Understanding Comms Episode 1.

[Scythe13]

Welcome to the first of the mini series to help you get to grips with comms.

First up, let me tell you, I was the guy that looked at comms, didn't take time to get to know about it, and hated it. Comms was boring, made no sense, and I didn't see any point in them!

Let me tell you where I am now....not where I used to be, that's for sure. I'm no expert, and I don't pretend to be. I don't play a comms expert at all, and I am still learning about comms, daily. But I will try to address all questions I understand and can accurately answer.

But since this is a Beginner's course, I'll probably make it uninteresting for a lot of comms people. But for those who don't understand everything, after this mini-series, you'll have a damn good grounding on what's going on.

Right, let's begin.

A radio is best thought of as 5 bits of machinery all joined to a battery. That's about all there is to know about parts of a radio. We'll cover these parts in more depth later, but for now, we're beginners, so let's keep it simple (just like me).

Part 1. Ariel.
Not the little mermaid! This is the part that picks up and sends out signal.

Part 2. Transmitter
This is the part that changes your voice into a radio frequency and then sends out the signal of your voice to the ariel.
Think, Transmitter. It sends out messages.

Part 3. Microphone
This is a microphone. No joke, it's that simple. This pics up your voice and send that to the transmitter.

Part 4. Receiver
This is the part that receives the signal from the ariel and converts it back to a voice.
Think, receive, as in, it receives messages.

Part 5. Speaker
This turns the signal from the receiver into sound. Same as a car speaker. Headphones are a type of speaker.

So, to put the basic path of a radio signal into simple terms, it's like this:
SkeanDhude speaks into the radio. His voice is picked up by the microphone which send that to the transmitter. The transmitter converts it into a radio wave which is sent out through the ariel.
That is SD sending a message.
Highlander's ariel picks up SD's transmission, which sends the message to the receiver. The receiver converts the radio waves to SD's voice, which is heard through the speaker.

That might sound complex, but I'll make up a cool diagram to simplify it.

SD=>Mic=>Transmitter=>Ariel=====>Ariel=>Receiver=>Speaker=>HL

That's the most basic way to show it. And that's about it. Pretty simple hu?

Next we'll introduce a little jargon, and will explain a bit about frequencies. Sound complicated? Trust me, it's not. If I can teach my wife to cook, I can teach you comms.

If you need any more help with this, feel free to PM me. I know asking questions can be embarrassing, but it's okay. We all started off knowing nothing about this stuff.

[River Song]

Scythe13

Great post.

You taught your wife to cook?? I am in awe, (Bows down) We are not worthy

:-)

[Midnitemo]

S13 i'm going to do this course of tutorials at a later date when i've bought my baofeng.....i'm not very good at visualising , i need to do it in real time with the radio in hand....keep up the goodwork.

[Grumpy Grandpa]

Scythe, you bring back distant memories of a previous life as a rad-op, (that lasted only about six months before moving on to bigger and better things!) huddled in the back of a 3/4 ton FFR. From that time, I remember precisely nothing but keep going - something may be awakening, you never know...