AmateurRadio.com

After the ‘screaming’ incident with the AT-5555 rig a couple of weeks ago, the rig has seemed quite happy. With the lighter evenings, the band seems to have been open a little longer. By the time I get to the car in the evening, around 1820z there seems to have been just a little propagation left on 28MHz, usually to South America.

For the last couple of evenings, there have been Brazilians to listen to, whilst driving home. Signals have been weak, but I’m hopeful of a contact soon.

Driving around at the weekend, during daylight hours there have been plenty of contacts around Europe and Russia which is good fun for mobile operation.

Soon the Es season will be starting which should be fun on 28MHz.

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

AmateurRadio.com is offering a free prize drawing!

With the help of our very generous sponsor,
Import Communications (formerly Wouxun.us),
we’re giving away a
Baofeng UV-5R Dual-Band HT
+ a Free USB Programming Cable!

(144/440 MHz)
This is a nearly US$85 value.
Enter now to win!

All licensed hams in the U.S. and Canada are eligible to enter
Shipping to US and Canada included. Canadian winners responsible for any duties and taxes.

Read the rest of this post

Matt Thomas, W1MST, is the managing editor of AmateurRadio.com. Contact him at [email protected].

Following on from the kind words I received about the scafell pike photo I thought I’d share this one with you. I took it whilst attempting the Ennerdale horseshoe last August. The horsehoe is a 25 mile hike round the summits and it has 21 summits to activate. Some for SOTA (Summits on the air) and some are WOTA (Wainwrights on the air).

The photo was taken from the Summit of Green Gable which ended up being the second to last activation. The clouds came in as did the rain and so I made my way down to the valley floor and had a 6 mile walk back to the car which was parked at the base of the small fell at the front of the horseshoe in the middle of the picture. Crummock and Buttermere are the lakes on the right and Ennerdale lake is hidden round the back of Pillar on the left hand side. The western lakes are not as popular as the central lakes (Derwent, Windemere etc) and even though its only a few miles from a few small towns there was hardly a sole there.

Each year there is a marathon running race round the horseshoe. No cheating you have to go round all the summits! tempted?

Anyway I hope you liek the photo and if you’re ever in the lakes then listen out on 145.500Mhz as there may be someone activating a summit close to where you are.

Alex Hill, G7KSE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, UK. Contact him at [email protected].

Spring officially begins in about 5 hours from right now.  But the weather here today had to be record breaking, or darn near close to it.  As I left work today, for the drive home at 5:00 PM, it was 77F (25C) – on March 19th!

The extended forecast for the next week is informing us that daytime high temperatures will be in the upper 60’s and into the 70s’ and that on Thursday, we may even break 80F (27C).

I was telling Bob W3BBO during our weekly Echolink chat the other day, that we will probably pay for this with a Memorial Day holiday weekend in the 50s (13C).

Ah yes, W2LJ is ever the optimist!

On a radio note, I tried getting on the bands a few times over the weekend only to hear not much of anything.  The bands seemed to be dead for me.  BUT ….. the bands have been real good for my friend Jim W4QO, who announced that he finished working the countries he needed to accomplish Diamond DXCC – all QRP.  Way to go, Jim – a hearty hand shake and slap on the back for you!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

An interesting article appeared on physorg.com yesterday regarding changes in the Earth’s magnetic field and its relation to solar activity. Although short on detail it hints at significant changes going on within our sun.

Since the mid-1800s, scientists have been systematically measuring changes in the Earth’s magnetic field and the occurrence of geomagnetic activity. Such long- term investigation has uncovered a number of cyclical changes, including a signal associated with 27-day solar rotation.

This is most clearly seen during the declining phase and minimum of each 11-year solar cycle, when the Sun’s magnetic dipole is sometimes tilted with respect to the Sun’s rotational axis. With the Sun’s rotation and the emission of solar wind along field lines from either end of the solar magnetic dipole, an outward propagating spiral-like pattern is formed in the solar wind and the interplanetary magnetic field that can drive 27-day, and occasionally 13.5-day, recurrent geomagnetic activity.

Recurrent geomagnetic activity can also be driven by isolated and semipersistent coronal holes, from which concentrated streams of solar wind can be emitted.

During the most recent solar minimum, which took place from 2006 to 2010, however, several researcher groups noticed 6.7-day and 9-day recurrent changes in geomagnetic activity, and similar patterns in the interplanetary magnetic field, and the solar wind. Using modern data covering the previous two solar minima, these higher-frequency occurrences were judged to be unusual.

Love et al. analyzed historical geomagnetic activity records from 1868 to 2011 and find that the 6.7-day and 9-day recurrent changes were actually unique in the past 140 years.They suggest that the higher-frequency changes in geomagnetic activity are due to an unusual transient asymmetry in the solar dynamo, the turbulent, rotating plasma deep within the sun which generates the magnetic field.

More information: Geomagnetic detection of the sectorial solar magnetic field and the historical peculiarity of minimum 23-24 Geophysical Research Letters, doi:10.1029/2011GL050702 , 2012 

Provided by American Geophysical Union

“Geomagnetic data reveal unusual nature of recent solar minimum.” 

March 19th, 2012. http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-geomagnetic-reveal-unusual-nature-solar.html

Owen Morgan, KF5CZO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

The live recording of LHS Episode #079 is being moved to today, March 19th, at approximately 4:30pm CDT (2130 UTC). This is to accommodate our very special guest, Fabian “Fab” Scherschel of the Linux Outlaws podcast. We might even get a cameo from Dan Lynch as well; no word on that yet. So if you can, please join us for the live broadcast and visit with us in the chat room during the show.

73 de The LHS Guys

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

Good Sunday evening to everyone, have you ever been blindsided by something? In the past when  blindsided most if not all the time it was not been a good thing. Well I am here to tell you that I was blindsided and it was a GOOD THING!  Here in Ontario spring has arrived very very early the past few weeks the temperatures have been around 19C. The norms are around 3C and at night down in the negatives. This weekend it was great 23C lots of sun and blue skies this was a nice blindsiding. So why is my post topic "shame on me"? Here is the the math..........
Early spring+great weather=yard work, house cleaning, garden prep and blah blah blah and therefore it's > (greater than) ham radio which = shame on me! I have not had really any time for radio!

KAT2 in the works

It's not to say that here at VE3WDM there has been a total drought of radio time. My plans over the winter were to get my Elecraft K2 setup for portable operation. Which was coming along right on schedule but now the radio bug is bitting as the great weather is here, I have to hurry things along. It was my decision last year to not order the Elecracft KX3 but to use my K2 for going out and about. Here is what had  to be done to make this happen. Remove the KPA 100 option from my radio and remote mount it in combination with the KAT100 antenna tuner. That has been done and it works great. I now want to add battery power to the

The joys of toroid winding

K2 and that is done with Elecraf'ts KB2T internal battery kit. I also wanted to add an internal antenna tuner that is done with the Elecraft's  KAT2 antenna tuner. This sets up the Elecraft K2 along with Palm Radio's mini paddle. The antennas are the Miracle whip or space permitting a wire dipole. When in the car (stationary mobile) mono band whip antennas. This week my time will be spent (I hope) to complete the KAT2 antenna tuner which really just involves toroid winding and mounting. Then the internal battery will be installed and then GAME ON!!!
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].