Oh, yes. Back in the day when Estonia belonged to the USSR, Estonians in the north would be aiming their TV antennas at Finland. This way they could find out what is going on in the outside world.
Eventually this kind of thing led to the fall of the USSR, the end of the Berlin Wall and so on.
Now, if only Americans could get signals from outside the USA...
Now, if only Americans could get signals from outside the USA...
My first used Mercedes, a 1969 220D, came with a Blaupunkt AM/SW/FM radio. On the shortwave band, at night, I could receive BBC, Radio Moscow, etc. It had two knobs: on/off/volume and tuning, along with a row of buttons across the bottom of the dial. I saved that radio when the car went to the junkyard. I should install it in my current car in place of the digital monstrosity that's there now.
I get one Canadian station on my car's FM radio. It's in French and, being in Washington State, I'm nowhere near Quebec.
-Phil
On a good night I can pick up a Toronto TV station.
There catering to a large audiance in Quebec, it has something to do with how they migrated south or a war.
I was there that week when they covered it in history class, not paying attention.
I went on fishing trips with my dad when I was I was a kid, to northern Canada, farther north you go the more French Canadian's you run into.
The more moose to, if your not careful.
The owner of one of the camps ran into a bull with his PU, a week before we got there. He was lucky. It totaled the PUs front end and cab.
Can you also listen to your nearby Swedish neighbors radio stations?
Who? Me? ..No out of range of any swedish FM radio transmitters. I live not far from the atlantic, and some 90 kilometres from the border but due to the topography FM transmitters there will have a hard time reaching here. And I guess the closest location of any high power transmitter will be nearby Østersund or something, in mid Sweden, far from the border. Not sure.
Now, if only Americans could get signals from outside the USA...
My first used Mercedes, a 1969 220D, came with a Blaupunkt AM/SW/FM radio. On the shortwave band, at night, I could receive BBC, Radio Moscow, etc. It had two knobs: on/off/volume and tuning, along with a row of buttons across the bottom of the dial. I saved that radio when the car went to the junkyard. I should install it in my current car in place of the digital monstrosity that's there now.
-Phil
I have an old car radio with tubes somewhere in my shed, though don't think I will put that in my car.
I didn't think there was any part of Norway that is as much as 90Km from west to east
But, yeah, I have driven out of Finland, though Sweden and into Norway to Narvik and around. Given that there is nothing on the Swedish side and a lot of high ground before hitting the sea at Narvik, I can imagine there is no Swedish broadcasts that make it there.
Similarly driving out of the top of Finland from Utsjoki into Norway and up to the sea.
I can't see why DAB radios should be more expensive to make or why they should consume more power, someone has to explain that to me.
A radio can be implemented with a few passive and active components. A DAB radio, on the other hand, is a full computer. Plus tuner. Several orders of magnitude more complexity. And about the power issue.. there's nothing in DAB even close to the tiny clock radio I bought in 1979, I would replace the battery once or twice a year. All my DAB radios are on mains, including the clock radio. My father has a small battery-powered DAB radio, with earbuds, it's useless because he has to replace the battery after two days. And he only uses it to listen to a particular program once a day. He did the same before, with a smaller FM radio, the battery lasted basically forever.
If we once again experience a 1940 or other bad crises, I don't think the FM will work better then any other systems. In such a case I think we all have to return back to long or short wave transmissions.
Of course FM (and other non-digital modulations) will work much better than a government-controlled closed digital system. It's not like you can just sit down and implement a DAB transmitter. Sure, some can do it, but I can't. I can, however, make an FM transmitter, no internet or books required. It's that easy. I don't think you can walk up to the occupying forces and ask "dear mr. evil invader, can I please use your DAB network to send some resistance information to the occupied population?" Doesn't even need an invader. You may just wake up one day and find that Things Have Changed. As has happened elsewhere before, many times.
DAB is closed, and complex. FM is open, and extremely un-complex. Many of today's DAB radios are dual DAB+FM, but there's not much point selling those after January, is there? So, very soon there will be only DAB in the shops. AM bands? I don't see them on those DAB radios.
And lots of people will still keep their good old FM/AM radios even though they usually never use them.
On the contrary, they will end up at the electric waste heap. There's one station at my local grocery store, every day I see radios and stuff there. People don't have the space. Only hoarders like myself (and you, probably, as you mentioned this) will try to hold on to some of the old stuff. But there will be pressure to dump the "useless garbage", and most people will. I will try to hold on to my TP-41 though.
