Archive - April 2013

Another batch of cards arrived 25th April and processed for the RSGB Buro yesterday. Sadly contents from all 5 packages appeared to be missing so undoubtedly a good amount of cards lost and not arriving here***;

Cards issued;

GB0ANT 76, GBØHI 34, GB1HI 73, GB2HI 66, GBØWSD 23, GB6ØHRH 27, GB2WHL 28, GB75UW 17, 

There were also cards for many other GB stations but in the main these were typically less than 10 in number. If you require a card please use M0OXO OQRS and remember, please DO NOT request the card more than once, save the planet 😉

DX8DX – Update;

Qsl Cards designed and at print shop. I expect delivery within next 14 days and hope to dispatch within 1 month of the operation having finished (before end of May I hope!). Currently processed ;DX8DX OC-174 – 287 Qsl requests, DX8DX OC-225 – 366 Qsl requests.

‘G*1ØØC’ event;

Re, G1ØØC. GD1ØØC, GJ1ØØC, GM1ØØC & GW1ØØC, cards are being prepared for this year-long RSGB Centenery event. Cards in the process of design by G100C team. I should have them with printer very shortly. Sri delay on these, I have no control over these cards.

***Lost cards. The only cards that will have been lost will be ‘GB – Special Event cards’, nothing else at all.

Any questions about any callsign I am manager for please just drop me an email, keep an eye on this blog for updates.

Oh boy, K index at 5 this morning.

Just a few days of good conditions would be a real bonus!

Space Weather Message Code: ALTK05
Serial Number: 713
Issue Time: 2013 Apr 26 0601 UTC

ALERT: Geomagnetic K-index of 5
Threshold Reached: 2013 Apr 26 0559 UTC
Synoptic Period: 0300-0600 UTC
Active Warning: Yes
NOAA Scale: G1 – Minor

Potential Impacts: Area of impact primarily poleward of 60 degrees Geomagnetic Latitude. Induced Currents – Weak power grid fluctuations can occur. Spacecraft – Minor impact on satellite operations possible.

Later this year, Comet ISON is expected to become a naked-eye object when it skims through the atmosphere of the sun.  The Hubble Space Telescope has just obtained a sneak preview.

Hubble photographed ISON on the 10th April. At the time, the comet was 386 million miles from the sun (394 million miles from Earth), just inside the orbit of Jupiter. Even at that great distance the comet is already active as sunlight warms the surface and causes frozen gases to vaporize. A detailed analysis of the image reveals a strong jet blasting dust particles off the sunward-facing side of the comet’s nucleus.

Preliminary measurements  suggest that the ISON’s nucleus is no larger than three or four miles (~5 to 6 km) across and the comet’s dusty atmosphere, or “coma”, is approximately 3,100 miles across, or 1.2 times the width of Australia. A dust tail extends more than 57,000 miles, far beyond Hubble’s field of view.

Harald DF2WO will be qrv from the Cape Verde Islands soon.

D44TWO will be on air from IOTA AF-005 (Leeward islands Group) between the 03rd and 20th June (approx) 2013.

QSL via MØOXO OQRS

Jupiter’s moon Io is the most volcanically active world in the Solar System. It has hundreds of volcanoes and volcanic activity 25 times that of Earth. However, according to NASA and European Space Agency researchers, the concentrations of volcanic activity are significantly displaced from where they are expected to be based on models that predict how the moon’s interior is heated.

Observations made by NASA’s New Horizon project in 2007 had the vantage point of capturing the giant plume from Io’s Tvashtar volcano. The debris were ejected to 330 km (250 miles) above the surface of the moon.

Masubi and Zal erupted alongside Tvashtar, ejecting three plumes high above. Loki, a virtual lake of lava and Boosaule Mons, which at 18 km (11 miles) is the highest mountain on Io and one of the highest mountains in the solar system can all be seen together in the five images captured by LORRI (Long Range Reconnaissance Imager) on the New Horizons spacecraft.

Click here to see You Tube clips of eruption.

Spoke with Dindo DX8DX (DV1UD) this morning after a successful trip to OC-174 and OC-225.

Logs are now received and Qsl requests being processed. Log check requests here please http://www.m0oxo.com/contact-m0oxo.html

Photographs were also received this morning so design of Qsl cards now taking place and I hope to have them withing 3-4 weeks of hitting the print process. Some images can be seen here

http://www.m0oxo.com/dx8dx/oc-174.html

http://www.m0oxo.com/dx8dx/oc-225.html

Dindo thanks all of the stations who called him, whether in the log or not. It was an amazing experience and the pile ups enormous. Well done Dindo on your first DX pile ups, incredible job!

Qsl via M0OXO OQRS click here

This month communication between Mars and Earth may be disrupted due to a planetary arrangement called Mars solar conjunction, where Mars will be passing almost directly behind the sun from Earth’s perspective. Mars solar conjunction happens once about every 26 months, and not every conjunction is the same. They vary because of the changing sun’s activity and also in terms of how close to directly behind the sun Mars gets.

In period from April 9 to 26th April, 2013 transmissions from Earth to the orbiters will be suspended while Mars and the sun are two degrees or less apart in the sky. This year the sun is in its more active period and the apparent angle between Mars and sun will slim to 0.4 degree on 17th April, 2013.

This is the sixth conjunction for NASA’s Mars Odyssey, so mission managers have plenty of useful experience dealing with them, though each conjunction is a little different. This time, Curiosity is also at Mars surface. Torsten Zorn of JPL, conjunction planning leader for Curiosity’s engineering operations team, said that they plan to maintain visibility of rover status – Curiosity will be sending daily beeps directly to Earth, and their second line of visibility is in the Odyssey relays.

Dindo DX8DX began tx’in from Taganak Island (Turtle Island Group) IOTA OC-225 yesterday afternoon (12th).

There were some postings suggesting a Pirate operation at one point but as we have no contact with Dindo, we cannot confirm this until logs are received. I will post on the below web page when the logs is received.

This is the rarest of the two groups and demand high. I expect activity 12th & 13th, after that we are not sure.

http://www.m0oxo.com/dx8dx.html

Good luck to all !!

Images show an updated image of a pair of Sunspots forming in the southeast quadrant.

The magnetic image confirms that they are two independent regions.

These spots are forming near the remnants of old Sunspot 1703 from the previous rotation (tnx Solardata.com)