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Tom Patterson
Trad climber
Seattle
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Aug 21, 2018 - 08:37am PT
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In English or German? 😉 (curious what defines a ‘word’)
In Welsh. The words are longer, vowels are optional, and no one knows if you're making a mistake, or not.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 21, 2018 - 08:39am PT
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HaHaHa! Even better than German!
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Aug 21, 2018 - 10:57am PT
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The closest I came was a project to build a passive radio with an antenna wire stretched between buildings, a "cat whisker" crystal as a primitive diode rectifier, and a bunch of wires wrapped in shellac around a toilet paper tube, sanded down to expose the wires on one side, with a little metal pivot arm to move along the coils and tap at different spots to change the inductance and shift the frequencies dialed in, and a little ear-bud speaker. I picked up some stations, can't remember if it was AM or short-wave, and it was a passing fancy in high school.
I harbor a mild amount of shame for not having learned morse code, and tried a bit to get my kids into it.
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WBraun
climber
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Aug 21, 2018 - 12:10pm PT
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DMT -- "I built my own 750w tube-driven citizens band amp at 15."
No sh!t? LOL
Way over the legal power output for 5 watts on CB band LOL ......
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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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Aug 21, 2018 - 02:07pm PT
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Hey Dingus,
Great stories.
Back in the 70's I worked in marine electronics in San Diego. Installed many SSB radios on sailboats heading to the South Pacific...including copper foil for a ground plane and insulated backstay...and that was before auto-tuning couplers...you had to step the PA output over the coupler coils with needle nose...many RF burns out of that process.
Although never a ham (the cobblers son has no shoes syndrome), I often recomended they get a ham radio instead of a commercial SSB. The reason was that nobody really was listening to SSB, but there was always a ham operator listening. I remember many stories of some ham, in North Dakota or Australia, coordinating over the phone a CG rescue with a boat in trouble.
I used to cut dipole antennas for SSB to be used in remote Alaska villages before the first comm satellites went up around 1980 or so. That's how the villages communicated in those days. Don't remember the formula for the antenna length off top of my head.
It was in the 5 MHZ and 3 MHZ bands and was called Alaska Public Fixed.
Back in the 90's I was on an island in the Gulf of Alaska installing a cross band repeater that was linked back to Homer by multi-pathing through the Kenai Mts. We had a transmitter audio problem and fortunately the guy I was with was a ham operator. He keyed the mike in Morse code, knowing the guy on the other end was a ham also. The guy in Anchorage came back saying: "read you loud and clear on your audio problem". Didn't fix the problem, but the unique communication did speed up the process.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 21, 2018 - 02:22pm PT
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Hams are most of the evidence in the Amelia Earhart story that she/they survived the crash landing and were able to transmit for days. The goofiest part is that neither her or her supposed radio/navigator knew Morse which would have enabled them to broadcast longer and farther when their batts ran low.
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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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Aug 21, 2018 - 02:47pm PT
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since there is a trail running/ultra marathon thread currently on the front page, here's a twofer
from the ac100.com site:
A majority of the race is conducted in the back country, far away from any Internet, WiFi, or cellular coverage. When it comes to providing voice or data communication in remote locations, amateur radio operators are a great resource for making this happen. Amateur radio operators can be found supporting many ultra marathons across the country and around the world.
Runner data is collected in different ways at different checkpoints. No matter how it's collected, each checkpoint funnels that data to their respective amateur radio communications team (hams). Using Windows software, developed specifically by an amateur radio operator for the AC100, hams enter this data into a laptop computer. The data is transmitted by digital packet radio and is relayed through one or more digital data relays (repeaters) that are pre-deployed in the Angeles National Forest several days before the race. The data flows to a central database that is located outside and away from the mountains. This database uses another Windows program, also developed specifically for the AC100, to manage simultaneous data flow from all checkpoints. This software identifies inconsistencies and looks for problems so that it can notify the database operator long before real trouble might occur (such as a lost runner).
The checkpoint software is known as RunnerTrack. When a checkpoint enters departure information for a runner, that information is sent to the database which, in turn, automatically updates the next checkpoints display with that "inbound" information so they know a runner is coming and a timer continually shows the elapsed time for that runner. If the time exceeds certain pre-defined limits, alarms are sounded to notify the operator that the runner may be running a bit slow, or may even be overdue. This is the primary purpose of the software - runner safety and to automatically track runners and keep the operator notified of possible problems.
The database, and the checkpoint software, perform many other functions such as data entry validity checks, a messaging system for checkpoint-to-checkpoint (or network-wide) chatting, multiple queries, the ability for any checkpoint to monitor traffic at any other checkpoint(s), and many other features. The database also updates all the live runner data on this website. It does so every 5 to 10 minutes (depending on network bandwidth) to keep YOU as informed as much as we possibly can.
as a member of a support crew for our runner in the '93 angeles crest 100, you can bet we appreciated the hams who had the data situation under control. the info must flow!
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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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Aug 21, 2018 - 04:23pm PT
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thebravecowboy posted
you guys ever get into handheld HAM rigs for backcountry coms/SAR stuff?
Cowboy,
I worked on some backcountry comms for the Alaska Mountain Rescue. Their setup is using commercial UHF HH radios and repeaters.
We would build the repeaters using 2 each HH radios and a device (transpeater) for interfacing the transmitter of one with the receiver of the other, also wiring in the PTT function and the squelch function. We would put these into a pelican case and power with lantern batteries. Lightweight and functional, they could be plopped down on any strategic hill top. We'd use telescoping fibreglass poles to extend antenna height if needed.
Dingus,
Your funny stories make me think that you have "The Knack".
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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Aug 21, 2018 - 05:08pm PT
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I did read a bit about it when investigating an idea from an acquaintance. He wanted to install networking over powerline equipment in some spots with poor cell coverage. My reading is that that equipment uses the same frequencies as Ham/shortwave and the interference could ruin that unique band. It turns powerlines into transmitters. aka Powerline Telecomms - PLT, Broadband over PL - BPL, PL networking - PLN
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BBA
Social climber
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Aug 21, 2018 - 05:25pm PT
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Mom and Dad were extra-class Hams in the 20's which meant they could transmit and receive 30 words per minute in Morse. On dates they would tap messages on their ears to each other to communicate unobserved. They could communicate around the globe if the skip was right using a 5 watt rig built at home. With voice becoming possible with higher power, code has gone away pretty much. Like pitons.
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Sula
Trad climber
Pennsylvania
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Aug 22, 2018 - 08:16am PT
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^ This is what tourons say when they overhear climbers' conversations.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Aug 22, 2018 - 08:31am PT
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Fond memories of Hamming it in the past!
Radio "Shack" on board the boat.
Daughter Kali learning the basics or looking for dad's carte de credit to order her first rig?
Kali, 15 years later, mid Pacific on route to Tahiti setting up a connection for downloading weather data.
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Moof
Big Wall climber
Orygun
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Aug 22, 2018 - 01:51pm PT
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this pursuit would be far more interesting were it at all understandable... Easy, it is civil war re-enactment with antennas and suspenders instead of muskets and wool pants. You cannot explain the extremely slow death of Morse code in any other way.
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