Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Tracy Wood, who shares the following update regarding the potential closure of Radio México Internacional’s streaming service. Tracy notes:
The Education Secretary came up with 19.3 million pesos to cover the shortfall. Article has timelines:
Thanks for the update, Tracy!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paul, who shares the following links and notes:
No Strong Opposition to 144 – 146 MHz Reallocation Proposal at CEPT Meeting
http://www.arrl.org/news/no-strong-opposition-to-144-146-mhz-reallocation-proposal-at-cept-meetingThis appears to be pushed through by France at the behest of Thales, a large and diverse manufacturer of civilian and military tech that, among other things, builds UAVs and aeronautical communication equipment. This portion of the band is allocated globally to amateur radio, and is not assigned to any commercial or (formal) public safety use. This likely makes it a valuable and easy target for reallocation for an entity wishing to operate on it globally.
https://www.f4fxl.org/update-on-the-threats-on-2m-amateur-band/In the UK, the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) is leading the charge to stop this in Europe:
https://www.change.org/p/rsgb-stop-the-2-meter-band-144-146mhz-being-taken-away-from-radio-amateursThe loss of this band would really hurt ham radio. The cheap Baofeng VHF radios that use this band are probably second only to the RTL-SDR for enticing people into the radio hobby.
Use of this band is not limited to amateur radio novices who are new to the hobby; during emergency/disaster relief, the 2m VHF amateur bands are the among the most used bands due to how inexpensive the radios are. By creating an ad-hoc network used as a failsafe when cell towers and internet services could be offline for an indefinite period of time, civilians are able to save lives when police and and EMS are allocated at their capacity.
Thanks for sharing this, Paul. It seems this issue has gotten the attention of all of the major amateur radio associations.
From the Isle of Music, July 7-13:
This week, we listen to some of the International Prize winners of Cubadisco 2019. Some of the music is classical, and some of it is for dancing.
The broadcasts take place:
1. For Eastern Europe but audible well beyond the target area in most of the Eastern Hemisphere (including parts of East Asia and Oceania) with 100Kw, Sunday 1500-1600 UTC on SpaceLine, 9400 KHz, from Sofia, Bulgaria (1800-1900 MSK)
If you don’t have a shortwave radio or are out of range, you can listen live to an uplink from a listening radio in the Netherlands during the broadcast at
http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/?tune=9400am
2. For the Americas and parts of Europe, Tuesday 0000-0100 UTC (New UTC) on WBCQ, 7490 KHz from Monticello, ME, USA (Monday 8-9PM EST in the US).
If you don’t have a shortwave or are out of range, you can listen to a live stream from the WBCQ website here (choose 7490)
http://www.wbcq.com/?page_id=7
3 & 4. For Europe and sometimes beyond, Tuesday 1900-2000 UTC and Saturday 1200-1300 UTC on Channel 292, 6070 KHz from Rohrbach, Germany.
If you don’t have a shortwave radio or are out of range, you can listen live to an uplink from a listening radio in the Netherlands during the broadcast at
http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/?tune=6070am
Uncle Bill’s Melting Pot, July 7 and 9:
Episode 120 examines US protest songs from different decades.
The transmissions take place:
1.Sundays 2200-2230 UTC (6:00PM -6:30PM Eastern US) on WBCQ The Planet 7490 KHz from the US to the Americas and parts of Europe
If you don’t have a shortwave or are out of range, you can listen to a live stream from the WBCQ website here (choose 7490)
http://www.wbcq.com/?page_id=7
2. Tuesdays 2000-2030 UTC on Channel 292, 6070 KHz from Rohrbach, Germany for Europe.
If you don’t have a shortwave radio or are out of range, you can listen live to an uplink from a listening radio in the Netherlands during the broadcast at
http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/?tune=6070am
(Image: NASA)
(Source: ARRL News)
A juried research paper in Nature, “Oscillations of the baseline of solar magnetic field and solar irradiance on a millennial timescale,” suggests that a “grand solar minimum” — similar to the legendary “Maunder Minimum” — is approaching, starting as early as next year and lasting for three solar cycles. That would be bad news for HF enthusiasts, who are already struggling with marginal conditions.
As the paper’s abstract explains, “Recently discovered long-term oscillations of the solar background magnetic field associated with double dynamo waves generated in inner and outer layers of the Sun indicate that the solar activity is heading in the next three decades (2019–2055) to a Modern grand minimum similar to Maunder one.”
As propagation buff and contester Frank Donovan, W3LPL, observed, “It’s very uncertain if this forecast is correct, but as usual the forecasts of the next solar cycle are all over the map. Let’s hope these scientists are wrong.”
(Source: Southgate ARC and ARRL)
The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 CubeSat, launched on June 25, will transmit Morse code from space.
LightSail is a citizen-funded project to send a small spacecraft, propelled solely by sunlight, into Earth’s orbit. The innovative satellite is due to be deployed on July 2 from Prox-1, a Georgia Tech student-built spacecraft the size of a small washing machine.
Once deployed, LightSail 2 will automatically transmit a beacon packet every few seconds, which can be decoded into 238 lines of text telemetry describing the spacecraft’s health and status, including everything from battery status to solar sail deployment motor state. Every 45 seconds, the spacecraft will transmit “LS2” on the spacecraft’s frequency of 437.025 MHz, within the Amateur Radio 70-centimeter band.
Further details can be found online at,
http://www.planetary.org/explore/projects/lightsail-solar-sailing/ .[…]
The Lockheed VC-121E “Columbine III” (Image Source: USAF Museum)
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Robert Yowell, who writes:
I was visiting the US Air Force Museum [Friday] and walked through “Columbine III” which was the Lockheed Constellation used as Air Force One by President Eisenhower from 1954 until he left office. In the back of the cabin was a nice cozy area where this Hallicrafters receiver was installed – ostensibly for the passengers to listen to news or other events while in flight.
I am sure one of your readers will be able to identify which model it is.
Can you imagine flying in this gorgeous Lockheed VC-121E four prop aircraft and listening to HF radio from a built-in Hallicrafters set? Wow…
Thank you, Robert, for sharing these photos. The National Museum of the US Air Force is one of my favorite museums in the world. I bet I’ve visited it more than a dozen times over the past decade–always a treat and always something new to discover!
Post readers: Can you identify this Hallicrafters model? Please comment!