Radio Operator facts

While investigating facts about Radio Operator Jobs and Radio Operator License, I found out little known, but curios details like:

When cowboy/actor Slim Pickens (Blazing Saddles/Dr. Strangelove) joined the military during WW2 he stated his profession was “rodeo”, the recruiter heard “radio” and Slim spent the entire war as a radio operator

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After Ameila Earhart's plane was presumed lost, all subsequent distress calls were treated as hoaxes. Recent research concluded however that half of the calls, many of which were received by amateur radio operators, were credible, indicating that she may have survived for weeks after the crash.

What does radio operator on a license plate mean?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what do ham radio operators do. Here are 50 of the best facts about Radio Operator License Plate and Radio Operator Certificate I managed to collect.

what is a ham radio operator?

While working as a radio operator, Johnny Cash was the first American to know of the death of Joseph Stalin.
In 1942 RMS Laconia was sunk by a German U-Boat who then commenced rescue operations, broadcasting their humanitarian intent on open radio. With a deck full of survivors, USAAF bombers then sunk the boat. The German navy subsequently abandoned attempting rescue of civilian survivors.
It's possible for amateur radio operators to call the ISS and even get a response from an off duty astronaut
In 2006, amateur German radio operators managed to receive radio signals from the Voyager 1 space probe, which at the time was 14.7 billion km away.
As NASA's Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft swung past Earth on Oct. 9, 2013, amateur radio operators around the world sent a Morse Code "HI" to the spacecraft, and Juno heard them!
The existence of 'Numbers Stations'; hundreds of shortwave radio stations featuring broadcasts of formatted numbers and sounds, which since the 1950's, are believed to be addressed to intelligence officers operating in foreign countries.
Your neighbor's ham radio can interfere with your wifi signal, and that it is the ham radio operator's responsibility not to mess up your wifi, and if they do, you can report them to the FCC and they can lose their license
Amateur radio operators contributed to the sinking of the Titanic by interfering with the ship's calls for help and spreading malicious messages about the doomed ship. Congress responded by regulating radio broadcasters with the Radio Act of 1912.
The first radio operator to pick up news of Stalin's death was Johnny Cash, who was serving with the US Air Force in Germany in 1953.
Several ships warned Titanic of icebergs the night she sank. The radio operators were more concerned with clearing a backlog of passanger messages, and cut off the last warning by replying "Shut up! Shut up! I'm working Cape Race!"

radio operator facts — What is a radio operator license plate?

Why become a ham radio operator?

You can easily fact check why do ham radio operators need a license by examining the linked well-known sources.

About Ghost Riders - people who hop on to accident scenes and claim injury, or claim injury without ever being present. In one US sting operation, 17 people hopped on a bus and claimed injury. Some were scanning police radio.

There's a radio organization operating since 1949 that broadcasts all over the world to countries that restrict the free flow of information; they were critical during the fall of Communism - source

Johnn Cash worked as a radio operator in Germany for the military during the Cold War and World War II, and was the first American to hear and announce Stalin's death. - source

Researchers working at Bell Labs are credited with the development of radio astronomy, the transistor, the laser, the CCD (image sensor), information theory, the operating system Unix, and the programming languages C and C++. Oh and they've won 8 Nobel Prizes.

The University of North Texas (UNT) used to be called North Texas State University. After the name change, the radio station there decided it would be best to not change the name and still operates as 'KNTU' - source

When is a restricted operator's certificate required for vhf radio?

Johnny Cash was the first radio operator to pick up the news of Joseph Stalin's death.

How to become a ham radio operator?

Amateur radio operators sometimes communicate by bouncing their signals off the surface of the Moon.

King Hussein of Jordan was a ham radio enthusiast and insisted that fellow radio operators refer to him without his title

Unmanned combat vehicles were used in WWII. Teletanks, employed by the Soviets, were remotely operated by radio control and were often equipped with guns, flame throwers , smoke canisters and even massive time bombs.

Researchers working at Bell Labs are credited with the development of radio astronomy, the transistor, the laser, the CCD, information theory, the operating systems Unix and Plan 9, and the programming languages C, C++, and S. Eight Nobel Prizes have been awarded for work completed at Bell Labs.

Interesting facts about radio operator

About the Judica-Cordiglia Brothers who are two Italian former amateur radio operators who made audio recordings that allegedly support the conspiracy theory that the Soviet space program covered up cosmonaut deaths in the 1960s.

In 1973 a California radio operator received a transmission from a young boy, "Larry," who was stuck in an overturned truck. An extensive search was launched, but Larry refused to give his last name or whereabouts, and was never found

In 1969 a HAM radio operator in Louisville Kentucky listened to the Apollo 11 transmissions from the the moon on home built equipment. He verified that the transmissions were not edited for TV broadcast, and verified they were coming from the moon. A fact overlooked by the moon hoax nut-jobs.

The US Army designed a medal as a result of a typo. A radio operator thought that the word "CMA", the abbreviation for a comma, was to be a new award for Burmese guerillas who helped the Allies in WWII (which the government hastily minted to avoid embarrassment).

Amelia Earhart likely landed successfully on Nikumaroro atoll and sent distress signals for weeks. These signals were picked up by naval ships, US Navy Radio and a Melbourne radio operator, but when the search failed, they were all dismissed as bogus.

How to be a ham radio operator?

Number stations - bizarre shortwave radio stations that play repeated sounds, like melodies and buzzes, interrupted by sets of numbers. They operated mainly during the Cold War, as a means for governments to send encrypted messages to spies, but some still exist today.

When NASA's JUNO passed its closest to Earth, more than 1400 HAM radio operators simultaneously transmitted "Hi" in Morse code. This message was received by Juno as the craft began its journey to Jupiter.

Johnny Cash was the first radio operator to pick up on Joseph Stalin's death in 1953.

The government operates a radio station WWV. It transmits a ticking sound with a vocal announcement at the top of the minute reflecting the time. This is the station atomic clocks synchronize with

Operation Christmas, an effort by Columbia to get FARC rebels to give up their fight. It consisted of radio messages being broadcast from trees near rebel controlled jungles, and floating messages sent down rivers illuminated by LED lights, all urging them to come home for Christmas.

When he was a radio operator in the Army, Johnny cash was the first operator to pick up the news of the death of Joseph Stalin.

The Russian Woodpecker (Duga) had broadcasted a strong, sharp, repetitive tapping sound that disrupted regular radio. It turned out that it was actually a ABM early warning system operated by the Soviets from 1976 to 1989.

SAREX is a Space Amateur Radio Experiment allowing amateur ham radio operators to speak directly with astronauts currently up in space.

The Panther tank had a design flaw known as a shot trap. A shot hitting the gun mantlet could be deflected downwards onto the thin hull roof armour underneath which was the driver, radio operator and magazine storage

911 operators in New York are not allowed to say 'Ebola' on their dispatch radios.

An amateur radio satellite built by HAMs that launched in 1974 was off the air for 21 years until it 'came back' in 2002 and celebrated it's 40th year of operation in November of 2014.

The Titanic radio operator Jack Phillips sent QCD at first but the junior radio operator Harold Bride suggested to use the new SOS code. Thinking it might be the only time he would get to use it, Phillips began to alternate between the two

North Korea operates a radio station for its population that claims to transmit from South Korea

Radio operators on the Titanic were warned of ice packs but the warning "was rebuked by Titanic's senior wireless operator, Jack Phillips."

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