A day in the life of Spectrum
Transcript
[Background music playing]
[slide] Australian Government ACMA Australian Communications and Media Authority
You don't see, hear, or feel them, but the electromagnetic waves that surround us make nearly every aspect of modern life possible. Without those speedy radio waves your day would be unrecognisable. In fact, you wouldn't be able to leave your house. So let's look at a day in your life of radio spectrum use.
You wake up at 6 am to the alarm clock bringing you the news on the radio. Over breakfast you try to check your emails, but your wireless land link just won't work. You dash out the door past your daughter to happily listening to music via a pair of wireless speakers.
You unlock your car and garage doors with two remote keys. On the highway, the traffic update warns of a delay ahead. The signs and also the cameras that detect the traffic are linked back to the control room using radio. And the traffic report you listen to over the radio has been linked back to the radio news room by a helicopter.
Once past the delay of the construction works, you try to make up time. A sudden flash registers in the corner of your eye and you know you've been caught. Very soon there'll be a ticket with a photo attached in the mail, thanks to a radar gun, reporting back on a microwave link.
Back on the road there's a bleep, bleep as you pass through the toll gates. Just then the mobile rings and not wanting to risk another ticket, you use the Bluetooth hands free. Finally, you're at work and the swipe car opens the boom gates. A motion detector keeps the car parked safe throughout the day.
And as you approach your office, another motion detector sees you, and the door slides smoothly apart. At your desk, you connect to your laptop on the office's LAN. You check your emails and industry alerts; this one's transmitted from London via satellite. You make a couple of phone calls from a portable hands-free, and then it's the 9 am video conference with one of your regional teams.
The videos stream from Coffs Harbour to Sydney using a variety of fixed links, and at 10:30 you dash out of the office again to fly to Canberra for an important meeting, but the flight's been delayed, and you have half an hour to kill, a chance for some quick shopping.
You buy your son a miniaturized helicopter and that new pink mobile for your daughter. This one downloads video, too. And while handing over your credit card there's a commotion, and the electromagnetic spectrum helps apprehend a shoplifter. After you're onboard, the plane is taxing along the runway with ground guidance courtesy of the radio spectrum.
Take off, and in the cockpit, the pilot and crew are busy. Air traffic control directs them using a radar and GPS establishes the correct course to Canberra. Air traffic control keeps you away from other aircraft, and automatic direction finding makes you stay on course. Rain and poor visibility in Canberra means the instrument landing system has to bring you down safely.
You call for a taxi, and it takes you to the Canberra office. There it's meetings, emails, phone calls, emails, phone calls and more meetings until it's back in the taxi on to the plane and take off for Sydney. By the time you land it's been a long day, and you're tired as you drive home, not noticing the traffic lights up ahead turning red, you're reactions aren't quick enough.
But fortunately the collision avoidance radar steps in and prevents an accident. You make it home in time for the seven o' clock news; the live broadcast in the TV studio is live linked to the transmitter. Upstairs your son is watching Foxtel from the Optus satellite overhead, and your daughter is out lounging on the veranda again with those mysterious cordless speakers.
You flip open the laptop to check your emails, but again it refuses to connect to the wireless LAN. A bit baffled you turn back to the news where the reporter is explaining that an important Al Qaeda stronghold has been detected and destroyed. What the news doesn't say is that behind the scenes a network of surveillance satellites were listening to the land mobile radios used by the terrorists.
This information was relayed to strike aircraft in real time, and tactical data links were used to target and destroy a terrorist stronghold within 10 minutes of it being detected. This story's followed by a live cross to an outside broadcast unit reporting on bush fires in northeast Victoria. Your laptop's wireless connection mysteriously springs into life, and you notice that your daughter's wandering into the kitchen with those speakers.
You use this newfound digital freedom to go to the Bureau of Meteorology site to check the details of tomorrow's weather. The colour weather radar confirms that a storm is on its way. Hail is predicted, so you close the garage door and in the kitchen, you microwave last night's leftovers.
You settle back in front of the television and wait for the storm to arrive. This was your day. It could be any day. A day in your life is a day in the life of the radio spectrum.
End of Transcript
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