Cold and Spellbinding: An Alignment of Planets in the Sunset Sky

Cold and Spellbinding: An Alignment of Planets in the Sunset Sky 

A special night to look at your night Sky is Saturday, Feb. 25^th 2012, when the crescent Moon moves in to form a slender heavenly triangle with Venus, Jupiter and the Moon as vertices.  

One night later, on Sunday, Feb. 26^th 2012, it happens again. This arrangement will be visible all around the world, from city and countryside alike.  The Moon, Venus and Jupiter are the brightest objects in the night sky; together they can shine through urban lights, fog, and even some clouds.

After hopping from Venus to Jupiter in late February, the Moon exits stage left, but the show is far from over.

In March, Venus and Jupiter continue their relentless convergence until, on March 12^th and 13^th this year, the duo lie only three degrees apart—a spectacular double beacon in the sunset sky.  Now you’ll be able to hide them together behind a pair of outstretched fingertips. Should make some interesting photography!

 

Yeah there’s something mesmerizing about our stars and planets all bunched together in this way—and, no, you’re not imagining things when it happens to you. Just chill, relax and enjoy the spectacle!

GB80PW operation moves to Saturday

This special callsign GB80PW, issued to Practical Wireless magazine to celebrate the publication's 80th year in print, had its first airing in January this year.
However, PW editor, Rob Mannion, G3XFD received a number of requests to operate the station at weekends, rather than a weekday, as most people were at work and unable to get on the air in time.
In order to accomodate those requests, Rob has now opted for operation on the Saturday following PW's publication.


So, please look out for GB80PW on the Saturdays immediately following publication days during 2012.


The dates are Saturday February 11th, March 10th, April 14th, May 12th, June 16th, July 14th, August 11th, September 15th, October 13th, November 10th and December 15th.

Keep those dates in your diary and Phil G3XBZ and Rob G3XFD – and the other operators who'll be involved – look forward to working you!

Galway Radio Experimenters Club

The Galway Radio Experimenters Club will be holding their next meeting in the Anno Santo hotel in Salthill on Monday 6th of February at 8pm. On the night Enda (EI2II) will be giving a demonstration on the advantages of computerising the ham shack. Beginning with getting the most from your logging software to propagation prediction and DXClusters. Should anybody wish to have help setting up software please feel free to bring along your laptop on the night. We would like to welcome any interested amateurs, SWLs or indeed anyone with an interest in amateur radio.

Ofcom: GPS Jamming Notice

RAF Spadeadam, Cumbria

Dates: Between 9th and 20th April, 2012 inclusive (weekdays only).
Times:  0700 - 1800 GMT.
Location of MULTIPLE Jammers: Land based within 5km of N55° 04.000’ W002° 34.000’.
Frequency: A 24 MHz band centred around 1575.42MHz (GPS L1).
Total Power: Up to 10 Watts EIRP.

It is stressed that, as in previous exercises, Safety of Life operations will at all times take precedence over exercise activities.

Ofcom stakeholders should contact
InfoGPS.Notices@ofcom.org.uk 

Device To Predict Solar Activity To Be Launched Soon

It has been reported that solar activities in the past few weeks have increased by manifolds. With the increased solar activities, researchers have also begun to increase their efforts in improving the devices by which the solar activities could be gauged.

It has been reported that researchers and scientists of the NASA are planning to make a computer based device which would predict the coming solar storm. In the past few weeks, the activities of the solar have increased quite rapidly.

Last week, it was a major solar storm which was experienced by the researchers. It has been informed that the solar storms can be hazardous for the earth as it scratches the Earth’s Magnetic field. It has been informed that the device upon which the NASA researchers are working would enable the researchers to gauge the coming solar activities. Moreover, the prediction of the weather forecast would also improve with the help of the device.

Michael Hesse from Goddard’s Space Weather Laboratory was reported as saying, “Ensemble forecasting will provide a distribution of arrival times, which will improve the reliability of forecasts. This is important. Society is relying more so than ever on space. Communications, navigation, electrical-power generation, all are all susceptible to space weather”.

The device would bring revolution in the way weather is predicted. Moreover, it would become easier for the researchers and scientists to explore new horizons of the universe.
It has been informed that the device is being supported by the NASA’s Space Technology Program. Moreover, the Implementing Ensemble Forecasting would improve the weather forcast and would allow the scientists to predict peak and worse weather conditions before hand.

Antarctic Activity Week Special Event

Look for special event station TM9AAW to be on the air between February 10-26th. Activity is to celebrate the 9th Antarctic Activity Week (AAW).

