On Christmas Eve, scientists at field stations across Antarctica sing carols to one another...via shortwave. On today's episode, the Short Wave podcast explores shortwave radio. We speak with space physicist and electrical engineer Nathaniel Frissell about this Antarctic Christmas Carol tradition and his use of shortwave radio for community science.Read more about Santa Net, which connects children (known in the shortwave radio community as "little harmonics") with Santa.Want more tech stories? Let us know by emailing [email protected]!Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is the Antarctic Christmas Carol tradition?
Cool.
Yeah, home to the South Pole and a hub of scientific activity with research stations and field camps spread across the continent. New Zealand has a station down there. Several European countries do too. Scientists are asking questions you can only answer in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean this time of year. about wildlife. Like penguins. Yeah, sure. Like penguins.
Microbiology, tectonics, the northern lights. Nathaniel was down there to look at the Earth's magnetic field and polar regions. I picture this whole space, Maddie, like science summer camp, but spread across a desolate, icebound landscape. What a dream. Yeah, your kind of summer camp. Yeah. And these people, they're far from home, which can be really tough during the holidays.
So Nathaniel, when he was down there, took part in a musical tradition that queues up on this day, December 24th.
South Pole Station, we are ready and standing by. Thanks.
The Antarctic Christmas Carol. Basically, the different stations in Antarctica sing to each other over shortwave radio.
Oh, my God. This is legitimately the cutest thing perhaps I have ever heard. They're singing over the radio?
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Chapter 2: How far can shortwave radio transmissions travel?
That transmission was from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Amundsen, shout out. Yeah. Here's a Christmas carol from the Italian station, Mario Zichelli, singing an Italian Christmas carol. I really like this. I firmly believe that this is cute. Nathaniel would have to agree with you.
And it's a beautiful thing, and the different stations and people, they have to watch out for each other because it's a difficult environment down there.
And Nathaniel, listening at McMurdo Station in a blue penguin hoodie, I'll add, wondered if this caroling could be heard beyond Antarctica by shortwave listeners in other parts of the world. He wanted to know how far can these transmissions really travel? So how far away were people able to listen?
Well, before the caroling began, Nathaniel put out an alert to shortwave radio listeners saying, hey, if you can hear this, Email us and let us know. And people did. They were able to tune in. He got emails from the Netherlands, South America, places far away from Antarctica. Some people were able to catch snippets of this singing at the bottom of the world.
So today on the show, the Shortwave podcast looks at shortwave radio, how it works, how it travels. And how Nathaniel Frizzell is leveraging a community of shortwave radio listeners for science. Emily Kwong, our shortwave expert is Nathaniel Frizzell. Yes, he's an assistant professor of physics and engineering at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania.
Okay, so obviously I know of shortwave, the charming science podcast.
But tell me about shortwave as in shortwave radio.
So since the 1900s, we've been using radio waves to communicate. The waves are all different sizes. The lower the wave's frequency, the longer the wavelength.
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Chapter 3: What are the unique characteristics of shortwave radio?
One of the unique characteristics of shortwave radio is that it can travel, the radio waves can travel long distances, very long distances around the world.
Because they're 3 to 30 megahertz in frequency, they travel through space to this electrically charged part of our atmosphere called the ionosphere and are reflected or refracted back down to Earth.
If we did not have the ionosphere, these shortwave signals would travel off into space and not be able to travel around the globe.
Chapter 4: How does the ionosphere affect radio wave propagation?
But luckily for us, they can travel around the globe. They propagate far distances, and those with receivers on Earth are able to listen. Nathaniel loves shortwave because you don't need a lot of equipment to send and capture one of these transmissions.
Oh, it can be incredibly simple. You need a transmitter on one side and a receiver on the other and a decent antenna. And when I say a transmitter, there are some people who they make their goal to talk as far around the world as possible with as little as equipment as possible, as low power as possible.
So maybe using a quarter of a watt and $10 worth of parts, people are able to send signals that go all the way around the globe.
This is the ultimate lo-fi form of communication I'm gathering.
Right. Yeah.
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Chapter 5: What equipment is needed for shortwave radio communication?
And that communication could be anything. Broadcast, propaganda, spy stations, emergency information, weather reports, rag-chewing, which is a term to describe people just talking about their daily life. So radio, Twitter? Yeah. The transmission just has to fall within the right frequency range to count a shore wave.
And there's an international community of hobby radio operators who seek out a special license from their respective governments to do this. That's called ham radio. Ham. Yeah. That's the hobby of using this radio. So Nathaniel discovered that community on a Boy Scout jamboree. A ham radio operator had set up a station in the middle of the woods.
I just heard all this crackling and buzzing sounds coming out of the radio. And I heard him talking to these faraway places. And that was just really fascinating to me.
And he was hooked. Got his license in 1998. Just a teenager transmitting to whoever was listening in the northern New Jersey, New York metropolitan area. So just pure Bruce Springsteen propaganda. It was mostly just his call sign.
And 73, this is W2NAF, Whiskey 2, November Alpha Foxtrot.
73 means best regards. It's a pretty common ham radio sign off. Eventually, he upgraded to a better transmitter, threw a wire out the window of his bedroom and attached it to a tree in his front yard. And he managed to get a hold of a station in Hungary.
And it was just a very short contact. But, you know, that was pretty neat. You just throw a wire out your window and you're able to talk to a guy in Hungary. And it worked.
And these moments stayed with him, propelling his scientific methodology and his career. Cool.
OK, so tell me a little bit about that. How has Nathaniel used shortwave for science?
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