Archive - July 2015

9M2/R6AF/P AS-073

K1024 img023

QSL Card arrived today confirming IOTA AS-073.

Redang Island was activated back in April 2015 by Victor as 9M2/R6AF/P and paper card arrived today after only a few weeks.

Thanks for the speedy dispatch Victor!

 

 

 

 

 

 

C6ATS & 9H5G

C6ATS 2015

Both these cards arrived from the Printer, Gennady UX5UO this week.

All incoming Direct qsl Card requests will hit the mail tomorrow and Bureau cards will be in my next bureau delivery. They will be at all the IARU Bureau before the end of August 2015.

Thanks.

9H5G

 

IOTA Contest 2015

iota xxx

This year’s IOTA Contest took place from 12:00 UTC Saturday 25th July to 12:00 UTC Sunday 26th July 2015.

This year gave me the opportunity to work at least 16 new IOTA groups – several hundred are normally active. A full list of the schedules operations is given on NG3K’s web page at www.ng3k.com/Misc/iota2015.html

Conditions were however abysmal at best and propagation certainly from my QTH was very poor and only hearing a handful of the stations I needed with little DX breaking through. I did manage to work VY0BRR on NA-156 despite signal strength of S1….and with QSB, thanks Mike!

Thanks to all that took spent time, money and effort in getting to these islands for our pleasure, it was appreciated and I hope despite the conditions that you enjoyed the event.

 

TI9/RA3USU – NA-012

TI9

Last few days now to catch Dima RA3USU from the rare Cocos islands as TI9/RA3USU (IOTA NA-012)

Dima has been there with Jorge TI2HMJ for the last week or so. Both are helping island staff update/renew vital communications/equipment so activity has depended on any spare time they have had.

 He has been qrv quite a lot on 30M CW and also on SSB early morning and later in the evenings. Qsl is via UA3DX.

 

 

Brusneva Island, AS-082

rrc dx

The Russian Robinson Clubs’ members are on the way to the RARE ones again !

Brusneva Island (IOTA AS-082) in the Saha Yakutia region of Arctic Russia (RRA: RR-08-11, WLOTA: LH-0281 (NEW ONE) and should be on the island any hour now.

It has only previously been claimed by: 9,7% of IOTA participants, last activation took place over 20 years ago.

From the RRC Website ; ”Reserve these days for your best friend – TX! Rotate your antennas to PQ 41NP! Warm up your linears (duplicate your tubes!) Donate your “winter saved PayPal reserves” ;)”.

Good luck to the RRC, hope to hear them during IOTA 2015 this weekend!

 

Pluto – Close up images

Mountains

Unlike the icy moons of giant planets, Pluto cannot be heated by gravitational interactions with a much larger planetary body. Some other process must be generating the mountainous landscape.

The mountains are probably composed of Pluto’s water-ice “bedrock.” Although methane and nitrogen ice covers much of the surface of Pluto, these materials are not strong enough to build the mountains. Instead, a stiffer material, most likely water-ice, created the peaks.

The close-up image was taken about 1.5 hours before New Horizons closest approach to Pluto, when the craft was 47,800 miles (770,000 kilometers) from the surface of the planet. The image easily resolves structures smaller than a mile across.

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, designed, built, and operates the New Horizons spacecraft, and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The Southwest Research Institute, based in San Antonio, leads the science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Image Credit:
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

 

3B9FR LOTW….uploads started

3B9FR

Due to many repeated requests, I have started to confirm contacts with 3B9FR on LOTW (Logbook of the World) for the first time.

Robert 3B9FR still uses paper logs and I have to input this data into the PC log when he sends them. He can work between 50 and 500 qso’s a day so this task takes a lot of time. I currently have many paper logs and in the PC I have around 70,000 qso’s. My intention is to upload the 70,000 to LOTW and this will pacify many of you.

All future logs will be uploaded as a matter of course and ‘historic’ qso’s (pre 2014) as and when Direct Qsl Cards are requested. This can be done by Direct Post mail or using OQRS. OQRS Bureau requests can be made but I must stress of course that OQRS Direct & Post Mail Direct requests will have to take precidence. These will be uploaded to LOTW as soon as the request is processed. Request your 3B9FR QSL Card via OQRS Direct by clicking here.

Please be patient…..thank you.

 

Mountain on Asteroid Ceres

new mountain

What created this large mountain on asteroid Ceres?

No one is yet sure. As if in anticipation of today being Asteroid Day on Earth, the robotic spacecraft Dawn in orbit around Ceres took the best yet image of an unusually tall mountain on the Asteroid Belt’s largest asteroid. Visible at the top of the image, the exceptional mountain rises about five kilometers up from an area that otherwise appears pretty level.

The image was taken about two weeks ago from about 4,400 kilometers away