Podcasts about uhv

Matthew Cruz, energy analyst at Forest energies, joins John Maytham to discuss the possibility/feasibility/affordabilirty of having a ultra-high-voltage (UHV) electricity grid in South AfricaSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mike Forman and Gabe Myers are back to talk about what's been going on in the world of basketball in the crossroads, what's to come in next week's UIL realignment and UHV baseball having their season open up this weekend.

Mike and Gabe are back on to talk about what happened in the East-West basketball games last week, plus Shiner beat Flatonia in a top 5 matchup. Mike makes an appearance on the wrestling mats and UHV's baseball season begins as the defending RRAC champions

Mike Forman and Gabe Myers are in to talk about all the football action from Week 8, and discuss some massive district contests in Week 9. Plus, UHV golf closes out their Fall season with a win.

This week Gabe Myers sits down with UHV head baseball coach John Stavinoha.

The UHV men's golf team won the Claud Jacobs Invitational the day after the founders passing, plus coverage of basketball playoffs in the area.

Uhv

** www.CESnrg.com/podcast#Tesla over the air updatehttps://twitter.com/SolarInMASS/status/1312500497819951105 $200 billion worth of green bonds have been issued in 2020 thus far - $50 billion in a strong September. This represents a 12% increase compared with the first nine months of 2019. And in total $1 trillion have been sold since 2007.'https://about.bnef.com/blog/record-month-shoots-green-bonds-past-trillion-dollar-mark/ China plots course for net zero by 2060https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/05/china-plan-net-zero-emissions-2060-clean-technology Largest 2.2 GW solar and storage goes live in China - very high DCAC rating, and a connection to the UVHDC network - is this straight solar panels to a transformer/controller to grid? No inverters?https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/10/01/worlds-largest-solar-plant-goes-online-in-china/ UHV in China related to the 2.2 GW Solarhttps://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/11/29/300-mw-of-new-solar-for-chinas-800-kv-uhv-power-transmission-project/  “In case you were wondering, the sun never sets - and the wind never stops blowing. Those who suggest this mostly haven't left their local place of residence. We have two killer apps that would make wind+solar+hydro+nuclear run our planet - batteries and power lines. Batteries are coming, and power lines might or might not get there in time - and the battery manufacturers are just fine with that. It would be smarter if we did both, but we the species isn't always smart. We do have the knowledge though, and we do have the tools.”https://commercialsolarguy.com/2020/10/05/if-you-build-transmission-the-solar-plus-storage-will-comission/ Vertical solar installationhttps://www.domain.com.au/news/melbourne-apartment-building-fitted-with-vertical-solar-panels-in-an-australian-first-990028/ Solar+pears - 'solar modules placed at a height of 4.6 meters - the height of the agricultural machinery that is commonly used for pear trees. 40% transparent backsheets and conventional, equally spaced 156 x 156 mm silicon cells with 21% efficiency.'https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/10/02/agrivoltaics-for-pear-orchards/ First California, now New York is talking it - who's next? MA? Hawaii?https://electrek.co/2020/10/05/new-york-bill-ban-new-ice-cars-2035/ Germany saw 52.9% from renewables - personally, I'd prefer they remove the biomass and add the nuclear - adding 3% - but also, that means renewables plus nuclear = 65.5% of German electricity was arguably CO2https://reneweconomy.com.au/renewables-deliver-over-half-of-german-electricity-in-first-nine-months-coal-plunges-83744/ “For any kind of PV system repower or removal and re-installation project, leaving as much of the racking, combiner boxes, and existing conduit/wiring in place can prevent the risk of component damage. Pulling all new wire is best, but often unnecessary. An insulation resistance test should be performed as part of any re-commissioning process.”https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cesarbarbosa925_specialproject-bestpractices-timeismoney-activity-6717932900953796608-ne_6/

