Foundations of Amateur Radio

This is episode 236 or so of my weekly contribution to this hobby. As you may have heard me say over the past few weeks, this is now available as a podcast which you can subscribe to. It's available at http://podcasts.itmaze.com.au and you can also search for my callsign, VK6FLAB on iTunes and find it there.

I'm mentioning this because each podcast also contains a transcript, which you can use to search the content. I've been doing this podcast since May 2011 and in that time I've covered many topics.

I get wonderful feedback from you about each segment, thank you, and I also get requests for content. Often new listeners ask me if I could talk about XYZ topic, and I'm finding more and more that in fact I have talked about such a topic.

That's not to say that I won't revisit a topic if I have information to add. For example, I was in the process of researching baluns, got distracted by word-use and will revisit. As I'm doing the research I'm realising that the rabbit hole goes deep on that particular topic, so I'm not yet at a point where I can say much about it other than to think of a balun as a maths tool for feed-point impedance, that is to say, a 6 to 1 balun will transform a 300 Ohm feed-point to a 50 Ohm one, similarly a 9 to 1 will do the same for a 450 Ohm feed-point. All fine and dandy, but why would you need a 1 to 1 balun. Or what's the difference between a voltage balun and a current balun, not to mention the bandwidth, the different material types, and on it goes.

So, I'm not yet at the point where I can distil the information to a three minute segment, but I will.

I've also discussed cows and lightning in the past. If you remember, if a cow is facing the impact point of lightning, they can die from the current that flows along their body from their front legs to their rear legs. Which is why you want a single point earth in your station.

I hope that you'll take the opportunity to have a look-see across the previous editions of this segment and find something to your liking.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB.

This and previous editions can be found online at http://podcasts.itmaze.com.au/ and are also available for download from iTunes and other podcast directories. Just search for my callsign.