Welcome to General Chat - GAW Community Area
This General Chat area started off as a place for people to talk about things that are off topic, however it has quickly evolved into a community and has become an integral part of the GAW experience for many of us.
Based on its evolving needs and plenty of user feedback, we are trying to bring some order and institute some rules. Please make sure you read these rules and participate in the spirit of this community.
Rules for General Chat
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Be respectful to each other. This is of utmost importance, and comments may be removed if deemed not respectful.
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Avoid long drawn out arguments. This should be a place to relax, not to waste your time needlessly.
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Personal anecdotes, puzzles, cute pics/clips - everything welcome
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Please do not spam at the top level. If you have a lot to post each day, try and post them all together in one top level comment
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Try keep things light. If you are bringing in deep stuff, try not to go overboard.
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Things that are clearly on-topic for this board should be posted as a separate post and not here (except if you are new and still getting the feel of this place)
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If you find people violating these rules, deport them rather than start a argument here.
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Feel free to give feedback as these rules are expected to keep evoloving
In short, imagine this thread to be a local community hall where we all gather and chat daily. Please be respectful to others in the same way
It'll do the same thing as the rest of the cycles have - it get's busier until the solar maximum (this is based on number of sunspots) until it calms down and we start another cycle. They last on average 10-11 years. 25 is predicted to be less busy that 24, and will probably end in 2030.
Hams like an active solar cycle because it can open up other methods of propagation we don't normally have access to with a 'quiet' sun.
Does it carry your signal further or make it clear or what? This is all interesting, I appreciate the information!
For long distance communication (say, beyond line-of-sight), we bounce signals off the ionosphere. You can think of a radio signal traveling from my antenna, into the sky, bouncing off the the atmosphere, back down the ground - do this enough times and signals travel around the globe.
Sun activity can energize certain layers of the atmosphere differently - for instance during the day the "20 Meter Band" (the wavelengths you generate are roughly 20 meters long at around 14-MHz), is used because the sun is energizing a certain layer of the atmosphere to bounce signals off of. When it sets, that band 'goes away' - nothing to bounce off of, so we switch to different frequencies. During some sun activity, frequencies/bands we never get to use otherwise are available.
It's all black magic to be honest ;) Radio is fun in an analog sort of way of I getting to 'I used 20 watts of power and wire to talk to a guy in Italy'. It's a lot of fun.
Great class! Thank you!
Never ask a ham about ham radio. You'll never hear the end of it ;)