Episode Notes Cici can be found on twitter @postleftprole. The IAF-FAI can be found on twitter @IAF__FAI and through their website iaf-fai.org. The Javelina Network can be found on twitter @JavelinaNetwork. The host Margaret Killjoy can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. You can support her and this show on Patreon at patreon.com/margaretkilljoy. For an overview of radio from an anarchist perspective, check out the zine For An Anarchist Radio Relay League. Transcript 1:32:19 SPEAKERS Margaret, Cici, Eepa Margaret 00:14 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host, Margaret Killjoy. Are use she or they pronouns. This week I'm talking with two people who have a lot of experience with different radio communications, mostly HAM radio and other means of two-way radio communications. Their names are Cici and Eepa and they work with the Indigenous Anarchist Federation and/or the Javelina Network which is a network of—well, they'll explain it. And we're going to be talking a lot about radio communications, and they actually do a really good job of breaking it down—a subject that could feel very technical. I know I get very overwhelmed when I try and understand radio communications. They break it down in a fairly non-technical way that, well, I'm excited for you all to hear. So this podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts. And usually I lead with a jingle, but this week I'm going to do something slightly different and first I'm just going to say welcome to the Maroon Cast. I don't believe they have a jingle yet. But there is a new podcast on the network called the Maroon Cast and it is absolutely worth checking out. And the jingle—they actually call it a commercial—that I am going to play is from the Institute for Anarchist Studies who are offering grants. And here's that. Hooray. Hey radicals, anarchists, and all of you liberatory leftists. Are you a podcaster, video maker, multimedia artist, or writer? The Institute for Anarchist Studies wants to let you know we have grants available for projects focusing on Black and Indigenous archaisms, police abolition and alternatives, and mutual aid. For details and how to apply visit anarchiststudies.org and click on the grants application post on our main page. That's anarchiststudies.org. Anarchist-studies-dot-O-R-G. Applications close January 31, 2021. Spread the word and tell your friends. Okay, so if y'all could introduce yourself with I guess your name, your pronouns, and then any political or organizational affiliations that makes sense with what you're going to be talking about today. Cici 02:32 So my name is Cici. I do she/her pronouns, I also do they/them pronouns. I don't really have any organizational affiliations at this time. I am—I have some experience with radio in a like a certain area, but in other areas I'm still learning and I'm trying to get up to speed. I am a licensed radio operator which helps a bit. But obviously, like, you don't have to be licensed to do stuff with a radio. And that's I guess enough about me. Eepa 03:13 All right, [I didn't catch a lot of this except Eepa] and I use he/him pronouns. My affiliations, I'm with the Indigenous Anarchist Federation and I'm a part of the newly formed Javelina Network. And basically, I am fairly new to the whole communication world. But it's one of those things that I've become very passionate about building up people's knowledge that way in communities for mutual aid, you know, both in disasters and just for general preparedness. We have ways of communicating that don't rely on, you know, corporate infrastructure or government infrastructure. Margaret 04:02 Yeah, so I guess one of the first things that I want to ask you all, for people who are, like—so this will probably be in some ways a slightly more technical conversation than some of the—some of my shows, just because, at least, there's an awful lot of acronyms and weird technical stuff that comes along with learning about radios. And I think it's worth—I'm going to ask you all a lot about that stuff. But I guess I was wondering if you all could start with kind of like a pitch for why we should care about radios. Like, we all have cell phones. Shouldn't we just use cell phones? Like what are some of the advantages of understanding and having an experience with radio communication? Eepa 04:40 So one of the things that people should consider whenever they're using—whatever type of communications you're using on a daily basis, that could be using email through ProtonMail or using Signal or WhatsApp, or just using your regular cell phone service—these are things things that are controlled by somebody. So the infrastructure that makes them possible is controlled by either corporations, or they're controlled by corporations and regulated by the government. They're subject to warrants and data collection and they're subject to a lot of other, you know, less security-related, but more just infrastructure in general. You know, if, as we saw in hurricane Maria, when hurricanes come they knocked down cell phone towers and if you don't have cell phone towers, your cell phone just becomes a, you know, a box with whatever photos you have on, it doesn't become very useful for communications. And the same thing goes for emails, when you are logging on to your, you know, ProtonMail account which is, you know, a great service and everything—if those servers go down in Switzerland, then you're out of luck—that that means that communication no longer exists. If the United States government decides to block a certain app that—that could basically cut off your service and take away all of your context. So it's a very fragile thing that we have, you know, during normal circumstances cell phone services is great, it's convenient. And honestly, it should still probably be your primary means of communication because of its ease of use. But there's a lot to be said for having all of the infrastructure you need to communicate in your own hands without needing any external infrastructure, aside from a community of other people who are likewise equipped and trained to communicate with. Cici 06:42 I think that's an excellent answer. In addition to what Eepa said I would basically just add on, like, yeah, there's—it's hard with the infrastructure that people usually use—cell phone towers, servers, routers, or at least, you know, commercially available routers and phones and everything. People don't have—people in, like, their communities don't have a lot of control over it. One of the things that I'm actually—I need to do way more study into it, because it's rather technical. But if something were to happen and the internet were to go down, either unintentionally, because—or, you know, not because of a—because like it's natural—something natural happens like a hurricane. Or because the government has shut the internet down for the express purposes of, you know, preventing people from communicating. One of the things radio can do is it can actually mimic a internet, I should—I may say mimic but it's actually a true internet protocol. So you can actually get an internet running up in your community. Those are the kind of things that I think radio is great for. I would echo what Eepa said where it's not really a—in terms of people saying, "Well, I have a cell phone what's, you know, what is radio offer to me?" I'd actually say, yeah, I don't think that just being able to say, "Hey, I communicated with somebody in another spot." Like, that's not really the attraction necessarily for learning a bunch of radio things. I would also note for a lot of people who are just doing off-grid stuff, there's a lot of places where your cell phone just, there's just no signal, it's too far away from cell phone towers. You can still get out with a radio if something were to help. A lot of people are like, well, you know, I'm not gonna be setting up a another Wifi internet system. But, you know, if you're ever hiking or you're doing stuff that's just not close to a big city or whatever, it can still be useful if something happens, you get hurt, you're not out in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone signal needing extreme medical attention immediately. So I just like to point that kind of thing out where it's useful on an individual level, but it's also useful on a community level. Margaret 08:58 Yeah. Yeah. I mean— Eepa 09:00 I think that that's probably one of those—I think that's one of those misconceptions that people have about radio, just in a general sense, is they think that it's two people on walkie-talkies talking to each other. But there's a whole realm of radio use that includes, you know, sending messages, photographs, even videos utilizing radio that people are probably not aware of. Margaret 09:24 I only learned about that really recently when someone was talking about how you can take your Baofeng radio and—I think it was, like, get a photo from the international space station on your cell phone by having your, like, cell phone listen to what's coming out of your radio? Eepa 09:46 Yeah. Margaret 09:48 That was a good moment of like, "Oh, this is some scifi shit." And I'm like, "Oh, and I mean it's some like 1970s scifi shit." But it's—that's so fucking cool. Yeah, I mean, okay, so like, I'm rudely guessing that a lot of people who are listening, if they have much experience like, say, direct action stuff, they're probably their only real experience with radios might be walkie-talkies. Right? And so I was—I was wondering if there's like a way to, like—the thing that really intimidates me when I look at radios is that I look and then I'm, like, okay, there's high frequency, very high frequency, ultra high frequency. There's walkietalkies which use FRS. There's MURS. They're CB radios, there's GMRS radios, there's the Business Band, there's a HAM radio. There's AM/FM, SSB, contint CW, like, there's like all this shit, right? And so I guess I kind of wanted to like start and try and kind of break some of this down if you all can, like, maybe talk starting with like—maybe you'll have a better pedagogical sense of like where to start or something. But in my head, I would ask you first about maybe, like, Family Radio Service, the walkie-talkies, that people might be used to, like what they can be used for and kind of build out from there. Or if there's another way to introduce all of this that you all would like to use. Cici 11:18 I can't actually speak too much to the Family Radio Service. I'm glad you mentioned that there's a lot of different modes. What tends to happen is there's very few people that know all of that, or if they do they're a dime a dozen. At least from my experience talking to other radio people, they tend to focus in areas that they think are interesting, or areas that they think are useful, or whatever. So for instance, you mentioned Family Radio and you mentioned, I believe it's GR-GMRS, I actually have like no experience in those. I mentioned in the introduction that I'm licensed. What I meant by that, or I probably should have been more specific, is that I'm licensed as an amateur radio operator. If people have ever heard someone talk about HAM radio, that's basically what I'm talking about. HAM is just another way of saying an amateur radio app. I'm an amateur in the sense that I don't get money. I'm not like a radio station. I'm not commercially broadcasting, like, the radio you might listen to music or whatever. So that's all that means. Amateur doesn't necessarily mean you don't know a lot or that, you know, it just means I don't get paid. And that my license basically says I can't get paid to broadcast. So that's kind of my experience. So yeah, I don't know if Eepa would be able to talk about the Family Radio Service. Some people have heard CB radio. I believe that's—it's similar to amateur radio but it's it's still very different. I actually associated with truckers doing stuff in the, like, I know, that's kind of an old association, doing stuff in their cars. As far as modes, I know Margaret, you mentioned things like single sideband which is that SSB. That's a voice mode. You mentioned—I guess I should start with the—you mentioned high frequency, very high frequency, and ultra high frequency. Usually people will shorten that to the individual letter. So like very high frequency they'll just say VH, VHF. Those just basically are a shorthand way of talking about how far you can talk. So for instance, people that have Baofengs are often going to be using very high frequency or ultra high frequency. Very high frequency is usually going to be a line of sight, maybe a little bit further because radio waves can actually see a little further than, like, the way we see the horizon. But for instance, if you and a friend both had Baofengs and you lived in the same city, depending on your antenas, that a bunch of other technical stuff, you should be able to hear each other. A lot of times the type of radio also use a repeater. The repeater is basically something that will send the signal further—it's it's own equipment but it will send your signal further than if you just had it by yourself. So when people hear that I just want them to think, "Oh, that's just distance." My interest is in very high—or, excuse me, is in just high frequency, just HF. That tends to be very far distances. So like that's usually talking to people in other countries, or talking to people across, like, a country, like a big country like the United States, or the so-called the United States. I'm in the Midwest, I can use high frequency to talk to someone in California which is obviously not line of sight or, you know, horizon. So that's all that means. I don't—a lot of times HAM radio and radio in general uses these terms that make stuff sound really technical and really like scary, but it's actually just a—there's an easier way to understand it. So that has to just do with distance. That's all I'll say about that for now. I don't want to overload but uh... Eepa 15:01 Yeah, and so basically what I'll add to that is there's two basic things that somebody who's new to radio needs to do to understand what their radio is going to be used for. And so like Cici was talking about with the frequencies: Frequency is one of the two things that you really need to pay attention to when you're a beginner, is frequency and wattage. So wattage is just how much power is actually being emitted from your radio. So one of the ways that you can think about frequency—we'll start with frequency first—is it's basically wavelength. And so the shorter your wavelength, the smaller it is, the smaller the distance—or the frequency or sorry, the frequency. So ultra high frequency, very short distance. Very high frequency is going to be kind of a medium distance. And then high frequency is long distance. Now what the Family Radio Service radios that you're talking about, they broadcast on very high frequency. But what makes them not very good for communicating at distance is they have a low wattage, so they're legally not allowed to go above a certain wattage. And so that means that they can only communicate at like a very, very short distance. Basically, these radios were designed so that way parents and kids could have radios or, you know, a family convoying on a vacation—this is in the days before cellphones—could have communication with each other. And so they didn't need very high wattage, and they didn't want these radio frequencies to be basically blocking other radio traffic. So it's a low wattage, very high frequency and that means that it's going to be a very limited distance. So even with like ultra high frequency, if you have a low wattage, you get even less distance. What amateur radio opens up to you is higher wattage, and it opens up more frequencies. So that's the key thing there. Margaret 17:09 Okay, yeah, I took a bunch of notes about this right before. Right before we started I was trying to like map out all of this because I've been learning about this some for a while. And I was just trying to map all of this out. And what I came up with was basically like three types of, in the US, unlicensed types of radios, and then like two sort of types of licensed radios with HAM radio being kind of like the big—or amateur radio being like the big open one. And it was kind of interesting to me because I learned, like, for example, like I was reading about, like, what the hell is the difference between CB and FRS, and between walkie talkies and trucker radios as I always kind of saw it. And yeah, so I guess if CB is high frequency it needs—it can go further on lower wattage—or I don't know if it goes through a low wattage, but it can go—it bend—the the frequencies like bend around the horizon and hills and shit better. But apparently it takes like a much, much more of an antenna and it doesn't like going into buildings and shit very well as compared to like— Eepa 18:17 Yeah. Margaret 18:17 UHF, which is like much more—I don't know, in my head it's almost like piercing rather than, like, you know, it doesn't go very far but it like goes through things a little better or something? And doesn't need as much of an antenna. I don't know, that's what I—what I—so I guess—like, what I came up with as the things that you can use unlicensed are—well, I mean, you can theoretically use anything—well anyway—actually, I'm gonna ask you some about some of that stuff and a little bit, what you can get away with. But unlicensed, you can use FRS which are like the walkie talkies, you can use CB which has like a slightly higher wattage limit and is shortwave only but requires more of an antenna, and then something called MURS, M-U-R-S, Multi Use Radio Service, which is, like, a little bit better. And then, I think, in terms of licensed radio, I'm actually—I'm running this past youu so you can like tell me if I'm wrong. But also if I'm right then I'm just expressing everything that I learned to the audience. In terms of licensing, there is one type of license you can get without taking a test, you just give the US government 70 of your dollars. And it's General Mobile Radio Service, GMRS. And it's, like, still substantially more limited than amateur radio, right? But it allows more—I don't know, it's a little bit—it's nicer than than family radio service. It's nicer than a walkie-talkie. It's like a fancy walkie-talkie. And you don't have to take a test, versus amateur radio, which I guess you have to in order to—you have to pass these very intimidating tests in order to start using it, or in order to legally start using it. And I guess—I dunno, does that match up with with—does that seem correct? This is just like what I put together right for the show. Eepa 20:08 Yeah, so if people wanted to just get on the radio, like, tonight, if you could just go down to the store and pick something up and get on the radio. Basically, what you outlined is spot on, you know, Family Radio Service is probably the weakest kind of radio that you can get. And, again, if you're within, you know, eyesight of the person you're talking to those kind of radios will work for you. CB radios are larger, typically they're mounted in like a vehicle. So they are a little bit less easy to keep on your person but they do carry further. So this is what nowadays you tend to see, like, off -oaders and other things like that use whenever they're going out in the desert and off-roading. Again, you have limited channels on both of those. So you have, like, you know, theoretically there's a bunch of channels in there, sub-channels, but it's very limited. So if you're in a city or something, you could find very easily that all of those channels are occupied and being used by people. And so that could just make things really confusing and really challenging. CB radios are kind of known as, like, the wild west of like the radio world, because you can say and do anything on that radio channel without any kind of punishment. So it's full of very not great things. And, again, it's a very busy radio channel because it's used by a lot of unlicensed people to communicate. Now, when you're talking about basic commercial radio, which is that license you're talking about for those handheld, the GMRS, that is going to be something that usually requires that you show you are a business. So you need to have an LLC, a nonprofit, some kind of designator, some kind of, like, you know, tax ID or whatever, to tell the FCC that yes, I'm a business. They will assign you a little tiny frequency of the spectrum that none of the other businesses in your area have and then you're stuck with it. So that means that you might have a few channels on your radio, but that's all that's going to be available to you to legally use. And you're having to pay money on a regular basis to keep that license. Margaret 22:23 Okay. Eepa 22:24 The one upside to that is you do get to use a slightly more powerful radio that—I mean, they are designed for, you know, like, mines and construction sites and factories, that's typically where these kind of radios are used. So they are more powerful and they also have the legal ability to be encrypted. So you can actually get encrypted radios, which is not legal on any other radio service. The only way you can do that is through the GMRS. But you have to go through a major company to get your encryption service which means if somebody wants to de-encrypt your radio, all they have to do is get in contact with the company and find out what your encryption keys are and then they're in. So this is also something that you see a lot of law enforcement that had switched to is this style of radio, just a modified one that are, you know, higher power and use repeaters. So these are all legal non-testing options, but they're purposefully designed to limit you. They're designed to basically reduce your capacity to communicate beyond line of sight in a way that, I mean, the amateur radio community would say the reason why is because, you know, you can't have people running rampant on the on the air, there needs to be, you know, law and order on the air. So that's part of the reason why the amateur bands are more thoroughly regulated, is to basically make sure that there's a system of accountability to the government. Margaret 24:00 Okay. Cici 24:04 Actually, I'm really glad that Eepa shared tha. I have—my information outside of HAM radio is very limited so I actually learned a lot listening to that. The only different thing I would like to say is there's actually a lot of changes coming with the—not with the testing, but the FCC—this is extremely recent. Like, I think the actual report from the FCC is, like, was dated like December 28—of like a few days ago, like last month, basically, it'sless than a month old. But they did actually say they're going to start charging people for HAM radio licenses. This is extreme because it used to—like, as of right now it's completely free. You have to take a test, but you don't have to pay any money. Sometimes if you look online you'll see people saying they want $15. That doesn't actually go to the FCC, that goes to the people providing the test itself. Those people are actually just HAM radio operators. It's, one of the interesting things is that the FCC actually has a very decentralized, like, they basically let HAM radio operators test each other and that's—they just send the paperwork to the FCC to get your callsign. So if anyone's at home thinking, "Oh, I was thinking about getting licensed and I think I'm ready." If you don't want to pay the FCC $35, like, I would, I would say, like, do what now. Along with that, they actually cut the GMRS license to $35 as well, it used to be $70. So they actually made getting a GMRS license and getting a HAM radio license the same price. HAM radio—people on ham radio, very upset, like, they—one of the big things is, oh, we need to attract people to HAM radio. So, like, the community in general is not happy about this change. It hasn't taken effect yet. The report doesn't actually say exactly when it's supposed to take effect, like, it's supposed to take effect the month after the report, but then it has to go through a bunch of bureaucracy. If I had to guess I'd say they're probably going to try to do it sometime around February/March. But it might be sooner, it might be more after that. As far as my experience, I—that's correct, you do have to take a test to get into HAM radio. Even in HAM radio, the first—there's three levels. Basically you have to pass each test to get to the next level. So like you can't just, like—so the levels, the first one you have is technician—technician level. The second one's a general level, that's actually where I'm at. I have a general level license. And then the highest one is called amateur extra, a lot of people just say "extra." That's—extras basically have the most privileges on the HAM radio. Margaret 26:36 They all sound inverted. Like, if I was to come up with the hierarchy, I would be like amateur, general, technician. Cici 26:44 Yeah no, they're like actually, like, holdovers from older—like there used to be advanced, there used to be a novice and, like, they've changed—the FCC is the one that's in charge of making these levels. And it's like, it's changed a lot. It used to be kind of like five or like three and a half kind of, and now it's basically just the three. Sometimes you'll run into a really old HAM who's like, "I haven't advanced license," and it's, like, what the hell is that? But it's basically like an old, depreciated license that they don't issue anymore. So yeah, I'm at the middle level. You can't just jump straight to, like, one of the levels. So like, if you're like, "I think I know enough to get an extra license," you can't just go and say, "Give me the extra test, I'll get an extra license." But you can take them all in one sitting. So like, if you're like, "I'm pretty sure I could do the extra," they'll give you a technician test. If you pass it, they'll give you a general test. If you pass it, they'll give you an extra test. The extra test has more questions, it's—I'm actually studying for it right now. It's very technical. It's kind of like what Eepa was referring to. There's kind of a culture of HAM radio. And it's, there's this idea that you basically have to earn your privileges on the bands by knowing what you're doing and all this type of basically hierarchy type of ideas. But I mean, it is helpful to know some of the things that are in the test. I've actually learned a lot, just from having to study for the technician or the general test even though I've forgotten some of it. The licenses are good for 10 years. So you do have to actually renew them every 10 years. So yeah, after a few years I'll have to renew mine, and pay them this stupid fee that didn't exist when I first got it. But yeah, also something I want to put out is if you—you only need a license if you want to transmit. By what I mean by that is if you want to send a signal out. That's important if you're, like, if you're in an emergency situation, you're probably going to want to send a signal out. If you're trying to communicate with people that are not near you, you want to send a signal out. But if you just want to listen you actually don't need a license, you can actually go grab a radio tonight, tune your radio to HAM radio bands and just listen all day long, as long as you don't transmit. And technically you're not supposed to interfere. So you can't, like, jam other people's signals. But, like, if you're not transmitting, you can listen, like whatever. Like there's no license to listen. So that's something interesting I want people to know: if you just want to listen to stuff, you don't actually need a license. Margaret 29:05 What do they talk about around you? Because around me, like, I got a scanner and, you know, it doesn't transmit any way, right? And I set it to listen to HAM radio channels, and I mostly heard like a 70-year-old talking to maybe a 15-year-old about like how to cook hot dogs and how to get trucks unstuck in mud, and then started explaining a story about snakes that I found very improbable. And that was about the most interesting thing that's happened, like, all of the many hours I've, like, just had the scanner on in the background. I don't know. I'm curious what you all have heard people talking about on these things. Cici 29:45 So for me, I actually don't do that much listening. Going back to kind of like different areas of different—I guess that's something called "rag chewing." In the HAM radio world that's if you hear someone say, "Oh, you're rag chewing," that's basically you're getting on the radio, you're just listening to other people. A lot of times people will make—I don't want to say a game, game probably sounds—is the right—is the wrong—but people will actually do this as a contest. Like, sometimes people will try to contact as many people as you can in a certain amount of time. You've heard of people called "contesting," that's what they mean. You'll hear some people "de-exing," this is better if you have that—so if you're in the high frequency, you try to get people as far away from you as you can. A lot of that, actually, you don't say much. Because you want to get as many contacts, you'll actually have this very non-conversation. It's basically like your call sign, like, some necessary information and that's it. Some people actually automate it. It's interesting. So you don't actually say a lot when you're doing that. However, I know we mentioned ultra high frequency, the UHV—or excuse me UHF, I'm sorry—UHF earlier, and somebody might be thinking, "Why would I want to even talk"—like they're very short, like, distances. They can penetrate into buildings which is helpful. So someone's like, "Why would I want to do that? If somebody right there, like, what's the point?" I mentioned earlier, one of the things you can do is you can create your own WiFi networks. Those actually operate. And those vary—or excuse me, not very, but ultra high frequency. 