Case of the Stuttering Parrot by Jeffrey Poole

Author:Jeffrey Poole [Poole, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cozy mystery, small town mysteries, mysteries with humor, mysteries with dogs, animal sleuths, cozy murder mystery series, bank heist mystery
Publisher: Columbine Publishing Group, LLC
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

Two days had passed and I was still kicking myself over missing a simple, trivial detail like that. Ham radio. It was the missing clue that identified the source of Ruby’s messages. However, it didn’t answer the question of how my parrot was able to pick up those transmissions. After all, the frequencies are higher than anything either of us would be able to pick up, regardless of whether you’re a human or a bird.

Since, admittedly, I know next to nothing about amateur radio enthusiasts, I took it upon myself to see what I could learn about one of America’s more popular hobbies. Want to know the first thing I looked up? The appeal. Why were so many people getting their FCC licenses so they could operate their own radios? Well, once I read the answer, I understood. Amateur radio, or ham radio, brings together fellow enthusiasts, electronics, and communication. I learned that people used these radios to speak with other users across town, across the country, and even across the world. My eyebrows lifted when I learned they could even communicate with astronauts on the International Space Station.

Most people are familiar with police scanners, so it shouldn’t be surprising to know that your scanners can also scan the more common frequencies that ham radios typically broadcast on. And there, in black and white, was definitive proof that there was no way Ruby was picking up these transmissions on her own. The most common frequencies used? That would be between 440 MHz to around 1296 MHz To give you some context, do you remember what Harry said a few days ago? About which frequencies a bird could hear? That was from 220 Hz to 8.5 kHz. Now, if you don’t know what those letters after the numbers mean, I can tell you Hz is short for hertz. One hertz was the same as one cycle per second. So, that meant Ruby could hear sounds between 220 cycles per second up to around 8,500 cycles per second, hence the addition of the K. Now, those numbers for the ham radios? Note the M. Those frequencies are broadcast from between 440 million hertz up to 1296 million hertz. There was no way a small parrot was capable of hearing anything that high, let alone a human.

So, with that being said, were there other frequencies a ham radio might employ? Maybe something lower? A few more online searches came up with the answer, which was a resounding no. If anything, the frequencies went up instead of down. Certain bands of frequencies were reserved for certain functions: airlines, police, fire department, and so on. The ham radios could only operate on very specific frequencies, and to hammer home the importance of not tampering with any frequency you weren’t supposed to, the FCC requires all active ham radio users to be licensed. For the record, that involves taking—and passing—a test.

It was definitely way too much trouble for me. I’ll stick to my police scanner, thank you very much.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.