TWIAR News Feed

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JAXA to launch ham radio satellites to ISS

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 12:23 PM PST
http://bit.ly/2fukZI2

Mineo Wakita JE9PEL reports on the AMSAT Bulletin Board that five
satellites with amateur radio payloads are to be launched to the ISS in
December.

JAXA announced to the public November 7 that seven nano satellites to be
installed in H-IIB Transfer Vehicle "KOUNOTORI" (HTV) to be launched in
December. Satellites are only about 1U~3U in size and will conduct
experiments aimed at realizing the space elevator which is expected to
facilitate the movement of Earth and Universe in the future. It's the first
time to launch in JAXA with seven satellites at a time.

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Kickstarter: HobbyPCB 5 watt SDR starting at $239

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 12:16 PM PST
http://bit.ly/2fukCNE

The RS-HFIQ is a high performance Software Defined Radio (SDR) 5W
Transceiver for CW, SSB, AM, FM and digital modes.

132 backers so far, $28,422 pledged of $15,000 goal and there are 24 days
to go

Not just another SDR - The RS-HFIQ offers real RF performance for serious
communications. Covering the 80-10M Amatuer Radio bands with excellent RX
performance and 5 watts of TX power, using open-source SDR software for CW,
SSB, AM, FM and digital modes, the RS-HFIQ sets a new standard for
shortwave SDR communications.

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South African satellite to launch from International Space Station

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 12:11 PM PST
http://bit.ly/2eOfYZB

A nanosatellite designed and built in South Africa will be launched early
next year from the International Space Station as part of a European
Commission research project.

Managed by SCS Aerospace Group, South Africa’s biggest private satellite
concern it will be launched from the space station during the first quarter
of next year together with 40 satellites from other countries as part of
the European Commission’s QB50 project. These satellites are to conduct
atmospheric research in the lower thermosphere between 200km to 380km
altitude. The data collected from this experiment over a period of 18
months will be used to complement current atmospheric models used by
operators in the space industry.

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Lone-wolf radio hoaxer hacks Melbourne air traffic control - police
(Australia)

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 12:01 PM PST
http://bit.ly/2fMcNGl

Australian federal police are hunting a lone-wolf radio hoaxer who made 15
illegal transmissions to air-traffic controllers and domestic passenger
pilots last month - including one telling a Virgin pilot to abort a landing.

The agencies investigating the incidents believe only one person has made
the transmissions by finding a way to tap into the air traffic control
frequency and communicate directly with planes and control towers.

Flight data shows the plane came close to the runway as it approached
Tullamarine Airport on an October evening. Then, three minutes later, the
plane climbed to 3,800 feet and started circling over north-west Melbourne
- all under orders from the hoax air-traffic controller.

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via HACKADAY: Better Tornado Warnings with Polygons and Pi

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 11:20 AM PST
http://ift.tt/2eoYA26

Everyone pays close attention to the weather, but for those who live where
tornadoes are prevalent, watching the sky can be a matter of life and
death. When the difference between making it to a shelter or getting caught
in the open can be a matter of seconds, it might make sense to build an
internet enabled Raspberry Pi weather alert system.

We know what you’re thinking – why not just buy an off-the-shelf weather
alert radio with Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) reporting, or just
rely on a smartphone app? As [Jim Scarborough] explains, living in the
heart of Tornado Alley and having had a brush with tragedy as a kid teaches
you not to be complacent with severe weather. He found a problem with the
SAME system: lack of locational granularity below the county level, leading
to a tendency to over-warn during tornado season. [Jim]’s build seeks to
improve SAME by integrating National Weather Service polygon warnings,
which define an area likely to see a severe weather event as a collection
of geographic vertices rather than a political unit. He’s using a Raspberry
Pi NOAA weather radio receiver with SAME decoding, and while details are
sparse and the project is ongoing, the idea seems to be to use the Pi to
scrape the NWS site for polygon data once a county-level warning is issued.

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Two Radio Amateurs Set to Join ISS Crew

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 11:18 AM PST
http://ift.tt/2fEi4gK

Astronauts Peggy Whitson, KC5ZTD, and Thomas Pesquet, KG5FYG, and Cosmonaut
Oleg Novitskiy will head into space on November 17 for a 6-month stay
aboard the International Space Station. NASA Television coverage will begin
at 1730 UTC on November 16. The launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan will be at 1820 UTC on November 17.

