12 February 2013 | General, ICT
Radio, Radio Waves, Radio Receiver, Antennas... Much more than a speaking box!
13 February has been officially recognised by UNESCO as World Radio Day. Join COST in celebrating the science behind, and connected to, the 'Radio'.
World Radio Day celebrates radio as a medium, to improve international cooperation between broadcasters, and to encourage major networks and community radio alike to promote access to information and freedom of expression over the airwaves.
As radio continues to evolve in the digital age, it remains the medium that reaches the widest audience worldwide. This multi-purpose medium can help people, including youth, to engage in discussions on topics that affect them. It can save lives during natural or human-made disasters; and it provides journalists with a platform to report facts and tell their stories.
UNESCO encourages all countries to celebrate World Radio Day by planning activities in partnership with regional, national and international broadcasters, non-governmental organisations, the media and the public.
'Radio': More than one word.
The terms 'radio' and 'radio receiver' are often used specifically for receivers designed to reproduce the audio sound signals transmitted by radio broadcasting stations – historically the first mass-market commercial radio application.
However, there is much more technology behind the word 'radio' than one may think. Radio waves are behind all of it. Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum longer than infrared light. Radio waves have frequencies from 300 GHz to as low as 3 kHz, and corresponding wavelengths from 1 millimeter to 100 kilometers. Like all other electromagnetic waves, they travel at the speed of light. Naturally occurring radio waves are made by lightning, or by astronomical objects.
Artificially generated radio waves are used for fixed and mobile radio communication, broadcasting, radar and other navigation systems, communications satellites, computer networks and many more applications.
These radio waves are received by a radio receiver, an electronic device that also converts the information carried by them to a usable form. A radio receiver uses an antenna to intercept the radio waves, and converts them to tiny alternating currents which are applied to the receiver. The receiver extracts the desired information in the form of sound, images, or data.
Radio receivers are everywhere in our daily lives. They are included, for instance, in television sets, radar equipment, mobile phones, wireless computer networks, GPS navigation devices, bluetooth and baby monitors.
Research in the COST ICT Domain.
Several COST Actions in the ICT Domain are networking research on Wireless Networks, Cognitive Radio, Optical Wireless Communications and Antennas, and driving European research towards innovation in this field:
- IC0802 ‘Propagation tools and data for integrated Telecommunication, Navigation and Earth Observation systems’
- IC0902 ‘Cognitive Radio and Networking for Cooperative Coexistence of Heterogeneous Wireless Networks’
- IC0905 ‘Techno-Economic Regulatory Framework for Radio Spectrum Access for Cognitive Radio/Software Defined Radio' (TERRA)
- IC0906 ‘WiNeMO - Wireless Networking for Moving Objects’
- IC1004 ‘Cooperative Radio Communications for Green Smart Environments’
- IC1101 ‘Optical Wireless Communications – An Emerging Technology’
- IC1102 ‘Versatile, Integrated, and Signal-aware Technologies for Antennas’ (VISTA)
Join COST in celebrating today the science and technology behind, and connected to, the 'Radio'!
