I remember getting Milaukee channels at home too. The weather just has to be right. When I was a kid, we used to go to my uncles cabin and we'd use CB to make contacts. At night you can get them pretty far away. CB is different from Ham Radio, it doesn't require a license (it's "citizens band"). It lets you transmit and recieve but you cannot hack with the frequencies, etc. Ham Radio gives you bandwidth that dwarfs CB, and lets you do just about anything with it (even packet radio, basically internet over radio signals), but then you need a license to use it.
As for DX, that's one of the big things in ham radio, DXing. Basically making contacts from as far away as possible. There are various ways to do this, through satelites, or bouncing signals off the atmosphere, or even bouncing signals off the moon. I remember listening to AM at night sometimes and picking up stations from Kentucky and stuff. I always thought that was cool. When you mentioned your shortwave radio a while back it made me think of those times again as a kid, which like I said is what got me more interested in this whole thing.
Oh, and the other cool thing, our Betamax VCR had separate channel tuners, where you could tune inbetween channels. I've never seen something like that before, but I always used to futz with it as a kid. That's how I learned all the FM broadcast stations are stuffed inbetween channels 6 and 7 on the TV. So I suppose like you, I've always had a general curiosity about it all. And while I like digital for certain things, I agree there are times when analog is just way cooler.
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Date: 2006-12-12 06:14 pm (UTC)As for DX, that's one of the big things in ham radio, DXing. Basically making contacts from as far away as possible. There are various ways to do this, through satelites, or bouncing signals off the atmosphere, or even bouncing signals off the moon. I remember listening to AM at night sometimes and picking up stations from Kentucky and stuff. I always thought that was cool. When you mentioned your shortwave radio a while back it made me think of those times again as a kid, which like I said is what got me more interested in this whole thing.
Oh, and the other cool thing, our Betamax VCR had separate channel tuners, where you could tune inbetween channels. I've never seen something like that before, but I always used to futz with it as a kid. That's how I learned all the FM broadcast stations are stuffed inbetween channels 6 and 7 on the TV. So I suppose like you, I've always had a general curiosity about it all. And while I like digital for certain things, I agree there are times when analog is just way cooler.