eHam.net News

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Space Buffs Pack Llibrary Auditorium for Radio Visit with Space Station:

Posted: 09 Sep 2016 05:01 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37525


Ken Filardo has been tinkering with radios since he was a little boy. But
on Friday, more than five decades after his lifelong love affair with the
gadgets first began, the 64-year-old engineer and amateur radio enthusiast
took part in an experiment far beyond child's play. Shortly after 11:25
a.m., Filardo and his fellow radio buffs from the Douglas County Amateur
Radio Club made contact with the International Space Station, eliciting
cheers from the approximately 200 onlookers gathered in the Lawrence Public
Library's auditorium. The project, which was facilitated through the
Amateur Radio on the International Space Station educational program, was a
coordinated effort between the library and the Radio Club that had been
more than a year in the making. "This is kind of the pinnacle of ham radio
right here," said Filardo, who constructed a special antenna system, to be
mounted on the roof of the library, for the occasion. Using equipment
borrowed from club members' personal collections, Filardo and five of his
cohorts were able to make contact with Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi in
the few minutes -- technical difficulties cut the intended 10-minute chat a
bit short -- it took for the Space Station to travel from horizon to
horizon.


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UC Irvine Accidentally Invents a Battery that Lasts Forever:

Posted: 09 Sep 2016 05:01 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37524


What do Viagra, popsicles, Corn Flakes, Ivory soap, the kitchen microwave,
and champagne have in common? They were all discovered by accident. Add
ultra-long-lasting nanowire batteries to that list, thanks to a team of
researchers at the University of California Irvine. The average laptop
battery is rated anywhere from 300 to 500 charge cycles - completely full
to completely empty to completely full again - longer if you don't use it
all up before recharging. The UCI nanobattery endured 200,000 charge cycles
over three months "with 94-96% average Coulombic efficiency." It was
effectively still brand new at the end of the experiment. Let's go
conservative and say the average laptop battery lasts for 1,000 charge
cycles, its capacity noticeably diminished after about two years. If that
laptop had UCI's nanobattery it would easily last for 400 years (if 1,000
cycles = two years, 200,000 cycles = 400 years). That's long enough for
that laptop to share a name with, but be far less useful than, an actual
brick. If UCI can apply its findings to commercial uses, there's a
revolution coming throughout the electronic landscape.