Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The Magic Of Radio....

How many times, as kids (even adults?), do we remember those magic moments radio has given us?  Not just the music, but those "A Ha!" moments that truly mystify us, that capture us, that spur us on to other better things?  How many careers have been launched through a love affair with radio and electronics?

As a kid, growing up in Semmes, AL (west of Mobile about 20 miles), I remember having a little pocket radio.  We lived just up the road from an airport Non-Directional Beacon (NDB) and just a short way from the Bates Airport west of Mobile.  I remember tuning around on the FM band and hearing some chatter of air traffic controllers on the top end of the band!  This fascinated me and is one of my earliest happy radio memories....

Needless to say, I chased stations on shortwave: utility stations, pirate radio broadcasters, Ham radio operators (eventually became one), dabbled heavily in CB...I scanned and monitored for the odd stuff!  Needless to say, I've always come back to my first love, AM radio....

I was reading an article by fellow Ham radio operator Dan Metzger (K8JWR), where his granddaughter wanted to know more about radio.  He helped her make the buzzer circuits, the motor systems, etc. and they eventually built a crystal radio, which needs NO batteries to operate.  When they connected the antenna wire to one end of the coil and a ground to the other end, it started working!  She asked her granddad about this and, although he knew that signals just "came out of the air", he admitted not knowing exactly how...and her response was, "That must be the part that's magic!"

Over the years, due to my various hobby forays, I've studied electronics (never completed that NRI study course, due to my lack of patience), built things, experimented and so forth, yet, it never ceases to amaze me- that "magic" that radio has about it!  Yes, there IS an explaination for those oscillator circuits, the mixer circuits, the tanks, filters, every discrete part, but...in my heart of hearts, one cannot describe the "magic"...you have to experience it in that "A Ha!" moment....

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

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