AmateurRadio.com

Solar Flare Alert:

Active Sunspot Region 11944 has a 75% chance of producing an M-class flare, and a 30% chance of producing an X-class flare, in the next 24 hours. Smaller flares are also possible.

We are expecting a glancing blow from a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) sometime in the next 24 hours.

The Earth’s polar regions are under a proton event (Polar Cap Absorption, or PCA, event). This is degrading HF communications over polar regions.

(Live data and more info at https://Facebook.com/spacewx.hfradio or http://SunSpotWatch.com/ )

While many are talking about how Solar Cycle 24 is the weakest since the Maunder Minimum (the period starting in about 1645 and continuing to about 1715 when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time — see this Wiki entry), there are moments when activity on the Sun strongly increases, providing brief moments of excitement.

Here is a case in point, witnessed by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO; see SDO Mission) on June 7, 2011, when the Sun unleashed a magnitude M2 (a medium-sized) solar flare with a spectacular coronal mass ejection (CME). The large cloud of particles mushroomed up and fell back down looking as if it covered an area almost half the solar surface.

SDO observed the flare’s peak at 1:41 AM ET. SDO recorded these images in extreme ultraviolet light that show a very large eruption of cool gas. It is somewhat unique because at many places in the eruption there seems to be even cooler material — at temperatures less than 80,000 K.

This video uses the full-resolution 4096 x 4096 pixel images at a one minute time cadence to provide the highest quality, finest detail version possible.  The color is artificial, as the actual images are capturing Extreme Ultraviolet light.

It is interesting to compare the event in different wavelengths because they each see different temperatures of plasma.

Credit: NASA SDO / Goddard Space Flight Center

Video: http://g.nw7us.us/1aOjmgA – Massive Solar Eruption Close-up (2011-06-07 – NASA SDO)

Visit: SunSpotWatch.com

“Radio Hams” do more than play with their machines. They are also invaluable in relaying vital information during times of tragedy and disaster.

Here is a mildly entertaining look at radio hams, those amateurs sending and receiving coded messages during the late thirties when films first dealt with the subject of “radio hams.” In this case, the ham operators manage to be helpful during situations of stress, using their abilities with code to help someone in distress and to seek aid for pilots flying a missing plane.

The humorous ending has the family gathered around the radio listening to someone speaking Chinese while the narrator tells us how impressed the family was to be hearing someone across the world on their radio set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZi7LiPNMt8

This little vintage film, a rather more serious film than many of Pete Smith’s other presentations, takes a look at how ham radios can become priceless aids during emergencies. The two stories shown, one dealing with sickness, the other with a missing plane, are bookended by a humorous look at a typical three-generation family’s fascination with their ham radio.

Of course, amateur radio, or “ham radio”, is alive and doing very well, in our modern times. Using satellites, moon-bounce communications, repeater networks, as well as shortwave, mediumwave, and longwave telecommunications technology, amateur radio continues to provide emergency services in times of need, from hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and even during such times as the infamous 9/11 atrocity. But, amateur radio also breeds invention and experimentation, always at the cutting edge of science. It is a hobby worth investigating, having room for a wide-range of interests. Preppers, science lovers, experimenters, and those with a passion to meet people from all over the world by way of radio waves, all together make up the radio hobby of amateur radio.

Clayton Moore, later famous as the Lone Ranger, appears uncredited as a ship radio operator.

Directed by Felix E. Feist

Writing Credits Buddy Adler (screenplay) (as E. Maurice Adler)

Cast (in alphabetical order)

Barbara Bedford – Mrs. Crane (uncredited)
Eleanor Counts – Miss Mulligan, Jimmy’s Sister (uncredited)
Jack Daley – Pa Mulligan (uncredited)
Robert Homans – Lighthouse Keeper (uncredited)
Clayton Moore – Ship Radio Operator (uncredited)
Alonzo Price – Clyde DeVinna (uncredited)
Jason Robards Sr. – Pilot in Distress (uncredited)
Pete Smith – Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Harry Strang – Man in Montage (uncredited)
Phillip Terry – Co-Pilot (uncredited)
Dorothy Vaughan – Ma Mulligan (uncredited)

Produced by Pete Smith – producer (uncredited)
Music by David Snell (uncredited)
Cinematography by Robert Pittack
Film Editing by Philip W. Anderson (as Philip Anderson)
Music Department Jack Virgil – orchestrator (uncredited)
Other crew Douglas Smith – technical advisor

According to https://archive.org/details/wwIIarchive this film is in the Public Domain.
Creative Commons copyright.

This is for you vintage science film buffs: here is a circa 1920 film: How the Telephone Talks (A Silent Film).

This is an educational film from 1920 that explained the “modern” telephone. The concepts are still relevant to today’s modern versions, including the cell phone, which is both radio and telephone.

