Whether you are a beginner or seasoned expert, maximizing your critical communications knowledge is essential for safe and efficient operations. The Radio Academy provides free online learning dedicated to improving everyone’s radio knowledge. View the latest video in the ‘Basic Radio Awareness’ course, ‘What is Multiband Radio?’.

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Modulation is the process of encoding a message into a radio signal to be transported to various devices and systems, it is a fundamental building block of radio communication. You can find out more about the properties of Modulation and its uses in our Basic Radio Communications course. Continue Reading

Ever wondered how your trusty portable radio is able to make your voice heard many miles away? If you want to learn more about radio waves, modulation or how repeaters work, we’ve got great news for you: the Tait Radio Academy offers free online educational resources dedicated to providing easy to follow lessons to help improve radio and communications systems knowledge – from basics for new users, to advanced technology descriptions.

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Australian Air Force Cadets from 210 Squadron, based in Toowoomba, Queensland, recently conducted basic radio communications training using resources from www.taitradioacademy.com.

The cadets learned basic radio procedures, the Phonetic Alphabet, and best practices for radio operation, to ensure clear and concise communications.  After a half day classroom session, they put their skills to the test by sending and receiving phonetic alphabet encoded messages using portable radios.  These skills will assist the cadets when they complete... Continue Reading

If you are part of a larger agency a trunked network could be incredibly beneficial to how your radio communications operate. But what is trunking and how does it work?

Many know of the conventional system where there are dedicated channels allocated to specific users or a group of users. However, trunking has become increasingly important as it offers huge advantages over conventional for larger agencies.

The lesson Communication Systems: How does Trunking Work? describes in both conventional and trunked systems and how they work.

If you would like to learn... Continue Reading

P25, DMR, Tetra, MPT– there are many types of radio technologies that support radio operation. Many of these technologies are suited more to a particular industry and work in their own specific bands.

The Communication Systems: Different types of Radio lesson covers each technology, including Conventional FM and NXDN, explaining each one including the industries they are commonly used in, their specific bands and their channel spacing, among other pieces of useful information.

To learn more about radio technologies watch the video below and read the... Continue Reading

Whether you are a system manager contemplating upgrading to digital radio or you just want to learn the advantages of digital radio over analog, this course will directly identify the benefits of digital radio.

From flexible data capabilities to better spectral efficiency, digital radio has some powerful advantages of modern digital standards that have emerged over the last few decades. There are other ways in which digital radio offers advantages over analog as stated in the Communication Systems: Digital vs. Analog lesson.

You can view them by watching the video... Continue Reading

Have you ever been confused about the difference between downlink voting, uplink voting or voting in general? Have you heard of a simulcast network, another kind of voting network?

All the information you need to differentiate between downlink voting, a process that takes place in the subscriber unit, and uplink voting, a process that takes place in the network, is included in the Communication Systems: Voting and Simulcast Networks lesson.

Along with explanations and diagrams, this lesson also includes a description of how a simulcast network operates.... Continue Reading

Manually checking through radio channels for communication activity can cause problems in the way of missed calls as a result of being on the wrong channel. Fortunately, there is a better way of checking for activity.

The lesson Communication Systems: How scanning works on the Tait Radio Academy explains how scanning, an automatic process, checks each channel in turn to see if there is any activity occurring. If there is, the radio will lock onto that channel and then send the audio to the speaker so that the radio user can hear it.

Scanning is also flexible in the... Continue Reading

As previously discussed, the use of a repeater can solve the problem of an obstruction in line of sight conventional communications. This benefit is part of installing a repeater system, but there are also other benefits that can occur when there is no obstruction.

The lesson Communications Systems: How does a repeater system work? continues on from the Modulation and Radio Building Blocks lesson to explain how repeater systems work and how repeaters are not only excellent for ensuring communication can occur, but also for extending communication range.

Learn... Continue Reading