Short meme
Oct. 29th, 2008 06:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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calydor:
The first time you communicated in real-time between continents, what was going through your mind?
It was an amateur radio contact with a station in Europe, using very little power and a simple piece of wire as an antenna. My thoughts both during and afterward were largely centered on the feeling that it was simply impossible. How can the amount of electricity needed to power a night light bulb be adequate to send a clear signal over 4000 miles? It still amazes me, and makes it easy to understand why demonstrations of both the wired telegraph and later wireless telegraphy were treated as hoaxes by so many people. It looks and feels like pure witchcraft.
calydor:The first time you communicated in real-time between continents, what was going through your mind?
It was an amateur radio contact with a station in Europe, using very little power and a simple piece of wire as an antenna. My thoughts both during and afterward were largely centered on the feeling that it was simply impossible. How can the amount of electricity needed to power a night light bulb be adequate to send a clear signal over 4000 miles? It still amazes me, and makes it easy to understand why demonstrations of both the wired telegraph and later wireless telegraphy were treated as hoaxes by so many people. It looks and feels like pure witchcraft.
