Podcasts about Lyrids

GB2RS News Sunday the 4th of May 2025 The news headlines: The RSGB's Tonight@8 series continues with HamSCI Learn about radar through an RSGB Convention presentation and a new members' benefit RSGB club insurance and beacon and repeater insurance have been renewed On Monday the 12th of May, Dr Nathaniel Frissell, W2NAF and RSGB Propagation Studies Committee member Gwyn Griffiths, G3ZIL will be delivering a Tonight@8 webinar on “Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation: Space Weather We Can Do Together”. Since the 2017 Solar Eclipse QSO Party, HamSCI has been bringing together amateur radio operators and professional space scientists. They have been developing new and innovative ways to study space weather and its impacts on the ionosphere and radio propagation. In the presentation, Nathaniel will show results from the 2023 and 2024 HamSCI Festivals of Eclipse Ionospheric Science. Gwyn will explain why he enjoys the HamSCI experience, from exchanges with scientists to learning from students while pursuing his studies on HF propagation. They'll also talk about what's next for the organisation and how you can participate. Find out more by going to rsgb.org/webinars In the latest RSGB 2024 Convention video to be released by the Society, Graham Murchie, G4FSG presents “Radar - the eyes of the few”. In the talk Graham gives a brief history of early radar, events leading up to the development of a viable system and the establishment of the world's first operational radar station at Bawdsey. Watch the video by going to youtube.com/@theRSGB  If you're interested in learning more about Bawdsey Radar Museum then check out the new benefit for RSGB members, which offers a 20% discount off the usual entrance price. Go to rsgb.org/partner-museums  to find out more! RSGB club insurance, and beacon and repeater insurance have now been renewed for the year to April 2026. Club insurance certificates can be downloaded via rsgb.org/repeaterinsurance. You will need to log in to obtain your certificate. Beacon and repeater insurance certificates are available for an admin fee of £15 from the RSGB shop.  Please allow a couple of days after renewal for your certificate to be dispatched. The RSGB Contest Club has recently exceeded one million QSOs. These have been made by RSGB members activating historic RSGB callsigns and special event callsigns, either in contests or in radio marathon activations. The QSOS have all been uploaded to Logbook of the World. The most prolific callsign has been G6XX with over 154,000 QSOs, and the most recent has been GB0IARU which was active in April to celebrate 100 years of the International Amateur Radio Union. Find out more about the RSGB Contest club, including how to join, by going to the RSGB website and selecting Contest Club from the ‘on the air' menu. Celebrations for the 70th Anniversary of GB2RS are well underway. To find out how you can get involved with special event stations and awards go to rsgb.org/gb70rs . The RSGB has recently updated the web page to add a selection of newsreader stories, which you can access by clicking ‘GB2RS Newsreader Stories' from the menu on the right-hand side. If you've ever wanted to learn more about the voice behind your weekly GB2RS broadcast, this is your chance. More stories will be added throughout the year. On Saturday the 10th of May, RSGB volunteers will be attending a regional Girlguiding event at Ardingly in West Sussex. Amongst other activities, Girlguiding members will have the opportunity to operate special event callsign GB25MAY via the QO-100 satellite. The volunteers would welcome contacts via QO-100 between 10.30 am and 3.30 pm on the day. Put the date in your diary and make time to encourage these youngsters as they try amateur radio! The German amateur radio society, DARC, is once again hosting the traditional HamCamp for youngsters during the HAM RADIO fair in Friedrichshafen  between the 26th and 29th of June. It is open to participants under 27 years old and includes three nights at HamCamp, three breakfast vouchers and a three-day ticket for the HAM RADIO fair. The package price is €80 and the deadline for registration is the 8th of June. You can find further information via tinyurl.com/hamcamp25 Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk  The deadline for submissions is 10am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week. And now for details of rallies and events The Dartmoor Radio Rally is taking place tomorrow, Monday the 5th of May, at the Yelverton War Memorial Hall, Meavy Lane, Yelverton, Devon, PL20 6AL. Free parking is available. There will be the usual Bring and Buy as well as trader stands and refreshments. Doors open at 10am and admission is £3. For further details, please call Roger on 07854 088882 or email him via 2e0rph@gmail.com The popular Mills on the Air event is taking place on the weekend of the 10th and 11th of May. There are currently 35 stations taking part, with registrations still being accepted. Find out more by going to tinyurl.com/millsontheair or by visiting the Mills on the Air Facebook page. Now the Special Event news The Ramsbury Amateur Radio DX Group will be active on the 3rd, 4th and 8th of May using special callsign GB1VE to celebrate VE day. The group will be operating on 20m and 40m using CW, SSB and digital modes. The Vintage and Military Amateur Radio Society will be commemorating VE Day on Thursday the 8th of May. Members will be controlling a number of nets on varying frequencies between 7 am and 2 pm. They will be using vintage military equipment dating from the WWII period and beyond. The full programme of events can be found via vmars.org/news Worthing Radio Events Group are planning to operate GB8OFP for the anniversary of VE Day on the 8th of May. Operation will take place on the seafront at the Ferring Pillbox, Patterson's Walk, West Sussex. Members will be active between 10 am and 2 pm on the 40m and 20m bands using SSB. The East Midlands Electronics and Radio Group will be on the air between the 8th and 11th of May to celebrate the 80th anniversary of VE Day. Using the callsign GB1BK, the group will operate from the former RAF Binbrook in Lincolnshire. Members expect to be operational on at least 40m, 20m and 2m, using SSB and possibly some FT8 and SSTV. Guernsey Amateur Radio Society will be operating special event radio station GU80LIB between the 9th and the 11th of May in celebration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Guernsey at the end of World War Two. See QRZ.com for more information. Special event station GB0SAR will be operating between the 3rd and the 30th of May to support SOS Radio Week. The station will mostly be working using FT4 on the 20m band but you might also catch it on the other HF bands using phone. For more information, visit QRZ.com  Now the DX news A team of radio amateurs is active as TX9A from Tubuai in the Austral Islands, IOTA reference OC-152, until Wednesday the 7th of May. The group will operate on the HF bands. QSL is available via DK8ZZ. For all direct requests, use Clublog OQRS. Further information is available via austral2025.com Yuris, YL2GM is active as ZS8W from Prince Edward and Marion Island, IOTA reference AF-021, until Friday the 16th of May. Yuris will be on Marion island as a radio engineer and member of the SANAP station communication equipment maintenance team, and he hopes to find good periods of time to be operational.  Now the contest news The ARI International DX Contest started on Saturday the 3rd of May and ends at 1159UTC today, Sunday the 4th of May. Using CW, RTTY and SSB on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Italian stations also send their province. The 432MHz to 245GHz Contest also started on Saturday the 3rd of May and ends at 1400UTC today, Sunday the 4th of May. Using all modes on 432MHz to 245GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The 10GHz Trophy runs today, Sunday the 4th of May, from 0800 to 1400 UTC. Using all modes on 10GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The May 144MHz Contest also runs today, Sunday the 4th of May, from 0800 to 1400 UTC. Using all modes on the 2m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also today, the 144MHz Backpackers Contest runs from 1100 to 1500 UTC. Using all modes on the 2m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. UK stations also send their postcode. Today, Sunday the 4th of May, the UK Microwave Group Low Band Contest runs from 0800 to 1400 UTC. Using all modes on 1.3 to 3.4GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The Worked All Britain 7MHz Phone Contest runs today, Sunday the 4th of May, from 1000 to 1400 UTC. Using SSB on the 40m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and Worked All Britain Square. On Tuesday, the 6th of May, the 144MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1800 to 1855UTC. Using FM on the 2m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also on Tuesday, the 6th of May, the 144MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130UTC. Using all modes on the 2m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday, the 7th of May, the 144MHz FT8 Activity four-hour Contest runs from 1700 to 2100 UTC. Using FT8 on the 2m band, the exchange is a report and a four-character locator. Also on Wednesday, the 7th of May, the 144MHz FT8 Activity two-hour Contest runs from 1900 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 2m band, the exchange is report and four-character locator. Stations entering the four-hour contest may also enter the two-hour contest. On Thursday, the 8th of May, the 50MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130 UTC. Using all modes on the 6m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 1st of May 2025 After the previous week's geomagnetic disturbances, as described in last week's GB2RS, the last seven days have been relatively quiet. The Kp index has mostly been in the ones and twos, however the rise to a Kp value of four on Thursday the 1st of May could herald a return to unsettled conditions. The solar flux index peaked at 170 on the 24th of April, before declining to 148 at the end of the month. HF conditions have been acceptable rather than outstanding and many stations struggled to work DX at times during International Marconi Day on the 26th of April. Nevertheless, there is DX about including ZS8W Marion Island, TX9A Austral Islands and HD8G Galapagos Islands. A look at the Proppy propagation prediction tool will help you work out the best times for making a contact with each station and on each band. You can find it by going to rsgb.org/propagation-tools Looking ahead, a large sunspot has rotated into view. Now designated 4079, this region has returned and was previously sunspot region 4055. It has already emitted an M-class solar flare, and we may expect greater activity as it becomes more Earth-centric over the next week. NOAA predicts that the solar flux index will climb again in the coming week, perhaps rising to between 160 and 165. Geomagnetic disturbances are also due to rise, with the Kp index forecast to reach five on the 5th and 6th of May. If this becomes a reality, expect lowered MUFs and poorer HF paths, especially over the poles as the Kp index rises. And finally, this week traditionally marks the start of the Sporadic-E season so keep an eye on 10m and 12m for short- and medium-range openings to Europe. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The current spell of high-pressure Tropo weather weakened a little as last week ended and we'll see the return of unsettled conditions with showery rain, perhaps even the odd thunderstorm. This is unlikely to lead to a total removal of high pressure and Tropo will still be worth looking for, especially over the western side of the UK. Some models place a new high just west of Britain during the coming week. This means that the rain prospects are not great, although probably just enough for a hint of rain scatter in any isolated heavier showers. The HF bands sounded a bit ‘watery' at times last week, which is a classic sign of potential aurora to explore on the higher bands. Look out for aurora in the coming week if the Kp index climbs above five. Meteor scatter is worth thinking about and, after last week's Lyrids, we now have the Eta Aquariids shower peaking in the early hours of the 6th of May. Remember that Sporadic-E ionisation is largely composed of long-lived meteor ions, so be on watch for Es openings. From now onwards through to mid-September, Sporadic-E will dominate the lower VHF bands, so check the clusters for signs of activity. Remember that Es starts on 10m and moves HF as an opening develops, even reaching 2m in the peak summer. Unlike Tropo, Es events are often fleeting, so the best you can do is monitor conditions as the Es intensifies and be ready when it reaches the band you want. Don't forget to check the daily Es blogs on www.propquest.co.uk which discuss the potential links between location of jet streams and Es formation. EME path losses are increasing, but apogee is still a week away. Moon declination passed maximum last Thursday so Moon windows are shortening along with reducing peak elevation. 144MHz sky noise is low all week. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

In this episode of SpaceTime, we unveil groundbreaking evidence that challenges previously held theories about the origins of Earth's water. Recent findings published in the journal Icarus indicate that rather than being delivered by asteroids and comets, Earth's water may have formed alongside the planet itself. The study utilizes a unique meteorite known as the enstatite chondrite to reveal a rich source of hydrogen essential for water formation, reshaping our understanding of how life-sustaining conditions developed on Earth.The Enigmatic Magnetic Field of MarsNext, we delve into the curious case of Mars's magnetic field, which has puzzled scientists for decades. A new study suggests that the strange magnetic signatures observed on the Red Planet could be attributed to a partially molten core predominantly covering the southern hemisphere. This research provides fresh insights into Mars's geological history and the implications for its atmospheric evolution, as the planet transitioned from a warm, wet environment to the arid desert we see today.The Lyrids Meteor ShowerAdditionally, we celebrate one of humanity's oldest known meteor showers, the Lyrids, which are currently dazzling skywatchers. First recorded over 2,700 years ago, these meteors originate from comet Thatcher and promise a beautiful celestial display. Although not as prolific as other meteor showers, the Lyrids offer a captivating spectacle for stargazers, with expectations of 10 to 15 meteors per hour during peak viewing times.00:00 Space Time Series 28 Episode 50 for broadcast on 25 April 202500:49 New evidence on the origins of Earth's water06:30 Analysis of the enstatite chondrite meteorite12:15 The mystery of Mars's magnetic field18:00 Implications of a partially molten Martian core22:45 Overview of the Lyrids meteor shower27:00 Summary of recent astronomical findings30:15 Science report: Health risks linked to food additiveswww.spacetimewithstuartgary.comwww.bitesz.com

The mild nights of spring are good times for skywatching. Only one thing is missing: a great meteor shower. The best showers are clustered in fall and winter, with the Perseids of August sometimes joining the list. Although the season doesn’t offer a great shower, a pretty good one should reach its peak tomorrow night: the Lyrids. Under a dark sky, you might see up to a couple of dozen meteors per hour between midnight and dawn. The number of meteors increases closer to dawn, as your part of Earth turns more directly into the meteor stream. Unfortunately, by then the waning Moon will be in the sky, so its light will compete with the fainter meteors. One good thing about meteors, though, is that you don’t have to wait for a shower to see them. A shower occurs when Earth passes through a stream of small bits of dust and rock shed by a comet or asteroid. There are many showers through the year, but only a few are noticeable. But bits of rocky debris are scattered throughout the solar system. So on any dark night, you can see several meteors zipping across the sky. And these “random” meteors can come from any direction and blaze across any part of the sky. So if you have a chance, look for the Lyrid meteor shower in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. If not, then take advantage of just about any clear, dark night to look for meteors flashing across the heavens. Tomorrow: a steady light far across the galaxy. Script by Damond Benningfield

Menendez brothers' long-awaited resentencing hearing delayed after dramatic day in court // The News Whip –Snickers Pizookie, Eurovision song, LA Rams and Lyrids meteor shower // Stan Lee how he created Spiderman (Not the Stanley the Giraffe) // More chases lately. Anaheim PD involved in deadly pursuit 

GB2RS News Sunday the 20th of April 2025   The news headlines: Take advantage of new RSGB membership benefits for 2025! The RSGB Board has announced Directors' liaison roles The RSGB has released a 1925 bulletin containing the original announcement of the formation of the IARU As a new benefit, the Society has teamed up with several museums to offer RSGB members discounted entry for 2025. Members can receive between 20% and 50% off admission fees at Amberley Museum, Bawdsey Radar Museum, Internal Fire Museum of Power, PK Porthcurno Museum of Global Communications and The National Museum of Computing. So, whether you're into engines, radar, transport, computers or communications there's sure to be something for you. To find out more, visit rsgb.org/partner-museums Following the RSGB 2025 AGM on Saturday the 12th of April, a brief Board meeting was held. The Board elected Stewart Bryant, G3YSX to continue in the role of Board Chair and Peter Bowyer, G4MJS to continue as Vice Chair. Both will remain in these roles until the 2026 AGM. The Board liaison roles with RSGB committees, Honorary Officers and areas of RSGB strategy have also been agreed. To find out more or to see contact details for each Board Director, go to rsgb.org/board World Amateur Radio Day was on Friday the 18th of April. It was also on that day in 1925 that the International Amateur Radio Union was formed in Paris. In celebration of this, the RSGB has shared a T & R Bulletin from 1925 that details the original announcement about the IARU's formation. This unique document has been made publicly available for all radio amateurs to be able to enjoy. To start reading, simply go to rsgb.org/radcom then click on the image to enter the web app and select the ‘RadCom Sample' option in the header. The RSGB website has a wealth of information available to you, and the search function is a useful tool to find what you are looking for. However, to make things as straightforward as possible, the Society has updated the contacts page on its website. If you need to get in touch about something specific, you'll be able to find the correct contact details at a glance. Each Headquarters department is listed with the range of services they offer. For example, you'll see that the Sales Team can also help with club insurance, Membership Services will help with any issues logging into its online membership portal, and that GB2RS news items should be sent to the RadCom Team. Whatever your query, the Team is there to help. If you need more local help, please contact your Regional Team representatives. Head over to rsgb.org/contact  to find out how to get in touch. Professor Gwyn Griffiths, G3ZIL is a well-known member of the RSGB Propagation Studies Committee, as well as someone involved with Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation, also known as HamSCI. In celebration of Citizen Science Month during April, the RSGB has shared Gwyn's HamSCI presentation from the RSGB 2024 Convention on its YouTube channel. In the talk, Gwyn outlines the organisation's activities, particularly during the 2023 and 2024 eclipses. Go to youtube.com/theRSGB  to watch the talk now. If you'd like to find out more, join the RSGB for May's Tonight@8 webinar when HamSCI lead Nathaniel Frissell, W2NAF presents ‘Space weather we can do together'. Both Gwyn and Nathaniel recently won awards in the RSGB 2025 AGM Trophy Presentation. You can also get involved with HamSCI's preparations for a series of meteor scatter experiments in August and December. You can find further details via hamsci.org/msqp Have you ever wondered about the origins of the smart doorbell? Although a modern phenomenon, it has a history dating back over 100 years. During the latest series of The Secret Genius of Modern Life, Hannah Fry explores its early origins with a device created by Leon Theremin. During the episode radio amateur Neil, G4DBN, re-creates Leon's device. The episode will air on BBC2 at 20.00 on Wednesday the 23rd of April. Many of you will know Neil from Season One, Episode One of the series when he re-created the Great Seal Bug. Both episodes are available to watch now via BBC iPlayer. Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk The deadline for submissions is 10am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week. And now for details of rallies and events The Cambridge Repeater Group Rally is taking place on Sunday the 27th of April at Foxton Village Hall, Hardman Road, Foxton, Cambridge, CB22 6RN. Doors open at 7.30am for traders and 9.30am to the general public. The entrance fee is £4. The event will include a car-boot sale, trade stands, a bring-and-buy area, catering, disabled facilities, an RSGB Bookstall and a free, marshalled car park. A cash and card burger van will open at 8am. The venue rules state strictly no dogs except assistance dogs on the field. Go to cambridgerepeaters.net for further details and bookings. The Dartmoor Radio Rally is taking place on Monday the 5th of May at the Yelverton War Memorial Hall, Meavy Lane, Yelverton, Devon, PL20 6AL. Free parking is available. There will be the usual bring and buy, trader stands and refreshments. Doors open at 10am and admission is £3. For further details, please contact Roger by phone on 07854 088882, or email 2e0rph@gmail.com Now the Special Event news The Spanish national society, URE, is on the air to mark the 100th anniversary of the IARU. Members are active on 160m to 6m until the 30th of April with ten different special event stations, including AO100IARU. Special awards will be available, as well as medals for the top participants from each continent who achieve the highest number of contacts with the stations on different bands and modes. Go to ure.es for further details. The Portuguese national society, REP, is also activating a number of special callsigns as part of celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the IARU. This includes CR1IARU from the Azores, CR3IARU from Madeira and CR5IARU from mainland Portugal. Members will be active on multiple bands and modes. Look out for activity until the 24th of April. Full details can be found via tinyurl.com/CR1IARU The Amateur Radio Society of Moldova is operating special event station ER100IARU until Wednesday the 30th of April in honour of the IARU Centenary. Full details can be found via qrz.com The Kuwait Amateur Radio Society is pleased to announce its participation in the IARU centennial celebrations. Members of the Society will be operating special event station 9K100IARU until Wednesday the 30th of April. Ten teams of radio amateurs from around the world are commemorating 80 years since Operation Manna and Operation Chowhound. The two operations were humanitarian food drops that helped to relieve the famine in the Netherlands behind Nazi lines late in World War Two. The teams will be active between the 25th and 27th of April on HF, VHF and the DMR Brandmeister Talk Groups unique to this event. A number of the teams are also welcoming visitors and arranging activities at their locations. To find details of Talk Groups for this event, the teams involved, as well as how to collect a commemorative award, go to manna80.radio Now the DX news Aldir, PY1SAD is active again from Georgetown in Guyana as 8R1TM until the 26th of April. Aldir will be operating on all bands using CW, SSB, digital and satellite. QSL via eQSL and Logbook of The World. Arno, DK1HV is active from Greenland as OX/DK1VK until Sunday the 27th of April. He'll be QRV on 160m to 10m mainly SSB using wire antennas and 100W radio. QSL available via his home callsign. Dom, 3D2USU is active again as 3D2AJT from Nadi in the Fiji Islands until the end of April. The call sign is in memory of JH1AJT, now Silent Key. QSL via Club Log's OQRS and Logbook of The World. Now the contest news On Tuesday the 22nd of April, the SHF UK Activity Contest runs from 1830 to 2130UTC. Using all modes on 2.3 to 10GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Thursday the 24th of April, the 80m Club Championship runs from 1900 to 2030UTC. Using PSK63 and RTTY, the exchange is signal report and serial number. The UK and Ireland DX CW Contest starts at 1200UTC on Saturday the 26th of April and ends at 1200UTC on Sunday the 27th of April. Using CW on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. UK and Ireland stations also send their district code. The SP DX RTTY Contest starts at 1200UTC on Saturday the 26th of April and ends at 1200UTC on Sunday the 27th of April. Using RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. SP stations also send their province code.   Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 17th of April 2025 Last week was characterised by increased Kp index numbers and severe geomagnetic storms, peaking at G4. These drove down maximum usable frequencies and disrupted DX contacts, especially on the higher HF bands. The solar wind speed increased from 380 kilometres per second to around 500 kilometres per second on the 15th and an increase in plasma density was noted as well. Subsequently, the Kp index peaked at 7.67 on Wednesday the 16th, causing visible aurora alerts in the UK. This was caused by a pair of CMEs that left the Sun on Sunday the 13th of April. We had a total of 22 M-class solar flares over four days, so a CME event was inevitable. Unsettled geomagnetic conditions are a feature on the declining side of a solar cycle, so we could unfortunately be in for many more. According to Propquest, MUFs over a 3,000km path fell to below 18MHz for long periods on Wednesday the 16th, before climbing to around 21MHz at the end of the day. Meanwhile, the solar flux index fell from a high of 170 on Friday the 11th of April to a low of 148 on Wednesday the 16th of April. Next week, NOAA predicts that the SFI will start the week around 145 but could increase to 165 as the week progresses. Unsettled geomagnetic conditions are forecast for the 22nd to the 24th of April, with a predicted maximum Kp index of four. As always, keep an eye on solarham.com for daily updates, but more importantly, get on the bands, which are a much more effective guide to HF propagation! And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The current period of unsettled weather looks likely to continue into the coming week. This does not mean rain every day, but periods of rain or showers with some intervening drier spells. These drier interludes are not really dominated by high pressure, just gaps between the wetter periods, so it's unlikely to produce much significant Tropo. In terms of propagation, there may be some rain scatter, although it won't be very reliable. However, the prospects for meteor scatter are more promising with the peak of the Lyrids due on Tuesday the 22nd of April. It is worth checking up on procedures for meteor scatter working if you've not done it before and you may find a new part of the hobby to add to your operating schedule. The prospects for aurora continue to be raised by what seems like an almost daily supply of aurora alerts. Continue to monitor the Kp index for signs of elevated values, where Kp is above five, for radio activity. Early signs such as fluttery signals on the LF and HF bands may suggest it's worth looking on the VHF bands for auroral activity. As we move towards the new season it is good to get into the habit of looking for Sporadic-E. The Propquest website www.propquest.co.uk shows several useful components for analysing the Es prospects. If you look at the position of the jet streams shown on the Es blog tab, these can produce favourable conditions geographically to give a hint of the right direction in which to listen. The opening season typically favours 10m or 6m. EME path losses are now decreasing towards perigee on Sunday the 27th of April. Last Friday, the 18th of April, saw minimum Moon declination, so Moon windows will lengthen along with peak elevation. 144MHz sky noise starts this week very high but decreases to low as the week progresses. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

Astronomy Daily | Space News: S04E91In this episode of Astronomy Daily, host Anna takes you on an exciting journey through the latest cosmic discoveries and developments that are enhancing our understanding of the universe. From ambitious sample return missions to the intriguing origins of Earth's water, this episode is filled with insights that will spark your curiosity about space.Highlights:- Roadmap for Sample Return Missions to Mercury and Venus: Join us as we delve into the groundbreaking research from the California Institute of Technology, which outlines potential missions to collect samples from our solar system's innermost planets, Mercury and Venus. Discover the significance of these missions in filling crucial gaps in our understanding of the inner solar system and the challenges scientists face in making them a reality.- New Theories on Earth's Water Origins: Explore a fascinating new study from the University of Oxford that challenges the long-held belief that Earth's water was delivered by asteroids. This research suggests that the primordial Earth may have contained the building blocks for water all along, fundamentally shifting our understanding of our planet's development.- The Dawn of a New Space Age: Reflect on the exciting parallels between today's space exploration and the Age of Sail in the 1600s. As private companies and startups venture into space, we discuss the potential for resource acquisition, energy production, and advanced manufacturing that could redefine humanity's future beyond Earth.- James Webb Space Telescope Observes NGC 1514: Marvel at the latest observations from the James Webb Space Telescope as it examines the planetary nebula NGC 1514. Learn about the nebula's complex history, its unique structure, and how these observations are reshaping our understanding of stellar evolution.- Upcoming Meteor Showers: Lyrids and Eta Aquarids: Get ready for two spectacular meteor showers! We provide a guide to spotting the Lyrids and Eta Aquarids, including tips for optimal viewing conditions and the best times to catch these celestial displays.For more cosmic updates, visit our website at astronomydaily.io. Join our community on social media by searching for #AstroDailyPod on Facebook, X, YouTubeMusic, TikTok, and our new Instagram account! Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.Thank you for tuning in. This is Anna signing off. Until next time, keep looking up and stay curious about the wonders of our universe.00:00 - Welcome to Astronomy Daily01:05 - Sample return missions to Mercury and Venus10:30 - New theories on Earth's water origins17:00 - The dawn of a new space age22:15 - JWST observations of NGC 151427:30 - Upcoming meteor showers: Lyrids and Eta Aquarids✍️ Episode ReferencesSample Return Missions[California Institute of Technology](https://www.caltech.edu/)Earth's Water Origins Study[University of Oxford](https://www.ox.ac.uk/)New Space Age Insights[NASA](https://www.nasa.gov)JWST NGC 1514 Observations[NASA JWST](https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/webb/main/index.html)Meteor Showers Guide[American Meteor Society](https://www.amsmeteors.org/)Astronomy Daily[Astronomy Daily](http://www.astronomydaily.io/)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-exciting-space-discoveries-and-news--5648921/support.

Dr. Sky dives deep into the wonders of the universe. He begins by introducing the show and paying tribute to the six individuals who lost their lives in a helicopter crash. The conversation then shifts to a detailed interview with Dr. Charles Kamar, a retired NASA astronaut and author of the book 'Mission Out of Control: An Astronaut Odyssey to Fix High Risk Organizations and Prevent Tragedy'. Dr. Kamar shares his extensive experience at NASA, the changes in NASA's culture over the years, and the highlights of his career, including flying on the STS-114 mission and the challenges faced during the Columbia disaster. The second half of the episode features Dr. Carl Heico, who brings his expertise in astronomy and provides tips for stargazing in light-polluted areas. He also shares his unique experience of using the Hubble Space Telescope for research. The episode covers a broad spectrum of topics from celestial events like the pink full moon and the Lyrids meteor shower to the technological advancements in space exploration and the prospects of lunar colonization. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm Rob Webb, your Last Minute Astronomer, bringing astronomy to normies and nerds, with little time to spare.   April of 2025 brings us the annual Lyrid meteor shower, all the naked-eye planets, and plenty of lunar close encounters. We'll start by talking about this month's big events, then highlight the naked eye planets, and finish up with the lunar phases, so you can plan ahead better than me.     April 22nd – LYRID METEOR SHOWER – Around 10-20 meteors per hour, the Lyrids are a minor shower, but a meteor shower indeed.  And this year, the Moon will rise very early in the morning, meaning we have clear skies until that point, and even then, it's not so bright. The shower is greatest on the 22nd, but you might see some on the 21st and 23rd as well.  Just remember each meteor is a piece of debris left over from a comet, and we're crashing into it at over 100,000 miles per hour, which crushes the atmosphere it hits, heating it up and causing the bright flash.  There is no real best time to see these this year, but the later, the better.  You never know when you'll see something awesome.    Some advice for watching:  - Find a dark location and lie down in a reclining chair or something that insulates you from the ground. - Check the weather to see if the skies will be clear. - Adapt your eyes to the dark by staying away from light sources or using a red light if you need to look at a star chart or not trip over something.     We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too!  Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.  Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org.

  GB2RS News Sunday, the 6th of April 2025   The news headlines: Last chance to submit your question ahead of Saturday's RSGB AGM Tom Wardill, 2E0JJI has been appointed as RSGB Maker Champion Reduced exam slots over Easter weekend The RSGB 2025 AGM is taking place at 10 am next Saturday, the 12th of April. The Society is encouraging RSGB members to take the time to vote for the two resolutions that need your approval. During the AGM, Board members will be answering your questions. Whether your question is about the RSGB, the Board, any of the RSGB services or even the future of amateur radio, your contribution to the discussion is important. Priority is given to questions submitted live by Zoom or by the Society's web form, so get in touch now rather than waiting for the live chat option on the day. The Zoom question deadline is 9 am on Monday, the 7th of April, and the deadline for submitting a written question is when voting ends at 0900 on Thursday, the 10th of April. Following the formal business of the AGM, the RSGB is delighted that RSGB President John McCullagh, GI4BWM will be sharing his review of 2024. There will also be announcements of trophies and awards, the construction competition results, as well as a presentation about the Society's strategy, which will be led by Board Director Mark Jones, G0MGX. There will be contributions from Board Director Ben Lloyd, GW4BML; Spectrum Forum Chair Murray Niman, G6JYB; and Bob Beebe, GU4YOX who at that point will be the new RSGB President. Make sure you don't miss out by putting the date in your diary now. Go to rsgb.org/agm  to find further information. The RSGB is pleased to announce that Tom Wardill, 2E0JJI has been appointed as the RSGB Maker Champion. In his role, Tom will assist the RSGB to take amateur radio to new audiences in the hackspace and makerspace communities. Tom will also investigate opportunities to encourage crossover in both directions, offering new areas of experimentation to more traditional license holders. If you have any ideas you'd like to discuss with Tom or would like to congratulate him on his appointment, please email him via maker.champion@rsgb.org.uk A reminder that the RSGB remote invigilation team will be taking a break over the Easter weekend. You will be able to book to take an exam on Friday, the 18th and Saturday, the 19th of April; however, no exam slots will be available on Sunday, the 20th or Monda,y the 21st of April. Exam bookings will resume as normal after that. The next webinar in the RSGB's Tonight@8 series will be live tomorrow, Monday the 7th of April. Nick Wood, M0NTV will show you how to use a regular glue stick housing in a rather novel way to form the basis of a variable tuning inductor in a homemade 40m receiver. Nick has a lifelong fascination with radio and electronics, and an insatiable curiosity to discover how things work. His passion is for designing and building his own radio equipment, particularly SSB transceivers, and he has just completed his sixth. Visit rsgb.org/webinars  to find out more. Join the presentation live on the RSGB YouTube channel or special BATC channel and ask questions via the live chat. The GB3WR VHF Repeater, located on the Mendip Hills in Somerset, was switched back on at 12:30 pm on the 16th of March 2025. The Group is delighted to report that it is working as well as before. It covers a wide area of the South West, and the Bristol Channel area. Amateur stations are regularly heard from the south of the Midlands, South Wales and as far south as Swanage and Basingstoke to the east. The Mendip Repeater Group would like to express its thanks for the generosity of all who have made it possible to put GB3WR back on the air. Find out more via gb3wr.uk One of the GB2RS newsreaders is retiring from reading the news ahead of his upcoming 101st birthday this Saturday, the 12th of April. Peter Valentine, G0NQZ from Eastbourne, remains an active radio amateur and operates daily, as well as taking part in regular nets such as ISWL and RAOTA. The Society would like to thank Peter for his dedication to GB2RS and wishes him a very happy 101st birthday! Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk. The deadline for submissions is 10 am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week. And now for details of rallies and events The Yeovil Amateur Radio Club QRP Convention is taking place on Saturday, the 12th of April at Digby Hall in Sherborne. Doors open at 9.30 am. The convention will include traders, bring and buy, club stalls and a café. For more information, please visit the club's website via yeovil-arc.com The Holsworthy ARC Spring Radio Rally is taking place on Sunday, the 13th of April at the Holsworthy Livestock Market, New Market Road, Holsworthy, Devon, EX22 7FA. There will be traders and a bring-and-buy. Catering will be available. Doors open to traders from 8 am and to the public from 10 am. Entry costs £3 per person. The venue has disabled access. Also taking place on Sunday, the 13th of April, is the Northern Amateur Radio Societies Association Exhibition, or NARSA for short. It is also known as the Blackpool Rally. The event will take place at Norbreck Castle Exhibition Centre, Blackpool, FY2 9AA. For further details, please go to narsa.org.uk  or contact Dave, M0OBW, on 07720 656542, or via email using dwilson@btinternet.com Now the Special Event news The Royal Air Force Amateur Radio Society, also known as RAFARS, has started its popular Airfields On The Air event. RAF Stations are active this weekend as well as on the 12th and 13th of April. More information can be found via rafars.org/rafaota The Polish Amateur Radio Union is celebrating 95 years since its founding, as well as the centenary of the International Amateur Radio Union. To mark the occasion, ten special event stations will be active between the 11th and the 25th of April. Full details of the event, as well as available awards, can be found via Hamaward.cloud Now the DX news The Toshiba Fuchu Amateur Radio Club, JA1YVT, is celebrating its 60th anniversary and, as part of the celebration, team members are staging a DXpedition to the Ogasawara Islands. They will be QRV as JA1YVT/JD1 until Thursday, the 10th of April. The operating schedule, frequencies and QSL information are available via QRZ.com DA1DX, DK9IP, DM6EE and DL8LAS will be active from Anegada Island in the British Virgin Islands as VP2VI from the 10th to the 27th of April. Full details via QRZ.com Now the contest news The FT4 International Activity Day started at 12:00 UTC on Saturday, the 5th of April and ends at 12:00 UTC today, Sunday, the 6th of April. Using FT4 on the 160 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is your report. The SP DX Contest started at 1500 UTC on Saturday, the 5th of April and ends at 1500 UTC today, Sunday, the 6th of April. Using CW and SSB on the 160 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. SP stations also send their province code. Today, Sunday the 6th of April, the UK Microwave Group Low Band Contest runs from 1000 to 1600 UTC. Using all modes on 1.3 to 3.4GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also today, Sunday the 6th of April, the Worked All Britain Data Contest runs from 1000UTC to 1400UTC and from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using FT8, FT4, JS8, RTTY and PSK on the 80, 40 and 20m bands, the exchange is signal report, serial number, and your Worked All Britain square. Club and multi-operator stations can only score points in one of the two operating periods. Entries need to be with the contest manager by the 17th of April. The full rules are available on the Worked All Britain website. On Monday, the 7th of April, the IRTS 70cm Counties Contest runs from 1300 to 13:30 UTC. Using FM and SSB on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. EI and GI stations also send their country. Also on Monday, the 7th of April, the IRTS 2m Counties Contest runs from 1330 to 1500 UTC. Using FM and SSB on the 2m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. EI and GI stations also send their country. On Monday, the 7th of April, the 80m Club Championship runs from 1900 to 2030 UTC. Using CW on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Tuesday, the 8th of April, the 432MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1800 to 1855 UTC. Using FM on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also on Tuesday, the 8th of April, the 432MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130 UTC. Using all modes on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday, the 9th of April, the 432MHz FT8 Activity four-hour Contest runs from 1700 to 2100 UTC. Using FT8 on the 70m band, the exchange is a report and four-character locator. Also on Wednesday, the 9th of April, the 432MHz FT8 Activity two-hour Contest runs from 1900 to 2100 UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is a report and a four-character locator. Stations entering the four-hour contest may also enter the two-hour contest. On Thursday, the 10th of April, the 50MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130 UTC. Using all modes on the 6m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator.   Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 3rd of April 2025 We had a week of mixed solar conditions, but it ended with an SFI of 182 and a Kp of 3.67 on Thursday, the 3rd of April.   The geomagnetic field declined to quieter levels following a prolonged period of active, Kp4 conditions earlier on Wednesday due to solar wind enhancements. This impacted propagation, with the critical frequency struggling to get much above 7 MHz on Wednesday. Compare this with the following day, when the critical frequency hit 10.4MHz by 0830 UTC. Nevertheless, there was DX to be worked on Wednesday with FT8 allowing signals from Australia, Japan, Indonesia, China, and Surinam to get into the UK on 21MHz. The solar proton flux was also high on Tuesday, the 1st of April, affecting signals passing through the polar regions, but this had declined by Thursday and was heading back to normal levels. This was due to a large CME observed off the east limb of the Sun on Frida,y the 28th of March. If it had been Earth-directed, we may have seen a massive aurora. Next week, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index will stay in the 175-185 region. A Kp of six was forecast for yesterday, Saturday the 5th of April, followed by a further period of unsettled geomagnetic conditions due to an enhanced solar wind. If this is the case, we may not get more settled conditions until the 14th to the 16th of April. Nevertheless, this remains a good time for North-South HF paths, such as the UK to South Africa, and UK to South America. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The old forecasting maxim that the ‘longer a high lasts, the longer it will last' is built upon the presence of blocked upper air weather patterns. When the jet stream gets so distorted into a high-amplitude north/south wave, its lateral movement, from west to east, becomes very slow. On the upper air charts, this takes the shape of the Greek letter omega, and this is the current set-up. It means that the weather associated with it also lasts a long time. In this case, it's the high pressure and its spell of fine weather that is likely to last for the whole of the coming week. The position of the high will change, though, starting over the North Sea and ending over the UK and the nearby Atlantic. This means that Tropo will be the mode of choice for the coming period, which includes the 70cm UK Activity Contest on Tuesday and the 6m UK Activity Contest on Thursday. Rain scatter is unlikely during this extended period of dry weather. The meteor scatter options are still mainly driven by random meteors for the coming period into next week, but the next important shower, the Lyrids, peaks on the 22nd of April. The auroral alerts continue to come through, raising interest. As usual, the clue will be fluttery-sounding signals on the bands, particularly noticeable on CW, but they can also be pronounced on speech transmissions. Monitor the Kp index for values above Kp5. There have been a few trans-equatorial openings to Southern Africa on 50MHz digital modes for the fortunate few who live in the extreme south and southwest of the UK, but it did extend up to Cambridgeshire and Suffolk briefly on some days last week. The long drought of Sporadic-E will soon be over, but we're still in the realms of very isolated events for 10m and 6m, which will be short-lasting. The jet stream, which can be a good clue as to potential locations, suggests looking to Scandinavia, the Baltic and northern Europe. EME path losses are falling again, but Moon declination has been at its highest this weekend, so we have long Moon windows. 144MHz sky noise is low throughout the coming week. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