FM is in some ways better than shortwave etc. in a crisis situtation. The short, almost-directly visible range can be good when you don't want to attract attention. And, as I said before, building an FM transmitter is so extremely simple that you can even make one by accident. Much easier than building a receiver, and that's why it would be better if everyone already have them. And they can be tiny, which is very good when you compare to the situation back in the bad days I mentioned.
To build an FM transmitter you only need something non-linear. One transistor is the only active component you need (you can even get by without one). Compare that with building a "transmitter" for DAB radio..
Here's one: http://www.translocal.jp/radio/micro/simplesttxstandard01.jpg
It's not too different from the one we used as students, connected to a reel-to-reel tape player so that we could listen to music everwhere in the valley when we were driving around.
...FM is in some ways better than shortwave etc. in a crisis situtation. The short, almost-directly visible range can be good when you don't want to attract attention. And, as I said before, building an FM transmitter is so extremely simple that you can even make one by accident. Much easier than building a receiver, and that's why it would be better if everyone already have them. And they can be tiny, which is very good when you compare to the situation back in the bad days I mentioned.
To build an FM transmitter you only need something non-linear. One transistor is the only active component you need (you can even get by without one). Compare that with building a "transmitter" for DAB radio..
Here's one: http://www.translocal.jp/radio/micro/simplesttxstandard01.jpg
It's not too different from the one we used as students, connected to a reel-to-reel tape player so that we could listen to music everwhere in the valley when we were driving around.
I have several digital radios, all are mains but a couple of them also have a battery backup built in, said to last about six hours before the need of charging. As long as connected to mains or 12V the batteries are automaticly charged. But I have no idea on how many mAh those batteries can keep. Recently I've got a pair of ear muffs for my birthday, with DAB/FM. Instead of two replaceable AA's there is one lipoly inside. Need a USB to charge so that's a setback . I have not been able to test how long the batteries last, so far. Second time I should use them I found them with dead batteri, forgot to turn them off when I left them. So I admit, we have probably a batteri issue here.
On the 1940-scenario I would guess the enemy will have a hard time resist pointing their missile launchers to the well visible transmission-towers on top of the mountains here. I live on the Fosen peninsula, north of Trondheim, and one single hit of the main TV/Radio tower will leave most of the FM or DAB radios in the nearby communties silent. That is what I meant when saying FM is not much better compared to other systems. You see we can't expect to be able to receive FM broadcast at 88.3 MHz from London. Here is where longwave or shortwave chime in. (You will find small 2m FM tranceivers in almost every norwegian home, so I'm not afraid of the local need for communication.)
OK, guess we are about to be leaving the original topic of this discussion, but I would find it very interesting to discuss how dependent we are on modern technology: FM, DAB, Internet, GPS... Maybe a new thread, anyone?
You will find small 2m FM tranceivers in almost every norwegian home, ...
Er, what? You do, and I do, but that's because we're hams. I have never seen them with other people, with the exception of a few used at sea, as portable licensed maritime VHFs.
As for FM towers, of course. That's why I'm focused on the ease of building transmitters. No tower needed. But receivers must exist, and they won't, if there's only DAB around.
I would find it very interesting to discuss how dependent we are on modern technology: FM, DAB, Internet, GPS... Maybe a new thread, anyone?
Yep, I'm all for it. A new thread on "cyber warfare".
As far as I can tell we cannot survive without the internet anymore. If the internet stopped tomorrow everything would stop. Nobody could do their work. There would soon be mass starvation as nobody has money to pay for food and the food suppliers cannot deliver anyway. Transport, manufacturing, fuel supplies, everything, would be disabled. Soon we have rioting in the streets and cannibalism!
So, if I was a bad guy wanting to bring down a state. Say the USA. Using cyber warfare, i.e. hacking, to bring down the services is plan A. This is already demonstrated to be effective. See Stuxnet.
Plan B would be to cut off communications. All we have to do is find out where the main internet arteries run in and out of the country and take them out. A few carefully placed explosives on sub-sea cables can do that. Does anyone know if such charges are not already in place waiting to be triggered?
Plan C would be to take out some well chosen server farms. Be they Google, NSA, various government things. Probably better to start with the banks. I'm sure by now the bad guys know exactly where they are.
Heck, even just taking out stackoverflow would cripple the software industry.
