KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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Amateur radio in the news: Junior-high kids learn code, Skywarn, digital TV

Posted: 22 Dec 2015 01:21 PM PST
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Massena junior high school students honing skills in Morse code, ham radio
operation. Some J.W. Leary Junior High School students have discovered the
joys of communication using technology that’s more than 170 years old.
Seventh-grade social studies teacher Tony Cafarella has incorporated Morse
code and ham radio into his class as an after-school activity. Students
with parental permission, under the supervision of Mr. Cafarella, a
licensed ham radio operator, can talk to various countries and log the
contact on a map, gaining a sense of geography and science. They’re also
learning from scratch how to interpret the dots and dashes of Morse code.

National Weather Service invites hams to event.Â*The sound of Michael
Jackson’s “Thriller� filled the conference room at the National Weather
Service Office in North Platte on Dec. 4. Meteorologist Bill Taylor laughed
and shook his head before walking out of the room.Â*“I told you,â€� said Kevin
Curtis to Taylor, who apparently didn’t believe that there was an amateur
radio station out there playing Michael Jackson.


The sound faded as Larry Petska, of Hershey, turned the radio dial to find
something he actually wanted to listen to. It wasn’t music the men were
after — it was other weather service offices.Â*Every year, the NWS offices
across the country invite ham radio operators in for an event called
Skywarn Recognition Day.


Amateur Radio Operators Convert to Digital Television – Part 1.Â*Ham TV has
evolved, moving from mechanical scanning to all-electronic operation, then
color, and eventually to digital video and most recently, high-definition
imaging. And while commercial television entities have routinely spent
hundreds of thousands of dollars in retrofitting analog plants for digital
broadcasting, hams—being an ingenious and creative lot—have managed to go
digital on the cheap.

The post Amateur radio in the news: Junior-high kids learn code, Skywarn,
digital TV appeared first on KB6NUs Ham Radio Blog.