Wireless World

What this quiz asks

• Why are mobile phone networks called 'cellular'?
• Home Wi-Fi routers commonly broadcast in the 2.4 GHz band and which other band?
• A home satellite TV dish can stay fixed in one position because its satellite is in which kind of orbit?
• A running microwave oven can disrupt Wi-Fi, because both work at frequencies around 2.4 GHz.
• NFC, the technology behind tapping a card or phone to pay, works up to roughly what distance?
• Select ALL of these that send information using radio waves.
• Which generation of mobile networks was the first to be digital, and brought SMS text messages?
• Does a passive NFC tag, such as a sticker on a poster, need its own battery to work?
• Which Hollywood star co-patented a frequency-hopping system in 1942, an idea behind later wireless technologies?
• In December 1901, Marconi's first transatlantic radio signal was the Morse code for which letter?
• In AM radio, what does the transmitter vary in order to carry the sound?
• Which American engineer patented FM radio in 1933, giving broadcasts far less static?
• Select ALL of these that are satellite navigation systems.
• Order these by how far their signal usually travels to reach your phone, shortest first.
• What is the minimum number of GPS satellites a receiver must pick up to fix its position in three dimensions?
• The world's first commercial cellular phone network, a 1G system, opened in 1979 in which city?
• The first call on a GSM network, the 2G standard that spread worldwide, was made in 1991 in which country?
• GPS satellite clocks have to be corrected for Einstein's relativity, or positions would drift by kilometres every day.
• At roughly what altitude above Earth do GPS satellites orbit?
• A key Wi-Fi patent came from radio astronomers at CSIRO, a government science agency of which country?