GB2RS News Sunday the 9th of March 2025 The news headlines: RSGB members celebrate IARU Centenary with a special callsign British Science Week events you can be part of RSGB Propagation Studies Committee members give talks at HamSCI event As part of the celebrations of the centenary of the International Amateur Radio Union, the RSGB will be activating the callsign GB0IARU in April 2025. If you would like to be an activator, you need to be an RSGB member with a Full licence, as UK licence conditions only allow Full licensees to operate club callsigns. If you would like to take part, please send an email to contestclub@rsgbcc.org  You will be invited to join a discussion group which will be used to provide you with all the information that you will need. You will have to join the RSGB Contest Club to use the callsign, as GB0IARU is linked to the Contest Club's callsign G6XX. Foundation and Intermediate licensees will be able to take part under supervision. You can find detailed instructions about operating with GB0IARU on the RSGB website at tinyurl.com/GB0IARU  For QSL information please see the QRZ.com page for GB0IARU. British Science Week began on Friday the 7th of March and will continue until Sunday the 16th of March. The annual celebration presents radio amateurs with the opportunity to showcase their hobby to new audiences. Crowthorne and Wokingham Men's Shed will be operating as G8EYM during the forthcoming week. Organisers who would like to set up skeds with other groups, particularly other Men's Sheds groups, should get in touch via info@nmishedww.co.uk  if you'd like to be involved. Some events are also open to the public. South Derbyshire and Ashby Woulds Amateur Radio Group will be hosting a family-friendly open weekend on the 15th and 16th of March. The event will include opportunities for kit building, details of training, as well as an opportunity to operate under supervision. Norfolk Amateur Radio Club intends to support the City of Norwich School with its Super Science Saturday on the 15th of March. To get involved with these events, plus more, go to rsgb.org/bsw  and choose the “Events happening near you” tab on the righthand menu. The Society has also shared several fun ideas that you can take part in, from giving your friends and family a tour of your shack to observing the Sun's cycles and understanding the aurora. And of course, don't forget to get involved with the official RSGB British Science Week activity, which is featured in the Community Activity Pack. This can be done at home on DMR or any other radio. Whatever inspires you, be part of this fantastic celebration of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths and show the very best that amateur radio has to offer. Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation, also known as HamSCI, is holding its 8th annual workshop in New Jersey on the 14th and 15th of March. This year's workshop features nearly 50 presentations, four tutorials, as well as a keynote address by the ARRL's Bob Inderbitzen, NQ1R. RSGB Propagation Studies Committee associate member Professor Gwyn Griffiths, G3ZIL will be delivering several sessions at the two-day event, including one on post-sunset Sporadic-F propagation. The RSGB Propagation Studies Committee Secretary Doctor Chris Deacon, G4IFX, is also attending and will be delivering a session on The Physical Nature of Sporadic-E. You'll be able to watch these sessions, plus more from the workshop agenda online. Details of how to access the event virtually, as well as more information about the event can be found at hamsci.org/hamsci2025 The RSGB remote invigilation team will be taking a break over the Easter weekend. You will be able to book to take an exam on Friday the 18th of April or Saturday the 19th of April, but no exam slots will be available on Sunday the 20th of April, or Monday the 21st of April. Exam bookings will resume as normal after that. Amateur Radio Clubs On The Air is getting ready for a second weekend of operating on the 22nd and 23rd of March. It is a chance for amateurs to promote their club, have some fun and collect points for an award. All bands may be used, using any mode including SSB, CW, FM, RTTY, FT8, FT4 and other digital modes. This is an ongoing award, and contacts may be claimed from the 23rd of March 2025 onwards. You can find full details on the Leicester Radio Society website at g3lrs.org.uk, via the G3LRS page at QRZ.com  or by emailing arcota@g3lrs.org.uk Cray Valley Radio Society is running a two-day, face-to-face Foundation licence course on the 5th and the 12th of April, near Greenwich in southeast London. The Foundation training package costs £65 and this includes the online exam at the end of the course. Please apply or contact Cray Valley Radio Society via its temporary website at cvrs.uk  Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk  The deadline for submissions is 10 am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week. And now for details of rallies and events On Sunday the 16th of March, the Ripon and District Amateur Radio Society Rally will take place at Great Ouseburn Village Hall, Lightmire Lane, Great Ouseburn, York YO26 9RL. Doors open for traders at 7.30 am and then to the public at 10 am for an admission price of £3. Free parking, refreshments and bacon butties will be available. The tables cost £10 each. For enquiries, or to book one or more tables, email radars.rally@gmail.com The Biggleswade Swapmeet, organised by the British Vintage Wireless Society, is taking place on Sunday the 23rd of March at The Weatherley Centre, Eagle Farm Road, Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, SG18 8JH. Doors open to stallholders from 9 am, with general entry from 9.30 am. Admission is £8. Hot and cold refreshments are available all day. There will be vintage technology of varying sorts including radio, TV, communications, audio, vinyl, computing, telephones and components. There will also be a bring-and-buy stall run by the British Wireless and Television Museum. For enquiries, including stall bookings, please email Jeremy Owen, G8MLK via secretary@bvws.org.uk  More details can also be found via BVWS.org.uk The Callington Radio and Electronics Rally will be held in the Town Hall, New Road, Callington, Cornwall, PL17 7BD on Sunday the 23rd of March. Public access to the event is from 10 am until 1 pm. Entry is £2 each with no charge for those under the age of 16. A comprehensive selection of traders, clubs and societies from the south-west will be present along with a bring-and-buy stall and the usual excellent catering service. As an improvement from last year, the bring-and-buy stall now accepts payment by all major debit and credit cards using contactless, chip and pin or by phone. The venue has disabled access and toilet facilities with ample parking in a nearby car park. Although the main hall is now fully booked, tables are still available in an adjacent room at £5 for the large size and £3 for the smaller one. Pre-booking is essential, so please contact Alastair, M0KRR at alastair.kerr1@btinternet.com or by phone at 01503 262 755 with your requirements as soon as possible. Also on Sunday the 23rd of March is The Dover Amateur Radio Club 2025 Rally which is taking place at the St Radigunds Community Centre, Poulton Close, Dover, CT17 0HL. The doors are open between 10 am and 2 pm and entry is £3. Tea, coffee and bacon rolls will be available on site. Tables are available at £15 each, with a maximum of two tables per vendor. For table bookings and the latest news go to darc.online/rally Now the Special Event news The British Railways Amateur Radio Society is running special event stations GB0LMR and GB2SDR during 2025 to celebrate 200 years of train travel since 1825. Starting from April, it will also be running GB2TT to celebrate the same anniversary. QSL will be via the Bureau. More information is available at QRZ.com  and via webrars.info From the 1st to the 28th of March George, MM0JNL will once again be activating special event station GB0GTS. This year the station is active in support of the Great Tommy Sleepout. This national challenge aims to raise funds and awareness for all former UK service personnel who are living homeless. More details are available at QRZ.com  and rbli.co.uk Now the DX news The VK9CU team will be active between the 4th and the 11th of March from Cocos Keeling Islands, IOTA reference OC-003. They will operate on the 160 to 6m bands using CW, SSB, RTTY, FT4 and FT8. QSL via DL2AWG, ClubLog and Logbook of the World. Elvira, IV3FSG is active as D68Z from Moroni in the Comoro Islands until the 18th of March. IOTA reference AF-007. She will operate on HF bands using CW, SSB and digital modes. Looking ahead, DA1DX, DK9IP, DM6EE and DL8LAS will be active from Anegada Island in the British Virgin Islands as VP2VI from the 10th to the 27th of April. Now the contest news The Commonwealth Contest started at 1000UTC on Saturday the 8th of March and ends at 1000UTC today, Sunday the 9th of March. Using CW on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. HQ stations also send ‘HQ'. On Tuesday the 11th of March, the 432MHz FM Activity Contest runs between 1900 to 1955UTC. Using FM on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also on Tuesday the 11th of March, the 432MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. Using all modes on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday the 12th of March, the 432MHz FT8 Activity four-hour Contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is a report and four-character locator. Also on Wednesday the 12th of March, the 432MHz FT8 Activity two-hour Contest runs from 1900 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is a report and four-character locator. Stations entering the four-hour contest may also enter the two-hour contest. On Wednesday the 12th of March, the 80m Club Championship Contest runs from 2000 to 2130UTC. Using CW on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Thursday the 13th of March, the 50MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. Using all modes on the 6m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The British Amateur Radio Teledata Group HF RTTY Contest starts at 0200UTC on Saturday the 15th of March and ends at 0200UTC on Monday the 17th of March. Using RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report, serial number and time. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 6th of March 2025 We started last week with geomagnetic disturbances that saw the Kp index rise to a maximum of 5.67 on the 28th of February and then hover around the 4.5 mark for the next couple of days. As predicted, the rest of the week went quite well, with the Kp index in the range of one to four. The solar flux index fell from a maximum of 210 on the 23rd of February to a low of 140 on the 2nd of March. It then climbed back to 160 on the 4th. Over the past week, we have had no X-class and only one M-class solar flare which was on the 5th. As we head into next week, it looks like all the sunspots in the Sun's northern hemisphere have now departed. Nevertheless, the southern hemisphere is still supplying lots of spots so don't panic just yet! HF conditions have been quite good. VK6IF and VK6IA in Western Australia were booming in on 28MHz USB on the morning of Thursday the 6th, as was VK9CU on the Cocos-Keeling Islands. Nigel, VP8TXF and Ian, VP8CIW have been operating from the Falkland Islands ahead of this weekend's Commonwealth Contest and have been worked from the UK on 20m-10m. They are there until the 10th, so get in quick. Other DX to be worked this week includes VU4AX Andaman Islands, 6Y7EI Jamaica, PJ7AA Sint Maarten Island, 4S7KKG Sri Lanka, TY5C Benin, 6W7/ON4AVT Warang Senegal, RI1ANE Antarctica and H44MS Solomon Islands. Next week, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index will start off around 150 and may then climb to 185 by the 16th. A large coronal hole became Earth-facing on the 6th, which may result in unsettled geomagnetic conditions this weekend, the 8th and the 9th. It looks like we can expect unsettled geomagnetic conditions around the 10th to the 16th, with a maximum predicted Kp index of five. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The weather divides into two segments; the first, from the middle of last week through to the middle of next week, is rather changeable with low pressure nearby bringing rain or showers and potential for rain scatter on the GHz bands. Eventually, the unsettled weather ends with a cold northerly on Tuesday the 11th and this leads to a new high building from Wednesday into the weekend of the 15th and 16th March.  This is good news for Tropo and could possibly be of benefit to those in the UK 70cm Activity Contest on Tuesday the 11th in the western UK, but more generally for the FT8 70cm Activity Contest on Wednesday and the 50MHz UK Activity Contest on Thursday evening. We are still between major meteor showers and therefore must rely upon random activity for now. The next shower of note is the Lyrids on the 21st and the 22nd of April, so we have a while to go yet. The solar activity has continued to produce a regular supply of auroral alerts and fluttery signals on the LF bands, but with a lot of clouds in northwestern areas and southern parts just marginally out of reach for any naked-eye auroras. A few digital camera pictures did surface on the web.  Keep an eye open just in case though. Remember Kp equalling five or greater is where we need to be. Lastly, the Sporadic-E prospects are still relatively low with only the odd minor blip up to around a Sporadic-E critical frequency of 5 to 7MHz, often around the middle of the day. This contrasts with the morning and evening windows in the main season. It is enough to promote interest in the 10 or 6m bands, but almost certainly a fleeting moment. EME path losses rise all this coming week and moon declination falls with associated shortening Moon windows and reducing peak Moon elevation. The best results will therefore be early in the week. 144MHz sky noise is moderate this weekend, falling to low in the week commencing the 10th. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

Episode 208 In this episode of the Observers Notebook podcast, host Tim Robertson talks to the Meteor Section Coordinator, Bob Lunsford about the upcoming Lyrids and eta Aquariids meteor showers peaking the evening of April 17-26, 2025 and April 20-May 21 2025. Bob gives us a brief history of the Meteor Showers, how and where to observe and details on reporting your observations, and contact information. You can contact Bob at: lunro.imo.usa@cox.net The link for the details on the Lyrids meteor shower: https://www.amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-shower-calendar/ International Meteor Organization https://www.imo.net/ ALPO Meteor Section Blog https://www.alpo-astronomy.org/Meteor For the latest information from the ALPO Meteor Section you can visit: http://www.amsmeteors.org/ For more information you can visit the ALPO web site at: www.alpo-astronomy.org/ You can also support this podcast at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ObserversNotebook Listen to the podcast on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/observersnotebook Subscribe on our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AssociationofLunarandPlanetaryObservers Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/observers-notebook-the-alpo-podcast/id1199301885?mt=2 I want to thank the Producers of this podcast, Steve Siedentop and Michael Moyer for their generous support of the Observers Notebook. Our Patreons: Jerry White Jason Inman Bob Lunsford Steve Seidentop Stephen Bennett Michael Moyer Shawn Dilles Frank Schenck Damian Allis Carl Hergenrother Julian Parks Michael McShan Michael Blake Nick Evetts Rik Hill Stan Sienkiewicz John Rogers

GB2RS News Sunday the 16th of February 2025 The news headlines: The RSGB has announced its Scout, Cadet and Girlguiding Youth Champion Listen out for stations operating for World Thinking Day on the Air New resources and ideas have been added to the RSGB British Science Week web pages The RSGB is delighted to announce that Samuel McCutchion, M7UEL will be the RSGB's Scout, Cadet and Girlguiding Youth Champion. Sam brings a wealth of hands-on experience to the role having been part of the Scouts from a young age in Beavers and then working his way up to Network. He then progressed to become an Assistant Section Leader. This knowledge will help the RSGB Youth Team to engage and offer amateur radio support to not only the Scouts but also the Cadets and Girlguiding. If you'd like to congratulate Sam on his role, or if you have any ideas you think would be useful to share, email him via youthchampion.scouts@rsgb.org.uk  Lots of amateur radio stations are on the air this weekend and next weekend for World Thinking Day on the Air. Listen out for them and encourage the young Girlguiding members. You can find details of some of the active stations via rsgb.org/thinking-day  but, if your station isn't listed, please share details on the RSGB social media channels. The event aims to encourage Girlguiding members to make friendships with those in other units, using amateur radio as the means of communication.   Have you visited the RSGB's British Science Week web pages yet? Two new worksheets have recently been added to inspire you to get involved and showcase amateur radio to new audiences. The activities were designed by the RSGB Outreach Team to fit in with this year's British Science Week theme of ‘Change and adapt'. If you'd like to deliver these activities to schools or youth groups, the Society has sample lesson plans, risk assessments and a guide to contacting your local school available on its website. Remember that British Science Week isn't just for younger audiences, it is open to all. If you're looking for ideas to get your friends and family involved or a local community group, go to rsgb.org/bsw  and visit the British Science Week resources page. There is a wealth of ideas available, from looking at the history of radio communications to building a sustainable system using only solar panels. If you have an activity planned for British Science Week, let the RSGB know by emailing the RSGB British Science Week Coordinator, Ian Neal, M0KEO via bsw@rsgb.org.uk  Details of events taking place will be shared on the Society's website.  The deadline for the RSGB Construction Competition is Saturday the 1st of March, which means you have less than two weeks left to submit your entry. The judges will be considering entries in six categories: beginners, construction excellence, innovation, software, antennas and outreach. To find out how to submit your application go to rsgb.org/construction-competition  The results of the competition will be announced during the 2025 RSGB Annual General Meeting on the 12th of  April.  If you are passionate about amateur radio and have some spare time to support fellow radio amateurs, why not become an RSGB District Representative? There are currently 12 vacancies across the United Kingdom, including in Belfast, Cambridgeshire and Lancashire. To find out if there is a vacancy in your region go to rsgb.org/volunteers  and then get in touch with the Regional Representative of the district with the vacancy. Amateur radio operators are reminded to take care when operating on the WRC-15 secondary amateur allocation at 5MHz. The UK still has no access to the full WRC-15 allocation. Despite requests, this seems unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Whilst the UK is fortunate to have more generous licence conditions, these mustn't be put at risk by irresponsible operating in violation of the licence conditions, particularly in the 5358 to 5362kHz gap where there is no UK allocation. The RSGB website has detailed advice for operators, both for SSB and digital modes, on its rsgb.org/5mhz web page. Please take care not to transmit outside of the UK segments even if you hear other amateurs transmitting. Remember that signals heard may be coming from amateurs in other countries with different allocations. The RSGB ARDF Committee is pleased to announce the return of the British ARDF Championships in 2025. The Championships will be held as a three-day festival in early April 2025. Entries open on the 1st of March and will remain open right up until the event itself. Further information and updates can be found at tinyurl.com/ARDF25 Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk  The deadline for submissions is 10 am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week. And now for details of rallies and events The Red Rose Winter Rally is due to take place on Sunday the 23rd of February from 10 am at Mather Hall, Mather Lane, Leigh, Lancashire, WN7 2PJ. Please note that the maximum number of five-foot tables per trader has had to be reduced from six to five. On a brighter note, the price remains as it has been for several years at £10 per table. For more information visit wmrc.co.uk The Lagan Valley Amateur Radio Society Annual Rally will take place on Saturday the 1st of March at Hillsborough Village Centre, 7 Ballynahinch Road, BT26 6AR. The doors open at 10.30 am. For more details visit lvars.uk On the 2nd of March, the Exeter Radio Rally is taking place at a new venue. The event will be held at The Kenn Centre, EX6 7UE, from 10 am. Traders and catering will be available on-site. For more information phone Pete, G3ZVI on 07714 198 374 or email g3zvi@yahoo.co.uk Now the Special Event news Daren, 2E0LXY is hosting a special amateur radio event to raise funds for the Sheffield Children's Hospital today, the 16th. He will be operating on the 80, 40, 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10m bands using FT8. He will also be active on the 2m and 70cm bands using FM. DMR users can talk to Daren via Brandmeister talk group 23530. More information, including how to donate, is available via Daren's QRZ.com page. Special callsign S5701DX is running during February in memory of Slavko, S57DX who became a Silent Key last February. The station has been heard recently using CW and SSB on the HF bands. For more information visit QRZ.com From the 1st to the 28th of March George, MM0JNL will once again be activating special event station GB0GTS. This year the station is active in support of the Great Tommy Sleepout. This national challenge aims to raise funds and awareness for all former UK service personnel who are living homeless. More details are available at QRZ.com and rbli.co.uk Now the DX news Bob, NC6Q is active as HP1TT from Panama until tomorrow, the 17th.  He is operating CW and some SSB on the 40, 20, 15 and 10m bands. QSL directly to NC6Q. Datta, VU2DSI is operating from Lonar Lake in India from the 20th to the 24th of February 2025. This unique location was formed by the impact of a meteor around 550,000 years ago. The station will be active on the 40, 20, 15 and 10m bands using SSB. More information can be found at QRZ.com Claudio, HB9OAU is active as D44OA from Sal Island, AF-086, Cape Verde until Tuesday the 18th. He is operating using CW and SSB on the 40 to 6m bands. QSL via Logbook of the World and Club Log.  Now the contest news The ARRL International DX Contest started at 0000UTC on Saturday the 15th and runs until 2359UTC today, Sunday the 16th of February. Using CW on the 160 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and transmit power. USA stations also send their state and Canadian stations send their province. On Tuesday the 18th, the RGSB 1.3GHz Activity Contest runs from 20:00 to 22:30 UTC. Using all modes on the 23cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Thursday the 20th, the RSGB 70MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 20:00 to 22:30 UTC. Using all modes on the 4m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The CQ 160m DX Contest starts at 22:00 UTC on Friday the 21st and ends at 22:00 UTC on Sunday the 23rd of February. Using SSB on the 160m band, the exchange is signal report and CQ zone. USA stations also send their state and Canadian stations send their province. The REF Contest starts at 06:00 UTC on Saturday the 22nd and ends at 18:00 UTC on Sunday the 23rd of February. Using SSB on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number.  Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 13th of February 2025 Two large coronal holes on the Sun's surface have been spraying solar material towards Earth, pushing the Kp index to a high of 4.67. The solar wind speed has been consistently higher than 500 kilometres per second and, with a south-pointing interplanetary magnetic field, the plasma has flooded into Earth's magnetic field. There have been a few aurora warnings, but these have only been minor. As a result, the ionosphere has not been too badly affected and daytime maximum usable frequencies over a 3,000km path have generally remained above 28MHz, with the odd dip towards 24MHz. Coronal mass ejections have not made an appearance and there were only three M-class flares between the 9th and 13th of February. Meanwhile, the solar flux index fell to the 150s and 160s last week. Recent HF DX has included the V73WW DXpedition on the Marshall Islands, which has been worked from the UK, including on the 40, 30 and 20m bands using CW. The TX7N DXpedition to Marquesas Island in French Polynesia has just finished. It wasn't an easy path, but it was worked from the UK on all bands from 30 to 12m using FT8, CW and SSB. Next week, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index could rise a little, to be in the 180 to 190 range. Once Earth is free from the effects of the current coronal hole stream, we may expect the Kp index to retreat, perhaps to a maximum of 2. So, DX next week could be quite reasonable but, as always, keep an eye on solarham.com for daily updates. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The lingering high pressure just to the east of the UK is holding weather fronts over western Britain for the time being with any tropo benefits confined to eastern areas and being marginal at best.  During the coming week, changes will be slow but gradually a more determined push on the Atlantic fronts may bring them over most areas, except the extreme southeast of the country. This will make rain scatter more accessible although the models suggest that the fronts are likely to become weaker. So, they will not be especially useful by the time they reach the southeast. Sporadic-E is in its quiet season now, as are the meteor scatter prospects, with no major showers in attendance until the spring Lyrids in late April. Perhaps this quieter time is a chance to do some operating housekeeping. For example, you could update a list of nearby repeaters and beacons to help you track developing openings. Or maybe you could consider trying a new mode or band. Perhaps you could learn to use digital modes for meteor scatter. Maybe consider joining the increasing numbers trying CW on the 2m band. Moon declination went negative again on Saturday the 15th and path losses are rising as the Moon moves away to apogee, its furthest point from Earth, on Tuesday the 18th. 144MHz sky noise is low for most of the coming week but goes high for the weekend of Saturday the 22nd. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

GB2RS News Sunday the 9th of February 2025 The news headlines: A new RSGB web page focuses on emerging technology An upcoming talk at Bletchley Park Museum aims to widen awareness of the radio spectrum and radio transmission Remember to share your British Science Week ideas The RSGB has launched a new web page on how emerging technology can be used in amateur radio. Technologies such as artificial intelligence and 3D printing offer the opportunity to broaden the definition of amateur radio. They can also increase appeal and attract a more diverse audience. For existing radio amateurs, they offer the opportunity for progression through learning new skills. You'll also find links to two RSGB Convention presentations, including the newly released talk on 3D printing by Tom Wardill, 2E0JJI. Go to rsgb.org/emerging-technology  to learn more. The Society will be adding more technologies to the web page in the coming months and would love to hear from you if you are involved in amateur radio in any of these areas. Share your stories via comms@rsgb.org.uk  On Saturday the 29th of March, the RSGB National Radio Centre Coordinator, Martyn Baker, G0GMB, together with Andy Webster, G7UHN from the Radio Communications Foundation, will be delivering a talk in the Fellowship Auditorium at the Bletchley Park Museum. The presentation will introduce people to the radio spectrum and how to get to grips with the fundamentals of radio transmission. The session is being delivered as part of the RSGB's ongoing strategy to promote amateur radio to wider audiences. The Society is pleased to announce that RSGB members who would like to attend the talk can benefit from a 10% discount, reducing the price to £14.40. To find out more about this talk, go to the ‘What's on' section on the Bletchley Park website via bletchleypark.org.uk  If you'd like to visit the Bletchley Park museum after the talk, don't forget that RSGB members can gain free entry by downloading a voucher from the RSGB website via rsgb.org/bpvoucher British Science Week is less than a month away and the RSGB would love you to use your interest, expertise and enthusiasm for amateur radio to get people involved. The annual event takes place between the 7th and 16th of March and celebrates science, technology, engineering and maths. Perhaps you love going portable and could take a local rambler group on an activation with you, or maybe you're a member of ‘Men in Sheds' and could deliver a soldering demonstration for them. The Society wants to make amateur radio accessible and inclusive for everyone. All ideas are welcome, both big and small. Whatever you are planning, send your ideas to the RSGB British Science Week Coordinator, Ian Neal, M0KEO via bsw@rsgb.org.uk  The RSGB will continue to share resources and ideas for how to get involved via rsgb.org/bsw  A competition has been launched for RSGB Regions 6 and 7 in Wales that will take place throughout March. The aim is to encourage both individual RSGB members, as well as Affiliated Clubs in Wales, to build their own resonant 21MHz antenna and make as many QSOs as possible on the 21MHz band during the month. There are four categories to enter, with certificates issued to the top three stations in each of the categories. A club trophy is also available. To view the full competition rules and to access the submission form, go to tinyurl.com/walescomp  Don't forget that Girlguiding groups will be taking part in World Thinking Day on the Air activities over the weekends of the 15th and 22nd of February. The event aims to encourage Girlguiding members to make friendships with those in other units, using amateur radio as the means of communication. A list of stations that have provided the RSGB with details of their callsign can be found by going to rsgb.org/thinking-day  If you'd like to be added to this list, please email comms@rsgb.org.uk And now for details of rallies and events Today, the 9th, the Mid Cheshire Amateur Radio Society RadioActive Fair is taking place at Nantwich Civic Hall, Market Street, Nantwich, Cheshire, CW5 5DG. The doors are open from 10 am to 3 pm and admission costs £5. Hot food, refreshments and free car parking are available. For more information contact Patrick, 2E0VGF via info@radioactivefair.co.uk The Red Rose Winter Rally is due to take place on Sunday the 23rd of February from 10 am at Mather Hall, Mather Lane, Leigh, Lancashire, WN7 2PJ. Please note that the maximum number of five-foot tables per trader has had to be reduced from six to five. On a brighter note, the price remains as it has been for several years at £10 per table. For more information visit wmrc.co.uk The Lagan Valley Amateur Radio Society Annual Rally will take place on Saturday the 1st of March at Hillsborough Village Centre, 7 Ballynahinch Road, BT26 6AR. The doors open at 10.30 am. For more details visit lvars.uk Now the Special Event news A series of special event stations is active until the 31st of March to celebrate the city of Chemnitz, one of the European Capitals of Culture for 2025. All QSOs will be uploaded to eQSL, Logbook of the World, Club Log and the DARC Community Logbook. Paper QSL cards will not be issued. For more information about the event, including details of a certificate that is available for working the stations, visit 2025c.de Special callsign A9100IARU is in use by the Bahrain Amateur Radio Society to mark the 100th anniversary of the International Amateur Radio Union. The callsign will be active for five days during each month of the 2025 year. The station was spotted recently using FT4 on the 10m band. QSL via EC6DX. British Railways Amateur Radio Society is continuing to run special event stations GB0LMR and GB2SDR during 2025 to celebrate 200 years of train travel. Operation is mainly focused on 40m but there may be additional activity on the 10m band using SSB. QSL via the Bureau. To read more about the special event stations, visit QRZ.com A team of operators from DARC is active until the 27th of April using special callsign DA0IARU. The station is operating to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the IARU. The special event team has been in existence for around five years and is led by Ric, DL2VFR. Now the DX news Thierry, TK1CX is active from Cameroon until the end of February. He is QRV as TJ/TK1CX on the 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10m bands. He operates mainly using FT8. QSL via Logbook of the World, eQSL, or via EA5ZD. Przemo, SP3PS is operating as C5SP from The Gambia until around the middle of March. He operates using SSB and FT8 on the HF bands. QSL via SP3PS. Now the contest news The CQ World Wide WPX RTTY Contest started at 0000UTC on Saturday the 8th and runs until 2359UTC today, the 9th of February. Using RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. The PACC Contest started at 1200UTC on Saturday the 8th and runs until 1200UTC today, the 9th of February. Using CW and SSB on the 160 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. PA stations also send their province. On Tuesday the 11th, the RSGB 432MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 1955UTC. Using FM on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also, on Tuesday the 11th, the RSGB 432MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230 UTC. Using all modes on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday the 12th, the RSGB 432MHz FT8 Activity four-hour Contest runs from 1700 to 2100 UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is a report and four-character locator. Also, on Wednesday the 12th, the RSGB 432MHz FT8 Activity two-hour Contest runs from 1900 to 2100 UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is a report and four-character locator. Stations entering the four-hour contest may also enter the two-hour contest. On Wednesday the 12th, the RSGB 80m Club Championship data leg runs from 2000 to 2130UTC. Using PSK63 and RTTY on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Thursday the 13th, the RSGB 50MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. Using all modes on the 6m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The ARRL International DX Contest starts at 0000UTC on Saturday the 15th and runs until 2359UTC on Sunday the 16th of February. Using CW on the 160 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and transmit power. USA stations also send their state and Canadian stations send their province.  Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Wednesday the 5th of February 2025 Last week went pretty much as predicted. The solar wind from a large coronal hole impacted the Earth on Saturday the 1st of February, pushing the Kp index to four. The hole was so large that the geomagnetic disturbance lasted until the early evening on Sunday. Once the solar wind speed had dropped, things got back to normal and the Kp index has been in the range of 1 to 2 ever since. The event appeared to have had little effect on HF propagation, with maximum usable frequencies over a 3000km path remaining above 28MHz during the daylight hours. So it looks like we dodged a bullet. At the time of writing, we have had 21 M-class flares in three days. A solar flare measuring M8.8 was detected around active region 3981, peaking at 0358UTC on the 3rd of February. This was the strongest flare yet from this region in terms of peak X-Ray flux. However, the flare itself was impulsive and was not the source of a coronal mass ejection. Over the next week, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index could fall slightly to be in the 180 to 200 range. Make the most of the good propagation as we may be entering a period of unsettled geomagnetic conditions again from the 10th to the 17th of February. NOAA predicts that the Kp index could rise to a maximum of 5 on the 13th but is likely to be in the range of 3 to 5 over the seven days. Part of this may be down to another coronal hole which became Earth-facing on the 6th of February. There is also a good chance that we could get an X-class eruptive flare from active regions 3981 or 3978, which could result in a coronal mass ejection. We recommend you keep an eye on solarham.com for daily updates. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO High pressure during the second half of last week brought some useful tropo conditions. As this week, ending today the 9th comes to a close there are some wintry showers along North Sea coasts, which may produce some snow and rain scatter. However, this may be weakened by the nearby high pressure.  By the end of this week, ending today the 9th, there will be a change of weather pattern as the high, having now migrated to Scandinavia, leaves room for Atlantic weather systems to encroach from the west during the coming week. This could bring rain scatter possibilities to the western side of the country. These should be more useful than the eastern coast ones at the end of last week since the rain will probably be heavier and the fronts slow-moving. This time of year is something of a desert for Sporadic-E propagation although look out for lesser events as a result of jet streams. You can track these on the Propquest website. Keep a look out for auroras during the week beginning tomorrow, the 10th. The likelihood of M-class flares is around 85%, while the chance of X-class flares is approximately 20%. So keep an eye on the Kp index for any potential solar events that could cause auroras. Next week, there are no major meteor showers. The next significant meteor shower, the Lyrids, will become active in April. Keep checking the pre-dawn period for random meteors. Moon declination reached a maximum yesterday, Saturday the 8th. Path losses are still low but will increase throughout the coming week. This means that this weekend, ending today the 9th, should produce good activity for EME, especially on the GHz bands with long Moon windows and high peak Moon elevation. 144MHz sky noise is moderate this weekend, ending today the 9th, but falls to low for the rest of the coming week. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

