Category - Blog

PLANETS TO VIEW: Venus is well up in the southwest after dusk, with Jupiter nearly south and high. Mars will be in the east by 9 p.m., and Saturn will be in the east by 1 a.m. Mercury is out of sight for now.

THE MOON becomes full Tuesday and will be extremely bright and high every night this week, making dark-sky stargazing difficult.

THIS WEEK: Despite the bright moonlight, there will be some interesting things to spot in the sky, especially tonight.

Look just below and right of the gibbous moon, and you’ll spot a very bright star. This is Procyon, the brighter half of the two-star constellation Canis Minor (the Pup or Little Dog).

Procyon forms an interesting quadrangle with Sirius (below and right), Betelgeuse (right and nearly even) and Rigel (beyond Betelgeuse and Sirius). This is the tightest concentration of stars of zero magnitude or brighter anywhere in the sky in either hemisphere.

Procyon is a yellow star like the sun, only larger. Like Sirius, it is a relative neighbor at about 11 light years away (Sirius is 8 light years away).  Betelgeuse and Rigel are 300 and 600 light years off respectively.

This is a Weather Watch issued by Metcheck at 08:47 on Friday 03rd February 2012.

Apart from the risk of some snow showers affecting parts of East Anglia and southeast England on Friday night, bringing a slight covering in places, the main risk of snow this weekend comes during Saturday and Sunday as an Atlantic weather front moves in from the west.

There is some uncertainty over how much snow may fall, but at the moment it looks like outbreaks of rain will move in across western areas of England and Wales during Saturday afternoon and evening, before spreading to central and eastern areas

Well done to my mate Keith (2E0KYI) on his successful pass of the Advanced Licence Examination held a few days ago. He fully deserves it and I am very pleased to hear the news this afternoon.

Well done matey, look forward to working M0KYI on the Bands!

Congratulations also to Ken (2E0SSQ) who also passed the Advanced exam, his new Callsign M0SSQ, well done Ken!

Great news from Pierre ZS8M – He has established a Ham Radio Shack for the visually impaired in South Africa.

This is what Pierre tells us;

Greetings All,

As I stated on my www.qrz.com/db/zs8m web page, I have established a ham shack for four visually impaired radio hams in Worcester. The equipment was purchased from the donations of the ZS8M qsl cards. The Icom IC-718 also has a voice module to assist them with frequency and mode selection, while the antenna is a military grade broad band HF antenna allowing them to select bands easily.

Photos ; Top Left – Pierre with Andre ZR1ATS, Ray and David, Bottom – Inspecting the Icom 718

More pictures will be posted on qrz.com soon.

**Well done Pierre, you are a credit and held in high esteen by all Radio Hams around the World. This latest story just confirms that. Well done Pierre!!

Down in the Dungeon and with no natural light, what a dream it would be to have this awesome view from my Shack window!

Click the images to have a look at the website of Thor TF4M, a site you will really enjoy with excellent information and images from the high Arctic.

His biography begins;

”I grew up in the countryside and became used to physical work at an early age. I worked in the Whaling Station in Hvalfjordur for 7 summer seasons and during winters I worked at sea as a deckhand on various fishing vessels and trawlers.

I learned Wire and Rope Splicing (Ships Rigging) and worked in this specialist trade for several years. I drove Taxis for a few years and I got my Amateur licence in 1984. I worked for a while at the TFA and TFT Coast Stations – Ship to Shore service as a radio operator and I served as a Field Service Officer with the UN from 1991 to 2003.”

…..click the images below to go directly to Thor’s website….

Well finally got the elusive Pitcairn Island VP6T in the log but with great difficulty!
That brings me to DXCC #308 and IOTA #519.

So, in the last week thats 3 all time new ones logged, VP6T, HK0NA and VK0TH. C21HA Nauru still eludes me but will keep persevering it may be worth it i guess for the last of the all time new ones that are currently Qrv!

Thanks to Nigel G3TXF for pulling me out of the noise in the Pitcairn pile up 😉

These details announced late on Sunday night ;

”I am very sorry to say that due to unforesesable circumstances, DL1LLL is not available for the field trip today, so our operation from PALAOA Observatory has to be postponed. It is definitely not cancelled, and I will announce the new date as soon as possible.

Please accept our apologies. We’re still working on making it happen!”

Good luck next time guys…

HK0NA doing well and being audible on most bands albeit there is a big difference with signals between the South and the North of the UK. Recent Solar Flares and general propagation not helping the smaller stations up here in the North.

Malpelo Island (Spanish: Isla de Malpelo) is an island located 235 miles (378 km) from Colombia’s Pacific coast, and approximately 225 miles (362 km) from Panama’s coast. It has a land area of 0.35 square kilometres (86 acres). It is uninhabited except for a small military post manned by the Colombian Army, which was established in 1986. Visitors need a written permit from the Colombian Ministry of Ecology. The island is part of Cauca Department.

The island consists of a sheer and barren rock with three high peaks, the highest being Cerro de la Mona with a height of 300 metres (980 ft). The island is surrounded by a number of offshore rocks. Off the northeast corner are the Tres Mosqueteros. Off the southwest corner are Salomon, Saul, La Gringa, and Escuba. Malpelo Nature Reserve, a plant and wildlife sanctuary, is defined as a circular area of radius 9.656 kilometres (6.000 miles).