Chiffchaff (Ama­teur Radio Enthu­si­asts and Birds), 2001

Multi-media install­a­tion

Pro­duced in part­ner­ship with Strat­ford Ama­teur Radio Club

Com­mis­sioned and pro­duced by Compton Verney, War­wick­shire, UK

Bring­ing togeth­er the worlds of ama­teur radio enthu­si­asts and bird­song, this install­a­tion presen­ted these sep­ar­ate realms of com­mu­nic­a­tion as par­al­lel cul­tures. Coates recog­nised that in evol­u­tion­ary terms they both dis­play an extens­ive range of shared or con­ver­gent adaptations.

With the help of the Strat­ford Ama­teur Radio Club, Coates set up an oper­a­tion­al ama­teur radio sta­tion manned by enthu­si­asts in the his­tor­ic house, Compton Verney in War­wick­shire. They made ​‘con­tacts’ with oth­er radio oper­at­ors over as wide an area as pos­sible, after which they fol­lowed pro­tocol and exchanged call signs, inform­a­tion about their loc­a­tions and strength of sig­nal. The oper­at­ors also used Morse code. The loc­a­tions of con­tacts across the world were plot­ted on a map to assess the range of the station.

A par­al­lel dis­play of inform­a­tion about bird­song, includ­ing orni­tho­lo­gic­al texts, bird­song record­ings and video foot­age, dir­ectly mirrored the activ­ity and cul­ture of the radio station.

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GENDER

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AMA­TEUR RADIO

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In the vast major­ity of coun­tries, the pop­u­la­tion of ama­teur radio oper­at­ors is pre­dom­in­antly male.

A Study of Ama­teur Radio Gender Demo­graph­ics, Ken­neth E. Hark­er, 15 March 2005

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BIRD­SONG

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They are address­ing their songs to rival males. 

Bird Songs by Gareth Huw Davies

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INFORM­A­TION CONVEYED

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AMA­TEUR RADIO

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After the usu­al greet­ings it is cus­tom­ary to exchange details of sig­nal strength, name, loc­a­tion and inform­a­tion… After con­clud­ing the con­tact, both sta­tions will listen care­fully for callers.

Ama­teur Radio Oper­at­ing Manu­al, Ray Eck­ers­ley (ed.), Radio Soci­ety of Great Bri­tain, 2000

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BIRD­SONG

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These ter­rit­ori­al songs carry over long dis­tances and con­vey detailed inform­a­tion about the loc­a­tion and iden­tity of the sing­er. Gaps in the song enable the sing­er to listen for replies, and determ­ine where their rival is and how far off.

Bird Songs by Gareth Huw Davies

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CALL­ING

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AMA­TEUR RADIO

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!image($https://mc-web-eu-ireland-dev.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/asset/file/wave‑1.png)

There are two accep­ted ways of estab­lish­ing con­tact with anoth­er radio sta­tion. The first meth­od is to put out a gen­er­al call or broad­cast to all sta­tions, known as a CQ call, and to hope that anoth­er sta­tion responds.

Ama­teur Radio Oper­at­ing Manu­al, Ray Eck­ers­ley (ed.), Radio Soci­ety of Great Bri­tain, 2000

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BIRD­SONG

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!image($https://mc-web-eu-ireland-dev.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/asset/file/73/wave‑2.png)

If a sound is to be eas­ily loc­ated… one would expect an abrupt onset and off­set… This is true of many bird-call notes, such as mob­bing calls or con­tact calls, which func­tion to attract oth­er birds to the caller and so must be easy to locate.

Bird Song, Bio­lo­gic­al Themes & Vari­ations, C. K. Catch­pole and B. J. B. Slater (ed.), Cam­bridge: Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity Press, 1995

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EFFI­CIENCY

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AMA­TEUR RADIO

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The Morse code and sound equi­val­ents (detail) Ama­teur Radio Oper­at­ing Manu­al, Ray Eck­ers­ley (ed.), Radio Soci­ety of Great Bri­tain, 2000

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BIRD­SONG

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…when an organ­ism the size of a bird must pro­ject the voice over sev­er­al hun­dred feet in an open envir­on­ment, the effort involved is likely to be con­sid­er­able. Such organ­iz­a­tion as tends to min­im­ize effort must be advant­age­ous, and a song form will be most effi­cient when the units are so ordered as to bal­ance expendit­ure of effort and rest. The simplest mani­fest­a­tion of orderly dis­tri­bu­tion in time is a pulse of giv­en dur­a­tion, fre­quency and intens­ity, energy being expen­ded on the beat and recu­per­a­tion occur­ring between beats.

