The NW7US Beacon

Happy Birthday, Samuel F.B. Morse!

We have a birthday anniversary, today! Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American contributor to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs, co-inventor of the Morse code, and an accomplished painter. Samuel F. B. Morse was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the first child of the pastor Jedidiah Morse (1761–1826)—who was also a geographer—and Elizabeth Ann Finley Breese (1766–1828).

Samuel was a student at Yale College. During his time there, he became interested in both painting and electricity (the new area of science that was just emerging on the scene). After Morse graduated in 1810, he concentrated on painting. He become a well-known portrait artist.

In 1825, the city of New York commissioned Morse for $1,000 to paint a portrait of Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, in Washington. While Morse was painting, a horse messenger delivered a letter from his father that read one line, “Your dear wife is convalescent.” Morse immediately left Washington for his home at New Haven, leaving the portrait of Lafayette unfinished. By the time he arrived, his wife had already been buried. Heartbroken in the knowledge that for days he was unaware of his wife’s failing health and her lonely death, he moved on from painting to pursue a means of rapid long distance communication.

On the sea voyage home in 1832, Morse encountered Charles Thomas Jackson of Boston, a man who was well schooled in electromagnetism. Witnessing various experiments with Jackson’s electromagnet, Morse developed the concept of a single-wire telegraph, and The Gallery of the Louvre was set aside. The original Morse telegraph, submitted with his patent application, is part of the collections of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution. In time the Morse code would become the primary language of telegraphy in the world, and is still the standard for rhythmic transmission of data.

Samuel Morse received a patent for the telegraph in 1847. The “International Morse Code” is now in use by various services, including amateur radio (Ham radio).

More information on Mr. Morse is at the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Morse

True Visionaries of the Future, in 1922

For what it is worth, there were moments of incredible vision and clarity in the magazine staff of “Radio News”. Here is an example. On the cover of the January 1922 edition, this picture predicts a time in the future when radio will become the “Street Organ of the Future.” Remember the Boom Box craze of the 1980s? And, now, as we have all our personal devices? This was truly visionary, back in 1922.

Alaska Storm Batters Western Coast: Amateur Radio to the Rescue

Here is a story that is quite common, these days, as we find modern technology, or more specifically, our modern communications infrastructure, not always up to the task during emergencies:

The jet stream feeding the wintery sea-spun tempest that sideswiped Alaska’s western coast wasn’t the only worldwide conveyer belt in motion this week. As howling winds whipped up and crashing waves pounded beaches, the people who live in the remote, isolated villages along the storm’s path stayed connected via a web of global radio frequencies.

When other communications failed, ham radio operators came to the rescue. Throughout the storm, they were the eyes for scientists in Fairbanks and Anchorage who otherwise would have been blind to weather conditions they could predict but not see.

“They were providing critical observations. We don’t have a lot of meteorological observations in the west. We don’t have the instruments out there,” Carven Scott, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Anchorage, said Thursday as messages sent via the amateur radio network zapped into his inbox.

Read the rest of the story at The Alaska Dispatch.

Radio Slovakia International Competition

Our friend at the Radio Listening blog posted the following:

Historic Hotels of Slovakia

Radio Slovakia International hereby starts a new competition where you can win interesting prizes including a one week stay for two in Slovakia.

In the Historic Hotels of Slovakia cycle we will introduce to you 10 hotels transformed into luxurious first class accommodation. Every first weekend of the month we will explore the nooks and crannies of Slovak castles, châteaux and other historical buildings which all have an interesting story to tell. After each round we ask you a question and the winner drawn from the correct answers receives a prize. At the end of the cycle, two lucky participants will win the main prize.

Before you decide to take part in our competition, we have to notify you about two important rules. The first rule states that the winner of the main prize pays the expenses of travelling to Slovakia and the other one is that only listeners without permanent residence in Slovakia may take part in the competition.

Our second stop is Necas’s Villa in the Northern Slovakia. Please listen carefully to the audio report at the bottom of this page on Radio Slovakia’s International Radio website.

The question for this round is: What was the original purpose of Necas’s Villa?

Please send your answers by December 1st, 2011.

Respond by regular post at:

Radio Slovakia International
English Section
Mýtna 1, POBOX 55
817 55 Bratislava,
Slovakia

 or email us to englishsection@slovakradio.sk

(Source : Radio Slovakia International)

Look at this lady - Let us never forget! Her name is Irena Sendler.

The world hasn’t just become wicked…it’s always been wicked. The prize doesn’t always go to the most deserving.

Yes, I have verified (via Snopes and on Wikipedia) that the following is true:

During WWII Irena obtained permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto as a plumbing/sewer specialist. She had an ‘ulterior motive’. She (being German) KNEW what the Nazi’s plans were for the Jews.

Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried. She also carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, for larger kids. She had a dog in the back of her truck that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog; the barking covered the kids’/infants’ noise. During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save at least 2,500 kids/infants.

She was caught. The Nazi’s broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

Recently, Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was not selected. President Obama won, one year before becoming President, for his work as a community organizer for ACORN. Al Gore won, also—for a show on Global Warming.

In MEMORIAM - some 63 YEARS LATER, I’m doing my small part by posting this message. I hope you’ll consider doing the same. It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This post is being shared as a memorial, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians and Gypsies and others, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated!

Now, more than ever, with Iran and other countries and people claiming the HOLOCAUST to be ‘a myth’, it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do evil, again.

Honor Irene and the many others who stood for what is right and noble. Never forget. Let her light shine.

BBC Radio 4 is Ending an Era of Broadcast on Long Wave

The Guardian newspaper reports that the BBC Radio 4 Long Wave transmitter at Droitwitch is nearing the end of its life. The newspaper says: “A handful of specially crafted glass valves each measuring one metre high are all that is stopping the historic home of Test Match Special, Yesterday in Parliament and the Daily Service going suddenly and permanently off air.”

BBC Radio 4 Long Wave, which transmits on the 198 kilohertz (kHz) frequency, relies on ageing transmitter equipment that uses a pair of the valves—no longer manufactured—to function.  Valves are also known as Vacuum Tubes, or simply, tubes.

The tubes, at Droitwitch in Worcestershire, are so rare that engineers say there are fewer than ten existing in the world.  The BBC has been forced to buy up the entire global supply. Each tube lasts anywhere between one and ten years. When one of the last two blows the service will go quiet.

Read the full Guardian article at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/09/bbc-radio4-long-wave-goodbye/

Voyage into History

The Terra Nova, the ship that carried Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the frozen continent that would be his grave, in a photograph dated December 13, 1910.

Here, the ship is seen held up by the ice pack.

Read more, here…