For Book: Shortwave Radio Questions

[braumeister]

If you'd like an interesting wrinkle in that story, you could later have someone else pretending to be the person who sent the original message and sending a deliberately misleading message.

Anyone sending code will have a distinctive "fist" that is easily recognizable by those who have heard his or her transmissions before. Someone else will be tripped up because they couldn't duplicate the subtle rhythm of the original sender's fist.

 

[Amethyst]

I could see myself figuring out the radio on a well-equipped boat, which presumably would have its own electric generator.

Conversely, if the Internet is "down" and everyone is dead, how would there somehow still be electric service to the store?

In the year 2031, a man will find himself alone on a well-equipped ocean-going sailboat. He has no experience with radios.

Q 1: Will he be able to figure out how to use the radio to call for help (there's no manual)?

Q 2: Back on land, if he went into a deserted radio store (everyone else is dead), would he be able to buy and figure out how to use a shortwave radio (again, no manual, because in 2031 all manuals are online, and the internet is down)?

 

[TromboneAl]

I was able to write it down at 20 WPM.

 

[TromboneAl]

Conversely, if the Internet is "down" and everyone is dead, how would there somehow still be electric service to the store?

There won't be electric service to the store, but he can take a radio and power it up at a house using a generator.

But the current scenario is that he finds a house with a radio already set up. He gets a generator.

WARNING: You guys are NOT going to like the way that he hooks the generator up to a house.

 

[Amethyst]

? Doesn't everyone know ETA ONRISH?

Seriously...my much-older brother was a ham, and got me interested in codes and secret writing at an early age. We were writing letters to each other in simple substitution code (A = 1, B= 2 etc) when I was seven. I was really into it, but he gave up after two letters

And I think I probably wasn't the only kid like that, although certainly less likely for girls way back then. Your protagonist might've been a kid like that.

He doesn't know the frequency of different letters in English,​

​

 

[Walt34]

Conversely, if the Internet is "down" and everyone is dead, how would there somehow still be electric service to the store?

Easy, hydroelectric.

The hydroelectric dams and the electricity they produce won't go down immediately when people go away. They continue to run, slowly shutting down systems automatically as the intakes become clogged with debris. For the large dams this could take decades, at least according to one TV show I saw. And there is no shortage of small private hydroelectric dams serving a single home to small communities. A search on youtube for "homemade hydroelectric" turned up dozens of hits.

Okay, it's a stretch. But this is fiction....

 

[TromboneAl]

? Doesn't everyone know ETA ONRISH?

Funny, I was into that stuff, but I never heard of that. I get the idea, though.

 

[ls99]

I don't think this is realistically possible. If you don't know morse code, it would be very difficult to pick out 26 different long/short combinations from a message that someone's sending. Especially if it was being sent at any realistic speed.

​

A great leap of faith that all morse code conversations are English based. What the interpid survivor is listening to could be Russian, German, Swahili, Spanish etc. All with different number of letters in their alphabets.


As for transmitting, unless a fully automatic transmitter is capable of matching power to the antenna, ther are a number of things to know. Example: tuning the the trasmitter for minimum reflected power. For receiving: how to adjust BFO (beat freaquency oscillator) to make the code audible.

 

[ls99]

There won't be electric service to the store, but he can take a radio and power it up at a house using a generator.

But the current scenario is that he finds a house with a radio already set up. He gets a generator.

WARNING: You guys are NOT going to like the way that he hooks the generator up to a house.

Will he use a suicide cord?

 

[ls99]

Trying to make the Morse code thing work ...

Wouldn't a Morse code message get through better/go farther? That is, aren't there conditions (e.g. extreme range) under which a code signal could be understood while a voice message couldn't?

Ionospheric conditions change and thus transmittin/receiving ranges vary from hundreds of miles to thousands of miles. Day/night makes a difference.


In the northern latitudes if the Aurora borealis is in full glory, nothing gets transmitted or recived. I have experienced it near Jan Mayen island in north Atlantic while I was on a research ship.

 

[Col. Klink]

A great leap of faith that all morse code conversations are English based. What the interpid survivor is listening to could be Russian, German, Swahili, Spanish etc. All with different number of letters in their alphabets.


As for transmitting, unless a fully automatic transmitter is capable of matching power to the antenna, ther are a number of things to know. Example: tuning the the trasmitter for minimum reflected power. For receiving: how to adjust BFO (beat freaquency oscillator) to make the code audible.

