Random comments and news

Last night I took advantage of clear skies and watched the International Space Station fly over. I was in work so no telescope or binoculars but it was quite easily visible to the naked eye and for probably about three minutes. I just so wanted to be up there playing radio. Imagine how many people you could make happy with a quick QSO on 2 metres. I remember in my early teens lying in a field watching Skylab orbiting past every few hours and years later hearing a local amateur make a two way contact with an astronaut.

The Large Hadron Collider is up and running again after 14 months, which must be a big relief for those involved. I find this exciting but a little worried. I think it is unlikely that a black hole will be created and we will all be sucked in to oblivion as some suggest, what worries me is what the final outcome will be. Science only wanted to know what would happen when the atom was split but result was the atomic bomb. "I am become Death destroyer of worlds" said J. Robert Oppenheimer when he saw the result of his handiwork.

Belgium Radio Amateurs now have access to a tiny allocation at 4 metres. Class A holders in Belgium have access to 69.950MHz (+/- 5kHz) with 10W EIRP on a non-interference basis. Those Amateurs that wish to use this frequency must first inform their regulator the BIPT.
While this is nothing to get excited about at least it is a start, hopefully a more extensive allocation will follow sooner or later. UK amateurs will just have to wait or work split frequency with Belguim as their allocation is out of band to us and vice versa.

Martin Lynch & Sons will be holding their annual Open Day on 5 December from 8am to 4pm.

Sunspot activity seems to be increasing steadily of late and HF band conditions seem to be edging out of the doldrums. Activity on 5mHz has been up as a result on the Norweigians on the band during the day and some good night time openings to the US. I almost doubled my worked all state total for 5mHz in one night recently.

With all the rain here recently I keep thinking I should try 10GHz as a rainscatter is useful propagation method on that band. There are some good videos on YouTube of this type of propagation in action but I cannot get on to get the links just now. While you are on YouTube search for Leonids Meteor Shower too.