It's Friday, April 26th, A.D. 2024. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard at www.TheWorldview.com. I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Adam McManus Muslims set fire to Christians' homes in Egypt On Tuesday, April 23rd at 11:00 p.m., Islamic extremists set fire to several homes and shops owned by Coptic Orthodox Christians in Egypt's Minya Governorate, reports International Christian Concern. Shockingly, as the flames grew, the Muslims attempted to prevent the Christians from leaving their burning homes.  Extremists later shared a video on social media showing Coptic homes on fire as a song, praising the attack, played in the background. The attack occurred after word spread that residents of the village, which is home to 3,000 Christian families, had obtained a permit to construct a church building. Some associated with the church received threats after the building permit was issued. Despite promises of safety from security forces, the cries of help from the archbishop and the local Coptic community went unanswered as the attack unfolded. Security forces arrived only after the attack, leaving a yet unknown number of Christians to perish in their burning homes.  According to Open Doors, Egypt is the 38th most dangerous country worldwide in which to be a Christian. America to militarily withdraw from Niger, Africa Niger, Africa has demanded that the United States militarily withdraw from the country, reports CNN. In response, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell met with Niger's Prime Minister Ali Lamine Zeine on Friday to put those plans in motion. The major drawdown will significantly impact the U.S. troop presence on the continent of Africa. The move comes amid serious U.S. concerns about the country's deepening relationships with Russia and Iran. Haitian Prime Minister resigns Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigned on Thursday as a new council was sworn in to lead the country gripped by deadly gang violence, reports the BBC. He agreed to step down last month after armed groups blocked his return to Haiti. Gangs now control most of Port-au-Prince, the capital. Teen suspended for “Only Two Genders” t-shirt A Catholic teenager has been suspended from his Ontario public high school for wearing a sweatshirt that said, “There are only two genders,” reports LifeSiteNews.com. Malachy O'Kane, age 16, was suspended on April 18, the second day he decided to wear his gender critical shirt to the Granite Ridge Education Centre in Sharbot Lake, a village near Kingston, Ontario. He was excluded from school for six days, beginning Friday, April 19. O'Kane was first told to remove his shirt by the school's vice-principal, Wojtek Czermak, after the teenager was called out of his classroom about 30 minutes after the school day began. When the student asked what the problem was, a school counselor said, “It's considered hate speech.” In Genesis 1:27, the Bible says, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Harvey Weinstein's rape conviction is overturned Yesterday, New York's highest court threw out Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction because the trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against Weinstein based on allegations that were not part of the case, reports The Associated Press. The ruling shocked and disappointed women who celebrated historic gains during the #MeToo era and left those who testified in the case bracing for a retrial against the ex-movie mogul. Weinstein, age 72, will remain in prison because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape. But the New York ruling reopens a painful chapter in America's reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures — an era that began in 2017 with a flood of allegations against Weinstein. Youth need (1) the truth and (2) connection to intergenerational relationships John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, warned an audience that young people today are "untethered" from the truth and disconnected from meaning and purpose, reports The Christian Post. Last month at City Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, he said, “Students today, just quite simply, need two things. They need, first of all, to hear the truth. … We live in a world that's detached itself from the source [of truth]." Stonestreet quoted a British survey conducted over a decade, which found that initially, 13 years ago, 90% of young people, aged 18-28, believed that life had meaning. However, when the same question was asked 10 years later, only 10% of respondents reportedly felt that life had meaning. He said, "There's never been a generation so untethered from God. Even in generations past, when we fooled around with ideas about whether God exists or not, we still lived in a culture where family was the norm and largely stable.” According to Stonestreet, the solution is the reintroduction of truth through intergenerational relationships and mentoring. God's meteor shower And finally, every year from April 15 to April 29, dozens of shooting stars streak through the sky in this spectacular show from God, reports Business Insider. The Lyrid meteor shower is in full swing this week. Unfortunately, the bright supermoon could make it harder to see it. The meteor shower was most active from Sunday night to Monday morning, but it will remain visible for the next week. In the Northern Hemisphere, the best time to see the Lyrids is during the early morning hours after the moon sets and before the sun rises. Psalm 19:1 declares, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.” Close And that's The Worldview in 5 Minutes on this Friday, April 26th in the year of our Lord 2024. Subscribe by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. Or get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

GB2RS News Sunday the 28th of April 2024   The news headlines: New mock papers for amateur radio licence exams have been published A revised amateur radio examination syllabus has been released The RSGB has released the video review of 2023 by its President John McCullagh, GI4BWM The RSGB Exam Syllabus Review Group has published a new set of mock papers covering each of the amateur radio licence exams, from Foundation through to Direct to Full. These papers are in addition to those already available. They are each marked as ‘mock exam paper 3' and you can find them on the RSGB website at rsgb.org/mock-exams  The new amateur radio licence has now been in effect for a few weeks. Changes to the licence conditions have made it necessary to revise the examination syllabus. The RSGB is pleased to release version 1.6 of the syllabus which includes these revisions. Compared to version 1.5 in current use, the only section that has seen major changes is Section 1 – “Licensing and station identification”. In Section 7 – “Operating practices and procedures” – there were some minor changes, for example regarding suffixes. Exams will start using version 1.6 of the syllabus on the 1st of September 2024. The Society has released the video review of 2023 by RSGB President John McCullagh, GI4BWM. Filmed at the Ofcom Spectrum Management Centre near Baldock in Hertfordshire, the video covers a wide range of very positive activities, events and achievements. The President also talks about the RSGB's strategic priorities, gaining publicity in the mainstream media, and the important work done by the Society on behalf of all radio amateurs to protect the spectrum. One example is the WRC Conference, where the RSGB Microwave Manager Barry Lewis, G4SJH, led the IARU team responsible for defending amateur use of the 23cm band. You can watch the video on the RSGB YouTube channel at youtube.com/theRSGB At the April Regional Forum meeting, Regional Representative 10, Keith Bird, G4JED was elected as Chair, and Regional Representative 3, Martyn Bell, M0TEB was elected as Secretary. They will both volunteer in these roles until the 2025 AGM. You can find contact details for both Keith and Martyn on the RSGB website at rsgb.org/regions The next in the series of the popular 145 Alive events, to promote the use of 145MHz FM, is scheduled to take place on the 11th of May 2024, from 1 pm to 3 pm. The event and the supporting Facebook Group was started by Tim, G5TM and from the start of 2024 has been organised by Mark, M0XIC and John, M0XJA. The last successful event took place in January this year, when over 30 nets operated simultaneously across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern and Southern Ireland. Over 900 QSOs took place, with many amateurs operating portable, mobile or from their club or home QTH. If you would like to take part and find out more about the event and 145 Alive in general, then join the 145 Alive Facebook Group. If you would like to run a net on the 11th of May, contact Mark, M0XIC or John, M0XJA via the Facebook Group. Mills on the Air Weekend 2024 is coming up on Saturday the 11th and Sunday the 12th of May. The event takes place across the UK every May with more than 300 windmills and watermills usually taking part. For more information, to register, and to view a list of registered stations, visit ddars.net/mills.html The RAF Air Cadets are pleased to announce that they are running the ever-popular Blue Ham Radio Communications Exercise in June on the 60m band. The exercise will take place between the 17th and 21st of June. Subject to your licence conditions, the Blue Ham team hopes that you can put some time aside to join in with the cadets and staff who will be ready to take your calls. The Blue Ham Team will issue you with a participation certificate if you contact 20 or more special MRE callsigns over the period of the exercise. For more information visit alphacharlie.org.uk  Please note that only Full licensees may operate on the 60m band. South Bristol Amateur Radio Club is running a free online Foundation licence course in May. Anyone who is interested in taking part can find out more by emailing training@sbarc.co.uk When emailing, please include your name, postal address and date of birth. Please also indicate which weekday evenings and times you are available. The weekday evening that the course will take place will be decided by majority preference. MFJ Enterprises has announced in a letter to its customers that it will be ceasing its on-site production at its premises in Starkville, Mississippi on the 17th of May 2024. The news also applies to the sister companies Ameritron, Hygain, Cushcraft and others. MFJ Enterprises has been in business for 52 years and will continue to sell its existing stock after the 17th of May. It will also continue to offer a repair service for out-of-warranty and in-warranty units for the foreseeable future. And now for details of rallies and events The Lough Erne Amateur Radio Club's 40th Annual Radio Rally is due to take place on Sunday the 5th of May. The venue will be Share Discovery Village, 221 Lisnaskea Road, Lisnaskea, Enniskillen, BT92 0JZ. The event will feature food and drink, bring and buy, RSGB books, the QSL Bureau, and the usual variety of traders. The doors open at 11 am. Traders are asked to arrive around 9 am. Admission, which includes a ticket for the prize draw, will cost £5 or five Euro. Contact Alan at argault91@gmail.com to arrange a table. Thorpe Camp Hamfest will also take place on Sunday the 5th of May at Thorpe Camp Visitor Centre, Tattershall Thorpe, Lincolnshire, LN4 4PL. Traders are asked to arrive no earlier than 7 am. The doors open at 9 am for buyers and the entrance fee is £5 per person. The Retrotech UK event will be held on Sunday the 12th of May. The venue will be Sports Connexion, Leamington Road, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Coventry, CV8 3FL. The doors open at 10.30 am with an entry fee of £10. A fee of £25 applies for early-doors entry at 9 am. This is an annual event organised by the British Vintage Wireless Society. There will be almost 200 dealer stalls, clubs and private sellers. Everyone is welcome to come along and enjoy the wide range of retro equipment. For more information email info@retrotechuk.com and visit retrotechuk.com Now the Special Event News Special callsign SZ0WARD is in use by the Radio Amateur Association of Greece in celebration of World Amateur Radio Day until the 30th of April. Look for activity on all bands using SSB, CW and digital modes. QSL via the Bureau and Logbook of the World. See sv2rck.gr/SZ0WARD for details of an available award. Also in celebration of World Amateur Radio Day, the special callsign TC3WRD is active until the 30th of April. QSL via Logbook of the World. For details of a certificate that is available, see tadx.org/awards The station was spotted recently on the 40m band using FT8. Today is the last chance to work special event station GB6WW which is active from Glasgow, Scotland to commemorate the end of the Second World War. If you have made QSOs with GB6WW on three or more bands, you are eligible to apply for an award. To apply for the award, send an email to gb6ww@ft8.me with the details of your contacts. Please include your callsign, dates of QSOs, and the bands on which they occurred. There is no application fee. Once your QSOs have been verified, the PDF award file will be emailed to you. Now the DX news Jeff, K5WE and Craig, W5CCP are active as TX7W from Raivavae, OC-114,  in the Austral Islands until the 30th of April. They are operating using mainly CW and FT8, with some SSB, RTTY and FT4, on the 160 to 6m bands. QSL via Club Log's OQRS is preferred but is also available via Logbook of the World, or directly to K5WE. Depending upon a reliable internet connection, logs will be uploaded to Club Log daily, and Club Log's Livestream will be enabled. See k5we.com/tx7w for more information and updates. Listen out for a group of 13 Camb-Hams which is active from the Isle of Mull, EU-008, as GS3PYE until the 3rd of May. The team is QRV on the 80 to 10m bands as well as via the QO-100 satellite. QSL via Club Log's OQRS. You can read a report of the team's previous visit to the island in 2015 at tinyurl.com/Mull2015 Now the contest news The UK and Ireland DX CW Contest started at 1200UTC on Saturday the 27th and ends at 1200UTC today, the 28th of April. Using CW on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. UK and Ireland's stations also send their district code. The SP DX RTTY Contest started at 1200UTC on the 27th and ends at 1200UTC today the 28th of April. Using RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. SP stations also send their province code. The MGM Contest started at 1400UTC on the 27th of April and ends at 1400UTC today the 28th of April. Using machine-generated modes on the 6 and 2m bands, the exchange is your report and four-character locator. Today, the 28th, the British Amateur Radio Teledata Group Sprint 75 Contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using 75-baud RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is your serial number. On Monday the 29th, the FT4 Series Contest runs from 1900 to 2030UTC. Using FT4 on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is your report. On Wednesday the 1st of May, the 144MHz FT8 Activity four-hour Contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 2m band, the exchange is a report and four-character locator. Also on Wednesday the 1st of May, the 144MHz FT8 Activity two-hour Contest runs from 1900 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 2m band, the exchange is a report and four-character locator. Stations entering the four-hour contest may also enter the two-hour contest. On Saturday the 4th, the 432MHz Trophy Contest runs from 1400 to 2000 UTC. Using all modes on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The 432MHz to 245GHz Contest starts at 1400UTC on Saturday the 4th and ends at 1400UTC on Sunday the 5th of May. Using all modes on 432MHz to 245GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The UK Six Metre Group's Summer Marathon starts at 0000UTC on Saturday the 4th of May and ends at 2359UTC on Sunday the 4th of August. Using all modes on the 6m band, the exchange is your four-character locator. The ARI International DX Contest starts at 1200UTC on Saturday the 4th of May and ends at 1159UTC on Sunday the 5th of May. Using CW, RTTY and SSB on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Italian stations also send their province. On Sunday the 5th, the UK Microwave Group Low Band Contest runs from 0800 to 1400UTC. Using all modes on 1.3 to 3.4GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also on Sunday the 5th, the UK Microwave Group Millimetre Wave Contest runs from 0900 to 1700UTC. Using all modes on 24, 47 and 76GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Sunday the 5th, the Worked All Britain 7MHz Phone Contest runs from 1000 to 1400UTC. Using SSB on the 40m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and Worked All Britain Square. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA, and G4BAO on Thursday the 25th of April 2024 We had another week with plenty of sunspots, and HF conditions were quite good in the second half. Earlier, the Kp index reached 3 and 4, which didn't help maximum useable frequencies, or MUFs for short. For example, on Sunday the 21st, the Kp index rose to 4 and the MUF over a 3,000km path remained stubbornly below 21MHz until later in the morning. This could have been due to a coronal hole on the Sun's equator, which added to the solar wind. By Wednesday, conditions were nearly back to normal, with a Kp index below 2 and an MUF of more than 24MHz. By Thursday the improvement had continued, giving us an MUF of more than 28MHz by 0900UTC. There have been many reports of 10m band DX being worked, including Sebastien, FK4AX and Pat, FK8HA in New Caledonia in the Pacific on SSB. Sebastien has just got his licence and is keen to work DX from the UK. This shows that it is worth keeping an eye on the CW and SSB portions of the 10m band, which can often throw up surprises. Next week, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index will decline to around 160. The Kp index is predicted to be around 2 to 3, but that may be wishful thinking. With 16 active regions visible on the Sun's surface on Thursday, anything could happen. Only minor C- and M-class flares have occurred recently but, as we always say, it wouldn't take much for those to turn into X-class events. So, make the most of quiet geomagnetic conditions when we have them as, by the time you read or hear this, we could once again have very unsettled conditions indeed. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The cold, unsettled weather will ease its grip over the last few days of this week, ending the 28th of April, but only because the whole area of low pressure is moving across the country this weekend. Low pressure remains close by for much of the following week and only a hesitant return of high pressure west of Ireland will improve things for western Britain at the end of the week. The result is a chance of Tropo for western Britain next week, but it will probably be of limited quality since it is likely to form in cold, dry air across any temperature inversion.  The remaining option in such weather patterns is primarily rain scatter for those on the GHz bands. The many online weather radar displays can be used to highlight the areas of heaviest rain. We are past the peak of the Lyrids meteor shower, but the Eta-Aquarids, with a Zenithal Hourly Rate of 50, peaks next Sunday the 5th around 2100UTC. Until then, rely upon random activity which tends to be better around dawn. The Sun has been more active again recently, so monitor the clusters and Kp index for signs of geomagnetic activity and the chance of an aurora if the Kp index exceeds 5. Sporadic-E tends to produce a few early examples in May ahead of its June peak. Check the DX clusters during the late afternoon or early evening as openings can be very brief early in the season. Start on the 10m band and, if short skip within Europe is present, move up to the 6m band. Digital modes are more sensitive so check FT8 reports to give clues as to where the chances are greatest. For EME operators, the Moon is at minimum declination today, Sunday the 28th, meaning we'll have short Moon windows to start the coming week. Path losses are falling but perigee, when the Moon is at its closest point, is still over a week away. 144MHz sky noise is high this weekend, ending the 28th of April, but falls too low by the end of the coming week. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

Earth is passing through the dust stream that produces the April Lyrid meteor shower this week. There are sometimes bright fireballs. The full moon is interfering though.

AccuWeather Daily brings you the top trending weather story of the day - every day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you like to watch falling stars, this next month or so is a good time to see them. The Lyrids meteor shower will start soon, and it overlaps with the Eta Aquarids meteor shower. Between the two, the show will run to the end of May.

  GB2RS News Sunday the 14th of April 2024 The news headlines: RSGB member interviewed by the BBC about the total solar eclipse Ofcom releases video about changes to UK amateur radio licensing World Amateur Radio Day is coming up On Monday the 8th of April, a total solar eclipse gripped North America as radio amateurs worldwide looked on to see its effect on the ionosphere. This included RSGB Propagation Committee associate member Gwyn Griffiths, G3ZIL, who was interviewed by BBC news on the topic. The article, which was shared across the world, looked at some of the scientific experiments that took place during the eclipse. You can read the article by searching for “The 4-minute window into the Sun's secrets” on BBC news. The RSGB thanks all the WSPR users who responded to Gwyn's call to action, got involved and shared their results on the RSGB social media channels.  Ofcom has released a video about changes to the UK amateur radio framework covering licensing and callsign changes. It also gives some insight into the forthcoming Phase 2 and Phase 3 of the changes for callsigns and special event stations. You can watch the video at tinyurl.com/ofcomvid World Amateur Radio Day is celebrated each year on the 18th of April. The theme for 2024 is “A Century of Connections: Celebrating 100 Years of Amateur Radio Innovation, Community and Advocacy.” The global event covers all of the IARU regions and runs from 0000UTC on Thursday the 18th of April to 0000UTC on Friday the 19th of April. All radio amateurs are invited to take to the airwaves to show their skills and capabilities to the public. You can read more about the event at tinyurl.com/iaruward During May, the RSGB's Photo Friday feature on social media will highlight radio amateurs who are taking advantage of the new licence conditions. You could be an individual who is discovering different things to enjoy with the new power levels, or who is encouraging friends and family to get on the air under your supervision. You could be a club involved in special events and outreach to the public. In whatever way you're making the most of the new licence conditions, the RSGB wants to hear from you! Send a photo and a short description to comms@rsgb.org.uk and the Society will share as many stories as possible. On the 11th of April, BBC Radio 4 Feedback presenter Andrea Catherwood looked at why the Long Wave frequency is being shut down by the BBC. She interviewed RSGB President John McCullagh, GI4BWM, and in the final programme, a brief clip was used in which John gave his opinion on the possible impact for some listeners. You can listen to the Feedback show on BBC Sounds, by searching for “Feedback and Long Wave” on the BBC website. The feature starts at 19 minutes and 55 seconds, with the RSGB President featuring at 22 minutes and 18 seconds. This year Dennis, G7AGZ is running special event station GB0CHC again in support of Cornwall Hospice Care. This is Dennis' 33rd year of fundraising for the charity. The station will be active until the end of April on all bands from 80m to 70cm using SSB, FM and DMR. If you would like to support the cause, search for GB0CHC on the justgiving.com  website The Cornish Radio Amateur Club has re-launched its sought-after Cornish Award Certificate. The award has been around since the 1960s and is given to amateur radio stations based outside of the County of Cornwall who have contacted 20 Cornish-based amateur radio stations. The new award allows the use of HF, VHF and UHF bands using any mode including FM, SSB, CW, and now digital modes such as FT8. Proof in the form of copies of logbook entries showing the 20 stations worked, dates, times and modes is required to qualify. The new award applies to contacts made on or after the 1st of January 2024, and the certificate will be emailed in PDF format. More information can be found via the “Cornish Award” link at gx4crc.com A reminder now that International Marconi Day is coming up on the 27th of April. Once again, the Cornish Radio Amateur Club is organising and running the event. Lots of amateur radio stations will be operating from sites that Marconi operated from or had a personal connection with. For more information, and to view a list of the stations that are taking part, follow the “International Marconi Day” link on the gx4crc.com  website  And now for details of rallies and events Yeovil Amateur Radio Club's 38th QRP Convention will be held on Saturday the 20th of April at Digby Hall, Sherborne, Dorset, DT9 3AA. The doors will be open from 9.30 am to 1.30 pm and admission will be £3. The event will feature talks, traders, a bring-and-buy area, club stalls and a café. For more information, see yeovil-arc.com or email derekbowen1949@talktalk.net Andover Radio Amateur Club Boot Sale is due to take place on Sunday the 21st of April at Wildhern Village Hall, Tangley, Wildhern, Andover, SP11 0JE. The doors open at 10 am for visitors and at 9 am for sellers. Entry will cost £2. The fee for a field pitch is £8 and the cost for a table in the hall will be £10. For more information visit arac.org.uk  For table bookings email admin@arac.org.uk Cambridge Repeater Group Rally will take place on Sunday the 21st of April at Foxton Village Hall, Hardman Road, Foxton, Cambridgeshire, CB22 6RN. The doors will open at 9.30 am for visitors and at 7.30 am for traders. The event will be a car-boot sale. The rally will feature talk-in, trade stands, clubs, bring and buy, RSGB books, a free marshalled car park and a burger van. For more information contact Lawrence, M0LCM on 07941 972 724, email rally2024@cambridgerepeaters.net, or visit cambridgerepeaters.net The Northern Amateur Radio Societies Association Rally, also known as both the ‘NARSA Rally' and the ‘Blackpool Rally', will take place on Sunday the 21st of April. The venue will be Norbreck Castle Exhibition Centre, Blackpool, FY2 9AA. For more details contact Dave, M0OBW on 01270 761 608, email dwilson@btinternet.com or visit narsa.org.uk Dunstable Downs Radio Club would like to remind everyone that its annual boot sale has been postponed until the 30th of June. This is due to the site being used by BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend music festival. Updates will be posted to Dunstable Downs Radio Club's Facebook page and reminder emails will be sent out closer to the time. To add yourself to the list, visit ddrcbootsale.org  and sign up for email reminders.  Now the Special Event News Special event station 5P0WARD will be active from Denmark on the 18th of April to mark World Amateur Radio Day. QSL via Logbook of the World or via OZ1ACB. For more information, including details of awards that are available, visit QRZ.com Special callsign ER30ARM is active to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Amateur Radio Society of Moldova, ER1KAA. Look for activity until the 30th of April. The station was spotted recently on the HF bands using CW and FT8. QSL via the Bureau, directly, and Logbook of the World.  Now the DX news Willy, ON4AVT is active as 6W7/ON4AVT from Warang, Senegal until the 16th of April. He operates using mainly FT8 on the 80 to 10m bands. He will also be QRV on the QO-100 satellite. QSL via Club Log's OQRS. Bernhard, DL2GAC is active as H44MS from Malaita, OC-047 in the Solomon Islands until the 25th of April. He is QRV on the 160 to 6m bands using SSB and some FT8. QSL via Bernhard's home call or the Bureau. He will upload his log to Club Log and Logbook of the World.  Now the contest news On Tuesday the 16th, the 1.3GHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130UTC. Using all modes on the 23cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday the 17th, the 80m Club Championship runs from 1900 to 2030UTC. Using SSB on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Thursday the 18th, the 70MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130UTC. Using All modes on the 4m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator.  Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA, and G4BAO on Thursday the 11th of April 2024 The Sun is still looking a little bare, but the solar flux index has climbed back to 131, as of Thursday the 11th, with four active regions. The promise is that things will improve, especially as we will soon see the return of active region 3615, which was the source of numerous M-class and one X-class flare on its last rotation. Things have been a little sparse on the higher HF bands, with only FT8 being audible or visible on the 10m band at times. Having said that there has been some good FT8 DX to be worked on the 10m band, including Angola, Malawi, China, Japan, Taiwan and the Solomon Islands. During the recent solar eclipse event there were also a lot of US stations on the 10m band using WSPR. These included Bob, K6XX in Santa Cruz, California, who was copiable in the UK at around 1850UTC. This just shows how effective WSPR is as a mode on an otherwise quiet band. There have been some early signs of Sporadic-E on the 10m band using digital modes, including some brief openings to Scotland from eastern UK. We can expect these to improve as we head towards May. Next week, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index will be in the 140 to 150 range with a maximum Kp index of three. If this is correct it means that HF conditions will be roughly the same as last week. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The weather patterns are showing signs of change after being stuck for quite some time, and the main beneficiary will be VHF operators seeing a chance of Tropo returning to the bands.  The initial unsettled weather over the UK, with high pressure fixed over the continent, will take us through to the middle of the coming week. Thereafter, a high will develop to the southwest of Britain midweek and drift northeast across the country, although some models take the high on a more southerly track. In either event, there should be some useful Tropo in the south and possibly northern areas too. This may be limited to southwestern areas for Tuesday's 23cm UK Activity Contest, but will hopefully be more supportive of the 4m UK Activity Contest on Thursday. Meteor scatter is worth a look next week since we are approaching the 21st and 22nd of April peak of the Lyrids shower at the end of next weekend. The quieter solar conditions have taken aurora down the table, but it's still good practice to watch out for if the Kp index goes above five. Gigahertz-band rain scatter certainly drops down the league table next week as high pressure probably takes over. As we said earlier, the next big thing is the start of the 2024 Sporadic-E season, which slowly comes to life during April for the 10 and 6m bands, especially on digital modes, whereas the real shift up in gear often comes during May. As mentioned last week, it's worth updating your list of beacons in your rig's memory while it's still quiet. For EME operators, Moon declination is at maximum this weekend, ending the 14th, so there will be long Moon windows. We are past perigee, so path losses are rising again. 144MHz sky noise is moderate this weekend then low for the rest of the week. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

This episode is brought to you by NordPass...the password manager (and more) that you need in your life for not very much money. To get the deal, visit www.nordpass.com/stuartThe Space, Astronomy & Science Podcast.SpaceTime Series 27 Episode 42*Water's Persistent Presence in Mars' Gale CraterMars' Gale Crater may have harbored water far longer than scientists previously believed, challenging our timeline of the Red Planet's arid transformation. New evidence from NASA's Curiosity rover, detailed in the journal Geology, suggests that underground water may have been present in the crater during the latter part of the Hesperian period, 3.7 to 3 billion years ago. This discovery, marked by deformed desert sandstone, hints at a more habitable past and could reshape our search for ancient Martian life.*The Sun's Spectacular Double Solar FlareThe Sun has unleashed its most powerful eruption since 2017 with a double solar flare event, signaling a ramp-up towards solar maximum. The X1.1-class flare, coupled with a series of M-class flares, has sparked vivid auroral displays and heightened space weather activity. This dynamic solar performance, captured by ESA's SMOS and Swarm satellites, underscores the Sun's influence on Earth's magnetosphere and the importance of real-time space weather monitoring.*The SR-71 Blackbird's Alleged Successor: The SR-72Rumors persist of the Pentagon's development of a hypersonic aircraft, the SR-72, potentially succeeding the legendary SR-71 Blackbird. Reports suggest that Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works is behind this classified project, which could reach Mach 6 speeds and revolutionize reconnaissance with its unmanned design. If true, this aircraft could redefine the boundaries of aviation and surveillance technology.*April Night Skies: Alpha Centauri to the Lyrids Meteor ShowerAs autumn's grip tightens, the night skies of April offer a celestial tapestry rich with wonders. From the Southern Cross standing upright to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, being prominently on display, stargazers have much to explore. The annual Lyrids meteor shower promises a dazzling show, peaking on April 22-23, while the planets Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, and Venus grace the morning and evening skies with their presence.For more SpaceTime and to support the show, visit our website at https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com where you can access our universal listen link, find show notes, and learn how to become a patron. Listen to SpaceTime on your favorite podcast app with our universal listen link: https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com/listen and access show links via https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ. Support the show: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-with-stuart-gary--2458531/support. For more space and astronomy podcasts, visit our HQ at https://bitesz.com.