English is almost universal for morse code transmission as the dot / dash sequences represent the 26 letters of the English alphabet

 

[Al18]

In a doomsday scenario, I would look for a diesel truck first. Chances are there's a CB radio in the truck. While CB is more limited in range than SW, it's similar in operation.



In 2019, while CB radio's are not nearly as popular as in the 1970's, they are still used and can be bought new in Walmart for about $40

 

[braumeister]

In a doomsday scenario, I would look for a diesel truck first. Chances are there's a CB radio in the truck. While CB is more limited in range than SW, it's similar in operation.

No, CB (the 11 meter band) is limited to a few (maybe ten at most) miles range unless your antenna is very elevated and you have a linear amplifier attached. A typical ham HF transceiver is capable of a far wider range of frequencies, so worldwide capability.

 

[TromboneAl]

Will he use a suicide cord?

Yes. That is, he will plug the generator into the plug for for the dryer. Maybe he'll do that when he just needs quick access to a house. That is, drive up, plug in, take shower, cook dinner, watch a DVD, move on.

He'll realize it's bad, but there isn't much downside for him. If the house burns down, then as long as he's not asleep inside, it's no big deal. Actually, that could be something that happens: circuit overload causes fire, almost dies.

If he decides to live in a house for a longer time, he'll cut the cables from the power lines, and find some way to hook up. Or he'll find house that was off the grid.

 

[ls99]

English is almost universal for morse code transmission as the dot / dash sequences represent the 26 letters of the English alphabet

Spent some time on Saint Paul island at the then functioning Coast Guard manned LORAN station, in the middle of the Bering sea. (BTW I am one of few who skinny dipped in the Bering sea).
A few members of the LORAN station regularly monitored Russian morse code exchanges. And spent good bit of time translating the messages to English. Or if in code then decoding the Cyrillic alphabet based messages. Which was a bit more difficult.

For further info please see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code_for_non-Latin_alphabets

One other example:
The Norwegian characters æ, ø and å are represented with morse codes:
æ = .-.-
ø = ---.
å = .--.-
So Norwegians happily use their native language in CW

 

[ls99]

Yes. That is, he will plug the generator into the plug for for the dryer.
If he decides to live in a house for a longer time, he'll cut the cables from the power lines, and find some way to hook up. Or he'll find house that was off the grid.

Simpler to cut seal on KWH meter, pull, ready access to house side of wiring with a pair of jumper cable clips. Voila, full circuit breaker protection, and isolation from grid, thus no need to power the neighborhood.

 

[ERD50]

Simpler to cut seal on KWH meter, pull, ready access to house side of wiring with a pair of jumper cable clips. Voila, full circuit breaker protection, and isolation from grid, thus no need to power the neighborhood.

All you need to do is pull/switch the main breaker in the box. I just looked at mine, it has a ganged flip switch. That isolates you from trying to power the neighborhood. Easy-peasy.

There's really no danger of burning down the house with a suicide cord. If the cord is sized for the generator, or the breaker on the circuit (which it almost 100% would be), the breaker still protects everything. You would not be able to draw more total than what that circuit handles.

The suicide cord gets its name from having the exposed male plugs on both ends, so when powered you can easily kill yourself by grabbing the exposed metal plug. But in reality, if you aware of the danger, you become super-careful, and the odds of hurting yourself are about nil. Just like you wouldn't juggle with a vial of nitro-glycerin. Or run with scissors.

-ERD50

 

[TromboneAl]

There's really no danger of burning down the house with a suicide cord. If the cord is sized for the generator, or the breaker on the circuit (which it almost 100% would be), the breaker still protects everything. You would not be able to draw more total than what that circuit handles.

Okay, so it doesn't in fact bypass the breakers except for any circuit that it's plugged into. I'm guessing that plugging into a 110 outlet will only power some of the circuits in the house?

Through trial and error, he'll end up with a generator like this:

Which can output up to 15 kW.

 

[ERD50]

Okay, so it doesn't in fact bypass the breakers except for any circuit that it's plugged into. I'm guessing that plugging into a 110 outlet will only power some of the circuits in the house?


Through trial and error, he'll end up with a generator like this:


Which can output up to 15 kW.

