On the vast expanses of radio: World Radio Day


    Tomorrow will be a “holiday of teddy bears and sweets”, and today is one of the real “men's” holidays - World Radio Day. They started celebrating it quite recently, in 2011, and chose for this on February 13, because on this day in 1946, UN Radio was created. And therefore, today we want to recall an interesting technical hobby - amateur radio communication.


    The overwhelming majority of people associate the word “radio” with a cool speaker from the speakers, news, annoying ads and leading chatter. And far fewer people realize the diversity of radio communications and its fundamental role in the development of our civilization. Radio was invented in the 19th century, and different countries put forward their representatives to the role of pioneer. It seems that the idea of ​​the invention right in the air, once in the annals of the history of such a crowd. Since the advent of radio, it has served both in the military and for peaceful purposes. It helped to take and save lives, was a tool to influence the minds and the economy, served as a source of inspiration and relaxation, was a window to the world and the only source of news. It makes no sense to list where radio is used today - it is ANYWHERE. It is impossible to calculate how many radios and radio stations in the world today use radio waves for voice communications and other types of data transmission, not to mention the hordes of hordes of mobile phones, Wi-Fi routers, Bluetooth headsets, and now the legion called “Internet of things".


    Every moment humanity emits an astronomical amount of radio waves in all imaginable ranges. Even if you reject everything mundane and retire to a hermitage somewhere in the middle of the Putoran Plateau or the Atacama Desert, you will be surrounded and permeated by radio waves from all over the world. And not only long waves used, for example, in systems of over-the-horizon radio detection and broadcasting over distances up to several thousand kilometers. Due to the peculiarities of the propagation of waves of different lengths in the atmosphere, even in the most deaf bearish corners of the planet, with lucky circumstances, you can establish direct radio communication with the opposite point of the Earth even on a weak HF radio station with a watt power of five (as suggested by experienced amateurs) ).


    By the way, today few people know that to this day there is an amateur radio communication movement in the world. And this is not at all an anarchic occupation: there is an International Amateur Radio Union, which develops general recommendations and regulations, which are already adjusted depending on the realities in a particular country. Each radio amateur must first pass the exam, after which he is assigned a unique alphanumeric call sign. At the same time, amateur radio communication is allowed in strictly defined frequency ranges .


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    Surely among Habr's readers there are hams. And they will say that today is Radio Day, and April 18th is Radio Amateur Day. But, firstly, the April holiday is still unofficial, and secondly - the radio and amateur radio operators are so interconnected with each other that it’s just unfair to share them :)


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    It is believed that the first experiments were conducted by radio amateurs at the turn of the XIX and XX centuries. For more than a century, enthusiasts around the world have been creating their own radio stations and antennas — or buying ready-made ones — and have been trying to establish sessions of communication with other radio amateurs. What are they talking about? Yes, about anything! By the way, one of my friends established radio communication with an amateur from a distant country on another continent, using ... the moon. He sent a radio beam to our natural satellite with the help of a special antenna, which was reflected, and after a while came to Earth, where the interlocutor received it. Of course, in this way they communicated not by voice, but by transmitting to each other code pulse sequences denoting certain words and even phrases. They say radio amateurs manage to use the northern lights and even the tails of comets to reflect.


    And after the end of the communication session, it is customary to exchange by mail QSL-cards confirming the fact of the session; on these cards the call signs of both sides, time and frequency are indicated. Many even collect such cards.



    Do not think that the amateur radio community is two and a half bearded freaks in glasses with 10 diopters. As of 2009, there were about 3 million official call signs in the world . And how many do not bother to get a call sign ... By the way, many famous people were fond of radio amateur communication.


    In our country, the first radio amateur with the official call sign R1FL went on the air in 1925. In general, the amateur radio movement once enjoyed good support from the state: for example, in the USSR in the 1970s and 80s several satellite repeaters were launched into space for the needs of amateur radio communications .


    However, modern radio fans are also able to communicate via repeater satellites . Even the American and Russian segments of the ISS have their own separate call signs for amateur radio.


    Happy Radio, broadcast to you without interference!


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