13 centimeters is about where that happens if people are able to look at a band plan and, like, see what links go where. If you were trying to set up your own—like, even like the commercial WiFi networks operate in that same thing. That's why your router is generally limited to your house and just outside your house and why you can't pick up a router like a mile away. So that's kind of like—I know, this is getting away from the question of what do people talk about around you. Margaret 31:50 Oh, no, no. Go on. This is a better tangent. Cici 31:55 It's like you don't have to necessarily even if you—there's a lot of people that have radios and they hardly ever listen, they don't ever rag chew. One of the things I'm trying to learn is it's basically Morse code. I don't know why I said basically, it is Morse code. It's called—for technical reasons it's called "continuous wave" in HAM radio. So if you hear people saying CW, that's Morse code. One of the attractive things in Morse code—because someone's like, "Well, why would you want to do that, that seems way more, way more like technical and you have to learn a whole thing and then"—it gets out when nothing else can. When I say that is a radio signals take up a certain amount of space, basically, in the bigger—the more space it takes up—bandwidth is how, I guess, the technical word for that. But the more bandwidth it is, the harder it can be to get that signal out. This is particularly pression, as Eepa was saying, a lot of times you're limited in how many watts you can put out. So if you're running something that's not a lot of watts—especially you've got like maybe an antenna that you've made or an antenna that's not extremely efficient—if you can do something like Morse code, it might get out, when if you were trying to do a voice code wouldn't get out. Now you have trade-offs with that, like, you know, you have to, you have to have equipment that will use it, you'll have to have somebody on the receiving end that can listen to it. But actually a lot of people use automatic—something, I forget what it's called. But it's basically something where when it comes up to your computer, or your radio, depending on if your radio is nice enough, will just automatically translate the Morse code for you. So you don't necessarily have to know it. In the HAM culture it's kind of like, well, that's cheating, you know, like you're supposed to like actually learn it and whatever. But if you're using it as an emergency thing, for instance, it can be really important. Another thing is if you don't really want to listen to what people around, you have to talk about, like I don't want to care—I don't care how people make hot dogs. The jokes is actually that if you are actually—a lot of it's just what gear do you have, what radio do you have? And like, "Oh, how nice is your radio?" And it's just, like, this is not information I need. One of the things, you can actually send out images? Which seems kind of like, "Well, I've got a computer, why do I care that I can send out images and like actually receive them?" This can be key if you're in a place where the government's actually shut down on purpose, you know, your your internet or your cell phone stuff, because they're doing things that they don't want people to know. For instance, I don't actually, I don't know if it's still happening. But I remember in the northern region of India, there was a blackout there a year or so ago. The Indian government was doing just, we don't really know because nothing could get out. But if you had a radio that could send out—there's fast scan and slow scan—TV is what it's called. But if you could send out an image without the government knowing, you could potentially let people know what's going on and in a situation where it's otherwise impossible to get communication out. So I mean, that's something that I—basically my answer to the question, "What do people talking around me?" is, "I don't really know." I'm not listening to people around me so much and I'm not a I'm not rag chewing, basically. But that's just to give people examples of what you can do if you're like, well, I'm really antisocial, I don't want to talk to anybody around me about just random stuff. So... Eepa 35:14 Yeah, for like around me, one of the things that—I actually do listen. I'm actually still in the process of getting licensed. The tests are themselves are, you know, intimidating and challenging but you can develop a lot of interesting insights, basically, by listening. And, I mean, around where we're at it's simple stuff, like, they have little game shows where you can, like, call in answers to trivia questions. And they have, like, little social meet and greets. They've got like a technical night where if you're having a problem with your radio, you can call in and they'll help you troubleshoot what's going on with it. And this is all done via repeaters, which means you could use a UHF or VHF, you know, like a Baofeng basically, to talk to somebody in Ohio. Now, again, these repeaters are run by local radio clubs which means, you know, you don't control the infrastructure, which means if those repeaters were to go down or, you know, the government was to take them over or something like that, you could lose access. And that's one of the reasons that I'm very interested in HF because HF is a self-contained communication system where you're able to do everything on your own. The IF's in contact with some of the people—some of the anarchists in Ethiopia. And during the recent civil war in Tigray that was one of the issues that they were running into and something that they had wished that they had basically prepared was people who could actually send out images and send out news reports on the radio from within Tigray because a lot of the news was only coming from the Ethiopian state forces. And there were, you know, reports and rumors of massacres and other things like that. But there were no images, there was nothing really to substantiate what was happening. And so just touching on that, the ability to send images and things like that is really nice. But just when it comes to listening, I think that's actually something really critical to think about when you're looking at radio from a prepper kind of standpoint, from a—the idea that you are trying to get into communications because you want to be a part of community awareness. The primary thing that you will be using radio for in a situation where communications are shut down through normal means, and that could mean just a grid down, you know, Hurricane knocked out the power grid or something like that. Or it could be something more sinister where, you know, the government is purposefully denying people access to communication. The primary thing you're gonna be doing on radio is listening, is intelligence gathering. It's figuring out what all the other HAMs that are on the radio are talking about, what are they seeing, you know. Are they seeing, you know—are there rumors of, you know, troop movements to the north? Are there rumors, that there's a food shortage in the town that's north to you or that, you know, they're sick people really concentrated in a certain area? That intelligence gathering is something that you can do with really cheap equipment. You can—one of the things that we recommend on our site is to get a shortwave, you know, receiver or something that can listen to all of these different bands. And just use that as a tool in your community to get people the ability to listen and learn because information is absolutely critical for survival, it's the central thing you can have in a situation where stability has crumbled, is to have information awareness on the ground. So listening, even when you're, you know, not licensed, can do that. It also can kind of give you an idea of what your local HAM community is like. Because one of the things that you will very, very rapidly learn, if you're a minority and you're involved in HAM, is that the community is blazingly white. And sometimes they can be fairly reactionary. And you can actually start to take notes of people that are actually kind of cool on the radio and people that you never want to talk to you again, just based off their call signs because they're required to give those. And that can help you decide in the future how reliable somebody information might be, or what kind of perspectives they might be providing in a disaster situation. So that kind of, like, finite information gathering is an important skill to develop even before you consider transmitting, you know, that's something you can work on right now. Margaret 39:59 Yeah, that makes sense. Cici 40:00 I'm actually really glad he mentioned that. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Margaret, I'm sorry, Margaret 40:04 No, go ahead. Cici 40:05 I was just gonna say like, I—I'm gonna preface this just legally by saying, don't ever do anything illegal on the radio. But one of the things that I don't think people necessarily realize is that the FCC isn't—they don't have the manpower to sit and listen to like every single band. So like, generally, if you're doing something say, untoward, or you're not necessarily licensed, it's not the FCC that's going to like find out. It's the other HAMs. HAM radio is largely kind of self-disciplined. It's self—like, for instance, we do our own testing. Like, it's not like if you do—if you do something someone's—the band hammer is gonna come down. It's basically if you piss off enough HAMs or if they know, they'll— they're the ones who's going to report it. Eepa had mentioned earlier in our conversation that in HAM radio you can't send encrypted communication. However, you could send—and there's kind of a formality of how you send information via HAM radio—but for instance, you could say what they would expect you to say if you were doing a regular HAM conversation and it could mean not what they would necessarily expect it to mean. So for instance, one of the things on—I don't know a lot about voice because I actually am trying to focus more and Morse code, but one of the things that you're supposed to do on Morse code to call a another radio is CQ, CQ CQ. And then someone will be like is, you know, are you looking for someone? You can use those codes to mean for your intended audience whatever you want them to mean. So it's not encrypted. But it's also something where the other HAM radio, if someone happens to be listening, has a HAM radio, they won't necessarily know what's going on. Again, you should never do anything illegal on the radio. I just want to let people know that it's not like there's a radio police that sits and actively listens, like, it's really just other HAMs that are gonna report you. Also, that's something to know. If you note that you're in kind of a, you know, maybe you live in a really remote area and there's just not a lot of other HAMs, you're listening on the air, and they're just not a lot of other people, you don't hear a lot of other people. That also might mean there's not really a lot of people listening, which means there's not a lot of people that could report you to the FCC. So that's something to keep in mind as well. If people were, you know—also something to note that even in a licensed situation, for something that's considered an emergency, and this is actually one part of the test, you can break HAM radio protocol and laws in the case of emergency. And that's actually something that's acknowledged. So like, if something were happening where it's like, this person needs immediate attention, you're not expected to follow all the—like, you can get on the air and be like, "I'm not licensed, but I need help," and most HAMs are gonna not, you know, they're not going to get on you. Like, that's allowed. So that's also something I want people to know, like, if you just want to radio for emergencies technically you should be licensed and it's good, because you'll have experience and you'll know what you're doing, but if it's something like this is like four death, or this is extreme, other HAMs aren't gonna report you. Like, people are generally, you know, and also that's allowed. So even if they did report you other HAMs would be like, well, that's allowed in the rule. So something I just wanted people to know. Margaret 43:44 Yeah, that actually helps. Eepa 43:45 So if you break your leg out in the woods, go ahead and get on your Baofeng and start honking. Margaret 43:51 So I feel like at this point, I should probably tell the audience what a Baofeng is. Which is, as far as I understand—because that's actually, that's how Baofengs were introduced to me, right is like, "Oh, yeah, I got a Baofeng." Like, "Oh yeah, there's radios over there, they're Baofengs." And like, everyone like talks about it, like, "Whoa, like, this is the fucking coolest thing ever," right? And it's just a really cheap radio that can do a lot of things. And it can do a lot of things that are legal like transmit at low wattage on FRS. And it can do a lot of things that would only be illegal if you were licensed. But it's just kind of like, what, a $20 or $30 radio you can buy on the internet and you can like swap it out with a nicer antenna? And it's just kind of like—it's become, like, kind of like a thing in this sort of like tactical and prepper and whatever worlds is like Baofengs is, like, the thing. But actually what you were talking about, about how you can use it in emergencies. That's kind of how I've always seen, like, I have a Baofeng, right? I don't really know how to use it. I've pretty much just used it to listen to things. But I'm like, okay, I could theoretically transmitted an emergency if I needed to. And, you know, for a $20 thing that can transmit in an emergency, that's cool. It's also cool that it's a tool that, like, isn't limited, like, I hate when I buy something and it's like, this is locked down to make sure that you can't do the things it's supposed to do. Just the things that you're allowed to do. You know? Eepa 45:23 Yeah. Margaret 45:23 I hate that kind of shit, I—there's a, just, I don't know, whatever. I'm clearly an anarchist, I—there's—I don't really have to defend this position very hard. Eepa 45:36 Yeah, and so like, those Baofengs are basically like, I mean, the the way that you can think about it is, like, your first, you know, foray into radio if you are, like, just—what I generally recommend Baofengs for is if you're actually interested in doing like, computer stuff with it, if you're interested in doing programming, they can be really fun to play with. Also, if you're interested in a radio that the cops can confiscate and you're not going to miss it because it's not that much of an investment, that's another really good reason to get a Baofeng. But if you're a beginner and you're serious about getting into radio, I do think that there are better options for just ease of use, because Baofengs can be very difficult to program, sometimes, they can be very finicky to use all of the functions of it. And so something like, you know, an Alinco, or a Yaesu, you know, these types of like, you know, Japanese radios can be a little bit more easy to use and they're going to be much more durable, you know, as far as like weather proofing and things like that. But again, that's something you have to weigh the pros and the cons of, you know, is this something that's gonna be confiscated at a protest, I probably don't want to spend a lot of money on it. Whereas if you're something where this isn't my go bag, I need something that's going to survive no matter what, then you might want to invest more money in something that's going to be easy to use and is going to be durable. So I mean, yeah, the Baofeng s ubiquitous, because it is cheap and there are better options that are still affordable. Margaret 47:20 I feel like the Baofeng is like such a perfect way to introduce someone to help goddamn convoluted radio looks, like, you know? Eepa 47:30 It can't—that's one of the issues with it is if you were—if I was to hand you a Yaesu. Like if I was to give you just like a Yaesu FT4X you would be able to program that without plugging in into a computer. It's much easier to use. You can just run to the menu, everything's right there. It's not convoluted and complex. And I think that's one of the issues with the Baofeng is it kind of—if you're not used to radio it can be very, very intimidating if you see that as your first introduction to radio. At least that's been my experience. I do have Baofengs, I was that typical person where I went out and I, first thing I got was, you know, a four-pack of Baofengs that I split amongst some of my comrades. And we were, you know, learning how to use them. But it was much more challenging. And the first time I used a radio with a nice, smooth, easy operation interface, you know, a nice, easy menu system. It really—it made it a lot less intimidating. Margaret 48:35 Now you sold me. I mean, yeah, like, I basically look at my Baofeng and I'm like, I'm an idiot. And I'm like, I know how to program a computer to some degree, like, I've been doing technical shit for very long time. And I just look at it, and I'm like, I don't have enough time to dedicate in my life. Actually, this ties back to something I don't remember—I think it was Cici who was saying it but I'm not sure—earlier about how like, you know, Cici's like well, I actually very involved in this community, right, but then you're like, but I only know about the stuff that I'm interested in. I don't necessarily have to know everything about everything. And that is one of the things that's so hard about radio is when you look at it from the outside, it's just a string of letters that you're supposed to know how to make sense of. I mean, it honestly reminds me of like when you get into guns or something when everyone's like, "Oh, yeah, well if you don't have this thing go attached to this thing and the other thing and then this thing, then you're just gonna die." Well I don't wanna die. Cici 49:32 I mean it's actually—yeah, I'd say with guns it's a good analogy. Like, there's very few gun people who, like, their experienced with revolvers, and they're experienced with like the latest pistols, and they're experienced with like lever guns, and their experienced with black powder, and their experienced with like—yeah, like, if people are—I don't know if listeners, if your listeners would have a good sense of like how guns are. I know you've done some episodes on firearms, but generally people tend to know more about certain aspects of firearms and they do other aspects, even though—even people that have a broad knowledge will know more about stuff than others, like black powder is very specific. A lot of people don't—who know a lot about guns, still don't know a lot about black powder, or vice versa. In the same way radio is kind of like that. There's very few. And I mean, like, I haven't met anybody who's, like, I know everything about every aspect of radio. That's, like, a crazy person. Like, or I should say, a person who's like, you know, they might be an engineer or something or that's their job. Eepa 50:33 Yeah, yeah. Cici 50:34 So for most people, like, I actually don't do too much what I would call local radio stuff and be—that'd be the very high frequency and ultra high frequency. I am interested in mesh networks, which would be the setting up those WiFi networks, but I haven't actually done a lot with it. What I'm interested in, the stuff is usually called high frequency, it's more long-distance, it's very different from the ultra high frequency. So I'm still learning a lot about setting up a mesh network and how to do a decentralized WiFi. I'm still learning a lot about that. What I guess my interests lie more in something called, I mentioned Morse code over there. There's another aspect of radio called QRP. So yeah, QRP is just a fancy way of saying low power. Generally, when people talk about radio they're gonna be talking about wattages. So we've been talking a lot about Baofengs and I know Eva mentioned the Alinko radios, Yaesu radios, these are generally going to be handy talkies. They looknkind of like what people might think a walkie-talkie would look like. The type of radios that would be a base station, they'll look very different. They look kind of like a—basically a box. It's a real, if it's a nice space station, that might be a really big box. Generally those are going to be at 100 watts or more, but those are also going to be extremely expensive. They're going to also generally require kind of semi-complex antenna setups, a lot of room to set up some type of base station like that. The stuff that I'm interested in for low power, the difference is that it's much cheaper. And a lot of people look at radio and they're like, I don't have an extra $1,000 to just drop on like a nice radio, I don't have an extra—especially if you want to do long distance stuff. That was kind of my interest. That's actually why I have a general license. If you get a technician license, it actually kind of limits you to very high frequency and ultra high frequency. You can do some stuff on the longer distance, but it's very limited. So yeah, you to even do stuff with long distance in a general sense, you have to get a general license, but a QRP is a way that you can not spend a lot of money—or at least spend less money, it still might be a lot of money, relatively speaking. But um. What'd you say? Margaret 52:58 And QRP means low powered, right? Cici 53:01 Yeah, low power. For Morse code, that's five watts or less. For voice modes like single sideband, that would be 10 watts or less. Actually, a lot of HAM radios kind of poopoo it because they're like, why would you use, you know—it's just, it can be difficult because you're using such little power, but you get a lot of benefits with it. A lot of benefits is you can use a radio that doesn't—or you can use an antenna that doesn't take up a lot of space. If you live in an apartment, that's huge. If you live in a place where, you know, like, you don't—you're not supposed to set up outside antennas or something, that's huge. I already mentioned that it's very cheap, or cheaper, I shouldn't say very cheap. But it's cheaper than doing other types of radios that use much higher power. Also, one of the big things is that you can make your own radios. We were talking about earlier how one of the benefits of radio was that it's decentralized, like, you're not about to go make your own smartphone. Margaret 53:55 Mm hmm. Cici 53:56 At least I can't. I don't know anyone who can. But you could make your own radio. And you can make your own antenna. In fact, a lot of HAMs encourage people to make their own antennas because it's—antennas are actually kind of expensive to go buy. It's actually cheaper to make them. So like a lot of HAMs will just learn how to make antennas out of, like, nothing. Like a lot of people make them on a tape measure and stuff, like it's very—if you're kind of that person where it's like I want to experiment and I want to kind of just make stuff with found materials or stuff that's, like, I have already at my house. Like, that's a huge benefit. Also, we didn't mention this earlier, but RF safety kind of is a related to the amount of—it's related to a lot of stuff, but it can be related to the amount of watts you're putting out. Margaret 54:39 What is RF? Cici 54:41 Oh, sorry, RF is radio frequency. It's just—it's the type of energy we're using for radio. Margaret 54:47 So what is—how does it tie in to safety? Sorry, I'm just like... Cici 54:52 Oh, it's okay. So if you're using something like 100 watts or more and you're transmitting. Like, for instance, you should never touch an antenna at that many watts that's transmitting. You're gonna get an RF burn. It's basically something that, like, it can get kind of complicated. But—and there's—I don't want to like scare people or anything, like, it's not—I'm not trying to be like, "Oh, we didn't talk about safety." But the lower wattage you use the less you have to worry about that, basically, especially if you have an indoor antenna or something. Like, if you have an indoor antenna, you really want to keep your RF, like, levels lower so you don't—part of it is actually practical, like, we haven't talked a lot about interference. But if you have a really, really high, like, wattage, and today—it can cause interference. And it can be something where your neighbors are trying to like use their electronics, and they hear all sorts of weird stuff, they hear all sorts of clicks and whatever. That's because you're using like a really high power radio. So, like, your neighbors just might get mad and be like, "You're, we see this antenna outside your house, and it's doing this thing and blah, blah, blah." So using a less power, it can be—it can cause less interference. But also it will just cause less RF like fields, which means that it's safer to operate inside. And someone might, like, might be thinking, "Well, why would I want to operate inside? If I can operate outside, shouldn't I?" Well, it depends. Are you doing something where you don't necessarily want people to know you're operating. A big antennas, like, if you have a huge antenna outside your house, or even just kind of a moderate one but something that's obviously an antenna and not a TV antenna, it'll be like, well, that person's a radio operator. Not everybody wants that immediately known if they were to walk by their house. I'll just say that. It's something that, if you're using QRP, it's much easier for you to not cause interference, to operate from completely inside, and to be able to make your own equipment. Margaret 56:51 It's really cool honestly. Like, talking to you makes me want to learn how to build radios. Eepa 56:58 I mean, it's like, there's some benefits to, like, QRP, like low power HF radios for prepping especially because they're mobile. You can literally put one of these—you can put a full QRP setup—a low power radio, power source, an antenna, and like an antenna tuner—in your purse. You could put it in a very small satchel and be able to talk to somebody states away. So these can be really compact and really mobile solutions that still give you access to autonomous email, like, still give you access to, you know, listening to all of these different bands, transmitting all these different bands. So from a preparedness perspective, that is a huge benefit. The low wattage basically allows you to use less power from your battery so you can use a very small solar panel that folds up and into your backpack to recharge your battery when you need. And so that just has tremendous benefits for mobility. And one of the key things to think about from a, maybe, a situation where you have any type of adversary. So that could be, you know, a lot of white supremacists militia types have created radio nets and have radio training. They're—they've been working on preparing this for years, they have pre-designated frequencies and nets, they've got all these different things set up. And one of the things that they can do is they can track you. So it's extremely easy to triangulate and locate the source of a transmission. So if you are needing to transmit something that is sensitive or that will identify you, as politically opposed to people that might be interested in finding you, you're going to want to transmit from locations away from your place of residence and also in a way that doesn't, you know, create a big circle on the map around your house. You're going to want to choose random locations to transmit from, and you're going to want to use, you know—low power helps with that a little bit as well. You can reach the people you need to without giving away your position too much. But as soon as you click the transmission button, you're opening up the world to find out exactly where you're at. So you can transmit what you need to, pack up, and get out of there if you need to. That's the nice thing about those low power rigs. So that's something to really think about when you're getting into radio. And, yeah, you can build your own, you can build your own antenna. There's some awesome antennas that you can literally just launch up into a tree with a slingshot and it's—all it is is one giant long strand of speaker cable, speaker wire. That's it, that's an antenna. Nothing more is needed. You just need a little antenna tuner to hook up to it and your radio and you're good to go. So those kinds of things are—they open up the whole world to you on a very, very—on a lower budget than you would be if you had a base station. One of the things that we talked about with the article that we released the Javelina Network is that handheld radios and QRP HF radios are very good for transmitting on the go and that was our main focus on that. You can do base stations which is like based out of your apartment, based out of your co-op or your bookstore or whatever you want to do. But again, that's a known location, that's a fixed location, that means that you have to be much more careful about what you're transmitting. And if you're transmitting outside of legal areas, the amateur radio committee has a whole community of amateur snitches that their whole thing—they get their jollies by tagging people on not having licenses and stuff. So it can happen. You just got to be careful about what you do. Margaret 1:00:53 That's actually one of the questions that I—when I asked around basically being like what should I ask these people? One of the questions that came up a couple times was how real is—I think—it was presented to me that's called fox hunting? Like, the hobby of tracking down on licensed operators. What a great culture, what a wonderful culture where their whole thing is just snitching on people. But so, yeah, my question was, like, how real is that? Like, how much do people—especially like, let's say if you're not—I mean obviously if you're doing something where people are—where the people around you are politically opposed to you, and opposed to what you're saying, obviously that will increase the odds. But if you're just, like, coordinating some random bullshit like picking up lumber or something like that, how much do you act—do people—how real is this? How much do people actually get kind of tracked down? Eepa 1:01:52 So from my experience, basically, fox hunting—I'm sorry, I've got a ICE helicopter flying over me right now. The—as far as fox hunting goes, if you go to any type of, like, HAM Fest or HAM convention or HAM con or, you know, whatever you want to go to, they will all have fox hunting competitions. This is something that, you know, people really enjoy doing is just like, you know, hunting down signals. Now, what this is typically used for is not going to be tracking down the guy who's saying, "Hey, I got lumber," or, you know, the person who's like, "Hey, you know, I need to pick up a quart of oil from you," or something like that, or the gal that's, you know, "I've got eggs for sale," or something like that, you know. It's not typically going to be stuff like that. It's usually like sources of interference that people are going to be tracking down. So if you're causing a lot of interferenc, and it's pissing people off, then they will fox hunt you down, and they'll find out what's going on. So if you have a jammer or something like that, which are illegal, and you operate that jammer and it makes people mad—if you operate it for long enough, people will find it and they will make sure that that is put to the stop. And so you have to be careful if you do utilize jammers and things like that, that you're not using them when you don't need to. So fox hunting in, like, day to day circumstances is a little bit less of a threat. If you know kind of what radio people sound like—and, again, do this at your own risk. This is something, again, that, you know, is illegal. But if you had like a fake callsign and you just follow the standard protocols of calls, you could basically get away with it as long as you didn't accidentally have some callsign that somebody there knew as being somebody else. So generally it's not going to be an issue if you're just talking between two people, you select a frequency, you listen to it, nobody's on that frequency, nobody's been on that frequency for a long time, and you just use it to call each other to coordinate something. Just kind of sound like you belong and you'll be okay. As soon as you get into an adversarial situation, that's when you do have police operating like stingers and other devices that will track down cell phone data, they'll track down radio data, everything—any kind of frequency that's being emitted, those things will be able to track down the source of so just be very aware of when and how you're transmitting, and be safe about it. Cici 1:04:29 Absolutely. And I would actually add to what Eepa says: If you're going to use a call sign, first you want to absolutely know who—you know, if you're licensed—So, okay, so for people who are like what the hell is call sign? Margaret 1:04:43 Yeah I was about to ask. Cici 1:04:46 For HAM radio, what—basically what happens is you take this test. Assuming you pass they'll—what the license actually—the most important thing that I guess the license gives you is a call sign. I actually have a call sign. I'm not going to say it. The reason I'm not going to say it is because for anybody that says a call sign, it's instantly look up-able. When you take the test you have to give like an address, it's supposed to be your home address, of where you live. And basically that data is publicly available. So like, if I were to say my call sign right now, anybody listening to this podcast could go look it up online and find out exactly who I am—or at least, I shouldn't say exactly who I am. They could find out the name that I gave to the FCC, which is my real name. They could find out the address I have listed. You're supposed to updat it, like, you know, every time you move or whatever. A lot of people don't necessarily but like if they find out, like, that can become an issue. So for instance, let's say you just found a call sign. Nobody's using it. Cool. Somebody happens to look it up—and they might actually do this innocuously, a lot of people want these—they're called QSL cards. It's basically a little card that say, "Hey, I contacted you." And it's like a postcard that 's like, oh, cool. So they might just look it up just thinking, "Hey, I contacted you, I want a little postcard," and see that,

