Amateur Radio, Contesting, HomeBrew, Circuits, Expeditions

Expected to be QRV on above dates. Bands: 40 - 6m (mostly 20m) Modes: SSB/CW QSL via JI1JKW  Direct or Buro       

One dead, one critically injured after 'Wings of Wind' balloon crashes into powerline near N.M. 528. The two people who were aboard the "Wings of Wind" hot-air balloon when it crashed this morning have been identified by Kathie Leyendecker, a spokeswoman for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, according to The Associated Press. Killed in the crash was Stephen Lachendro, and the balloon's creator, Keith Sproul, was critically injured in the accident, Leyendecker said. Leyendecker said she did not know where the victims were from, nor who was flying the balloon. The balloon was registered to a New Jersey pilot, she told the AP. Lachendro was found dead at the scene lying on the side of a ditch, Sproul was unconscious and was flown by helicopter to a local hospital, authorities said. A hospital spokesman said Sproul was in critical condition today afternoon, the AP reported.

This Weekend on the Radio:

Defending and enhancing access to the Amateur Radio spectrum is the primary mission of the ARRL. According to ARRL Chief Executive Officer David Sumner, K1ZZ, the League has not only protected the bands, but has also added several new ones, despite exponential growth in the variety and number of radio frequency devices in the hands of consumers and businesses. "Even our most disappointing defeat -- the loss of the bottom 40 percent of the 220 MHz band some two decades ago -- gave us upgraded status, from shared to exclusive, in the remaining 60 percent of the band," he said.

A familiar sight appeared this week, as a sunspot emerged for one day, then was gone. Based on its magnetic polarity and high position in our Sun's southern hemisphere, sunspot 1003 was a new Solar Cycle 24 sunspot; like all the other recent sunspots, it was short lived.

This week's Surfin' again considers Web sites related to Amateur Television (ATV) going digital.

On Wednesday, October 8, Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell (D) signed into law a bill that guarantees radio amateurs the right to erect antenna support structures up to 65 feet without the need for a Special Use Permit. The bill passed in the House with a vote of 196-1; it passed in the Senate with a vote of 49-1. The new law is scheduled to go into effect December 8, 60 days after signing.

More info at www.MMMonVHF.de

Rolf, DK2ZF, is active from CT3 (IM12JS) on 144 MHz EME between today (10th of october) until 22nd October 2008

VK9DWX - Willis Island taking place October 2008

Radio manufacturer, Icom UK has donated an advanced digital radio transceiver to Chatham House grammar school, a specialist school in Mathematics, Science and Computing based in Ramsgate

The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Slow Scan Television (SSTV) team announces the new ARISS SSTV Web Gallery and Blog

The ARISS team has a lot of exciting activities planned for the next few weeks, including the flight of Soyuz 17S to space station with Richard Garriott, W5KWQ and Mike Fincke, KE5AIT on-board

I posted this here: http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/yacht-crews/10048-my-life-monaco.html#post65529 I have memories of my time based in Monte Carlo as a Steward on board Milamba IV, a 108 foot steel displacement Feadship with a very British (Campers and Nicholson refit) style and British crew. In 1979 I had hitch-hiked to the South of France after dreaming of someday working on a [...]

Today, James popped over and helped me shove a 16 foot lightweight pole into the top of the rotator on the tower. I attached a small video camera to the top of the pole. It was quite funny because I couldn’t control the camera from the ground, so holding the pole horizontally at waist height, we [...]

When the kids start to play less outside in the winter, I like to experiment with a new vertical each year. This year it’s a 12m spiderbeam vertical fibreglass pole loosely wound with some hard drawn copper wire. A waste pipe supplies the engineering for the radials with the SG230 doing the matching. This allows [...]

Few days ago I have published quick how-to about how to configure postfix as backup MX. I am starting to like postfix more and more, it is very easy to configure and to deal with. One of the problems you will find out when you use backup MX, that it can be put down on its knees [...]

Lately I have been playing with Postfix, which I needed to use as backup MX for some of my domains. Initially, I was using Zimbra, but I would have to have quite powerfull server to run Zimbra for just forwarding emails / setting it up as backup MX server. Postfix is in this case much [...]

In the last few years I have attended Special Even Station - GB0SH with a group of my friends in West Wales. This year it would be our 4th time visiting Strumble Head Lighthouse on the West cost of Wales, by Fishguard. This year there will be just 5 of us. Here is the information we [...]