It will take the Expedition 50/51 crew members 2 days to reach the ISS in
their Soyuz vehicle.

Welcoming the new crew increment will be Expedition 50 Commander Shane
Kimbrough, KE5HOD, and crew members Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko,
who have been aboard the complex since October.

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Chinese Students FM Transponder Satellite Launched

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 11:15 AM PST
http://ift.tt/2g31VV3

“Dream 1� (CAS-2T), a “technical verification satellite� for the CAMSAT
CAS-2 series of Amateur Radio satellites, was launched on November 9 on
board a Long March CZ-11 rocket.

Developed by middle school students with the support of China’s Academy of
Launch Vehicle Technology, the Science and Technology Museum, and the
Eastern Highlands Qian Youth Space Sciences Organization, the 2U CubeSat
carries a ham radio 145/435 MHz FM transponder.

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via HACKADAY: Listening to Jupiter on a DIY Radio

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 10:35 AM PST
http://ift.tt/2eHyqmn

If you want to get started with radio astronomy, Jupiter is one of the
easiest celestial objects to hear from Earth. [Vasily Ivanenko] wanted to
listen, and decided to build a modular radio receiver for the task. So far
he’s written up six of the eight planned blog posts.

The system uses an LNA, a direct conversion receiver block, and provides
audio output to a speaker, output to a PC soundcard, and a processed
connection for an analog to digital converter. The modules are
well-documented and would be moderately challenging to reproduce.

NASA maintains a list of receivers suitable for Jovian listening, although
you can use basically any receiver that covers the right frequency band. If
you want to hear what the giant planet sounds like, check out the video,
below.

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RSGB: Changes on 60m in Portugal

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 10:35 AM PST
http://ift.tt/2fqCA3L

Jose, CT1EEB reports from Portugal on changes to the 60m allocation in that
country. These include some of the existing channels, plus the new WRC15
allocation. The new 60m band licence allows 5371.5kHz and 5403.5kHz A1A and
J3E and 5351.5kHz to 5366.5kHz using A1A and J3E.

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via HACKADAY: Resurrection - Pressing WW2 Radio Equipment Back into Service

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 10:35 AM PST
http://bit.ly/2g5IwTt

Mass production was key to survival during the Second World War. So much
stuff was made that there continues to be volumes of new unpacked stuff
left over and tons of used equipment for sale at reasonable prices.
Availability of this war surplus provided experimenters in the mid 20th
century with access to high performance test equipment, radio equipment,
and high quality components for the first time.

Even today this old stuff continues to motivate and inspire the young
generations because of its high build quality, unique electro-mechanical
approaches, and overall innovative designs which continue to be relevant
into the 21st century. In this post we will show you how to get started in
the hobby of resurrecting WW2 radio equipment and putting it back on the
air.

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RSGB: Summit to Summit event

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 10:35 AM PST
http://ift.tt/2fqI4vp

Following the success of the Australia-Europe Summit-to-Summit event in
October, one between Europe and North America is now to take place from
1400 to 1700UTC on Saturday the 19th of November. So far, 27 stations in
Europe, North America and even Africa have indicated their intention to
participate. The aim of the event is to get as many Summit to Summit
contacts as possible. These can be between North America and Europe or
within the regions themselves. Home-based “chasers� will also be contacting
the summit activators to gain points in the SOTA award scheme.

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Amateur Radio "Uniquely Situated" to be at Leading Edge Again, Conferees
Told

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 10:35 AM PST
http://bit.ly/2fM8oTE

The dawn of so-called “smart� — or cognitive — radio has presented Amateur
Radio with an opportunity to regain the leading edge in radio technology in
the near future. It will also alter our view of spectrum as a limited
resource. Those points and others were part of a forward-looking, tag-team
Sunday Seminar presentation, “Spectrum (It’s the frequency crunch for
real),� by Michelle Thompson, W5NYV, and Bob McGwier, N4HY, at the 2016
ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference (DCC), September 16-18 in
St. Petersburg, Florida. Thompson heads the AMSAT Ground Terminal Team, a
component of the Phase 4B geosynchronous satellite project. McGwier is
chief scientist at the Hume Center for National Security and Technology at
Virginia Tech. This week, HamRadioNow made the entire 3-hour presentation
available as part of its conference coverage: HamRadioNow Episode 276 Parts
1, 2, and 3.

