Great news from Pierre ZS8M – He has established a Ham Radio Shack for the visually impaired in South Africa.

This is what Pierre tells us;

Greetings All,

As I stated on my www.qrz.com/db/zs8m web page, I have established a ham shack for four visually impaired radio hams in Worcester. The equipment was purchased from the donations of the ZS8M qsl cards. The Icom IC-718 also has a voice module to assist them with frequency and mode selection, while the antenna is a military grade broad band HF antenna allowing them to select bands easily.

Photos ; Top Left – Pierre with Andre ZR1ATS, Ray and David, Bottom – Inspecting the Icom 718

More pictures will be posted on qrz.com soon.

**Well done Pierre, you are a credit and held in high esteen by all Radio Hams around the World. This latest story just confirms that. Well done Pierre!!

Down in the Dungeon and with no natural light, what a dream it would be to have this awesome view from my Shack window!

Click the images to have a look at the website of Thor TF4M, a site you will really enjoy with excellent information and images from the high Arctic.

His biography begins;

”I grew up in the countryside and became used to physical work at an early age. I worked in the Whaling Station in Hvalfjordur for 7 summer seasons and during winters I worked at sea as a deckhand on various fishing vessels and trawlers.

I learned Wire and Rope Splicing (Ships Rigging) and worked in this specialist trade for several years. I drove Taxis for a few years and I got my Amateur licence in 1984. I worked for a while at the TFA and TFT Coast Stations – Ship to Shore service as a radio operator and I served as a Field Service Officer with the UN from 1991 to 2003.”

…..click the images below to go directly to Thor’s website….

Well finally got the elusive Pitcairn Island VP6T in the log but with great difficulty!
That brings me to DXCC #308 and IOTA #519.

So, in the last week thats 3 all time new ones logged, VP6T, HK0NA and VK0TH. C21HA Nauru still eludes me but will keep persevering it may be worth it i guess for the last of the all time new ones that are currently Qrv!

Thanks to Nigel G3TXF for pulling me out of the noise in the Pitcairn pile up 😉

These details announced late on Sunday night ;

”I am very sorry to say that due to unforesesable circumstances, DL1LLL is not available for the field trip today, so our operation from PALAOA Observatory has to be postponed. It is definitely not cancelled, and I will announce the new date as soon as possible.

Please accept our apologies. We’re still working on making it happen!”

Good luck next time guys…

HK0NA doing well and being audible on most bands albeit there is a big difference with signals between the South and the North of the UK. Recent Solar Flares and general propagation not helping the smaller stations up here in the North.

Malpelo Island (Spanish: Isla de Malpelo) is an island located 235 miles (378 km) from Colombia’s Pacific coast, and approximately 225 miles (362 km) from Panama’s coast. It has a land area of 0.35 square kilometres (86 acres). It is uninhabited except for a small military post manned by the Colombian Army, which was established in 1986. Visitors need a written permit from the Colombian Ministry of Ecology. The island is part of Cauca Department.

The island consists of a sheer and barren rock with three high peaks, the highest being Cerro de la Mona with a height of 300 metres (980 ft). The island is surrounded by a number of offshore rocks. Off the northeast corner are the Tres Mosqueteros. Off the southwest corner are Salomon, Saul, La Gringa, and Escuba. Malpelo Nature Reserve, a plant and wildlife sanctuary, is defined as a circular area of radius 9.656 kilometres (6.000 miles).

The Radio Society of Great Britain and Ofcom have reached agreement on the optional use of special callsigns for two significant events during 2012.

For the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, all UK amateur stations will have the option of applying for a variation to their licence if they wish, to use a special prefix for a five week period. This will add or substitute the letter “Q” in the place of the Regional identifier in the callsign (MQ0OXO, GQ4RCG etc).

For the period of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, a similar facility will exist for a seven week period, using the letter “O” (MO0OXO, GO4RCG etc)

Furthermore, calls in the series GB2012aaa will be available for Special Event Stations relating to the Olympics and licences will be issued for four “flagship” stations using the prefix 2O12a where “O” is the letter O, and a is a single letter relating to the location of the station.

If you are considering Qsl Cards for thois event for personal, special event or club activities, Qsl Cards for these events are already being made to UX5UO Qsl Print. Details of special costs, batch sizes and style of cards can be found on the UX5UO Website or email me (M0OXO) to discuss.

Flying past Saturn’s moon Dione, Cassini captured this view which includes two smaller moons, Epimetheus and Prometheus, near the planet’s rings.

The image was taken in visible light with Cassini‘s narrow-angle camera during the spacecraft’s flyby of Dione on 12th December, 2011. This encounter was the spacecraft’s closest pass of the moon’s surface, but, because this flyby was intended primarily for other Cassini instruments, it did not yield Cassini’s best images of the moon. 

Dione (698 miles, or 1,123 kilometers across) is closest to Cassini here and is on the left of the image. Potato-shaped Prometheus (53 miles, or 86 kilometers across) appears above the rings near the center top of the image. Epimetheus (70 miles, or 113 kilometers across) is on the right.

This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from less than one degree above the ring plane. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 67,000 miles (108,000 kilometers) from Dione. Image scale is 2,122 feet (647 meters) per pixel on Dione.

Active sunspot 1401 erupted yesterday, 19th January around 16:30 UTC, producing an M3-class solar flare and a full-halo coronal mass ejection (CME). The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory recorded the cloud expanding almost directly toward Earth

Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab say strong geomagnetic storms are possible when the cloud arrives this weekend. Their animated forecast track predicts an impact on 21st Jan. at 22:30 UT (+/- 7 hrs).

The cloud is also heading for Mars, due to hit the Red Planet on Jan. 24th. NASA’s Curiosity rover, en route to Mars now, is equipped to study solar storms and might be able to detect a change in the energetic particle environment when the CME passes by.