Buenos días! Hoy quiero hablaros de algunas cosas que podemos hacer para vencer la timidez fotográfica, o esa vergüenza que nos da cuando sacamos la cámara en medio de la gente. Bienvenidos a El Café del Fotógrafo, un podcast en el que hablamos de todas esas cuestiones, ideas, charlas o conversaciones que suelen surgir cuando se unen un grupo de fotógrafos para tomar un café tras una sesión de fotos. Soy José Barceló, y estoy aquí para cualquier cosa que necesitéis relacionada con el mundo de la fotografía.Volvemos un martes más con un episodio de esos que no son ni técnicos ni de material, los que clasificamos como estilo y creatividad aunque luego os cuento un poco de todo jejejeHoy os quiero hablar de timidez, de como vencerla cuando estamos haciendo fotos. Pero antes os recuerdo que tenemos en marcha Sorteo PhotopillsReseña 5 estrellas itunesComentarios en https://josebarcelo.com/podcast en los episodios 56 a 65Suscriptores premium de JOSEBARCELO.COMSuscripción premium acceso a TODO, cursos, recursos, preferencia en dudas, consultas y sugerencias de futuros cursos.Esta tarde empezamos el taller de fotografía de stock en el CEF, en cefmallorca.com, así que si os apetece, imagino que todavía estáis a tiempo para apuntaros. Y si ya estáis apuntados, nos vemos en un rato. Ya sabéis que podéis contactar conmigo para dudas, preguntas, sugerencias, lo que haga falta a través del formulario de contacto que encontraréis en JOSEBARCELO.COM/contacto Vencer la timidez fotográfica Como siempre, os dejo el resumen, esquema o escaleta del episodio para todos los suscriptores: Fotografiar en el campo vs fotografiar en la calleNos invade la timidezPosturas rarasDetalles que nadie más veLa gente te miraFotografiar eventos especialesFerias medievalesCarnavalesFiestas o eventos deportivos popularesHay un motivo para hacer fotosIncluso para fotografiar a la genteO pedirles un retratoFotografiar en viajesSensación de que nadie te miraO nadie te conoceAdemás, seguimos teniendo motivos objetivos para hacer fotosSomos turistasFotografiar en grandes ciudadesImpresión de que cada uno va a su bolaBruce Gilden en NYParece que está más aceptadoO siempre hay alguien haciendo algo raroPasamos más desapercibidosFotografiar en pequeñas ciudadesSe complica un poco másYa no pasamos tan desapercibidosCascos antiguos o zonas con menos tránsitoZonas turísticas - No monumentos, sino calleCerca de museos - sensación de aceptación del fotógrafoFotografiar a desconocidos, pedirles un retratoDar el pasoAnalizar que es lo que te paraliza para pedir el retratoAnaliza qué motivo tienes para pedir ese retratoCompartir una experiencia con la persona retratadaDiane ArbusImportante: Una vez que te dicen que sí, aprovecha, demuéstrale que te importaFotografiar lo que nos importaSean escenas de calleRetratos a desconocidosDetalles urbanosLo que sea, hazlo porque te importeAsí la timidez pesará menos que el deseoFotografiar con objetivos asumiblesNo me vuelvo a casa hasta que haya hecho una foto en la que salga alguien a 10m de mi.No vuelvo a casa hasta que no haya hecho una foto con un gran angular a alguien a 2 metros de miNo vuelvo hasta que no haya pedido 5 retratos a desconocidos...Cosas realistas, que sepas que puedes hacer. Pero que te supongan un retoPequeños trucosDate un paseo con la cámaraDéjate verHaz fotos aunque sea para ir calentandoUsar la cámara/objetivo más grandeHacerse con un pase de prensaUsar cámara de películaBusca un motivo que te pese más que la timidezFotografía para UHVídeos para los cursosSi tenéis que hacer un retrato y pensáis que os dará corte , viene muy bien un teleobjetivoDile adiós a la timidez si realmente quieres decírseloSe trata de disfrutar, no de pasarlo mal.Te gusta hacer bodegones y no fotos en público?No te aporta nada a nivel personal fotografiar en público?Merece la pena si son fotos que quieres hacer pero te da cortePero sufrir por sufrir es tontería. ENLACES COMENTADOS

