Tmate (what your SDR always wanted)

This is really cool, A friend sent this to me. We talked about this while on Echo-Link. Seems like the really cool stuff is going on in Europe.

Tmate is the most awaited accessory by many users of SDR radio that can not or will not stay without the VFO knob! With a classical tuning knob, the USB interface and the upgradable software, allows the control of main functions of the various SDR software. Intended mainly to allow the use of SDR software without the need to watch the screen of the PC, or when the screen of the PC is crowded by various programs such as LOG or software for DIGITAL operations or CONTEST.

Meteor Explosion

AUSTRALIA - Meteor explosion wows community. Many residents heard the loud rumble, and some were even lucky enough to see something in the sky, but simply everyone is talking about the supposed meteor that exploded over the Tombong area last Tuesday afternoon. A huge number of locals report having heard a loud unexplained “thundering” noise on Tuesday at around 2pm, while others tell of seeing a light falling through the sky at around the same time. No one got quite as close as a local Country Energy worker who was preparing to climb a power pole to make repairs. He suddenly noticed a light in the sky, which started traveling straight towards him in an east to west direction. He knew the bright object was traveling far too quickly to be an aircraft, and he watched in astonishment for over 20 seconds as it flew over the top of him, making a loud hissing or “swooshing” sound. He said the initially bright object dulled and broke up into four or five pieces, with a huge roar to be heard.
“Everything shook. I’ve never been in an earthquake, but it was that kind of a thing.”
Two reports had been registered on the Sydney Observatory ‘Lights in the Sky’ blog page that most likely related to the occurrence. The reports tell of sightings of a daytime meteor between 1.50pm and 2pm on the Tuesday. “A meteor bright enough to be seen during the day may well be sufficiently large to survive the journey through the atmosphere and become a meteorite on the ground. However, unless it was seen to land we are unlikely to ever find out.”

Dilbert - The Knack

Isotron Antennas

So here I am looking at different antennas. Anyone of my readers have any experience with the Isotron Antenna?
I'm looking to purchase the 75/80.
I did hear from a local ham that they are a good antenna.
I also heard from another local ham that they are not worth a dime.

Isotron Antenna Home Page

Working Amateur Radio Satellites

In recent weeks I have a several local hams ask me how to get started into being able to work Satellites.
It is not rocket science to be able to listen to the birds in outer space nor is it to transmit.
It dose however require some time, practice and research.

I always suggest obtaining some type of orbital plotting software; once you get it take some time to understand it.
Ounce you have achieved that then pick out a Satellite and listen to it for a few days. After you have done that then try and make your first contact. It may take you a day or a few weeks. The thing is never give up.

Equipment, that can be pricey it you want it to be. I have always been one for buying the best. I know not everyone is able to that. Heck, I fall into that boat currently.
My suggestion for equipment is a good duel band HT. I have a VX-7R; I’m hoping to get the new VX-8R soon.
Next, the Antenna, you can make one if you wish but I suggest you save the time and hassle and purchase on. Arrow makes a nice 3 element VHF, 7 element UHF with a 10 watt duplexer.
Here are a couple of videos and I hope these help those of you with questions.

How to work amateur radio satellites with your handheld (HT) radio from moleculo on Vimeo.

METEOR ECHOES

The Air Force Space Surveillance Radar is scanning the skies above Texas. When a meteor or satellite passes over the facility--ping!--there is an echo. Click on the button to listen to a live audio feed.

http://topaz.streamguys.tv/~spaceweather/

CME Missed Us.

Thank you to those of you who emailed me this;
The CME expected to hit Earth's magnetic field on Aug. 17th either missed or delivered such a feeble blow that no one noticed the resulting geomagnetic disturbance. The next opportunity for auroras is Aug. 24th when an incoming solar wind stream could provoke polar geomagnetic storms.
I also saw this on SpaceWeather.com

MFJ-1796

I have now owned this antenna for almost a year. What do I think about it?

It is awesome~

I bought this antenna from a local ham who was moving out of state and had no desire to take it with him. Best 65.00 dollars I ever spent.

I have made contacts to Central and South America, Virgin Islands, Azores, U.K., Spain, France and Germany. I have even made the trip to Alaska. What a great antenna the MFJ 1796 has been for me.

I have also contacted a majority of the lower 48. I would have to go through my log book but I am confident I have more than 50% of them logged. I guess not bad for a 10 month General.

The MFJ 1796 is a six band halfwave vertical antenna. Since it's a ground independent halfwave, no radials or ground plane are needed.

The antenna is very efficient because it is end loaded, sothe entire antenna radiates power. It uses no lossy traps, and achieves close 50 Ohm match on all bands, with no band switching. Easy to build and easy to tune!

band coverage; 40, 20, 15, 10, 6, 2m

height; 33 feet

power rating;1500 Watts, PEP

weight; 15 pounds

So lets get to the bottom line on this antenna – its a balanced dipole with loading coils (not traps) and capacity hats at each end. The length of the antenna is 12 feet as delivered from MFJ. Its as simple as that.

The MFJ-1796 as delivered by MFJ is expected to be used as a vertical and mounted on the ground, on a tripod on a roof, or attached to a chimney. Its a center-fed vertical dipole that is ground independent – that is, it does not require a counterpoise or grounding system.

http://www.mfjenterprises.com/man/pdf/MFJ-1796.pdf

IONOSPHERIC DISTURBANCE

The C4-class solar flare of Aug. 14th bathed Earth's upper atmosphere in X-rays and caused a wave of ionization to sweep over Europe. This improved the propagation of low-frequency radio signals which use the ionosphere as a reflector to skip over the horizon. A SID monitor operated by Jan Karlovsky of Hlohovec, Slovakia, recorded the effect:

"SID" stands for Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance, and a "SID monitor" is a radio receiver that monitors ~20 kHz signals from distant transmitters. "My system easily detected the effects of the solar flare," says Karlovsky. "I monitor two stations: DHO38 in Germany (23.4 kHz) and GQD in Great Britian (22.1 kHz). The German signal was most strongly boosted."