GB2RS News Sunday the 17th of March 2024 The news headlines: The RSGB's 2024 AGM is coming up British Science Week is drawing to a close Changes to examination fees are coming soon This year's RSGB AGM will take place at 10 am on Saturday the 13th of April and will be held online to ensure as many members as possible can watch and take part. The formal business of the meeting will include the results of members' votes on the resolutions, including the endorsement of three Nominated Directors. The President will give a video review of 2023 and the Society will announce the recipients of its annual awards and trophies, as well as the winners of its construction competition. At the end of the meeting, there will be a recorded presentation on “Making amateur radio licensing fit for the future” by Ofcom Group Director, Spectrum, David Willis. This will be followed by a live Q&A on the new licence conditions, with four senior RSGB representatives answering your questions: President, John McCullagh, GI4BWM; Board Chair, Stewart Bryant, G3YSX; General Manager, Steve Thomas, M1ACB; and Spectrum Forum Chair, Murray Niman, G6JYB. You can find more information about the candidates, voting and how to ask the Board a question on the RSGB AGM web pages at rsgb.org/agm British Science Week is drawing to a close and lots of exciting activities have been going on. Radio amateurs across the country have been encouraging young people to explore and understand our hobby and there have been some wonderful ways of incorporating the theme of “Time” into amateur radio activities. The RSGB would like to thank those who have shared ideas and resources, promoting the magic of radio communications with young people. There will be a report in the June issue of RadCom to showcase the activities that have happened and to inspire people to get involved next year! Perhaps you ran a construction day, set up and operated a radio station in a school or achieved a QSO with GB3RS at the RSGB National Radio Centre. Whatever you've been doing, please send your reports, with separate high-resolution photographs, to radcom@rsgb.org.uk by the 21st of April 2024. The RSGB would welcome feedback about what worked well, what you learned and how the Society could develop its British Science Week activities next year. Please email the RSGB British Science Week Coordinator Ian Neal, M0KEO at bsw@rsgb.org.uk to share your thoughts. Early in February the RSGB announced that the fees for Foundation, Intermediate and Full level examinations would increase from the 1st of May 2024. You can now use the online booking system to book an exam before the 1st of May at the current price or select exam dates from the 1st of May at the new prices. Please ensure you make the correct date selection, as booking errors that need to be changed may incur an administration fee as outlined in the exam terms and conditions. To book an exam, go to the Student Information section of the RSGB website and choose the option to book and pay for your exam from the right hand menu. The RadCom Contesting column has new editors! The RSGB Contest Committees will be overseeing the column and have planned a schedule of topics. Some will be written by members of the three contesting committees, and some by others who can share their experiences. As well as information about various aspects of contesting, the committees hope that the column will feature a contesting tip of the month, a featured UK contester, as well as a contest of the month. Once each issue is published, the column content will be shared on the RSGB website to provide a useful resource about contesting. You can see a list of the planned topics at rsgb.org/radcom-contesting  The committees are keen to hear from people who would like to be involved, so if you would like to suggest a missing topic or offer to write something for the column, please email ContestClub@rsgbcc.org And now for details of rallies and events Callington Radio and Electronics Rally is taking place today, the 17th. The rally is being held in the Town Hall, New Road, Callington, Cornwall, PL17 7BD. The doors will be open from 10 am. Entry is £2 each and there is no charge for those under the age of 16. A comprehensive selection of traders, clubs and societies are present along with a bring-and-buy stall and the usual catering service. The venue has excellent disabled access and toilets, and there is ample car parking nearby. More details, including a list of items currently registered for sale at the huge bring-and-buy stand, are available at callingtonradiosociety.org.uk Grantham Amateur Radio Club Radio and Electronics Rally is also taking place today, the 17th. The venue is Grantham West Community Centre, Trent Road, Grantham, Lincolnshire. The doors are open from 9 am to 1.30 pm and entry for buyers is £3. Those under the age of 16 will be admitted for free. Ample free parking is available. For more information visit garc.org.uk/rally In Wales, the Pencoed and District Amateur Radio Club Rally is taking place today, the 17th. The event is being held at Sarn and Bryncwils Social Club, Sarn, Bridgend, CF32 9NY. The entrance fee is £2 but there is no charge for those under the age of 16. Doors open to the public at 10 am and refreshments are available. Disabled access is available via a chair lift. For more information contact Leuan Jones at 07791 709 691. The Dover Amateur Radio Club Rally will take place on Sunday the 24th of March at Saint Radigunds Community Centre. The doors will be open from 10 am to 2 pm and the entrance fee will be £3. Tables cost £15 each with a maximum of two tables per vendor. For more information visit darc.online/rally The Ripon Rally will also take place on Sunday the 24th of March. The venue will be Great Ouseburn Village Hall, Lightmire Lane, Great Ouseburn, York, YO26 9RL. Lots of parking will be available adjacent to the venue. Traders are welcome from 7 am and tables cost £10 each. The doors open for visitors from 10 am and entrance is £3 per person. For more information visit radars-g4sjm.club Now the Special Event News HI180RD is on the air to celebrate the 180th anniversary of the Dominican Republic declaring its independence from Haiti in 1844. Listen for activity on all bands and modes until the 30th of April. Around 25 operators from five radio clubs will be part of the event. For details of an available certificate, visit QRZ.com A special event call sign EI80MB is active until the 31st of May 2024 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the rescue of 168 German seamen who were rescued from the waters of the Bay of Biscay after a battle between British and German naval forces in 1943. The men were carried out by a small Irish coaster called ‘Kerlogue' which had the callsign EIMB. The rescue took more than ten hours. QSL via Club Log's OQRS or via EI6AL. Now the DX news Nobby, G0VJG is active as 5H3VJG from Zanzibar Island, AF-032, in Tanzania until the 20th of March. He is operating mainly using SSB and with some CW and FT8. QSL via M0OXO's OQRS. QSOs will be uploaded to the Logbook of the World and Club Log. Gerard, F2JD is active as HR5/F2JD from Copan, Honduras until the 21st of March. He is operating CW, SSB, FT8 and FT4 on the HF bands. QSL via F6AJA directly or via the Bureau. Now the contest news On Monday the 18th, the FT4 Series Contest runs from 1900 to 2030UTC. Using FT4 on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is your report. The British Amateur Radio Teledata Group HF RTTY Contest started at 0200UTC on Saturday the 16th and ends at 0200UTC on Monday the 18th. Using RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report, serial number and time. On Tuesday the 19th, the 1.3GHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. Using All modes on the 23cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Tuesday the 19th, the IRTS 80m Evening Counties Contest runs from 2000 to 2100UTC. Using CW and SSB on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and county code. On Thursday the 21st, the 70MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. Using all modes on the 4m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA, and G4BAO on Thursday the 14th of March 2024 What a difference a month makes. We've gone from a solar flux index up to almost 200, to one that is down in the 120s. Over the past week, we have had only two M-class solar flares, which means we have had limited coronal mass ejection activity and therefore low Kp indices. Last weekend's Commonwealth Contest saw UK amateurs making plenty of HF contacts, some with Australia, but everyone agreed that HF propagation was a little lacklustre. There is a daily chance of moderate-class solar flares from AR 3607, the largest sunspot region, but all remaining spots remain mostly small and simple. The solar wind speed has been quite high with sporadic periods of a south-pointing Bz field. This is what has pushed the Kp index to three, but this isn't a big threat to HF. There is a slight chance of unsettled intervals caused by a weak coronal hole near the south centre of the solar disc coupled with the fast solar wind. NOAA reports that active region 3590 has been detected on the far side of the Sun using helioseismology. This may mean that it will still be active and a threat when it returns in a week or so. This region was the source of the X6 solar flare on the 22nd of February – the largest so far in solar cycle 25. Next week, commencing the 18th of March, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index will remain in the 120 to 130 range, although the US Air Force predicts it could reach 150. Geomagnetic conditions are likely to be mainly settled with a maximum Kp index of two or three.  So, this is a reasonable forecast for HF propagation, which should remain open up to 28MHz during daylight hours. This is also a good time for north-south paths, such as the UK to South Africa, and the UK to South America. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The continuing theme of unsettled weather will produce further spells of rain and heavy showers and once again provide some rain scatter options on the GHz bands. Another thing to mention is that, as we move towards the latter part of the month, the intensity of showers becomes greater due to the additional warmth improving the effectiveness of the rain scatter process. It is very hard to find any traditional Tropo until we get well into the coming week. It may occur on Thursday the 21st when a high will develop a ridge from Biscay across southern Britain and the near continent. This should provide a chance of Tropo for the final few days of the coming week. Unfortunately, this is not in time for the UK Activity Contest on 1.3GHz on Tuesday the 19th, but the 70MHz UK Activity Contest on Thursday the 21st may be luckier. The north of Britain may start to see the next low bringing rain over that weekend, so although it has an early exit from any Tropo, at least being well north gives Scottish stations a head start for any aurora, which tends to favour the spring months. Meteor scatter remains in the random territory – try just before sunrise for best results. But with the next major shower being the Lyrids in late April, we have a while to wait for an uptick in activity. Lastly, a brief mention of Sporadic-E. It has popped up with some weak events on the Dourbes plots on Propquest, but the main season is still a little way off. Maybe check next month for a heads-up on the lower bands like 28 and 50MHz. Of course, digital modes will get a head start, so best to check the clusters and chatrooms for signs of fleeting activity. Some UK stations reported 50MHz trans-equatorial propagation to Africa last week, so check for that. For EME operators, Moon declination reaches a maximum on Sunday, but path losses are starting to increase again. 144MHz sky noise is moderate, falling to low on Wednesday. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

GB2RS News Sunday the 14th of January 2024 The news headlines: RSGB releases new video about changes to amateur radio licensing WRTC 2026 team to appear in an RSGB Tonight@8 webinar Paul Athersmith, M0PLA achieves Mountain Goat award   Following Ofcom's consultation on the amateur radio licence last year, it released a statement in December 2023. The statement outlined its decision to update the amateur radio licensing framework to ensure the policies and licences meet the needs of today's and tomorrow's radio amateurs while streamlining the licensing process. It also published a General Notice, giving notice of its proposal to vary all amateur radio licences. The RSGB has just released a video in which RSGB General Manager Steve Thomas, M1ACB chats to RSGB Spectrum Forum Chair Murray Niman, G6JYB. Murray recaps some of the headline results of the Ofcom consultation, including where changes have occurred to Ofcom's proposals. They also talk about what this could mean for radio amateurs in the future. This is a great example of how the RSGB is working not only to defend the spectrum but also to support all radio amateurs to understand and make use of the privileges they enjoy through their amateur radio licence. You can watch this video on the RSGB's YouTube channel or via the Society's licence review updates page at rsgb.org/licencereview On Monday the 15th of January, join the RSGB's first Tonight@8 live webinar of 2024. Led by Chairman and Project Manager Mark Haynes, M0DXR, the WRTC 2026 team will be presenting and answering questions live on the RSGB YouTube channel and BATC channel. The presentation will explain what WRTC is about and provide an overview of what the UK's Organising Committee is planning for the 2026 event. Find out how you can be part of this once-in-a-lifetime event, either as a spectator, volunteer, competitor or referee. Following Mark's presentation at the RSGB 2023 Convention, this Tonight@8 webinar will bring you up to date with everything that has been happening since. To find out more go to the RSGB website at rsgb.org/webinars Paul Athersmith, M0PLA of Telford, Shropshire, has achieved the coveted Mountain Goat award for gaining 1,000 activator points in the Summits on the Air scheme. Paul completed his mission on the summit of Pole Bank, on the Long Mynd in Shropshire. The feat took Paul just over seven years, following his debut activation in December 2016. For more information about SOTA, visit sota.org.uk  The deadline for nominations in the RSGB elections is Wednesday the 31st of January. You still have time to stand for the one Elected Board Director vacancy or for one of the eight Regional Representative vacancies. Do you want to support your local radio amateurs? Are you passionate about seeing the amateur radio community grow and attract new people of all ages? Do you understand the RSGB's importance in helping to protect the spectrum and the licence privileges all radio amateurs enjoy? If so, this is the time to step forward! If you don't feel you can volunteer at this time, do you know someone who would be great in one of these roles? Go to the RSGB website at rsgb.org/election to find out how to get involved before the nomination period closes. RSGB National Radio Centre Coordinator Martyn Baker, G0GMB is a name many will know from visits to the National Radio Centre at Bletchley Park. Others will know him from contacts they may have made with him on the radio over the many years that Martyn has been an amateur radio licensee. You can learn more about Martyn, and his love for the hobby, in "The Face Behind the Call" in January's Practical Wireless magazine. Journalist Roger Dowling, G3NKH discovers how Martyn came into the hobby and takes a look at his extensive shack. They also talk about volunteering at the RSGB National Radio Centre and the impressive equipment that makes up the GB3RS station. Read more at rsgb.org/nrc The deadline for submissions to the RSGB Construction Competition is the 1st of March 2024. To enable members across the country, and even the world, to take part, entries will again be judged over the internet rather than in person. This year two new categories have been introduced so there are six categories you can enter: Antennas; Beginners; Most creative and/or elegant PCB Design; Construction Excellence; Innovation; and Software and Systems. Special recognition will be given to entries submitted by radio amateurs under the age of 24, and to those who have just gained their Foundation licence. A cash prize will be awarded to the winner of each section, with a bonus for the overall winner, who will also be given the Pat Hawker G3VA Award. You can watch an RSGB Tonight@8 presentation featuring winners from previous years, and find out how to enter this year, on the RSGB website at rsgb.org/construction-competition And now for details of rallies and events The Lincoln Short Wave Club Winter Radio Rally will take place on Sunday the 28th of January at The Festival Hall, Caistor Road, Market Rasen, LN8 3HT. The doors will be open from 9 am and admission is £2. Ample free car parking and hot refreshments will be available. The tables cost £10 each. At 2 pm, after the Rally, there will be a used equipment auction. Items for the auction will be booked from 1 pm. Contact Steve, M5ZZZ for tables and details via m5zzz@outlook.com or 07777 699 069. The Canvey Rally will be held on Sunday the 4th of February at Cornelius Vermuyden School, Dinant Avenue, Canvey, Essex, SS8 9QS. The Rally is expected to be the usual hive of activity with plenty of traders on site. For more information contact Richard Stanley at 07725 551 263 or email g7oed@icloud.com  The MIDCARS Radioactive Rally will be held on Sunday the 11th of February at Nantwich Civic Hall, Market Street, Nantwich, CW5 5DG. The doors open at 10 am and admission is £5. There will be a wide variety of trader stalls covering every aspect of amateur radio. Raffles will be held throughout the Rally. Refreshments and snacks will be available in the hall and parking is immediately adjacent to the venue.   Now the Special Event News The World Wide Award 2024 has been running since the 1st of January and will finish on the 31st of January. The event is being held in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Guglielmo Marconi. The World Wide Award combines CW, SSB and digital mode activity from special event stations around the world. Real-time award tracking for chasers is available at hamaward.cloud/wwa VI100MB is the special callsign for the Manly-Warringah Radio Society, VK2MB to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its formation. The station will be active until the 25th of February 2024. QSL via Logbook of the World and eQSL.   Now the DX news Pierre-Jean, F4GPK will be active as TO2FY from French Guiana until the 16th of January. He will operate SSB only from the facilities at the local radio club, FY5KE. QSL via eQSL, or direct to his home call. He does not use Logbook of the World or Club Log. Yannick, F6FYD will be active as CN2YD from Marrakech, Morocco until the 15th of March 2024. He plans to operate as CN2YD/P from IOTA group AF-065 sometime during his stay. QSL via F6FYD. Now the contest news Today, the 14th, the RSGB Affiliated Societies 80 and 40m Data modes Contest runs from 1300 to 1700UTC. Using PSK63 and RTTY, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Tuesday the 16th, the 1.3GHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. Using all modes on the 23cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Thursday the 18th, the 70MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. Using all modes on the 4m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Saturday the 20th, the Affiliated Societies 80 and 40m SSB Contest runs from 1300 to 1700UTC. Using SSB only on the 80 and 40m bands, the exchange is signal report and serial number. The UK Six Metre Group Winter Marathon began on Friday the 1st of December 2023. The contest will run until the 31st of January 2024. Using all modes on the 6m band, the exchange is signal report and locator.  Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA, and G4BAO on Thursday the 11th of January 2024 We couldn't have asked for better solar conditions last week. We had a low Kp index that never got any higher than 2.67, and a solar flux index that started the week at 167 and then rose to 186 by Wednesday. So, at first glance, this looks like ideal conditions for HF. However, we are in the middle of winter and therefore the ionosphere is not at its best. The low bands are also being affected by the higher solar flux and, on the whole, the 14MHz band and above are closing as the night draws in. Daytime critical frequencies remain around 9 to 10MHz, so the 40m band should remain useful for inter-UK work. Nighttime critical frequencies are currently falling to 3.5 to 4.5MHz, which means the 40m band is only open to long skip, if at all.   The critical frequency is the highest that still returns a signal from the ionosphere if sent straight up, and is a good guide as to which bands are open to near vertical incidence skywave or NVIS signals around the UK. On the brighter side, 14MHz has been showing signs of DX. The VK6RBP beacon has been heard on 14.100MHz in the afternoon via the short path and 28.200MHz in the morning via the long path. The 12m band has shown international beacons RR90 in Siberia, OH2B in Finland, LU4AA in Argentina and YV5B in Venezuela, on 24.930MHz in the morning. While the 10m band also highlighted YV5B in Venezuela during mid-morning. Not a massive catch, but better than we were getting two years ago! For the coming week, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index may fall into the range of 150 to 165. Geomagnetic conditions are predicted to remain settled with a maximum Kp index of 2. As always, this could easily change if we have a coronal mass ejection, so keep an eye on solarham.net for near real-time solar conditions.   And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The area of high pressure has been working well for some parts of the country, with Tropo conditions lasting into the start of this weekend, but as a cold front moves South on Saturday the 13th, all will change as the high becomes displaced to the Atlantic. Therefore, there is no significant Tropo for the coming week, but there may be some rain scatter from showers, especially around the coasts. We seem to have passed the period of unusual winter Sporadic-E propagation without much evidence of activity so that just leaves meteor scatter. After the Quadrantids last week, we entered a period of low meteor shower activity, leaving just random meteors until the next major shower, the Lyrids in April. For random meteor scatter, the pre-dawn period works best. The solar conditions can still be instrumental in producing extra propagation treats with chance aurora. Probably the best operating policy is to monitor the geomagnetic Kp-index with high values greater than 6 being a good sign for VHF. For EME operators, this week starts with very low Moon declination, low peak Moon elevation and short Moon windows, but declination is rising and goes positive again on Tuesday. Path losses are still low and reached minimum at perigee on Saturday the 13th. 144MHz sky noise is low for all of the coming week. And that's all from the propagation team this week.  

We had a new moon earlier this week, on April 20. So, with the darkened night sky, it is a good time to do some stargazing. Plus, we have the Lyrids Meteor Shower running through April 25.

A meteor shower that's been around for at least 2700 years is at its best the next couple of nights. It's best viewed between about midnight and dawn. And the Moon sets early, so it won't interfere with the sparklers. The Lyrid shower was first recorded by Chinese astronomers in 687 BC. That's farther back than any other current shower. Over the centuries, showers come and go. They're produced by tiny grains of rock and dirt shed by comets or asteroids. That debris spreads out along the parent body's orbital path. Earth flies through this path every April. The particles ram into our atmosphere at more than a hundred thousand miles per hour. They vaporize, forming the glowing streaks of light known as meteors or shooting stars. But meteor showers don't last forever. The orbits of Earth and the parent comets and asteroids naturally move out of sync. In addition, the comets and asteroids can be pushed around by the gravity of Jupiter and other planets. That changes their paths. So over time, meteor showers come and go. But the Lyrids have stuck around longer than any other shower yet recorded. The Lyrids are named for Lyra, the harp. That's because the meteors all appear to “rain” into the sky from near the constellation's brightest star, Vega. They can zip across any part of the sky, though, so you don't need to look at Lyra to see them. But the view is best after Lyra rises to prominence, around midnight.  Script by Damond Benningfield Support McDonald Observatory

Chris isn't disheartened by a sucker zone, and Mr Max is on the trail of the missing bone. Meanwhile we talk about meteors, with the first decent shower of the year due this weekend, and learn how they help astronomers study the distant Universe. Here's the Sky at Night guide to the Lyrids: https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/lyrid-meteor-shower/

  GB2RS News Sunday the 23rd of April 2023 The news headlines: RSGB Coronation activities RSGB AGM announcements and videos RSGB Board Chair   The RSGB is delighted that Ofcom has confirmed that the callsign GB23C can be used for the RSGB's Coronation Special Special Event Station. Cray Valley Radio Society members led by Bob, M0MCV and Dave, G4BUO are organising the flagship amateur radio station that will use this callsign from the 3rd to the 8th of May. The Special Special Event Station will be on the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College, along the riverside in Greenwich. From the 10th of May onwards, the callsign will be available for individuals and clubs to use until the end of June 2023, and further details about this will be announced shortly. Ofcom has also kindly agreed to a block of 676 Special Special Event Station callsigns for the RSGB's Be a Connect activity for the Coronation. These are GB23BAA to BZZ, which will be available throughout May and June. More details on how to obtain one of these will be given next week, but meanwhile, you may wish to find a beacon site you could activate one or more times for this event. Finally, if you are planning outreach activities with local clubs and groups, take a look at the paper circuit template the RSGB has just shared on its website – go to rsgb.org/coronation and choose the coronation activity ideas tab in the right-hand menu. The RSGB's AGM was held online last Saturday, the 15th of April. If you missed the live event, you can see the results of the elections and follow links to the trophy awards and the construction competition winners on the RSGB website via rsgb.org/agm. You can also catch up on the full live stream or watch individual sections on the Society's YouTube channel. The RSGB has released separate videos of the outgoing President's review of 2022, its new short Convention promo, and the interesting presentation about preparing the GB2RS propagation reports by the RSGB Propagation Studies Committee Chair, Steve Nichols, G0KYA. You can see them all in the RSGB 2023 AGM playlist on YouTube via youtube.com/theRSGB   Following the RSGB AGM on Saturday the 15th of April, a brief Board meeting was held to consider necessary appointments. The Board was aware that Stewart Bryant, G3YSX, who had been in a dual role since the recent resignation of Richard Horton, G4AOJ, had expressed a willingness to continue as Chair if required. It was agreed that Stewart should be co-opted to the Board under the terms of Article 37 and was asked to join the meeting. Stewart was then elected unanimously to serve as RSGB Board Chair until the 2024 AGM. This a reminder now that SOS Radio Week 2023 starts at midnight on the 1st of May and concludes at midnight on the 31st of May. It is an opportunity to support the many voluntary organisations in the British Isles whose members volunteer to save the lives of others at risk around the many miles of its coastline, and out at sea. These organisations include the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the National Coastwatch Association and numerous independent lifeboat and coastal rescue groups. Individual amateur radio operators and clubs are invited to register to become an official SOS Radio Week station and operate under their own callsign, their club's or a special event callsign to raise awareness of the great work these volunteers perform. Awards are available for registered stations that make the most contacts on each of the 160m to 70cm bands and using various modes. Registration is now open and further details can be found at sosradioweek.org.uk   And now for details of rallies and events The Northern Amateur Radio Societies Association Rally, also known as both the ‘NARSA Rally' and the ‘Blackpool Rally', is taking place today, Sunday the 23rd. The venue is Norbreck Castle Exhibition Centre, Blackpool FY2 9AA. For more details contact Dave, M0OBW on 01270 761 608, email dwilson@btinternet.com or visit narsa.org.uk Ripon Radio Rally will take place next Sunday, the 30th of April. The venue will be Hugh Ripley Hall, Ripon, North Yorkshire, HG4 2PT. Traders can gain access from 7 am and tables are £12 each. Doors open to the public from 10 am and entrance is £3 per person. For more information and directions visit: g4sjm.co.uk Thorpe Camp Hamfest will take place on Sunday the 7th of May. The venue will be Thorpe Camp Visitor Centre and the entrance fee will be £4 per person. Traders should arrive from 7 am. The rally will take place from 9 am to 1 pm. Hot food and drinks will be available on-site. For more information phone Sylvia or Anthony at 07956 654 481. Dartmoor Radio Rally will take place on Sunday the 7th of May at Yelverton War Memorial Hall, Meavy Lane, Yelverton, Devon, PL20 6AL. There will be the usual bring and buy, trader stands, refreshments and free parking available. Doors open at 10 am and admission is £2.50. For more information contact Roger by phone at 07854 088 882 or email via 2e0rph@gmail.com   Now the Special Event News Special callsign 5P0WARD will be active from Denmark until Tuesday the 25th of April in celebration of World Amateur Radio Day. QSL via Club Log's OQRS, Logbook of the World, eQSL, or via OZ1ACB. Also celebrating World Amateur Radio Day, special event station OT23WARD will be active from various locations in Belgium until the 30th of April. QSL via Club Log's OQRS, Logbook of the World and eQSL. A certificate will be available. For more information visit QRZ.com Polydoros, SV1AHH is using special callsign SX50AHH to mark 50 years of being involved with amateur radio. Operating from Greece, the callsign will be active until Friday the 28th of April. He will be active on the 160 to 10m bands using CW, SSB, FT8, FT4 and RTTY. His logs will be uploaded to eQSL, Logbook of the World and Club Log. Paper cards will not be available. Special callsign 3A8AB is operating from Monaco until Sunday the 30th of April. The station is active to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first transatlantic amateur two-way contact between Leon Deloy, F8AB and Fred Schnell, 1MO in 1923. QSL via Logbook of the World.   Now the DX news Look out for Paul, VP9KF who is active from Baileys Bay, Bermuda, NA-005, until Wednesday the 26th of April. He operates CW only. QSL direct to Paul's address which you can view via his QRZ.com page. Sands, VK4WXW has been on Willis Island, OC-007, since October, and will remain there until the end of April 2023. He works at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's weather monitoring station on the island, and in his spare time, he is QRV as VK9WX. The T30UN operation from West Kiribati, OC-017, is expected to be active until the second week of May. Operators plan to be available on the 160 to 6m bands with one CW station, one SSB station and seven FT8 stations. It will be possible to see two FT8 stations on the same band, at the same time, on different frequencies. QSL via Club Log's OQRS.   Now the contest news The SP DX RTTY Contest ends its 24-hour run at 1200UTC today, Sunday the 23rd of April. Using RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Polish stations send their province code. Today, Sunday the 23rd of April, The British Amateur Radio Teledata Group Sprint 75 Contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using 75 Baud RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is serial number. On Monday the 24th of April, the FT4 Series Contest runs from 1900 to 2030UTC. Using FT4 on the 80, 40 and 20m bands, the exchange is your report. On Tuesday the 25th of April, the SHF UK Activity Contest runs from 1830 to 2130UTC. Using all modes on the 2.3GHz band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday the 26th of April, the UK and Ireland Contest Club 80m Contest runs from 2000 to 2100UTC. Using CW on the 80m band, the exchange is your six-character locator. On Thursday the 27th of April, the 80m Club Championship runs from 1900 to 2030UTC. Using PSK63 and RTTY on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Next Saturday, the 29th, the UK and Ireland Contest Club DX CW Contest begins at 1200UTC and runs for 24 hours. Using CW on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. UK and Ireland stations also send their District Code.   Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA, and G4BAO on Thursday the 20th of April 2023 We had a surge in sunspot activity over the last week, pushing the solar flux index up to a maximum of 178, although it subsequently declined to 147. Solar flare activity was quite subdued after a frantic period from the 13th to the 15th that saw 40 C-class flares and two M-class flares erupt. This activity was mostly centred around active region 3282 in the northwest quadrant. Geomagnetic conditions were unsettled for a time around the 18th and 19th with the Kp index hitting a maximum of 4.3. This appears to have been due to enhanced activity from a coronal mass ejection and continuing coronal hole activity that saw the solar wind speed hit more than 600km/s and the Bz swing south. The critical frequency was down below 7MHz on the morning of Wednesday the 19th, which impacted near-vertical incidence skywave signals around the UK. This impacted maximum useable frequencies, which struggled to exceed 21MHz over a 3,000km path on Wednesday, although by Thursday they were back over 28MHz again. A critical frequency of more than 10MHz meant the 40m band was once again suitable for close-in contacts around the UK. There were many reports of DX being worked later on during the week, with Australia and New Zealand topping the bill on 18MHz and 28MHz. Next week NOAA has put a more positive spin on sunspot activity. The Solar Flux Index is predicted to be in the range of 168 to 172 for the first half of the week, falling to around 160 in the second half. But we could be in for a bumpy ride geomagnetically, with the Kp index predicted to hit five on Wednesday the 26th of April through to Monday the 1st of May. This may be due to the return of solar phenomena that occurred 27 days ago and saw the Kp index get up to 4.67. Meanwhile, a very large solar coronal hole, albeit positioned very south on the Sun's surface, and a much smaller one on its equator, threaten HF conditions this weekend. Keep an eye on the real-time solar wind from the ACE spacecraft for signs of a rise in speed and a southward-pointing Bz interplanetary magnetic field on solarham.net.  This could push to Kp index higher, perhaps to four.   And now the VHF and up propagation news The Sporadic-E season is nearly upon us. Remember it will usually activate on 28MHz and then higher bands will follow if the event intensifies. There have been some 50MHz FT8 paths flagged up on DXmaps.com, although some may have been tropo. The recent large high pressure centred over Scandinavia has been a bit subdued as regards Tropo. Much of the time, the air nearer the surface has been fairly dry with little sign of banks of sea fog over the North Sea, which would suggest better ducting potential.   We are now entering a phase with low pressure on the charts, initially over the south of Britain, but edging north for a time before drifting out across the North Sea.  This could produce some rain scatter on the GHz bands, especially should any heavy April showers develop. Early next week a ridge will edge south across the UK in a colder northerly weather pattern, so although high-pressure returns, it may not be especially good for tropo. The third changeover comes after midweek when a milder south-westerly returns with active fronts bringing rain and unsettled weather, especially to the north and west. This could mean further opportunities for rain scatter on the GHz bands and perhaps a hint of tropo in the Southeast towards the continent. Aurora and meteor scatter are well worth considering, and the Lyrids shower peaks on Sunday the 23rd. The message is to monitor meteor scatter frequencies and the clusters for signs of activity and, of course, try putting out a CQ call! Moon declination is positive and rising, meaning increasing Moon time and increasing peak elevation until peak declination on Tuesday. Moon apogee is next Friday so path losses increase all week. 144MHz sky noise is moderate to low. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

Episode 162 In this episode of the Observers Notebook podcast, host Tim Robertson talks to the Meteor Section Coordinator, Bob Lunsford about the upcoming Lyrids and eta Aquariids meteor showers peaking the evening of April 22-23, 2023 and May 5-7 2023. Bob gives us a brief history of the Meteor Showers, how and where to observe and details on reporting your observations, and contact information. You can contact Bob at: lunro.imo.usa@cox.net The link for the details on the Lyrids meteor shower: https://www.amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-shower-calendar/ International Meteor Organization https://www.imo.net/ ALPO Meteor Section Blog http://www.alpo-astronomy.org/meteorblog/ For more information you can visit the ALPO web site at: www.alpo-astronomy.org/ You can also support this podcast at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ObserversNotebook Listen to the podcast on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/observersnotebook Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/observers-notebook-the-alpo-podcast/id1199301885?mt=2 Subscribe on our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AssociationofLunarandPlanetaryObservers I want to thank the Producers of this podcast, Steve Siedentop and Michael Moyer for their generous support of the Observers Notebook. Our Patreons: Jerry White Jason Inman Matt Will Steve Seidentop Stephen Bennett Michael Moyer Shawn Dilles Frank Schenck Damian Allis Carl Hergenrother Julian Parks Michael McShan Michael Blake Nick Evetts Rik Hill Stan Sienkiewicz

The Lyrids meteor shower peaks this week, and Venus approaches the moon in this week's stargazing highlights Transcript [URL https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/podcasts/star-diary-17-april-2023/] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

GB2RS News Sunday the 16th of April 2023 The news headlines: Nominated Board Director Vacancy Regional Forum Facebook pages SOS Radio Week   If you are an RSGB Member you still have time to apply for the RSGB Nominated Board Director vacancy. The RSGB needs a strong and effective Board and this could be your opportunity to be part of that. The deadline for applications is Monday the 17th of April. To find out more, go to the volunteer vacancies section of the RSGB website at rsgb.org/volunteers or, for an informal discussion, please email Nominations Committee Chair Stephen Purser, GW4SHF at nominations.chair@rsgb.org.uk The RSGB Regional Forum has created Facebook pages for each of the 13 regions. These pages focus on regional amateur radio communities and are moderated by members of the RSGB Regional Team. Whilst the pages share a similar style, they are very different in content. Selected posts are created by the RSGB moderators to maintain some news content from the RSGB, but the main content comes from clubs, individual licensees and also event organisers in those regions. The pages also provide a forum where anyone can ask for help with any part of the hobby. Clubs are positively encouraged to post news and events on the pages. You can find them on Facebook by searching for ‘RSGB Region' and the number of your local region, for example, ‘RSGB Region 1'. SOS Radio Week 2023 starts at midnight on the 1st of May and concludes at midnight on the 31st of May. It is an opportunity to support the many voluntary organisations in the British Isles whose members volunteer to save the lives of others at risk around the many miles of its coastline, and out at sea. These organisations include the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the National Coastwatch Association and numerous independent lifeboat and coastal rescue groups. Individual amateur radio operators and clubs are invited to register to become an official SOS Radio Week station and operate under their own callsign, their club's or a special event callsign to raise awareness of the great work these volunteers perform. Awards are available for registered stations that make the most contacts on each of the 160m to 70cm bands and using various modes. Registration is now open and further details can be found at sosradioweek.org.uk The outgoing RSGB President Stewart Bryant, G3YSX and the incoming RGSB President John McCullagh, GI4BWM will be at the NARSA rally in Blackpool on Sunday the 23rd of April. This is a great opportunity to meet John, have a chat and welcome him to his role. There will also be an official handover of the presidential chain on the stage area at the Norbreck Hotel. Find out more about the rally via the event website at narsa.org.uk Tuesday the 18th of April is World Amateur Radio Day. The IARU is excited to mark the occasion, and the 98th anniversary of its founding, with an event to promote the United Nations Human Security for All initiative, also known as ‘HS4A'. Special event stations have been operating since the 11th of April and will be available to work until the last week of April. For more information visit iaru.org and choose ‘On the Air' from the menu options.   And now for details of rallies and events The Cambridgeshire Repeater Group Rally is taking place today, Sunday the 16th of April. The venue is Foxton Village Hall, Hardman Road, Foxton, Cambridge CB22 6RN. Doors opened at 7.30 am for traders and 9.30 am for visitors. Admission is £3. The rally features a talk-in, trade stands, bring and buy, an RSGB Bookstall and free car parking. For more information contact Lawrence, M0LCM on 07941 972 724, email rally2023@cambridgerepeaters.net and see the cambridgerepeaters.net website. The Holsworthy Spring Rally and Boot Sale is taking place today, Sunday the 16th of April. The venue is Holsworthy Livestock Market, Holsworthy, Devon EX22 7FA. There is plenty of parking, wheelchair access and full catering available. The doors opened to the public at 10 am. For more details contact the club secretary Ken, G7VJA via email at m0omc@m0omc.co.uk and visit the m0omc.co.uk website. The Northern Amateur Radio Societies Association Rally, also known as both the ‘NARSA Rally' and the ‘Blackpool Rally', will take place on Sunday the 23rd of April. The venue will be Norbreck Castle Exhibition Centre, Blackpool FY2 9AA. For more details contact Dave, M0OBW on 01270 761 608, email dwilson@btinternet.com or visit narsa.org.uk Ripon Radio Rally will take place on Sunday the 30th of April. The venue will be Hugh Ripley Hall, Ripon, North Yorkshire, HG4 2PT. Traders can gain access from 7 am and tables are £12 each. Doors open to the public from 10 am and entrance is £3 per person. For more information and directions visit: g4sjm.co.uk Now the Special Event News With the kind permission of the National Trust, Weston-super-Mare Radio Society will be operating special callsign GB0IMD from the Old Fort on Brean Down on Saturday the 22nd of April, as part of the International Marconi Day celebrations. Special callsign DR0LIMES will be active until the 30th of June for this year's German World Heritage Day. The 'limes' was the borderline of the Roman Empire to its greatest extent. In 2005, the remnants of the Upper German-Raetian Limes were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list as 'Frontiers of the Roman Empire'. Celebrating World Amateur Radio Day, DARC special event callsign DA23WARD will be active until Tuesday the 18th of April. All QSOs will be confirmed automatically via the bureau. Direct cards will be managed via DL2VFR. Also celebrating World Amateur Radio Day, special event station OT23WARD will be active from various locations in Belgium until the 30th of April. QSL via Club Log's OQRS, Logbook of the World and eQSL. A certificate will be available. For information visit QRZ.com Now the DX news Bernhard, DL2GAC will be active in the Solomon Islands until the end of May. He plans to be QRV as H44MS from Malaita OC-047, daily until the end of April, with activity on the 80 to 6m bands using SSB and some FT8. QSL via his home call, direct or via the bureau. He will upload his log to Club Log and Logbook of the World when he returns home. James, KI7MGY will be in Djibouti until June and plans to operate as J28HJ on the 80, 40, 20, 17, 15 and 10m bands using SSB and FT8. QSL via Logbook of the World. HH75RCH is the special callsign for the Haiti Radio Club, established on the 29th of March 1948 to celebrate its 75th anniversary. The station will be active until the 1st of May. QSL via Club Log's OQRS, or via N2OO.   Now the contest news On Tuesday the 18th of April, the 1.3GHz UK Activity contest runs from 1900 to 2130UTC. Using all modes on the 1.3GHz band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday the 19th of April, the 80m Club Championship runs from 1900 to 2030UTC. Using SSB on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Thursday the 20th of April, the 70MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130UTC. Using all modes on the 4m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The Machine Generated Mode Contest starts its 24-hour run at 1400UTC next Saturday, the 22nd of April. Using machine-generated modes on the 6m and 2m bands, the exchange is a report and your four-character locator. The SP DX RTTY Contest starts its 24-hour run at 1200UTC on Saturday the 22nd of April. Using RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Polish stations send their province code. The British Amateur Radio Teledata Group Sprint 75 Contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC on Sunday the 23rd of April. Using 75 Baud RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is a serial number.   Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA, and G4BAO on Thursday the 13th of April 2023 A news item this week suggested that the peak of solar cycle 25 could be coming earlier than expected. According to a paper in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, by solar scientist Dr Scott Macintosh, the solar maximum may now be coming between late 2023 and mid-2024. So, make the most of the higher Solar Flux Index now! Solar activity picked up nicely over the past week. The solar flux index rose to 154 and there were eight active regions on the Sun's visible face by Thursday the 13th. Nevertheless, daytime maximum usable frequencies, or MUFs, remain down a little, which has probably more to do with seasonal ionospheric changes than reduced sunspot activity. As we head towards Summer we will see the daytime F2-layer MUF decline further before it picks up again in the Autumn. We also saw some M- and C-class solar flare action this week, but this was not really enough to cause serious problems to the ionosphere. Next week NOAA predicts the Solar Flux Index will continue to increase, perhaps peaking at 160 around the 16th to 18th of April. Unsettled geomagnetic conditions are forecast for the 18th, perhaps with the Kp index rising to four. The forecast for International Marconi Day on the 22nd of April is for a Solar Flux Index of 155 and a declining Kp index of three, which bodes quite well for the event. In all, the Solar Flux Index is expected to be in the range of 140 to 160 for the rest of the month.   And now the VHF and up propagation news A big contrast is coming next week, so it's time to dust off the VHF gear again! The unsettled weather of this last week will make a complete swap over to more settled high-pressure systems next week.  Initially, on Sunday this will appear as a ridge over the North Sea from a large high over Scandinavia. This will then gradually extend across the country and will eventually be joined by a second high west of Britain.  The end result will be enhanced Tropo prospects in the coming week and potentially good conditions for the 23cm UK Activity Contest on Tuesday the 18th and the 4m UK Activity on Thursday the 20th. Those who enjoy rain scatter propagation in this current showery weather will have to look for other modes by Sunday, once the high pressure builds. As we are coming out of the Winter lull in meteor shower activity, with the medium-rate Lyrids peaking on the 23rd of April at 0100UTC with a Zenithal Hourly Rate, or ZHR, in the 20s, it's well worth a look for meteor scatter contacts. The end of April normally prompts a return of isolated Sporadic-E reports on the 10m band and perhaps even with data modes on 6m. The upper troposphere jet stream charts suggest it's got some potential, especially between Mediterranean countries although not quite so positive for paths nearer to home. The solar conditions may continue to offer a random chance of some aurora, so remember to keep an eye on the Kp index if it goes above five.   For EME operators, the Moon perigee is on Sunday so path losses are at their lowest. Moon declination is rising, going positive on Tuesday meaning increasing Moon time and increasing peak elevation passes. 144MHz sky noise is low, but the Moon is close to the Sun on Wednesday and Thursday meaning high Sun noise for those days. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

GB2RS News Sunday the 9th of April 2023 The news headlines: The RSGB's Annual General Meeting RSGB Convention Presentations Ofcom Plan of Work for the 2023-24 year The RSGB's Annual General Meeting will be held online on Saturday the 15th of April. As well as the formal business of the meeting, there will be an announcement of the results of the Board Director elections. The President will give a video review of 2022 and the Society will announce the recipients of its annual awards and trophies, as well as the winners of its construction competition. At the end of the meeting, there will be a live presentation by RSGB Propagation Studies Committee Chair Steve Nichols, G0KYA who will look at the methods used to create the propagation report for GB2RS, including HF, VHF and Moon bounce. This year you will be able to ask questions at the AGM via the live chat on YouTube but if you have a question about the formal business, you must submit this in advance. If you are an RSGB member, don't forget to vote for the two candidates that you would like to see as Board Directors for the next two years. You can find out more about each of them on the RSGB website at rsgb.org/candidates and then there is a link at the top and the bottom of the page to cast your vote. Read their personal statements, watch the videos and see if their background, skills and aspirations match your view of what the Society needs. The decision concerning who to vote for is entirely yours, but please do vote – it only takes a few minutes and will help to ensure that the RSGB Board reflects your views. You can find full details about the AGM on the RSGB website at rsgb.org/agm Over the Easter weekend, the RSGB will release two more presentations from its 2022 Convention. David Stansfield, G0EVV talks about the challenge and thrill of operating portable from mountain summits, whilst Olof Lundberg, G0CKV shares experiences from his DXpeditions to 3B8. Subscribe to the RSGB YouTube channel so you will be alerted when each presentation is available – go to youtube.com/theRSGB and subscribe! Ofcom has published a Statement on its proposed Plan of Work for the 2023 to 2024 year. The Statement describes plans for a review of amateur licensing arrangements. According to the document, consultation on the work is planned for the first quarter of the year. A subsequent statement is scheduled for the fourth quarter of the year. Once more details are available, the RSGB will review the consultation and provide guidance to UK amateurs on how to respond to Ofcom. To read the Statement in full visit www.ofcom.org.uk and choose the ‘Latest news' option from the ‘News centre' tab at the top of the page. The RSGB National Radio Centre at Bletchley Park will be closed on Monday the 17th of April for an essential upgrade to the radio equipment. We apologise for any inconvenience or disappointment this may cause. And now for details of rallies and events Yeovil Amateur Radio Club's 37th QRP Convention will take place on Saturday the 15th of April at The Digby Hall, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3AA. Doors open from 9.30 am to 1.30 pm and admission is £3. The Convention will feature talks, traders, bring and buy, club stalls and a café. For more information visit yeovil-arc.com or contact qrp@yeovil-arc.com The Cambridgeshire Repeater Group Rally will take place on Sunday the 16th of April. The venue will be Foxton Village Hall, Hardman Road, Foxton, Cambridge CB22 6RN. Doors open at 7.30 am for traders and 9.30 am for visitors. Admission is £3. The rally will feature talk-in, trade stands, bring and buy, an RSGB Bookstall and free car parking. For more information contact Lawrence, M0LCM on 07941 972 724, email rally2023@cambridgerepeaters.net and see the cambridgerepeaters.net website. The Holsworthy Spring Rally and Boot Sale will also take place on Sunday the 16th of April. The venue will be Holsworthy Livestock Market, Holsworthy, Devon EX22 7FA. There will be plenty of parking, wheelchair access and full catering available. The doors open to the public from 10 am. For more details contact the club secretary Ken, G7VJA via email at m0omc@m0omc.co.uk and visit the m0omc.co.uk website. The Northern Amateur Radio Societies Association Rally, also known as both the ‘NARSA Rally' and the ‘Blackpool Rally', will take place on Sunday the 23rd of April. The venue will be Norbreck Castle Exhibition Centre, Blackpool FY2 9AA. For more details contact Dave, M0OBW on 01270 761 608, email dwilson@btinternet.com or visit www.narsa.org.uk  Now the Special Event News Celebrating World Amateur Radio Day, DARC special event callsign DA23WARD will be active until the 18th of April. All QSOs will be confirmed automatically via the bureau. Direct cards will be managed via DL2VFR. Celebrating 100 years of broadcasting in Germany, special callsign DB100RDF will be in use until the 31st of December. QSL via the bureau, or direct to DO2PZ. LA100K is the special callsign for the Akademisk Radio Club, LA1K to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its foundation. Based in Trondheim, it is the oldest amateur radio club in Norway. The special callsign will be in use until the 31st of December. QSL via the bureau, or direct. VI10VKFF is the special callsign celebrating the 10th anniversary of the World Wide Flora and Fauna programme in Australia. It will be used from Australian parks until the end of 2023. QSL via Logbook of the World, eQSL or via VK5PAS.  Now the DX news James, KI7MGY will be in Djibouti until June and plans to operate as J28HJ on the 80, 40, 20, 17, 15 and 10m bands using SSB and FT8. QSL via Logbook of the World. Sunny, VU2CUW is a member of the 42nd Indian Scientific Expedition to Antarctica. He will be based at Maitri Station, Antarctica, AN-016, until November. In his spare time, he will be active as AT42I. QSL via VU2CRS. Diya, YI1DZ has been in Juba, South Sudan since the 13th of March and expects to remain there until the 22nd of April. He operates SSB and FT8 as Z81D in his spare time. QSL via Club Log's OQRS and Logbook of the World, or via OM3JW. Now the contest news Today, the 9th of April, the Worked All Britain Data Contest runs from 1000 to 1400UTC and from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using data modes on the 80 to 20m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report, serial number and Worked All Britain square. On Monday the 10th of April, the Irish Radio Transmitters Society 70cm Counties Contest runs from 1300 to 1330UTC. Using FM and SSB on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. EI and GI stations also send their County code. Also on Monday the 10th of April, the Irish Radio Transmitters Society 2m Counties Contest runs from 1330 to 1500UTC. Using FM and SSB on the 2m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. EI and GI stations also send their County code. On Tuesday the 11th of April, the 432MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1800 to 1855UTC. Using FM on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also on Tuesday the 11th of April, the 432MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130UTC. Using all modes on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday the 12th of April, the 432MHz FT8 Activity four-hour Contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is a report and four-character locator. Also on Wednesday the 12th of April, the 432MHz FT8 Activity two-hour Contest runs from 1900 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is a report and four-character locator. Stations entering the four-hour contest may also enter the two-hour contest. On Thursday the 13th of April, the 50MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130UTC. Using all modes on the 6m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator.  Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA, and G4BAO on Thursday the 6th of April 2023 Solar activity declined this past week with the Sun looking distinctly spotless, other than active region 3270. In fact, this has even prompted some amateurs to question whether we are now past solar maximum for this cycle. Rest assured, we shouldn't be, as it is pretty common for cycles to ebb and flow as they develop. Having said that, half of the Sun's face is currently spotless, and NOAA predicts that the solar flux index will be in the range of 110 to 130 next week. Geomagnetically, things have been reasonably settled with the Kp index reaching a maximum of 4.67 over the past seven days. NOAA predicts that it could rise to four on the 10th and 11th of April but will otherwise stay pretty much as it is in the range of two to three. This may be due to a coronal hole that is currently making its way across the Sun's face in a near-equatorial position. However, we may not have seen the last of the activity from active region 3270, which has increased in both size and magnetic complexity during the past 48 hours and could soon produce a moderate M-Flare. But, if you are reading or hearing this on Sunday, the region will be moving out of sight and is therefore no longer a threat. Daytime F2 critical frequencies at midday remain around 9 to 10MHz giving a maximum useable frequency, over a 3,000km path, of just over 28MHz. If 10m isn't doing it for you we suggest moving down to 12 or 15m. Night-time F-layer critical frequencies are around 3 to 5MHz meaning MUFs over 3,000km are below 14MHz, leaving 3.5, 7 and 10MHz as the best bets for nocturnal DX. And now the VHF and up propagation news The current spell of high-pressure weather with enhanced Tropo, which turned up in time for the 2m UK Activity Contest on the 4th of April, is looking a bit vulnerable as active weather fronts come in from the Atlantic.  We are likely to have a brief change to unsettled conditions weather-wise before the start of the Easter weekend and again see some rain scatter opportunities on the GHz bands. Scandinavian highs are often long-lasting at this time of the year and this high will regain control by Good Friday and should dominate over the UK during the Easter weekend to give some useful tropo possibilities again. However, quite early next week a new powerful Atlantic jet stream pushes into northern France and will bring a return of unsettled weather and perhaps more rain scatter. The Sporadic-E season is approaching and the higher HF bands like 10m can show good examples of Es, even during the second half of April, so a good chance to get into the habit of checking your ‘go to' list of 10m beacons as recently updated by Steve, G0KYA, on the propagation section of the RSGB website. The other defaults of auroral propagation have had a good run recently and random meteor scatter could also prove fruitful as we are soon ending the early year ‘drought' of meteor showers with the arrival of the Lyrids later this month. For EME operators, Moon declination is negative and falling, reaching its minimum next Wednesday. Moon time will be limited to low-elevation passes, but with low path losses as we approach perigee on the 16th. 144MHz sky noise is increasing to a high of more than 2,000 Kelvin next Wednesday before falling back to the mid-200s the following Sunday. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

Welcome to Observing With Webb, where a high school astronomy teacher tells you what you're looking at, why it's so cool, and what you should check out later this month…at night.   Venus shines bright all month, Mercury makes a 3 week appearance, Mars hangs out with Gemini, Saturn continues its morning planet season, and the Lyrids have excellent observing conditions.   April 22nd: LYRID METEOR SHOWER – At only 10-20 meteors per hour, it is a minor shower, but we have essentially no Moon to get in the way of the best observing.  The shower is greatest on the 22nd, but you might see some on the 21st and 23rd as well.  Just remember each meteor is piece of debris left over from a comet, and we're crashing into it at over 100,000 miles per hour, which crushes the atmosphere it hits, heating it up and causing the bright flash.  The best viewing is between 2am and 4:30am, but you never know when you'll see something awesome.    Some advice for watching:  - Find a dark location and lie down in a reclining chair or something that insulates you from the ground. - Check the weather to see if the skies will be clear. - Adapt your eyes to the dark by staying away from light sources or using a red light if you need to look at a star chart or not trip over something.   - If you're feeling extra nerdy, do a scientific meteor count (S&T and IMO)!   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too!  Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.  Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org.

*How heat flow affects the Earth's magnetic field Compass readings that do not show the direction of true north and interference with the operations of satellites are a few of the problems caused by peculiarities of the Earth's magnetic field. *NASA's Parker Solar Probe kisses the Sun NASA's Parker Solar Probe spacecraft has undertaken its 15th close encounter with the Sun. *Indirect evidence for existence of dark matter surrounding black holes Astronomers have provided indirect evidence supporting the possible existence of mysterious dark matter around black holes. *April Skywatch Our nearest neighbouring star system Alpha Centauri -- the iconic constellation Southern Cross -- and the annual Lyrids meteor shower are among the highlights of the April night skies on SkyWatch. Listen to SpaceTime on your favorite podcast app with our universal listen link: https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com/listen For more SpaceTime and show links: https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ If you love this podcast, please get someone else to listen to. Thank you… To become a SpaceTime supporter and unlock commercial free editions of the show, gain early access and bonus content, please visit https://bitesz.supercast.com/ . Premium version now available via Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts visit our HQ at https://bitesz.com Your support is needed... SpaceTime is an independently produced podcast (we are not funded by any government grants, big organisations or companies), and we're working towards becoming a completely listener supported show...meaning we can do away with the commercials and sponsors. We figure the time can be much better spent on researching and producing stories for you, rather than having to chase sponsors to help us pay the bills. That's where you come in....help us reach our first 1,000 subscribers...at that level the show becomes financially viable, and bills can be paid without us breaking into a sweat every month. Every little bit helps...even if you could contribute just $1 per month. It all adds up. By signing up and becoming a supporter at the $5 or more level, you get immediate access to over 350 commercial-free, triple episode editions of SpaceTime plus extended interview bonus content. You also receive all new episodes on a Monday rather than having to wait the week out. Subscribe via Supercast (you get a month's free trial to see if it's really for you or not) ... and share in the rewards. Details at Supercast - https://bitesznetwork.supercast.tech/ Details at https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com or www.bitesz.com#astronomy #space #science #podcast #spacetime

Trending Topics at 5 o'clock. A new study shows that $75k per year could in fact, buy you happiness. The Lyrids meteor shower can be seen tonight in the Northern Hemisphere. The 108th Clovis Rodeo is this weekend. Mattel is honoring Queen Elizabeth II's birthday with her own Barbie.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Trending Topics at 5 o'clock. A new study shows that $75k per year could in fact, buy you happiness. The Lyrids meteor shower can be seen tonight in the Northern Hemisphere. The 108th Clovis Rodeo is this weekend. Mattel is honoring Queen Elizabeth II's birthday with her own Barbie.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

GB2RS News Sunday the 24th of April 2022 The news headlines: Two new GB2RS broadcasts Take part in SOS Radio Week VMARS nets The RSGB GB2RS News Service is delighted to announce two new broadcasts on Sundays. With a nod to how it all started back in 1955, we have introduced a transmission using amplitude modulation. This takes place in the 80m band on 3650kHz at 8 am UK time from the station of G4JBD in Bedfordshire. The intended coverage is the Midlands and the South East of England but it may be heard more widely when propagation is favourable. For those in the South West Glasgow area who are busy on Sunday mornings, we are now offering an evening broadcast on 2m. Delivered by 2M0GUI on 145.525MHz FM, the transmission is at 6.30 pm UK time. Every year thousands of people get into difficulty around our coast. Thousands of unpaid volunteers swing into action to save and rescue them. SOS Radio Week celebrates the work of these selfless volunteers. Amateur radio stations get on the air to raise awareness of the invaluable work of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, National Coastwatch Institution and the many independent lifeboat and rescue organisations around our coasts. The activity starts at 0000UTC on the 1st of May and concludes at 2359UTC on the 31st. Participants are encouraged to become an official Registered Station and make as many contacts as possible, mentioning the reason for the event during their contact. For further details visit sosradioweek.org.uk The Vintage Military Amateur Radio Society will be displaying at the Blackpool Rally today. They have regular nets on 3.615MHz at 8.30 am on Saturdays using AM and at 8 pm on Wednesdays using USB to facilitate the use of ex-military equipment. On Fridays, the frequency remains as 3.615MHz at 7.30 pm using LSB. More at www.vmars.org. As part of the forthcoming Jubilee celebrations, the RSGB has announced further details of its GB70 special event station activities. The seven SES callsigns will be active across the Jubilee weekend, from the 2nd to the 5th of June, on multiple bands and modes by various clubs. After that weekend, these special callsigns will be available for activation by RSGB affiliated clubs or individual RSGB members until the 28th of June. Each callsign has a volunteer coordinator responsible for allocating operating slots in a published schedule. They will also collect the log files from those who have been activating the calls. For further information see the GB70 page in the RSGB Jubilee web section at rsgb.org/jubilee. Provisional results for the 2021 IARU Region 1 Marconi Memorial VHF Contest are available. A total of 762 logs from 27 different countries in Region 1 were received. You can read the provisional results at iaru-r1.org. This year's CDXC Convention will take place on Saturday the 7th of May at The Link Hotel, Loughborough. The AGM will take place on the same day but, for those who cannot attend, online voting will be available a few days before and instructions will be sent out nearer the time. An interesting list of speakers has been arranged and can be found at www.cdxc.org.uk. And now for details of rallies and events Please send your rally and event news as soon as possible to radcom@rsgb.org.uk. We'll publicise your event in RadCom, on GB2RS, and online. The Cambridge Repeater Group Rally takes place today, the 24th. The venue is Foxton Village Hall, Hardman Road, Foxton, Cambridge CB22 6RN. Doors open at 9.30 am and admission is £3. There will be a talk in station, trade stands, car boot area and a Bring & Buy. Catering is available on site. More at cambridgerepeaters.net. Also today, the 24th is the Northern Amateur Radio Societies Association Exhibition, also known as the Blackpool Rally. It will be held at the Norbreck Castle Exhibition Centre, Blackpool FY2 9AA. More details at narsa.org.uk. The Andover Radio Club Spring Boot Sale is due to take place today, the 24th, at Wildhern Village Hall, SP11 0JE. It is open at 10 am and is organised by the Andover Radio Amateur Club. Details at arac.org.uk. Next Sunday, the Thorpe Camp Visitor Centre Radio Amateur Rally will be at Thorpe Camp, Tattershall, Thorpe, Lincolnshire. It is open to the public from 9 am till 1 pm and entry is £4 with under 12s free. There will be hot and cold food on-site and car parking inside the grounds. Contact Anthony on 07956 654481. Now the DX news Thierry, F6CUK will be active as TM8C from Brehat Island, EU-074, until the 30th of April. He will operate SSB, CW and FT8 mainly on 40, 30 and 20m bands. QSL via F6CUK either direct or bureau and Logbook of The World. Lubo, OM5ZW will be active holiday style as 3B8/OM5ZW from Mauritius, AF-049, from the 29th of April to the 6th of May. He will operate CW, SSB, RTTY and FT8 on the 10 to 80m bands. QSL via Logbook of The World and Club Log's OQRS. John, W5JON will be active as V47JA from St. Kitts, NA-104, until the 28th of April. He will operate SSB and FT8 on the 6 to 160m bands. QSL via Logbook of The World or direct only to W5JON. Now the Special Event news Flight Refuelling ARS will be operating from the club station using GB2FRA to celebrate the club's 40th anniversary. It is intended that the callsign will be used on all the bands and modes that are available from the club shack including 10GHz EME. Operations will run throughout April. Medway Amateur Receiving and Transmitting Society will operate GB5MW between the 3rd and 30th of April to celebrate the society's centenary year. QSL via eQSL. Now the contest news The SP DX RTTY contest runs for 24 hours ending at 1200UTC today, the 24th. Using the 3.5 to 28MHz bands where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number with Polish stations also sending their Region code. Running until 2130UTC on the 24th, the First MGM contest uses the 50 and 144MHz bands. The exchange is your report and 4-character locator. Today, the 24th, the BARTG Sprint 75 Contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using 75 baud RTTY on the 3.5 to 28MHz bands where contests are permitted, the exchange is the serial number. On Tuesday the SHF UK Activity Contest runs from 1830 to 2130UTC. Using all modes on the 2.3GHz and up bands, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Wednesday sees the UK EI Contest Club 80m CW contest running from 1900 to 2000UTC. Using CW only, the exchange is your 6-character locator. On Thursday it's the RTTY and PSK63 leg of the 80m Club Championships. Running between 1900 and 2030UTC, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Next weekend, the UK EI Contest Club DX contest runs from 1200UTC on the 30th of April to 1200UTC on Sunday the 1st of May. Using CW only on the 3.5 to 28MHz bands where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Note that EI and GI stations also send their District code. Next Sunday, the 1st of May, the UK Six Metre Group Summer marathon starts. It runs until the 2nd of August. Using all modes on the 50MHz bands, the exchange is your 4-character locator. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA, and G4BAO on Friday the 22nd of April 2022. Last week was characterised by solar flares – lots of them! There were numerous strong flares, although the majority occurred in the early hours and so didn't affect the ionosphere over Europe. Solar flare events can cause short-lived radio blackouts as the energetic photons penetrate deep into the D-layer. Solar activity during the past 30 days has increased drastically with five of the top 10 strongest flares of Cycle 25 detected during this period alone. We have also had very strong sunspot activity with the solar flux index peaking at 160 on Thursday the 21st. The current crop of four sunspot groups probably means we can expect the SFI to stay high until at least early next week. NOAA predicts the SFI will stay above 130, but we may get even higher figures for a time. It also predicts a maximum Kp index of two next week, although that could easily rise if we get hit by matter from any incoming CMEs, which are getting more prevalent as the cycle continues. The good news is that, at the time of writing, it didn't look like we will get any coronal hole activity. There have been numerous reports of good conditions on the higher bands - 21, 24 and 28MHz – including openings to TX5N on the Austral Islands. Braco, 8Q7DX, who is on holiday in the Maldives, has also been worked. There have also been some signs of early Sporadic-E with very loud openings to Spain on 10 metres. So if the SFI stays this high and we don't get many geomagnetic disturbances it could be a good week for HF. And now the VHF and up propagation news. We have a classic spring start to things with low pressure over the near continent, aided by the increasing warmth of the spring sunshine, while colder regions to the north become home to high pressure near Iceland. Between the two, we will have a strong and cold-feeling east to northeasterly wind over the UK; not really the setup required for Tropo, since the strong winds and turbulence destroy any temperature inversion. The changes come along after this weekend as the low weakens and a ridge of high pressure extends south across the country with much lighter winds and a chance of Tropo, especially overnight. It is possible that isolated showers may offer a little rain scatter, but not a high probability. It would be better to consider possible aurora and meteor scatter as your exotic modes. In this closing part of April, the best is within reach, since Sporadic-E is a serious possibility on 10m and perhaps 6m. Use the beacons and clusters to guide you, but if you start to adjust to your summer operating rule of checking for Es mid-morning and late afternoon or early evening, then Es QSOs will soon come. The Winter minimum of meteor show activity is at an end with Sporadic meteor rates increasing towards their usual maximum in late summer. The Lyrids shower has passed the peak but continues to be active until the 30th. Moon declination starts the week negative with low peak moon elevations and short visibility windows but turns positive again on Thursday. Path losses are on the increase again as we are past perigee. 144 MHz sky noise is low all week except Saturday afternoon when the Sun and Moon are close in the sky for the five hours leading up to Moonset at approximately 1900hrs. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

A “skinny” meteor shower should be at its best tonight. The Lyrid shower turns up every year at this time, and has for at least 2700 years. But the number of meteors is pretty low — about 10 to 20 per hour. In part, that's because the object that supplies the Lyrids is a long way away. Lyrid meteors are bits of debris from Comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher. When the comet comes near the Sun, some of its ice vaporizes. That releases bits of rock and dirt into space. Over time, they spread out along the comet's orbit. Earth flies through that trail of comet dust every April. Some of the particles ram into the atmosphere and vaporize, forming meteors. A meteor shower is most intense around the time its parent body is closest to the Sun, when it releases fresh debris into space. For Comet Thatcher, that last happened in 1861 — the year it was discovered. Today, the comet is about 10 billion miles from the Sun and moving outward. It'll be farthest in a few decades. Then it'll turn around and head sunward, with its closest approach around the year 2276 — when skywatchers may see some great displays of Lyrid meteors. For now, check out the shower beginning in late evening, as the meteor stream begins to rotate into view. The window is short because the Moon will rise about 2 or 2:30. Its glare will overpower all but the brightest meteors — the offspring of a far-away comet.  Script by Damond Benningfield Support McDonald Observatory

Morning sky watching continues to be wondrous. Evening isn't so bad either lately. Get ready for the April Lyrids meteor shower. And just why do comets have such long, strange names now?

It is time to be on the lookout for falling stars, or should I say meteors for the next few weeks. That is because the Lyrid Meteor Shower, annually runs from April 16-25. The peak viewing period will come on the evening of April 22 and early morning of April 23 with perhaps 20 or so meteors per hour. The moon is going to interfere with some of the more faint meteors during the peak viewing period, but if the sky is clear, it will be worth taking a look.

Episode 140 In this episode of the Observers Notebook podcast, host Tim Robertson talks to the Meteor Section Coordinator, Bob Lunsford about the upcoming Lyrids and eta Aquariids meteor showers peaking the evening of April 21-22, 2022 and May 4-5 2022. Bob gives us a brief history of the Meteor Showers, how and where to observe and details on reporting your observations, and contact information. You can contact Bob at: lunro.imo.usa@cox.net The link for the details on the Lyrids meteor shower: https://www.amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-shower-calendar/ International Meteor Organization https://www.imo.net/ ALPO Meteor Section Blog http://www.alpo-astronomy.org/meteorblog/ For the latest information from the ALPO Meteor Section you can visit: http://www.amsmeteors.org/ For more information you can visit the ALPO web site at: www.alpo-astronomy.org/ You can also support this podcast at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ObserversNotebook Listen to the podcast on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/observersnotebook Subscribe on our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AssociationofLunarandPlanetaryObservers Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/observers-notebook-the-alpo-podcast/id1199301885?mt=2 I want to thank the Producers of this podcast, Steve Siedentop and Michael Moyer for their generous support of the Observers Notebook. Our Patreons: Jerry White Jason Inman Matt Will Steve Seidentop Matthew Benton Ken Poshedly Stephen Bennett Michael Moyer Shawn Dilles Frank Schenck Damian Allis Carl Hergenrother Bob Soltys

GB2RS News Sunday the 17th of April 2022 The news headlines: RSGB AGM to be live-streamed Pop Up YOTA net today New EMF video The RSGB AGM is being live-streamed on Saturday at 12 noon. You can still submit a question for the RSGB Board to answer during the event, but you will need to do so before 9 am on Wednesday the 20th of April. Voting in the elections closes at 9 am on Thursday the 21st of April. The Society encourages all RSGB Members to use their vote. Full details of the event can be found on the RSGB website at rsgb.org/agm. A special Pop Up Youngsters On The Air net will be on the air today, Easter Sunday, at 1400UTC. This Pop-Up net is aimed exclusively at youngsters under the age of 25 and encourages them to call in and have a QSO with fellow youngsters on the air. The net controller for the first hour will be Declan, 2W0KYH who is aged 13. The 2nd hour is with Liam, M7LCB. The net is hosted by the FreeSTAR Amateur Radio network, which is a multi-node system where various digital radio modes are accessible including DMR, D-Star, Fusion C4FM and so on. For full connection details please visit freestar.network or email Oscar@freestar.network. The RSGB has just released a short video outlining the new EMF regulations and the help and tools the Society provides for radio amateurs. There is a wealth of information and guidance on the RSGB website and the Society hopes that this video will signpost that in a new way. The video is in the ‘Did you know?' playlist on the RSGB YouTube channel at youtube.com/theRSGB. The IARU Region Political Relations Committee, in conjunction with the Region's EMC Committee, has submitted a paper to a recent European Commission Call for Evidence with respect to Solar Energy Strategy. Solar energy systems, which include Solar PV, are a progressive technology whose use is to be encouraged. However, there are certain caveats to be noted in deployment and ongoing use. The IARU concerns are not with solar technology, but with the potential noise pollution from so-called optimisers. The paper that was submitted detailed elements of the ongoing research and monitoring by the EMC Committee in this area. The paper is available on the IARU Region 1 website at iaru-r1.org. As part of the Commonwealth Games activities, RSGB Special Event Stations will be activated from the four UK Home Nations and three Crown Dependencies. The callsigns will take the format of GB22G followed by the Regional Locator, for example, GB22GE, GB22GI or GB22GD. RSGB affiliated clubs and individual RSGB Members who are Full licensees will be able to book slots to activate a callsign themselves or to supervise operation by others. Further details will be coming soon. Radio Amateurs of Canada is supporting World Amateur Radio Day on the 18th of April by encouraging amateurs to get on the air and contact as many Canadian stations as possible. RAC official stations will operate across Canada from 0000Z to 2359UTC on the 18th. Look out for these special event stations with callsigns ending in RAC. Those contacting one or more of these stations will be eligible for a special commemorative certificate. Full details are on their website at rac.ca. The RSGB will be running a special event station at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, starting on the 28th of July. The callsign will be GB22HQ. If you'd like to help operate the station during the Games and talk to visitors about amateur radio, please contact RSGB Region 5 Representative Neil Yorke, M0NKE at rr5@rsgb.org.uk. Due to the location of the station, operators will only be able to access the Games by train. The RSGB and ARRL have been celebrating the centenary of the Transatlantic Tests. The Society has just released a video that highlights the fantastic exhibition put on by the National Heritage Centre in Saltcoats, the 1921 message re-enactment by the Kilmarnock and Loudoun Amateur Radio Club and also the 160m Transatlantic QSO Party. You'll find the video on the RSGB YouTube channel at youtube.com/theRSGB And now for details of rallies and events Please send your rally and event news as soon as possible to radcom@rsgb.org.uk. We'll publicise your event in RadCom, on GB2RS, and online. The Cambridge Repeater Group Rally takes place on the 24th of April. The venue is Foxton Village Hall, Hardman Road, Foxton, Cambridge CB22 6RN. Doors open at 9.30 am and admission is £3. There will be a talk in station, trade stands, car boot area and a Bring & Buy. Catering is available on site. More at cambridgerepeaters.net. Also on the 24th is the Northern Amateur Radio Societies Association Exhibition, also known as the Blackpool Rally. It will be held at the Norbreck Castle Exhibition Centre, Blackpool FY2 9AA. More details at narsa.org.uk. The Andover Radio Club Spring Boot Sale is due to take place on the 24th at Wildhern Village Hall, SP11 0JE. It is open at 10 am and is organised by the Andover Radio Amateur Club. Details at arac.org.uk. Now the DX news Braco, E77DX will be active holiday style as 8Q7DX from the Maldives, AS-013, until the 27th of April. He plans to operate on the 10 to 80m bands. QSL via Logbook of The World and E73Y. Michael, DF8AN will be touring the Caribbean until early May. He will be active from Martinique as FM/DF8AN until the 19th of April and again on the 1st and 2nd of May. He will operate as J79MN from Dominica between the 19th and 24th of April. Between the 24th of April and the 1st of May, he will operate from St. Lucia. He will operate mainly CW and digital modes on all bands, including the 6m band. QSLs via DF8AN, direct or via the bureau. Now the Special Event news Look out for GB1BB today from about 5 pm to 7 pm local time around 7.170MHz or 3.770MHz as well as 2m FM simplex and via GB3IW. Operators from the Isle of Wight Radio Society will be on the Bramble Bank in mid-Solent for the few minutes that it is exposed by this weekend's extreme Spring tide. After the event, the club will QSL direct. QSL certificates will show Gold, Silver, or Bronze Awards. Gold for confirmed contacts with GB1BB on HF, VHF, and UHF; Silver for confirmed contacts on any two of those; and Bronze for a confirmed contact on any one band. Details on iowrs.org. On the 23rd of April Harlow & District Amateur Radio Society will be operating GB0MGY for International Marconi Day. With the kind permission of the National Trust, Weston super Mare Radio Society will be operating GB0IMD from the Old Fort on Brean Down on the 23rd of April, as part of the International Marconi Day celebrations. Flight Refuelling ARS will be operating from the club station using GB2FRA to celebrate the club's 40th anniversary. It is intended that the callsign will be used on all the bands and modes that are available from the club shack including 10GHz EME. Operations will run throughout April. Medway Amateur Receiving and Transmitting Society will operate GB5MW between the 3rd and 30th of April to celebrate the society's centenary year. QSL via eQSL. Now the contest news On Monday the IRTS 70cm Counties Contest runs between 1300 and 1330UTC. It is followed by the IRTS 2m Counties Contest from 1330 to 1500UTC. Both use FM and SSB and the exchange is signal report and serial number. Please note that Irish stations will also send their county. On Tuesday the 1.3GHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday, the SSB leg of the 80m Club Championship runs between 1900 and 2030UTC. The exchange is a signal report and serial number. Thursday sees the 70MHz UK Activity Contest run from 1900 to 2130UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The SP DX RTTY contest runs from 1200UTC on the 23rd to 1200UTC on the 24th. Using the 3.5 to 28MHz bands where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number with polish stations also sending their Region code. Running from 1900UTC on the 23rd to 2130UTC on the 24th, the First MGM contest uses the 50 and 144MHz bands. The exchange is your report and 4-character locator. Next Sunday, the 24th, the BARTG Sprint 75 Contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using 75 baud RTTY on the 3.5 to 28MHz bands where contests are permitted, the exchange is the serial number. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA, and G4BAO on Thursday the 14th of April 2022. We had a week with declining solar flux index numbers, but with the ever-present threat of coronal mass ejections. The SFI declined from 101 on Sunday to 96 on Wednesday with the possibility of further falls as the week goes on. A solar filament located near the centre disk of the Sun erupted early Monday morning generating a faint, halo coronal mass ejection (CME) that appeared to be squarely Earth-directed. A moderate (G2) geomagnetic storm watch was added for the 14th and skywatchers at middle to high latitudes were also put on alert for aurora. Meanwhile, the quieter geomagnetic conditions earlier in the week saw 10 metres open up to some good DX. Laurie, G3UML reports a long path opening to Australia on 20m CW from 0730 to 0800UTC. He worked two VK2s and a VK3 and listened to VK5QD who was very loud. Next week NOAA predicts that the SFI may climb again, perhaps into the range of 100 to 110. Geomagnetic conditions are predicted to be generally quiet, but with the ever-present risk of CMEs pushing the Kp index up to perhaps four or five at times. A pair of coronal holes became Earth facing on Thursday as well, which may bring unsettled conditions again this weekend. If the Kp index stays low we can expect MUFs to be near seasonal norms, perhaps with openings up to 21 and even 28MHz at times. Look out for occasional early-season Sporadic-E openings as well, which could bring short-skip openings into Europe on 10 metres. And now the VHF and up propagation news The high pressure over the North Sea and Scandinavia will decline slowly allowing a new area of low pressure over the nearby Atlantic to drift east into southern Britain during the Easter weekend. This will mean that any Tropo benefits, particularly over the Irish Sea and the North Sea will decline during the weekend. The new low will bring areas of showery rain across the country with a chance of rain scatter propagation. This is likely to be a pattern for much of the following week with low pressure over southern areas and occasionally expanding bands of rain farther north. The solar activity has continued to provide aurora options, so again worthwhile checking the clusters and Kp index for early signs of auroral activity. It is also a given that random meteor scatter is always available, especially for those who like to be up early in the morning! The main mode to keep a watch out for during the coming week is Sporadic-E, which is just beginning to make an appearance on 10m and even higher bands using digital modes. Jet streams are important as potential sources of the atmospheric gravity waves that can contribute to Es. You should look to the jet stream 300hectopascal or hPa upper air charts to see where they are located. Try paths that cross them, especially where they cross mountain ranges like the Alps or Pyrenees. Note a hectopascal equals a millibar. The Propquest.co.uk website has a set of four 300hPa charts for the current day and from the beginning of May will also contain a daily blog highlighting that day's prospects. The Winter minimum of meteor show activity is coming to an end. This week the small daytime April Piscids shower starts on the 20th, and peaks two days later at 2200UTC. This also coincides with the peak of the larger, and currently active Lyrids shower also on the 22nd but earlier at 1300 UTC. With a ZHR of around 18, it should produce some good reflections. Moon perigee is on Tuesday so path losses are at their lowest. Moon declination is negative again and reaches minimum on Thursday so Moon windows will be short and peak Moon elevation low. 144MHz sky noise is high, peaking at over 3000K on Thursday so combined with the low elevations a poor week for especially VHF EME. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

