Chinese Olympic Special Event Stations Get Ready

Special Event stations for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games will begin operating on Sunday, May 18 through September 17.

Five special calls, representing the five rings of the Olympic flag, will be on the air: BT1OB, BT1OJ, BT1OH, BT1OY and BT1ON. The last letter of the call sign corresponds to the color of each of the rings of the Olympic flag -- Beibei (Blue), Jingjing (Black), Huanhuan (Red), Yingying (Yellow) and Nini (Green).

Zheng Feng, BA4EG, will be the QSL manager for all stations. QSLs can be sent either direct or via the bureau and will begin to be answered in October.

Chinese Hams start before The Games

May Day, May Day, May Day........

Mystery, intrigue as well as misinformation surrounds the origin and use of maritime distress calls.

The general populace believes that "SOS" signifies "Save Our Ship." Casual students of radio history are aware that "CQD" preceded the use of "SOS." Why were these signals adopted? When were they used? Why did one replace the other? What is one likely to find by digging a little deeper?

The practical use of wireless telegraphy was made possible by Guglielmo Marconi in the closing years of the 19th century. Until then, ships at sea out of visual range were very much isolated from shore and other ships. A ship could vanish from the high seas, and no one would know until that vessel failed to make a port connection.

Marconi, seeing that wireless would not compete with wire telegraphy for land based communication, concentrated his efforts on ship to shore communications. Ships equipped with wireless were no longer isolated.

The first use of wireless in communicating the need for assistance came in March of 1899. The East Goodwin Lightship, marking the southeastern English coast, was rammed in a fog in the early morning hours by the SS R. F. Matthews. A distress call was transmitted to a shore station at South Foreland and help was dispatched.

CQ...SOS...CQD. CQ used by Hams

Welsh Amateur In Space?

Ken Eaton GW1FKY had always dreamed of one day flying in space, now, thanks to the Technical University of Delft, GW1FKY is orbiting the earth.

When the team building the Delfi-C3 satellite, attended the AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium they made a very generous offer to help boost AMSAT-UK’s satellite building fund.

They decided to allow one Amateur's callsign to fly in space onboard their satellite. This chance to have your call sign fly on the satellite was auctioned at the Annual AMSAT-UK Dinner and there was fierce bidding to win this privilege.

Ken Eaton GW1FKY was the winner with a bid that will greatly boost the satellite building fund and his call sign was put into Delfi-C3 and has now been launched into Earth orbit.

Amateur Radio 'Around' The World

Hams Of All Ages Are Licenced

ANOTHER dozen people have gained examination qualifications as a result of the latest course run by the Scarborough Amateur Radio Training Group.

They ranged in age from school-age to the retired and the exam was for the UK intermediate transmitting licence. It was taken at Crossgates Community Centre, which is where the training group also holds its periodic training courses for the three grades of UK licence exam now on offer.

The training group – which is affiliated to Scarborough Amateur Radio Society – is to break new ground with its next course.Morse code has now largely disappeared from the airwaves, but amateur radio remains a last bastion of it – some hams still finding it useful, especially when communication conditions are poor. Morse can still get through when static defeats the human voice.

Scarborough Hams On The Air

New RSGB Qsl Bureau Sub-Manager

As from October 2007 there is a new Qsl Sub-Manager for the group of call-signs M1EAA - M1EZZ. That Sub-Manager is myself. The following message has been sent out to as many in that Group as possible:

"My name is Chris, G7NRO. I've been licensed since 1992, and former RLO (Regional Liaison Officer) for the RSGB for Cleveland until its demise in 1996.

To make communication easier between us, and the Group, I propose to use a Yahoo! Group system. The address is below. If you don’t have a Yahoo! ID you will be prompted to obtain one. It’s quite straightforward. Would you please sign in with your ‘M1’ call-sign. You will see your call-sign listed there. I know some of you have changed to an ‘M3’, ‘M5’ or ‘M0’ but I still have your ‘M1’ details from Peter,G0VZX. If you wish to keep up the’M1’ call please let me know. If not, I can delete it from the Group list.

