ARLA/CLUSTER: O mundo invisível do radioamador

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

The unseen world of ham radio

The Dispatch reports on a vast, unseen world: Amateur radio operators
using old and new technology to communicate globally

Allen McBroom AG5ND stands in the backyard outside his home west of
Starkville pointing up toward the sky.

"You see that?" he asks.

Barely perceptible against the dusk-darkened tree line stretches a
102-foot long, 14-gauge wire, narrower than a pencil.

"Over the past two weeks," McBroom continues, "I've talked to people
from as far away as Japan and South Africa through that antenna."

This was part of what McBroom called "the 10-cent tour of a 25-cent
radio station," a tour that ended in an office in the back of his
house where considerably more than a quarter's worth of amateur radio
equipment sat ready to use.

>From McBroom's transceiver radio hub, he can conceivably talk to
someone at the United Nations headquarters, the Vatican, the
International Space Station or any of the thousands of other amateur
radios around the world. All it takes is looking up what frequency
they're broadcasting from, turning a few knobs and hoping someone
there responds.

"It's a vast world that goes on unseen by the average person," said
McBroom, who is one of about 20 members of the Magnolia Amateur Radio
Club in Starkville. "... But any little interest you may have,
somebody's (talking about it) on here."

Read the full story at
http://www.cdispatch.com/lifestyles/article.asp?aid=72430