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Old April 30th 10, 06:59 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.antenna
Richard Clark Richard Clark is offline
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 2,951
Default What exactly is radio

On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 17:14:28 +0800, "Peter" wrote:

While this is a non
mathematical and general descriptive treatment of the subject it is a
challenge to make it clear and consistent.


Hi Peter,

Yes, your treatment does tend to veer towards the exotic topics.

Stick to the basics. You have a wonderful resource that you point to
in the Navy training manuals. As a former instructor for the Navy's
Electronic Technician A and C schools, I can attest this material
manages the balance between technical and theoretical.

You may notice that the first manual introduces the concept of
photons, but no where goes into "duality." And for good reason, it
doesn't matter one whit. When you raise this concept, the weaker
participants of your audience would then think about solar particles
in competition with solar radiation (light, largely). They would
probably miss the vast difference in propagation speed.

Solar radiation, of course, travels at the speed of light. This is
why it is called radiation. Solar particles (the erroneous dual to
the photon) travels at less than 1% of the speed of light. If any of
your audience were to simply consider their final's tubes, within that
glass enclosure, electrons travel at 90% of the speed of light.
Dribble a little air into that vacuum tube, and the speed of any
electron would plummet to inches per hour.

So, what value is there in opening that can of worms?

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC