germany (Score:2)
Re:Anyone got any idea... (Score:1)
Re:Anyone got any idea... (Score:2)
On June 27, 1945, the FCC moved the FM band to 88-106 MHz. It has originally occupied the 42-50 MHz band. This may appear to be only a small change, but the story behind it is immense. Edwin H. Armstrong had invented frequency modulation in the early 1930s (it was patented in 1933, and his paper, "A Method of Reducing Disturbances in Radio Signal by a System of Frequen
Lawrence Lessig wrote about Armstrong... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lawrence Lessig wrote about Armstrong... (Score:2)
Re:Lawrence Lessig wrote about Armstrong... (Score:2)
Re:Lawrence Lessig wrote about Armstrong... (Score:2)
Please note that Lawrence Lessing and Lawrence Lessig are not the same person, although in Free Culture Lessig apparently draws heavily on Lessing's book.
Re:Lawrence Lessig wrote about Armstrong... (Score:2)
Letter Imperfect (Score:2)
Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:2)
yahoo [yahoo.com] feels differently, but they don't seem to know any more about it than me.
Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:2)
Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:1)
Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:3, Interesting)
"I don't know why K and W were chosen for the initial letters, or why the Bureau thought it necessary to split the assignments into two geographic groups"
And that you either didn't read the question, or the answer, or maybe both. But at least now we all know you don't, which my own Google search did not reveal.
Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:3, Informative)
You would be correct.. I didn't read the history page that closely.
Therefore: "Here is a possible explanation as to how the USA got W and K, no documentation on this but sounds plausible. The USA had unofficially used N for North America (e.g., NBZ, Boston), also A for America. The letter "N" in morse is dah dit, adding a dah to N gives dah dit dah which is "K'. Letter "A" in morse is dit dah, adding a dah to A gives dit dah dah which is "W"."
source: http://www.ac6v.com/history.htm/ [ac6v.com]
Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:2)
I'm hoping, by posting in a t
Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:1)
hi.
I'm also amazed from time to time how many
Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:1)
Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:1)
I've always wondered if US aircraft tail numbers starting with N have somthing to do with using tail numbers for radio call signs.
Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:2)
Yeah, the US has a rather large chunk of namespace. A and N seem to be mostly used by military and amateur stations -- almost everything else is W and K. Usually if you buy a license for your GMRS walkie-talkies (you did buy a license didn't you?) you get a W callsign.
Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, US radio call signs begin with A, W, K, or N. The FCC has decided which service classes may use which call groups (e.g., broadcast stations are only assigned calls starting with W & N).
The entire alphabet is maintained by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and its precursors. The earliest assignment of these call letters to the US dates back to early radio in 1913, and has been maintained ever since.
73 de N4JCK
ITU prefix list (Score:2)
Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:2)
Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:2)
A, K, N & W
A stands for America
in morse code it is .-
K is like an A in morse code with a dah before it -.-
N is like an A only backwards -.
W is like an A with a - after it .--
We have more people (stations) in the US than most other countries, we needed more letters.
Yup that is why we have A, K, N & W.Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:2)
Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:1)
Some of the others sort of make sense, G for Great Britan. F for france. Canada gets only some of C.
Re:Letter Imperfect (Score:2)
I have heard it in ham radio theory classes... and read it in books... but I can no longer remember the sources. -But it was from several sources. Should I run accross one of them, i'll try to remember to atleast make a reference to it in wikipedia
Legal unlicenced FM transmission (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Legal unlicenced FM transmission (Score:3, Informative)
Broadcasting on 48.2FM (Score:2)
Re:Broadcasting on 48.2FM (Score:2)
FM (frequency modulation) encodes the frequency shifts as, well, frequency shifts. It would be virtually impossible to build a crystal set that works for FM, except for certain restricted forms of FSK (frequency shift keying), which is mostly used for teletype
WLW (Score:4, Interesting)
500,000 100% modulated watts is a little crazy. you would have to practially feel it on a humid day.
To celebrate - close down the FCC (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:To celebrate - close down the FCC (Score:2)
And the FCC was created because the airwaves are subject to those limits and somebody had to decide how to share them. Spectrum is like land, they aren't making any more of it.
Re:To celebrate - close down the FCC (Score:4, Informative)
People who make this assertion don't really understand the nature of radio waves. You can't simply switch everyone over to a 5GHz spread spectrum scheme -- the propagation characteristics are very different at 1100 KHz, 25 MHz, 100 MHz, 460 MHz, 900 MHz, and 2.4 GHz (to take a half dozen frequencies in commonly used areas). The regions above about 6 GHz are pretty much useless for anything but short-range communication, satellite communication, and radar, while the CB bands at 27 MHz are superbly unsuitable for their intended purpose because they're potentially capable of worldwide propagation given proper ionosphere conditions.
If you want an idea of what an unregulated radio world, look at a shortwave guide and see what the US offers. How many of them aren't religious broadcasters? How many of them broadcast far-right tripe? Look at the CB bands and see what kind of crap goes on there, in a 40-channel swatch that the FCC gave up on enforcing years ago. Eventually you'd have nothing but a vast swatch of radio anarchy, with jammers, rednecks, and general troublemakers shouting down anyone they don't like.
Or you could just google the callsign KG6IRO or name Jack Gerritsen and find out why that fellow recently went to jail for what he did with his ham radio equipment. Talk all you want about the nobility of your cause and giving the airwaves back to the people, but if there was such a thing as radio anarchy, there'd be a lot more douchebags like Gerritsen out there.
FM Radios? (Score:1)
an early h4rdw4r3 h4x0r (Score:1)
See? (Score:3, Interesting)
Throughout the 1940s he continued to lose money on promoting FM radio, fighting protracted patent litigation, and attempting to ward off regulatory attempts. He desperately craved recognition, bringing lawsuits and writing letters to the editor in an effort to demonstrate his accomplishments. Colleagues recognized his brilliance but viewed his desire for glory as obsessive and unnatural. Ill and despondent, in 1954 Armstrong put on his evening coat, hat, and gloves, and stepped out the window of his thirteenth-floor Manhattan apartment.
THIS is what IP law will get you.
Re:42.8 (Score:4, Funny)
Re:42.8 (Score:3, Informative)
Sean
KI4IIB
Re:How likely are we to pick up the transmission? (Score:1)
Re:42.8 (Score:2)
Well, -you-, anyway. I'll probably just run down to the clubhouse and listen there on the Icom 738. Amateur radio kicks ass.
I'm curious how you think you are going to pick up a 250W broadcast on 42.8Mhz originating in New Jersey when you are on the gulf coast?
Amateur radio doesn't kick that much ass. Of course, 42.8Mhz isn't an amateur radio frequency anyway.
Re:42.8 (Score:1)
This map:: http://home.cogeco.ca/~dxinfo/tropo.html [cogeco.ca]
plus, it's FM, which doesn't transmit well over long distances. On the THIRD bad-situation hand, it really SUCKS because the TS/Hurricane makes pro
Re:42.8 (Score:1)