Matthew's Workbench » News http://www.matthewsworkbench.com Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:34:21 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 How Internet Radio is Replacing Shortwave http://www.matthewsworkbench.com/how-internet-radio-is-replacing-shortwave/ http://www.matthewsworkbench.com/how-internet-radio-is-replacing-shortwave/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:58:04 +0000 Matthew Reed http://www.matthewsworkbench.com/?p=124 Last Friday, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck the South Island of New Zealand about 19 miles west of Christchurch. Fortunately, no one was killed although there was quite a bit of damage. The earthquake, which hit at 4:35 AM local time, moved the ground up to 11 feet along the fault line. 75% of homes in Christchurch were left without electricity and the water supply was cut off. Aftershocks with a magnitude as high as 5.4 continue to hit the area.

The initial reports on domestic radio were pretty sketchy. In years past, I would have turned to shortwave for further information. Propagation would have limited my choices, but Radio Australia and the BBC World Service would have been good choices during the day and Radio New Zealand International at night.

]]> Last Friday, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck the South Island of New Zealand about 19 miles west of Christchurch. Fortunately, no one was killed although there was quite a bit of damage. The earthquake, which hit at 4:35 AM local time, moved the ground up to 11 feet along the fault line. 75% of homes in Christchurch were left without electricity and the water supply was cut off. Aftershocks with a magnitude as high as 5.4 continue to hit the area.

The initial reports on domestic radio were pretty sketchy. In years past, I would have turned to shortwave for further information. Propagation would have limited my choices, but Radio Australia and the BBC World Service would have been good choices during the day and Radio New Zealand International at night.

With the decline of shortwave broadcasting, neither the BBC World Service nor Radio Australia still broadcast to North America. The logical choice today is radio streams on the internet. I could have listened directly to either the BBC World Service or Radio Australia, but I decided to try sources a little closer to the earthquake.

Some good sources for information included the newspaper The New Zealand Herald and Radio New Zealand National. I also heard good information on Newstalk ZB from Christchurch (1098 AM). Newstalk ZB was right in the middle of the damage (in fact, the Newstalk ZB building was evacuated on Monday due to damage from the aftershocks). They suspended their normal Saturday programming for news about the earthquake.

]]> http://www.matthewsworkbench.com/how-internet-radio-is-replacing-shortwave/feed/ 0 Speed Limit on the Autobahn http://www.matthewsworkbench.com/speed-limit-on-the-autobahn/ http://www.matthewsworkbench.com/speed-limit-on-the-autobahn/#comments Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:56:33 +0000 Matthew Reed http://www.matthewsworkbench.com/news/speed-limit-on-the-autobahn/ The German state of Bremen has implemented a speed limit on the Autobahn. The speed limit applies to only six kilometers (3.7 miles) of the highway, all within Bremen. The speed limit is 120 kilometers per hour (about 75 miles per hour).

Many people want to impose a speed limit on the entire Autobahn, both for safety and environmental reasons. In most countries, I don’t think a speed limit would be an issue, but it is very controversial in Germany. Interestingly, the public seems to be evenly split on the idea. I suspect that they would have been heavily opposed just a few years ago.

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