eHam.net News

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Amateur Radio: A World of Possibilities:

Posted: 16 Apr 2016 05:04 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/36588


Amateur radio is a hobby with so many aspects it can be hard to describe --
and difficult to know what to try first! Our new video Amateur Radio: A
World of Possibilities gives you a taster of just some of the many
exciting, challenging and fun things you can with amateur radio. We're
planning to take a look at other parts of the hobby in the future.


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The ISS is Sending TV Signals to Ham Radio Nerds:

Posted: 16 Apr 2016 05:03 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/36587


Ham radio enthusiasts around the world are freaking out this week because
they've had the rare chance to receive and decode television signals from
the International Space Station. The ISS is outfitted with an amateur radio
that allows it to send and receive signals from Earth. Astronauts aboard
the spacecraft occasionally use it to communicate with students as a whoa
I'm talking to an astronaut from my classroom sort of exercise. There have
even been times when bored astronauts have turned on the radio and started
talking to random people around the world. But every once in a while, the
ISS has an announced "event" where it broadcasts signals to amateur radio
enthusiasts. This week, it's sending out what's known as "Slow Scan TV" --
radio waves that can be decoded and turned into pictures. The technology is
how we first sent images from the moon to Earth. "Unlike normal television
that takes a lot of bandwidth, it sends it quite a bit more slowly on
narrower bandwidth," Ryan Reynolds, an amateur radio operator who received
the picture you see at the top, told me. "It took me three minutes to get a
full picture."