Es’hail-2 / P4-A positioning and IOT phase started
Following the successful launch on November 15 of Es’hail-2on board the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle, Mitsubishi (MELCO) and Es’hailSat will begin the In Orbit Testing (IOT) program once the satellite has been positioned in a test orbital slot

QSO Today – Phil Sittner – KD6RM
Phil Sittner, KD6RM, has a ham radio story that goes back over 50 years, from childhood

JY1SAT launch information and Dashboard
JY1Sat is an enhanced 1U FUNcube developed for the Crown Prince Foundation in Jordan. The spacecraft has been named in honour of the Crown Prince’s grandfather, King Hussein, who operated using his amateur radio callsign JY1

Former ARRL Headquarters Book Team Supervisor Jan Carman, K5MA – SK
R. Jan Carman, K5MA (ex-W5SBX, W3JXS), who was a member of the ARRL Headquarters staff from 2001 until 2003 died on November 13. An ARRL Life Member, he was 76

1972 solar storm triggered a Vietnam War mystery
On Aug. 4, 1972, U.S. military pilots flying south of Haiphong harbor in North Vietnam saw something unexpected. More than two dozen sea mines suddenly—and without apparent explanation—exploding in the water

Digital repeaters in the Western Cape
The SARL report that currently, there are three active digital repeaters in the Western Cape

ESEO ready for launch
ESA have released a video of the European Student Earth Orbiter ESEO satellite which carries an amateur radio payload

KNACKSAT to launch November 19
Tanan Rangseeprom HS1JAN reports KNACKSAT, the first CubeSat made in Thailand, will be launched into orbit at 18:32 GMT on Monday, November 19, 2018 by SpaceX as part of the SSO-A mission

Radio ham to become new government minister
The amateur radio operator who became the first South American in space is preparing to advance to a government post when Brazil’s new president takes office

VK6WIA NewsWest
In the NewsWest edition for 18th November 2018 we look at New Amateurs. We’ll congratulate those who earned a new license and those who have upgraded

FCC approves use of Galileo GNSS in the USA
The ARRL reports the FCC has granted, in part, the European Commission’s request for a waiver of Commission rules so that non-federal devices in the US may access specific signals transmitted from the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) known as Galileo

Clubbing
The Central Coast Amateur Radio Club allows non-Amateurs to take part in its weekly net. How do they do this, you ask?

EE and Virgin Media fined for overcharging customers
Ofcom has fined EE £6.3m and Virgin Media £7m for overcharging phone and broadband customers who wished to leave their contracts early

Propagation de K7RA
A single sunspot appeared on November 13-14, yielding a daily sunspot number of 11 over both days. The sunspot number increased to 13 on the following day, November 15. The average daily sunspot number for the reporting week (November 8-14) was 3.1, after no sunspots during the previous seven days

Foundations of Amateur Radio #180
When failure doesn’t matter … The other day I read a message from Theodore KS5I who has been around the block a couple of times. He recalls the excitement he experienced when he was first licensed in 1967, the year I was born

Amateur radio operators could save lives
The Silicon Valley Voice reports on how amateur radio operators could save lives in an emergency and how you can help

Essex Skills Night November 19
Skills Night takes place Monday, November 19 at Danbury Village Hall in Essex, this free event is open to all

Book now for the next SARL and AMSAT SA workshop
SARL and AMSAT SA will be joining forces and present a workshop on monitoring of the RF noise floor and the impact it has on Amateur Radio

Ham radio operators tune in
The Hindu reports radio amateurs have been asked to set up an emergency communications link in preparation for Cyclone Gaja

This weekend: The Leonid meteor shower
Earth is entering a stream of debris from Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, source of the annual Leonid meteor shower

DX News from the ARRL
The American Radio Relay League’s round-up of the forthcoming week’s DX activity on the amateur radio bands

Tony’s 10 Metre Band Report
A very odd week with all the real action being at the weekend, unsurprising some would say.

LU9DCE (Argentina) is to be congratulated for being top DX for quite a few days and top spotter too! Other DX, YL100s (Latvia specials) 9X9PJ (Rwanda) and others,
I think also worthy of special mention is VK5001SWL who is quite prolific as a SWL spotter in Adelaide

Ham radio geostationary satellite transponders launch today
Florida Today reports the SpaceX launch from Kennedy Space Center will achieve ‘dream’ of amateur radio enthusiasts

FT8: New Beta version of WSJT-X is now available
A new WSJT-X “release candidate,” version 2.0.0-rc4, now is available but the software may not work ‘out of the box’ when upgrading from previous versions

Radio hams assist vessel with ill crew member
ARRL reports Amateur Radio operators associated with the Maritime Mobile Service Network (MMSN) played a significant part in summoning medical assistance on November 9

SpaceChain Foundation advances Blockchain-based satellite network
SpaceChain Foundation (Singapore), a non-profit organization combining space and blockchain technologies to build the world’s first open-source blockchain-based satellite network, has announced the successful launch of its second-generation blockchain node nanosatellite

Dxpedition team heading for Chad
The Italian Dxpedition Team is pleased to announce their next operation will be from Chad, in March 2019

French Special Event
Members of the ‘Radio Club of Nice‘ will be active as TM8ABfrom Nice (south France) between November 24th and December 12th