Also in GB2RS this week…
The next ARRL Kids Day operating event sponsored by the Boring Oregon Amateur Radio Club is planned for Saturday 21 June. Kids Day is not a contest but rather a twice yearly way for licensed amateurs to share the fun and excitement of our hobby with those who could be the next generation of licensees. Kids Day runs from 18:00 to 23:59 UTC. To take part you just need to invite non-ham youngsters to your station, with, of course, their parental consent and approval. Once the event begins simply call “CQ Kids Day”. If you make contact, the preferred exchange would be your guest’s name, age, location, and favourite colour. More information including a free printable certificate can be found on the web at www.arrl.org/kids-day.
If you are a user of Google’s Chrome browser, then QRZ.com has published a free browser extension that will let you highlight and right click on any callsign, on any web page from any website and instantly perform a QRZ lookup. The new app is now available now in the Chrome Web Store. Just search for Right Click QRZ.
July 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the first time that amateur signals from the UK reached other parts of the world by bouncing off the moon, a technique now known as moonbounce or earth-moon-earth, EME. In the July 1964 edition of Radio Communications the RSGB announced that at 20.20 GMT on June 13, 1964, G3LTF at Galleywood, Essex, and KP4BPZ in Puerto Rico, made contact on 430 Mc/s by bouncing their signals off the moon. Signal reports were RST459 both ways. A further contact took place one hour later. KP4BPZ was fortunate in having the 1000ft radio-telescope dish aerial at Arecibo, Puerto Rico at his disposal. G3LTF’s equipment included a 15ft dish aerial and an AF139 transistor preamplifier for reception. Power input to the PA was 150 watts. What is more remarkable is that Peter, G3LTF is still active on moonbounce and is one of the world’s leading pioneers. The RSGB offers Peter, G3LTF our heartiest congratulations on this 50th anniversary of his achievement.
Congratulations to the GB2RS Podcast team. They have now received 100,000 hits on their news recordings on Podbean. Each week the news is uploaded to both iTunes and the lounge as well as on http://gb2rs.podbean.com. Thanks to Jeremy and his team for their service to amateur radio every week, along with all our other news readers who read the news in various modes on the amateur bands.
Advance notice now of two events planned for 27 September. International Air Ambulance weekend will be run in support of the many Air Ambulance services around the world and particularly those in the UK, which are donation funded. More details on the event, its aims and a registration form to take part for free can be found at www.radio-amateur-events.org.
Railways on the air weekend takes place every year on the weekend closest to 27 September. This date celebrates the anniversary of the first steam powered passenger railway, which took place on 27 September 1825. The first passenger train ran on a line in the North East of England from Darlington to Stockton. Bishop Auckland Amateur Radio Club coordinates this event. Now in its seventh year, the 2014 event will take place on 27 and 28 September. For more details please visit www.rota.barac.org.uk.
We all know that Coronal Mass Ejections on the sun have a definite impact on radio propagation here on Earth, but few outside the solar science community have ever seen one close up. Now, thanks to video released by NASA, we can. The video was taken by NASA’s sun-observing Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph or IRIS spacecraft and radioed back to Earth. It shows a large sheet of solar material erupting from our parent star that quickly consumes a field of view comparable to the size of five Earths wide and seven and a half Earths tall. Go to tinyurl.com/NASA-IRIS-CME.
Category: GB2RS Headlines