In this episode, our panel sits down with Edmund Downie to discuss China’s vision for a Global Energy Interconnection, or 全球能源互联网 in Chinese. Downie is an energy analyst with the Analysis Group in Boston, and former Fulbright Scholar at Yunnan University in Southwest China.  In past roles with Yale and the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, Downie has written extensively on South and Southeast Asia political and social issues, including for Foreign Policy magazine. While many Western analysts are skeptical about the Global Energy Interconnection plan, and its fantastical map of a world crossed by ultra-high voltage transmission lines stretching from New Zealand to Greenland and everywhere in between, Downie takes a nuanced view: “There are many things that GEI can achieve reflecting the interests driving GEI… The key is to think of [GEIDCO, the Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization] as a planning and research body that’s occupying a niche between global energy governance debates and more on-the-ground work [with countries] to figure out how they want to do their energy planning.” Various versions of the Global Energy Interconnection world map can be found online. Here is one from a 2019 GEIDCO slide showing the 9 horizontal and 9 vertical grids proposed under the plan: https://twitter.com/damienernst1/status/1136574555995148289. Ultra-high voltage (UHV) refers to alternating-current lines over 1,000 kV or over 800 kV for direct-current lines, under a Chinese definition. A summary of UHV development in China can be found here: https://www.caixinglobal.com/2018-11-06/china-to-speed-up-construction-of-ultrahigh-voltage-power-lines-101343605.html. A typical high-voltage transmission line in the U.S. would be 360 kV AC, and the U.S. operates a handful of high-voltage (+/- 500 kV) DC lines such as the Pacific DC Intertie, built in 1982, that connects California to the hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest.  Edmund Downie, “Sparks fly over ultra-high voltage power lines,” China Dialogue, January 29, 2018, at https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/10376-Sparks-fly-over-ultra-high-voltage-power-lines. Edmund Downie, “China’s Vision for a Global Grid: The Politics of Global Energy Interconnection,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, February 3, 2019, at https://reconnectingasia.csis.org/analysis/entries/global-energy-interconnection/. Biography of Liu Zhenya via Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Zhenya Ned references Michael Skelly of Clean Line Energy. Here is a recent article about the company’s recent demise: Ros Davidson, “Ambitious Clean Line Energy ‘wrapping up’,” Windpower Monthly, February 1, 2019, at https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1523646/ambitious-clean-line-energy-wrapping-up. The scenario analysis game this time features a report from the Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national science research agency. The report is P. Graham et al., “Modelling the Future Grid Forum scenarios,” CSIRO and Roam Consulting, 2013, at https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=csiro:EP1311347&dsid=DS3. Note that the scenarios are highly simplified and the summaries we read out are not direct quotations from the CSIRO report.

