Radio and its application

1. In the earliest practical application, radio was used primarily to exchange messages with ships at sea. Radio is still used for this purpose and for communication across oceans.

2. Television, one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the home, is actually a kind of radio. It uses special equipment for sending and receiving pictures in the form of radio signals. The television audio signals are received by equipment similar to that used in other forms of radio. Other home devices that use radio technology are cordless telephones, garage-door openers, and radio-operated toy airplanes and cars.

3. Radio technology has other uses outside the home. It provides a means of instant communication with moving vehicles such as taxicabs, service trucks, squad cars and motorcycles. Observers in airplanes can report traffic violations, accidents, and traffic jams by radio to police officers on the ground. Many people in the medical profession have beepers – portable electronic devices used to page the person who carries it.

4. In radio telephones such as cellular mobile telephones, voice signals are sent across town or over long distances by high-frequency radio signals called microwaves. Land based microwave relay stations and communication satellites orbiting the Earth receive and transmit the microwave signals.

5. With radio to guide them, airplane pilots can fly through fog or storm and land safely at airports. Pilots and ship captains use radio navigation systems to determine their locations and stay on course.

6. Radio technology is also essential to space exploration. Space probes use radio waves to relay information about the solar system. Radio astronomy is used to detect celestial objects too distant and dim to be seen by optical telescopes. It can also be used to determine the chemical make up of stars and gas clouds and the speed and direction of moving stars. Using radio astronomy, quasars were discovered in the early 1960s. Pulsars, believed to be rapidly rotating neutron stars, were discovered later in the decade. With the information obtained scientists can piece together the puzzle of how the universe began.

Notes: squad car – полицейская машина

II. Read the text and find the information about domestic appliances that use radio technology.

III. Which paragraph contains the information concerning advances in radio astronomy?

IV. Find the place in paragraph 3 containing the information how radio is used outside the home.

V. Give the main points of the text in 5-6 sentences.

UNIT 8

Part A

Word List

I. Study the following words and choose

a) nouns

1) add, addition, additional, additive;

2) recognizance, recognizable, recognition, recognize;

3) indication, indicator, indicate, indicative, indicated;

4) processor, process, procession, processing, processional;

5) outperform, performer, performance, performing;

b ) adjectives

1) ability, able, disabled, disablement, inability;

2) create, creative, creativeness, creator, creation, creature;

3) notable, notably, notability, note, notedly, noteless;

4) speculate, speculator, speculation, speculative

5) employer, employee, employ, employable, employment

c) verbs

1) signify, significance, significant, signification;

2) decision, decisive, decisiveness, decide, decidedly;

3) selector, selectivity, select, selected, selective, selection;

4) hypothesize, hypothesis, hypothetical

II. Arrange the words of the two groups in pairs:

1) with similar meaning

a) alternative, allow, achieve, declare, distinguish, convene, insist, proponent, interpret, select, exploration, procedure, addition, recognition, operation, outperform;

b) choose, action, summon, surpass, permit, upholder, acknowledgement, differ, option, explain, investigation, supplement, attain, order, persist, proclaim;

2) with contrary meaning

a) employ, simultaneous, powerful, limited, same, multiple, create, convene, leading, random, logic, rough, essential, ability, simple, major, experience, awareness, artificial;

b) illogic, minor, destroy, different, natural, weak, unbounded, disability, ignorance, single, backward, hire, inexperience, complicated, even, secondary, deliberate, taking place, at different times.

III. Match the words with their definitions:

IV. Study the text and try to understand all details.