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 Previous: The K7RA Solar Update |  Next: Virginia Utility Company Helps Ham with Noise Problem |
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
August 8, 2003
This week, synchronize your watches and check out a new digital mode for AM broadcasting.
I recently received two excellent suggestions for Surfin' that I am passing on to you this week. The first came from Matt Cline, KB8WFH, who suggested I check out "The World Time Server" Web site. The site provides UTC and local time for any location in the world. It also has free Windows-only software, the Atomic Clock Sync utility, which can help you keep your computer up-to-date with the exact current time. The program references an atomic clock server to get the current time and update your PC's information. It can also be set to automatically check the time once a day to keep your PC's time accurate forever.
Don Nelsch, K8EIW, suggested the "Digital Radio Mondiale" (DRM) Web site, which has some interesting information on a new digital AM broadcast service being developed in Europe. The site includes audio files so that you can compare current AM and digital AM audio.
 Digital Radio Mondiale Web site declares the benefits of a new digital mode for AM broadcasting. |
The Web site claims that DRM is the world's only non-proprietary, digital system for shortwave, medium wave and long wave with the ability to use existing broadcast frequencies and bandwidth across the globe. With near-FM quality sound that offers a dramatic improvement over analog AM, DRM predicts that it will revitalize the AM broadcasting bands below 30 MHz in markets worldwide.
Very interesting! Can this non-proprietary, digital system be used in voice applications on the Amateur Radio HF bands? [As long as the specification is publicly published and bandwidth/baud rate requirements are met, it should be usable as an amateur digital mode--Ed.]
I also received some interesting feedback regarding the last week's installment of this column, which discussed Amateur Radio in comic books. Please keep your cards and letters and e-mails coming and I will discuss everything you all wrote in an upcoming installment of Surfin'.
Until next time, keep on surfin'.
Editor's note:
Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, resides in downtown Wolcott, Connecticut, and has been a QST writer for over 25 years. Since getting
his ticket in 1969, Stan has sampled nearly every entrée in the Amateur Radio
menu (including a stint as Connecticut Section Manager), but he keeps coming
back to his favorite preoccupations: VHF and packet radio. As a result, he runs
a 2-meter APRS digipeater and weather station (WA1LOU-15) from his mountaintop
location in central Connecticut. Stan, a long time advocate of using computers
with Amateur Radio, wrote programs to dupe contests and calculate antenna
bearings way back in 1978. Today, he is on the board of directors of Tucson
Amateur Packet Radio (TAPR) and uses his Mac to surf the Internet searching for
that perfect ham radio Web page. To contact Stan, send e-mail to wa1lou@arrl.net.
| Previous: The K7RA Solar Update | Next: Virginia Utility Company Helps Ham with Noise Problem |
