ADDITIONAL COURSE NOTES AND PROGRAMS: |
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| The ADVANCED AOCP(A) Theory Exam Syllabus (PDF format) |
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| The STANDARD AOCP(S) Theory Exam Syllabus (PDF format) |
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| The FOUNDATION AOCP(F) Theory Exam Syllabus (PDF format) |
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| Amateur Radio Practical Assessment guide and check sheet - Public Domain |
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User guide
for the R&ES Scientific Calcualtor - CASIO 350MS (available
through School)
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| Heisenburg
and things to be unsure of like bathwater and measurements! Ron. Bertrand.
VK2DQ - In this audio file (mp3) Ron discusses the Heisenburg Uncertainty
Prinicple and how it effects us as Radio Amateurs. |
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| A set of 14 physics experiments to do on the computer. Standing waves, Light, Newton's laws - and - 11 more experiments. (Win95/98/ME) (Size 2.5mb) |
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| Delving deeper into Frequency Modulation. BASIC program to calculate BESSEL functions and more on spectrum of an FM waveform. Contains a BASIC program and compiled executeable. (Windows any version). Article in PDF. |
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| A set of 14 physics experiments to do on the computer. Standing waves, Light, Newton's laws - and - 11 more experiments. (Win95/98/ME) (Size 2.5mb) |
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| The resistor cube problem - solved. Many radio and electronics learners have been confronted with a cube made of resistors - one resistor for each side of the cube. The object is to find the total resistance. David VK4TDR has written a solution using simultaneous equations and also a very eligant solution using Ohms law and some logic. (PDF file) |
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| A marvelous program that allows you to experiment with he creation of lissajou figures as if you were using an oscilloscope. Try n=49 y=49 x=1.0 y=0.5 (Size 275kB) |
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| Resistor Colour Code Calculator. This is the best resistor colour code training program we have seen. Recommended. |
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| Another Resistor Colour Code Calculator. This small program for MS Windows will convert colours to the resistor value and vice versa. Use this program to help learn or test yourself on the resistor colour code. |
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| CRO is a shareware program that illustrates the use of an Oscilloscope on your PC A good teaching program. CRO requires the Visual Basic 3 runtime library Vbrun300.dll On most PC's you will already have this file in your windows directory - if not you can obtain it off many PC magazine cover disks or off the internet - but chances are it is already on your machine. |
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| View or download a slide show of the structure of the atom. This slide show goes much further than what you need to know in the course - however it may broaden your knowledge a little. |
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| A brief description of the Quantum Model of the atom. (PDF) |
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| View or download an animation showing how an Electromechanical Relay Works. |
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| View or download an animation of a forward biased PN junction diode - The animation shows hole current and hole-electron recombination at the junction. |
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| View or download an animation of Faradays Law of Induction (Animated GIF) |
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| Two animations of a water system to demonstrate how a capacitor can smooth a pulsating voltage A diaphragm pump delivers pulses of water and the mechanical capacitor (a sealed chamber) stores water to provide a smooth flow at the outlet at all times. The mechanical capacitor provides water to the outlet during the NO PUMP PERIOD - just like a capacitor delivers output during the NO VOLTAGE PULSE PERIOD View or download these animations (Animated GIF). |
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| A GIF image about CR Time Constants - that is the charging of a CR circuit over time. View online or download the GIF image. |
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| Going further with time constants - this PDF file explains (as a result of requests) how the voltage across a charging capacitor can be calculated at any time 't' after it begins to charge. This topic is beyond the syllabus for AR exams. Many have asked how to do it so here it is. Worked examples. |
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| How fast does an electric current really travel? This article in PDF format shows how to calculate the velocity of an electric current with a worked example. (Revised December 1999) |
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| Need a Calculator for the online course? Calc98 is a pocket calculator simulator program for the Microsoft Windows operating systems. It can be used in place of the calculator program which is included with the operating system, with many additional features and greater flexibility. On handheld devices, it can be used in place of a pocket calculator. It is especially designed for scientific and engineering students and professionals and includes a wide range of units conversions and scientific functions. It also has statistics, financial and time functions, including a stopwatch. (Ask about video calculator tutorials if you need help) |
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| How to use a calculator for Amateur Radio and Electronics This article demonstrates the use of the Windows inbuilt calculator but applies to most standard scientific calculators - worked examples. |
