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G4TNU > NEWS 19.05.19 09:43l 268 Lines 13089 Bytes #999 (0) @ GBR
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Subj: RSGB Main News - 19 May 2019
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GB2RS Main News for Sunday 19th May 2019
The news headlines:
* Book now for RSGB Convention
* CQ Hall of Fame inductees named
* GB2DAY at NRC on 6 June
Booking is now open for the 2019 RSGB Convention, which is sponsored
by Martin Lynch & Sons. Join us between the 11th and 13th of October
at Kents Hill Park, Milton Keynes. The lecture programme is in the
process of being finalised, and will feature streams including HF,
VHF, AMSAT-UK and general interest. The Convention will include the
annual Construction Competition, an SMD Buildathon, the Contest
University and a Pi workshop. Our after-dinner speaker will be Dave
Sumner, K1ZZ, Secretary of the IARU. Dave was active with the IARU
during his entire 44-year career on the staff of the ARRL. Making a
weekend of it? Why not come and visit the RSGB National Radio Centre
at Bletchley Park on the Friday? RSGB Members can download their free
entry voucher from the RSGB website. See more at
www.rsgb.org/convention.
Five amateurs have been inducted into the CQ Amateur Radio Hall of
Fame. They are John Attaway Senior, K4IIF, SK, who served for more
than 20 years as CQ magazine's DX Editor, proposing the establishment
of the CQ DX Hall of Fame in 1967; Dave Bernstein, AA6YQ the author
of the DXLab software suite, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, KD2JTX, the
Director of the International Telecommunication Union
Telecommunication Development Bureau and the first woman ever to hold
a senior elected position in the ITU, Predescu Florin Cristian,
YO0CNU, the founder of Europe's Youngsters On The Air (YOTA) program
and Ellen White, W1YL who served as the ARRL's Deputy Communications
Manager, was QST magazine's DX editor, recorded QST on tape for the
Library of Congress's Talking Book Program for the visually-impaired.
Bruce, WA7BNM; Dean, N6BV, and Chris, 9A5K, SK, have been inducted
into CQ Contest Hall of Fame. Joe Taylor, K1JT, the Nobel Prize
winning-astrophysicist who created the suite of WSJT weak-signal
digital modes, including FT8, and Silvano Borsa, I2YSB and the
Italian DXpedition Team who have made more than 20 major DXpeditions
in the past 20 years, mostly to Africa have been inducted into the CQ
DX Hall of Fame.
Advance notice now that RSGB National Radio Centre at Bletchley Park
will have restricted access for visiting radio amateurs wishing to
operate the station, GB3RS on the 6th of June. On the 6th, the NRC
will be running a special event station, GB2DAY to commemorate the
75th anniversary of D-Day. The NRC will remain open to visitors but
access to the radio room will be restricted and visiting amateurs
will be unable to operate the station.
New videos have been added to the RSGB website for Members to view.
They are two 2018 RSGB Convention lectures. John Worsnop, G4BAO talks
about The Wednesday Night Digifest and Steve Nichols, G0KYA speaks on
The top HF propagation questions and some possible answers. Go to
www.rsgb.org/videos for these and many more interesting talks. There
is also new archive video, National Field Day 1947, plus the original
RadCom article written about the event now live in the Film Archive
section at www.rsgb.org/videos
This year the ITU World Radio Conference takes place and there is an
important motion on the agenda to consolidate and extend access to
50MHz in Region 1, which covers Europe, Africa and Asiatic Russia.