The Astronomy, Technology, and Space Science News Podcast.SpaceTime Series 25 Episode 42*Artemis 1 undergoes a full launch dress rehearsalTwo weeks after rolling out onto Space Launch complex 39B from the historic Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida -- NASA's massive new Moon Rocket -- the Space Launch System or SLS -- is undergoing its long awaited three-day wet dress rehearsal.*NASA to purchase more lunar landersNASA's looking at more options for manned lunar lander craft to transfer people and supplies between the Lunar Gateway space station and the surface of the Moon.*Blue Origin launches its fourth space tourism flightBlue Origin has launched its fourth suborbital space tourism flight aboard one of the company's New Shepard rockets.*April SkyWatchWe look at our nearest neighbouring star system Alpha Centauri -- the iconic constellation Southern Cross -- and the annual Lyrids meteor shower this month on SkyWatch.Listen to SpaceTime on your favorite podcast app with our universal listen link: https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com/listen For more SpaceTime and show links: https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ If you love this podcast, please get someone else to listen to. Thank you…To become a SpaceTime supporter and unlock commercial free editions of the show, gain early access and bonus content, please visit https://bitesz.supercast.com/ . Premium version now available via Spotify and Apple Podcasts.For more podcasts visit our HQ at https://bitesz.comThis episode of SpaceTime is brought to you with the support of NordVPN…The world's leading VPN provider. Making your online data unreadable to others. Get our discount offer, plus one month free and special bonus gift. Plus you get to help support SpaceTime… visit https://nordvpn.com/stuartgary or use the coupon code STUARTGARY at checkout. Thank you…#astronomy #space #science #news 3podcast #spacetime #amateurastronomy

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has joined forces with its UK and German equivalents in an agreement to prevent tech giants from using mergers and acquisitions to maintain market dominance. In a join statement, the three groups state that stronger control over mergers is required to create room for competition in the market, particularly in new areas of innovation.Microsoft has added new settings to Outlook that can enforce breaks between meetings in an effort to overcome the problem of wall-to-wall meetings and general digital overload. The setting can make meetings start five minutes after the usual hour or half hour, with Microsoft's own research suggesting even small breaks can have a positive impact when people are feeling overloaded. Now if only they could automatically mute everyone at the scheduled end time to stop overrun that would be good too.The EU is moving forward with its proposal to impose strict rules upon the use of artificial intelligence. Seen in draft form last week, the plan aims to outlaw the use of AI for general social scoring, the use of remote biometric detection in real-time policing, and more. The rules also demand compulsory transparency obligations whenever AI is used to interact with humans, to generate or manipulate content, like with deep fakes, or to perform social or emotional detection. If the rules go ahead they're expected to have widespread impact on AI technology initiatives across the world.In Britain, the country's former children's commissioner is taking legal action against TikTok over the collection of personal data about child users. The lawsuit, brought by Anne Longfield, claims the company's collection of personal information, phone numbers, location data and the videos themselves may be illegal in the absence of transparent consent of parents given children cannot give legal consent. The case claims to represent millions of British children. No word on why the case singles out TikTok over Instagram or Snap.In backyard science, it's the right time of year to catch the Lyrids meteor showers, with the best time to head outside and take a look around one hour before sunrise over the next few days. Expect to catch meteor sightings with the naked eye every 3-5 minutes. Look toward the north to spot them.In video games, Xbox owners can now play free-to-play games online without needing to pay for an Xbox Live Gold subscription to do so. The change was flagged earlier in the year by Microsoft, but the change is now officially in the system after a number of recent adjustments to Xbox networking arrangements.And if you're hunting for something great to play on PlayStation and you had held out on buying Horizon Zero Dawn, the Complete Edition of the game is now free for all PS4 and PS5 owners. Sony's PlayStation at Home program has made a number of games available over recent weeks from its back catalogue for free – you have a few more hours to grab nine others before they exit the offer.Finally, Australian esports organisation Order, mentioned on Bits recently for Valorant tournament management efforts and a number of team victories, has raised $5.3M in new investments as it aims to establish itself as a local leader in the esports scene. It has also appointed a new CEO, Marc Edwards, and revealed plans for a dedicated facility in Melbourne's Collingwood. The team has a number of big brand partnerships with Puma, Optus, Alienware and Logitech. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The former children’s commissioner for England launches a legal claim against TikTok over allegations it illegally collected personal data from millions of children. UK Instagram users will soon be able to filter out racist and sexist DMs. ESA astronaut ready for blast-off in recycled SpaceX capsule. Skygazers will have a chance of catching a shooting star as the annual Lyrids meteor shower is scheduled to appear. Vast underwater sea meadows are being planted to encourage seahorses to combat habitat destruction by hobby boat anchors. Tile demands US Senate competition probe into Apple over rival AirTags. Dogecoin in the doghouse as the meme-based cryptocurrency slumps after hashtag-fuelled record surge.Listen to our other podcasts:Women Tech Charge: interviews with incredible women leading in Science, Technology, Engineering and MathsThe Leader: a daily news podcast helping you make sense of the day’s most important stories.Ask your Smart Speaker to ‘play the news from the Evening Standard'Visit standard.co.uk/tech for more tech news. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

National correspondent Trevor Hughes has the latest from Minneapolis. Plus, what happens next when it comes to police reform? Health reporter Elizabeth Weise also talks about herd immunity, the Senate will vote on a hate crime bill and the Lyrids meteor shower will light up the night sky.(Audio: Associated Press)Episode Transcript linked hereAlso available at art19.com/shows/5-Things

Starting tonight & peaking on Earth Day April 22 the Lyrids are making their appearance. These springtime meteors get their name from the constellation Lyra, which is shaped like a harp with a tail to the bright star Vega. From Greek mythology, this is the Lyre of Orpheus, the harmonious instrument that the virtuoso played at the gates of Hades in an ill-fated attempt to win back Eurydice from the Underworld. Orpheus the son of Apollo & the muse Calliope, being a demi-god, his singing & playing were so beautiful that animals & even trees & rocks moved about him in dance. Some folks speculate that this was a former incarnation of Marie Steiner von Shivers, who they also say was the famous Greek philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria – they both met their death by being was ripped to shreds. Perhaps, we can imagine the Lyrids as the 'Tears of Orpheus,' falling down from the heavens. I think it's interesting to contemplate these 2 powerful personalities, of Orpheus & Hypatia, who were both standing at a turning point of time when new impulse were coming in, which is what Meteor Showers are a sign. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/hazel-archer-ginsberg/message

Comet Thatcher is pretty ordinary. It’s a ball of ice and rock that takes about 415 years to orbit the Sun. It follows a long, skinny orbit that takes it deep into the outer solar system — more than five billion miles from the Sun. The comet reminds us of its presence every year, though, with a meteor shower. And the shower should be at its best tomorrow night. It’s called the Lyrid shower because its meteors all appear to “rain” into the atmosphere from the constellation Lyra. Comet Thatcher was discovered 160 years ago this month. Amateur astronomer A.E. Thatcher was scanning the skies above his home in New York with a telescope when he saw a small, fuzzy blob. The comet soon became bright enough to see with the naked eye. A few years later, astronomers figured out that the comet was the source of the Lyrid meteors. As the comet moves close to the Sun, heat vaporizes some of the ice at its surface. That releases bits of rock and dirt into space. They spread out along the comet’s orbit. Earth passes through that path every April. So some of the bits of debris plunge into our atmosphere at speeds of 30 miles per second. At that rate, they quickly vaporize — forming the streaks of light known as meteors. This year’s Lyrids should be at their best late tomorrow night. Unfortunately, the gibbous Moon will be in the way during the peak hours. So only a few Lyrids are likely to shine through — the offspring of a comet. Script by Damond Benningfield Support McDonald Observatory

ในคืนฝนดาวตก | Lyrids-ฝนดาวตกกลุ่มดาวพิณ ฝนดาวตกมาอีกแล้วววว เดือน เมษายน นี้มีถึงสองรอบใหญ่ ๆ โดยในรอบแรกนี้ เป็นกลุ่มฝนดาวตกพิณ ที่ เริ่มไปแล้วตั้งแต่วันที่ 14 เมษายน และลากยาวไปจนถึง 25 เมษา เห็นได้มากสุดในวันที่ 22 เมษายน เอ้า ยังไงก็ลองไปฟังเรื่องราวของฝนดาวตกกลุ่มดาวพิณกันเลยดีกว่าครับ ช่องทางรับฟัง: YouTube: Anchor: Spotify: ______________________________________ ผู้ดำเนินรายการ | Host: ภัคศรัณย พลหาญ | Phaksaran Polharn ชญานนท์ สง่างาม | Chayanon Sangangarm ตัดต่อ | Editor: ธงไท อนุวงค์ | Thongtai Anuwong สถานที่บันทึกเสียง | Recorded at: ลานยิ้มการละคร (สวนอัญญา) | Lanyim Theatre

Don't miss the poetic harmony of meteor showers and the spring this week when the Lyrids peak overnight, April 21st, heralding the season of warmth for the northern hemisphere.

Episode 116 In this episode of the Observers Notebook podcast, host Tim Robertson talks to the Meteor Section Coordinator, Bob Lunsford about the upcoming Lyrids and eta Aquariids meteor showers peaking the evening of April 21-22, 2021 and May 4-5 2021. Bob gives us a brief history of the Meteor Showers, how and where to observe and details on reporting your observations, and contact information. You can contact Bob at: lunro.imo.usa@cox.net The link for the details on the Lyrids meteor shower: http://www.alpo-astronomy.org/meteorblog/ International Meteor Organization https://www.imo.net/ For the latest information from the ALPO Meteor Section you can visit: http://www.amsmeteors.org/ For more information you can visit the ALPO web site at: www.alpo-astronomy.org/ You can also support this podcast at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ObserversNotebook Listen to the podcast on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/observersnotebook Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/observers-notebook-the-alpo-podcast/id1199301885?mt=2 I want to thank the Producers of this podcast, Steve Siedentop and Michael Moyer for their generous support of the Observers Notebook. Our Patreons: Jerry White Jason Inman Matt Will Steve Seidentop Matthew Benton Ken Poshedly Stephen Bennett Michael Moyer Shawn Dilles Frank Schenck Damian Allis Charles White

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   If you enjoy the podcast and would like to help us reach more ears, please consider leaving a rating or review on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wonder-science-based-paganism/id1501228156   S2E13 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host Yucca. And today we are talking about astronomy, and space, science and the wow of all of it. So the reason that we chose today, Is this episode comes out on April 12th, which is Yuri's Night. Mark: Exactly. And that is the anniversary, and as it happens, it is the 60th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's orbiting of the Earth, the first entry of humanity into space. And this was a remarkable achievement in many ways, not least of which was that he actually orbited. Later missions of the United States for example, tried to get capsules into orbit, but until John Glenn, they didn't succeed. So this was really a remarkable thing. And he had the first extra terrestrial view of space. Yucca: Yeah, and helped us gave us that view as well. And since then, there have been many, many humans who have gotten to see our planet from outside of it. Which is just amazing. And of course the space age has unfolded since then. And now we have the satellite images continuously watching our world and looking out far into the distant past. And it just amazing, amazingly beautiful and mysterious objects and giving us a completely different understanding of the context that we exist in. Mark: Yes. And to be fair, I think a different understanding of ourselves as exploratory creatures, we have invested, and it may not seem much relative to how much we invest in ways to kill one another. And other Yucca: weight loss pills. Mark: Yes. things that we invest, but we have invested a tremendous amount of money and effort, expertise, and knowledge and genius into flinging our machines into space so that we can learn extraordinary things. Extraordinary things. Yucca: And going back to the April 12th 61. we hadn't even flown past Mars yet. Mark: No. Yucca: That comes later. Now. Amazingly, we did that very, very quickly. But. We hadn't even glimpsed at are our neighbors that are sibling planets are telling us so much, or our studying of them is teaching us so much about ourselves, right? The studying Venus, studying Mars, that comparative planetology has really given us a leg up in understanding climate change and the history and the different possibilities of where our planet goes, depending on human management and all kinds of things. Mark: Yes. Yes. I am old enough to have lived through almost the entire space era. And I remember that when I was a kid, this misshapen smear was the highest resolution image we had of Mercury. For example, it was the very best we could do. And. That remained the best we could do until the Mariner missions. When suddenly we had these beautiful crystal clear Moon like shots of Mercury, it wasn't like we advanced in little steps. We went from essentially nothing, a completely undifferentiated smear to these beautiful high resolution images in a very short period of years. We've just learned so much. Yucca: And we did something very similar with Hubble, the Hubble space, telescope and excitingly, lots of fingers crossed, but the James Webb telescope, which is scheduled to launch on Halloween this year is one of those that we hope is this going to be another one of those, amazing transformations of the imagery and data that we can get back just to completely new level, Mark: An order of magnitude jump. Yucca: literally. Yes. Mark: A literal order of magnitude. And when you consider the extraordinary imagery that has come back to us from Hubble the miraculous the deep field images, the nebulae the galaxies. The extraordinary quality of these images in the way that they've helped to inform us about the nature of the universe, which is our world. Our world is in the universe. It's all operating according to the same rules. And it's just a really amazing time to be alive and to see the, see this information coming back. Yucca: Yeah. It's just it's. Wow. It's odd. Inspiring. it's, it's what we named this show after. That sense of wonder. Mark: Yes. Yes, because. We can talk a lot in our paganism about cosmology and people do talk about their cosmology a lot in the pagan world, whether it's that they believe in particular gods or an afterlife that is the happy hunting grounds or valhalla or some form of reincarnation or. Or whatever it might be. We in the naturalistic, non theist pagan world, we're looking at what we know for a fact is here and it is so amazing. It is so multifaceted and mysterious, not meaning mysterious as in woo. You can't understand it, but just, we don't understand some stuff yet. And it's, and we're finding more out all the time. Yucca: And as we find more out, then it just opens more and more questions and more mystery. And that's the mysterious part of it. Is it leads to more. Mark: But we also answer big questions. And that's another part that is just so gratifying that we have a standard model of cosmology, which as of this week is now in question because there may very well be a fifth force of nature. And I don't want to go down that rabbit hole because it's a hole. Yucca: Oh, this is another fun one though. So if you have time, if you've got the time, check it out. Yeah. Mark: Yes, definitely check it out. It's still a maybe, but the data are awfully good. And people are very excited about it and it may very well answered. Big questions about, for example, the reason that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, which is something that we have explained with this sort of magical term dark energy. But it may very well be that it is this. tiny force between at the microscope, at the subatomic level, which is driving the universe's expansion to accelerate. And I don't claim to be able to explain all of the steps that lead to that kind of conclusion, but people that are much smarter and more educated on this than I, I am, do believe that's the case. And. If that's the case, we have learned something fundamental and incredibly important about the nature of the universe. Yucca: Yeah, it's one of those textbook rewriting situations. So, and if that's not the case, it's even more interesting. Mark: Yes. That's not the answer then what is. Yucca: so it's often, much more exciting to be wrong than to be probably right. Cause again, we never know that we're actually right. We're really good at proving ourselves wrong, but we can never quite prove. Mark: Yeah, we can tell what's most likely to be right, but that's not the same thing as saying we're right. Declaration of my God exists, or this is the way the universe is a fundamentally unscientific way of approaching the world. It's a faith-based way of approaching the world rather than a science-based way of approaching the world. And. within the segment of the pagan community that Yucca and I live in, we are about the scientific understanding of the world. We believe that there is enough here to Revere and to celebrate and to be awed by and humbled by that we don't need the supernatural stuff. Maybe it's out there. Maybe it is. Maybe. Data is going to arrive one day that indicates that some of that stuff is true, maybe so, but I settle. I settled for the universe. Yucca: What a thing to settle for. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: This universe that we're talking about. We're part of. Mark: Of course. Yucca: And that's one of the really exciting things in the space sciences is that when we learn about that star or we launch a telescope, that's lets us look back 13 billion years. We're not just learning about something, oh, out there. Some imaginary thing. No, we're learning about us. What made us, what process made us what's happening to us? It's, we're looking at ourselves in a way, not the literal pattern and collection of atoms which is Yucca or Mark right now, but on a kind of conceptual level of what creates us and things like studying black holes, it seems so removed from our. From our reality and has it doesn't seem like it should have anything to do with us. And yet, as we studied black holes, we started to see, okay, so black holes can play a major role in distributing heavy elements throughout the galaxy, pushing them out into areas where you're more likely to be able to form life on planets that's away from the incredible amount of radiation and activity in the center of a galaxy where all that material is concentrated. So this is one of the many ways that we start going. Okay, well that is, we'd never have thought that argument, it might depend on the, on black holes until we start studying those things. Mark: And let's connect the dots there. What are we made of? We're made of a bunch of heavy elements. I mean, we're made mostly of hydrogen and oxygen, but we are made of also things like, as we were talking about zinc and copper and calcium and iron and those heavy elements formed in these catastrophic supernova events and then pushed out. By black holes, coalesced into a system which erected little pillars on two legs, things that are aware of themselves in the universe that can look out at the whole system and can have some level of comprehension of what it is and how works and that's You listener that's you and it's me. And it's all of us. It's so cool. Yucca: Yeah. It's just, and we see those connections all over the place picked black holes. Cause that's it an exciting topic, but. any other object, do you want to take a look at, let's talk about Nebby Lee or quasar. I mean, we just talked about quasars, but neutron stars and the Brown dwarves, all of these things, and we start to put this puzzle together. It's like those little drawings that, that kids have in their activity books, where they have the dots and you follow you draw from one to two to three to four, and then all of a sudden it makes us incredible picture to connect the.pictures. And that's what we're doing. And. Mark: and let's remember for a minute why it is that we're studying situations like black holes because the edge cases, the extreme cases are what is left in what we don't understand about the universe. We have physics that completely explains everything that a human experiences on Earth. There, there aren't. Yucca: In terms of the scale that we're experiencing Mark: Yes. In terms of the scale that we're Yucca: the ball dropping the, that kind of thing. Yeah. We've got that. We've had that since Newton, right? That's. Mark: We've had that for a long time. So where we go is to the edge cases, the extreme cases, cases of extreme gravity, extreme radiation, extreme electromagnetism. Those are the places where we start to see the rules that apply at our scale breakdown. And that tells us much more about the nature of the universe. Yucca: And allows us to do more with it. to start to put together understandings that okay. That extreme case, but we ex we start to understand it in the exception, in that extreme case. And then we can bring it back and we can start to apply it to. Okay. Well, what's happening with Mercury's orbit. We're seeing some time dilation there. Okay. But then we can apply it and start using it in things like GPS, where it wouldn't work with, if we didn't have that understanding GPS wouldn't work. So yeah. Mark: So this is not just a mental exercise. It is a really fun mental exercise and you can get lots of wow out of it. And obviously Yucca and I do and hope that you do too, because it's just an extraordinary voyage to take to undertake, trying to understand even a corner of what this whole universe is about. it's so inspiring and it can bring tremendous joy. but more than that by reaching out to explore in those really extreme cases, we start seeing, Oh, well that actually implements it our scale a little bit, not very much, but a little bit. And we start realizing how interconnected it all is, how much it's all of the same fabric really. Yucca: Yeah, something to add to this is what we're talking about is so huge that no one person could possibly know it all. So don't worry about knowing it all. There's always going to be somebody who knows more about something, so that doesn't need to get in the way of pursuing something that you're interested in. If you're interested in learning about the Moon or supernovae or things like that. Sure. They're experts and why, and maybe you won't be the world's leading expert on it, or maybe you will. That'd be awesome if you were, but. But you can still learn about the piece here and a piece there and, or you can simply just enjoy being out and noticing, Oh, that red star there. Oh, that's Betelgeuse . All right. I heard that's near the end of its lifetime that maybe we might get to witness it go supernova one day. You don't need to know everything. So don't let the what's that old expression. don't let perfection Mark: Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Yucca: Yes. So. Mark: I would go even a little step further, which is that there are people who are not particularly scientifically minded at all. They're much more aesthetically oriented, more artistically oriented, just the Hubble images, just. Just admiring the magnificence of what's out there in the universe manifest simply through the laws of physics is enough. You if you have a predisposition to want to understand what you're seeing, when you look at those images, then great. Learn about what you're seeing. If you don't have that predisposition, just. Enjoy the show, the universe, the greatest show on Earth, except it's not just on Earth. It's the greatest show in the universe. Yucca: Exactly and all the stuff that NASA does, all the images that it puts out, those are all public domain. And today, some of the real old stuff from some of the older missions, it's hard to get ahold of, but anything that's being produced today, the Perseverance images coming back, those are being uploaded online and you have access to those. I mean, it's just a few swipe of your thumb to get access to those. Mark: I used NASA image from the international space station of the Sun peeking over the limb of the Earth for the cover of my book. Atheopagan ism. Because I knew that it was public domain. It's owned by all of us because we all paid to make it happen. All of us in the United States helped to pay, to make it possible to shoot that photograph. And so that's what I used. Yucca: And the logo actually for the podcast is a Is multiple images put together. So it's not just one image, but it's based on many images, which are images from various different space missions. Mark: Not that we like space or anything. Yucca: I yeah no, no interest in space. no, that's actually my masters. That's what my master's is in. Yeah. But and I'd like to teach it and talk about it with kids and adults, and pretty much anyone who will listen. talk about space with you. This is Mark: That's the great thing about a podcast is that basically if they download it and decide to listen to it, then they've already agreed and you can just talk. Yucca: So, so we've been talking about kind of these big things. before we jump into some of the things that, that we can do in our everyday or every night practices I just wanted to mention that 2020 was a really hard year on so many different fronts, but some of the silver lining from that was the many of the incredible explorations and advances we made in the space sciences and 2021 already. I mean, we're just coming out of the first quarter. So there's so much that we are learning. Continuously and the accessibility of it is really amazing too. There are some amazing YouTube channels where you can just tune in to very high production quality presentations on what's what's going on. What's the newest news. What's you know, what did Parker probe come up with and this stuff that we're talking about the challenges to the standard model we talked about Spacetime is one of my favorite ones like PBS. I don't remember the, his name, but he's got a, he's an astrophysicist with a lovely Australian accent. Great to listen to is so there's a bunch of those and we just are in this. This is just such a great year. I mean, we've talked a lot about Perseverance and Ingenuity and James Webb and there's just last year, new, more material coming from New Horizons, which is my personal favorite mission out there. the one who went by Pluto but is doing. Now doing astronomy. So we've done some stellar parallax with it that from a distance that we had never been able to do before. So it's just one of those, one of those places that I think is helpful to have some gratitude and excitement about that, even though it was a hard year, we had some just amazing Discoveries and advances. Yeah. Mark: Yes. And there was renewed interest in instrumentation that was very old, the Voyager missions, which had been on well, we're going to keep listening to the occasional beep, but that's about it. they'd been ignored now having left the Helio sheath Their discoveries are much more interesting again. And so there's a lot more attention being paid to the signal that is being directed by these objects that are the farthest flung human objects ever. They have left the Solar System. They are beyond way beyond Pluto's orbit at this point. Yucca: Oh far. Yes. yeah, I don't, we could look up how many AUs out they are. Yeah. I mean, there's still within the Sun's Hill Sphere, but they're in the interstellar medium. Now. They're no longer being. Strongly affected by the solar wind and the Sun's magnetic influence. So just like the Earth has a magnetic field, the sun does, and that's what the Voyagers are leaving. Mark: Yes. Yucca: isn't it just delightful that these things were launched in the seventies Mark: I remember when they were. Yucca: And I'm also the only visits to the ice giants. Mark: Yes. Yucca: Voyager 2 past in 89 and we haven't been back since. Mark: Yes. and the, so the pictures of Uranus and Neptune are as good as they get. For us right now. And they basically look like big fuzzy balls with with little storms and some rings. But we learned tremendous amounts. Yes. Yucca: Yeah. A lot of mysteries today. Mark: yeah, I mean, they were little points of light before we went out to look at them and By gum was right. There's a planet there. Yucca: With other planets going around them because Triton is quite a story. That's an interesting one. Mark: It certainly is. It certainly is. well, and that gets us into the Moons of the Solar System, which is a whole tangent that we could go incredible places. All the deep ocean Yucca: The, IWOWs Internal water ocean worlds, and cryo vulcanism and. We haven't even looked beneath these surfaces to see if somebody is there Mark: right. Yucca: From an astrobiological perspective these worlds are probably far more habitable than earth is earth is quite hostile, but I wound with these nice many kilometers thick of ice that protect them from the solar radiation and impacts, and they have internal sources of heat and liquid wood water, all the things that we need for life, but in a much more steady stable environment. Yeah. And that's, we'll have, hopefully we'll have the Europa clipper happening in the next decade and maybe we'll get a look, even though we're still not landing. We're. not Mark: We're looking. Yucca: We're just looking. Yeah, we're looking, but we're getting to look with a lot more detail than we ever did before. Mark: By the way, if you haven't seen it, and I'm not going to say any more about it because there should be no spoilers. There is an unbelievably good, incredibly low budget science fiction film called Europa Report. And. You've just got to see it. I mean, one of the things that's great about Europa report is that it's one of the few space exploration movies I've ever seen, where the characters are actually scientists. They're there for the data. They really, they care about the data. that's the most important thing to them. I don't know if you've seen that or not. Yucca: I have not watched it in full, I have watched parts of it. but yeah I'm familiar with it. Yeah. So we've talked about the sense of awe that the scientific perspective, which includes. The not just willingness, but the excitement in having our understanding be challenged by a new data. But there's also the personal relationship with the night sky that as we're moving into warmer weather, for those of us in the Northern hemisphere, It can be a really great experience and enriching to spend some time with the night sky. Mark: Especially if there's some whizzbang event happening like a lunar eclipse or a meteor shower. and they're not that uncommon, cool stuff happens in the sky all the time. Some of the cool things like comments, less frequently, at least comments that are visible to the naked eye, but a, a lunar eclipse or or a meteor shower is nothing to sneeze at. It's very cool to be out under the stars and see these amazing things. Yucca: And even when there's not a shower, there are still, if you're in a dark area, you probably going to see multiple meteors and a single night. yeah. So there's actually a, one of the major meteor showers coming up just in the next week or so the Lyrids is so, and the, it will not it's we're moving towards the full moon. But we won't be all the way at the full moon. So when you have the full moon, it makes it harder to see because there's more light, but that's a great one. There's I think 10, 15 per hour is estimate Mark: I think, so that sounds about right. Yucca: It's one that actually is easier to see in the late evenings, which is a little bit unusual. Most of the time, the best viewing for the meteor showers is right before Dawn is between midnight and Dawn. But this one, your local time, nine to 10, just look Northeast and look for Vega actually. And that should be a good clue for where to look so. Mark: So go ahead and do it for real. it's great. too, like I have the Hubble ultra deep field image on my focus and an Apollo 17 portrait of the Earth on my focus. the space has a real presence in my kind of altered. Personal spiritual practice, but there's nothing like the real thing. And especially if you can get to a very dark area, like a desert or out on an Island in the ocean or something like that there's just nothing like it. Yucca: And even if you're in a city, I mean, the moon is amazing. And yeah it's not only out at night. If you can't get out to see it at night, go ahead and take a look at it during the day. You can still make out lots of the craters and studying the line between night and day on the moon. So the Terminator there where you see the dark and the light, you can see all kinds of amazing details. And it's just stunning. Mark: we should also mention the astronomy picture of the day, which is a wonderful web resource that is managed by NASA. It's just a pod.nasa.gov. And a pod, meaning astronomy picture of the day and beautiful images of space with explanations of what we're seeing and what is significant about them. and as we said before, they're all public domain. it's, feel free to download them, use them for your wallpaper on your computer or whatever else you want to do with them. Yucca: And if any of you are listening on the 12th and it's Yuri's Night there are a lot of, there's a lot of space parties tonight, and lots of them are online. As well that you can just tune into, if you want to be a part of that kind of excitement and sort of celebration. Mark: It's probably a little early because of the pandemic, but typically there are live Yuri's Night parties at Air and Space museums or natural history museums. in many cities, they're all around the world and those, I've attended one of them. but it was such fun. It was everything from lectures and planetarium shows and that kind of thing to dancing. It was. It was great. It was just a really good time. Yucca: With a healthy dose of star Trek fandom, and all of the kind of related adjacent sci fi stuff. Okay. Mark: Yes. Yucca: Well, Mark, thank you. This has been a joy and if we kept at it, we could talk about space for many more hours, but I think we should let folks go. Mark: Okay, that sounds good. All right. A pleasure. Yucca. Have a great week.

Welcome to Observing With Webb, where a high school astronomy teacher tells you what you’re looking at, why it’s so cool, and what you should check out later this month…at night.  April of 2021 delivers a few mornings and a few evenings of lunar close encounters, as well as a meteor shower, as we stay up later to get those dark skies. April 22nd – LYRID METEOR SHOWER – 2021 is a decent year for the Lyrids, if you’re willing to get up in the morning to watch. At only 10-20 meteors per hour, it is a minor shower, and we have a Moon just past its 1st quarter, so it won’t get drowned out by moonlight…after 4am. You’ll still be able to see SOME meteors at night, but it’ll be better without the Moon’s light pollution.  So look North in general in the morning before dawn.  The shower is greatest on the 22nd, but you might see some on the 21st and 23rd as well. Just remember each meteor is piece of debris left over from a comet, and we’re crashing into it at over 100,000 miles per hour, which crushes the atmosphere it hits, heating it up and causing the bright flash. Some advice for watching: - Find a dark location and lie down in a reclining chair or something that insulates you from the ground. - Check the weather to see if the skies will be clear. - Adapt your eyes to the dark by staying away from light sources or using a red light if you need to look at a star chart or not trip over something.  - If you’re feeling extra nerdy, do a scientific meteor count (S&T and IMO).   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs. Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too! Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://astrogear.spreadshirt.com/ for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations. Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by Astrosphere New Media. http://www.astrosphere.org/ Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org.

