Category - Blog

WFF GreenDay 2010 – A «Green» Day of activity in Biological Diversity Year.

Within the framework of the annual worldwide nature protection action, the Day of Activity, ‘WFF GreenDay 2010‘ is being organized.

Radio amateurs of the whole world are invited to join us by having QSOs with radio-stations working from territories within National Parks and Nature Reserves of the World for a 24hour period on the 12th June 2010. ‘Especially Protected Nature Territories’ (EPNT) – are now included into the WFF Directory (see WFF Directory: http://www.wff44.com/en/list/).

Keep an eye out on my blog for details of the GFF Area (new!) that I will activate on ‘Green Day 2010‘.

Well, I finally got around to fitting the new SteppIR 30/40M Kit to my original 2 element SteppIR.

The 30/40M Dipole is simply a driven element which functions as a Dipole from 6.8Mhz to 13.8Mhz and it also acts as the driven element for the main Yagi between 13.8Mhz tand 54.0Mhz.

A normal Dipole for 40M would be approx. 64 feet long whereas this element is 39 feet long, created by looping the element tip back towards the boom. On 30M since the copper tape barely turns the corner back towards the boom, essentially it performs like a full size dipole would.

More information on the SteppIR range of antennas can be found on the website of Vine Antennas. Further reading and images on how I constructed  this & other SteppIR products can be found in the Gallery and also under the Radio Projects page on this website (in the coming days.) Thanks to Ron Stone GW3YDX (Vine Antennas) and John Muzyka G4RCG for their help and advice with the 30/40 Kit.

The UK’s emergency committee Cobra has met to discuss the ash cloud chaos and HMS Ark Royal & HMS Ocean of the Royal Navy are on their way to help ferry stranded Britons back home from EU. Travel agents’ association Abta says its “rough estimate” is that 150,000 Britons are currently stranded abroad due to the chaos caused by the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano. UK flight restrictions have been extended until at least 1900 utc today.

Previous eruptions in the area have caused flooding due to the melting of glacial ice but the current eruption is in an area covered by winter snow, not permanent ice. Although some past eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull were followed by larger, explosive eruptions at nearby Katla Volcano, there is currently no sign of activity at Katla.

This image made available by NEODASS/University of Dundee shows the volcanic ash plume from Iceland, top left, to the north of Britain at received by NASA’s Terra Satellite (11.39 GMT Thursday April 15, 2010).

After months and in some cases years of waiting, SYOPS of DX Clusters now seem to be tightening up their Security. One of the first to take this step is the most popular site ”DX Summit”.
To cut down on the unwanted traffic such as foul language, DX Summit has taken the stance of now becoming password protected.

To post any ‘spot’ on the cluster via DX Summit, you first have to register and obtain a password which you must enter for each and every spot you send. It is hoped this will tighten up the appalling behaviour by allowing the offenders IP address and email addresses to be more easily found and where necessary, to be reported to authorities

Hundreds of flights have been cancelled around the UK and Europe and all UK airports have now closed as a result of a volcano eruption in Iceland. Airports that were open  earlier this morning have now closed having suffered major disruption.

The developments came after the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland yesterday erupted for the second time in a month, spewing massive clouds of ash thousands of feet into the sky. Scientists said the eruption, under a glacier, was 10 to 20 times more powerful than the one last month.  The volcano erupted on March 20 after almost 200 years of silence.

The ash in the atmosphere closed Scottish airspace this morning and forced Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle airports to close. Hundreds of flights have been cancelled at other airports.

Liverpool, Manchester, Stansted, Birmingham, East Midlands, Bristol, Luton, Gatwick and Heathrow are all affected.. It cannot be seen from the ground as it is blowing across Britain around three miles in the sky. Ash can disrupt the engines of an aircraft and reduce visibility as well as affecting landing and navigation gear.

This morning a Heathrow Airport spokesman said 150 flights, both arrivals and departures, had been cancelled – at the busiest time of the day – and more flights were expected to be affected as the cloud of ash moved south. At Gatwick, 108 flights have been cancelled, while at least 17 flights are grounded at Stansted.

Birmingham airport has seen 70 flights cancelled, while Bristol has halted around 20 flights. Rivers rose by up to ten feet (three metres) as the ferocious temperatures melted the glacier, turning it to water, which gushed down the mountainside.

Iceland’s main coastal ring road was closed near the volcano, and workers smashed three holes in the highway in a bid to to give the rushing water a clear route to the coast and prevent bridges from being swept away.

Scientists said the eruption under the ice cap was 10 to 20 times more powerful than the one last month, and carried a much greater risk of widespread flooding.

Emirates have announced that they plan to fly the Double Decker Super Jumbo, the Emirates A380 to Manchester from 1 September 2010, the A380 replacing the existing Boeing 777 that operates flight numbers EK017 & EK018, and will be a daily service.

The Emirates A380 that will operate this Dubai to Manchester Route is expected to be a 517 seat long three class configured aircraft with Emirates Award winning First Class, Business Class and economy class cabin and seats.

Flying directly over my QTH, the daily carriers from the Far East are an awesome sight as they drop down very low for the runway approach at Manchester and the A380 will just be an amzing addition to the viewing (for all the sad people like me!).

Finally and with the grateful assistance of Steve GW4BKG, I can report that the area in the WFF Directory relating to ‘GFF’ and ‘GWFF’ have been updated.

When WFF first launched, ‘GFF’ was all one entity. However, when the decision was made to split into ‘G’, ‘GM’ & ‘GW’, ‘GFF-015’ in particular had already been activated several times and therefore couldn’t be moved into the ‘GW’ list (as thousands of Qsl Cards had ‘GFF-015’ on them and several logs had also appeared on the ew4dx logsearch system). As well as those, several others appeared in the original list that were now covered by the GMFF team and therefore again, they were not eligible to appear in the ‘GFF’ lists.

The updated entries have been forewarded to WFF HQ and I hope in the near future they will appear on the WFF website for download. Meanwhile you can access the new listings by clicking on the links here –