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| Common-Emitter Amplifiers - optional supplementary reading. This Common-Emitter Amplifier supplement goes a little further in explaining the operation of a BJT - CE Amplifier - In particular you will learn a little more about the fundamentals of Transistor Bias. Why does a CE amplifier produce a 180 degree phase change between input and output? - this is discussed with diagrams. |
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| A BMP file of the Block Diagram used in Reading 35 This graphic is of the complete block diagram of a PLL controlled FM Transceiver. See RealAudio tutorial below |
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| A tutorial in RealAudio on the block diagram of the FM Transceiver above. To listen to this tutorial you need the FREE RealAudio player for www.real.com Download and listen to the tutorial and follow along using the block diagram of the 2 metre FM transceiver (see ABOVE). Running time of the tutorial is approximately 34 minutes - download time 12 minutes. To download without playing (recommended) right click on DOWNLOAD the select "Save AS" or "Save Link AS" or "Save Target AS" - this will depend on your browser. |
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| A Memory Wheel Graphic This memory wheel will help you to remember all the Ohms law and Power equations (GIF format). |
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| Help Transposing Equations This file is an image which shows the method of transposing equations of the type used in Amateur Radio (GIF format). |
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| 3 Phase power - An introduction to 3 Phase power (PDF format) |
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| Oscilloscopes - The XYZ of oscilloscopes - An excellent introductory text (PDF format) |
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| This is a thesis by Francis McSwiggan - 1988 on the design of a very simple FM transmitter. This should not be considered course material as it does go a little further is some places than is needed. However Francis does cover some necessary theory required for Amateur Radio and he develops an very interesting low power simple FM transmitter for the Broadcast Band. A very good read - in PDF format. Some excellent simple circuits are given. It would be quiet easy to build one of his designs as a project. The PDF is just over 1 Megabyte and an excellent read though in places much deeper than that required for Amateur Exams. The thesis is about 80 pages with 10 pages of appendices. The Author has placed this material in the public domain to the best of my knowledge. |
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| How to test audio transformers - Brian Clarke VK2GCE describes the procedure in testing an audio transformer. |
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| The Guanella Balun - A new type of impedance matching as described by G. Guanella - 1944. |
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| Electromagentics without Calculations - Edmund. K. Miller. A description of Electromagnetics without calcualtions. |
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| Sailing the Ionosphere - Fred Backer VK2FJB discusses the ionosphere. How it affects radio propagation and how it can be used to the benefit of radio amateurs. |
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| A short introduction to logic gates - covering more than is required for the AOCP(A) - Just make sure you can identify the symbol of the AND - OR - NAND amd INVERT and you will be okay. This is a GIF file which may be viewed online or download and viewed or printed offline. |
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| The Unity of Units - A short article written by Fred Backer VK2JFB to help the radio theory student come to terms with some of the SI units used is Amateur Radio. |
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| Decibels without a calculator by - Jerry L. Bartachek KDØCA A very good article by Jerry - posted here with his permission - read it!. (PDF format) |
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APPLICATION FORMS AND PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL:  |
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| LICENCE - Application for apparatus licence (Australian) (PDF format) |
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| LCD - Radiocommunications Licence Conditions (Amateur Licence) Determination No. 1 of 1997 (Australian) (PDF format) |
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| LCD - Radiocommunications Licence Conditions (Amateur Licence) Amendment Determination 2005 (No. 1) (Australian) (PDF format) |
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| CERTIFICATE - Application for Amateur Radio Certificate of Proficiency Issue or Replacement (Australian) (PDF format) |
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| Amateur Radio Promotional Posters for the Radio and Electronics School. The *.zip file contains 2 posters. One aimed at youth and the other at mariners. |
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| The VK5MM promotional web site has information and posters that can be used alongside the school poster as they contain more information on what the hobby is all about. These posters could be used in community and school libraries and even at your local McDonalds store on their community bulletin board. Please speak to the librarian or store manager before posting them. |
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| ANTENNAS AND ANTENNA THEORY: |
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| Modifying a Station Master CB Antenna for 10m and other amateur bands - Courtesy CW Operators QRP Club and P. McAdam VK2EVB |
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| Moving the Station Master CB Vertical to 80 and/or 40 Metres - Courtesy VK4EM Merv Morrison |
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| Another modification for Station Master CB Antenna - Courtesy DDRC Ink and VK4TI |