The Astronomy, Technology and Space Science News Podcast.SpaceTime with Stuart Gary Series 24 Episode 36*Is the nearest star cluster to the Sun being destroyed by dark matter?Data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia star mapping satellite has revealed tantalising evidence that the Hyades open star cluster -- the nearest star cluster to the Sun -- is being destroyed by the gravitational influence of a massive but unseen structure in our galaxy.*More air leaks in the Russian section of the space stationThe crew aboard the International Space Station have once again resorted to using tea leaves to try and find more air leaks in the Russian Zvezda module.*Starlink reaches over 1300 satellitesSpaceX has launched another 60 Starlink satellites as it continues to build its record setting broadband constellation.*April SkywatchThe star nearest the Sun, The Southern Cross, and the Lyrids meteor shower. Help SpaceTime become a completely listener supported podcast.SpaceTime is an independently produced podcast (we are not funded by any government grants, big organisations or companies), and we’re working towards becoming a completely listener supported show...meaning we can do away with the commercials and sponsors. We figure the time can be much better spent on researching and producing stories for you, rather than having to chase sponsors to help us pay the bills.That's where you come in....help us reach our first 1,000 subscribers...at that level the show becomes financially viable and bills can be paid without us breaking into a sweat every month. Every little bit helps...even if you could contribute just $1 per month. It all adds up.By signing up and becoming a supporter at the $5 or more level, you get immediate access to over 230 commercial-free, double, and triple episode editions of SpaceTime plus extended interview bonus content. You also receive all new episodes on a Monday rather than having to wait the week out. Subscribe via Patreon or Supercast....and share in the rewards. Details at Patreon www.patreon.com/spacetimewithstuartgary or Supercast - https://bitesznetwork.supercast.tech/Details at https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com or www.bitesz.com/support For more SpaceTime visit https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com (mobile friendly).For enhanced Show Notes including photos to accompany this episode, visit: http://www.bitesz.com/spacetimewithstuartgaryRSS feed: https://rss.acast.com/spacetimeEmail: SpaceTime@bitesz.comTo receive the Astronomy Daily Newsletter free, direct to your inbox...just join our mailing list at www.bitesz.com/mailinglist or visit https://www.bitesz.com/astronomy-daily Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/spacetime. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

WATCH this on YouTube LISTEN as a podcast on Podbean, Stitcher, or iTunes Social Media: @mrwebbpv on Twitter and Instagram @pvplanetarium on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram   April of 2021 delivers a few mornings and a few evenings of lunar close encounters, as well as a meteor shower, as we stay up later to get those dark skies.          Welcome to Observing With Webb, where a high school astronomy teacher tells you what you’re looking at, why it’s so cool, and what you should check out later this month…at night.    Naked-eye PLANETS... Sunset – Mars Mars (SW-->W) – Look SW and two-thirds of the way up the sky after sunset to find the non-twinkling reddish-orange dot, much brighter than everything around it, above Taurus in the beginning of the month and above Orion toward the end. Sets around midnight in the WNW. Throughout the night – None at the moment Morning – Saturn, Jupiter Saturn, Jupiter – The two gas giants are low in the SE, getting higher and rising earlier each day. Look SE in the morning (after 5am in the beginning of the month, after 3am by the end).  Jupiter will be on the left, with Saturn up and to the right about 15˚.    EVENTS... Waning Gibbous (Mostly lit, rises later at night) Last Quarter Moon – 4th (Visible from midnight into the morning) Morning Crescents (look East in the AM) New Moon – 11th (darkest skies) Evening Crescents (look West after Sunset) First Quarter Moon – 20th (Visible until midnight) Evening Gibbous (Mostly lit, after Sunset) Full Moon – 26th (Visible all night)   5th – 7th – Close Encounter – Moon, Saturn, Jupiter – Before sunrise in the SE, between 5am and 6am EDT on these mornings, a beautiful crescent Moon will be passing by our two biggest gas planets.  On the 5th, the Moon will be about 13˚ to the right of Saturn. On the next morning (the 6th) the Moon will be just 4˚ under Saturn.  Then on the 7th, our crescent Moon hangs out just 5˚ below Jupiter.   15th – 17th – Close Encounter – Moon, Mars, Pleiades, Taurus – Get out there between sunset and midnight to find the crescent Moon in the West right next to Taurus, with the Pleiades on the opposite side, and Mars far above.  On the 16th the Moon moves closer to Mars, leaving Taurus and the Pleiades behind.  Finally, on the 17th, the Moon is just 5˚above Mars.   22nd – LYRID METEOR SHOWER – 2021 is a decent year for the Lyrids, if you’re willing to get up in the morning to watch.  At only 10-20 meteors per hour, it is a minor shower, and we have a Moon just past its 1st quarter, so it won’t get drowned out by moonlight…after 4am.  You’ll still be able to see SOME meteors at night, but it’ll be better without the Moon’s light pollution.  So look North in general in the morning before dawn.  The shower is greatest on the 22nd, but you might see some on the 21st and 23rd as well.  Just remember each meteor is piece of debris left over from a comet, and we’re crashing into it at over 100,000 miles per hour, which crushes the atmosphere it hits, heating it up and causing the bright flash. Some advice for watching: Find a dark location and lie down in a reclining chair or something that insulates you from the ground. Check the weather to see if the skies will be clear Adapt your eyes to the dark by staying away from light sources or using a red light if you need to look at a star chart or not trip over something.  If you’re feeling extra nerdy, do a scientific meteor count (S&T and IMO)   CONSTELLATIONS... Use a sky map from www.skymaps.com to help you out. After Dinner: Leo, Orion & his winter companions – Leo will be high in the South, almost straight above you. It has a backward question mark with a right triangle to the left of the question mark. Also, take a moment to get your last glimpse Orion, Taurus, the Pleiades, Gemini, Auriga, and Canis Major off in the West. Before Bed: Big Dipper, Bootes – If you look above Leo, behind you and high in the sky, you should find the Big Dipper: seven very bright stars that form a spoon shape. Now if you take the handle of the Dipper, follow its curve to the next bright star you see, about 30˚ away, which is Arcturus. “Follow the arc to Arcturus.” That’s the brightest star in Bootes, which looks like a kite. Take that same curve, and follow it about another 20˚ to “speed on to Spica”, the brightest star in Virgo, one of my favorite constellations, since it reminds me of the Dickinson Mermaid. Before Work: Lyra, Hercules, Hercules Cluster – Look pretty much straight above you, and find the brightest star up there. You’ll notice a parallelogram attached to it. This is the brightest star Vega, part of the constellation Lyra, the harp. Next to that is a keystone shaped constellation called Hercules. On the right side of the keystone is a small cluster of stars known at the Hercules Cluster, which is a collection of hundreds of stars on the outskirts of our galaxy. Given how high it is in the sky right now, you might catch its faint fuzziness with your naked eye, but a set of binoculars or a small telescope will really help you see it.

GB2RS NEWS Sunday the 28th of March 2021 The news headlines: Ham Radio Friedrichshafen cancelled In-person exams to resume 18th April is World Amateur Radio Day The in-person Ham Radio international amateur radio exhibition held in Friedrichshafen, Germany, has once again been cancelled. With the Covid-19 pandemic maintaining a firm grip on world events, the venue has been forced to postpone the event until 2022. The dates for 2022 will be the 24th to 26th of June. Details of any online activities in place of this year’s event will be released nearer the time. The RSGB remote invigilation exams have been a great success during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Society can now plan to resume exams for candidates who prefer to sit them in a club setting with in-person invigilation. The RSGB will start accepting bookings from club Examination Secretaries from the date when the Government lifts all Covid-19 restrictions in their part of the UK. The Society will release further details shortly. The online remote invigilation exams will continue in parallel. Mandatory practical assessments at Foundation level will remain suspended pending an ESC/ESRG-led review and consultation on their long-term future. The 18th of April will be World Amateur Radio Day. It was on this day in 1925 that the International Amateur Radio Union was formed in Paris. The theme for 2021 will be ‘Home but never alone’. Due to Covid-19, many gatherings and amateur radio events have been cancelled, however, amateur radio kept us connected. Listen out for special event stations around the world that will be on the air that day. The RSGB is holding its AGM online this year on Saturday the 24th of April and will live-stream the event. You can submit written questions for Board Directors in advance through a form on the Society’s website at rsgb.services/gb2rs/007. After the formal business part of the meeting, EMC Chair John Rogers, M0JAV will give an update on Ofcom’s new EMF regulations. In the UK, the clocks went forward one hour at 1 am today, the 28th of March. This means we are on British Summer Time. Please note that many contests and other events often state the timings in UTC or GMT, which will be one hour behind the local clock time here in the UK. The next edition of RadCom Basics is now available. It includes articles on Using a Multimeter – both digital and analogue, tracking down sources of interference and part two of Making Small Metal Boxes. RSGB Members can read previous editions of RadCom Basics by going to rsgb.org/radcom-basics. You can also register to receive notification of subsequent issues as they become available at the same address. At the request of the European Commission, the IARU met with representatives of the automotive industry, standards bodies and the Commission on the 25th of March. It was to review the current position on the development of an emission standard for Wireless Power Transfer for Electric Vehicles. There was a frank exchange of views and the Commission determined that further joint tests should be arranged. The IARU confirmed it was content to participate and welcomed the initiative. A further meeting will take place once the relevant tests have been completed, with a view to making progress towards an emission standard. Read the full news item at iaru-r1.org. There is an IET webinar about Amateur Radio on the 12th of May starting at 7.30 pm. Phil Gould will give you an appreciation of amateur radio, a hobby that puts science and technology into action. You can register on the IET website at theiet.org, then go to the events tab. Registration is open to non-members as well as members of the IET. Lee, M0RLE started a net at the beginning of the first lockdown. It is every Monday evening on GB3RF and GB3PF and usually attracts over 20 people. He has been working most of the lockdown but has kept the net going including contacting people if they miss the net to check that all is well. Well done Lee. The short film ISS_Overs won the Best Dramatic Short at the Quarantini Monthly Film Festival. It has also been selected as a finalist in the Awards Sections of the WeMakeFilms International Film Festival. It is about an elderly amateur radio operator who catches a signal from the International Space Station while in lockdown. Now the DX news Lee, HL1IWD will be active holiday style as HL1IWD/5 from Koje Island, IOTA reference AS-081, between the 2nd and 4th of April. He will operate CW and some FT8 on the 40 to 20m bands. QSL via the bureau, or direct to EA5GL. Keith, KL2JE will remain operating from Dutch Harbor, Unalaska Island, NA-059, until the 10th of April. In his spare time, he is on 20 metres using FT8. Mats, SM6LRR, will be active as 8Q7MS from the Maldives between the 28th of March and the 10th of April. He is operating holiday-style on mainly the 40 to 15m bands using CW, but he will also use SSB. Now the Special Event news For the annual RAFARS Airfields on the Air activity, GB0WYT – standing for RAF Wyton, Cambridgeshire – will be operational on the 3rd and 4th of April. This is the ninth year of operation. Due to the current restrictions, the callsign will be operated by RAFAC Radio Staff and members of Huntingdonshire ARS who live locally to RAF Wyton. Subject to conditions, they will be operating on the HF bands using CW, voice and RTTY, PSK31, FT8; they will also be on 2m FM and SSB. John, MW1CFN will be active as GB1004FTS from Anglesey, EU-005, between the 25th of March and the 8th of April. He will operate SSB and digital modes on the HF bands, 6 and 2m. QSL via Logbook of The World or direct. The special callsign celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Royal Air Force’s No 4 Flying Training School, which opened on the 1st of April 1921. Now the contest news The RSGB VHF Contest Committee will once again accept portable entries from stations within some areas of the UK from the 29th of March. Different parts of the UK have different regulations, so please ensure you obey your national and local government’s advice. Details are in the RSGB Contest Committee Newsletter and you can subscribe at rsgbcc.org. The CQ World Wide WPX SSB contest ends its 48 hours run at 2359UTC today, the 28th. Please check the rules as there is a new multi-station category. Using the 1.8 to 28MHz contest bands, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Wednesday the UK EI Contest Club 80m contest runs from 2000 to 2100UTC. Using CW only, the exchange is your 6-character locator. Next weekend the SP DX contest runs from 1500UTC on the 3rd to 1500UTC on the 4th. Using CW and SSB on the 1.8 to 28MHz contest bands, the exchange is signal report and serial number. SP stations will also exchange their Province code. On Sunday the 4th of April the First 70MHz contest runs from 0900 to 1200UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA & G4BAO on Friday the 26th of March. What a mixed week we had, with large geomagnetic storms interspersed with quiet periods. The first storm occurred last weekend when the Kp index hit six on Saturday and then five on Sunday. This wasn’t unexpected and we did warn that it might happen in the last GB2RS broadcast. A second storm occurred when a weak shock passage was detected at around 1920UTC on Wednesday evening. This was likely related to a coronal mass ejection coming off the Sun’s eastern limb, which was observed on the 20th of March. The solar wind increased from 375km/s to around 440km/s and the Bz Interplanetary Magnetic Field component tipped south. Otherwise, it was relatively quiet on the sunspot front with the solar flux index climbing from 77 on Sunday to 84 on Thursday, reflecting the increased UV due to groups 2811 and 2812. Conditions have been a little lacklustre, with daytime maximum usable frequencies over a 3,000km path struggling to climb over 18MHz at times. Next week NOAA has the solar flux index prediction at 78 all week. It also predicts unsettled geomagnetic conditions on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, with the Kp index set to rise to five thanks to a high-speed stream from a coronal hole. Expect depressed critical frequencies and MUFs until this clears later in the week and the Kp index returns to more normal values. This might be a good time to check your antennas so that you are ready for the 10 metre Sporadic-E season in a few weeks! And now the VHF and up propagation news. After some welcome Tropo down to Atlantic France and Northern Spain early last week, we are in the midst of a very disturbed period of weather and this will continue into early next week. Perhaps contrary to expectations there could be some more Tropo on the southern warm air side of a waving front over southern Britain. These will most likely be west-east paths from southern Britain into northern Europe. Otherwise, we can hope the frontal rain band may provide limited rain scatter options on the GHz bands. From about Tuesday, a new high will establish a dominant position over the UK and this could make Tropo more likely again, but this will be a cold air high and usually, these are not the best providers of good Tropo. As we enter April in the coming week, it's worth dusting down the Sporadic-E equipment and consider looking at 10m or 6m digital modes for early signs of life. If the locational trigger is jet streams, in this case, it would favour Scandinavia and the Baltic region. For EME enthusiasts, declination goes negative today, so peak Moon elevation will fall as the week progresses and Moon windows will shorten. Path losses are at their lowest with perigee coming up on Tuesday. The Lyrids meteor shower will start to ramp up in about two weeks’ time, peaking on the 22nd of April, but until then, the best time for meteor scatter contacts is the pre-dawn random meteor enhancement. And that’s all from the propagation team this week.

GB2RS NEWS Sunday the 21st of March 2021 The news headlines: Get ready for Summer time RSGB Youth Award Blue Ham this weekend In the UK, the clocks go forward one hour at 1 am next Sunday, the 28th of March. This means we will be on British Summer Time. Please note that many contests and other events often state the timings in UTC or GMT, which will be one hour behind the local clock time here in the UK. The RSGB Youth team has created a new award, aimed at younger people but it is also open for anyone to try. Called the Radio Surfer Award, it encourages experimentation with all types of radio communications. There is a list of possible activities, each with a points value. All you have to do is get the same number of points as your age. You don’t have to be licensed to take part although having a licence will give you more options. For more information about this and the RSGB Youth Award, see rsgb.org/youth-award. The Royal Air Force Air Cadets Exercise Blue Ham 21-1 is on the MoD 5MHz shared band this weekend. RAFAC and other MoD Cadet formations will be on air over the period of operation using SSB and data modes. The Exercise Blue Ham website is at alphacharlie.org.uk. Voting for the RSGB elections is now open. The Calling Notice, Resolutions, candidate statements and voting process are on the Society’s website at www.rsgb.org/agm. Voting ends at 9 am on Thursday the 22nd of April. The RSGB will be holding its AGM online this year, on Saturday the 24th of April, and will live-stream the event. RSGB Members will be able to submit written questions for Board Directors in advance through a form on the AGM web pages. The election details are also in the April RadCom, which RSGB Members will have started to receive in the last few days. The RSGB has published an update to the RSGB EMF calculator on the website at www.rsgb.org.uk/emf. This version has had the front sheet changed in response to comments and suggestions from people who have tried using it. We are grateful for all the helpful suggestions received. Further work is needed to update the frequency dependant antenna data and would appreciate volunteers to help with this exercise. It has also been updated to use the Ofcom calculator v0.1.2 published on their website. This does produce separations for frequencies less than 10MHz. We continue to work on the calculator including producing a version that works with the newer ICNIRP2020 limits. Amateur Radio on the International Space Station is once again operational, following a spacewalk on the 13th that worked on the Columbus module cabling. The Columbus amateur station, which typically uses the callsign NA1SS, is the primary ARISS amateur radio station used for school contacts and other activities. Trowbridge & District ARC and Leyland & District Amateur Radio have shared their stories of running nets during the pandemic to support their members. You can read about them on the RSGB’s ‘Get on the air to care’ clubs and groups web page, rsgb.services/gb2rs/006 Now the DX news Mats, RM2D will be active holiday style as 8Q7MS from the Maldives, IOTA reference AS-013, from the 28th of March to the 10th of April. He will operate CW with some SSB, mainly on the 40 to 15m bands. QSL via Logbook of The World, or EA5GL. Barring Covid-related restrictions, Janusz, SP9FIH will be active as TO1K from Saint Martin, NA-105, between the 22nd of March and the 5th of April. QSL via Club Log’s OQRS, or via his home call. Now the Special Event news John, MW1CFN will be active as GB1004FTS from Anglesey, EU-005, between the 25th of March and the 8th of April. He will operate SSB and digital modes on the HF bands, 6 and 2m. QSL via Logbook of The World or direct. The special callsign celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Royal Air Force’s No 4 Flying Training School, which opened on the 1st of April 1921. GB2VAX will be operational from the QTH of Andy, G4ISN of Welland Valley ARS, until the 28th. Now the contest news Please remember to check before the contest for any new rules due to lockdown and social distancing, which may differ around the world. The RSGB strongly advises obeying your national and local government’s advice. The Russian DX Contest ends its 24-hour run at 1200UTC today, the 21st. Using CW and SSB on the 1.8 to 28MHz contest bands, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Russian stations will also exchange their Oblast code. On Tuesday, the SHF UK Activity Contest runs from 1930 to 2230UTC. Using the 2.3 to 10GHz bands, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also on Tuesday the IRTS 80m Evening Counties Contest runs from 2000 to 2100UTC. Using SSB only, the exchange is signal report, serial number and county code. On Thursday it’s the 80m Club Championships from 2000 to 2130UTC. Using SSB only, the exchange is a signal report and serial number. Next weekend it’s the CW World Wide WPX SSB contest. It runs for 48 hours from 0000UTC on the 27th to 2359UTC on the 28th. Please check the rules as there is a new multi-station category. Using the 1.8 to 28MHz contest bands, the exchange is a signal report and serial number. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA & G4BAO on Friday the 19th of March. We had a week of settled geomagnetic conditions, following a mixed weekend. The consensus on the Commonwealth Contest was that conditions were not too good, although plenty of amateurs managed to put VK in their logs, despite the Kp index hitting four during the event. The Sun remained fairly quiet, with a solar flux index of 81 on Saturday and 78 on Sunday. Otherwise, the DX interest has been focused on the Russian DXpedition A25RU to Botswana. They are there until the 26th of March and will be operating all modes, including CW, SSB and FT8. March is a good month for these North-South paths and Predtest.uk predictions show that 1600-1800UTC is probably the best time for a contact with Botswana on 30 to 17 metres. Next week NOAA predicts the solar flux index will remain in the mid-80s, although this weekend is likely to see unsettled geomagnetic conditions again thanks to a high-speed solar wind emanating from an Earth-facing coronal hole. Expect maximum usable frequencies to decline, after the potential for pre-auroral enhancement as the plasma hits. We expect to see the Kp index rise to four on Saturday and Sunday, although this will improve as the week goes on, bringing a more settled ionosphere and a predicted Kp index of two. Meanwhile, ionospheric conditions remain subdued due to a lack of real sunspots. Spring remains a good time for North-South paths, and we also have the Sporadic-E season to look forward to in a couple of months. And now the VHF and up propagation news. The coming week is again suggesting that high pressure will feature on the weather charts for much of the period, at least in the south and east. This gives a possibility of further Tropo opportunities for most parts of the country, at least at first. The trend thereafter is for Atlantic fronts to reach the west and north of Britain by mid-week, bringing unsettled weather conditions and putting an end to any Tropo there. But to compensate a little, it could introduce some rain scatter for the GHz bands. There are always hopes that some out-of-season Sporadic-E could crop up, and there were weak 50MHz openings for digimodes last week, but ideally, we need to be a bit further on into April before getting too excited. Moon declination is at maximum on Monday, so peak Moon elevation gets to 62 degrees in the UK and the Moon is above the horizon for more than 16 hours. As we passed apogee in the middle of last week, path losses will continue to fall as the week progresses. Meteor scatter enthusiasts will have to be content with the pre-dawn random meteor enhancement until the Lyrids meteor shower, which is still a month away. And that’s all from the propagation team this week.

GB2RS NEWS Sunday the 14th of March 2021 The news headlines: New Ofcom EMF guidance Direct to Full – respond NOW Blue Ham next weekend Ofcom has just published specific advice to amateurs about the new EMF Licence condition. It is based around an FAQ type of document. It attempts to address common questions that Ofcom and the RSGB have been asked since the original announcement on the 1st of March. It contains some worked examples to help to understand. Go to ofcom.org.uk/emf. The RSGB will continue to publish advice through the EMF pages at rsgb.org/emf. You have just a few hours left to share your views in the RSGB’s Direct Entry to Full licence consultation. The background, draft syllabus and the link to the survey are on the Society’s website at rsgb.org/direct-to-full. The survey closes at midnight tonight, the 14th. The Royal Air Force Air Cadets will conduct Exercise Blue Ham 21-1 on the MoD 5MHz shared band over the weekend of the 20th and 21st of March. RAFAC and other MoD Cadet formations will be on air over the period of operation using SSB and data modes. The Exercise Blue Ham website can be found at alphacharlie.org.uk. CQ magazine has introduced a contest category to enable a multi-operator team entry during the Covid-19 pandemic. This new category will be permanent, not just for the duration of the pandemic. Basically, the Multi-Distributed category allows up to six single operators, each in a different location within the same country, to form a team. Each station uses the same callsign but must operate on different bands. Scores are added together. Ofcom has confirmed that operating a club station in different locations using the same callsign simultaneously by club members is permissible. Only club members who hold a Full Licence in their own right may operate the club stations. Please read the rules at CQWPX.com. The next such contest is the CQ World Wide SSB contest on the 27th and 28th of March. Although 2020 brought devastation across the world, the RSGB rose to the challenge of supporting radio amateurs both in the UK and around the world. It also provided new ways for people to get started in, or come back to, amateur radio. The March RadCom included an article that looked back at this great amateur radio success story. You can read the feature and see the striking infographic on the RSGB website at https://rsgb.org/main/blog/news/rsgb-notices/2021/03/07/2020-a-year-in-numbers/ As part of the RSGB’s continuing Get on the air to care campaign with the NHS, and to link with British Science Week, the Society has launched a series of videos. Whether you’re a new Foundation, Intermediate or Full licence holder, the six videos will introduce you to some useful practical skills to help you make the most of your licence. Take a look at rsgb.org/practical-skills. Amateur radio operators are invited to take part in a free emergency communications training weekend. Taking place on the 10th and 11th of April, this virtual event will involve video presentations, including Q&A sessions, by communications and emergency response experts. To find out more, go to commacademy.org. The RSGB is delighted that more than 3,000 people have now passed their Foundation licence via the remote invigilation exam process. Congratulations to them – and welcome to everyone who has become a radio amateur over the last year. The RSGB provides a range of resources to support new licensees, so take a look at rsgb.org/beyond-exams. Now the DX news Bodo, HB9EWU expects to be active as 9J2BG while spending one year on a humanitarian mission at the St Paul's Mission General Hospital in Kashikishi, northern Zambia. QSL via his home call either direct or via the bureau. Please note that requests will be processed in 2022 when he is back home. Philippe, F1DUZ will be active as FG4KH from Guadeloupe, IOTA reference NA-102, from the 16th of March to the 1st of April. QSL via Logbook of The World, eQSL, or direct to F1DUZ. Rick, NE8Z is active as HC1MD/2 from the Santa Elena province of Ecuador until the 15th of May. He will operate CW, SSB, FT8 and FT4 on the 40 to 6m bands. QSL via K8LJG and Logbook of The World. Now the Special Event news Celebrating Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, Welland Valley ARS will be active as GB0SP between the 16th and 18th of March. QSL via G4XEX, Logbook of The World and eQSL. GB2VAX will be operational from the QTH of Andy, G4ISN of Welland Valley ARS, until the 28th. Now the contest news Please remember to check before the contest for any new rules due to lockdown and social distancing, which may differ around the world. The RSGB strongly advises obeying your national and local government’s advice. This weekend the longest-running RSGB contest takes place. The Commonwealth Contest runs for 24 hours until 1000UTC today, the 14th. It’s CW only and runs on the 3.5 to 28MHz contest bands. The exchange is signal report and serial number. HQ stations around the world will also send the letters HQ. Today, Sunday the 14th, the second 70MHz Cumulative Contest runs from 1000UTC to 1200UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Monday, the second FT4 series contest runs from 2000 to 2130UTC. Using the 80m band only, the exchange is your 4-character locator. On Tuesday the 1.3GHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. The 70MHz UK Activity Contest is on Thursday also from 2000 to 2230UTC. Both are all modes and the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The BARTG HF RTTY Contest runs from 0200UTC on the 20th to 0200UTC on the 22nd. Using the 3.5 to 28MHz contest bands, the exchange is signal report, serial number and time. Also next weekend, the Russian DX Contest runs for 24 hours from 1200UTC on the 20th to 1200UTC on the 21st. Using CW and SSB on the 1.8 to 28MHz contest bands, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Russian stations will also exchange their Oblast code. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA & G4BAO on Friday the 12th of March. The bulk of last week saw settled geomagnetic conditions. Wednesday saw the Kp index at zero for much of the day, which is unusual. This was mainly due to a lack of disruptive coronal holes on the Sun’s surface, so the solar wind speed was mainly below 400 kilometres per second. The Sun was relatively spotless and at the time this report was being prepared, region 2807 was disappearing around the Sun’s edge, while region 2808 was appearing around the North-Eastern limb. Another tiny spot has appeared around the middle of the visible disk, but it doesn’t appear threatening and is likely adding very little to the solar flux index. The highlight of the week was probably the ARRL DX SSB contest last weekend, which saw plenty of stateside stations being worked. Chris, G0DWV said he worked California on 20 and 40m, plus Washington and Oregon. In fact, the only two states he didn’t work on 20 metres were New Mexico and Utah. A slender coronal hole, reaching up to the solar equator, looks like it could cause some disruption this weekend with the Kp index predicted to rise to four. NOAA predicts the solar flux index will rise from 70 on the 14th to 76 on the 21st. Don’t expect the quieter geomagnetic conditions to continue though. It will probably be a roller coaster ride next week, with the Kp index predicted to climb to five on the 18th and 19th. We said that it would be nice to have some more sunspots for this weekend’s 84th annual Commonwealth Contest, but it looks like we could be disappointed. But don’t despair, it is not unusual for stations from around the world to make an appearance, including many from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the Caribbean, and more. The bonus is that there is no competition from DX hounds in non-Commonwealth countries. And now the VHF and up propagation news. A stormy end to this week, but signs of another spell of high-pressure next week. Stormy weather with its rain and blustery showers could be useful for some rain scatter on the GHz bands. The intensifying high should bring Tropo back on the menu as the week progresses and will also mean some quieter weather to repair any antennas that have suffered in the recent gales. This particular spell of high-pressure weather extends from the south-west, so it probably has moist air trapped under the inversion compared to a cold air high from the north and this could produce better Tropo conditions. We are still in the doldrums regarding Sporadic-E, but we are moving towards the spring months and April, and especially May, can bring some early Sporadic-E events, especially for those using digital modes. Moon declination goes positive tomorrow so Moon visibility windows and peak Moon elevations will increase as the week progresses. As we approach apogee on Thursday, path losses will reach a maximum then start to fall again. There are no significant meteor showers until the Lyrids, which peaks on the 22nd of April, so pre-dawn continues to be the best time for random meteor scatter contacts. And that’s all from the propagation team this week.

GB2RS NEWS Sunday the 3rd of May 2020 The news headlines: Get on the air to care campaign succeeding May RadCom made available to all online Repeater and Beacon insurance renewed The RSGB is delighted with the support from radio amateurs and clubs for its ‘Get on the air to care’ campaign with the NHS. You can find out more at www.rsgb.org/gota2c. There we will also be highlighting stories and photos from clubs and individuals. If you have a story to tell about how you are getting on the air to care during these times of social isolation, please send it to comms@rsgb.org.uk. As another part of the RSGB Get on the air to care campaign, the May edition of RadCom has been made available to radio amateurs around the world to read online as a sample edition. A number of IARU national societies have taken a similar step and the RSGB is happy to join those societies in supporting the worldwide amateur radio community during these difficult times. You can find it at www.rsgb.org/sampleradcom. RSGB Club Insurance and Beacon and Repeater Insurance has now been renewed for the year to April 2021. Club Insurance Certificates can be downloaded from the RSGB website; please use your Membership Services login to obtain a copy of your Certificate. To ensure that your beacon and repeater is covered under our Insurance we require a £10 admin fee and you may renew this on the RSGB shop at www.rsgb.org/repeaterinsurance. Please allow a couple of days after renewal for your certificate to be dispatched. The latest figures for the RSGB’s remote invigilation of amateur radio exams shows that 116 exams have been run as of Friday the 1st of May. Of these, 109 candidates have passed and a total of 997 different questions have been asked. There are currently 80 exams booked and ready to be taken up until the 8th of May. A total of 300 more are scheduled to take place in May, with a further 187 so far scheduled to take place in June and there are more in the pipeline. The RSGB is grateful to all those working to make this possible during the Covid-19 pandemic. To commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day and VJ Day, the RSGB has organised the VE/VJ Day amateur radio marathon on the HF bands and 6m using SSB, CW and digital modes. Three special UK callsigns GB75PEACE, GB1945PE, GB1945PJ will be on the air from the 1st to the 31st of May and again between the 1st and the 31st of August. The special stations have their own QRZ.com pages that give details of the activation schedule. If you wish to participate and transmit using a VE/VJ Day radio marathon callsign, please contact Ian, G0FCT via email to csc.chair@rsgb.org.uk. Full details of radio marathon and the five awards are on the Society’s radio marathon web page www.rsgb.org/ve-vj-marathon. As part of its Strategy 2022, the RSGB has just launched Beyond Exams, which is a group of resources to encourage participation and highlight the diversity of amateur radio. Beyond Exams includes awards and schemes to help amateur radio licence holders and clubs get the most from the hobby. During these challenging times of the global pandemic, Beyond Exams is an important part of the Society’s ‘Get on the air to care’ campaign in partnership with the NHS. Through Beyond Exams you can get on the air for the first time or try something new, a contest or CW, for example. Some of the activities won’t be available for radio amateurs to try due to the current social distancing regulations but there are plenty of others that can be done from the safety of your own home. For more information about how you can get involved in the scheme as a radio amateur or a club, see the RSGB website www.rsgb.org/beyond-exams. The 93rd Annual General Meeting of the Radio Society of Great Britain due to be held on the 25th of April in Birmingham was cancelled because of government restrictions on travel and public meetings due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Board convened an online meeting to receive the results of the votes submitted by the Society’s Members on the resolutions and elections they were asked to consider in the Calling Notice. Members of the Board, other RSGB officials, those standing for election and senior members of RSGB staff were online to follow proceedings. At the close of the meeting the results on the various Resolutions and annual trophy winners were announced online. As a result of voting by the Society’s Members, Dr Stewart Bryant, G3YSX was endorsed as a Nominated Director. Andy Mace, M0MUX and Len Paget, GM0ONX were elected as Board Directors. During the first meeting of the new Board, Ian Shepherd, G4EVK was elected as the Board Chair until the AGM in 2021. Following the AGM, the Nominations Committee met and John Rogers, M0JAV, John Spurgeon, G4LKD and Philip Willis, M0PHI were co-opted to join the Board of Directors until the 2021 AGM. To read more about the areas of responsibility for all of Board members, go to wwww.rsgb.org/board. Contest University, a staple of Dayton Hamvention, will take place online this year through the Zoom video platform, and all sessions will be free. You can register at www.contestuniversity.com. Live Contest University sessions via Zoom will get under way on the 14th of May at 1245UTC; these will be recorded and archived. Now the special event news Since the change of regulations applying to special event stations in the UK, many activations are now able to go ahead. UK amateurs would like to thank Ofcom for their help in making this happen. Fort Purbrook Amateur Radio Club will be activating GB1VE on the 8th, 9th and 10th of May from six different members’ homes. Two members on HF voice, always on different bands, another on HF CW, one on HF data modes, one on 6m or 2m or 70cm and, finally, one on 4m and Oscar-100. Full details are on QRZ.com. GB75BVE is now being hosted from homes in and around Bournemouth until the 10th of May. Operators will be G3YUZ, G3XBZ, G4XEE and G3WZP, using all modes and the 160 through to 2m bands. They hope to share the VE Day commemorations on the air. The RAF Amateur Radio Society will be activating the special event GB75VED from the 1st to the 28th May from members’ homes. Details are at www.rafars.org/GB75VED and QRZ.com. Dragon Amateur Radio Club and North Wales Radio Society are operating GB0GIG, named after the National Health Service in the Welsh language, throughout May. The station will be active on HF, VHF and UHF using as many modes as possible. Award certificate is available and full details can be found on QRZ.com. Kent Active Radio Amateurs will be running GB0HVE on the 8th of May as part of the anniversary of VE day. All operations will be from members’ homes. Tokyo-based 7-CALL Amateur Radio Club will operate 8J17CALL for a year to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Japanese 7-series callsigns, for example 7K1AAA. Although the Mills On The Air event has been cancelled, Chesham and District Amateur Radio Society will be operating GB0BWM for Brill Windmill from members’ homes on 9th and 10th of May. The idea is to celebrate the hope for the event next year and to give publicity to the windmill that will need to attract visitors once restrictions permit. Operation will be on 3.5, 7, 14, 50 and 144MHz, mainly SSB but with some CW and FM. It is expected that stations will be on the air from around 10am on Saturday, but a schedule of times and frequencies will be available online. XN1BOA is on the air until the 15th of May commemorating the end of the Battle of the Atlantic. This event is being run by the Grass Roots Ham Radio Club, whose operators will be active from their homes. Details are on QRZ.com. GU75LIB will operate at varying time between the 6th and 13th of May, to commemorate Liberation Day on the 9th of May. They will be operating from home, each taking turns on band and mode. Braintree & District ARS will operate GB5VED with several club members using their home stations. These will be active over the weekend of the 7th to the 10th of May to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of VE Day. Operators will include some of the senior club members who were present at the original celebrations. Contacts will be sought on HF, VHF, UHF. Listen out on HF for GB4 V V V, the distinctive dit-dit-dit-DAH of wartime broadcasting, sent by the special event station managed by Andy, G0SFJ, until the 11th of May. He would prefer eQSL; SWL reports are very welcome. Now the contest news This weekend is busy for contests, but please remember to check before the events for new rules due to lockdown and social distancing, which may differ around the world. RSGB strongly advises obeying your own government’s advice first and foremost. The 432MHz to 248MHz Trophy contest ends its 24-hour run at 1400UTC today, the 3rd. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Another 24-hour contest is the ARL International DX event that ends at 1200UTC today, the 3rd. Using phone and RTTY on the 3.5 to 28MHz contest bands, the exchange is signal report and serial number, with Italian stations also giving their Province code. Today, the 3rd of May, the UK Microwave Group Low Band Contest runs from 0800 to 1400UTC. Using all modes on the 1.3 to 3.4GHz bands, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. A one-off independent 2m contest is being held on the 4th of May, to promote 2m usage during the COVID-19 lockdown. From 2pm to 3pm there will be an FM contest, where operators should exchange signal reports, serial number and 4-character grid squares. From 3pm to 4pm there will be an FT8 contest using the standard FT8 messages to exchange signal reports and grid squares. The contests are open to all licensed amateur radio operators and short wave listeners but due to the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions no portable or mobile operation is permitted. Further details can be found at www.vhflockdown.fun. On Tuesday the 144MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1800 to 1855UTC. This is immediately followed by the UK Activity Contest from 1900 to 2130UTC using all modes. The exchange is the same for both, signal report, serial number and locator. Next Sunday, the 10th, sees the 70MHz CW contest run from 0900 to 1200UTX. The exchange is signal report, serial number, locator and postcode. Also next Sunday is the IRTS 40m Counties Contest from 1200 to 1400UTC. Using SSB and CW, the exchange is signal report and serial number, with EI, GI, 2I and MI stations also sending their County. The Worked All Britain 70MHz contest takes place next Sunday, the 10th, from 1000 to 1400UTC. Entries need to be with the contest manager by the 20th of May. The exchange is signal report, serial number and WAB square. Full details of the rules and methods of entry may be obtained from the WAB website www.worked-all-britain.org.uk. Please note that no club or multiple operator entries will be accepted from mobile or portable stations. The UK Six Metre Group’s Summer Marathon runs from the 2nd of May to the 2nd of August. Using all modes in the 50MHz band, the exchange is you 4-character locator. And finally, don’t forget the RSGB Hope QSO Party on weekdays, see www.rsgbcc.org/hf for further details. So far around 300 UK and non-UK participants have taken part, and for some it has been their first attempt at an HF contest. One participant told us that it was their first ever attempt at CW in 36 years. Come and join in the fun. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Friday the 1st of May. Sunspots are like buses – you wait all month and two turn up at once! Even more interesting is that the sunspot groups are from two different cycles. The first group, AR2760, was from the outgoing Solar Cycle 24 and the second sunspot, AR2762, is from the new Solar Cycle 25. We know this due to their magnetic signatures and the relative location of the spots on the Sun’s surface. AR2762 was a high-latitude spot, while AR2760 was almost on the solar equator. In any event, both spots were very minor and had little or no effect on the solar flux index, which hovered around 69-71. Geomagnetic conditions were more settled, with the Kp index remaining at zero or one towards the end of the week. The highlight for the week was the 2020 Summer Sporadic-E season on 10m, which is growing in strength. Stations in Gibraltar, Spain, Romania, Finland, Norway and others were all workable on 10m FT8 on Thursday morning, although it would have been nice to see a little more activity on CW and SSB, but more on that later. We expect solar activity to remain at very low levels in the short term, with the Solar Flux Index remaining at around 68-70. Geomagnetic conditions are likely to remain settled, other than this weekend when SWPC predicts the impact of particles from a solar coronal hole. NOAA disagrees and predicts that geomagnetic field activity is expected to reach active levels on Tuesday 5th May in response to a high-speed solar wind stream. It will be interesting to see who is correct. And now the VHF and up propagation news A small high crosses the country today and pauses over the North Sea on Monday, giving a Tropo option for most areas. This is soon followed by a further spell of unsettled weather with a good potential for rain scatter in the south over the middle of the week. Other weather models retain the high pressure, and even the unsettled model relents and brings another high to the northwest of Scotland, which will start to build across the country from the west to bring a fine, Tropo end to the week. As for Sporadic-E prospects, the next week does have some useful jet streams in good positions for paths from the UK. Early in the season paths can be fleeting, but keep a watch on 10m activity and then follow the opening higher in frequency as it develops on 6m, 4m and eventually 2m if we are very lucky. There is a big difference between FT8 and CW/SSB performance, but follow the many wonderful clusters and logging sites to see where the openings are. Try the daily Sporadic-E blog on www.propquest.co.uk to get an idea of the significant jet streams. It will have changes to the charts and a trial of the Sporadic-E Probability Index, or EPI. There is plenty to investigate in the 2020 Sporadic-E season. There are two meteor showers upcoming this week. The larger eta-Aquarids is on Tuesday and the eta-Lyrids occur on Thursday. Moon declination goes negative on Tuesday followed by perigee on Wednesday with lowest EME path losses. 144 MHz sky noise is very high today and for the early part of next week. And that’s all from the propagation team this week.