Operations will be made by François, F8DVD, from his QTH of Mâcon in the east part of France. The WAP reference number for TM9AAW is 220. Operations will be on 40-10 meters mostly SSB.
QSL via F8DVD, by the Bureau or direct (w/SAE + 1 IRC or 2 USDs to: François Bergez, 6, Rue de la Liberté, F-71000 MACON, FRANCE.

For more details, see http://tm9aaw.monsite-orange.fr
or TM9AAW on QRZ.com.

Limited future activity from Jan Mayen Island

Recently the Norwegian government declared most of Jan Mayen a Nature Reserve and banned landings and camping on most of the island.

This means that tour operators can no longer visit since the main landing area is part of the Reserve. The only places left on the island which could be used as landing and camp sites are in Kvalross-bukta and in Båtvika, in the very extreme (weather-wise) southern part of Jan Mayen.

This will mean that most visits to the north part of the island (where previous landings occurred) will soon be impossible. Whilst radio amateur operations may still be possible from these two locations, which are difficult to get to (rough landing, very strong winds with sand storms, no access to any shelters or resources etc), it now appears JX5O was probably the last major expedition to Jan Mayen and may well be for the coming years.It also seems that only professional, licensed staff members at the Olonkin base will be able to activate the island, with that in itself a rare occurrence." However, Svein, LA9JKA, is expected to be based on the island beginning March 22nd, and is expected to stay until March 2013
.
No eQSLs, SWL reports are welcome.
QSL only direct to: Svein Rabbevag, Brendlia 12, N-6013 Alesund, Norway. Also, see details on QR.com for postage info.

Declan EI9HQ

Declan will be out on Sunday 12th February on a run to Kilkenny starting around 0930 in WAI Square Oscar22. He will be active on 7.170mhz. (40Meters) Anyone looking for squares from this route please email before 10th February at ei9hq@O2.ie

IOTA Contest Results

Provisional results of the 2011 Islands On The Air contest have now been published.
Despite low sun-spots levels, the contest organisers received over 2,300 logs - the highest number yet – covering 632,000 QSOs and sufficient to enable them to
adjudicate 75% of all QSOs.

The highest scoring station in the contest was the Bristol Contest Group (GJ6YB) who operated from Jersey and achieved a score of just under 15 million points from over 3,300 QSOs.
The Bristol Contest Group were also the IOTA contest winners in 2010.


Irish stations submitted 21 contest logs and one check log. The full provisional results for EI and GI stations are on the IRTS web site - see Contest Results page or the link on the home page. The highest score was achieved by the EI/GI group on Rathlin Island, with a total of 2.7 million points from 1,606 QSOs. Other groups had higher QSO numbers, but the Rathlin group had a better mix of multipliers and island stations. There are also some excellent results from stations in the Single-Operator categories.


The IOTA contest is one of the best supported contests in Ireland. The 2012 contest takes place on 28th / 29th July. The contest organisers have indicated that there will be a number of significant rule changes in 2012, notably to the scoring to emphasise island QSOs and, for the same reason, there will no longer be a World multi-op category as they are anxious to refocus the contest on working islands rather than building points through non-island stations working other non-island stations.

EI80IRTS Award

The Irish Radio Transmitters Society was founded in 1932 and the organization are proud to celebrate their 80th anniversary in 2012. As part of the celebrations the Society will be using the special callsign EI80IRTS.

A special certificate, available to all amateurs and SWLs, is being offered to celebrate this wonderful occasion during the period of January 1st 2012 to December 31st 2012.

This award is been sponsored by Dundalk Amateur Radio Society, full details of the award can be viewed at
http://www.ei7dar.com/ei80irts.html

Special Callsigns for Amateur Radio stations in the UK during 2012

The Radio Society of Great Britain and Ofcom have reached agreement on the optional use of special callsigns for two significant events during 2012.
For the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, all UK amateur stations will have the option of applying for a variation to their licence if they wish, to use a special prefix for a five week period. This will add or substitute the letter “Q” in the place of the Regional identifier in the callsign.
For the period of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, a similar facility will exist for a seven week period, using the letter “O”.
Both the above facilities will also be available to Amateur Club licences.
Furthermore, calls in the series GB2012aaa will be available for Special Event Stations relating to the Olympics and licences will be issued for four “flagship” stations using the prefix 2O12a where “O” is the letter O, and a is a single letter relating to the location of the station.

Further details of these arrangements are on the attached summary, and administrative details will be issued by Ofcom and the RSGB shortly.

