This Week:
*Propagation by VE3OIJ
*Safety by VE3EJJ
It felt like an eternity since our last radio class – what a nice return to my geek sense of normalcy. It was really great to see everyone come out for the class too – I was worried that we would have lost another along the way.
So the first topic of the night was propagation. Kind of an important topic really, and the material was very nicely covered by Darin (VE3OIJ). I especially appreciate the humor that Darin imparts into his lectures, and his explanations of the material are very concise. Not a heck of a lot of new information for me to pick up on – but that is my own fault, having read so much on the topic already. What was really neat to see was some real-world data on the topic of skip-zone. Darin tracks all of his QSOs and maps them using Google Earth. What he was able to very clearly demonstrate was the “dead-zone” which tends to occur in the skip-zone. Very nice touch!
The second topic of the week was that of electrical and radio safety. Naturally, Ernie (VE3EJJ) put a lot of thought into this topic, and did a superb job of explaining the relevant physiological considerations in general radio safety. I can be a bit of a safety snob when it comes to dangerous activities, so I can appreciate the material presented. I hope everyone was able to take away the important messages from the lecture – aside from the 28 V/m electric field, and 0.0073 A/m values for the exam.