Southgate Amateur Radio Club News

OI activity day on Friday March 5
Finland’s SRAL reports military radio amateurs using the OI callsign prefix will be on-the-air on Friday, March 5

Ofcom release database of UK amateur radio callsigns
On February 2, 2021, in response to a Freedom of Information request, Ofcom released a database of amateur radio callsigns for the UK and Crown Dependencies

QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo
The fast-approaching QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo March 13-14, 2021 will be even better with over 80 speakers, live kit building workshops, panel discussions, and much more. Early Bird discount tickets are still available and include entry for the Live 2 day period plus the 30-day on-demand period

ARRL interview explains background of Ham Radio in Space film short
In the approximately 6-minute film, SuitSat returns in the future to haunt International Space Station commander “Diaz,” played by Joey Vieira, who spots SuitSat, the surplus Russian Orlan spacesuit that was turned into an amateur radio satellite several years ago by Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS)

Making a wave
A radio set shaped like a globe, a 1955-made model that retailed for `9,000 back then, or a Crown Talking Machine, which was made in 1907… Here’s your chance to see these and 100 other unique radio sets, of which 80 per cent are in working condition, at the newly-opened Short Wave Radio Museum and Knowledge Centre

ARRL CEO David Minster, NA2AA, to keynote QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo
ARRL CEO David Minster, NA2AA, will keynote the QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo March 13 – 14 weekend

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

Southgate Vibes podcast #37
Steve Richards G4HPE is here with the latest edition of Southgate Vibes. There’s are two new episodes every week – one on Tuesday and the other on Friday – so stay tuned!

The Royal Australian Air Force – 100 Year Centenary. VK100AF and VI100AF
The RAAF was formed on 31st March 1921, to mark this Centenary the Wireless Institute of Australia (WIA) will be celebrating with two call signs:
VK100AF 1st March to 31st August 2021, which will be used by a team of Radio Amateurs across the bands around Australia.
VI100AF 1st March 2021 to 29th May 2021 will be used by Radio Amateurs that are either current or veteran military personnel and some activities may be from military bases

Radio hams help in Texas
ARRL Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES®) and American Red Cross volunteers joined forces in Texas under the ARRL/Red Cross memorandum of understanding in responding to the situation resulting from unseasonably frigid weather

Over 3 years Ofcom took action against 3 illegal broadcasters
Following a Freedom of Information request, Ofcom have revealed they only took enforcement action against three illegal broadcasters between 2018 and 2020

Amateur radio in Leigh Journal
Barry Day G3WIS got in touch with his local paper the Leigh Journal to share an atmospheric photograph from 1968 of an amateur radio demonstration he gave to the Lowton Scouts group

Fry’s Electronics shutting down all stores, ending 36 years as a big-box stop for tech enthusiasts
Fry’s Electronic’s, the big-box chain that was a longtime, one-stop shop for tech enthusiasts, is shutting down after 36 years in business. The company cited “changes in the retail industry and the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Cherokee Challenge Flight – London to Sydney the slow way
Join us on this amazing adventure of a lifetime. Two chaps, a light aircraft and an HF radio piloting their way from Blighty to Oz, the slow way! Andy Hardy G1AJH (ex VK2CHA). Their flight supported Oxfam in the fight against poverty

Tony’s 10m Band Report
Not too bad a week with the contest at the weekend. I have been doing other stuff so Radio has taken a back seat. ZY7T, Tamandare lighthouse (Brazil) ARLHS BRA-102, DFB PE-02 was popular as was VK6LW (Australia), TT8SN (Chad) and PT7APM/P (Brazil)

23cm band in the spotlight with regulators
The Chair of IARU Region 1 Spectrum Affairs, Barry Lewis G4SJH, reports on the meeting of the ITU-R Working Party 4C (WP4C) Feb 15-19 which discussed the amateur radio allocation at 1240-1300 MHz

ARISS contact is scheduled for students at Estes Park Elementary School, Estes Park, Colorado, USA
This will be a multipoint telebridge contact via amateur radio between students from the Estes Park Elementary School following Covid guidelines and Astronaut Shannon Walker, amateur radio call sign KD5DXB. Students will take turns asking their questions. The downlink frequency for this contact is 145.800 MHz

