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It's time once again for The Weekender. This is our bi-weekly departure into the world of amateur radio contests, open source conventions, special events, listener challenges, hedonism and just plain fun. Thanks for listening and, if you happen to get a chance, feel free to call us or e-mail and send us some feedback. Tell us how we're doing. We'd love to hear from you.

73 de The LHS Crew

RIDGELAND, MS. September 4, 2019. “The hits just keep on coming,” announced Colin Butler M6BOY of the Homebrew Heroes Award Program Steering Committee. “We are delighted to include Heil Sound as our newest corporate prize donor to our pending 2019 Hero recipient.”

Bob Heil K9EID said, “Heil Sound is very honored to be a part of the Homebrew Heroes Award. Designing and building Amateur Radio projects has been the basis of my career and I am always promoting ‘home brewing’ so let’s warm up those soldering irons and build something! Thank you guys for making this happen.” The CEO of Heil Sound, now celebrating it’s 50th year, is an avid builder and recent winner of the January 2018 QST Cover Award for his famous Pine Board Project. He launched the Ham Nation podcast on May 24, 2011, some 411 episodes ago. The video podcast is published weekly and includes Gordon West WB6NOA and other well known co-hosts. Bob K9EID continues to elmer a wide audience of amateur radio operators through his popular hamfest forum talks and other demonstrations. He also frequently gives presentations to amateur clubs via Skype.

Martin Butler M1MRB of the Steering Committee added, “I met Bob Heil this year at Hamvention in Xenia. A busy man, he kindly took the time to show this bloke from across the pond his new Parametric Receive Audio System. After 30 minutes or so, I left feeling as if I’d known Bob for a lifetime. He really, really knows the design and building of amateur radio devices!” Committee member Frank Howell K4FMH concurred, “Bob was kind enough to have me on as a guest on Ham Nation on the TWiT.tv network, to discuss the Homebrew Heroes Award concept and what we were trying to build. He followed up quickly with telling me of his desire to have Heil Sound as part of the sponsoring donors. That’s Bob. He’s going to help if he believes in something.”

Heil Sound will provide these items to the winner: Heil Wire, XT-1 Matching Transformer, Heil Stealth connectors, Heil XLR broadcast connectors, Heil 5.1 dynamic microphone element, and 
Pro 3 Headphones. All will no doubt be used in the recipient’s subsequent build projects.

Hello and welcome to the 299th episode of Linux in the Ham Shack! In this episode, the hosts discuss ARES and Hurricane Dorian, keeping 2m frequencies in France, Icom's new foray into QRP radio, Google in open source, fldigi, WINE and much more. Thank you for listening and we hope you have a fantastic week.

73 de The LHS Crew

RIDGELAND, MS September 2, 2019. A very popular podcast about the ham radio workbench scene has joined the donor list for the Homebrew Heroes Award Program. George Zafiropoulos KJ6VU, co-host of the Ham Radio Workbench show, said, “While we were aware of the Homebrew Heroes Awards Program being organized shortly after Hamvention this year, we were not sure how we could help, other than to promote it on our own podcast. But when Digilent Inc. led the corporate donor list by committing to donate their very popular Analogue Discovery 2 test gear to the recipient, it became very clear. Our new Benchduino kit, which connects directly to the AD2 for design development, is a perfect addition for the 2019 recipient!”

Martin Butler M1MRB, HHA Steering Committee Member, said, “I’ve used the Digilent device, the AD2, and this donation by these innovative chaps just hits the spot for the prize package. The many test and measurement tools in the AD2 when it’s connected to the Benchduino platform just help the homebrewer get things done properly and in short order.” Frank Howell K4FMH, also of the Steering Committee, said, “This addition to our prize donor roster is most appreciated. It exemplifies the spirit of the Award that we are offering: helping others by example, including the fruits of one’s labor at his or her own workbench.” Colin Butler, M6BOY, the third member of the HHA Steering Committee emphasized, “The lads on the Hamradio Workbench show are demonstrating what this Award is about. There addition just underscores the reception of it by the homebrew space in amateur radio.”

Jeremy Kolonay KF7IJZ, co-host of HRW, added, “This just works out perfectly. Our show focuses on what the Homebrew Heroes concept is about: helping the homebrewer and maker audience in amateur radio learn more about the science and craft of designing and building new things.” The podcast has committed to donate multiple Benchduino sets so as to cover the various development platforms the Homebrew Heroes Award 2019 recipient might use.

Our new Benchduino kit, which connects directly to the AD2 for design development, is a perfect addition for the 2019 recipient!

