4G? Pah! Boffins charge up the dial to 5G data EXTREME-band kit

Does anyone remember

The ever increasing heriarchy of superlatives to describe successively brighter generations of LEDs? I was really dissapointed we never did get to the BHTFB LED*

Maybe with a little imagination we could get there with RF, but i somehow doubt it. Is there scope for an El Reg informal competition**

*Bloody Hell That's Fucking Bright LED

** infotition

Well the problem with 60GHz

It's a band well absorbed by air. So you won't run into the problem with interference since its range is fairly limited. I would assume this is less the case with 80GHz. Still it's not a frequency range many people have kit for.

Well actually FM radio came long after television. Early TV, say 1940's, was on about 51MHz and did not move into the UHF frequencies until 20years later.

Speak to any experienced Radio Amateur for an informed and practical explanation of the effects of frequency and mode of transmission upon the useful range of radio signals. Unless some currently unknown method such as the "sub-space" transmissions as featured in science-fiction TV can be developed, realistic RF range at 80MHz is more likely to be measured in metres rather than kilometres.

Detecting SMS

"At a time I could tell you exactly when I was going to receive an SMS or a call, and that was 100% accurate with no false positives and more than 60% of the events detected."

So could I, because my (early generation) AMPS phone would emit a quiet but distinct click when handshaking with the base station.

In a later model phone, I could tell because the flashing led antenna my gf had popped onto it would light up.

That was apart from the usual crapola from unshielded phones/speakers near GSM phones.

None of the above needed supernatural powers - and the earpiece would get so hot on many early phones (especially Motorola TAC/Microtac/GSMTAC) that it'd give me a headache after a few minutes use (I used to regularly wonder if medical stats would see a spike in pinneal cancers 20 years on)

As RF engineers we'd regularly get people telling us that XYZ antenna we were erecting was messing with their brains - and that was despite 'em not being cabled up, let alone connected to an active transmitter. It's amazing what the power of suggestion can achieve (Would I point a spare dish at a mildly paranoid acquaintance's window, then point it out a week or so afterward and suggest the illuminati were beaming mind control rays in order to get him to assassinate the Pope? I'm shocked, nay gobsmacked at the accusation!)

In some cases, even the _thought_ of us putting up an antenna brought on a rash of rashes and headaches - well before any equipment arrived on site.

In another case, an old 2 metre dish sitting wonkily on a couple of pallets was "transmitting up to spy satellites" (according to the local papers)

WRT phones and nads: You have more to worry about due to case heat than any amount of legal RF emission - and the same goes for putting a notebook on your lap. They might be called laptops but it's a seriously bad idea to actually use them there for more than a few minutes at a time.

"When FM radio came along it needed more space, so it sits around 88MHz in the "Very High Frequency" band which stretches to 300MHz."

It does now. Originally "FM radio was assigned the 42 to 50 MHz band of the spectrum in 1940" (wikipedia)

RCA needed to kill the business of Edwin Armstrong, inventor of FM, as he began to transmit in the 42 - 50 band. So RCA bribed the FCC commissioners with gifts of the 'new fangled' television sets to 'encourage them to change the FM band from the 42 to 50 Mhz band'.

FCC dutifully complied, and Armstrongs business collapsed, with both transmitters and receivers obsoleted. Then RCA, headed by David Sarnoff, Armstrongs 'best friend', (would you believe?) simply stole the invention & started manufacturing FM sets. Armstrong sued, but deeper pockets RCA kept appealing losses, instead of paying the damages. Ah, glorious capitalism!

Eventually Armstrong thought he had one last chance to win - he asked his wife to let him sell the apartment - she refused, he hit her, she walked out. Some weeks later he put on his hat & coat & went out - from the 13th floor window.

Sarnoff declared that he did not kill Armstrong, but quickly negotiated a settlement with Armstrongs widow. ('Gunna deal with you, or deal with yer widder?')

Sad fact is that most of RCA's deep pockets we due to its very profitable manufacture of Armstrongs previous amazing inventions - radios with feedback, regeneration, superheterodyning etc. Between crystal sets and high fidelity, most of the inventions are Armstrongs.

Armstrong played a significant part in winning WW1 by providing the allies with unjammable communications, when axis powers only had jammable FM.

Of course, things are much better for inventors now.

Pigs.

Stuart Saunders,

IPROAG.org

The Intellectual Property Rightful Owners Action Group.