A sit down talk with UHV soccer player Gifanho about his transition from London to American and his path to hopefully one day the MLS.

The aim of this work is to further the understanding of the important parameters in the formation process of 2D nanostructures and therewith pioneer for novel applications. Such 2D nanostructures can be composed of specially designed organic molecules, which are adsorbed on various surfaces. In order to study true 2D structures, monolayers were deposited. Their properties have been investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) under ultra-high vacuum (UHV) conditions as well as under ambient conditions. The latter is a highly dynamic environment, where several parameters come into play. Complementary surface analysis techniques such as low-energy electron diffraction (LEED), X-Ray photo-emission spectroscopy (XPS), and Raman spectroscopy were used when necessary to characterize these novel molecular networks. In order to conduct this type of experiments, high technical requirements have to be fulfilled, in particular for UHV experiments. Thus, the focus is on a drift-stable STM, which lays the foundation for high resolution STM topographs. Under ambient conditions, the liquid-solid STM can be easily upgraded by an injection add-on due to the highly flexible design. This special extension allows for adding extra solvent without impairing the high resolution of the STM data. Besides the device, also the quality of the tip is of pivotal importance. In order to meet the high requirements for STM tips, an in vacuo ion-sputtering and electron-beam annealing device was realized for the post-preparation of scanning probes within one device. This two-step cleaning process consists of an ion-sputtering step and subsequent thermal annealing of the probe. One study using this STM setup concerned the incorporation dynamics of coronene (COR) guest molecules into pre-existent pores of a rigid 2D supramolecular host networks of trimesic acid (TMA) as well as the larger analogous benzenetribenzoic acid (BTB) at the liquid-solid interface. By means of the injection add-on the additional solution containing the guest molecules was applied to the surface. At the same time the incorporation process was monitored by the STM. The incorporation dynamics into geometrically perfectly matched pores of trimesic acid as well as into the substantially larger pores of benzentribenzoic acid exhibit a clearly different behavior. For the BTB network instantaneous incorporation within the temporal resolution of the experiment was observed; for the TMA network, however, intermediate adsorption states of COR could be visualized before the final adsorption state was reached. A further issue addressed in this work is the generation of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) under ultra-high vacuum conditions. A suitable building block therefore is an aromatic trithiol, i.e. 1,3,5-tris(4-mercaptophenyl)benzene (TMB). To understand the specific role of the substrate, the surface-mediated reaction has been studied on Cu(111) as well as on Ag(111). Room temperature deposition on both substrates results in densely packed trigonal structures. Yet, heating the Cu(111) with the TMB molecules to moderate temperature (150 °C) yields two different porous metal coordinated networks, depending on the initial surface coverage. For Ag(111) the first structural change occurs after annealing the sample at 300 °C. Here, several disordered structures with partially covalent disulfur bridges were identified. Proceeding further in the scope of increasing interaction strength between the building blocks, covalent organic frameworks (COFs) were studied under ultra-high vacuum conditions as well as under ambient conditions. For this purpose, a promising strategy is covalent coupling through radical addition reactions of appropriate monomers, i.e. halogenated aromatic molecules such as 1,3,5-tris(4-bromophenyl)benzene (TBPB) and 1,3,5-tris(4- iodophenyl)benzene (TIPB). Besides the correct choice of a catalytic surface, the activation energy for the scission of the carbon-halogen bonds is an essential parameter. In the case of ultra-high vacuum experiments, the influence of substrate temperature, material, and crystallographic orientation on the coupling reaction was studied. For reactive Cu(111) and Ag(110) surfaces room temperature deposition of TBPB already leads to a homolysis of the C-Br bond and subsequent formation of proto-polymers. Applying additional heat facilitates the transformation of proto-polymers into 2D covalent networks. In contrast, for Ag(111) just a variety of self-assembled and rather poorly ordered structures composed of intact molecules has emerged. The deposition onto substrates held at 80 K has never resulted in proto-polymers. For ambient conditions, the polymerization reaction of 1,3,5-tri(4-iodophenyl)benzene (TIPB) on Au(111) was studied by STM after drop-casting the monomer onto the substrate held either at room temperature or at 100 °C. For room temperature deposition only poorly ordered non-covalent arrangements were observed. In accordance with the established UHV protocol for halogenated coupling reaction, a covalent aryl-aryl coupling was accomplished for high temperature deposition. Interestingly, these covalent aggregates were not directly adsorbed on the Au(111) surface, but attached on top of a chemisorbed monolayer comprised of iodine and partially dehalogenated TIPB molecules. For a detailed analysis of the processes, the temperature dependent dehalogenation reaction was monitored by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy under ultra-high vacuum conditions.

Here's Part 2 of the InDesign tutorials. This is content used in last year's academy that can hopefully help you get started with using InDesign CS3.

This week we'll take a VERY basic look at InDesign CS3. Stay tuned for part II of InDesign next week!

