GB2RS NEWS

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 £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 [email protected] – 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 [email protected], 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.