Scanner School - Everything you wanted to know about the Scanner Radio Hobby

I recently took a family cruise. It was a great trip and I even got some scanning in.

Today, I have 5 tips to help you enjoy scanning on your first (or next) cruise.

All session notes with links to the items we talked about can be found on our website at www.scannerschool.com/session47

Please support the Scanner School podcast. Visit www.scannerschool.com/support to see how you can help us. Some of the ways you can support us won't cost you any additional money!

A lot of listeners have been submitting their questions via e-mail, and today I am answering some of them.

If you have a question about scanning, please visit www.scannerschool.com/ask and leave us a message via SpeakPipe or the local number on our website. We'll play your message on next month's #AskScannerSchool

If you are a little shy, you can always use the contact form on www.scannerschool.com/ask or use #askscannerschool on Twitter

All session notes can be found on our website at www.scannerschool.com/session46

Please support the Scanner School podcast. Visit www.scannerschool.com/support to see how you can help us. Some of the ways you can support us won't cost you any additional money!

Encryption - it is the one word that will make any scanner radio listener cringe.

Today, we take a brief look at the history of encryption, and also what types of encryption are used today.

I also spend a few minutes talking about my thoughts on encryption. What do you think?

All session notes with links to the items we talked about can be found on our website at www.scannerschool.com/session45

Please support the Scanner School podcast. Visit www.scannerschool.com/support to see how you can help us. Some of the ways you can support us won't cost you any additional money!

NXDN stands for Next Generation Digital Narrowband

For an introduction to NXDN, please see last week's podcast at www.scannerschool.com/session43

NXDN Trunking comes in two classes: NXDN-C and NXDN-D

NXDN-C is like most trunking systems. There is a control channel and a set of voice channels.

NXDN-D is similar to LTR Trunking, where you have no dedicated control channel. Your users are listening to a home channel and any channel can be used as a voice channel

Please be sure to view the session notes for all the sources on both last week's and this week's podcast

All session notes with links to the items we talked about can be found on our website at www.scannerschool.com/session44

Please support the Scanner School podcast. Visit www.scannerschool.com/support to see how you can help us. Some of the ways you can support us won't cost you any additional money!

NXDN stands for Next Generation Digital Narrowband

NXDN was created in 2003 with a joint venture of Kenwood and Icom. The protocol was announced at IWCE in 2005 and the first units arrived in 2006. It wasn't until 2017 that NXDN was published by the ITU-R as an international digital land mobile system.

NXDN was created to satisfy the 2005 FCC Narrowbanding mandate. Originally created for business users, NXDN is used by public safety and even the military.

Overseeing NXDN development and standards is the NXDN Forum. A 30 member community including JVC Kenwood, Icom, Anritsu, The Boeing Company, and Zetron.

NXDN Comes in 3 flavors

• NXDN Standard (As defined by the CAI)
• Kenwood's NEXEDGE
• Icom's IDAS

NXDN operates using FDMA over 12.5kHz or 6.25kHz wide bandwidth.

All session notes with links to the items we talked about can be found on our website at www.scannerschool.com/session43

Please support the Scanner School podcast. Visit www.scannerschool.com/support to see how you can help us. Some of the ways you can support us won't cost you any additional money!

Electrical and RF Grounding - a simple solution for a common problem.

RF Grounding is more important in a transmitting environment than a receiving environment, but scanner listeners can still benefit from grounding their station.

By Grounding your receive station, you may find that you've increased your scanner's sensitivity and eliminated some RF noise.

In this session we discuss:

• RF Ground Loops
• Grounding best practices
• Single Point Ground (SPG)
• The differences between
  • Copper Wire
  • Flat copper braid
  • Flat copper strapping
• The Skin Effect

All session notes with links to the items we talked about can be found on our website at www.scannerschool.com/session42

Please support the Scanner School podcast. Visit www.scannerschool.com/support to see how you can help us. Some of the ways you can support us won't cost you any additional money!