In dieser Arbeit wurde das Wachstumsverhalten dekagonaler Quasikristalle untersucht. Zur besseren Vergleichbarkeit wurden die Experimente mit Schmelzen der Zusammensetzung Al77Co6Ni17 durchgeführt, aus welcher dekagonale Einkristalle mit einer durchschnittlichen Zusammensetzung von d-Al72Co9Ni19 gewonnen werden können. Zusätzlich wurden in dem verwandten ternären System Al-Co-Cu Züchtungsexperimente durchgeführt. Dort zeigt die dekagonale Phase der Zusammensetzung d-Al67.5Co20.0Cu12.3 ebenfalls ein kinetisch gehemmtes Wachstumsverhalten entlang der quasiperiodischen Orientierungen. Für die Ziehgeschwindigkeit bei der Züchtung von Einkristallen sind noch engere Grenzen gesetzt, als es im System d-Al-Co-Ni der Fall ist. In beiden untersuchten Systemen können die quasikristallinen Phasen nur aus Al-reichen, nichtstöchiometrischen Schmelzen gezüchtet werden, wobei sich die einzelnen Experimente über eine Dauer von mehreren Wochen erstreckten. Dies machte die Neukonstruktion einer UHV-gedichteten Wachstumskammer notwendig, um die Schmelzen vor Oxidation zu schützen. Eine freie Schmelzenoberfläche stellt für alle Wachstums- und Kinetikexperimente eine Grundvoraussetzung dar. Aus den schon vor Beginn dieser Arbeit weitgehend beherrschten Bedingungen für die CZOCHRALSKI-Züchtung ist die ausgeprägte Wachstumsaniosotropie von dekagonalen AlCoNi-Einkristallen bekannt. Dabei beobachtet man eine hohe Wachstumsgeschwindigkeit entlang der Orientierung der zehnzähligen, periodischen Achse [00001], während das laterale Wachstum entlang der zweizähligen, quasiperiodischen Richtungen [10000] und [10-100] kinetisch gehemmt ist. An den gezüchteten Einkristallen kann das Auftreten von Flächen fünf unterschiedlicher kristallographischer Formen {h1h2h3h4h5} beobachtet werden: Das Pinakoid {00001}, das dekagonale (Haupt-) Prisma {10000} und (Neben-) Prisma {10-100}, sowie zwei dekagonale Dipyramiden {0-1-101} und {10-102}. Die am Kristallmantel beobachteten Facetten dieser Formen sind das Ergebnis von Wachstumsprozessen an der Dreiphasenkoexistenzlinie und lassen keine Rückschlüsse auf das Wachstum zu, weil sie nicht repräsentativ für das Zweiphasengleichgewicht an der Wachstumsfront sind. Den Flächen der beiden dekagonalen Dipyramiden {0-1-101} und {10-102} galt jedoch besonderes Interesse. Sie stellen die morphologische Entsprechung so genannter inclined net planes dar. Dabei handelt es sich um bezüglich der periodischen Achse [00001] geneigte Netzebenen des Quasikristalls, welche die beiden widersprüchlichen Ordnungsprinzipien der Translationsperiodizität und die Quasiperiodizität miteinander verbinden. Ihre Bedeutung ist aus Röntgenbeugungsexperimenten bekannt, wobei bisher unklar war, ob sie eine Bedeutung für das Wachstum von dekagonalen Quasikristallen haben. Die Experimente dieser Arbeit sind in zwei Gruppen untergliedert: a. Experimente zur Morphologie gezüchteter dekagonaler Quasikristalle b. Experimente zur Wachstumskinetik dekagonaler Quasikristalle Zu den unter Punkt a. genannten Experimenten gehörten CZOCHRALSKI-Züchtungsexperimente in den ternären Systemen d-Al-Co-Ni und d-Al-Co-Cu und Substratexperimente unter Verwendung großvolumiger d-AlCoNi-Keime, sowie ein Kugelwachstumsexperiment. Die unter Punkt b. aufgeführten Experimente zur Wachstumskinetik beinhalteten die CZOCHRALSKI-Abreißexperimente und ergänzend Kontaktwinkelmessungen zur Bestimmung der Oberflächenenergie orientierter Quasikristalloberflächen. Mit den CZOCHRALSKI -Züchtungsexperimenten wurde in einer Reihe von konventionellen Züchtungsexperimenten das Wachstum und die Morphologie dekagonaler Quasikristalle untersucht. Dabei war die Morphologie der Zweiphasengrenze l-s von besonderem Interesse. Hier wurde das Wachstum von Einkristallen in definierten Orientierungen [h1h2h3h4h5] durch ein schnelles Trennen des Kristalls von der Schmelze unterbrochen und ex situ untersucht, welche kristallographischen Formen {h1h2h3h4h5} an der Zweiphasengrenzfläche l-s morphologisch auftreten. In den Züchtungsexperimenten parallel der zehnzähligen Achse [00001] zeigt der wachsende Kristall einen rotationssymmetrischen, dekaprismatischen Habitus. An der Dreiphasengrenze v-l-s werden Flächen der Form des dekagonalen (Haupt-) Prismas {10000 und in geringerer Größe Flächen der Form des dekagonalen (Neben-) Prismas {10-100} gebildet, welche die dekaprismatische Wachstumsmorphologie bestimmen. Diese Flächen entstehen trotz der durch die Kristall- und Tiegelrotation in dem thermischen Feld aufgeprägten Rotationssymmetrie und bleiben gegenüber der bestehenden Unterkühlung stabil. Die Wachstumsfront konnte durch das schnelle Trennen des in [00001]-Orientierung gezüchteten Kristalls von der Schmelze (Dekantieren) nicht konserviert werden. In jedem Fall kristallisierte an der ehemaligen Wachstumsfront anhaftende Restschmelze unter Bildung dekagonaler (Hohl-) Nadeln aus, womit eine großflächige Beobachtung der Zweiphasengrenze l-s in dieser Experimentserie nicht möglich war. Im Fall der Züchtung parallel der beiden zweizähligen, symmetrisch nicht äquivalenten Achsen [10000] bzw. [10-100] wird die Zweiphasengrenzfläche immer von der zehnzähligen Achse [00001] und der weiteren zweizähligen Achse [10-100] bzw. [10000] aufgespannt. Dabei zeigt sich sehr deutlich die Anisotropie der Wachstumsgeschwindigkeiten der periodischen und aperiodischen Kristallorientierungen mit der Ausbildung eines ovalen Kristallquerschnittes, wobei die schnellwachsende zehnzählige Achse die lange Halbachse und eine zweizählige Achse die kurze Halbachse des Ovals bilden. Die jeweilige Dreiphasenkoexistenzlinie am Meniskus ist in der [00001]-Richtung nicht facettiert, d.h. hier wird das Wachstum durch den rotationssymmetrischen Verlauf der Isothermen an der Schmelzenoberfläche begrenzt. Im Gegensatz dazu bildet der Kristall senkrecht zu der Richtung der zweizähligen Achse Flächen der Form des dekagonalen (Haupt-) Prismas {10000} aus. Nach dem Dekantieren der Grenzfläche l-s beobachtet man für jede der zweizähligen Züchtungsrichtungen eine individuelle Morphologie der ehemaligen Wachstumsfront. Für die Züchtungsrichtung parallel der [10000]-Orientierung zeigt sich eine singuläre Fläche (10000), die senkrecht zur Ziehrichtung verläuft als Wachstumsfläche am der Zweiphasengrenze l-s. Im Fall der Züchtungsrichtung parallel der [10-100]-Orientierung zeigt sich ein anderes Bild: Die Zweiphasengrenze l-s ist in einzelne, um ±18° gegen die Ziehrichtung verkippte Flächen der Form des dekagonalen (Haupt-) Prismas {10000} zerfallen, sodass deren Einhüllende die Wachstumsfläche (10-100) bildet. Aus der Bildung einer facettierten Wachstumsfront in diesen Orientierungen erkennt man, dass das Wachstum hier über atomar glatte Grenzflächen erfolgt. In diesem Fall sind den parallelen Verschiebungsgeschwindigkeiten beider Orientierungen kinetische Grenzen gesetzt. Bei der Züchtung entlang der geneigten Kristallorientierungen der dekagonalen Dipyramiden [0-1-101] und [10-102] beobachtet man die Bildung einer Wachstumsmorphologie, die ebenfalls nicht mehr rotationssymmetrisch ist, aber entsprechend der Symmetrie der Kristallklasse 10/m 2/m 2/m eine Spiegelsymmetrie enthält. An der Dreiphasengrenzlinie v-l-s zeigen die Kristalle eine deutliche Querschnittszunahme in der Orientierung der zehnzähligen Komponente [00001] und sind dort durch das thermische Feld scharf begrenzt. Der übrige Umfang wird von Flächen der Form {10000} begrenzt. Nach dem Trennen des Kristalls von der Schmelze erkennt man für beide Kristallorientierungen eine komplex zusammengesetzte Zweiphasengrenzfläche l-s. Die Komponente der schnellwachsenden, zehnzähligen Orientierung [00001] ist in dekagonale Nadeln zerfallen während die Komponente senkrecht dazu von Flächen des dekagonalen (Haupt-) Prismas {10000} gebildet wird, welche wiederum die Wachstumsfläche darstellen. Die einzelnen Flächen {10000} sind dabei um 36° gegeneinander orientiert. Die {10000}-Flächen besitzen keine Komponente parallel zu der ausgedehnten Schmelzenoberfläche und folgen demnach keinem Isothermenverlauf, woraus vor der facettierten Grenzfläche l-s deutliche Unterkühlungen entstehen. Für die Züchtung parallel der Orientierung [10-102] sind die Segmente der {10000}-Flächen um 18° im Vergleich mit der Anordnung für die Orientierung parallel [0-1-101] verdreht angeordnet. Die Substratexperimente stellten einen Ansatz dar, um mit einer an das schnelle Trennen des Kristalls von der Schmelze gekoppelten stark beschleunigten Kristallrotation die an der Wachstumsfront anhaftende Restschmelze vor dem Erstarren abzuschleudern. Dazu wurden massive Keime eingesetzt, die eine großflächige Zweiphasengrenze l-s nach einer nur geringen Wachstumsdistanz bereitstellen. Hier musste erkannt werden, dass es prinzipiell nicht möglich ist, einen Flüssigkeitsfilm, der den Kristall benetzt, restlos von einer Grenzfläche durch Abschleudern zu entfernen. In einigen Fällen konnte die anhaftende Restschmelze aus einigen Bereichen der Zweiphasengrenze l-s vor deren Erstarren entfernt werden, sodass die ehemaligen Wachstumsfront ex situ untersucht werden konnte. Im Fall der Züchtungsrichtung parallel der zehnzählige Achse [00001] konnte so nachgewiesen werden, dass das Wachstum nicht über ebenmäßige Flächen erfolgt. Die Wachstumsfront stellt sich als eine gleichmäßig gekrümmte Fläche dar, die dem Verlauf der Schmelzpunktisothermen folgt. Als Ergebnis kann man den Schluss ziehen, dass das Wachstum entlang der [00001]-Orientierung über eine atomar raue Grenzfläche erfolgt, was unter wachstumskinetischen Gesichtspunkten höhere Ziehgeschwindigkeiten ermöglicht. Die Identifizierung des kinetischen Limits des Wachstums in dieser Orientierung ist durch die einsetzenden Effekte der konstitutionellen Unterkühlung verdeckt. Die Züchtung großer dekagonaler AlCoCu-Quasikristalle gelang im Rahmen dieser Arbeit erstmals. Frühere Experimente unter Nutzung der spontanen Keimbildung blieben erfolglos. Es kann angenommen werden, dass in diesem System eine größere Keimbildungsarbeit zur Bildung der festen Phase aufgewendet werden muss, als in dem ternären System Al-Co-Ni der Fall ist. Mit der Bildung der festen Phase bricht die Unterkühlung zusammen und es resultiert ein polykristallines Wachstum. In den Züchtungsexperimenten unter Verwendung [00001]-orientierter d-AlCoNi-Keime war zu beobachten, dass der zuvor beschriebene Effekt später einsetze und eine zunächst dekaprismatische Wachstumsmorphologie zunehmend an struktureller Perfektion verlor. Erst der Wechsel der Züchtungsrichtung zu den langsamwachsenden, zweizähligen Orientierungen [10000] und [10-100] führte zu einem kontrollierbaren, einkristallinen Wachstum. Auch hier zeigte die dekantierte Wachstumsfront, dass als Wachstumsfläche an der Zweiphasengrenze l-s allein Flächen der Form des dekagonalen (Haupt-) Prismas {10000} auftreten. Das gemeinsame Ergebnis aller Studien zur Züchtung von dekagonalen Quasikristallen nach dem CZOCHRALSKI-Verfahren ist das Auftreten des dekagonalen (Haupt-) Prismas {10000} als Wachstumsfläche an der Zweiphasengrenze l-s. Auch können an der Peripherie der Kristalle außer den beiden bekannten Formen der dekagonalen Dipyramide keine weiteren Flächen geneigter Formen beobachtet werden. Das Kugelwachstumsexperiment bot die Möglichkeit, das Wachstum aller symmetrisch nicht äquivalenten Kristallorientierungen einer Kristallart an einem sphärisch präparierten Individuum zu beobachten. Dieses experimentell aufwändige Experiment wurde erstmals in der beschriebenen Art in einem intermetallischen System realisiert. Nach dem Experiment konnte auf der Kugeloberfläche das Auftreten von Flächen nachgewiesen werden, die den beiden Formen des dekagonalen Prismas {10000} sowie {10-100} zugeordnet werden können. Sie sind das Ergebnis von Wachtumsprozessen an der Zweiphasengrenze l-s und stellen somit Wachstumsflächen dar. Das Auftreten von Flächen genegter Formen konnte nicht beobachtet werden. Da weite Bereiche der Kugeloberfläche von Oxiden bedeckt und somit einer detaillierten Beobachtung unzugänglich waren, ist ihre Nichtexistenz jedoch noch nicht hinreichend bewiesen. Mit den CZOCHRALSKI-Abreißexperimenten wurde die maximale flächenspezifische Kristallisationsgeschwindigkeit von dekagonalen AlCoNi-Quasikristallen bestimmt. Dazu konnte die Grundidee CZOCHRALSKIS verfolgt und an die Besonderheiten inkongruenter Schmelzen in einem Multikomponentensystem angepasst werden. Das Limit für die Kristallisationsgeschwindigkeit parallel der zehnzähligen Achse [00001] ist derart hoch, dass noch vor dem (kinetisch bedingten) Abreißen des Kristalls von der Schmelze die Effekte der konstitutionellen Unterkühlung einsetzen. Es entstehen Störungen an der Wachstumsfront, unter denen unrealistisch hohe Ziehgeschwindigkeiten möglich werden, die jedoch nicht mehr zu einer defektarmen Kristallzüchtung führen. Die maximale Kristallisationsgeschwindigkeit kann in dieser Orientierung nach dieser Methode nicht bestimmt werden, weil die Grenzen der konstitutionellen Unterkühlung überschritten werden, bevor das wachstumskinetische Limit erreicht ist. In den symmetrisch nicht äquivalenten, zweizähligen Kristallorientierungen [10000] und [10-100] wurden für jede Orientierung mehrere Abreißereignisse unter verschiedenen erhöhten Ziehgeschwindigkeiten vz+ durchgeführt und die Zeit t bis zum Abriss des Kristalls von der Schmelze gemessen. Die gewonnenen t(vz)-Werte zeigen einen linearen Zusammenhang zwischen der Ziehgeschwindigkeit vz und der reziproken Zeit t bis zum Trennen von Kristall und Schmelze auf, wobei die t(vz)-Werte für die [10000]-Orientierung eine deutlich größere Streuung zeigen als für die [10-100]-Orientierung. Die ermittelten Werte lassen keinen signifikanten Unterschied für die maximale Kristallisationsgeschwindigkeit vkr der beiden Kristallorientierungen [10000] und [10-100] erkennen. Als Ursache für das weniger gut reproduzierbare Abreißverhalten der singulären Grenzfläche (10000) wurde eine mechanische Ursache angenommen, die anhand eines einfachen Modellexperimentes (Benetzungsexperiment) überprüft wurde. Für modellhafte Nachbildungen der singulären Grenzfläche (10000) und der komplexen Grenzfläche {10-100} wurde die Reproduzierbarkeit des Abreißverhaltens bei verschiedenen Fehlorientierungen untersucht. Dazu wurden zylindrische Prüfkörper von gleichem Durchmesser hergestellt, wobei die Grenzfläche l-s im Fall der (10000)-Fläche eine ebene, parallel zur Oberfläche der Testschmelze orientierte Fläche darstellte. Die Grenzfläche l-s im Fall der komplexen (10-100)-Fläche, die aus gegeneinander orientierten Segmenten von Flächen der Form {10000} aufgebaut ist, wurde aus zwei eben Flächen, deren Flächennormalen um +18° bzw. -18° gegen die Oberfläche der Testschmelze geneigt sind, dargestellt. Dabei konnte festgestellt werden, dass sich das Abreißverhalten der komplexen Grenzfläche {10-100} als invariant gegenüber Fehlorientierungen erwiesen hat. Eine singuläre, parallel zur Schmelzenoberfläche orientierte Grenzfläche {10000} zeigt dagegen eine schlechte Reproduzierbarkeit der einzelnen Abreißereignisse. Mit diesem Ergebnis kann die breite Streuung der Experimente für die (10000)-Grenzfläche erklärt werden. Die Bestimmung der Oberflächenenergie von präparierten (00001)-, (10000)- und (10-100)-Oberflächen dekagonaler AlCoNi-Quasikristalle erfolgte über Kontaktwinkelmessungen. Mit den Testflüssigkeiten Wasser und Dijodmethan konnten die polare und die dispersive Komponente der Oberflächenenergie getrennt voneinander bestimmt werden. Die Kontaktwinkelmessungen mussten unter Umgebungsbedingungen erfolgen, d.h. die Quasikristalloberflächen befanden sich nicht im thermodynamischen Gleichgewicht mit ihrer eigenen Schmelze. Dabei wurden Ergebnisse gewonnen, die die Aussagen aus den Kinetikexperimenten ergänzen. Es wurde für die (10000)-Oberfläche eine geringere Oberflächenenergie als für die (10-100)-Oberfläche gefunden. Nach der klassischen Theorie des Kristallwachstums bedeutet eine geringe Oberflächenenergie, dass das Wachstum über eine atomar glatte Phasengrenze geschieht. Daraus resultiert eine geringe parallele Verschiebungsgeschwindigkeit der betreffenden Fläche, womit für die Flächen des dekagonalen (Haupt-) Prismas eine geringere parallele Verschiebungsgeschwindigkeit als für die Flächen des dekagonalen (Neben-) Prismas {10-100} erklärt werden kann. Diese Annahme wird durch die Beobachtungen bezüglich des Auftretens von Flächen der Form {10-100} in dem Kugelwachstumsexperiment bestätigt. Sie treten im Anfangsstadium des weiteren Wachstums auf der Kugeloberfläche noch auf, wachsen schneller und verschwinden folglich aus der Morphologie. Die in dieser experimentellen Arbeit gewonnenen Ergebnisse können kein theoretisches Modell zum Verständnis des quasikristallinen Wachstum liefern. Vielmehr lassen sich die beobachteten Wachstumsphänomene mit den theoretischen Vorstellungen des Wachstums periodischer Kristalle hinreichend gut erklären. Es bleibt die Frage offen, wie groß der Einfluss der quasiperiodischen Ordnung auf das (Quasi-) Kristallwachstum ist oder ob die beobachteten Phänomene nicht einzig ein Resultat der komplexen Struktur dieser intermetallischen Legierungen sind.