Capstan winch central to this all-band adjustable dipole antenna
The perfect antenna is the holy grail of amateur radio. But antenna tuning is a game of inches, and since the optimum length of an antenna depends on the frequency it’s used on, the mere act of spinning the dial means that every antenna design is a compromise. Or perhaps not, if you build this infinitely adjustable capstan-winch dipole antenna

Kangaroo Island QSO status
Grant, VK5GR, reports: For those looking for electronic confirmation from the VK5KI activation on Kangaroo Island (OC-139), the LOTW records were uploaded today (Feb. 15th) nd the blackout period for ClubLog matching should be ending also

Amateur Radio operators help fill earthquake donut holes
Ham radio networks gear up to provide real-time, on-the-ground information about earthquake shaking and damage when other communication pathways are knocked out of commission

IOTA News from the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club
Weekly IOTA News – compiled by Andreas, DK5ON of the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club

IRTS Amateur Radio Training Courses
IRTS News reports that while online amateur radio training courses have been successfully completed it is still not possible to take the exam due to the pandemic

Amateur radio exams survey now open
The focus of this year’s survey from Essex Ham is the the amateur radio exams

Online exams boost ham radio numbers
The figures released cover the whole of 2020 for both in-person and Remotely Invigilated (RI) Online exams. Due to the pandemic in-person exams were only held during the first 10 weeks of the year and there weren’t many of them

Become an amateur radio operator: Free online classes prepare people for upcoming FCC licensing exam
Amateur radio has been around for more than 100 years and, in this day of cell phones, computers and other high-tech devices, ham radio, as it is also known, continues to play an important role in the world of communication

UKEICC CW Contest
The UKEICC monthly one hour 80m CW Contest will be held on Wednesday next the 24th at 2000. EI5G and, for this contest at least, GM7V will be bonus stations

Elon Musk: SpaceX will double Starlink’s satellite internet speeds in 2021
CNET report that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter Monday that his company’s satellite internet service, Starlink, will offer speeds close to 300 Mbps later in 2021. That’s roughly twice as fast as currently advertised, and would represent a significant step forward for the service as it seeks to deliver high-speed internet to underserved regions across the globe

Cocos Keeling Islands
Members of the Northern Corridor Radio Group will be active as VK9CE from Cocos Keeling Islands (OC-003) between March 16-23rd

Benin
Ian, ZS6JSI, has been active recently as ZS6JSI/TY from Parakou about 400km north from capital city. He has been there since late January and is expected to be there for 6 months

Online amateur radio talks from Denby Dale
The Denby Dale Radio Society has organised an impressive line-up of amateur radio talks for Spring which you can watch live on Zoom or later on YouTube

QSO Today with Gerald Youngblood, K5SDR from FlexRadio
Gerald Youngblood, K5SDR, is the founder and CEO of FlexRadio that is now on the cutting edge of building advanced software defined radio (SDR) platforms for amateur radio, as well as for government, business, and the military. Gerald is a leader and pioneer in the development of SDR leading to the founding of FlexRadio

CME to sideswipe Earth this week
Over the weekend, a dark filament of magnetism on the sun blew up, hurling a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space. NOAA computer models confirm that the CME should sideswipe Earth on Feb. 23rd or 24th

One Megawatt of Peak AM Power – Saving the Voice of America Delano Relay DL-8
In 2007, the Voice of America ceased operations at the Delano Relay site in Central California. The site is destined to be bulldozed along with several relics of Collins Radio Company’s Broadcast Communications Division

Curacao
Operators Dan/N1ZZ, Don/AF4Z, Walter/WB5ZGA and Vince/K4JC, will be active as PJ2T from Curacao (SA-099, WLOTA 0942) in the ARRL DX SSB Contest (March 6-7th) as a Multi/? entry

Austria special event
The Cornish Radio Amateur Club’s official International Marconi Day (IMD) Award program was canceled due to the Corona virus situation

What is Ronja?
Ronja (Reasonable Optical Near Joint Access) is an User Controlled Technology (like Free Software) project of optical point-to-point data link. The device has 1.4km range and has stable 10Mbps full duplex data rate

Willis Island DXpedition news
Members of Hellenic Amateur Radio Association of Australia (HARAOA) have announced their dates for the Willis Island (VK9/W) [OC-007] DXpedition

