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G4TNU > NEWS 21.02.16 03:02l 231 Lines 11129 Bytes #999 (0) @ GBR
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Subj: RSGB Main News - 21 Feb 2016
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GB2RS Main News for Sunday 21st February 2016
The news headlines:
* ISS link to City of Norwich school
* 5MHz Beacon consulatation opens
* Antarctic Activity Week starts
The next UK school contact with Tim Peake on the ISS will be with the
City of Norwich school on Friday the 26th of February. The 10-minute
window opens at 1434UTC and the call will be GB2CNS. A team of 9
amateurs, mainly from Norfolk ARC, have already run two 1½ hour
workshops entitled Making Waves for students. The workshops started
with an introduction into amateur radio and included a showing of the
new RSGB youth video. Then they ran a circus of 5 activities covering
SSTV, Morse, waves, APRS and a 4 component batteryless crystal set.
The following scheduled contact is Powys Combined Schools, between
the 29th of February and the 6th of March. The exact dates and times
are only notified by NASA about 10 days beforehand, but will be
publicised via GB2RS, the RSGB website and social media once
available. All school contact transmissions from the ISS can be heard
on the usual downlink frequency of 145.800MHz.
As announced in the March edition of RadCom, a consultation has
opened on the future of the three UK 5MHz beacons, GB3RAL, GB3WES and
GB3ORK. With the completion of the 5MHz Experiment and increasing
technical and site difficulties, views on their future and offers of
support are sought as part of the consultation exercise. Full
details are online at http://forums.thersgb.org/
Look for this year's 13th Antarctic Activity Week to take place
between February 22-28th. Complete details and a list of participants
is available online at www.waponline.it/Default.aspx?tabid=113 The
website will have an updated list with callsigns and QSL Managers. As
many as 37 stations could be on the air, conditions permitting.
The Youth Contesting Programof IARU Region 1 will be continued in
2016. Youth members from IARU R1 member societies are invited to take
part in a contest from so called Top Gun stations. They will learn
how to operate the contest station, improve their contest skills and
will aim for the best results together as a team. A youngster will
probably be coming for the first time to the host country, and will
get the chance to experience this country and share amateur radio
knowledge with local youngsters. The contests take place in May, July
and September and full details, including information on how to
apply, are online. The website is
www.ham-yota.com/youth-contesting-program
International Amateur Radio Union President Tim Ellam, VE6SH/G4HUA
has presented former ARRL CEO David Sumner, K1ZZ with the IARU's
prestigious Michael J Owen, VK3KI, Memorial Award. Tim cited David's
"skill, diplomacy, and encyclopedic knowledge" of amateur radio, and
his role on the international scene, as most deserving of the award.
Michael J Owen, VK3KI was a towering figure in the IARU and the
Wireless Institute of Australia. He died in 2012. David Sumner
started with his service at the watershed World Administrative Radio
Conference in 1979, which yielded the so-called WARC bands, 30, 17,
and 12 metres. David has travelled to more than 60 countries in
connection with his ARRL and IARU responsibilities, which include 17
years as IARU Secretary.
World Thinking Day is taking place this weekend. This is when members
of Girlguiding use amateur radio to try to contact other members
throughout the world, as part of the celebrations of their founders'
birthdays. If you hear Thinking Day stations on the air, please give
them a call.
Over 1,000 Members volunteer for the RSGB in a wide variety of roles.
What motivates them and what do they get out of it? Find out from the
RSGB's new video. Go to www.rsgb.org/ volunteer-video to see it on
our website, or view it on the RSGB YouTube channel. If you'd like an
offline copy to show at your club, please contact us. In the video
Andy Roberts, M0GYK, Diana Smith, M6FIO and Graham Parry, G7OSR
explain why they enjoy volunteering at the NRC. So if you've got some
spare time, would like to help others within the amateur radio
community, or would like to shape the future of the hobby, watch the
video then take a look at the volunteering section in ‘About us' on
our website, www.rsgb.org – see what inspires you!
And now for the details of rallies and events for the coming week
There are no rallies in the diary for this weekend. Next weekend, two
rallies will take place.
The Brats Rainham Radio Rally is at Rainham School for Girls, Derwent
way, Rainham, Gillingham, Kent, ME8 0BX on the 28th of February.
Doors open at 9.30/10am and there will be a talk-in station. There
will be trade stands, special interest groups and catering on site.
More details from Trevor on 07717 678 795 or online at
www.brats-qth.org.
Also on Sunday the 28th of February the Pencoed Amateur Radio Club
Table Top Sale takes place at Pencoed Rugby Football Club, The
Verlands, Felindre Road, Pencoed CF35 5PB. Tables will be GBP 5 each
on a first come first served basis. Please book with Madeline on
01639 885126. Doors open at 8.30am for sellers buyers at 9.30am.
Admission is GBP 2. Hot food will be available in the morning and at
lunch time and hot and cold drinks will be available from the bar.
Details are online at www.MW0PRG.co.uk/events.uk.