In dieser Arbeit wurden sowohl einkristalline Magnetit- als auch mit ultradünnen Oxidfilmen bedeckte NiAl- und Ni3Al-Legierungskristalle mithilfe von Oberflächenröntgenbeugung (SXRD, surface X-ray diffraction) untersucht. Das Ziel war es, die atomare Struktur der rekonstruierten Magnetitfläche und des Kompositsystems Oxidfilm-Interface-Legierungskristall zu bestimmen. Für die durch Ionenbeschuß und Tempern präparierte, c(2x2)-rekonstruierte Fe3O4(001)-Oberfläche wurden mit Oberflächenröntgenbeugung in plane-Reflexe, Grundgitter- und Überstruktur-Beugungsstäbe gemessen. Mit fünf in der Literatur diskutierten Terminierungsmodellen wurde eine Anpassung an die experimentellen Daten durchgeführt; für folgende zwei Modelle ergab sich eine ähnlich gute Übereinstimmung der simulierten Stäbe mit den Meßwerten: die Terminierung mit einer halben Monolage tetraedrisch koordinierten Eisens (Modell 3) und die Terminierung mit einer vollen Oktaeder-Eisenlage (Modell 2). Beiden angepaßten Strukturen gemein ist eine laterale wellenförmige Verzerrung der obersten Oktaedereisenreihen mit einer Amplitude zwischen 0.11 und 0.14 Å und eine starke Kontraktion des ersten Lagenabstandes (Modell 3: 80 - 100 %, Modell 2: 31 %). Im Fall der Modell 3-Terminierung schließt die oberste Eisenlage fast völlig mit der darunterliegenden B-Lage ab, wobei starke differentielle Relaxationen zwischen den Eisen- und Sauerstoffionen auftreten. Die Modell 2-Terminierung zeigt dagegen eine im wesentlichen einheitliche Relaxation der vertikalen Atompositionen und im Vergleich mit Modell 3 geringer verkürzte Fe-O-Bindungsabstände mit einem minimalen Abstand von 1.77 Å. Bei der Rechnung unter Verwendung nur der Überstrukturintensitäten ergeben sich für Modell 2 um 4 - 6 % niedrigere R-Werte (Anpassungsgüte), die zusammen mit den Ergebnissen aktueller STM-Messungen und ab initio Simulationsrechnungen die B-Lagenterminierung unterstützen. Dies ist insofern bemerkenswert, da diese polare Terminierung aus elektrostatischen Gründen instabil sein sollte. Die Untersuchung der Aluminiumoxid-Dünnfilme auf Nickelaluminium ergab für die beiden untersuchten Substrate NiAl(110) und Ni3Al(111) ähnliche Resultate. Die reinen, nichtoxidierten Nickelaluminiumflächen waren im UHV unrekonstruiert und wiesen für die äußere Ni/Al-Doppellage ein gegenüber Ni stärker ins Vakuum relaxiertes Aluminiumatom auf (’rippling’, NiAl(110): 0.16 Å, Ni3Al(111): 0.01 Å). In umfangreichen Präparationsserien unter Zuhilfenahme von SPA-LEED- und AES-Messungen wurden die optimalen Bedingungen für die Bildung eines stabilen Films gefunden. Für NiAl(110) ist dies die Oxidation bei 850 K mit anschließendem Tempern bei 1150 K, für Ni3Al(111) die Oxidation und Ausheilen bei einer Temperatur von 1050 K mit einer um den Faktor 10 geringeren Sauerstoffdosis. In beiden Systemen tritt bei niedrigen Temperaturen eine metastabile, stark fehlgeordnete Vorläuferphase mit hexagonaler Oxidzelle auf (Al2O3/NiAl(110): 3.12 Å, Al2O3/Ni3Al(111): 2.95 Å), die sich jeweils ab etwa 1100 K in einen stabilen, gut geordneten Oxidfilm umwandelt. Für Al2O3/NiAl(110) folgt aus der Analyse der Röntgenreflektivität ein aus 5 Atomlagen bestehender, 7.8 Å dicker Oxidfilm mit einer Al-Interfaceschicht, die einen Abstand von 1.7 Å von der obersten Substratlage aufweist. Im Fall von Al2O3/Ni3Al(111) ist der aus 4 Atomlagen bestehende Film (1 Interfacelage + 3 Oxidlagen) 5.2 Å dick mit einem Substratabstand von 2.1 Å für die Al-Interfacelage. Die Intensität der Gitterabbruchstäbe läßt sich jeweils mit einem abrupt endenden, strukturell wenig veränderten Substrat erklären, wobei chemische Unordnung in den Legierungskomponenten nur in der Größenordnung weniger Prozente auftritt. Für NiAl(110) wurden zwei verschiedene, hoch geordnete Überstrukturen gemessen: Die bekannte, entlang der NiAl[1 –1 0]-Richtung kommensurable Oxidstruktur (HT1) der Dimension 10.58 x 17.87 Å (Zellwinkel 88.9°) und eine zusätzlich im Rahmen der Röntgenmessung gefundene, in [1 –1 1]-Richtung kommensurable Struktur (HT2) mit einer Zelle von 3.97 x 3.91 Å (Zellwinkel 73.3°). Die HT2-Struktur ist dabei auf eine chemische Verunreinigungen mit Bor zurückzuführen. Für den Oxidfilm auf Ni3Al(111) wurden SPA-LEED-Untersuchungen durchgeführt, mit denen das komplizierte Beugungsbild aufgeschlüsselt wurde: Es wurden eine hexagonale Oxid-Basiszelle der Dimension 3.01 Å gefunden, die eine hexagonale, 23.8 Å große, 17.78° gegen die [1 -1 0]-Substratrichtung gedrehte Überstruktur (’Modulationszelle’) aufweist. Zusätzlich besteht ein Koinzidenzgitter zwischen Substrat und Oxid, das eine (sqrt(3) x sqrt(3))R30°-Überstruktur der Modulationszelle darstellt. Die Modulationszelle des Al2O3-Films ist dabei als eine dichtgepackte Sauerstoffstruktur mit bevorzugter Tetraederlückenbesetzung des Aluminiums aufzufassen, deren Atome in der Mitte der hexagonalen Zelle hoch geordnet, an den Kanten stark fehlgeordnet sind.