We are all doing more with less. We’re being asked to shorten deadlines, design products and shorten repairs. For digital designers and test and measure situations, one of the key tools to make this all happen is an oscilloscope.

Responsible for identifying and resolving interferences to signals and radiocommunications services, members of the ACMA’s Field Operations Section spend much of their time on the road and on a mission.

A series 4000 communication control system with 4048 common control equipment, a four-position integrator RD workstation, three positions of series 3300 call-taking systems and VoIP telephones are being used to upgrade an American installation.

The fourth, two-day RadComms conference organised by the ACMA, provided an opportunity to hear the latest spectrum developments, participate in open forums and exchange ideas with radio communications professionals from across industry and government.

Radio is playing a major role in upgrading the American power distribution industry. Smart grids are being developed using radio and smart meters to ensure optimum electricity usage and to minimise blackouts.

Demand for spectrum by fixed and mobile wireless access service applications is the focus of the revised Five-year Spectrum Outlook 2010-2014 (the Outlook), released by the ACMA.

Gartner has identified 10 mobile technologies that will evolve significantly through 2011 in ways that will impact short-term mobile strategies and policies.

RFID is by now a well-established radio technology. However, the radio system can only be effective if the installation, and the need for it, work hand in hand after some very careful planning and research. This article looks beyond the technology and into that planning process to ensure RFID implementation is a success.

While spectrum, its accessibility, allocation and use were the all-absorbing topics of the ACMA’s fourth RadComms conference, the authority’s chairman, Chris Chapman, covered a range of other topics in his opening address in Melbourne. This is an edited version of his presentation.

Imec and the Holst Centre have developed an ultra-low-power 2.4 GHz/915 MHz receiver with good sensitivity. The receiver runs on a record low power consumption of 51 µW when on continuously. It occupies 0.36 mm² in 90 nm CMOS, and for 10 Kbps on-off keying reception it achieves -69 dBm and -80 dBm sensitivity at 2.4 GHz and 915 MHz.

An eight-week trial of satellite-delivered, high-speed broadband for two remote rural South Island schools in New Zealand has been completed. The trial, aimed to test the effectiveness of satellite as a means of providing a high-speed broadband link, was conducted in Winchester Rural School in Canterbury and Haast Rural School on the west coast.

Operating railways safely has been of paramount importance since the earliest days of steam locomotion. How to ensure that a driver can not only see but act on a signal aspect has always been top of the list of requirements. Now radio is providing a means of reducing human failure as this story of US experiences shows.

Papers on various radio technologies were presented at last year’s RadioComms Connect event in Melbourne. This article looks at another of the technologies discussed - P25 - and charts some of its evolving features.

Recent emergency situations have arisen in Britain, including severe flooding, extreme weather and even terrorist attacks. These have highlighted, repeatedly, just how vulnerable some sections of society can be in such circumstances. Now British researchers, writing in the International Journal of Emergency Management suggest that wireless could hold the key to remedying this problem.

Two radio links - one to a mine and the other to a construction site - have allowed broadband communications where there was practically no coverage before.