Space, Sun and Ham

This is the photo of the year in my opinion. Taken during Hubble recent repairs at 14th of May, it gives a compact message of what technology and collaboration can do. Among else our blue planet Earth is easily recognizable in the casket reflection. To create this 3D effect, digital artist Patrick Vantuyne of Belgium combined two slightly offset photos taken by spacewalker Andrew Feustal. It is a really beautiful picture with a sound meaning.

In the mean time, sun seams to wake up. The SFI is 74 after a long time bellow 70 and some tiny spots appear from time to time. It’s activity is very low but at least there is a trend upwards. Anyway last predictions agree that cycle 24 will be a small one. Its maximum is expected at 2013 with a number of no more than 90 spots. After big expectations we are ready for landing. Finally sporadic E in 6m meters seams stronger and more frequent than last year. So no matter what we have something to play with.

Sporadic-E came back

6m propagation came back on time this year. First big event took place in May 2 with sort path opening with prefixes as 4Z, 9A DL. Yesterday we had a wider one with calls like CT3, EA and so one. Magic band has good mood this year. Take a look in yesterday opening as it was observed in real time by DX- Sherlock.

By the way this a good tool watching the sporadic E openings. You will find it following the link: http://www.vhfdx.net

A few days to the cottage

We spent a few days to the cottage to say welcome to spring. Things turned out to be quite different than expected. Spring did not came on time. It was very wet and looked like more as winder. Even the fireplace was acceptable!

The plants, as you can see, were not prepared for such a weather but I remained cool and relaxed. I do not know, nobody knows actually, if there is any correlation with the prolonged sun minimum. By the way the signals were not too bad in my portable wire antennas. So no reason to complain at all. It was a nice break anyway.

VK9GMW: a different style dxpedition

The sun continues its leisure. It behaves exactly as the stoke market: When you believe that it has got a minimum it is going lower. We had great expectations for VK9LA but it turned out to be difficult to get heard. At least to Europe. Under such hostile propagation conditions, two incredible guys,AA7JV and HA7RY went to Mellish reef. Their equipment is very simple but they are quite noisier than expected.   Their camp is just a small tent on the sand. They are working only with 12V DC from batteries and their power does not exceed the 500 watts. Their antenna system is very small also as you can see in the pictures.  In spite of all these they deliver good signals. In the same time between transmissions they catch fish to fresh up their meals!

I love their shack inside the little tent and their high tech illumination system, hi hi. By any means it is the more likable dxpedition of the year. Congratulations guys. This is a real ham spirit!

Photos taken from their site:http://www.vk9gmw.com/

Bearing 92 degrees

Update 23-03-20009: The European gang landed safely to SYD. Tomorrow they will fly to Lord Howe. Let show begin! (Photo taken from their blog)

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This is the sort path to VK9LA from my QTH. I am speaking about the Lord Howe expedition that will take off next week.This island looks like a dreamy paradise on earth.

Although I have this entity already confirmed, I will try to work them in any possible band. The expedition seems to be very well organized and it has a great interest for Greek hams because of the participation of Vicky (SV2KBS). We wish good luck to all. They will make happy lots of amateurs they will work them as a new one. Propagation is very low of course but I hope that the good equipment they have got with them, it will resolve this issue. For more info and news take a look to their blog from time to time (http://vk9la.info). There are not pictures published yet but I found those to Google earth.The Ball’s pyramid, a nearby islet, is a really nature monument, 562m steep high above the ocean. So meet you all in the pileups!!!

ITX: the new standard for tiny PCs

Strong enough but tiny and flexible. This the description of the new trend in desktop PC. I was very tempted to see the result. I was always attracted to small configurations. That is why I got The EeePC of ASUS. But this is an other thing: to build a small PC all yourself choosing parts and put it together. Dennis (SV8RV) showed me the way. We discussed a lot and I made up my mind. I chose the well known tiny ITX mobo of INTEL D945GCLF2. This little thing has the ATOM 330 CPU (dual core) already installed and audio and graphics subsystems as well. Important: serial port, parallel port, 6 USB ports and 1GBit Ethernet are included.

For the case I found attractive the proposition of MOREX 3310. Take a look how nice it looks. And also quite practical. It needs only 13.8V to work. This a voltage that is very popular to hams. All power supplies have it and our cars also.

All the voltages are produced from the internal power supply. No fun need. The total power does not exceed the 50W.

You have to attach a HDD drive of 2.5 inches and a RAM of one GB you and the PC is ready to service. As operating system is better to prefer windows XP or LINUX because are light and reliable. You can even boot from a sick USB whatever operating system you want. The result is really a beauty. Especially if you need a dedicated PC for digital operation that will perform perfectly without claiming a lot of space on your desk. Have in mind that it also perfect for portable operations and its cost just 200$.

Here is the toy finished, which I can not hide, I am proud of. You look its back next to my microphone for realizing size. Admire the connectivity plurality.

Illuminating meters

It is very common and it happens in every shack sooner or later: a meter gets dark unexpectedly. It is very annoying when it strikes. The good old ones lamps have a period of life. Unfortunately they can not work for ever. Usually their life is quite sorter than the equipment that the meter is embedded. No big deal you can say. Just change the bulb. It is obvious. We all do this from time to time. My friend Tasos (SV8YM) had an other idea instead: To use a bright LED in the place of a bulb. LEDs can give a cold light for many years without any sign of fatigue. But there is a small problem. Their light is focused because of the lens they have. You have to sand the led to eliminate this effect. You must destroy completely the lens and leave the LED with a rough surface in order to defuse more light. You must also add a resistor of 470 Ohm in order to reduce the voltage from 13.8V to what the LED usually  needs that is quite lower. The result is perfect and you have not to worry any more about it. Take a look. The upper meter is illuminated by a bulb and the lower by the LED!