Amateur Radio, Contesting, HomeBrew, Circuits, Expeditions

Activity from the San Gabriel Island (SA-057) under the CX1F callsign, postponed the last month because of weather and sea conditions will finally take place on December 13th. QRV 80, 40, 20, 15, 10 and 2 meters, propagation permitting. QSL via CX2FAA       

This week's bulletin was made possible with information provided by NC1L, the OPDX Bulletin, DXNL, 425 DX News, The Daily DX, Contest Corral from QST and the ARRL Contest Calendar and WA7BNM web sites. Thanks to all.

KN4LF Propagation Forecast #2008-35:

PLYMOUTH - The Whitman Amateur Radio Club conducted a two-day special event at Plimoth Plantation the weekend following Thanksgiving. Twenty-two area amateur radio operators (or HAMs) set up six base stations and portable antennas and exchanged contacts with 216 other amateur radio operators in 32 states, 8 foreign countries and 3 Canadian Provinces, according to club President Paul Burbine (N1VTI). The HAM operators spread the word about Plimoth Plantation over the airways, explaining about the living museum and the amazement of visitors who interact with interpreters trained to explain the realities of early Colonial life, in the language of 17th century without acknowledging life beyond the 1620s.

The ARRL is pleased to welcome Membership Manager Diane Petrilli, KB1RNF, to the Headquarters staff in Newington. Petrilli's key areas of responsibility include programs and activities that directly affect membership growth, engagement and retention. Petrilli is taking over the position from Katie Breen, W1KRB. Breen left in October.

Registration remains open through Sunday, December 21, 2008, for these online course sessions beginning on Friday, January 2, 2009: Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Level 1, Radio Frequency Interference, Antenna Design and Construction, Technician License Course, Analog Electronics, and Digital Electronics.

With all the educational opportunities the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station program (ARISS) provides, it's no wonder that the organization has captured the attention of the US Department of Education (DOEd). According to ARRL ARISS Program Manager Rosalie White, K1STO, the DOE has been tracking ARISS's activities for a long time: "The Department of Education invited ARISS to help celebrate the ninth annual International Education Week (IEW) by coordinating three contacts with the International Space Station (ISS) during IEW, November 17-21. How could we say no?" International Education Week is a joint initiative of the US Department of Education and US Department of State.

More info at www.MMMonVHF.de

A group of IV3-operators will be active in MS from JN66 square during Geminids shower, taking part in BCC MS-Contest The group will try as well having a MMMonVHF DXBlog online to spread infos (NO LOG during Contest!).

Dirk, ON5GS, will be qrv serveral days from my "berlingo" shack with 4x4el vertical stack and 200W during BCC MS-Contest. He try setup as well a MMMonVHF DXBlog to spread infos (NO LOG during Contest!)...

The Powerpoint slides used in the satellite beginners session at the Leicester Amateur Radio Show, are now available on the web

William Leijenaar, PE1RAH, has developed a small 435 to 145 MHz (mode UV) linear transponder that will fit into a cubesat

The American Radio Relay League's round-up of the forthcoming week's DX activity

107 in the log. I’ve no idea what my score was since I used N1MM’s DX Serial Contest template to do the logging and the miscellaneous field for logging random text did a hopeless job of being able to edit long club names efficiently. The last time I entered this contest, my log was called into [...]

I’ve been lucky enough to purchase 100 meters of Ecoflex 15 recently and the solderless connectors are awesome. Available for Aircell 7 (RG213 replacement) and Ecoflex 10 (Westflex replacement) and this giant 15mm diameter stuff, once fitted they are completely waterproof. My experience with all these products started with me laying down a few runs for my [...]

2008 will go down as a wet year. Both VHF NFD and SSB FD was a soaking experience. Luckily, as with most close knit teams, we laughed it off and worked through it, however a tough act all the same. I didn’t take too many photos due to the extreme wet weather however I managed [...]

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 [...]