Conveniently we don't need to spend a lot of time building big missiles and developing nukes, etc. No, just a lot of cheap missiles with some conventional explosives would do it. See the DIY Cruise Missile Project: http://www.interestingprojects.com/cruisemissile/
Got you worried yet?
In this kind of scenario having an AM transceiver will not help you.
Without GPS? Are the Loran-C stations still operating? Who makes sextants and chronometers? Are they publicly traded? I'm buying stock!
Seriously, we're past the point of no return on GPS. And it's a fragile dependency that relies on sending more satellites into orbit as the ones already there end their lifespans.
That notwithstanding, the stars are always there for us to use in a pinch!
You will find small 2m FM tranceivers in almost every norwegian home, ...
Er, what? You do, and I do, but that's because we're hams. I have never seen them with other people, with the exception of a few used at sea, as portable licensed maritime VHFs.
As for FM towers, of course. That's why I'm focused on the ease of building transmitters. No tower needed. But receivers must exist, and they won't, if there's only DAB around.
All over the country, maybe not so much in the cities, there are a hunters. Hunting moose and deers. All of them use 2m handheld radios. And we also have the security radio network for agricultural or forest working people. This network also includes repeaters so we can do out of sight communication over longer distances. Take a look at the website sikringsradiolaget.no/ sorry its norwegian only. This is the local group whitch I'm a part of but there are groups spread all over the country. The security radios also includes the hunting radio channels. And the hams all over can communicate with all. There are radios all over even though they're not necessary made for 100MHz.
But I do understand your point, should not need to close down the FM network, at least not yet.
...I'm pretty annoyed by the Norwegian government's decision to switch off FM...
Didn't know any of this, so I read a bit about it just now. Other than offering more diverse content (which no one seems to be clamoring for) there seemed to be little explanation for the switch. Why do you think the particular person in question is so driven to have this happen?
I think this phenomenon is becoming common in low- to negative-growth economic environments. People are being forced to pay for something which isn't wanted and replaces what used to be free. it's all coercive. The only response I can figure is to just not lend yourself to any of it, if possible.
I think this phenomenon is becoming common in low- to negative-growth economic environments. People are being forced to pay for something which isn't wanted and replaces what used to be free. it's all coercive. The only response I can figure is to just not lend yourself to any of it, if possible.
We have a case of this happening in the Boston area with over the air TV. A cable company (that also owns a TV network) bought a low power TV station and switched the TV Network affiliate to the low power station. The net result is that about four million people will no longer get that TV Network over the air and cable will be required if they want that programming.
I think this phenomenon is becoming common in low- to negative-growth economic environments. People are being forced to pay for something which isn't wanted and replaces what used to be free. it's all coercive. The only response I can figure is to just not lend yourself to any of it, if possible.
We have a case of this happening in the Boston area with over the air TV. A cable company (that also owns a TV network) bought a low power TV station and switched the TV Network affiliate to the low power station. The net result is that about four million people will no longer get that TV Network over the air and cable will be required if they want that programming.
What a great opportunity for four million people to say goodbye to the media!
What a great opportunity for four million people to say goodbye to the media!
Hi Chip, good to hear from you.
This is the reason we should keep over the air broadcast, without a direct hit on the transmitter or you, that broadcast is still going to get through.
"The system was established to provide the President of the United States with an expeditious method of communicating with the American public in the event of war, threat of war, or grave national crisis." The Emergency Broadcast System replaced CONELRAD on August 5, 1963. In later years, it was expanded for use during peacetime emergencies at the state and local levels.
I think DAB is a great way to broadcast many radio stations within a narrow bandwith. I`ve got DAB radios in my cars for a while now, but some places in this area they won`t receive well. This been annoyed me for a while, but it turns out more and more that it`s my own fault. The antennas coming with the car radios, is simply too bad. It`s only a open dipole in a piece of tape that you can stick to the inside of the windshield. So did I. I have to get an outside antenna, grounded to the car chassis. Then I think this should be perfect.
DAB radios MAY use a little more power, due to the computer section of the radio. Some say that hearing protectors with DAB, use a lot more batteries than those with FM. Here I`m not talking of my own experience, just others. Anyway, at my factory I`ve solved this in a simple way; I`m using a DAB receiver and a simple homebrew FM-transmitter, both running at mains power. Audio from the DAB receiver is routed into the transmitter, and then I still can use my old FM hearing protectors to listen to the radio in local area. The FM hearing protectors runs at 2 AA batteries for a looong time, and I do not have to worry about this "issue"
For those who are interessted, this is the FM-transmitter: 213.114.137.49/tx/bug5.htm
I`m not using the stage one AF preamp, but feeds the audio signal directly into stage 2.
