World
World news items
The latest prediction is that in 2013 solar activity will wreak havoc on 21st century technology on earth.
That to occur in 2013, and authorities in Washington DC are so concerned that they will have a working group to determine the potential impact, and what should be done about it.
Head of NASA's Heliophysics Division, Richard Fisher, says our modern society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms.
Everywhere you look from GPS navigation, air travel, financial services, radio communications and smart power grid systems are vulnerable.
NASA's fleet of heliophysics research spacecraft STEREO, SDO and ACE are providing unprecedented information about what is happening on the Sun, while closer to earth the GOES and POES satellites are assisting with knowledge on the near-Earth environment.
A fuller report can be read at: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/04jun_swef/
Team Leader Chris Dimitrijevic VK3FY has just returned from The Philippines where he held high level discussions related to the DX0DX Spratly Islands DXPedition being held in January 2011.
A series of meetings included one with the current Municipal Mayor of Paga-Asa (Thitu Island) where the DXpedition will be mounted. Later he met with the Mayor-Designate who will take office in September, and at that time current Mayor becomes the Vice-Mayor.
Other discussions were held with military authorities plus officials of the IARU member radio society, Philippines Amateur Radio Association (PARA) which is strongly in support of the DXpedition.
Chris VK3FY said, "Those face-to-face discussions enabled the amateur radio and humanitarian aims of the DXpedition to be fully explained and agreed, and also clarified the requirements of both local and federal authorities.
"The result has been universal support for the activity. The next step is to complete the necessary immigration procedures for each non-Filipino national radio amateur that will be part of the DXpedition. Once that is completed a formal letter of approval is to be issued.
"The team is mindful that it not only has to meet the requirements of The Philippines authorities but also those of the DXCC Committee to have the DXpedition accredited.?
At the 2010 PARA Hamvention & 17th International Grand Eyeball June 4-6, Ed Valdez DU1EV, who will on the DX0DX team, made a presentation on the two previous DXpedition to the island (DX0K 2005 and DX0JP 2007), and finished off by announcing the January 2011 DXpedition.
The announcement of such a major proposed activation, in terms of numbers of operators (30) and duration (3 weeks) resulted in a standing ovation being given to that news.
Ed DU1EV and Chris VK3FY spent a lot of time talking to some of the 300 delegates who were keenly interested to learn all they could about it. The next few months will be extremely busy with further work on arranging supplies, logistics, customs clearances, and finalising sponsorship and funding support.
A multi-nation team of 30 radio amateurs will operate ten HF stations CW (4), SSB (4) and RTTY (2), plus a VHF-UHF Station on 6m/2m /70cm & 23cm. That range of stations appears best suited in response to the known demands of the DX community.
Sponsorship support has so far come from ICOM America, Ham Radio Outlet, Spiderbeam, WX0B Array Solutions, Heil Sound and DX Engineering. Individual donations via PayPal are welcome.
"The team is highly motivated with each individual member preparing themselves for the trip to the Philippines and then on to island for this major DXpedition," concluded Chris VK3FY.
For more details visit www.dx0dx.net/
This annual event being held next weekend 19 and 20 June has five Australian museums, all in Victoria, being activated by radio clubs.
Amateur Radio Victoria VK3RAN is hoping to finalise soon arrangements so it can operate from the HMAS Castlemaine museum ship docked at Gem Pier Williamstown on Sunday 20 June.
HMAS Castlemaine
Other stations on the weekend will be:
Gippsland Gate Radio and Electronics Society VK3BJA at the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp History Society Museum, Geelong Amateur Radio Club VK3ATL at Queenscliffe Maritime Museum, Moorabbin & District Radio Club VK3APC at its own radio museum and Geelong Radio & Electronics Society VK3ANR old Geelong Jail
It's not too late for anyone to register a museum. http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk/imw/
Melbourne's Western and Northern Suburbs Amateur Radio Club (WANSARC) will be on the move for each of the three-days it's rostered to use the WIA special callsign.
From 10am (AEST) on Saturday 19 June it will put VK100WIA on air from the very elevated location of the Pentland Hills west of Melbourne using HF, VHF, UHF, D-STAR and Digital Television. Liaison on 146.450MHz FM.
That operation will run until about 6.30pm (AEST). The following day WANSARC will show amateur radio off to the community at the popular Diamond Valley Market Latrobe University in Bundoora.
Then club's final day will be a combination of community and club day on Monday 21 June at Mount Cooper, Bundoora, the highest point in metropolitan Melbourne.
Do listen our for WANSARC members who are going all out to support the WIA Centenary.
Keep an eye on the online log at www.wia.org.au/newsevents/centenary/logbook/
International Telecommunications Union working parties will meet in Geneva, Switzerland 21-28 June to consider the interference caused by broadband over powerlines (BPL).
This is on the agenda for ITU-WP1A Spectrum Engineering Techniques and ITU-WP1B Spectrum Management Methodologies.
The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) has provided the ITU with a reported entitled "The Impact of Powerline Telecommunication Systems on Radiocommunication Systems Operating in the Low Frequency, Medium Frequency, High Frequency and VHF Bands Below 80 MHz."