With solar activity on the rise, sudden ionospheric disturbances will become more common. Interested? Stanford University tells you how to build your own SID monitor.

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CME/ Glancing Blow to Earth's Magnetic Field Aug. 17.

The sun has produced three bright coronal mass ejections (CMEs) this weekend. None is heading directly for Earth, although the CME of Aug. 14th might deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field on August 17th.
SOHO captured this video clip of a full halo coronal mass ejection (CME) that blasted a substantial cloud of particles away from the Sun (Aug, 7, 2010). The majority of the cloud went to the left with only a smaller portion heading to the right, suggesting that it would not likely have any strong impact on Earth. A “halo” cloud is one that appears to surround the Sun on all sides as it expands, meaning it is heading somewhat towards Earth or away from it. The still and movie are generated by processing the changes from one frame to the next to highlight those changes, thus, we call this a “difference movie.” Click Here

SUNSPOTS ERUPT IN TANDEM

Today at 1005 UT, magnetic fields connecting sunspot 1093 and 1099 erupted, producing a two-sunspot solar flare (C4-class) and hurling a huge blob of plasma into space. Click on the image to launch a Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) movie of the event:

The explosion lasted for more than two hours, giving many amateur astronomers time to catch the eruption in action. Other than photo-ops, however, this explosion will probably not affect Earth much. The cloud ejected by the blast is not heading our way.

KD8BIG Update

The last 4-5 weeks have been a struggle for me. After having an upper respiratory infection turn into Bacterial Pneumonia that lingered on for ever I ended up with other health issues this last Friday evening. So I have missed out on a lot since then.
I did however make it to the local amateur radio club meeting and talked to those present about my idea of having a tech net.
How about the activity on the Sun? Wow, very kewl~
I thought I would share this link, it has some really awesome pictures of the Auroras this week due to the activity going on the Sun.

Huge Solar Storm Triggers Unusual Auroras

Cosmic Tsunami on the way

A dream come true for the Amateur Radio Operator.
Tonight the bands are really active. I have made contacts on 2, 6, 10, 15, 20 and 40 meters. I tried to make a contact on 80 and 160, no joy.

Solar Tsunami to Strike Earth

Building a Weather Satellite Station

Check out the section on assembling a low cost, easy-to-build ground station to receive weather satellite images.

No ham radio license or special training needed.

Just need a computer with a sound card, a short-wave receiver, and some tracking and decoding software.

You don't need a ham radio license and transmitter to participate in space radio. Monitoring of radio transmissions is a popular hobby of its own. You can listen in on satellite downlinks and shuttle communications with police scanners and shortwave radios, available at your local electronics store.

(Listening in on manned spaceflights began early in the space age. This article The first 'scoop' from space in 1999 by John Rich at the Christian Science Monitor reports on NBC reporters eavesdropping on Gordon Cooper's communications while he was in space on Mercury Faith 7.)

You can also directly capture weather satellite images and other satellite signals using radio and computer kits.

A related hobby involves reception of Natural Radio signals produced by atmospheric phenomena such as lightning and aurora. VLF (Very Low Frequency, less than 500HZ) signals from the magnetosphere can be detected from as far as 20000 miles above the earth. When these signals are converted to audio, an assortment of unique sounds such as whistlers and sferics can be heard.

Amateurs even do Radio Astronomy with homemade systems. They can carry out a wide range of observations ranging from listening to electromagnetic storms on Jupiter to picking up pulsar signals to searching for ET signals.

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VX-8DR; Looking to Purchase

Why another radio? Why not?
Yes, I am looking at purchasing the VX-8DR by Yaesu.
I have the VX-7R and love it. It has been a great radio for me and dose everything I want it too. The only issue is as of late I have had some audio issues. When I adjust the volume knob I get some crackling and also get crackling when not adjusting the volume. I put the radio on the MFJ-269 and everything looks great. So I guess my HT is getting old. Besides, the VX-8DR looks much cooler than the VX-7R and I really want to get back into working the satellites.
The VX-8DR has some really nice features that the VX-7R dose not has. It is also a thinner rig from what I have heard.
I guess my quest for the Kantronics XL and the Rig Blaster Pro might sit on the back burner, then again, so many decisions to think about.

BTW, The Yaesu VX-8DR is an APRS® enhanced version of the popular VX8R. Key additional features of the VX-8DR include:
*Smart Beaconing Function.
*Station List memories has increased from 40 to 50.
*The number of APRS® Message Memories has increased from 20 to 30.
*DIGI-PATH route indication function.
*Heads up compass display to the GPS screen.
*The Message received LED flashing rate is selectable.
*The number of DIGI-PATH route settings has increased from 1 to 7.

The Yaesu VX-8GR is the newest member of the proud VX-8 family. The VX-8GR dual-bander only covers 2 meters and 440 MHz and receive coverage is 108-999 MHz (less cellular frequencies). This version has a built-in GPS unit right out of the box! It is not Bluetooth capable. Click here for Yaesu VX-8GR info.!
The VX-8R, VX-8DR and VX-8GR come with the SMA antenna, FNB-101LI Lithium Ion battery pack (7.4V 1100 mAh), belt clip and NC-86B battery charger. (The NC-86B should only be used for receive, because it is not capable of supplying sufficient current to support transmit).

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