Joan Hall-Craggs, Bird Vocal­iz­a­tions, R. A. Hinde (ed.), Cam­bridge: Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity Press, 1969

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PHRAS­ING

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AMA­TEUR RADIO

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GB2CV Per­son­al Call Sign

It is a require­ment of the reg­u­la­tions that all radio ama­teurs identi­fy them­selves by trans­mit­ting an iden­ti­fic­a­tion code, known as the call­sign, at short inter­vals dur­ing their trans­mis­sions… The ini­tial char­ac­ters of the call­sign denote the coun­try to which the ama­teur sta­tion belongs and is oper­at­ing from.

Ama­teur Radio Oper­at­ing Manu­al, Ray Eck­ers­ley (ed.), Radio Soci­ety of Great Bri­tain, 2000

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BIRD­SONG

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Illus­tra­tion from Bird Song, Bio­lo­gic­al Themes & Vari­ations, C. K. Catch­pole and B. J. B. Slater (ed.), Cam­bridge: Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity Press, 1995

The begin­ning of the song of some spe­cies is markedly ste­reo­typed, while the end­ing is more plastic and shows indi­vidu­al characteristics.

Acous­tic Com­mu­nic­a­tion in Birds, Vol 1., D.E. Kroom and E.H. Miller (ed.), New York: Aca­dem­ic Press, 1982

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REPE­TI­TION

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AMA­TEUR RADIO

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A typ­ic­al CW (Morse) con­tact: This is known as a ​‘four by two’ CQ call, mean­ing that ​‘CQ’ is sent four times and the call sign twice. A much longer call is not recommended. 

“CQ CQ CQ CQ…”

Ama­teur Radio Oper­at­ing Manu­al, Ray Eck­ers­ley (ed.), Radio Soci­ety of Great Bri­tain, 2000

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BIRD­SONG

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Illus­tra­tion from Songs of Birds, Wal­ter Garstang, illus­trated by J. A. Shep­herd, Cur­wen Press, 1922

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LEARN­ING

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AMA­TEUR RADIO

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Each set of tech­niques is appro­pri­ate for the par­tic­u­lar cir­cum­stances, and the only way to become famil­i­ar with them is to spend time listen­ing to good oper­at­ors, not­ing how and why their meth­ods suc­ceed where those of the poor oper­at­ors do not. It is quite import­ant that the new­comer should be dis­crim­in­at­ing in this respect, and not simply mim­ic whatever he or she has heard pre­vi­ously when going on air for the first time. To put it bluntly – copy the good oper­at­ors, not the bad.

Ama­teur Radio Oper­at­ing Manu­al, Ray Eck­ers­ley (ed.), Radio Soci­ety of Great Bri­tain, 2000

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BIRD­SONG

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…the young bird hears and mem­or­izes many more songs dur­ing his song-learn­ing peri­od than he will keep for his final song rep­er­toire… There­fore, the bird must ​‘decide’ which par­tic­u­lar songs he will retain for his final rep­er­toire. Nel­son and Marler pro­pose that song learn­ing has two phases. In the first phase… song learn­ing is primar­ily a pro­cess of listen­ing to and mem­or­iz­ing the songs of adult birds. In the second phase… the bird ​‘selects’ the songs he will retain for his final repertoire. 