A lot of listeners have been submitting their questions via e-mail, and today I am answering some of them.

If you have a question about scanning, please visit www.scannerschool.com/ask and leave us a message via SpeakPipe or the local number on our website. We'll play your message on next month's #AskScannerSchool

If you are a little shy, you can always use the contact form on www.scannerschool.com/ask or use #askscannerschool on Twitter

All session notes can be found on our website at www.scannerschool.com/session41

Please support the Scanner School podcast. Visit www.scannerschool.com/support to see how you can help us. Some of the ways you can support us won't cost you any additional money!

Batteries - something that are in practically every device we touch.

There are many types of batteries out there. I'm not talking about battery sized, but the chemical composition that makes up a battery. From one time use to rechargeable - there is a correct type for every application

In this session, we discuss:

• Alkaline Batteries
• NiCd Batteries
• NiMH Batteries
• Li-Ion Batteries
• Battery Voltages
• Rating in ampere-hours

All session notes can be found on our website at www.scannerschool.com/session40

Please support the Scanner School podcast. Visit www.scannerschool.com/support to see how you can help us. Some of the ways you can support us won't cost you any additional money!

There are a few ways that you can bring emergency power into your scanner radio setup. But there aren't many ways that can be ready to go in the blink of an eye.

Generators are good, but you wouldn't want to operate one in the middle of a storm. Most generator users don't have them ready to go immediately.

Computer UPS devices could make a good battery standby unit, but you are effectively taking a 12VDC source (batteries), using an inverter to create a dirty AC power source, and then using your scanner's power transformer or your power supply to go back to 12VDC.

You could just wire in a battery with your power supply, but that can be dangerous if you don't know what you are doing.

Or you can pickup the device we talk about in this podcast. A safe, simple, and easy way to add a battery for emergency power in your station.

In this session, we discuss:

• A few ways to add emergency power to your station
• How to size a battery for your station
• What Anderson Power Poles are and why I love them
• How to safely connect a standby battery to your station

All session notes can be found on our website at www.scannerschool.com/session39

Please support the Scanner School podcast. Visit www.scannerschool.com/support to see how you can help us. Some of the ways you can support us won't cost you any additional money!

Time is running out.....

The 2019 annual budget for NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) decreased by $49 Million USD from the 2018 budget.

Due to the decrease in budget, the NIST has decided to pull funding for WWV, WWVB, and WWVH. This move will save NIST $6.3 Million USD.

WWV is one of the oldest radio stations in continuous use. They went on the air in 1920 from Washington DC, broadcasting the time 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

WWV, WWVH, and WWVB

• Broadcast the official US Time
• Broadcast Atlantic and Pacific Maritime Conditions
• Broadcast GPS Status Updates
• Broadcast geophysical alerts from NOAA

WWV, WWVH, and WWVB

• Are used by many radio operators to check band conditions
• Used by many to calibrate their receivers to make sure they are on frequency
• Used by mariners for storm updates
• Used by anyone who has a device that sets the time automatically from the "atomic clock"

Listening to WWV, WWVH, and WWVB:

• Operate on 2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz
• Transmit 10kW on 5, 10, 15 MHz
• Transmit 2.5kW on 2.5 and 20 MHz
• WWV and WWVB operate from Ft Collins, CO
• WWVH operates from Kauai, Hawaii
• You may also dial in over the phone
• WWV receives 1M Calls per year
• WWVH receives 50k calls per year

How can we save WWV, WWVH, and WWVB

• Sign this petition online (www.scannerschool.com/savewwv)
  • 100,000 electronic signatures are need
  • As of this podcast date, only 16k are signed
  • We need 83k more for the White House to respond
• Call your state congressperson
• Call your local government
• Call your state's governor's office

All session notes and additional links can be found on our website at www.scannerschool.com/session38

Please support the Scanner School podcast. Visit www.scannerschool.com/support to see how you can help us. Some of the ways you can support us won't cost you any additional money!