In less than nine weeks the Olympic Flame arrives and starts its 70-day journey around the UK.

We can now reveal where it’s going, when and who will be carrying it.

The Olympic Flame will come within 10 miles of 95% of people in the UK, Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey. It will enable local communities to shine a light on the best their area has to offer including celebrations of local culture, breathtaking scenes and dynamic urban areas.

Second new IOTA in the same day, that’s rare for me nowadays thats for sure!

Thanks to the guys on Kai Island IOTA OC-221 in Moluccas, Indonesia. YB8Y was another one  logged with difficulty but after 90 minutes of frustration he was logged on 15M SSB. That’s the pressure off now number #525 is in the log so may find him again on another slot in the coming days.

They have several stations on air at the same time so good planning and lets hope the DX continues in the run up to WPX this weekend!

Early morning DX? Well its not been too good for me of late. Either thro lack of enthusiasm, Qsl work or Band conditions I certainly haven’t logged too much.

This morning I had a trawl and after a quick heads up from Tim M0URX I switched on to hear A35YZ on 17M SSB. He was very strong in fact, he was so strong we didnt think it was genuine. Well it was and with a split of 15 wide I bagged him second call with 200w barefoot (TS480HX), amazing. Thats only the second slot for him but happy for the new band.

Several others eluded me this morning but with a few JA on 15M RTTY it was better than nowt. The best of the bunch was around 1000UTC with AT2DW on Bet Shankhodhar Island aka Bet Dwarka, Gujarat, India. IOTA AS-175 was a new one for me and despite his weak signal on 12m RTTY, I chose my split and worked him after about 10 minutes calling (100w FT1K).

Thanks for the new one M0OXO IOTA #524 😉

Last weekend, 17th March 2012, saw the annual CDXC (Chiltern DX Club) dinner. This is where members of the CDXC get together at Wyboston Lakes hotel in the Cambridgeshire countryside for a few beers, a meal and a good exchange of ‘war stories’ lol. This years social event went down very well and the boys from SHDXCG had a good attendance..

Rob (MW0RLJ), and Ant (MW0JZE) are travelled up from West Wales, I drove down from from Yorkshire, Tim (M0URX) and Chris (G1VDP) attended from the Midlands, and Tony (G4LDL) along with his wife Glenys drove from their home in Swindon. Tony has to be there of course as he is the current secretary of the CDXC and has organised this prestigious event.

It was a great catch up and despite speaking daily, it’s always good to get together and have a good old rag chew with many of the faces that you don’t really see too often and may only speak to Island to Island hi…….and didn’t our blue shirts cause a stir!

Next event for us is Debbie and my Silver Wedding in April, next stop Pembrokeshire chez MW0RLJ!

As expected, the flank of a CME hit Earth’s magnetic field yesterday on March 15th at around 1300 UTC.

The impact sparked a moderate (Kp=6) geomagnetic storm with perfect timing for sky watchers in New Zealand.
“The CME arrived at 2 o’clock in the morning here in Queenstown,” says photographer Minoru Yoneto. In the dark, he drove to his favorite spot on a mountain overlooking the city and recorded the storm:

The storm is subsiding now. Nevertheless, high-latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras as the wake of the CME continues to buffet Earth’s magnetic field.

It was a nice surprise to find the higher bands open again this weekend which was good for several contests on air not least BERU.

Beru is the only event where British Commonwealth Countries have to work each other.
This however does not deter all Europe calling and despite the sometimes frantic ”Only UK” comments by the operators, they never cease their calling. Maybe no-one checks the Contest Rules anymore 😉

Anyway none the less I had a couple of hours tuning around (mainly 10 metres) hoping for several new Band Slots and I wasn’t disappointed!

Nigel (G3TXF) as ZD7XF (continuing his highly successful DXped. in ZD7) was the first in the log at 1308UTC and here are are few others I worked (new slots in blue) and on which Band;

ZD7XF (10m), ZS1BB (10m), 9J2BO (10m), 9H1XT (10m), ZS6KR (10m), VO1HP (10m), C56XA (10m), VP9/G3PJT (10m), ZF2LC (10m), J88DR (10m), J39BZ (10m), 5H3EE (10m), ZS1EL (10m), VO1TA (10m), 6Y0A (10m), ZB2EO (15m), ZF1UM (15m), 6Y0A (15m), VK3TDX (15m).

All contacts running barefoot (200w TS480HX) into 6 Band wire hexbeam by MW0JZE. Russian DX Contest next weekend and WPX following the week after.

Active sunspot AR1429 continues to grow. It is now more than seven times wider than Earth, which makes it an easy target for backyard solar telescopes. In fact, yesterday, David Tremblay of Alto, New Mexico, saw it using no telescope at all. All he needed was a dust storm:

“The dust blowing from Tularosa Basin was so dense, we could observe the sun with the naked eye–and there was sunspot AR1429. Wow!” says Tremblay.

The behemoth spot has unleashed four strong flares since it emerged on the 2nd March, including the X5-class eruption on the 7th  March. More could be in the offing. The active region has a “beta-gamma-delta” class magnetic field that harbors energy for additional X-class eruptions.

If there are space invaders out there, it won’t be long before they can no longer stage a sneak attack, thanks to a project to build the most sensitive radio telescope ever — one that’s the size of a continent.

Known as The Square Kilometer Array (SKA), it will explore the universe, identify any potential alien threats to our planet and hopefully answer some fundamental questions from astronomers. Its thousands of receptors, spaced roughly one kilometer apart, will be linked across an entire continent.

They’ll be arranged in five spiral arms like a galaxy, 3,000 50-foot-wide dishes that extend out from a central core at least 1,860 miles (3,000 kilometers).