How did you start in radio, either as a SWL, scanner user or a ham?

I suppose my own experience was typical in that I was loaned a shortwave radio – an Eddystone but don’t ask me which one – and listened to exotic places which, as a schoolboy back in the 60’s, were truly ‘the other side of the world’. Back then, of course, I knew nothing about antennas so having a mains powered shortwave radio by my bed meant I was mostly listening to VOA, AFN and the ubiquitous Radio Moscow! Yet there was more than just the comments and news – nothing can quite compare with the rising, falling modulation punctuated by fading in and out, atmospheric cracks and bangs, the rat-a-tat-tat of the ‘Woodpecker’ Over-The Horizon radar system used by the Russians. Or the non stop music of the pirates like Caroline, RNI, Mi Amigo? Those were the days indeed!

Surprising how far these short range devices can carry. Not just around the house but way beyond! A look at low power device monitoring.

It is a well known fact that many radio systems are moving over to secure digital communications – the Police, Fire Services and many other government users are gradually disappearing from our scanners with virtually no known way of being able to decode the transmissions. The same would be true of cordless telephone technology, with the release of DECT digital phones in the past few years and the benefits of using this technology you would expect analogue usage to be on the decline. Not so! In fact, more than ever the analogue cordless phone band is crammed full of users! Why would this be happening? Let’s take a look at a few possibilities.

Jack investigates the effectiveness of Matchers. Are these devices a magical answer to SWR problems?

So now you know about SWR you might be looking at adverts for CB matchers and thinking, “that’s the thing for me, no adjustments necessary”. So lets have a look at them and see if you need one. Matchers are not used to much for CB, but they are used a hell of a lot by radio hams on the amateur bands, where they use their more correct title of Antenna Tuning Units, or ATUs.

No matter how you look at it, SWR is the most important part of radio theory. Here you can put it into practice.

So you have connected up your new CB and installed the antenna. Now you have to tune, or SWR it. You may have been told that this is the next move, but most likely will not have been told why or how.