George KJ6VU, co-host of the Hamradio Workbench Podcast

The Benchduino is a new project developed and offered for sale by the two co-hosts of the Ham Radio Workbench podcast. An active community of homebrewers have joined the support group at Google.io. The technical specifications are as follows, taken from the HRB website:

The BenchDuino is a development platform for building projects based on the Arduino, Raspberry Pi and PIC microcontrollers. The platform defines a common foot print for processor and expansion boards to make it easy to expand the functionality of the system. The BenchDuino motherboard includes many commonly used peripherals which can be connected to the CPU pins with jumper wires or plug in shunts. The BenchDuino is an open platform and we encourage the development of plug-in CPU and expansion boards.

CPU Boards Available: Arduino Mega, using a RobotDyn Embedded 2560 high end 8 bit MCU; Raspberry Pi Zero; PIC – 40 pin 18F series processor such as the 18F4620; and Adafruit Feather common foot print.

Built-in Peripherals include: (Jumper selectable 5v or 3.3v operation), 4 push button switches, 3 slide switches, 4 LEDs, 2×16 Character I2C or parallel LCD display, 1.3″ I2C OLED bitmap display, 1 Potentiometer, 1 Rotary encoder, Xbee data radio socket, Digilent Analog Discovery II test equipment jack, and various jumper blocks.

The Homebrew Hero Award details can be read at it’s website, homebrewheroes.org. Questions or interesting in joining the corporate prize donor list can be submitted through the website. The promotional partner for the HHA is the ICQPodcast. Martin M1MRB, Colin M6BOY and Frank K4FMH are Presenters on the podcast, now in it’s 12th year with over 300 episodes. The podcast home is at ICQPodcast.com.

Here is this week’s space weather and geophysical report, issued 2019 Sep 02 0207 UTC.

Highlights of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 26 August – 01 September 2019

Solar activity was at very low levels. New Region 2748 (N14, L=205, class/area Bxo/010 on 01 Sep) emerged on the disk, but remained quiet and stable. No Earth-directed CMEs were observed.

No proton events were observed at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit was at moderate levels on 26 Aug, normal levels on 27-30 Aug, high levels on 31 Aug and very high levels on 01 Sep. Electron flux reached a maximum of 53,007 pfu at 01/2015 UTC.

Geomagnetic field activity ranged from quiet to unsettled levels on 26-27 Aug due to influence from a weak, negative polarity CH HSS. Quiet conditions persisted from late on 27 Aug through midday on 30 Aug. From midday on 30 Aug through 01 Sep, field activity increased to unsettled to G1 (minor) and G2 (moderate) levels as Earth came under the influence of a large, recurrent positive polarity CH HSS. 30 Aug saw a SSBC from a negative to a positive sector in advance of a CIR, all preceding the CH HSS. 31 Aug and 01 Sep observed active to G1 and G2 storm conditions. Wind speeds averaged about 750 km/s during this time frame with a peak of 835 km/s observed early on 01 Sep.

Forecast of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 02 September – 28 September 2019

Solar activity is expected to be at very low levels.

No proton events are expected at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit is expected to be at high to very high levels on 02-13 Sep and again on 27-28 Sep. Normal to moderate levels are expected on 14-26 Sep.

Geomagnetic field activity is expected to be at G1 (minor) storm levels on 02 Sep and G1 (minor) to G2 (moderate) storm levels on 27-28 Sep due to positive polarity CH HSS influence. Unsettled levels are expected on 03, 07-08, 23, and 26 Sep due to recurrent CH HSS effects.

Don’t forget to visit our live space weather and radio propagation web site, at: http://SunSpotWatch.com/

Live Aurora mapping is at http://aurora.sunspotwatch.com/

If you are on Twitter, please follow these two users: 1. https://Twitter.com/NW7US 2. https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

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Be sure to subscribe to our space weather and propagation email group, on Groups.io

https://groups.io/g/propagation-and-space-weather

Spread the word!

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Links of interest:

+ Amazon space weather books: http://g.nw7us.us/fbssw-aSWSC
+ https://Twitter.com/NW7US
+ https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

Space Weather and Ham Radio YouTube Channel News:

I am working on launching a YouTube channel overhaul, that includes series of videos about space weather, radio signal propagation, and more.

Additionally, I am working on improving the educational efforts via the email, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, and other activities.

You can help!

Please consider becoming a Patron of these space weather and radio communications services, beginning with the YouTube channel:

https://www.patreon.com/NW7US

The YouTube channel:
https://YouTube.com/NW7US

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Ham College episode 56 is now available for download.

General Amateur Radio Exam part 27. Meters, Batteries, RF Exposure.
Plus surprise visit from Ray Novak, N9JA live in the Icom booth at Tokyo Hamfair 2019. Preview ground breaking new technology.
01:30:26

Download
YouTube

Presenting the new Icom-705. Recorded live from Tokyo Hamfair 8/31/2019 during Ham College episode 56. Thanks to Erii JP3JZK and Ray Novak, N9JA from Icom.

YouTube