What IS E.A.R.S. ?

East Ayrshire Radio Society was started in 2012 by a small group of friends who first got together back in the mid 1980s and enjoyed using various types of radio equipment for communications and remote control of model cars, boats, planes, trains, rockets, robots  and hovercraft.  Most of us also spent a lot of time taking things to bits to find out how they worked and documenting our findings, a few of us also designed and built new stuff too.  We all worked in various technical fields across a range of industry sectors including microelectronics, communications infrastructure, railway signalling & telegraphy, process control, product design, road, rail and marine vehicle maintenance, marine and aerospace engineering, civil engineering, precision engineering, power generation and distribution, microwave communications, EMC test & calibration, RF engineering, information technologies, security services, teaching, physics and electromagnetics.

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With such a broad range of experience between us there was usually at least a few of us that would have some idea of how any particular device or piece of equipment was designed, built and operated. This gave us a good starting point to begin taking whatever it was apart, find out how it really worked in detail, rebuild it and see if we could put it to some use. Items would quite often be modified, repurposed and used for other things beyond the scope or their original intended purpose.  Of course some things were inevitably broken beyond reasonable repair so they would be stripped down as a source of parts for other projects.   

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The first 'Techie-Files' project was born back in late 1985 or early 1986, not exactly sure of the date but it started as a winter project. A group of techie-head friends decided to have a go at trying to explain how various bits of technology worked in relatively simple terms so that people who were not entirely happy with taking things to bits could gain some idea of what was going on 'inside the box'  We would usually write up a simplified overview followed by more technical articles with diagrams and charts for those who wanted more precise detail to fully understand the intricacies of each device.

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Most of the information, images, charts and diagrams we produced were originally stored on paper in  file folders which were kept in large storage boxes with a huge ledger book used as the main index to keep track of what each numbered box file and folder contained. Many of the original paper files were transferred into the digital realm during the early to mid 1990s with text being typed up and diagrams being re-drawn on Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga 500, Atari ST and BBC model B computers.

 The digital versions were then made available for download on our dial up bulletin board systems and proved to be quite popular with BBS users. Of course the public internet appeared on the scene, rapidly gained popularity and the BBS users gradually drifted away as they could then use the internet and eMail from their own homes. The BBS machines were retired from service and most of them were either sold off or used for other things. Some floppy disc and early CD rom based backups of the old BBS 'Techie Files' were rescued after several years hanging about in boxes and old a about a dozen old RLL and SCSI hard discs were hooked up to more modern machines to attempt recovery of the archives, only some survived and many were lost. The successfully rescued files became the start of the E.A.R.S project back in 2012.  Over several years the members of the original Techie Files team all drifted apart, the remaining BBS machines failed one by one and were scrapped, their fond memories being consigned to history. The vast majority of the archives were lost as each of the old optical and magnetic storage discs failed over time. The original paper documents had all been lost many years before and only a tiny fraction of the electronic archives survived to be rescued intact with many documents only being partially readable due to failure of the storage media. The files that were rescued without errors were archived again using newer and hopefully longer lasting storage technologies.   

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This website was started in July 2022 as it was decided the E.A.R.S project should be published online.

This time around we will focus mostly on radio communications technologies, amateur radio equipment and some of the many modes and methods of construction and operation of modern, and some not so modern, communications systems.

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Some of the old rescued Techie Files will be added to the site over time, All the E.A.R.S. Techie Files will also be stored in new archives created on modern backup storage media, hopefully they will last longer than the old 12 inch and 5 1/4 inch floppy discs, early CD rom discs and clunky old RLL & SCSI hard discs used in the past. 

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I hope You find  something of interest on the site, If You have a question about some aspect of radio communications You think would be interesting to have explained on the site, send us an information request on the E.A.R.S Contact page. if there is not an existing document for that item or subject already, one could be written up and added to the site.  If You have authored something of a technical nature You would like to add to the project and have published on this site Please get in touch. 

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Help us to share technical knowledge and keep good information free for all.

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73 de Paul, MM7WAB, (Sysop, Site Manager & Archivist)