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- Written by: Richard G0LFF
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An appetizer to John's lecture this coming Friday.
I have worked many many stations via the aurora on 2, 4 & 6m from Burgess Hill. It does require a yagi antenna to aim at a hot-spot on the auroral curtain and some power, TX has to be slow as the reflected signals are very distorted and ghostly sounding.
Visually you will not see the aurora anything like in photos - cameras 'see' a lot lot more, it is a diffused and opaque light needing a good 10-15 minutes for our eyes to adjust well away from any light pollution.
The clip is from my Hurtigruten cruise from Bergen right up to and round the North Cape to the Russian border where I did a ceremonial walk through the Russian border gate. Phil G4UDU did the same cruise a year later, and not to be out-done Jane McDonald followed for her Christmas series on TV. Enjoy and hope you get the call-sign of the station calling CQ Aurora :)
Make sure your sound is turned on!
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- Written by: Maintenance Guy
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After seeing Alan's article on amateur radio direction finding on the MSARS website, our friend Nick Bradley G4IWO from Denby Dale ARS invited him to give a talk on one of their regular Wednesday evening Zoom presentations.
DDARS have built up an impressive back-catalogue of such talks, of which Alan's is just the latest. It's an interesting watch, and Alan did a great job of representing our little group with his specialist knowledge.
A link to the video can be found on our Videos page.
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For those that wish to move onwards and upwards from the Foundation level licence, applications are now open for what is probably regarded as the best distance learning course in the country.
Co-hosted and managed by training supremo Steve Hartley G0FUW, the Bath-Based Distance Learning (BBDL) course is bang up to date with the latest syllabus and RSGB training manual and available places will probably be snatched up within a few days. So if you're an M3, M6 or M7 and aspire to be a 2E0, then you should definitely be one of those early applicants.
The MSARS training programme hasn't been formally restarted as yet after the pandemic, but there are several club members who would be only too willing to help and support any other club member who wants to reach the Intermediate level. Training has always been something the club has excelled at, and we definitely want to get back to that as soon as possible.
The Bath-Based Distance Learning course for Intermediate level will run from January to May 2022.
The closing date is 15 December 2021.
All applicants must complete some pre-course work using BBDL systems.
A Full licence course will run from August to December 2022.
More information is available from
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Communication via the aurora - 12th November 2021
Communication by radio amateurs via the aurora borealis (and indeed via the aurora australis in the southern hemisphere) can only be described as sporadic. Like Sporadic E, it’s a mechanism supported when several atmospheric and geomagnetic effects align. And it occurs in the thermosphere, around 110km up. But just because there’s a visible light show does not mean radio propagation will be supported. So why, and how often, do radio auroras occur? Can I participate south of the border? What do I have to do to exploit them? How will I know if there’s an aurora in progress? How can I design my station to maximise both chances and DX outcome? And how can I predict when a radio aurora is going to happen?
John Berry GM8JBJ will cover the full science and practice of communications via radio auroras.
Communications via the Aurora: a talk to MSARS
Friday, 12 November · 20:00 - 21:15
Google Meet joining info:
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/cxc-nnvm-bos
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Build a working FM radio in 24 steps!
Merv M0WVE has committed to complete this project day by day during December and post the experimental results of each sub-project on our Facebook page. I'd buy that for a dollar (approx 50p GBP).
