Since posting the article about the American Museum of Radio and Electricity last week, I’ve been listening to their low-powered FM station KMRE online. If you’re into radio nostalgia as I am, you, too, may enjoy listening to their tunes and other historic recordings. Great stuff! Give it a listen:
Fred Lloyd (AA7BQ), publisher of QRZ.com (a very popular ham radio call sign website) has written about a recent visit to the American Museum of Radio and Electricity:
Earlier this week we were treated to a tour of the American Museum of Radio and Electricity, a must-see landmark in the city of Bellingham, Washington. The AMRE is located in the central downtown district of the city and despite it’s rather plain looking exterior, inside is one of the most interesting and engaging museums of its kind anywhere.
[…]The museum includes more than 11 distinct period exhibits that commence with the very discovery of electricity itself, recreating the initial experiments of Ben Franklin, Ohm, Volta, Hertz, Tesla, and others. Here, you’ll find Leyden Jars, static electricity experiments, some of the first batteries ever made, the first electromagnet, the earliest electric motors, and other devices that were truly genius for their time. Sometimes, you just have to stop and wonder how these great pioneers, some more than 400 years ago, had the insight and inspiration to make the discoveries they did.
Also, check out the American Museum of Radio and Electricity website. It’s packed full of information and will certainly give you a much needed dose of nostalgia.
(Source: Top Secret Writers)
Shortwave radios have been a tool of the espionage trade for many years. Radios can transmit information encoded to be picked up by the receiver and then decoded.
This technique was used throughout World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Like Steganography, radiograms are still being used today.
[…]The techniques were used by the Soviets during the Cold War many years ago, but it seems that they have remained long-lasting fixtures in Russian Espionage.
We actually reported on this back when news broke about the russian agents who used numbers stations for espionage purposes. Yep, shortwave radio is your friend if you don’t want people tracing where you are and what you’re listening to.
Mind you, when you live in a country that suppresses free speach, you also reach for a shortwave radio.
John Kanzius standing next to his Kanzius RF device.
There are few people in the radio world that I admire more than John Kanzius, K3TUP (SK). John took knowledge from his amateur radio hobby and applied it to the medical field–specifically, to fighting cancer.
(Per Wikipedia)
Kanzius RF Therapy is an experimental cancer treatment that employs a combination of either gold or carbon nanoparticles and radio waves to heat and destroy cancer cells without damaging healthy cells.
The specific absorption rate for radio waves by living tissue in the proposed wavelengths and intensity levels is very low. Metals absorb this energy much more efficiently than tissue through dielectric heating; Richard Smalley has suggested that carbon nanotubes could be used to similar purpose. If nanoparticles were to be preferentially bound to cancer sites, cancer cells could be destroyed or induced into apoptosis while leaving healthy tissue relatively unharmed. This preferential targeting represents a major technical challenge. According to a presentation by Dr. Steven Curley, the types of cancer potentially treatable using Kanzius RF therapy include essentially all forms of cancer.
Kanzius built a prototype Kanzius RF device in his home, and formed Therm Med., LLC to test and market his inventions. The device was successfully tested at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in 2005. As of 2007-04-23, preliminary research using the device at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has shown early promise. If federal approval is granted, testing on human patients may follow. An article published in late 2010 illustrates that radiofrequency fields induce intracellular hyperthermia and necrosis in pancreatic tumors without injury to the human pancreatic tissue grafts tested.
Perhaps the reason John has been on my mind today is because, just last week, my wife lost her mother to a vicious, aggressive form of cancer called carcinosarcoma. She was only 68, otherwise healthy and in the prime of life, with young grandchildren. We hold her memorial service today.
Our family supported her as she bravely fought this cancer for more than 4 years, beating the 2 year survival statistics she was quoted by various oncologists. Carcinosarcoma is very resilient to the effects of chemotherapy and spreads so widely through the body that radiation eventually can only be used for palliative purposes. Without the efficacy of chemotherapy and radiation, one does not have other viable treatment options for such an aggressive cancer–at least not currently.
Though we have been learning about cancer and doing research on it for years, there are still so few effective treatments for many patients. Though I’m neither doctor nor researcher and I appreciate the technical complexity of this option, I do believe Kanzius’ research is a step in the right direction because:
Readers may have noted the “SK” after John’s ham radio callsign above. SK stands for “Silent Key.” John passed away on Feb 18, 2009 from pneumonia–a complication brought on by his own battle with cancer. Prior to his death, John established a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, The Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation, to carry on his research and human trials of the Kanzius RF therapy.
Today, my family and our local community will celebrate the life of my mother-in-law, Jean. Her passion for nature, her knowledge of science, her love of family and her remarkable faith in humanity and Divine power were/are inspiring to everyone she knew.
John Kanzius, I celebrate your life today too, and am happy that your research and vision lives on! May it inspire future cancer treatment.
It is a rare occurrence when so much attention is given to the topic of international broadcasting. Financial hardship combined with a rapidly changing media landscape set a stage where broadcasters are being forced to a precipice of change. How well they quickly evaluate restructuring their message and the medium they use to deliver it could very well determine the future of broadcasting on the shortwaves.
This issue of Public Diplomacy Magazine covers the scope.
(From: RNW Media Network)
PD Magazine, Summer 2011 of the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy, is devoted to international broadcasting. Its contents include:
Also available is the pdf version.
Thanks to RNW Media Network, Kim Andrew Elliot and Richard Cuff for the tip.
(Source: The Guardian)
Sometimes it’s easy to figure out which side people are on – the strikers and their union, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) are on one side – as are the other unions in the BBC and outside. At the rallies at the BBC’s Bush House and Television Centre, NUJ General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet read out a strong solidarity statement from her Public and Commercial Services union equivalent Mark Serwotka – one of many messages from other unions. Also on the side of the BBC are Labour MP and chair of the NUJ parliamentary group, John McDonnell, and former MP and NUJ Member of Honour, Tony Benn, who joined NUJ members on the picket line.
On the other side, for quite a long time, has been the Murdoch empire, chipping away at support for the BBC, particularly in parliament. However, the events of the last few days have shown the irony of the closing line of James Murdoch’s 2009 MacTaggart lecture: “The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit.” The craven pursuit of profit by the company of which he’s boss led to the phone hacking scandal that has shocked and disgusted so many and so damaged his family’s empire.
…[T]he NUJ, on the eve of the strike, called for the licence fee deal to be re-examined in the light of revelations surrounding the influence of Rupert Murdoch and his News International executives on David Cameron and senior government ministers.
(Source: WNYC)
Now it’s 1952 all over again,” Richard Matthews said with satisfaction, after buffing a small black radio knob to a shiny gleam. “It’s beautiful.”
For those who tinker like it’s 1959, Leed’s Radio is Candyland. This 2,500 square foot warehouse is literally jam packed with an inventory of between three to five million parts, including vacuum tubes, transformers, coils, knobs, switches, light bulbs and just about anything requisite for a radio made before 1965. Some of the stock dates back to 1919, a few years before the original Leeds opened on Manhattan’s Radio Row in 1923.
But with the exception of the hulking 1940s-era Radio Free Europe machine in Matthews’ office, you won’t find a completely assembled radio here. Leeds is a store for people who like to build and tinker with antique technology, not for those who want to purchase pristine relics.
Listen to the full show at the WNYC website and browse Leeds Radio’s website.