How to build a radio in a POW camp

By Cory Doctorow in Boing Boing:

This first-hand account of the construction of a clandestine shortwave radio by British POWs in a Japanese camp in Singapore really reminds me of James Clavell's magnificent novel King Rat, my all-time favorite war-novel, which revolves grippingly around the construction, discovery and consequences of a hidden shortwave in the Changi camp (both Clavell and Ronald "St Trinian's" Searle were interned in this camp).

BJ: Can I just ask you - the components for the low voltage battery cells that you produced, where did you get all the components from?

RGW: Well, zinc wasn't hard, there was some sheet zinc lying on the aerodrome and we pinched quite a bit of that because that would be eaten away during the use of the cells for the low voltage. I don't know what would have happened if that ran out. I think someone produced two lantern cells which did for a while, but it was mainly on this home-made cell system, which wasn't efficient but nowhere near as inefficient as the rectifier was. We must have been consuming... Ah Ping said he had to turn up a lot of power to keep the lights what they wanted. We were dispersing such an amount of power in this four test tube rectifier for the high tension.

A variable capacitor was another component we had to bring in. We couldn't make a variable capacitor, it was impossible. We had to take two plates off the one we had to get a high enough frequency. Yes, I can't remember why we didn't go up a bit in inductance; it was largely a trial and error business really. Except that in a regenerative receiver you had some idea when you were near a station because the receiver was so sensitive as all regenerative receivers are.

It had a piece of meat skewer type wood which I had a hole drilled in by a pen-knife, and we glued this in with some of our glue or something, into the capacitor shaft so that we could tune it by holding a little stick across it, fixing it at about six inches because one couldn't get one's hands any closer to the set because it was in a state of very near oscillation where the maximum sensitivity is, just before it bursts into oscillation. With a fairly clear HF band, it wasn't long before we knew roughly, by putting a couple of marks on the stick, where it was. We knew that the Voice of America was due for a transmission and I don't think we ever knew the frequencies because the BBC didn't announce frequencies, they just came on the air and broadcast.

Construction of Radio Equipment in a Japanese POW Camp (via Make).

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Mitt Romney and Ham radio

From Southgate Amateur Radio Club:

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney says that he never intended to demean Amateur radio in an exchange with a television reporter two years ago. This, as the debate over his comments flares anew on the ham bands and on hobby radio blogging websites nationwide....during a televised town meeting that aired on November 16 of 2005 on segment 2 of WCVB television's "When Disaster Strikes." The program featured public safety and volunteer organization officials from across Massachusetts.

Moderator Natalie Jacobson had asked Governor Romney questions about communications interoperability, and communication without commercial power. During the exchange Jacobson commented '...so you don't see yourself getting down to ham radio operators?...' The then governor replied: "No, we don't need to deal with ham radio operators. We have power systems that allow us to speak with one another and to manage our response."

Hams across Massachusetts and eventually across the nation only seemed to hear the words "we don't need to deal with ham radio operators" and reacted negatively.... The issue eventually died away only to reappear on the ham radio blogs in recent weeks as a result of Romney seeking the Republican party's nomination to run for the U.S. presidency. For example, in the Talk and Opinion area of QRZ.com there is a subject titled: "Do we want a President who hates ham radio?" Reading the ongoing discussion shows that few of those taking part have ever have seen or heard the show in question,

Amateur Radio Newsline's Don Wilbanks was the one who contacted Mitt Romney and asked him to explain. The Romney staff wrote back: "The exchange with Natalie Jacobsen was meant to imply that we need to strengthen our emergency response infrastructure, rather than demean the important role I recognize that Ham Radio Operators play around our country."

The entire segment of the program "When Disaster Strikes" can be seen at the WCVB website. The url is www.thebostonchannel.com/video/5334306/index.html

Hams gain new LF band

From Amateur Radio Newsline:

Some good news and one big loss for ham radio at the now concluded World Radiocommunications Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. Jeramy Boot, G4NJH, of the GB2RS News Service has the details:

"The big news for amateur radio is that a worldwide secondary allocation of 135.7-137.8kHz has been approved. This marks the first time since allocations to radio services began that the amateur service has had an allocation below the medium wave broadcasting band. The effective date is not yet set and in any case amateurs must wait until their own administrations authorize the new allocation before they can use it. Some administrations, while not wishing to block the international allocation, have indicated a reluctance to implement it in their countries because of various interference concerns. The band is already available in the UK and several other European countries and this paves the way for many more countries to become active on Low Frequency. At the time of writing, hopes of a possible amateur secondary allocation near 5MHz had faded. This,as a result of the failure to find a compromise on the main 4 to 10MHz issue. I'M Jeramy Boot, G4NJH, and you are listening to the Amateur Radio Newsline."

Future World Radiocommunications Conferences are tentatively scheduled for 2011 and 2015. One tentative agenda item for 2011 is a secondary allocation of about 15 kHz around 500kHz. Not on the schedule is any more talk about a new 5 MHz ham radio band. (GB2RS)