Works well for me. DAB or not, it`s all about customization to the new tchnical future. Have fun.
(DAB discussion may be a little of topic here, so I`m trying to pull it slightly back with the FM-transmitter...) :-)
Comments
-Phil
Eventually this kind of thing led to the fall of the USSR, the end of the Berlin Wall and so on.
Now, if only Americans could get signals from outside the USA...
-Phil
On a good night I can pick up a Toronto TV station.
There catering to a large audiance in Quebec, it has something to do with how they migrated south or a war.
I was there that week when they covered it in history class, not paying attention.
I went on fishing trips with my dad when I was I was a kid, to northern Canada, farther north you go the more French Canadian's you run into.
The more moose to, if your not careful.
The owner of one of the camps ran into a bull with his PU, a week before we got there. He was lucky. It totaled the PUs front end and cab.
I have an old car radio with tubes somewhere in my shed, though don't think I will put that in my car.
Yes you.
I didn't think there was any part of Norway that is as much as 90Km from west to east
But, yeah, I have driven out of Finland, though Sweden and into Norway to Narvik and around. Given that there is nothing on the Swedish side and a lot of high ground before hitting the sea at Narvik, I can imagine there is no Swedish broadcasts that make it there.
Similarly driving out of the top of Finland from Utsjoki into Norway and up to the sea.
DAB is closed, and complex. FM is open, and extremely un-complex. Many of today's DAB radios are dual DAB+FM, but there's not much point selling those after January, is there? So, very soon there will be only DAB in the shops. AM bands? I don't see them on those DAB radios. On the contrary, they will end up at the electric waste heap. There's one station at my local grocery store, every day I see radios and stuff there. People don't have the space. Only hoarders like myself (and you, probably, as you mentioned this) will try to hold on to some of the old stuff. But there will be pressure to dump the "useless garbage", and most people will. I will try to hold on to my TP-41 though.
FM is in some ways better than shortwave etc. in a crisis situtation. The short, almost-directly visible range can be good when you don't want to attract attention. And, as I said before, building an FM transmitter is so extremely simple that you can even make one by accident. Much easier than building a receiver, and that's why it would be better if everyone already have them. And they can be tiny, which is very good when you compare to the situation back in the bad days I mentioned.
To build an FM transmitter you only need something non-linear. One transistor is the only active component you need (you can even get by without one). Compare that with building a "transmitter" for DAB radio..
Here's one: http://www.translocal.jp/radio/micro/simplesttxstandard01.jpg
It's not too different from the one we used as students, connected to a reel-to-reel tape player so that we could listen to music everwhere in the valley when we were driving around.
I have several digital radios, all are mains but a couple of them also have a battery backup built in, said to last about six hours before the need of charging. As long as connected to mains or 12V the batteries are automaticly charged. But I have no idea on how many mAh those batteries can keep. Recently I've got a pair of ear muffs for my birthday, with DAB/FM. Instead of two replaceable AA's there is one lipoly inside. Need a USB to charge so that's a setback . I have not been able to test how long the batteries last, so far. Second time I should use them I found them with dead batteri, forgot to turn them off when I left them. So I admit, we have probably a batteri issue here.
On the 1940-scenario I would guess the enemy will have a hard time resist pointing their missile launchers to the well visible transmission-towers on top of the mountains here. I live on the Fosen peninsula, north of Trondheim, and one single hit of the main TV/Radio tower will leave most of the FM or DAB radios in the nearby communties silent. That is what I meant when saying FM is not much better compared to other systems. You see we can't expect to be able to receive FM broadcast at 88.3 MHz from London. Here is where longwave or shortwave chime in. (You will find small 2m FM tranceivers in almost every norwegian home, so I'm not afraid of the local need for communication.)
OK, guess we are about to be leaving the original topic of this discussion, but I would find it very interesting to discuss how dependent we are on modern technology: FM, DAB, Internet, GPS... Maybe a new thread, anyone?
-Phil
As for FM towers, of course. That's why I'm focused on the ease of building transmitters. No tower needed. But receivers must exist, and they won't, if there's only DAB around.
