On the 2nd of February myself and other cadets attended a Blue Radio Course ran by squadron staff. In this course we learnt about various things such as: how to operate the radios, signal and causes of signal disruption, the phonetic alphabet, radios checks and our squadron radio name. We also got to use the radios by communicating a message to the other people on the course using a radio.
The most entertaining part of this course was when we played a version of battleships, each member of our team got to send our coordinates of the strike we wanted to the opposite team and wait to hear if we had made a hit. It was a lot of fun everyone enjoyed it. In addition to this, we found out the different types of radio equipment and their purposes. The instructors were all very knowledgeable and supportive.
During the part on signal and signal disruptions I learned that big hills, metal buildings and highly populated areas make it less easy for signal to get through, if at all. Personally, I thought this was quite interesting because I didn’t know any of these factors would have an impact on quality of communication on the radio. After that, I found out that some signals have two different patterns- one that seven beams must travel through a main connection tower first to then get bounced to other areas and another that has direct access to each other.
Learning the phonetic alphabet was a challenge throughout the course because I kept forgetting the words for each letter, however I did manage to nail it down by the end of the course which was good. If you asked anyone that went on this course, they would tell you that it was a good first enlightenment to the introduction to radio and was fun in places.
Finally, the assessment, this was quite a nervous experience for me and everyone else because we had to remember radio names and the correct procedures to go through and much more. Although the assessment was scary to do at first, everyone was really happy to know we had all passed. I can’t wait for the next one!
Cadet Jessica Brett