One of the national telecoms administrations that is actively
supporting the proposal is the Czech Republic; unfortunately some
other administrations are actively opposed. To gather solid evidence
of the high level of amateur activity on the band, and at the same
time to demonstrate that amateurs can co-exist with other band users
including the military, IARU is supporting a monitoring trial on the
13th of June. The event is being run by the Czech national radio
society, in conjunction with their regulator and it is part activity
period, part contest. Government and professional users will be
monitoring and some will be transmitting as well so it is important
that amateurs make a good showing. Remember, by the way, that if you
do hear any non-amateur stations you must make sure you do not cause
them any interference. Full details of the event can be found at
https://tinyurl.com/yxngnmlw
The 200th registration for this year's International Lighthouse
Lightship Weekend has been received and it is from Latvia, which is a
rare country for the event and a new lighthouse as well. This highly
popular event, now in its 22nd year, takes place on the 17th and 18th
of August with over 500 entries expected. It is a fun weekend with
many entrants returning year after year with some taking part every
year since 1998. All the details and registration form are on the
ILLW website, https://illw.net
And now for the details of rallies and events for the coming week
Today, the 19th of May, the Dunstable Downs National Amateur Radio
Car Boot Sale takes place at Stockwood Park, Luton LU1 4BQ. More
details can be found on the website www.ddrcbootsale.org.
On the 26th of May, the Durham District ARS Radio Rally takes place
at Bowburn Community Association, Durham Road, Bowburn, Co. Durham
DH6 5AT. Doors open 10.10am to 2.30pm, with disabled visitors gaining
access at 10am. Admittance is GBP 2. There will be traders, a Bring &
Buy as well as an RSGB bookstall and Special Interest Groups.
Catering and a licensed bar is on site. Contact Michael, G7TWX on
07826 924 1192.
To get your event into RadCom, onto GB2RS and on the RSGB website,
please send details as early as possible to radcom<at>rsgb.org.uk –
the print cycle means we need to know four months in advance to get
your information into RadCom.
And now the DX news from 425 DX News and other sources
Juha, OH5CW and the OH5C group will be active as OG0C from Kokar, in
the Aland Islands, IOTA reference EU-002, between the 22nd and the
28th of May. They will operate CW, SSB, FT8, FT4 and MSK144 on the
160 to 2m bands. QSL via Logbook of The World, via the bureau, or
direct to OH5CW; logsearch on Club Log.
Thomas, F4HPX will be active holiday-style as FR/F4HPX from Reunion
Island until the 5th June. He will operate mainly SSB and FT8 on 40,
20 and 15m.
Waldi, SP7IDX will be active as LA/SP7IDX from Store Molla, Lofoten
Islands, EU-076, until the 29th of May. He will operate SSB and FT8
on the 40 to 10m bands. QSL direct to home call or via Logbook of The
World.
Members of the Old House Radio Club, OH5C, will visit the Aland
Islands from the 22nd to 28th of May using the callsign OG0C. QSL via
OH5CW.
Zorro, JH1AJT will visit Eritrea from the 25th of May to the 3rd of
June. The main purpose of his trip is to support the Eritrea National
Olympic Committee. He will be joined by Franz, DJ9ZB, David, WD5COV,
Johannes, PA5X, Dima, RAUSU, Sergey, RZ9UN and Champ, E21EIC, who
will be active as E31A on the 160 to 6m bands using CW, SSB and FT8
Fox & Hound mode. QSL via Club Log's OQRS, or via JH1AJT.
Laci, HA0HW will be active as SW8WW from Thassos Island, EU-174, from
the 23rd of May to the 5th of June. He will operate mainly CW, with
some SSB and RTTY/PSK, on the 40 to 6m bands. QSL via Club Log's
OQRS, or via HA0HW direct or bureau.
Now the special event news
W7K celebrates the redefinition of the SI unit kelvin, which will
take place on the 20th of May. This station will be operated from one
of the most accurate temperature standards laboratories in the world,
at American Fork, Utah. Times of operation will be 0000UTC to
2359UTC. The station will operate on both HF and VHF. For HF,
operation will be on the 20, 40 and 80m bands. The VHF operation will
be accessible via Echolink for those out of the area at specific
times. For more information, go to tinyurl.com/w7kelvin
Two special event radio stations will be on the air from Shetland.
GB0DAW, for Dementia Action Week, will be on the air between the 20th
and the 26th of May; GB2DAW for Dementia Awareness Week between the
3rd and 9th of June. All information will be on QRZ.com.