Earlier, you mentioned plugging into a dryer outlet. Code allows only one dryer outlet on a circuit, they are isolated circuits - one breaker, one outlet. So you could not plug anything else into the same branch.

From the dryer, it could feed the rest of the house, but the total current would be no more than the dryer circuit breaker would allow (20 or 30 amps? Maybe 40?) 40A x 220V = 8.8 KW. Each branch would be further protected by its own breaker.

If you are going to have him plug a 15 kW generator onto a 110V outlet, then he could create a fire if he loaded a bunch of other high draw appliances onto that same branch circuit. But again, for other circuits in the house, you'd need to get back to the main panel through that circuit's breakers, so 20 or 15 A max. 20A x 110V = 2.2 KW. Up to that 15 or 20A limit, he could power everything else in the house. Assuming he flipped the main breaker, so he's not trying to power the neighborhood.

Realistically, he should flip all the other circuits to OFF, and then just turn on the circuits he needs to power, to avoid tripping that circuit's breaker and to avoid wasting gas/diesel powering stuff he doesn't care about.

So when I say "branch circuit", think of it as everything that would go dead if you tripped the breaker on that circuit.

Since his generator is rated for higher power than a single 110 V outlet, it would make more sense to power the selected house circuits through a dryer plug.

-ERD50

 

[samclem]

Unsolicited comment: There is a down side to telling unknowledgeable people how to backwire a home's panel through an outlet. Yes, the info is available elsewhere, but if it hadn't already occurred to them. . .
At the very least, I'd find a way to let readers know about the dangers (to that home and others on that line) and what was done to eliminate that danger.
IMO, just because we can write about something doesn't mean we should.

 

[ERD50]

Unsolicited comment: There is a down side to telling unknowledgeable people how to backwire a home's panel through an outlet. Yes, the info is available elsewhere, but if it hadn't already occurred to them. . .
At the very least, I'd find a way to let readers know about the dangers (to that home and others on that line) and what was done to eliminate that danger.
IMO, just because we can write about something doesn't mean we should.

I understand your intent, but it's fiction, not a DIY blog or youtube video. I think that's going overboard. It would be like telling viewers of a Die Hard movie - "Do not jump out of a car at 60 mph, after blocking the gas pedal and aiming it towards a ramp so that it jumps into the air and brings down the bad guy's helicopter. You could get hurt."

-ERD50

 

[samclem]

I understand your intent, but it's fiction, not a DIY blog or youtube video. I think that's going overboard. It would be like telling viewers of a Die Hard movie - "Do not jump out of a car at 60 mph, after blocking the gas pedal and aiming it towards a ramp so that it jumps into the air and brings down the bad guy's helicopter. You could get hurt."

-ERD50

The risks inherent to back-feeding a panel are not obvious to everyone (as we can tell by the questions right here). If someone wants to write a clever bit of McGiverism, then in my opinion the crucial details need to be left out or the risks need to be included. A good writer can do that. The fact that the generator is wired into the panel is enough to advance the story. If we want to go beyond that to show how clever we are, then I think some responsibility comes with that.

 

[TromboneAl]

I'll probably treat this by having the character think: I knew it was dangerous and a bad idea, but ...

 

[LOL!]

Have you seen this for the iPhone? (Android later this year)

https://satpaq.com

Pre-pay for messages, no need for a monthly plan.

Thanks!

Had not seen that. But it weighs more than an InReach Mini and seems less capable right now. The InReach works stand-alone, but better with a smart phone interface via BlueTooth. The monthly plan with the InReach can be turned on/off, so I pay for about 3 separate months a year. And one can give people a website to track where one's InReach is and has been at 10 min intervals.

And no finding and pointing to one of 2 geostationary satellites. InReach use the Iridium satellite network.

Some features appear to be the same: GEOS SOS, DarkSky weather, texting. But SatPaq is USA only. InReach is world-wide.

I suppose though that SatPaq will add more features over time.

 

[WestUniversity]

>
My thinking is that he passes a mom-and-pop type shop that sells ham radio equipment. He realizes that that might be a good way to find out if there are any other people still alive.

He buys a transceiver and starts scanning the airwaves, trying to find someone transmitting. Again, no knowledge of what frequencies to try, etc. No knowledge of setting up an SW antenna. He can't get help from the Internet because it's down.

Okay, call me dense but who is he buying this from?[emoji15]