In more detail:
The following facilities will be available to holders of the following licences:
Amateur Foundation Licence
Amateur Intermediate Licence
Amateur Full Licence
Amateur Full (Club) Licence
Amateur Full (Reciprocal) Licence
Amateur Full (Temporary Reciprocal) Licence

Special prefix to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee:
Period: 00.00 BST 5th May 2012 to 23.59 BST 10th June 2012
Authorisation: To conform to the requirements of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006, each licensee must obtain a Notice of Variation . This is an on-line process, and will be available from 1st March 2012.
Callsign: the letter Q will be added to calls, or replace the regional identifier. For example (where “aaa” represents the final alpha block of the callsign):
M3aaa becomes MQ3aaa
G3aaa becomes GQ3aaa
GM3aaa becomes GQ3aaa
2E0aaa becomes 2Q0aaa
2M0aaa becomes 2Q0aaa
GX3aaa becomes GQ3aaa

Special prefix to celebrate the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympic Games:
Period: 00.00 BST 21st July 2012 to 23.59 BST 9th September 2012
Authorisation: To conform to the requirements of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006, each licensee must obtain a Notice of Variation. This is an on-line process, and will be available from 1st March 2012.
Callsign: the letter O will be added to calls, or replace the regional identifier. For example (where “aaa” represents the final alpha block of the callsign):
M3aaa becomes MO3aaa
G3aaa becomes GO3aaa
GM3aaa becomes GO3aaa
2E0aaa becomes 2O0aaa (Two Oscar zero aaa)
2M0aaa becomes 2O0aaa (Two Oscar zero aaa)
GX3aaa becomes GO3aaa

For more Info please check this out


- Posted from my iPhone - 73's DE EI5IX

The new VHF-UHF band plan - 4m in Ireland

The Irish Radio Transmitters Society website reports that the new Region 1 Band Plan for VHF and UHF frequencies came into effect on 1st January this year.

The biggest changes are in the 6 metre band - with new beacon sub-bands and a number of new "centre of activity" frequency allocations.
The revision in the 6 metre band plan is designed to give more bandwidth to CW and SSB users, while recognising increased activity levels in the new digital modes.

The revised Band Plan for the 6 metre, 4 metre, 2 metre and 70cms bands can be downloaded from the downloads page of the IRTS web site. Bear in mind that the 4 metre allocation in EI does not cover the full
extent of the 70.0 MHz to 70.5 MHz band plan contained in the IARU document; a note showing the EI allocation has been added to the document which is on their downloads page.

Those operating on frequencies above 70cms can see the relevant band plans in the VHF Managers Handbook, which is available on the IARU Region 1 web site.

Again, it is important to note the EI frequency allocations, which can differ from the limits shown on the band plan pages.
IRTS web site
http://www.irts.ie

IARU Region 1 web site
http://www.iaru-r1.org/



- Posted from my iPhone - 73's DE EI5IX

London 2012 Olympic Simplex DStar Nodes

Just to inform you, that the digital node test for the pending London 2012 Olympic Simplex DStar Nodes is planned, it will be a 2-day event next weekend Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd of January.

The test will be carried out both on 2m and 70cm in Echo Test Mode Only (without DStar Gateway) between hours of 10am till 4pm. The DStar node will record your digital test transmission and then retransmit it back to you, at the same time you will then be able to see what type of coverage we will have.

DV Node Test Frequency

Saturday 21st on 433.4125 MHz

Sunday 22nd on 145.3125 MHz

Also Gary, 2E0ULA and Michael, 2E0MRE will be on hand for assistance and talk back will be on to GB7OK. Please let us know how well you can receive DStar Node, your information will help!

For more info visit http://www.gb7ok.com/.
If there are any changes look up Bromley Repeater Group on Facebook

ISS performs debris avoidance maneuver

UniverseToday reports that
the ISS needed to perform a maneuver on Friday, January 13 to avoid debris from the 2009 collision between an inactive Russian Cosmos 2251 satellite and a commercial Iridium satellite.

U.S. Space Command recommended the space station perform a debris avoidance maneuver on Friday, January 13, 2012 to move out of harms’ way and dodge a possible collision with the piece of space junk, said to be about 10 centimeters in diameter. The thrusters on the Zvezda service module fired at 1610 UTC on Friday to raise the orbit of the ISS.
Without the maneuver, the object would have made two close approaches to the station on consecutive orbits on Friday, passing within the “pizza box” shaped region around the station, measuring 0.75 kilometers above and below the station and 25 kilometers on each side (2,460 feet above and below and 15.6 by 15.6 miles).
A higher orbit for the ISS means that AOS will occur at a slightly later time than those predicted in existing Keplerian Elements.