This report states that the acceptable criteria for degradation of the High Frequency radio noise floor caused by BPL is one half of one decibel.
It also discussed the effects of intermodulation in power supplies causing the amateur band frequency notches in the BPL spectrum to be degraded.
Further it refers to the need to protect amateur stations operating in the 2 meter band, and the amateur satellite service.
Finally it comments on a number of non-amateur services that could suffer interference from BPL or its harmonics.These include alarms for the elderly, pagers, medical implant telemetry, as well as broadcasting.
An Australian radio amateur David Rowe VK5DGR is showing the way to side-step a barrier to full-on experimentation with Digital Smart Technologies for Amateur Radio (D-STAR) with alternative digital speech encoding.
The encoding scheme used by D-STAR is patented by DVSI Incorporated and the cost of D-STAR radios includes a licence fee to use it.
But that may change if David VK5DGR can develop an open source voice protocol called Code2. It is currently in the experimental stage.
To find out more visit the webspace tinyurl.com/2362n3t
The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is have a close look at the 27MHz CB band.
A particularly focus is to look at CB radio that is supposed to be a short range service, while some are using it over long distances during ionosphere propagation (skip) openings.
The FCC is considering a ban on directional antennas in order to bring it back to the intended short range only communications.
While power amplifiers are illegal to use and even sell in the US for use on 27MHz, this latest development appears to herald a tougher stance on CB Radio.
CB Radio now exists in various forms in a number of countries but appears to have begun in the United States in 1945. In later decades in the US it had both commercial and hobbyist users.
In the 1970s it gained popularity following due to a number of movies such as Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Convoy (1978), and television shows like The Dukes of Hazzard.
In 1973 there was an oil crisis being experienced in the US that hit the trucking industry hard with government imposed restrictions.
As a result few new CB radio were being sold. Stockpiles of CB radios languished in warehouses in Hong Kong and Japan and needed to find new markets.
Dick Smith saw CB radios being imported and sold in Australia where they were illegal to use. Initially marketed as sets for use by radio amateurs which had the 11-metre band at the time.
Illegal CB radio had existed in Australia with a relatively small number of experimenters who had to convert commercial equipment to operate on 27MHz, or 27.240MHz to be precise.
Dick Smith imported the cheap CB sets in big numbers to be sold through Dick Smith Electronics stores, making is very easy for anyone wanting to be a CBer and thus sparking a boom downunder.
In 1977, CB was legalised in Australia. Later added was the UHF CB frequencies at 477MHz, initially with the objective of closing 27MHz. That did not happen.
In the latest development the ACMA is planning to double the number of UHF CB channels from 40 to 80 to meet the current and future demands of commercial and private users.
For the first time in the history of the International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend a entry has been received from Taiwan, and it is this year's 200th registration.
Ting BV1EJ will be putting the Kaohsiung Lighthouse in southwestern Taiwan which has that nation's largest harbour and second largest city.
This year's registrations are 30 ahead of the same time last year.
There are 33 countries, Germany with 40 lighthouses, Australia 30, England 21 and the USA 18. A total of 33 countries are registered.
To register for the weekend on the 21st and 22nd of August for for more information visit the website illw.net
From time to time there are reports of supposedly delayed radio broadcasts that have floated around the ether, or maybe reflected back from deep space, to suddenly re-appear decades later without rhyme or reason.
US pilots in the Vietnam War reported picking up messages from the Korean conflict a decade earlier. There have been similar reports of delayed signals over the years.
Now from Scotland comes a report of a vintage wireless set that has begun playing sounds from World War II, with witnesses claiming to hear Winston Churchill speeches and Glenn Miller big-band music.
A valve table-top radio receiver is part of a museum at the Montrose Air Station in Angus.
Museum trustee 72-year old Bob Sutherland is the latest to hear the music coming out of the radio, albeit it at a low volume.
Technicians tried to determine the source of the random broadcasts that can last up to half an hour, but they could not explain the freak reception, particularly seeing the radio doesn't even have a plug attached to its power cable.
Montrose Air Station is no stranger to paranormal happenings. The wireless broadcasts are now added to phantom footsteps, doors opening without reason, aircraft engine sounds and ghostly figures including the sighting of a pilot in full flying kit.
http://www.rafmontrose.org.uk/
The EMC Industry Association in the United Kingdom has a contest running until September seeking the worst cases of radio frequency pollution from In-House BPL.
The contest announced in issue 88 of the EMC journal is looking for the worst means power line adaptors (PLA) that emit interference at the greatest distance.
It comes at a time that hundreds of thousands of In-House BPL adaptors are being sold in the UK that the EMCIA describes as not conforming to the recognised international EMC standards or regulatory requirements.
These cause serious, but sometimes difficult to identify interference to short wave broadcast and point-to-point radio services.
The EMCIA believes the problem is deepening with the launch of a particular PLA whose RF pollution extends into the frequencies used by FM broadcasting and mobile service.
The contest has as prizes two VR120 wide-band hand-held Scanner Receivers, kindly donated by Yaesu (UK) Ltd.