As far as I can tell we cannot survive without the internet anymore. If the internet stopped tomorrow everything would stop. Nobody could do their work. There would soon be mass starvation as nobody has money to pay for food and the food suppliers cannot deliver anyway. Transport, manufacturing, fuel supplies, everything, would be disabled. Soon we have rioting in the streets and cannibalism!
So, if I was a bad guy wanting to bring down a state. Say the USA. Using cyber warfare, i.e. hacking, to bring down the services is plan A. This is already demonstrated to be effective. See Stuxnet.
Plan B would be to cut off communications. All we have to do is find out where the main internet arteries run in and out of the country and take them out. A few carefully placed explosives on sub-sea cables can do that. Does anyone know if such charges are not already in place waiting to be triggered?
Plan C would be to take out some well chosen server farms. Be they Google, NSA, various government things. Probably better to start with the banks. I'm sure by now the bad guys know exactly where they are.
Heck, even just taking out stackoverflow would cripple the software industry.
Conveniently we don't need to spend a lot of time building big missiles and developing nukes, etc. No, just a lot of cheap missiles with some conventional explosives would do it. See the DIY Cruise Missile Project: http://www.interestingprojects.com/cruisemissile/
Got you worried yet?
In this kind of scenario having an AM transceiver will not help you.
Seriously, we're past the point of no return on GPS. And it's a fragile dependency that relies on sending more satellites into orbit as the ones already there end their lifespans.
That notwithstanding, the stars are always there for us to use in a pinch!
-Phil
Last time I heard of anyone using sextants it was the Apollo missions. A back up for their ground based navigation and on-board dead reckoning gyros.
Of course anyone attempting such a cyber take down will be coordinating their efforts using good old fashioned analog radio systems.
All over the country, maybe not so much in the cities, there are a hunters. Hunting moose and deers. All of them use 2m handheld radios. And we also have the security radio network for agricultural or forest working people. This network also includes repeaters so we can do out of sight communication over longer distances. Take a look at the website sikringsradiolaget.no/ sorry its norwegian only. This is the local group whitch I'm a part of but there are groups spread all over the country. The security radios also includes the hunting radio channels. And the hams all over can communicate with all. There are radios all over even though they're not necessary made for 100MHz.
But I do understand your point, should not need to close down the FM network, at least not yet.
In the U.S. we have the license-free Family Radio Service (FRS) which operates in the 460 Mhz region.
-Phil
Not unlisensed. Hunting radios are easy to get, need to owe a rifle I guess and pay a few NKr's for fee.
I think this phenomenon is becoming common in low- to negative-growth economic environments. People are being forced to pay for something which isn't wanted and replaces what used to be free. it's all coercive. The only response I can figure is to just not lend yourself to any of it, if possible.
In the evening you should be able to pick up WSM 650KHz. I pass that transmitter on the way to work. It is a clear channel station, IIRC.
I can hear it fine over here. Via the net!
All that country music might make me a bit murderous though.
We have a case of this happening in the Boston area with over the air TV. A cable company (that also owns a TV network) bought a low power TV station and switched the TV Network affiliate to the low power station. The net result is that about four million people will no longer get that TV Network over the air and cable will be required if they want that programming.
What a great opportunity for four million people to say goodbye to the media!
Hi Chip, good to hear from you.
This is the reason we should keep over the air broadcast, without a direct hit on the transmitter or you, that broadcast is still going to get through.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Broadcast_System
This is the current version:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System
DAB radios MAY use a little more power, due to the computer section of the radio. Some say that hearing protectors with DAB, use a lot more batteries than those with FM. Here I`m not talking of my own experience, just others. Anyway, at my factory I`ve solved this in a simple way; I`m using a DAB receiver and a simple homebrew FM-transmitter, both running at mains power. Audio from the DAB receiver is routed into the transmitter, and then I still can use my old FM hearing protectors to listen to the radio in local area. The FM hearing protectors runs at 2 AA batteries for a looong time, and I do not have to worry about this "issue"
For those who are interessted, this is the FM-transmitter: 213.114.137.49/tx/bug5.htm
I`m not using the stage one AF preamp, but feeds the audio signal directly into stage 2.
Works well for me. DAB or not, it`s all about customization to the new tchnical future. Have fun.
(DAB discussion may be a little of topic here, so I`m trying to pull it slightly back with the FM-transmitter...) :-)