Who is Online

We have 221 guests and no members online

Radios

  

From an early age I built crystal sets then repaired five valve radios. While still in primary school I had mastered the secrets and practicalities of the superheterodyne.  

And by early high school I had an unlicensed ham radio; an old No19 tank transceiver, surplus from the War, that I modified extensively; removing the very high frequency section and adding a power supply; in an attempt to communicate with radio amateurs overseas.

Although I could easily communicate with the school cadet radios and our own walkie-talkie, making myself heard overseas proved elusive; despite increasingly long and elaborate aerials.

recole2

The basic short wave transmitter was based around one of the famous 807 transmitter valves that delivered about 8 watts. 

When I tried amplifying my signal to around 50 watts (four 807s in push-pull); enough power to light a florescent tube held near the aerial, I broke into the local TV signal in the surrounding area; to the consternation of the neighbours.

I promptly shut everything down; but lived in fear of the PMG inspectors for about a month.  The Postmaster General's Department was at that time responsible for allocating, regulating and policing the radio spectrum.  Hunting down illegal users,apocryphally using direction finding vans, was a specialty; probably a remnant of wartime spy-catching.   

There was as yet no Citizens Band (CB radio) allocated and today's mobile phone bands were in the even more distant future.

I'm not sure how many people were affected. TV sets, black and white of course, were expensive luxury items and it was said, perhaps maliciously, that certain people bought a roof aerial, the outward appearance of TV possession,  before actually possessing a set.

 

 

No comments

Travel

Europe 2022 - Part 1

 

 

In July and August 2022 Wendy and I travelled to Europe and to the United Kingdom (no longer in Europe - at least politically).

This, our first European trip since the Covid-19 pandemic, began in Berlin to visit my daughter Emily, her Partner Guido, and their children, Leander and Tilda, our grandchildren there.

Part 1 of this report touches on places in Germany then on a Baltic Cruise, landing in: Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Sweden and the Netherlands. Part 2 takes place in northern France; and Part 3, to come later, in England and Scotland.

Read more: Europe 2022 - Part 1

Fiction, Recollections & News

The Meaning of Death

 

 

 

 

 

 

'I was recently restored to life after being dead for several hours' 

The truth of this statement depends on the changing and surprisingly imprecise meaning of the word: 'dead'. 

Until the middle of last century a medical person may well have declared me dead.  I was definitely dead by the rules of the day.  I lacked most of the essential 'vital signs' of a living person and the technology that sustained me in their absence was not yet perfected. 

I was no longer breathing; I had no heartbeat; I was limp and unconscious; and I failed to respond to stimuli, like being cut open (as in a post mortem examination) and having my heart sliced into.  Until the middle of the 20th century the next course would have been to call an undertaker; say some comforting words then dispose of my corpse: perhaps at sea if I was travelling (that might be nice); or it in a box in the ground; or by feeding my low-ash coffin into a furnace then collect the dust to deposit or scatter somewhere.

But today we set little store by a pulse or breathing as arbiters of life.  No more listening for a heartbeat or holding a feather to the nose. Now we need to know about the state of the brain and central nervous system.  According to the BMA: '{death} is generally taken to mean the irreversible loss of capacity for consciousness combined with the irreversible loss of capacity to breathe'.  In other words, returning from death depends on the potential of our brain and central nervous system to recover from whatever trauma or disease assails us.

Read more: The Meaning of Death

Opinions and Philosophy

In Defence of Secrecy

 

 

Julian Assange is in the news again. 

I have commented on his theories and his worries before.

I know no more than you do about his worries; except to say that in his shoes I would be worried too.  

But I take issue with his unqualified crusade to reveal the World’s secrets.  I disagree that secrets are always a bad thing.

Read more: In Defence of Secrecy

Terms of Use

Terms of Use                                                                    Copyright