Also in GB2RS this week…

The RSGB AGM is taking place on 25th April at 12 noon in the Royal National Hotel, 38-51 Bedford Way, Russell Square, London WC1H 0DG. Doors will be open from 11am until 11.45am for registration and refreshments will be available. A Society bookstall will be open from 11am to 12 noon and again during lunch. Lunch will be available from 1pm at a small charge. Please pre-register your attendance online at www.rsgb.org/attendagm to help with calculating numbers. All business will be concluded by 4pm. The proceedings will be recorded and made available on the RSGB website. There is a link on the front page of the RSGB website and the Society would encourage all those attending to register online.

ANZAC day is commemorated on 25 April each year, with 2015 being the 100th anniversary of the battle of Gallipoli. An official opening broadcast on ANZAC Day from Canberra will primarily involve the national societies of Australia, New Zealand and Turkey. The VK100WIA broadcast will be heard at 4.30am New Zealand time on HF if possible, and via the Internet if propagation conditions do not allow a contact. All ANZAC-suffixed callsigns are expected to remain silent until after the broadcast. In Australia eight different ANZAC callsigns are to be on air. Additionally, radio amateurs are able to substitute their normal VK prefixed with AX on both 25th and 26th April. The New Zealand ANZAC callsigns will be on the air for a month. In Turkey, look out for TC100 stations on the air.

Tim Peake, the first British ESA astronaut, has issued an invitation to UK school pupils to contact him via amateur radio whilst he is in space. Tim will launch to the International Space Station in November of this year and will spend 6 months working and living on the ISS. UK school pupils will be able to contact him whilst he is on board the ISS via a scheduled amateur radio link-up. Schools throughout the United Kingdom are being invited to host one of a limited number of these in-flight calls, which will include space workshops. Eligible institutions are invited to apply in order to register their interest. Stage 1 application forms, available from the European Space Education Resource Office website at http://tinyurl.com/ariss-timpeake must be returned no later than Friday 24th April.

HB9AW, a 60m beacon project, is a CW transmitter that sends its callsign at 10W followed by 5 dashes. Each dash is sent for 5s. The first dash is sent at 10W, the second at 5W, then at 1W, at 100mW and the fifth dash at 10mW. The frequency is 5291kHz, occupying a narrow bandwidth of about 100Hz. So far just over 2000 reports have been received from all over Europe, and the 60m beacon has also been heard in America. Reports can be simply entered at the projects website www.hb9aw.ch

A few places are still available on the RSGB Train the Trainers course being run in Norwich on Saturday 9th May. The course will be held at the Norfolk Amateur Radio Club. Train the Trainers is free to any RSGB member who is currently teaching at Foundation, Intermediate or Advanced level and is especially designed for anyone who does not already have a professional background in teaching. For further details or to book a place, please e-mail David, G7URP via radio@dcpmicro.com

Category: GB2RS Headlines