License Exam Quiz #392

de Steve, AE8AT 

Ada Lovelace Day is an annual celebration held the second Tuesday of October, created in 2009 to honor women’s contributions to science and math. The quiz topic this week is the namesake of the day, Ada Lovelace. Ada is often remembered as the first computer programmer. The “computer” was the Analytical Engine that was conceived of by Charles Babbage. This machine was never built in his lifetime, but some details of it are important. This machine was mechanical, to be steam powered, and capable of holding 1,000 numbers of 50 digits in memory. That storage capacity would not be achieved until 1960. Babbage was working on a Difference Engine, a simpler machine, as early as 1821. The Difference Machine, would calculate polynomial equations using finite differences by setting mechanical dials and turning a crank to compute the same equation over and over. The more complicated Analytical Machine would be a general purpose computer that would also print the result. To achieve the higher complexity, the Analytical Machine would read “number cards” to put a number into memory, “variable cards” telling the machine where in memory a number was stored, and “operation cards” with the computation instruction. The machine would be capable of loops, and using what we call an IF-THEN conditional expression. Ada was working from a paper describing the machine that she was translating from French, which she expanded upon with many notes. Within these notes, there is one named Note G that describes a step-by-step process to solve for Bernoulli numbers using loops and recursion. This was the first program. Ada believed that an analytical machine would some day be capable of producing art and music, by which she anticipated what we call artificial intelligence. In this she was more visionary than Babbage who was seeking to eliminate errors in the calculation and printing of logarithm tables. Today, the Lovelace Test is a measure of the originality of AI generated content. Since Ada lived well before radio, our quiz questions will draw from the varied ways our modern analytical engines are used within our hobby.

T4A06 What signals are used in a computer-radio interface for digital mode operation?

A. Receive and transmit mode, status, and location

B. Antenna and RF power

C. Receive audio, transmit audio, and transmitter keying

D. NMEA GPS location and DC power

G7C10 What is an advantage of using I-Q modulation with software-defined radios (SDRs)?

A. The need for high resolution analog-to-digital converters is eliminated

B. All types of modulation can be created with appropriate processing

C. Minimum detectible signal level is reduced

D. Automatic conversion of the signal from digital to analog

E2B12 What signals SSTV receiving software to begin a new picture line?

A. Specific tone frequencies

B. Elapsed time

C. Specific tone amplitudes

D. A two-tone signal

Answers:

T4A06 = C

G7C10 = B

E2B12 = A