Learn
Radio, sound and the networks that carry them
How radio works, who built it, who it belongs to, and how to get on the air yourself: from the first broadcasts to shortwave, streaming and a licence of your own.
Pathways
The library
- Collection Radio 101 · 1 minStart hereFive pieces that take you from a wave in the air to a licence of your own.
- Guide Radio 101 · 2 minAM and FM, in one pictureTwo ways of putting a voice onto a radio wave, and why one crosses oceans at night while the other sounds better across town.
- Band guide How it works · 1 minThe 49-metre bandThe busiest shortwave broadcast band after dark, and the easiest place to start listening across borders.
- Glossary Glossary · 1 minGlossaryThe words radio people use, each with its own address you can link to.
- History History · 2 minThe first voices on the airFrom telegraph clicks to a voice over the ocean to stations in every town: radio's first half-century, and the claims historians still argue over.
- Person People · 1 minHedy LamarrA film star who co-invented a way to keep radio signals from being jammed, decades before the world caught up with the idea.
- Station Stations · 1 minBBC World ServiceBorn as the Empire Service on shortwave in 1932, it became one of the most listened-to international broadcasters in the world.
- Story History · 1 minRadio Caroline and the ships off the coastIn 1964 a station started broadcasting pop music from a ship in international waters, because on land nobody would let it.
- Tutorial Tutorials · 1 minListen to shortwave through someone else's antennaTune a real receiver on the other side of the world from your Mac, without buying a radio.
- Pathway Licences · 1 minGet your amateur radio licenceFrom listening to transmitting: what an amateur licence lets you do, how the exams work, and how to prepare.
- Lesson Licences · 1 minWhat an amateur licence allows, and what it does notThe rules that every amateur scheme shares, before any exam detail.
- Lesson Licences · 1 minHow the exam worksPublished questions, multiple choice, and a pass mark you can plan for.
- Practice Licences · 1 minPractice: radio basicsTen questions on how radio works, written for Learn. Press a question to see the answer.
- Pathway Licences · 1 minStart a community radio stationBroadcasting to your town: the licences that exist for community stations, and what it takes to hold one.
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- Radio 1012
- History2
- How it works1
- Licences5
- Networks0
- People1
- Stations1
- Tutorials1
- Glossary1