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| Design of an Antenna Coupling Unit - Brian VK2GCE explains some considerations which need to be taken into account when designing and antenna coupling unit. |
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| Antennas - Service and Education. An extremely informative web site by L. B. Cebik, W4RNL, who is an authority on antennas and their operation. This site gives technical analysis of many common antennas. |
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| SWR and Dipoles antennas - Ron Bertrand VK2DQ/4 discusses SWR. What it is, and if it is good or bad. Also discussed are dipole antenna's. One of the simplest and cheapest antennas' you can make yourself. There are three MP3 files to this topic, parts one and two are 2Mb and part three is 1.5Mb. We recommend that you right click on the icon and save it to your own disk. If you are on a slow link, you might like to consider using a download manager. This broadcast was first aired on the Wednesday December 18, 2003 at 8:30pm (AEST) on the Gold Coast Amateur Radio Society repeater (146.950 Mhz), and is provided here as a service to our students. |
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| Off Center Fed Dipole - Build this off center fed dipole which can be used on 80, 40, 20 and 10m with out an antenna tuning unit. You will need the file below for the balun. |
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| Make a Guanella 4:1 balun. This balun is the one used in the Off Centre Fed Dipole project above, although you could use it on any project that requires a 4:1 balun. |
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| HISTORY AND MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS: |
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| Why SOS is used in Morse telegraphy and where did it come from - The origins of the distress signal. |
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| An Introduction to Packet Radio. Larry Kenny WB9LOZ. An excellent series of articles in electronic book format. Explains Packet Radio communications for the beginner. |
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| Who invented Radio? A interesting discussion on Tesla - The Eccentric Genius of Electricity - by Fred Backer VK2JFB. |
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| Story - The Elusive Sunspot Cycle A controversial look at radio propagation from the view of Sunspots and the so called Sunspot Cycle. (Revised December 1999) |
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| SI units - A brochure produced by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. Many SI-unit definitions and usage conventions. |
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| INTERFERENCE AND EMISSIONS: |
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| Canadian Communications Authority - Industry Canada Booklet in PDF format - Cutting Through Solutions to Interference. A basic 20 page handbook on interference problems and some solutions to TV and Radio Interference. Their WEB site has a lot of useful sounds and images to identify the cause of Radio and Television Interference - well worth a very good look. The video files though are huge so I would avoid downloading them unless you have a very fast net connection. |
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| Emission Characteristics of Radio Transmissions - An unmodified ACA document (PDF format) |
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| Interference from Amateur and CB Stations - An unmodified ACA document (PDF format) |
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| Australian table of frequency allocations (PDF format) |
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| Electromagnetic Radiation Limit (DRAFT) Compliance Distance Calculator. The program will perform distance calculations at any power level and antenna gain - in the range 10MHz to 300 GHz and has provision for the emission duty cycle. |
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| SOFTWARE: |
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| If you don't have a really good text handling program get EditPad now for viewing and searching the entire VK database. |
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| Radio Box is a suite of 14 programs-in-one for the Radio Amateur or for anyone studying Amateur Radio. The programs range from beginner to advanced. An extensive Windows Help File is included which has tutorials on what each program does. In most cases examples are given. Radio Box will run on Windows 95/98/NT (Size 1mb) |
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| CW Player Version 2.3 is free software for learning and training the Morse code. It features many possibilities : playing live texts, text files, the alphabet, the main HAM abbreviations, the Q codes. It plays random series of characters. Typical lessons are proposed that you may modify to your purpose. CW Player requires Win95/98/ME and a sound card as minimum configuration. |
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| WaveGen - will read a text file and convert into a Morse Code wave file which can be played on your computer. I have tested this program and it is brilliant. I created a text file (plain text) using notepad. I typed in the text I wanted converted to CW and saved the file as 'test.txt'. I then converted test.txt to a wave file with the following commands from the DOS prompt. wavegen test.txt /10,10,730/ when I pressed enter test.txt was converted to a CW wave file with an average speed of 10 WPM, a character speed of 10 WPM, at a tone of 730 Hz. You just have leave DOS for windows and double click on test.wav and windows will play it. I prefer using WinAmp as my wave player you can get WinAmp for free from www.winamp.com. Note: in the command line given above test.txt is in the same directory (folder) as wavgen. All other speeds are supported. Download the file wavgen.zip - You will need WinZip to unzip it. |
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Additional course notes and programs
