Gather here to chat about your day & have fun with all your Imzy friends!
Does anyone on LGC know anything about short-wave radio?
Just curious :)

Gather here to chat about your day & have fun with all your Imzy friends!
Just curious :)
Gather here to chat about your day & have fun with all your Imzy friends!
"ham radio" - that's what I'm thinking of!
In undergrad, I studied the manual for the amateur radio licensing exam but never ended up taking it. Can't say I remember that much.
The main thing about ham radio is that it's much more decentralized than the internet. Pretty much anyone can set up a station and start broadcasting (assuming you've gotten a license). There are also quite a few public repeaters.
As a result, it's much more resilient than other communications infrastructure. It's often the first kind of communication to be reestablished following a natural disaster like an earthquake or hurricane.
Basically, when the apocalypse happens, there will still be hams sending out broadcasts from their reinforced concrete bunkers. Fallout was pretty accurate in that regard.
Zhemao, you always amaze me with your factual knowledge! :)
I'm a veritable font of mostly useless information.
@misbegotten font!
Anybody seen Frequency? A time-crossing ham radio allows a son to contact his father just before his father's accidental death. Great flick.
There were actually ham radio BBSes. It was a glorious time.
BBS?
Bulletin Board System
Basically you could dial into a server using a terminal program and enter chat rooms, post on message boards, play games, etc. Like a super-primitive form of the world-wide web.
It was originally done over phone-lines, but you could also do it over packet radio.
secretly plans to contact aliens
Shortwave radio was a big thing 30-40 years ago - way before the internet and all, it was a wonderful way to get good content from around the world.
The Wikipedia page is an interesting read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortwave_radio
Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station
Oh yeah, wikipedia... lol I guess I could have tried that.
I like learning from people too!