If you have any rally or event information you'd like to appear in
future editions of GB2RS News, in RadCom and on the RSGB website,
please email details to radcom<at>rsgb.org.uk.
And now the DX news compiled from 425 DX News and other sources
Masato, JA0RQV will be active as 6Y5/JA0RQV mainly from his hotel in
Kingston, Jamaica, NA-097, starting on the 21st of February until the
17th of April. Activity will be mostly on the weekend and spare time.
He will work on the 10 to 160m bands using CW and SSB. QSL via M0OXO
using ORQS or Logbook of The World.
Members of the Radio Club Argentino will be on the air from Carlini
Base in the South Shetland Islands during the last few weeks of
February. They will sign LU1ZI and the IOTA reference number is
AN-010.
Members of the Italian DXpedition Team will be active as 3XY1T from
the Los Islands, AF-051, until the 4th of March. They will be on all
bands from 160m to 6m on SSB, CW and RTTY.
Mark, K0MDJ is on the air as 9H3DJ until 1 June while on a business
trip to Malta. Activity is in his spare time using mostly SSB on 17m.
Malta is EU-023. QSL to his home call.
A team of 9 operators from North America will be active as A35T from
the island of Tonga until the 28th of February. QSLs will be handled
by M0URX.
A number of American operators will be QRV from Guantanamo Bay,
NA-015, until the 4th of March. Look for the callsigns KG4BP, KG4EU,
KG4HF, KG4HP and KG4WV.
Now the contest news
The ARRL International DX 48-hour contest is coming to a close
tonight. Work the USA, contiguous 48 States, and Canada only, giving
them a signal report and your transmit power. US/Canadian stations
give a signal report and their State/Province code. This is the CW
leg of the event; the SSB leg takes place next month.
The RSGB 50MHz UKAC is on Tuesday from 2000UTC to 2230UTC. The SHF
UKAC takes place at the same time on the 2.3 to 10GHz bands. Both
have an exchange of RST, serial number and locator.
On Wendesday the UKEICC 80m contest takes place from 2000UTC to
2100UTC. Operating in CW on the 3.5MHz band, the exchange is your
4-character locator.
Friday sees the start of the CQ WW 160m DX contest at 2200 UTC,
concluding at 2200UTC on the 28th. Using SSB on the 1.8MHz band, the
exchange is RS plus CQ Zone. US stations will also send their State
and Canadians their Province.
The French REF Contest takes place next weekend from 0600UTC on the
27th to 1800UTC on the 28th. Using SSB on the 3.5-28MHz contest
bands, the exchange is RS and serial number, with French stations
also sending their département number or overseas prefix.
Finally for next weekend, the 70MHz Cumulative #1 runs from 1000UTC
to 1200UTC on the 4m band. Using all modes, the exchange is RST,
serial number and locator.
Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G4BAO and G3YLA
on Friday 19th February.
This week has been a mixed bag in terms of HF performance. At times
10 metres has been open, with the 7P8C DXpedition to Lesotho putting
in an appearance on the band for hours on Monday and Tuesday. But the
high-speed solar wind is never far away and played havoc with
geomagnetic conditions later on Tuesday and all day Wednesday, with
the Kp index hitting six on both days. The solar wind exceeded 600
kilometres per second at times, causing geomagnetic storming at
higher latitudes. This was due to an ongoing coronal hole on the
southern hemisphere of the sun – a region within the sun's corona
with open magnetic field lines that allows a stream of particles to
escape. This left the HF bands very noisy indeed.
Next week NOAA predicts the solar flux index will be in the range
100-115, which could spell openings up to 10m. The good news is that
the K index is predicted to be a reasonably-settled 2 all week long.
If this turns out to be accurate we can expect some good DX openings
on HF.
Finally, don't forget the lower bands. There have been some good
openings to Australia and Asia reported on 80m during the hours of
darkness, especially around greyline times.
And now the VHF and up propagation news.
There is another rather poor tropo week coming up, but with one
possible glimmer of hope in the south around mid-week. We start the
week with low pressure to the north of Britain and the long-term area
of high pressure near the Azores. This makes for a cold start to the
week with northwesterly winds and some snow showers possible,
producing good highly reflective clouds for GHz band scatter modes.
Around mid-week, a ridge from the Azores high will cross southern
Britain to give a brief enhancement, but nothing dramatic. It's
unlikely to last because low pressure will return by the end of the
week.
Watch out for auroral propagation on the lower VHF bands in the
coming week as the sun has been active and produced recent auroral
propagation for northerly stations.
The seasonally-low random meteor rates continue and no major showers,
so early morning continues to be best time day for random meteor
scatter operation.
The Moon will be up overnight and in the early morning this week and
its declination is decreasing. Moon windows will shorten and losses
reach a maximum as the Moon reaches apogee, its furthest distance
away, on Saturday.
And that's all for this week from the propagation team.
And that's the end of the main news for this week prepared by the
Radio Society of Great Britain. Items for inclusion in subsequent
bulletins can be emailed to gb2rs<at>rsgb.org.uk to arrive by
10:00 on the Thursday before transmission.
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