Southgate Amateur Radio Club News

Foundations of Amateur Radio
First Solo
The other day I looked in my diary and noticed that it was the anniversary of my first solo flight. If that’s not familiar to you, it means I got in an aeroplane on my own for the first time, taxied to the end of the runway, made a radio call to warn all the other pilots, took off, flew a circuit and landed safely. All the essentials for flying a plane

VK6WIA NewsWest
NewsWest for Sunday 27 October 2019, is the contesting edition, and we’ll tell you about local and international contests coming up

WIA looking at ham radio call sign for life
WIA Board Director Greg VK2GPK notes there’s no need to have special call signs that highlight holder has a Foundation license – call signs should be for life and not change on progression to a different license class

Press story about ISS ham radio contact with Devon school
Devon Live reports on an out of this world lesson for Bampton as pupils use amateur radio to make contact with a NASA astronaut

WIA WRC-19 delegate flies to Egypt
WIA Secretary Peter VK8ZZ reports that Dale VK1DSH has been nominated by the Wireless Institute of Australia to attend the ITU World Radio Conference in 2019 (WRC-19) at Sharm El Sheik, Egypt

Propagation de K7RA
Over the past week, on Monday, October 21, 10.7 cm solar flux sunk to possibly the lowest level in recorded history. Solar flux was 64, which is even lower than the 64.4 value recorded way back on July 2

West Point cadets use ham radio to contact ISS
Cadets at the US Military Academy at West Point had the opportunity to talk to the ISS using amateur radio

WRC-19 opens on October 28
The World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 is due to open in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Monday, October 28

The OR0YAL Award
On the occasion of Princess Elisabeth’s eighteenth birthday, from October 25 to December 25, 2019, more than thirty UBA club stations will use the special prefix OR18. The UBA also offers a commemorative Award

ISWL callsigns for November 2019
The following ISWL club callsigns will be used throughout the month of November 2019

The Space Weather Woman
A Solar Storm Returns and a Polar Filament Erupts – The latest space weather forecast from Dr Tamitha Skov WX6SWW

Annual report on the BBC, and review of BBC news and current affairs
Ofcom has today published its annual report on the BBC, and the findings of our review of BBC news and current affairs. Ofcom’s annual report on the BBC assesses the corporation’s performance over the period April 2018 to March 2019

VP6R Pitcairn Island DXpedition – update
As of 0000Z on 25th October, we have approximately 47,000 contacts in the log. Late yesterday we were hit with a tropical storm with torrential rain and gale force plus winds. We had several antennas come down, but they are repairable and will be back up when it is safe to go outside, probably not until tomorrow morning

Radio Luxembourg
A blue plaque will be unveiled this morning Friday 25th October at 10am at 38 Hertford Street, London W1. This was the London base of Radio Luxembourg. Expect some celebs to attend

HackSpace magazine Antenna article
Edition 24 of the free HackSpace magazine features a 4 page article ‘Making and tuning antennas’ by Jo Hinchliffe MW6CYK

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

VP6R Pitcairn Island DXpedition – update
Things are going well with the remaining team and the propagation has been wonderful to just about everywhere. We have had a lot of activity on 12M and some on 10M, including more EME contacts. We now have about 35,000 contacts in the log after 4½ days of operation

Loop Antenna Amplifier released
The Loop Antenna Amplifier from Cross Country Wireless contains all the electronics needed for home DIY construction of an active loop low noise receiving antenna covering 10 kHz to 30 MHz

Radio Caroline 648 transmitter maintenance report
On Friday 11 October our engineers made a long planned visit to our 648 transmitter site to give the equipment a general tuneup and service

Tony’s 10m Band Report
A dismal week lifted only partly by Saturday and Sunday. Most sought after DX 5T5PA (Mauritania), T88UW (Palau), FY5KE (French Guiana) , 5K0K (San Andres), T30GC (Kiribati) and more, well just a couple more.

Saudi Arabia and Seychelles join IARU
The IARU member-societies have voted to admit the Saudi Amateur Radio Society (SARS) and Seychelles Amateur Radio Association (SARA) to membership

Annual amateur radio fees rise in the Netherlands
The UK doesn’t impose any fees for the amateur radio licence but other countries such as the Netherlands are not so fortunate

A large hole in the sun’s atmosphere
A large hole in the sun’s atmosphere is facing Earth and spewing a stream of solar wind in our direction

AM Amateur Radio Europe announce the AM QSO Party 2020
What is AM Amateur Radio Europe? AM Amateur Radio Europe is a growing Facebook community of European radio amateurs

Proposed variation to talkSPORT’s national analogue licence
Ofcom has today published a consultation on a proposed variation to talkSPORT’s national analogue radio licence