“Space Weather quiets down this week though we continue to get hit with sporadic pockets of fast solar wind. Activity could increase at high latitudes, with a brief chance for aurora, but expect only unsettled conditions to persist through the remainder of this week. Aurora photographers may have difficulty catching glimpses of the aurora, but luckily that isn’t the only thing in the night sky worth watching.
This week, Earth enters the Lyrids meteor shower, which could give us a decent show through April 25. Skywatchers will need to get out of city lights and mind the bright, full moon on the 20th and 21st to maximize chances of seeing the spectacle. Meanwhile, back on the Sun, bright region 2738 is rotating out of view so solar flux should drop back into the low 70s by early next week.
This means amateur, shortwave radio, and emergency responders will notice the drop off in communications as we fall back to poor radio propagation on Earth’s dayside. However, propagation on 6m due to the Lyrids might actually pick up this week! As for GPS, users should be enjoying decent reception all around the globe easily over the next few days. Learn the details of the Lyrid shower, when solar flux will drop, and what else our Sun has in store this week.”
Antenna
Another Difficult Antenna Situation
Tim, W4FTP, asks how he can use some tall but skinny trees along the back of his property as part of his antenna system. We take a look, and your comm... Read more
Ham Radio experiment – End fed half wave antenna sloper vs flat horizontal orientation
https://youtu.be/BgEtQOS8mY0 Read more
British Columbia Radio Amateur Copies Signal from Mars-Orbiting Satellite
As reported on Spaceweather.com, Canadian radio amateur Scott Tilley, VE7TIL, has snagged another signal from deep space. His latest conquest has been... Read more
Wideband Desktop Discone Antenna – 25 MHZ – 2000 MHz Coverage
“Here we take a look at the Skyscan Desktop antenna with a rated frequency range of between 25 Mhz up to 2 Ghz. We test the antenna indoor and o... Read more
News
ARRL Interview Explains Background of Ham Radio in Space Film Short
Josh Tanner, the Australian filmmaker who produced the thriller Decommissioned by Perception Pictures, has explained how he came up with the idea to... Read more
Amateur Radio Helping to Fill Earthquake Report “Donut Holes”
An article describing how radio amateurs can help fill the information “donut hole” by providing post-earthquake “did you feel it” (DYFI) reports via ... Read more
Mystery Box! ARRL Expo At Home Surprise Pack
The ARRL offered surprise boxes as part of their ‘Expo at Home’ for the 2021 Orlando Hamcation. I ordered a mystery apparel pack and a mys... Read more
“Whirlwind Boom” Emergency Communications Exercise Set in Northern Florida
The amateur radio communications team of the Florida Baptist Disaster Relief has created a multi-site radio communications exercise dubbed “Whirlwind... Read more
VHF
Ham Radio vs GMRS
Ham Radio vs GMRS – Ham Radio compared to GMRS frequencies and modes – which ones is better? Today let’s talk about both of them, ho... Read more
Best GMRS Handheld Radio 2021 – GMRS Radio Comparison
Best GMRS Handheld Radio 2021 – GMRS Radio Comparison Read more
New Arrival! Dual Mode Portable Repeater RT97P
Dual Mode Portable Repeater RT97P will come. It is similar to the portable repeater RT97. Now we have the RT97 GMRS band, and this RT97P is the d... Read more
ARISS and Partners Are Investigating Space Station Ham Radio Failure
Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) and its partners are troubleshooting a failure within the on-board NA1SS amateur station in t... Read more
App - Mobile
SmartSDR for iOS v3.9.12 Now Available
Marcus, DL8MRE announces that release of SmartSDR for iOS v3.9.12 is now available for download or update from the Apple App Store. SmartSDR is a full... Read more
SignalID – Automatic Radio Signal Identification for Android
There’s an incredible amount of radio signals. It’s impossible to know them all, let alone recognize them. So why not get help from Signal... Read more
EchoHam version v2.10 has been released
EchoHam allows Amateur Radio operators to use the Echolink network from their Mac. You must be a licensed Amateur Radio operator to use this software.... Read more
SatSat for IOS version 1.4.11 has been released
SatSat, by Fabrice Aneche is a satellite tracking software, for radio amateurs, scientists or hobbyists. It displays current and next passes for any s... Read more