Change of 40M WAI Frequency

It was deceided at the recent IRTS Committee Meeting to
Change the Worked All Ireland Frequencey from 7.068 to 7.170

The W.A.I. awards are open to all amateurs and short wave listeners
throughout, the world, who wish to participate. Membership
of any specific organisation is not pre-requisite.

The aim of the awards scheme is:
To expand the geographical knowledge of Ireland and its offshore
islands.

1) To encourage activity in general and promote mobile and
portable expedition activity on both LF and VHF bands.

2) To encourage amateurs and Shortwave Listeners to improve
their operating skills by participating in or running W.A.I. Nets.

Listen To Ham Radio Online With WebSDR

Have you tried to find links to listen to ham radio online lately? How many promising links have you found to be "dead links"? Too many, huh!

The links below will actually take you to sites where you can listen to amateur radio communicating with each other around the world.

The "live" links will let you hear ham radio operators using every imaginable mode of communication... SSB, FM and AM voice, RTTY, SSTV. The list of modes is nearly endless because new ones are experimented with regularly.

WebSDR (Web Software Defined Radio Systems) let many users simultaneously tune the SDR to different frequencies to listen to.

• EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) 3cm signals using a 25 m dish in Dwingeloo, Drenthe, Netherlands.
• PA3WEG in Delft, NL - VLF and 70 cm bands.
• K7UEB (KL7NA op.) -20m band signals from a WebSDR located in Walla Walla University, in College Place, Washington, USA
• PI4THT - 80m, 40m, 20m band signals from Amateur Radio Club of University Of Twente, Enschede, NL.
• W4MQ Internet Remote Base - lets you tune and listen to ham radio signals anywhere from the 160m band right up to the 70 cm band! It is located in Reston, Virginia on the East Coast of the USA.

Sun's 'quiet period' explained from BBC News

The Sun's conveyor transports plasma across its surface to the pole, where it sinks before rising at the equator
Solar physicists may have discovered why the Sun recently experienced a prolonged period of weak activity.

The most recent so-called "solar minimum" occurred in December 2008.

Its drawn-out nature extended the total length of the last solar cycle - the repeating cycle of the Sun's activity - to 12.6 years, making it the longest in almost 200 years.

During a solar minimum the Sun is less active, producing fewer sunspots and flares.

The new research suggests that the longer-than-expected period of weak activity may have been linked to changes in the way a hot soup of charged particles called plasma circulated in the Sun.

The study, conducted by Dr Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado and her US colleagues, is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The Sun's activity strengthens and weakens on a cycle that typically lasts 10.7 years. Since accurate records began in 1755, there have been 24 such solar cycles.

The 23rd cycle, which ended in December 2008, was both longer than average and had the smallest number of sunspots for a century. Sunspots are areas of intense magnetic activity that are visible as dark spots on the star's surface.

Currents of fire

The new research suggests that one reason for the prolonged period of weak activity could be changes in the Sun's "conveyor belt".

Similar to the Earth's ocean currents, the Sun's conveyor transports plasma across its surface to the pole. Here, the plasma sinks into the heart of the Sun before rising again at the equator.

During the 23rd cycle, these currents of fire extended all the way to the poles, while in earlier cycles they only extended about two thirds of the way.

Dr Roger Ulrich of the University of California, Los Angeles, a co-author of the study, said the findings highlighted the importance of our monitoring of the Sun.

The research team used sophisticated computer simulations to show how changes in the conveyor might have affected cycle duration. They found that the increased length of the conveyor and its slower rate of return flow explained the prolonged 23rd cycle.

However, Dr David Hathaway, a solar physicist from Nasa's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, who was not involved in the latest study, argued that it was the speed and not the extent of the conveyor that was of real importance.

The conveyor has been running at record high-speeds for over five years. Dr Hathaway said: "I believe this could explain the unusually deep solar minimum."

BBC © 2010


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Active Sun Could Cause Havoc on Earth

Right now, a giant solar shock wave is heading to Earth bringing with it an electromagnetic force set to light up the night sky, according to The Telegraph.

4m Beacon

As of 12:00 UTC May 3rd, a Radio Science E-Skip propagation beacon has been activated from the eastern coast of North America. QRG is 70.005MHz.
ERP is currently 3kW aimed at the EU.

The beacon is scheduled to run 24 hours a day until September 1st unless there are technical issues precluding that. The beacon is non-Amateur and sadly no 2-way QSOs could take place.
Any and all reception reports via e-mail to: wa1zms@att.net


Anyone fancy a trip to Mozambique in October?

David, GI4FUM is running an amateur radio DXpedition to Bilene which is a costal resort on the Indian Ocean150km north of Maputu. The Group will fly out from Heathrow on 13th October to Johannesburg and drive upto Mozambique.

The Group plans to run a station forJamboree on the Air with local scouts on the weekend of16th/17th October and will also enter a station forCQWW SSB over the weekend of 30th/31st October.