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"Noisy Electronics" Have Increased HF, VHF Noise Floors in UK, RSGB Reports
Say

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 10:35 AM PST
http://bit.ly/2erYUx4

Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) HF Manager Ian Greenshields, G4FSU,
says the noise floor continues to rise on the HF bands in the UK. He
included that observation in his report to the October 29 RSGB Spectrum
Forum.

“The threat of PLT [power line telecommunications] for the last 10 years
has largely been superseded by noisy electronics, in particular switch-mode
power supplies in lighting and solar PV [photovoltaic] arrays, and
broadband Internet delivery systems such as VDSL2,� Greenshields said in
his report. “A further potential threat from wireless power transfer
systems (WPT) is being closely monitored at the ITU [International
Telecommunication Union].�

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Free Cubes in Space(tm) Program Offers Opportunity for Youth to Put
Experiments into Space

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 10:35 AM PST
http://bit.ly/2fNdDAD

The free Cubes in Spaceâ„¢ program provides students ages 11 to 18 an
opportunity to design and compete to launch an experiment into space at no
cost. Cubes in Space is offered by idoodledu inc, in partnership with the
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Wallops Flight Facility, the Colorado
Space Grant Consortium, and the NASA Langley Research Center.

Based on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics),
the global education initiative enables students to learn about space
exploration using innovative problem-solving and inquiry-based learning
methods. Participants have access to resources that help prepare them to
design and develop an experiment to be integrated into a small cube.

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via HACKADAY: Hollow State Receiver

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 10:35 AM PST
http://ift.tt/2fuomPH

[Netzener] received a Radio Shack P-Box one tube receiver as a gift.
However, at the time, his construction skills were not up to the task and
he never completed the project. Years later, he did complete a version of
it with a few modern parts substitutions. The radio worked, but he was
disappointed in its performance. Turns out, the original Radio Shack kit
didn’t work so well, either.

So [Netzener] did a redesign using some some old books from the 1920’s. The
resulting radio–using parts you can easily buy today–works much better than
the original design.

The most expensive part of the build was a 22.5V battery, which cost about
$25. However, you can get away with using three 9V batteries in series if
you want to save some money. The battery provides the plate voltage for the
1T4 vacuum tube. A more conventional AA battery drives the tube’s filament.

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KC0W Kicks Off CW-Only Philippines Operation with Brand-New 4I7 Prefix

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 10:35 AM PST
http://ift.tt/2eFNowI

Rebounding from his aborted “Cows Over the World� DXpedition, Tom Callas,
KC0W, of will commence a CW-only operation from the Philippines on November
8, using the call sign 4I7COW. This marks the first time the 4I7 prefix has
been used. The Minnesota DXer plans to focus on 160 meters. He will operate
from 4I7COW until November 22.

Following his return to the US, Callas plans to travel to Equatorial
Guinea, where he will apply in person for 3C and 3C0 call signs. Given the
complexity of the Equatorial Guinea licensing process, Callas has said he
believes it’s best to make the preliminary trip to submit all 20 documents
required for each call sign — and the personal touch may better his chances
of getting both of his requested call signs. He noted that past
DXpeditioners have had their radio gear confiscated by customs officials
when they arrived in Equatorial Guinea.

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via HACKADAY: A Vintage Interface For A Modern Radio

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 10:35 AM PST
http://ift.tt/2f8qfDH

The arrival of affordable software defined radio technologies over the last
couple of decades has completely changed the way that radio amateurs and
other radio enthusiasts approach the airwaves. There’s a minor problem with
most software defined receivers though, being by their nature software
driven they will usually rely on a host computer for their interface. Thus
the experience is one of clicking mouse buttons or using keyboard shortcuts
rather than the mechanical analogue dial interfaces that provided easy
control of older radios.