Any Radio Ham can use the incoming mail facility at The QSL Bureau. So if you know of anyone in the M1E Group who DX-es or just chats around the UK or mainland Europe who thinks they may have had cards sent to them, ask them to get in touch. I’ll be sending out an automated message, when anyone signs in, with further information.

Finally, although I have been involved with The RSGB before, I have never been a QSL Manager. So if I drop a clanger, get it wrong, apologies now. Let me know, though, and it will be right next time around.

Thanks for reading this. I look forward to hearing from you and getting cards away ASAP.
73, de Chris, G7NRO."

Click this link to join the M1EAA - M1EZZ Group

Ham Radio Trio Arrive At Space Station

Expedition 16 Commander Peggy Whitson, KC5ZTD, Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko, RK3DUP, and spaceflight participant Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, 9W2MUS, have arrived at the
International Space Station.

Their Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft docked to the Earth-facing port of the station’s Zarya module at 10:50 a.m. EDT Friday. The station’s new residents and their Malaysian guest launched at 9:22 a.m. EDT Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Expedition 15 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, RN3FI, and Flight Engineers Oleg Kotov and
Clay Anderson, KD5PLA, welcomed the new crew aboard the station when the hatches were opened at 12:22 p.m.

9W2 Transmits From Space Station

News For Ham Radio Prefix Hunters

By Giorgio Minguzzi IZ4AKS

The call sign 1A3A will be used during the CQWW SSB Contest [ October 27-28, 2007].

This call sign, 1A3A, is a new prefix using for the first time the number "3" from the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

All activity prior and after the contest will use the call sign 1A4A.

There will be both SSB and CW activity on the WARC bands using the 1A4A call during the contest period.

The Sovereign Military Order of Malta

Summits on the Air - In Germany

Summits on the Air (SOTA) is an award scheme for radio amateurs and shortwave listeners that encourages portable operation in mountainous areas.

SOTA has been carefully designed to make participation possible for everyone - this is not just for mountaineers! There are awards for activators (those who ascend to the summits) and chasers (who either operate from home, a local hilltop or are even Activators on other summits). Click here to see what is happening with SOTA in real-time via the SOTAwatch portal.

The Association Reference Manuals contain a list of qualifying summits, together with their locations. Each summit earns the activators and chasers a score which is related to the height of the summit. Certificates are available for various scores, leading to the prestigious "Mountain Goat" and "Shack Sloth" trophies.

An Honour Roll for Activators and Chasers is maintained at the SOTA online database.

An example of an active Summits operator can be seen here in this link. With many thanks to Klaus, DF2GN, for some outstanding shots from various locations.

Summits On The Air in Germany

SEANET Convention 2007 - Lampang

You are invited to exotic Lampang in northern Thailand in November this year for four fun-filled days when the Radio Amateur Society of Thailand (RAST) is hosting the 35th annual Southeast Asia Net (SEANET) Convention.

With activities that include an opportunity to take part in a traditional wedding ceremony on elephant-back - either as the bride or the groom, or as a well-wisher - the organisers are sure that you will have a memorable 'ham-holiday' and will enjoy mingling with over 100 like-minded radio amateurs from Thailand and around the world between November 8 and November 11, 2007.

Lampang is Thailand's fourth-largest city, and is some 200 years older than the better-known northern capital Chiang Mai (an hour away by car) and which dates back to the 11th Century.

Radio Hams meet in Thailand........read on

Italy Gives Radio Hams Access To 70 MHz

It looks as though there will soon be some experimental Amateur Radio activity from Italy on 70 MHz.

From http://www.70mhz.org/

Upon request of Luca Ferrara IK0YYY, the Italian Ministry of Communications, in coordination with the Ministry of Defense, is willing to kindly authorize an amateur radio experimental campaign on the 70-MHz band (4 meters) up toDecember 31, 2007. Activities will however only be possible after the authorization has actually been signed.

Such campaign is being carried out under the technical coordination of Piero Tognolatti I0KPT, Full Professor of the Electromagnetic Fields Group and Director of the Electrical Engineering and Information Theory Department of the University of l’Aquila.

Italian Hams experiment on 70mhz