Mauritius first satellite, MIR-SAT1, handed over to JAXA for deployment
Mauritius was the winner of the 3rd round UNOOSA/JAXA KiboCube Programme in 2018, whereby Mauritius was awarded (by JAXA) the opportunity to build and deploy, for the first time in its history, a 1U Cube Satellite through the International Space Station (ISS)

German radio hams tackling RF noise pollution
DARC reports 35 Electrical Noise Area Monitoring Systems (ENAMS) have been delivered and another 20 locations are sought as part of the effort to monitor the interference from human-made noise on the HF bands

ARISS contact scheduled for students at John F. Kennedy High School, Denver, Colorado, USA
Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) has received schedule confirmation for an ARISS radio contact with astronauts. ARISS is the group that puts together special amateur radio contacts between students around the globe and crew members with ham radio licenses on the International Space Station (ISS)

Derek G4CQM has carried out a major upgrade to his websites
Derek G4CQM has carried out a major upgrade to his websites to HTML5 standards compliance throughout. This enables viewing on PC, Tablet and Mobile devices and benefit from interactive features

Ham radio on BBC Radio Lincoln
The Lincoln Short Wave Club, hosts of the National Hamfest, celebrated their 100th anniversary in February and Steve Burke M5ZZZ / G6TVP was interviewed on BBC Radio Lincoln

Hamfest will bring together amateur radio enthusiasts from across the nation
Greg Williams says amateur radio is a hobby with something in it for all types of personalities

Minami Torishima
Take, JG8NQJ, will once again be active as JG8NQJ/JD1 from Marcus Island, Minami Torishima (OC-073, JCG 10007)

DXCC Country/Entity Report
According to the AR-Cluster Network for the week of Saturday, 13th-February, through Friday, 19th-February there were212 countries active

IOTA news from OPDX
Weekly IOTA News – compiled by Tedd Mirgliotta, KB8NW

Southgate Vibes podcast #35
Steve Richards G4HPE is here with the latest edition of Southgate Vibes
There’s are two new episodes every week – one on Tuesdays and the other on Fridays – so stay tuned!

Foundations of Amateur Radio
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
One of the things about amateur radio that I find intensely fascinating and to be honest sometimes just as frustrating, is that you don’t know what the outcome of an experiment might be at any one time. Not because you cannot control the experiment, or because you don’t know what you’re doing, but because the number of variables involved in most meaningful amateur radio experiments is pretty much infinite

Radio amateurs want to be of service when communications fail
Nashville Scene reports thousands of Nashvillians were affected by the cell and internet service outage that came after the Christmas Day bombing downtown – but it was exactly the type of situation amateur radio operators prepare for

Permission granted for 60 foot ham radio masts
Vermont radio amateur Zachary Manganello K1ZK has been granted planning permission for magnificent towers up to 60 feet high

Propagation de K7RA
A period of 0 sunspots ran from February 4-17, but Wednesday evening while viewing the STEREO spacecraft image I saw a very bright area on our Sun’s northeast horizon. Shortly after, Spaceweather.com reported, ‘A new active region is hiding just behind the Sun’s northeastern limb. It might be a sunspot.’

Friedrichshafen ham radio event still going ahead
Organisers of the popular Friedrichshafen ham radio event are still planning for the event to take place on June 25-27

Register now for free ham radio Foundation Online course
A free Foundation Online amateur radio training course run by volunteers from Essex Ham starts Sunday, Feb 21 – register now

Ofcom awards first small-scale DAB multiplex licences
Ofcom has announced its first ever awards of small-scale radio multiplex licences

VK6WIA NewsWest
In NewsWest for Sunday 21st February 2021, we delve into Amateur Radio History, looking at more than one period in a century of Amateur Radio in Australia

EURAO Party – Winter 2021: with a simple dipole
The European Radio Amateurs’ Organization announces a new party on the air, this time with the motto: ‘with a simple dipole’. Remember this is not a contest, it is just a radio meeting with a few simple ‘rules’, better to call them recommendations

Lemmings over a demographic cliff?
ICQ Podcast presenter Frank M. Howell K4FMH gives his view on the future of amateur radio – can we defuse the demographic time-bomb?

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

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