Please send special event details to radcom<at>rsgb.org.uk, as early
as possible, for free publicity on GB2RS, in RadCom and online.
Remember that stations using UK special event callsigns must be open
to the public, so our free publicity can help make your efforts more
widely known.
Now the contest news
The 144MHz May Contest ends its 24 hour run at 1400UTC today, the
19th. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number,
locator and postcode.
Today, the 19th, the 144MHz Backpackers contest runs from 1100 to
1500UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial
number and locator.
Also today, the 19th, the UK Microwave Group High Band contest runs
from 0900 to 1700UTC. Using all modes on the 24 to 76GHz bands, the
exchange is signal report, serial number and locator.
On Tuesday the 1.3GHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130UTC.
Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and
locator.
On Wednesday the 80m Club Championships data leg runs from 1900 to
2030UTC. The exchange is signal report and serial number.
Next weekend the CQ Worldwide WPX CW contest runs for 48 hours from
0000UTC on the 25th to 2359UTC on the 26th. Using CW only on the 1.8
to 28MHz bands, the exchange is signal report and serial number.
On Sunday the 26th, the 3rd 70MHz Cumulative contest runs from 1400
to 1600UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial
number and locator.
On Sunday the 26th, the UK Microwave Groups contest runs from 0600 to
1800UTC. Using all modes on the 5.7 to 10GHz bands, the exchange is
signal report, serial number and locator.
Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA & G4BAO on
Friday the 17th of May.
Last week saw the Kp index rise to seven on Tuesday thanks to an
enhanced solar wind stream containing a sharply south-pointing Bz.
This is the direction of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field and
south-pointing means it was more likely to couple with the Earth's
magnetic field. This was due to a number of filament eruptions in the
vicinity of sunspot region 2741.
While not entirely unexpected, the Kp index rise to seven was quite
severe and resulted in auroral conditions on HF. A number of B-class
solar flares on Wednesday didn't help much either. The FoF2 plot at
Propquest.co.uk looked a bit like a roller coaster as the predicted
MUF over a 3,000km path went rapidly from nearly 20MHz to 16MHz.
Luckily, things were more settled on Thursday with a Kp index of two,
although HF conditions remained flat.
Sunspot group 2741 is now rotating off the Sun's disk, with NOAA
predicting the solar flux index will go back down to around 68 next
week, due to an absence of spots. As a result the K index is
predicted to be around 2 to 3 as the risk of coronal mass ejections
declines.
Phil, GU0SUP, the RSGB newsreader for Guernsey, reports that FT8 has
been quite active. On the morning of Friday the 10th he heard lots of
Ws on 30 metres, including a W7 in Idaho. Moving to 20m he then then
saw K2GT calling CQ and found out he was in Hawaii. Phil says he was
very surprised at just how loud he was. He adds that he usually
expect to work KH6 later in the day, although he has worked Hawaii in
the mornings before, but when the SFI was much higher.
And now the VHF and up propagation news
The weak high pressure nearby may reassert itself as a shallow area
of low pressure over France drifts away. This does not look anything
like as strong as the exceptional high of 1042mb of last week.
Therefore some weak Tropo is always possible, especially along the
east coast.
Sporadic-E has been doing fairly well with a comprehensive selection
of jet streams to offer potential triggers for Sporadic-E at first,
but the coming week looks much thinner with the main jet stream
activity displaced south over the Mediterranean. This may put
Sporadic-E patches too far south, although it should be productive
across the Mediterranean region. Best prospects from the UK look to
be south into Spain and Portugal.
As we head down to minimum Moon declination on Wednesday and are just
a weak away from apogee, Moon windows are short and losses high. It's
a good time put aside QSO attempts and to check out EME system
performance using Sun to cold sky measurements as the sun is nice and
high in the sky at noon now.
There is no significant meteor shower activity this week so in
between the Sporadic-E, keep looking for the early morning random
meteor peak on the lower VHF bands.
And that's all from the propagation team this week.
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 radcom<at>rsgb.org.uk to arrive by
10:00 on the Thursday before transmission.
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