From Wiki:

A telephone, or phone, is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are not in the same vicinity of each other to be heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into electronic signals suitable for transmission via cables or other transmission media over long distances, and replays such signals simultaneously in audible form to its user. The word telephone has been adapted into the vocabulary of many languages. It is derived from the Greek: τῆλε, tēle, far and φωνή, phōnē, voice, together meaning distant voice.

First patented in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell and further developed by many others, the telephone was the first device in history that enabled people to talk directly with each other across large distances. Telephones became rapidly indispensable to businesses, government, and households, and are today some of the most widely used small appliances.

The essential elements of a telephone are a microphone (transmitter) to speak into and an earphone (receiver) which reproduces the voice of the distant person. In addition, most telephones contain a ringer which produces a sound to announce an incoming telephone call, and a dial used to enter a telephone number when initiating a call to another telephone. Until approximately the 1970s most telephones used a rotary dial, which was superseded by the modern Touch-Tone push-button dial, first introduced by AT&T in 1963. The receiver and transmitter are usually built into a handset which is held up to the ear and mouth during conversation. The dial may be located either on the handset, or on a base unit to which the handset is connected by a cord containing wires. The transmitter converts the sound waves to electrical signals which are sent through the telephone network to the receiving phone. The receiving telephone converts the signals into audible sound in the receiver, or sometimes a loudspeaker. Telephones are a duplex communications medium, meaning they allow the people on both ends to talk simultaneously.

A landline telephone is connected by a pair of wires to the telephone network, while a mobile phone, such as a cellular phone, is portable and communicates with the telephone network by radio transmissions. A cordless telephone has a portable handset which communicates by radio transmission with the handset base station which is connected by wire to the telephone network.

The telephone network, consisting of a worldwide net of telephone lines, fiber optic cables, microwave transmission, cellular networks, communications satellites, and undersea telephone cables connected by switching centers, allows any telephone in the world to communicate with any other. Each telephone line has an identifying number called its telephone number. To initiate a telephone call the user enters the other telephone’s number into a numeric keypad on the phone.

Although originally designed for simple voice communications, most modern telephones have many additional capabilities. They may be able to record spoken messages, send and receive text messages, take and display photographs or video, play music, and surf the Internet. A current trend is phones that integrate all mobile communication and computing needs; these are called smartphones.

( http://g.nw7us.us/1996vSl )

The Sun currently is active, with powerful, complex magnetic structures that have formed a healthy number of sunspots. We are seeing a fair number of x-ray flares, which push the 10.7-cm flux higher than we’ve seen in a while.

Sunspots and flares means better propagation in general, especially on the higher frequencies of the shortwave spectrum.  While a flare can cause a short period of “blackout” conditions (especially on the lower frequencies) on the sunlit side of the Earth, such activity is part of the positive activity that ionizes the F-region, providing for DX.

Here’s a movie of one such flare and the release of solar plasma, a release known as a coronal mass ejection (CME): At about midnight, UTC, on 6 November 2013, a moderately-strong M-class flare erupted, with a “beautiful” CME: http://g.nw7us.us/18a0QvI

(Source: SOHO/SDO/NASA)

We will see continued flare activity over the weekend, so expect great conditions on the HF bands, with momentary blackouts.  Keep up to the minute on space weather at http://SunSpotWatch.com

73 – de NW7US
Propagation Columnist, CQ Communications Magazine, Popular Communications Magazine
http://NW7US.us

New sunspot region, NOAA Active Sunspot Region Nr. 11890, far left on the solar disc, will produce flares, this week.

The Sun continues to produce sunspots, and this week looks active, too.  Expect another uptick of activity on higher HF bands such as 10 meters, as a “new” sunspot region has now rotated into full view.  It has a complex magnetic structure, so it could produce moderate and maybe strong x-ray flares.  We expect flaring activity to pick up, as a result.

With all of the recent activity, and the continued train of spots, right now, it certainly appears to be a sign of a “second” peak in the cycle.  Most cycles exhibit such double peaks.  Is this one of them in this current Sunspot Cycle 24?

Enjoy the DX!

73 de NW7US (Your CQ Magazine and Popular Communications Magazine propagation columnist)

http://SunSpotWatch.com

http://NW7US.us

Shortwave radio history – communications in and out of New Zealand in 1939. This history is rich with adventure and successes that are profound. Our modern communications all stems from this historic work…

This is a short film about the romance of the radiotelegraph service that utilized the high frequency spectrum known as “shortwave” (from 3 MHz up to 30 MHz) as well as the longwave and medium frequency spectrum (below 3 MHz).  This is a short film about communication to and from New Zealand on these shortwaves, using Morse code (eventually, using CW modulation). This film is a 1939 Government film scanned to 2K from a 16mm combined B/W reduction print.

http://g.nw7us.us/1cIn92f