GB2RS NEWS Sunday the 26th of April 2020 The news headlines: First, remotely-invigilated exam callsigns issued Download latest 5MHz Newsletter Japanese amateurs get new privileges The RSGB is pleased to announce that the first successful candidates in the online, remotely invigilated amateur radio exams have now received their callsigns. At the close of play on the 24th of April, 29 remotely invigilated exams had taken place. Around 10 candidates per day are scheduled, with the aim to increase this number as more invigilators join the team. Dave Wilson, M0OBW, the RSGB President and Exam Quality Manager, has expressed his thanks to the invigilators that are making this work and the HQ exams staff who are doing an outstanding job under very difficult circumstances. We look forward to hearing the new amateurs on the bands. The latest edition of The 5MHz Newsletter is now available for free pdf download from the RSGB 5MHz page at http://rsgb.org/main/operating/band-plans/hf/5mhz/. This edition includes 5MHz news from seven countries, the GB3WES beacon closedown, a 5MHz controlled feeder radiation dipole, plus features the latest World of 5MHz map and an article on two Blue Ham Exercises. Japanese radio amateurs now have new privileges on the 160 and 80m bands. The new allocations are 1800 – 1810, 1825 – 1875, 3575 – 3580 and 3662 – 3680kHz. The new regime allows Japanese radio amateurs to operate FT8 on the 160m and 80m bands, as well as WSPR on 1836.6kHz. Additional details are on the Japan Amateur Radio League website, www.jarl.org Tim Duffy, K3LR has announced that Contest University USA 2020, usually held at the Dayton Hamvention, will be held online via Zoom on Thursday the 14th of May, starting at 1245UTC. CTU 2020 is free. The CTU course outline has been posted online. Connection details to the CTU Zoom bridge will be posted on the Contest University site one week prior to the event. Sessions will be recorded for viewing any time after the 14th of May. Slides will be posted on the CTU website as well. At the end of CTU 2020, Dave Siddall, K3ZJ, will present the 2020 CQ Contest Hall of Fame awards. RSGB President Dave Wilson, M0OBW, was interviewed recently on NARC Live! where he talked about the Society’s introduction of remote invigilation for Foundation exams. This new initiative is enabling people to join amateur radio during these times of social isolation. Dave’s piece starts at 27:50 and you see it on the Norfolk Amateur Radio Club Facebook page, which can be accessed via tinyurl.com/y7kslekf The November and December 2019 RSGB Board Proceedings have been published on the RSGB website today and can be found at tinyurl.com/RSGB-boardproc-2019 The RSGB’s campaign in partnership with the NHS – Get on the air to care – has been publicised across the world over the last week, both on the airwaves and through the UK media. The Society even received a video message of support from Tony Hadley, lead singer of 1980s group Spandau Ballet! To see this coverage, head over to www.rsgb.org/gota2c and click on the media coverage link at the bottom of the page. The RSGB is grateful to all radio amateurs who are taking to the airwaves to support other radio amateurs during these times of social isolation. If you use social media, add the hashtag #GOTA2C and send any photos or video clips of you on the air to comms@rsgb.org.uk Peter Valentine, a 96-year-old radio amateur from Eastbourne, is celebrating his birthday by aiming to contact 96 amateurs over the airwaves and walk 96 miles over the coming weeks. As thanks to the NHS which has given him good care recently, he is using the special call sign GB0EDH to represent Eastbourne District General Hospital. He is active on D-Star, 2m, 4m and 80m, so listen out for him on the air and help him to achieve his target! The RSGB has been adding updates to the ‘Sharing ideas’ section of its Coronavirus updates page, which you can find at www.rsgb.org/coronavirus-updates There are reports from Colchester Radio Amateurs amongst other clubs and Lockdown Morse to learn something new during this lockdown. Find out what others are doing, be inspired and then email comms@rsgb.org.uk to share how your club is adapting to the current challenges. Now the special event news Peter, G4XEX will be active as GB4SAH for Stay At Home until the 30th of April to help amateurs pass the time during the lockdown. Euan, MM0VIK is active as GB1COR from his home QTH in the Shetland Islands, EU-012, until the end of April in recognition and support for the health professionals and essential key workers during the coronavirus emergency. QSL cards will not be available for this special callsign. The RAF Amateur Radio Society will be activating the special event GB75VED from the 1st to the 28th May from members’ homes. On the 2nd of May, Reg, G8VHI will operate mostly on 6 and 2m as well as 70cm from Nuneaton using FM, SSB and maybe digital modes. Details are at www.rafars.org/GB75VED/ and QRZ.com SOS Radio Week will go ahead from 0000UTC on the 1st of May and concludes at 2359UTC on the 31st May. During that period participants should make as many contacts as possible with stations at home and around the world. For further details, and to register, please visit www.sosradioweek.org.uk. The Hungarian amateur radio society, MRASZ, will hold a special radio activity for the period during the Covid-19 virus threat. Their aim is to raise awareness of the threat of the epidemic and to promote the importance of staying at home. Look for the following 5 stations, of which the last two letters add up the words STAY AT HOME: HG20ST, HG20AY, HG20AT, HG20HO and HG20ME. Each station must be contacted in two different modes on any band to qualify for a downloadable commemorative award. The activity ends on the 15th of May at 2359UTC. Details are at www.mrasz.org. Several Brazilian amateurs are using the special event callsign ZW8THANKS as a tribute to health care professionals fighting Covid-19. Activity will be on all bands and modes including the satellites. QSL direct, eQSL or Logbook of The World. The Tokyo-based 7-CALL Amateur Radio Club will operate 8J17CALL for a year to celebrate the club’s 30th anniversary. Now the contest news Due to social distancing and movement precautions around the world, most contest organisers are not accepting entries from multi-operator groups or from portable stations. Check the rules before taking part. The SP DX RTTY contest ends it 24-hour run at 1200UTC today, the 26th. Using the 3.5 to 28MHz contest bands the exchange is signal report and serial number, with SP stations also sending their Province code. Today, the 26th, the BARTG Sprint 75 contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using the 3.5 to 28MHz contest bands, the exchange is your serial number only. On Monday the third FT4 series contest will run from 1900 to 2030UTC using the 3.5MHz band. The exchange is your 4-character locator. Tuesday sees the SHF UK Activity Contest runs from 1830 to 2130UTC using all modes on the 2.3GHz and up bands. The exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The UK and Ireland Contest Club 80m CW contest runs for an hour on Wednesday between 1900 and 2000UTC. The exchange is your 4-character locator. Next weekend is busy for contests, but please remember to check before the events for new rules due to lockdown and social distancing, which may differ around the world. RSGB strongly advises obeying your own government’s advice first and foremost. The 432MHz Trophy contest and the 10GHz Trophy contest are both on Saturday between 1400 and 2200UTC. Using all modes in the respective bands, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The 432MHz to 248MHz Trophy contest runs for 24 hours over next weekend from 1400 on the 2nd to 1400UTC on the 3rd. Using all modes the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Another 24-hour contest is the ARL International DX event from 1200UTC on the 2nd to 1200UTC on the 3rd. Using phone and RTTY on the 3.5 to 28MHz contest bands, the exchange is signal report and serial number, with Italian stations also giving their Province code. Next Sunday, the 3rd of May, the UK Microwave Group Low Band Contest runs from 0800 to 1400UTC. Using all modes on the 1.3 to 3.4GHz bands, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The UK Six Metre Group’s Summer Marathon runs from the 2nd of May to the 2nd of August. Using all modes in the 50MHz band, the exchange is your 4-character locator. A one-off independent 2m contest is being held on Bank holiday Monday, the 4th of May, to promote 2m usage during the COVID-19 lockdown. From 2 pm to 3 pm, there will be an FM contest, where operators should exchange signal reports, serial number and 4 character Grid Squares. From 3 pm to 4 pm, there will be an FT8 contest using the standard FT8 messages to exchange signal reports and grid squares. The contests are open to all licensed amateur radio operators and short wave listeners but due to the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, no portable or mobile operation is permitted. Further details can be found at www.vhflockdown.fun. And finally, don’t forget the RSGB Hope QSO Party on weekdays, see www.rsgbcc.org/hf for further details. So far around 300 UK and non-UK participants have taken part, and for some, it has been their first attempt at an HF contest. One participant told us that it was their first-ever attempt at CW in 36 years. Come and join in the fun. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Friday the 24th of April. Last week showed how difficult it can be to prepare HF propagation predictions. We said that we expected the Sun to remain settled throughout the week. But on Wednesday the 15th there was a stealthy slow-moving coronal mass ejection off the Sun that barely appeared in the SOHO spacecraft imagery. However, this CME was Earth-directed and around midday on Monday the 20th it hit. The net result was the Kp index rose to five and MUFs were adversely affected, after an initial positive phase that saw MUFs over a 3,000km path rise above 18MHz. HF conditions were still down on Tuesday, with bands above 20 metres pretty much closed. But luckily, by Wednesday things were pretty much back to normal. The highlight of the week has been a gradual increase in Sporadic-E on 10 metres. There have been numerous openings, mainly into Spain and the Canary Islands, with other fleeting openings into Sweden and Germany. While signal strengths haven’t been too strong so far, it bodes well for the Sporadic-E season, which is likely to ramp up over the next week or so. The message is - keep an eye on 10 metres. Next week NOAA predicts a continued quiet Sun with a solar flux index around 69. With zero sunspots predicted again it does begin to look like we are close to the sun spot minimum. Geomagnetic conditions are predicted to be settled, with a Kp index of around two to three, other than on Monday the 27th when it could rise to four. And now the VHF and up propagation news. We have a hybrid of weather types during the coming week, with the last of any Tropo fading as this bulletin goes out. Thereafter, it looks more unsettled with a chance of showery rain, initially in the southwest, but more generally as we run into next week. This is because an Atlantic low should develop south of Iceland and a cold front becomes slow-moving over western Britain at the end of next week. In this latter part of the week, high pressure builds from Biscay across northern France. So, expect some Tropo at first, but ending this weekend and perhaps in south-eastern areas late next week. Rain scatter looks more favourable again with several areas of showery rain or fronts involved from this weekend onwards. In view of the approaching start of the Sporadic-E season we would expect to find some openings, but as we said earlier any have been brief so far. It would seem that nobody has told the jet streams to get into line! I cannot say that this looks like a strong lead this week. The peak of the ongoing Lyrids meteor shower is over, so expect declining meteor scatter activity this week. Moon declination is positive all week and reaches its maximum on Tuesday. We are past apogee, so EME path losses will continue to fall. 144MHz sky noise is low all week. And that’s all from the propagation team this week.

The Lyrids are active all weekend, so you may see some tonight under dark skies, but the big peak comes early this coming Wednesday morning April 22, 2020. This year we're expecting 10 to 15 meteors per hour.

GB2RS NEWS Sunday the 19th of April 2020 The news headlines: Get on the air to care Cast your RSGB election vote SOS Radio Week to go-ahead The Radio Society of Great Britain, working in partnership with the NHS, has launched a campaign called “Get on the air to care” to support the emotional health and wellbeing of 75,000 licensed UK radio amateurs – just some of the 3,000,000 worldwide. It linked with World Amateur Radio Day yesterday, Saturday 18 April, which also celebrates this innovative, global community. Steve Thomas, M1ACB, General Manager of the RSGB explains: “Please help to increase amateur radio activity through club and repeater group nets, chatting with your friends or just by calling CQ. If you’d like to show your support for the NHS at the same time, Ofcom is happy for radio amateurs to add “/NHS” to the end of their callsigns.” GB1NHS, the UK’s National Health Service radio communications station will be on the air as part of this campaign so listen out for it! The Society’s new “Get on the air to care” web page includes the launch video, so go to www.rsgb.org/gota2c and take a look. Are you an RSGB Member? Have you used your vote yet? Don’t forget that voting for the RSGB elections is still open, although it closes at 9am on Thursday the 23rd of April. This is your opportunity to choose who you want to be part of the RSGB Board and help lead the Society over the next few years. The special web pages at www.rsgb.org/agm have details of the Calling Notice, Resolutions, candidate statements and information about how to vote. The voting results and trophy winners will be announced on the RSGB website on the 25th of April, when the AGM was due to be held. SOS Radio Week will go ahead, with all participants able to operate from home using either a special event callsign issued by Ofcom, a club callsign, or an individual’s own personal callsign. The event starts at 0000UTC on the 1st of May and concludes at 2359UTC on the 31st of May. During that period, participants should make as many contacts as possible with stations at home and around the world. For further details, and to register, please visit www.sosradioweek.org.uk. In many areas of the UK, all the HF amateur bands up to and including 20m are being blighted by interference from VDSL. This is the most widespread means of providing residential broadband internet services in the UK. Ofcom, which is responsible for investigating radio interference, says that it receives, on average, only six complaints per year on the topic and won’t take any significant action. The RSGB President has written a letter in the May edition of RadCom asking every radio amateur who suffers from VDSL interference to submit a complaint to Ofcom so that we can demonstrate the size of the problem. Please read the full RadCom feature and then look at the Society’s special web page, which outlines the process for reporting VDSL interference and offers you guidance and software to help you: it’s at www.rsgb.org/vdsl-reporting CQ-Serenade is a weekly programme for Northern European radio amateurs transmitted in the short wave AM broadcast bands. From the UK it is recommended to listen on 6160kHz during the daytime and 3975kHz at night. The weekly English language amateur radio programme has a new summer schedule and the program is transmitted at the times listed at tinyurl.com/CQ-Serenade. If you want to get your story or information on the air there, send your submissions to studio@shortwaveradio.de. ARISS has postponed school/group contacts in the USA as well as in South Africa and Romania. At least one contact in the UK has been cancelled altogether. In the short term, ARISS mentors will work with each school or organisation in the amateur radio contact queue to determine the way forward. It would rely on local government COVID-19 policy for guidance in deciding whether to cancel or postpone a contact or to modify the contact schedule. Several initiatives are in the works over the longer term to transform how they interact with students and host educational institutions in light of COVID-19 by engaging virtually with students and educational institutions. ARISS also is planning several slow-scan television sessions, during which images from the ISS would be transmitted to at-home students. Some sad news now. Marc Litchman, G0TOC passed away on the 29th of March. He had been in poor health for several months. He was a well-known RSGB volunteer who had supported the Society for a number of years. Our thoughts are with his family and friends. Bob King, G3ASE has also become a Silent Key. In 1941, Bob was recruited as a Voluntary Interceptor at the age of 16, followed by four and half years in the Radio Security Service stationed at Box 25, Arkley View, Barnet. There he examined logs from our intercept stations to determine which transmissions were German Abwehr and thus wanted. His work amongst the surviving VIs is legendary, including the annual reunions at Bletchley Park. Condolences to his family at this difficult time. Another Silent Key, Henry Pinchin, G3VPE, was the RSGB Regional Representative for Region 3 from July 1975 to December 1981. He served on the RSGB council from January 1982 to December 1987. We extend our deepest sympathies to his family. Obituaries for these well-known and admired amateurs appear on the RSGB website at. The RSGB has been adding updates to the ‘Sharing ideas’ section of its Coronavirus updates page, which you can find at www.rsgb.org/coronavirus-updates There are reports from Denby Dale ARC, Spalding ARC and Norfolk ARC, as well as news of two new technical videos on ATV and Microwave operations that the Society has added to its website. Find out what others are doing, be inspired and then email comms@rsgb.org.uk to share how your club is adapting to the current challenges. Now the special event news Peter, G4XEX will be active as GB4SAH for Stay At Home until the 30th of April to help amateurs pass the time during the lockdown. Euan, MM0VIK is active as GB1COR from his home QTH in the Shetland Islands, EU-012, until the end of April in recognition and support for the health professionals and essential key workers during the coronavirus emergency. QSL cards will not be available for this special callsign. Ten OH0 to OH9 special callsigns with the suffix PYSYKOTONA, which is Finnish for stay at home, are active until the 3rd of July. They’re to raise awareness for social distancing and remaining at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. QSL via Logbook of The World, eQSL, or via OH3AC. The RAF Amateur Radio Society will be activating the special event GB75VED from the 1st to the 28th May from members’ homes. Now the contest news Due to social distancing and movement precautions around the world, most contest organisers are not accepting entries from multi-operator groups or from portable stations. Check the rules before taking part. The First Machine Generated Modes contest ends its 24-hour run at 1400UTC today, the 19th. Using the 50 and 144MHz bands, the exchange is signal report and your four-character locator. The YU DX contest ends its 24-hour run at 0659UTC today the 19th. More information can be found at http://yudx.yu1srs.org.rs/2020. On Tuesday, the 1.3GHx UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Thursday, the 80m Club Championships takes place from 1900 to 2030UTC. Using RTTY and PSK only, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Next weekend the SP DX RTTY contest runs from 1200UTC on the 25th to 1200UTC on the 26th. Using the 3.5 to 28MHz contest bands the exchange is signal report and serial number, with SP stations also sending their Province code. Next Sunday, the 26th, the BARTG Sprint 75 contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using the 3.5 to 28MHz contest bands, the exchange is your serial number only. And finally, don’t forget the RSGB Hope QSO Party on weekdays, see www.rsgbcc.org/hf for further details. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Friday the 17th of April. Last week we said that we expected the Kp index to rise over the weekend due to incoming solar particles from an Earth-facing coronal hole. But we did warn that it was impossible to tell how severe it might be. In the end, it didn’t amount to much, as although the stream was travelling at up to 450km per second, its density was actually quite low and the Kp index topped out at a fairly low three. The Sun remained spotless all week and the solar flux index remained pegged below 70. The only good news was that we have begun to see signs of the impending Sporadic-E season, with one or two days showing short-skip openings on 10 metres into Germany and Spain, and a probable F2 layer or multi-hop Sporadic-E opening into Paraguay and Brazil on Thursday. We expect these to increase as we head towards May, so do keep an eye on 28MHz. The FT8 frequency of 28.074MHz will likely be the first to show signs of activity but don’t rule out the CW and SSB parts of the band. Next week NOAA has the solar flux index at or about 68-70. Conditions should remain settled until the 26th when the Kp index is predicted to rise to four, due to the return of a solar coronal hole. Propquest.co.uk shows that the daytime critical frequency (F0F2) is often exceeding 4MHz, so 80m and perhaps 60m are still best for inter-UK contacts. Twenty metres still remains the optimum DX band during daylight, with occasional openings on 17 and even 15 metres at times. Ten-metre propagation, when it occurs, is still likely to be via short-skip Sporadic-E, with very rare F2 openings bringing DX. And now the VHF and up propagation news. As high pressure tends to favour cooler areas at this time the year, it’s common to find highs over Scandinavia. Conversely, as the continent slowly warms, there is a tendency for low pressure to form, say, over France or Biscay. That is pretty much the typical pattern we find through next week. What this means for propagation is that the southern half of the country starts with showery rain or thunderstorms and the prospect of some rain scatter. This rain scatter option appears to last until about Tuesday. Northern areas nearer the high over Shetland and Norway could see some Tropo. This is because another typical feature of spring is that the North Sea is often covered by a layer of misty low cloud, and that makes good conditions for Tropo. So, look for paths along the east coast from East Anglia to northeast Scotland or across the North Sea to Denmark and Germany. Most areas see some Tropo benefit in the second half of the week. We are heading rapidly towards May, the nominal start of the Sporadic-E season. The position of the jet stream’s upper air patterns suggests that paths towards Spain and Portugal are more favoured, especially at first, with the second option of paths towards Scandinavia. Wednesday sees the peak of the ongoing Lyrids meteor so look out for increased meteor scatter activity this week. Moon declination goes positive on Tuesday but with apogee on Tuesday, EME path losses are at their highest this week. 144MHz sky noise is low. And that’s all from the propagation team this week.

The Lyrids are active all weekend, so you may see some tonight under dark skies, but the big peak comes early this coming Wednesday morning April 22, 2020. This year we're expecting 10 to 15 meteors per hour.

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Episode 92 In this episode of the Observers Notebook podcast, host Tim Robertson talks to the Meteor Section Coordinator, Bob Lunsford about the upcoming Lyrids meteor shower peaking the evening of April 21-22, 2020. Bob gives us a brief history of the Meteor Shower, how and where to observe and details on reporting your observations, and contact information. You can contact Bob at: lunro.imo.usa@cox.net The link for the details on the Lyrids meteor shower: https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/meteor-shower/lyrids.html International Meteor Organization https://www.imo.net/ For the latest information from the ALPO Meteor Section you can visit: http://www.amsmeteors.org/ For more information you can visit the ALPO web site at: www.alpo-astronomy.org/ You can also support this podcast at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ObserversNotebook Listen to the podcast on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/observersnotebook Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/observers-notebook-the-alpo-podcast/id1199301885?mt=2 I want to thank the Producers of this podcast, Steve Siedentop and Michael Moyer for their generous support of the Observers Notebook.

GB2RS NEWS Sunday the 12th of April 2020   The news headlines: IARU turns 95 EMC help is on hand Commonwealth War Graves Commission at NRC Saturday the 18th of April is World Amateur Radio Day, this year marking the 95th anniversary of the International Amateur Radio Union. Around the world, amateur radio special event stations will mark the event on the air, starting on the 18th at 0000UTC and continuing until the 19th at 2359. The theme this year is Celebrating Amateur Radio’s Contribution to Society and the COVID-19 pandemic casts the event in a different light than in years past. IARU President Tim Ellam, VE6SH/G4HUA, says “A few short weeks ago, many of us could not imagine the levels of isolation that we are now dealing with and the sacrifices of many on the front lines of the pandemic. As we have done in past challenges to our society, amateur radio will play a key part in keeping people connected and assisting those who need support.” Looking for help with an EMC problem? The RSGB’s EMC web page has a range of resources that will help including guidance on several EMC issues and helpful leaflets to download from www.rsgb.org/emc. The RSGB’s YouTube channel also has the RFI Clinic 2019 Convention lecture by the EMC Committee’s John Rogers, M0JAV and David Lauder, G0SNO. Take a look at the 2019 Convention playlist on www.youtube.com/theRSGB. A few weeks ago, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission visited the RSGB National Radio Centre at Bletchley Park to make a film about the B2 Mk III Spy set on display in the foyer. The video features RSGB member John Ellerton, G3NCN and can be viewed on YouTube. Go to https://youtu.be/U3ZZUJmItSU From the 13th of April, Matt, M0PTO will be uploading videos to YouTube for a new course called Lockdown Morse. The YouTube channel is at https://youtu.be/RWDqg8bCSqM. He has also created a Facebook page for the course at www.facebook.com/lockdownmorse. The RSGB has released onto its YouTube Channel a video by the Society’s Propagation Studies Committee entitled Understanding HF Propagation. It looks at sunspots, ionospheric layers, critical frequencies, solar flares and much more. You can see it at www.youtube.com/theRSGB Nordics on the Air was scheduled to be held this weekend. It has postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. On the youth NOTA camp, there would have been two HF stations with the callsign LA1YOTA spreading the voice of youth all around the world. Even though the camp is not going to happen there will be NOTA activation skeds from the 10th onwards. Look out for SK8YOTA on the 12th and TF3YOTA on the 13th. The RSGB HF Contest Committee has just completed a survey, which was open to all, to help determine its strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Questions focused on two issues. Firstly, how best to proceed with its flagship IOTA Contest in 2020. Secondly, whether or not there was a mandate for introducing a temporary HF contest series to provide some entertainment and support to RSGB Members and others who are currently staying at home. The committee had 656 survey respondents, of whom just less than half are regular RSGB HF contest participants. You can read the results at https://tinyurl.com/HFCC-survey-results. The RSGB has decided to postpone all Train the Trainers courses for this year. They had been planned to run up until July, so the team will start rescheduling them when the pandemic situation improves and full travel is restored. Icom has announced that delivery of the new IC-705 HF to 430MHz all-mode 10W transceiver, which was scheduled to be released in March, has been pushed back to later this year because the coronavirus pandemic has delayed the delivery of some components. More information will be posted on their website and via social media in due course. A long-silent repeater in Birmingham has successfully reactivated. GB3BM is on 145.7125MHz with 67Hz CTCSS tone. In the current situation of everyone being at home a great deal more than usual, this will no doubt be welcome news to amateurs in the area. Don’t forget that voting for the RSGB elections is still open. If you’ve struggled to find your Membership number, the Society has made it easier for you by adding it to the righthand sidebar of your Members’ page when you log into the website. This is your opportunity to choose who you want to be part of the RSGB Board and help lead the Society over the next few years. The special web pages at www.rsgb.org/agm have details of the Calling Notice, Resolutions, candidate statements and information about how to vote. Internet voting closes at 9am on Thursday the 23rd of April. The RSGB has a Coronavirus Updates page that brings together some great ideas as well as its important announcements. Take a look at www.rsgb.org/coronavirus-updates. Now the contest news Due to social distancing and movement precautions around the world, most contest organisers are not accepting entries from multi-operator groups or from portable stations. Check the rules before taking part. Today, the 12th, the First 50MHz contest takes place from 0900 to 1200UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number, locator and postcode. The Worked All Britain Data contest takes place from 1000 to 1400 and 1700 to 2100UTC today, the 12th of April. All data modes except machine-generated CW may be used, but it is expected that most contacts will be by RTTY, PSK or FT8. The exchange is signal report, serial number and WAB square. Entries need to be with the contest manager by the 22nd of April. See www.worked-all-britain.org.uk. On Monday the Irish 70cm Counties Contest will run from 1300 to 1330UTC using FM and SSB. It is immediately followed by the 2m Counties Contest from 1330 to 1500UTC. This is SSB only. The exchange for both contests is signal report and serial number with EI and GI stations also exchanging their county. On Tuesday the 432MHz FM Activity contest runs from 1800 to 1855UTC. It is followed by the all-mode 432MHz UK Activity Contest from 1900 to 2130UTC. The exchange for both is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday, the 80m Club Championships runs from 1900 to 2030UTC using SSB only. The exchange is signal report and serial number. On Thursday it is the 70MHz UK Activity Contest from 1900 to 2130UTC, using SSB only. The exchange is signal report and serial number. Next weekend, the First Machine Generated Modes contest runs from 1400UTC on the 18th to 1400UTC on the 19th using the 50 and 144MHz bands. The exchange is signal report and your four-character locator. The YU DX contest runs from 0700UTC on the 18th to 0659UTC on the 19th. More information can be found at http://yudx.yu1srs.org.rs/2020. And finally, don’t forget the RSGB Hope QSO Party on weekdays, see www.rsgbcc.org/hf for further details. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 9th of April. Sunspot group 2759, as reported last week, never really amounted to much and vanished before it got to the solar disk’s edge. The matter from a solar coronal hole did hit the Earth last weekend as we predicted, sending the Kp index to four in the early hours of Saturday morning. Even though we don’t have any sunspots, we are now benefiting from seasonal changes in the ionosphere and longer days. Monday’s 80m CW Club Championship contest saw the critical frequency stay comfortably above 4MHz, which guaranteed a lively event with high scores all round. Stations in the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Sweden and France joined in, which made for some head-scratching for amateurs expecting to hear mostly UK-based callsigns. But daytime on HF is still a little lacklustre as we continue towards sunspot minimum. Next week, NOAA predicts more of the same with the solar flux index pegged at 68 and zero sunspots. The Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft showed a large coronal hole was Earth facing on Thursday, which suggests we might get disrupted conditions over the weekend. Although we don’t know the solar matter’s expected Bz signature, if its locked-in magnetic field shows a strong south-facing Bz component we can expect it to couple strongly to the Earth’s magnetic field, resulting in a raised Kp index. So lookout for the possibility of a pre-auroral enhancement at first and then auroral conditions on 10m as it progresses. Meanwhile, there are signs that this year’s Sporadic-E season could soon warm up. Some Spanish low-power beacons have been spotted on 10 metres, but they are currently quite weak. We expect Es conditions to improve towards the end of April/early May with daily short-skip openings out to around 1,500 miles. So it is a good time to make sure your 10m antennas are working properly before the Es season starts. And now the VHF and up propagation news. In a general sense, this period of weather is essentially high-pressure driven except for a couple of brief incursions from low-pressure systems. Easter weekend sees the first visit by a low drifting from the north with April showers and some rain scatter potential. This is followed by a high moving from northwest Scotland southeast into Germany and again producing some good Tropo potential, which may well coincide with the 70cm UKAC on Tuesday evening, so a good result. The second half of the week models show a low moving from the south and affecting the southern half of the UK bringing some showery rain, perhaps thundery, so again some more rain scatter on the microwave frequencies. Lastly, the following weekend sees high pressure returning to Scotland and later the North Sea with further Tropo options. As we are pushing well into April we can expect to see the new Sporadic-E season developing in the next couple of weeks and the Easter Sunday 50MHz contest could well flush out any early stirrings! While we are still close to Lunar perigee, losses are low, but Moon declination is minimum on Tuesday. Moon visibility windows are just a few hours at low elevation, making EME difficult due to ground noise. Added to this is high 144MHz sky noise in the first part of the week, making it a poor week for EME. This Thursday sees the start of the Lyrids meteor shower, so we are coming out of the period of low meteor activity. Keep checking around dawn for the best random meteor contacts. Overall it’s a good week for activity on the VHF/UHF bands. And that’s all from the propagation team this week.