Assess­ing the Import­ance of Social Factors in Bird Song Learn­ing: A Test Using Com­puter-Sim­u­lated Tutors, John M. Burt, Adri­an L. O’Loghlen, Chris­toph­er N. Tem­pleton, S. Eliza­beth Camp­bell and Michael D. Beech­er, Depart­ment of Psy­cho­logy, Uni­ver­sity of Wash­ing­ton, Seattle, WA, USA

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RANGE

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AMA­TEUR RADIO

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Paths in excess of 400 km worked by UK ama­teur radio sta­tions dur­ing 1994

Ama­teur Radio Oper­at­ing Manu­al, Ray Eck­ers­ley (ed.), Radio Soci­ety of Great Bri­tain, 2000

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BIRD­SONG

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Recov­er­ies of water rails Railus aqua­ti­us ringed in Bri­tain and Ire­land, 1909 –78 

Ringing & Migra­tion, Colin J. Bibby (ed.), Vol. 2, No. 4, Decem­ber 1979

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EARTH’S MAG­NET­IC ACTIVITY

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AMA­TEUR RADIO

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Mag­net­ic storms can cause fre­quency shift and spread­ing, mak­ing sig­nals sound dis­tor­ted and dif­fi­cult to copy. Morse sig­nals are trans­formed into a rough hiss­ing note and side­band voice trans­mis­sions vary from a growl to a whisper. 

Ama­teur Radio Oper­at­ing Manu­al, Ray Eck­ers­ley (ed.), Radio Soci­ety of Great Bri­tain, 2000

Glob­al dis­tri­bu­tion of 4,000 km medi­an MUF con­tours for 14, 21 and 28 MHz, and day / night zones at 0600 GMT in Octo­ber (sun­spot num­ber = 100)

Ama­teur Radio Oper­at­ing Manu­al, Ray Eck­ers­ley (ed.), Radio Soci­ety of Great Bri­tain, 2000

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BIRD­SONG

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Birds use earth’s mag­net­ic field to guide migra­tion. Changes in mag­net­ic activ­ity can cause the birds to devi­ate from their migrat­ory routes and become disorientated.

Bird Nav­ig­a­tion, R. Robin Baker, Lon­don: Hod­der & Stoughton, 1984

Glob­al vari­ation in the declin­a­tion of the Earth’s mag­net­ic field

Bird Nav­ig­a­tion, R. Robin Baker, Lon­don: Hod­der & Stoughton, 1984

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LUD­WIG KOCH

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AMA­TEUR RADIO

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Anoth­er pop­u­lar (Morse code) teach­ing meth­od is the Koch meth­od, developed by the Ger­man psy­cho­lo­gist Lud­wig Koch in the 1930s. The meth­od basic­ally states that you should learn Morse code at the speed you expect to receive.

Morse train­er software

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BIRD­SONG

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The first known record­ing of bird­song was made in 1889 by Lud­wig Koch, who went on to become an emin­ent wild­life record­ist and BBC nat­ur­al his­tory presenter.

Archive Pion­eers – Lud­wig Koch and the Music of Nature. BBC Archives, Lon­don: Brit­ish Broad­cast­ing Cor­por­a­tion, 15 April 2009

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TER­MIN­O­LOGY

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AMA­TEUR RADIO

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A change in fre­quency of Morse code from the desired fre­quency, due to poor sta­bil­ity in the RF Oscil­lat­or is known as chirp.

The Beginner’s Hand­book of Ama­teur Radio, Clay Laster, Indi­ana­pol­is: Sams, 1979

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BIRD­SONG

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Because the (bird) song is a spe­cial struc­ture used soley in com­mu­nic­a­tion, we call it a signal.

Bird Song, Bio­lo­gic­al Themes & Vari­ations, C. K. Catch­pole and B. J. B. Slater (ed.), Cam­bridge: Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity Press, 1995

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SOCI­ET­IES

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AMA­TEUR RADIO

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Radio Soci­ety of Great Britain

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BIRD­SONG

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Roy­al Soci­ety for the Pro­tec­tion of Birds

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HEIGHT

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AMA­TEUR RADIO

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Sit­ing the Antenna:
For max­im­um effi­ciency the antenna should be sited as high as possible.

Ama­teur Radio Oper­at­ing Manu­al, Ray Eck­ers­ley (ed.), Radio Soci­ety of Great Bri­tain, 2000

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BIRD­SONG

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It is com­par­at­ively unusu­al for birds to sing close to the ground… So import­ant are song perches to corn buntings, that they have been observed invari­ably to choose the high­er of two singing perches, even if the next highest is only a few cen­ti­metres lower…

Bird Song: Bio­lo­gic­al Themes and Vari­ations, C.K. Catch­pole and P.J.B. Slater, (ed.), Cam­bridge: Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity Press, 1995

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