Users are encourage to update their tracking elements to maintain tracking accuracy.

Source: Amsat, UniverseToday.com

UK amateurs experience echo phenomenon

Two UK radio amateurs have reported hearing strong echoes on their 80m CW signals in the evening last week. Tony, G3ZRJ in Herefordshire and Andrew, GW3OQK in Swansea were in QSO on 1 January when they could hear another signal underneath theirs. It turned out to be an echo of their own signals
Tony said the echoes were initially so strong that he had trouble monitoring his CW keying. The delay in the echoes was of the order of 0.25 to 0.5 seconds and the echo strength hit S9. Tests by Andrew on the evening of 3 January revealed the same phenomena at around 2100Z, albeit weaker.

Steve, G0KYA, chairman of the RSGB's Propagation Studies Committee, said that these were unlikely to

be round-the-world echoes, but could be due to a form of magnetospheric ducting where signals follow the earth's magnetic field lines down to the southern hemisphere before being bounced back along the same duct. Steve said that this was quite rare and not really understood.
UK amateurs are being urged to look out for any echoes on their 80m signals and report any findings to G0KYA@QSL.NET

Check This Out!

NASA and others has reports on Solar Storms useful for us to know about!

http://solarstormwarning.com/


- Posted from my iPhone - 73's DE EI5IX

My UK Call-Sign M0XII

I have received my New UK Call-Sign * M 0 X I I * from Ofcom, the regularity authority here in Great Britain.
Currently I have up-dated my Log's under M/EI5IX on LoTW as my CEPT part of my Irish License M/EI5IX was running out so I had to apply to Ofcom for a Reciprocal License here in the UK.

Propagation has being "Kind" as of late and the DX has been very good for QRP stations such as myself here in outskirts of London City, I'm now looking forward to working some of you on the air while I live over in Great Britain under my new call-sign M0XII!!

73's for now!

IRTS AGM & Rally 2012

The IRTS AGM, Annual Dinner and Rally this year is
hosted by Dundalk Amateur Radio Society at the
Fairways Hotel on the weekend of April 21st & 22nd
2012. Please keep your diaries free for this special
event in our 80th Anniversary year celebrations. More
details to follow.

Updated Happings in our Hobby

IRTS AGM & Rally 2012

The IRTS AGM, Annual Dinner and Rally this year is
hosted by Dundalk Amateur Radio Society at the
Fairways Hotel on the weekend of April 21st & 22nd
2012. Please keep your diaries free for this special
event in our 80th year Anniversary celebrations. More
details to follow.

Counties Contest

The IRTS 80 metres counties contest, held on Monday 2nd
January was well supported, with plenty of activity
right up to the last minute of the contest. Most
counties appeared to be represented, although some made
only a brief appearance. Our reporters tell us that
Carlow, Cavan and Kerry were top of the "most wanted"
list, with other sizeable counties like Tipperary and
Waterford not far behind.

This year there was a reasonable level of activity on
the CW portion of the band. As darkness fell, CW ops
benefited in particular from the improved propagation
between Ireland and mainland Europe, allowing some
Scandinavian and Eastern European stations to answer
their contest calls.

Logs should be submitted as soon as possible to
contestmanager@irts.ie

IRTS 80th Anniversary

IRTS will be celebrating its 80th anniversary this year
2012. Details of a worldwide contest – CQIR – to take
place on Saint Patrick’s Day, Saturday 17th March 2012
have just been announced. Full rules and information
are available at www.irts.ie/cqir or by email to cqir@irts.ie

ISS on 145.800 MHz Monday morning

There's a chance to hear ISS astronuat Dan Burbank, KC5ZSX, on 145.800 MHz FM on Monday morning.

On Monday Jan. 9, at approximately 1014 UT, an International Space Station (ISS) amateur radio contact is planned with students at Descartes High School, located in Montigny-Le-Bretonneux, France.
The contact will be in English and downlink signals should be audible in the British Isles and Europe on 145.800 MHz FM.

A simple 2m hand-held transceiver or a VHF Scanner is all you need to hear the International Space Station.
Read Listening to the International Space Station
http://www.uk.amsat.org/3491

The IZ8BLY Vox Recoder, enables you to record the ISS on 145.800 MHz
FM while you're away from home
http://antoninoporcino.xoom.it/VoxRecorder/

ARISS ham radio contact planned with Descartes High School, France
http://www.southgatearc.org/news/january2012/ariss_event_0901.htm