I was feeling under the weather this weekend and thought it would be nice and relaxing to spend some time on the radio. It so happens a CW contest was in full swing the Russian DX contest. I was not into competing but just handing out points. The propagation conditions this past week were a struggle to say the least. Today the conditions were on the rebound a K index of 2 and the Sunspots were in at 27 and the solar wind was still up at 615. I parked on 15m and there was lots of DX rolling in for the contest. I made only 7 contacts for Saturday (so far) most were done with QRPp power! I was very pleased that my condo antenna was able to get out to make some great QRPp low power contacts. My K3 is only able to get down as low at 100mW's silly me I sold my attenuator thinking my contacts under 100mW's were over! I was able to make 3 contacts at milli watt power, 2 contacts at 1 watt, one contact at 3 watts and finally 5 watts. My first QRPp contact in the contest was K5WA in the states, my next QRPp contact was with EA3CX in Spain. Then finally F5IN in France with 500mW's of power.

Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Amateur Radio Weekly is curated by Cale Mooth K4HCK. Sign up free to receive ham radio's most relevant news, projects, technology and events by e-mail each week at http://www.hamweekly.com.

• Sunspot AR-2297 hurls a massive solar flare toward Earth
• Cyclone Pam devastates Vanuatu cutting it off from the world
• Dayton Hamvention names its 2015 award winners
• GAREC 2015 to take place this June in Finland
• Colorado hams now have their own tower and antenna protection law
• Proof that wireless power can be transmitted using microwaves

THIS WEEK'S NEWSCAST
Script
Audio

I have mentioned this before, but I am truly amazed that Yaesu has not updated the FT817.  OK, I have heard the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” argument but on simple commercial arguments I think they must be stupid. There is a worldwide market (500000?) ready to upgrade yet I think they have now missed the window of opportunity as sunspot numbers are falling.

I wonder if any sharp eyed, sharp eared readers have heard any rumours of an imminent replacement?

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

 

 

 

 

Anthony, K3NG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com.

I have a new high altitude balloon project, this one is very Eggciting.

In June my club South Kesteven Amateur Radio Society (SKARS) will be operating a special event station at the Swaton Vintage Day held at Thorpe Latimer in Lincolnshire. 

The 2015 Swaton Vintage Day will also host the 10th World Egg Throwing Championship  and in recognition the special event station will have the call sign GB2EGG. This popular annual show raises money for local, national and international good causes.

Egg Throwing is recognised by the English Sports Council and the sport is taken very seriously by some competitors. Hundreds of competitors from Europe and around the world are expected to compete this year. Last year’s event attracted teams from Germany, Slovenia, Hong Kong and Brazil.

While planning the special event station I jokingly suggested throwing an egg in to space on board a balloon, I shouldn't have yoked as it is now a serious project. The idea coming from Dave Akerman's Spudnik flight for Heston Blumenthal’s Channel4 television program.

Image with the permission of Dave Akerman

Subject to Civil Aviation Authority clearance and weather conditions I will hopefully launch a high altitude balloon carrying one lucky egg into the edge of space and then dropping it back to earth under a parachute. In addition to the plucky Eggstronaut the balloon I have called Eggsplorer-1 will carry a radio transmitter to broadcast its position, altitude and live images of the journey back to earth.

On board cameras will record the journey to be recovered on a successful return to Earth. Radio enthusiasts all around the country will be able to assist receiving the data and pictures and track the progress of the flight via the UK High Altitude Society tracking website.

More details and progress will be posted on here and on the Eggsplorer-1 website  and you can follow developments on twitter @eggsplorer1South Kesteven ARS welcomes anybody with an interest in radio communications, so if want to be involved in this and other events like this please visit us at the show or visit the South Kestevan ARS website and on twitter @M0SKR

I have already begun development of the payload, unlike the moth-balled NERD-1 payload this one will use one of the Raspberry Pi boards since I want to transmit SSDV images live and it supports its own specially designed camera modules. NERD-1 will still fly as a backup tracker.

Dave Akerman (M0RPI) and Anthony Stirk (M0UPU) have developed the Pi-In-The-Sky ready made boards and the design and software are open-sourced, using this as a starting point together with Phil Heron's (MI0VIM) SSDV software I quickly had a prototype dubbed NERDPI running.


I did have an issue since the GPS module I currently have only outputs serial data so had to use one of those small TTL USB-Serial adapters and spun some of my own code to get the data out and was soon successfully decoding my own transmissions from the shack and uploading them to the Habhub system.


Today has seen the spectacular partial solar eclipse here in the UK, during the eclipse several HAB flights were launched to try to capture images above any cloud cover (details here)  Fellow SKARS members and members from the Grantham ARC were keen to decode the SSDV images themselves as the BBC Stargazing Live balloons were flying from nearby Leicester.

So on Wednesday I did a talk and demonstration to show how to track and decode the images, it was well received and I uploaded pictures of the audience to the system.


Unfortunately technical issues prevented live images from the Stargazing HABs being transmitted but I was able to decode some images from the University of Southampton OLAF payload They were only lo-res but still pleased to get decodes here it was a good distance from me.

Here in Newark the sky was beautifully clear so the eclipse was visible and spectacular, where OLAF was flying was covered in cloud, so the mission was a success.







   


Andrew Garratt, MØNRD, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from East Midlands, England. Contact him at [email protected].

I’ve always been fascinated with wireless communications. I’m the kid that had all of the CB radio walkie-talkies torn apart on the toy room floor. Last year I really got hooked on QRP…I’ve made a number of 5W CW contacts, along with tons of 5W PSK31 QSOs. My latest adventure involves these two new acronyms – COTS and AREDN.

Michael Brown, KG9DW, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Illinois, USA. Contact him at [email protected].