There will be plenty of opportunity for individuals to operate under their own C91 callsigns and if youfancy sun bathing on an Indian Ocean beach in late African spring there will be plenty of opportunity for that too.

There are a few places on the team still available. If you want further details check out the CQ-DX African Safaris web site at http://www.3da0ss.net/index.htm

Satellite views of Iceland volcano

This Week in Amateur Radio - Sending Amateur Radio signals to the Moon and back has never been easy. After roundtrip journeys of nearly half a million miles, even the most powerful signals generated by hams are exquisitely weak on arrival. Because of the equipment and expertise necessary for successful "moonbounce" operating, this facet of Amateur Radio has been traditionally confined to a small audience. But for three days in April even hams with very modest stations will have the opportunity to experience the thrill of moonbounce, thanks to the giant radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.


Joe Taylor, K1JT -- along with the Arecibo Observatory Radio Club, KP4AO -- will be on the air running 400 W to the telescope's 1000 foot antenna. Their scheduled times of operation are 1645-1930 on April 16, 1740-2020 on April 17 and 1840-2125 on April 18 (all times UTC). They will be using the call sign KP4AO and operating SSB, CW and the JT65B digital mode developed by Taylor. They will be transmitting at 432.045 MHz and listening for stations between 432.050 and 432.060 MHz.


If you make contact, send your QSL -- along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope -- to the KP4AO QSL manager: Joseph Arcure, W3HNK, 115 Buck Run Rd, Lincoln University, PA 19352.




73's

EI5IX

EchoLink on the Iphone

EchoLink software allows licensed Amateur Radio stations to communicate with one another over the Internet, using streaming-audio technology. The program allows worldwide connections to be made between stations, or from computer to station, greatly enhancing Amateur Radio's communications capabilities. There are more than 200,000 validated users worldwide — in 162 of the world's 193 nations — with about 5,000 online at any given time.

The system allows reliable worldwide connections to be made between radio amateurs, greatly enhancing Amateur Radio's communications capabilities. In essence it is the same as other VoIP applications (such as Skype), but with the unique addition of the ability to link to an amateur radio station's transceiver.

A new application is now available that allows radio amateurs to use the EchoLink system from their iPhone or iPod.
I recently downloaded an EchoLink app onto my Iphone an am having alot of fun with it, connecting to repeaters an stations at home in Ireland an also stations around the world. The application is free to download and all you have to do is download the software for your PC. Before using the system it is necessary for a prospective user's callsign to be validated. The EchoLink system requires that each new user provide positive proof of license and identity before his or her callsign is added to the list of validated users.

You can use this app to connect to the EchoLink system from almost anywhere, using either an iPhone or an iPod touch. (For an iPod touch, you will need to plug in earphones with a microphone, even if you only plan to listen; this limitation will be addressed in a future release.)

iPhone users can use either a WiFi or 3G (cellular) Internet connection.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/echolink/
id350688562?mt=8#


Other Highly recomended are the following websites;

http://www.echolink.org/

http://www.echoireland.com/

http://www.echoaddons.com/

http://www.echoproducer.com/

Hope to come across you online I am signed in most of the time!

73's




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Happy New Year

Hey I would like to wish every one who views my site a happy and prosperious 2010, it's been too long since I updated this site. I made a new years resoultion to update more often from now on, actually I have no excuse really because now I have it at my finger tips with this wonderful little app from BlogPress on the iPhone.

Okay what have I been up to over the last while, well I have moved to London in the UK and started my new role over here with a company called Arqiva (http://www.arqiva.com/) who operates at the heart of the broadcast and mobile communications industry and at the forefront of network solutions. The company provides much of the infrastructure behind television, radio and wireless communications throughout the UK, Ireland, mainland Europe and the USA. I work in the satellite and media department for our clients ESPN.

Here are some photos of our uplink and downlink dishes;

Some Uplink Dishes

Some Up & Downlink dishes

As I'm sure everyone is aware by now through various news reports it is freezing here in the UK actually lastnight was supposed to be the lowest recorded temperature in years close to -21 in parts of Scotland and down in London it was -9 where I live so the words birrrrrrr come to mind!

Back to things more to do with Radio, unfortunatly I don't have a setup as of yet over here but I'm working on that as I'm thinking HF is out of the equation especially with noise levels over here so i'm looking down the road of remote, or VHF / UHF. I actually came across a very interesting article by Ulf Larsson SM0LCB / SM7LBC in a free online Amateur radio magazine which is in the links below under HAM MAG.

I found this article very interesting because of the simplicity of the system, which i didn't realise how easy it actually is to be able to set up a remote system, I could avail of the antennas and radio at the Home QTH and never miss that rare DX.
I will research into this more and update my findings here.

I really miss being active on the airwaves so piority is get set up over here on VHF/UHF and go from there. Hope to hear you on the air soon.

Till next time and hopefully it won't be as long all the best and mind yourself!
73's


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