Man listens to iNews880 on radio in Japan
by iNews880's Brittney Le Blanc
10/13/2009
Hiroyuki Okamura lives in Yokosuka, Japan.
That's 12,169 km away from Edmonton - and according to Google Maps would take about 34 days and 23 hours to drive to. (We here at iNews880 don't recommend you drive to Japan - take a plane, it'll be drier.)
But Hiroyuki wrote a letter to iNews880 after listening to us - on his radio. He recorded what he heard, and it's muffled - but definitely us.
Hiroyuki is one of many radio operators who listen to AM radio waves from around the world. Here in Edmonton and Alberta we have numerous groups, including NARC (Northern Alberta Radio Club).
John Chu is with NARC, and volunteers at the Telus World of Science. That's where we caught up with him and asked him how a man in Japan can listen to our station.
"The electromagnetic radiation actually doesn't travel along the surface of the Earth. It goes up into the sky and hits a layer in the sky called the ionosphere. The ionosphere reflects it back down to the Earth, and it bounces up again - we call that skipping. By bouncing up and down a few times, the waves will reach Japan."
At the Telus World of Science, Licensed Volunteer Amateur Radio Operators demonstrate and promote the hobby of, and the science behind, amateur radio. And John explains they sometimes catch really interesting things. He says once a ship was in distress off the shore of San Francisco and the only ones who heard the call were the volunteer radio operators at the Telus World of Science. They called the San Francisco coast guard and the ship was saved.
As for Hiroyuki, he and other hobbyists listen to AM radio stations as he did here, and do it not for credit, but for a Verification Card to prove they've done it. Which we're sending back to him in Japan. (blb)
ref. - http://www.inews880.com/Channels/Reg/iR ... ID=1150720 where they have some great pictures