Amateur Radio Operators are hobbisits in many fields and this glossary contains words and terms from several of those
technical fields (i.e. radio, electronics, computers and networking) that the amature radio operator may need definition and clarification.
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- ADN (Advanced Digital Network)
- Usually refers to a 56Kbps dedicated leased line.
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- Air Link
- An air link is that portion of a data and/or voice transmission that takes place using radio signals with no
wires involved. A good example is a microwave link between two towers. The D-STAR air link includes modulation methods and data
packet construction suitable to transfer data at 128Kbps using the ICOM ID-1 D-STAR radio to send text files and pictures.
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- ALC (Automatic Limiting Control)
- Limits the RF drive to the power amplifier during transmit to prevent distortion.
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- Backbone
- A high-speed communications line/link or series of lines/links that form a major pathway in which devices can communicate
within a network. The term is relative to a single smaller backbone in a group network and that of a larger multi-linked backbone
in enterprise networks. A backbone can be wired, fiber optics or an air link.
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- Balun
- A simple transformer used to change an
unbalanced input to a balanced output.
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- Call sign
- A sequence of letters and numbers used to identify amateur radio operators and is issued by the FCC. An example is
W1AW is assigned to the ARRL.
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- CAP (Civil Air Patrol)
- Volunteer affiliate of the United states Air Force.
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- Carrier
- An unmodulated transmitted output signal.
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- Data communications
- The transfer of data between two or more locations.
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- DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)
- DHCP is a protocol by which a machine can obtain an IP number (and other network configuration information) from a
server on the local network.
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- EBS (Emergency Broadcast System)
- A system where an attention tone is first transmitted over all stations followed by a second tone to signal the transmission of specific instructions regarding a national emergency.
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- Email Electronic Mail)
- Messages, usually text, sent from one person to another via computer. E-mail can also be sent automatically to a large number of addresses.
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- Fading
- Signal reduction due to atmospherics.
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- FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
- FAQs are documents listing the answer to the most common questions on a particular subject.
FAQs are usually written by people who are tired of answering the same question over and over.
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- Gateway
- The technical meaning is a hardware or software set-up that translates between two dissimilar protocols, for example
America Online has a gateway that translates between its internal, proprietary e-mail format and Internet e-mail format.
Another, sloppier meaning of gateway is to describe any mechanism for providing access to another system, e.g.
AOL might be called a gateway to the Internet.
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- Ground Plane
- A type of Omni-directional antenna.
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- Harmonic
- Multiple of a fundamental frequency.
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- IC (Integrated Circuit)
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- Java
- Java is a network-friendly programming language
invented by Sun Microsystems and is often used to build large, complex systems that involve several
different computers interacting across networks, for example transaction
processing systems.
Java is also used to create software with graphical user interfaces
such as editors, audio players, web browsers, etc. and is also popular for creating programs that run in small electronic
devicws, such as mobile telephones.
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- Kilobyte
- A thousand bytes. Actually, usually 1024
(210) bytes.
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- LAN (Local Area Network)
- A small computer network generally limited to a small geographical area. This is usually within the same building
or a single floor of a building.
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