Author - Charles M0OXO

If you are a radio amateur but don’t have a QSL card, maybe you are not satisfied with your current cards or just that you have run out of QSLs then here is an easy solution from myself & from Gennady Treus UX5UO.

UX5UO Qsl print offer a fast, cheap and efficient service to produce the card you desire. There is also the option to pay via Paypal, Cheque, Postal Order or Bank Transfer using their agent in the UK, me !! No more having to go into your Bank and do time wasting foreign bank transfers, this is easy.

Check out these links and see if we can help you at all, it cost nothing to ask!

http://www.m0oxo.com/ux5uo-qsl-cards.html

http://www.ux5uoqsl.com/

From NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA’s The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has been catching brief outbursts of high-energy light that are mysteriously produced above thunderstorms.

The outbursts, known as terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs), last only a few thousandths of a second, but their gamma rays rank among the highest-energy light that naturally occurs on Earth. The enhanced GBM discovery rate helped scientists show most TGFs also generate a strong burst of radio waves, a finding that will change how scientists study this poorly understood phenomenon.

Lightning emits a broad range of very low frequency (VLF) radio waves, often heard as pop-and-crackle static when listening to AM radio. World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN)  researchers routinely detect these radio signals and use them to pinpoint the location of lightning discharges anywhere on the globe to within about 20 km. Scientists have known for a long time TGFs were linked to strong VLF bursts, but they interpreted these signals as originating from lightning strokes somehow associated with the gamma-ray emission.

Click the image to see the YouTube video.

Far beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto, where the sun is a pinprick of light not much brighter than other stars, a vast swarm of icy bodies circles the solar system.  Astronomers call it the “Oort Cloud,” and it is the source of some of history’s finest comets.

One of them could be heading our way now. Comet Pan-STARRS was discovered by the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System atop the Haleakala volcano in Hawaii. Astronomers use the massive 1.8 meter telescope to scan the heavens for Earth-approaching objects, both asteroids and comets, that might pose a danger to our planet. In June 2011 a comet appeared, and it was named “Pan-STARRS” after  the acronym for the telescope.

The best dates to look may be March 12th and 13th when Pan-STARRS emerges in the western sunset sky not far from the crescent Moon. A comet and the Moon, together, framed by twilight-blue is a rare sight.

 Click the image to see the YouTube video.

….Tsunami went 500M inland damaging 3 villages.

Massive subduction earthquake, registered as M 8.0 (USGS/EMSC), hit Santa Cruz Islands at 01:12 UTC on 6th February, 2013. The epicenter was located at coordinates 10.752°S, 165.089°E, about 81 km (50 miles) W of Lata, Solomon Islands at depth of 5.8 km (3.6 miles) (poorly constrained).

Update 06:00 UTC: Unfortunately the Lata Hospital is expecting further casualties of this tsunami. They have confirmed that around 700 people live in the 3 villages destroyed but many people would have escaped. If we take the Koshimura (2006) percentages seen in Banda Aceh from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. For a 2m tsunami, the death ratio was around 0.08-0.1 thus around 60-70 deaths would be expected. For a 0.9-1.1m tsunami as reported, the death ratio was around 0.01-0.025 which would mean around 7-18 deaths are to be expected using this function.

The Vk3HF cards arrived only a few minutes ago.

I apologise for the delay in these arriving, it seems to have been a long time but it actually wasn’t, just a few weeks from design to printing so all is well. Royal Mail did damage the package which didn’t help but anyway they are here.

Cards will be processed and it the mail on Thursday 7th February.

The 10th Antarctic Activity Week (AAW) will soon be upon us running from 18th – 24th February 2013.

Don’t lose the opportunity and apply on time for your Special event Callsign to celebrate the 10th edition of the Antarctic Activity Week with us! 

GB0ANT wil be QRV as usually on PSK, RTTY, SSB and CW – Qsl via M0OXO OQRS

Also QRV will be IR0AAW (WAP-231 operator IZ0VHY) for the first time so have a listen out and support him and the other OM in the event!

AX5PAS Qsl Cards to be issued soonest….

I have around 120 requests to process for AX5PAS, (Commonwealth Day Callsign of VK5PAS) but I am still waiting Qsl Cards from VK which should be here soon.

Please request any cards via M0OXO OQRS,

1300 Qsl Cards processed and en-route RSGB Buro this week.

Cards consist of MRØOXO (299), GR4RCG (512), MRØIAA (279) & 2RØKYI (19). As you may realise, all of these cards were from the Royal Wedding Special events we ran in the UK back in 2011.

Cards were received from RSGB Sub-Manager on 30th January 2013 and processed over the following weekend.

Also processed that weekend were 90 cards for Paul VK5PAS plus a few dozen mailed Direct.

An Earth-directed Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) on 31st January 2013 (07:09 UTC) was accompanied by a large prominence eruption best visible in light with a wavelength of 304 angstroms.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this footage from 10 p.m. January. 30, 2013, to 4 a.m. the next morning. In this video, the imaging cadence is one frame every 36 seconds

The Heliospheric Observatory, show that the CME left the sun at speeds of around 575 miles per second, which is a fairly typical speed for CMEs. Historically, CMEs at this speed are mild.

Not to be confused with a solar flare, a CME is a solar phenomenon that can send solar particles into space and reach Earth one to three days later. Click image to see YouTube video.

A large filament stretching hundreds of thousands of kilometers erupted on Thursday 31st january, 2012. The eruption lasted about 4 hours and was located in the northeast quadrant of the Sun.

The following SDO video shows a variety of views of the break-up of this structure.

Filaments are anchored to the Sun’s surface in the photosphere, and extend outwards into the Sun’s hot outer atmosphere, called the corona. A filament forms over timescales of about a day, and stable filaments may persist in the corona for several months, looping hundreds of thousands of miles into space. (Click image to see YouTube video).

Some of the plasma was released into space but not all could escape the gravitational pull of the Sun. It’s not surprising that plasma should fall back to the Sun. After all, the Sun’s gravity is powerful.

Filaments are formed in magnetic loops that hold relatively cool, dense gas suspended above the surface of the Sun. When you look down on top of them they appear dark because the gas inside is cool compared to the hot photosphere below. But when we see a filament in profile against the dark sky it looks like a giant glowing loop — these are called prominences and they can be spectacular.