In this episode, Martin M1MRB is joined by Leslie Butterfield G0CIB, Edmund Spicer M0MNG, and Bill Barnes N3JIX to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief, and this episode’s feature covers interviews from Ham Radio 2018 with RSGB, Elecraft, BHI, SDR Play and QRP Labs.

• Proposed $2.8 million Manufacturer Fine

• The Great FT8 Debate

• Could a New Entry Level Licence Boost VHF/UHF Activity?

• Easier Access to UK 70.5 MHz Experimental Band

• Free book SDR for Engineers

• Radio Ham Astronaut Named as Minister for Science

• Try Thailand's Amateur / Ham Radio Exams

• Z6 Prefix is Illegal

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

Amateur Radio Weekly is curated by Cale Mooth K4HCK. Sign up free to receive ham radio's most relevant news, projects, technology and events by e-mail each week at http://www.hamweekly.com.

YLD - 335kHz courtesy: http://www.ve3gop.com/

This coming weekend will see another monthly CLE challenge. This time the hunting grounds will be 335.0 - 349.9 kHz.

 





For those unfamiliar with this monthly activity, a 'CLE' is a 'Co-ordinated Listening Event', as NDB DXers around the world focus their listening time on one small slice of the NDB spectrum.

A nice challenge in this one is to hear YLD - 335, located in Chapleau, Ontario.

'YLD' runs just 100W into a 100' vertical but is well-heard throughout North America and many parts of Europe under the right conditions. Listen for its upper-sideband CW identifier (with your receiver in the CW mode) on 335.415 kHz.

Summer lightning storms may provide additional listening challenges but today's lightning map of North America looks surprisingly quiet ... maybe we will get lucky. It can't however, be any worse than last month's CLE, where widespread lightning was reported by almost every participant.!

courtesy: http://thunderstorm.vaisala.com/explorer.html

If you are interested in building a system for the new (U.S.) 630m band, the CLE will give you the chance to test out your MF receiving capabilities and compare against what others in your area might be hearing.

When tuning for NDBs, put your receiver in the CW mode and listen for the NDB's CW identifier, repeated every few seconds. Listen for U.S. NDB identifiers approximately 1 kHz higher or lower than the published transmitted frequency since these beacons are modulated with a 1020 Hz tone approximately.

For example, 'AA' near Fargo, ND, transmits on 365 kHz and its upper sideband CW identifier is tuned at 366.025 kHz while its lower sideband CW ident can be tuned at 363.946 kHz. Its USB tone is actually 1025 Hz while its LSB tone is 1054 Hz.

Often, one sideband will be much stronger than the other so if you don't hear the first one, try listening on the other sideband.

Canadian NDBs normally have an USB tone only, usually very close to 400 Hz. They also have a long dash (keydown) following the CW identifier.

All NDBs heard in North America will be listed in the RNA database (updated daily) while those heard in Europe may be found in the REU database. Beacons heard outside of these regions will be found in the RWW database.

From CLE organizer Brian Keyte, G3SIA, comes the details:


Hello all

Here are the full details for this weekend's co-ordinated listening event.
It is open to everyone including CLE new-comers:

Days: Friday 22 June - Monday 25 June
Times: Start and end at midday, your LOCAL time
Range: 335.0 - 349.9 kHz

Wherever you are, please join us and log the NDBs that you can positively
identify that are listed in this busy frequency range (it includes 335.0 kHz
but not 350 kHz) plus any UNIDs that you come across there.

Send your CLE log to the List, preferably as a plain text email
(not in an attachment) with "CLE233 - FINAL Logs" at the start of its
subject line.

Please show on EVERY LINE of your log:
# The date ( e.g. 2018-06-22 or just the day no. 22 ) and UTC
(the day changes at 00:00 UTC).
# kHz (the beacon's nominal published frequency, if you know it)
# The Call Ident.

Show those main items FIRST on each line, before other optional details
such as Location, Distance, Offsets, Cycle time, etc.
If you send any incomplete logs to the List during the event, please also
send your 'FINAL', complete one.
Please always make your log interesting to everyone by showing your
own location and brief details of the receiver and aerial(s), etc., that
you were using.

We will send the usual 'Any More Logs?' email at about 17:00 UTC on
Tuesday so that you can check that your log has been found OK.
Do make sure that your log has arrived on the List at the very latest
by 08:00 UTC on Wednesday 27th June.
We hope to complete making the combined results on that day.

You can check on all CLE-related information from the CLE Page
http://www.ndblist.info/cle.htm
It includes a link to seeklists for the Event from the Rxx Database.

Good listening
Brian
----------------------------------------------------------
From: Brian Keyte G3SIA ndbcle'at'gmail.com
Location: Surrey, SE England (CLE coordinator)
----------------------------------------------------------

(REMINDER: You could use any one remote receiver for your loggings,
stating the location and owner - with their permission if required.
A remote listener may NOT also use another receiver, whether local
or remote, to obtain further loggings for the same CLE). 
-------------------------------------------------------------------


Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

So I'm driving to work this morning; and when you commute to work every day, you get a real good chance to look at the behinds of cars that are in front of you.  As I come to a red light and come to a stop, I notice the car in front of me has one of those vinyl decals on his rear window.  It looked like this - but you have to picture in your mind's eye that this was all surrounded by the entire darkness (blackness) of his tinted rear window.




Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Here is this week’s space weather and geophysical report, issued 2018 Jun 18 0349 UTC.

Highlights of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 11 – 17 June 2018

Solar activity was very low with only low level B-class flare activity observed from Region 2713 (N06, L=285, class/area Bxo/060 on 13 Jun). No Earth-directed CMEs were observed in satellite imagery.

No proton events were observed at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit reached high levels on 11-13 Jun and decreased to moderate levels on 14-17 Jun. The largest flux of the period was 1,840 pfu observed at 11/1945 UTC.

Geomagnetic field activity was at quiet levels under a nominal solar wind regime. Solar wind speed ranged from approximately 280 km/s to 340 km/s through the majority of the period with total field at or below 6 nT. At approximately 17/1250 UTC, a solar sector boundary crossing was observed from a negative to a positive orientation. A corresponding increase in total field to around 14 nT was observed at 17/2355 UTC along with an increase in solar wind speed to near 415 km/s. This indicated the arrival of a CIR preceding a positive polarity coronal hole high speed stream (CH HSS).

Forecast of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 18 June – 14 July 2018

Solar activity is expected to be at very low levels with a slight chance for C-class flares from 18 Jun-01 Jul with the return of old Region 2712 (N15, L=176). Very low levels are expected for the rest of the forecast period.

No proton events are expected at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit is expected to be at high levels on 28 Jun-10 Jul due to CH HSS influence.

Geomagnetic field activity is expected to be at unsettled to active levels on 18-19, 24-25, and 27-30 Jun with G1 (Minor) storm levels expected on 18 Jun and 28-29 Jun due to recurrent CH HSS activity.

Don’t forget to visit our live space weather and radio propagation web site, at: http://SunSpotWatch.com/

Live Aurora mapping is at http://aurora.sunspotwatch.com/

If you are on Twitter, please follow these two users: 1. https://Twitter.com/NW7US 2. https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

Check out the stunning view of our Sun in action, as seen during the last five years with the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXN-MdoGM9g

= = = = =

BOOK SALE: Space Weather and Sun Science – get these from Amazon, and help us stay online!

NOTICE: When you buy this (or any item after starting with this link), you are helping us keep our SunSpotWatch.com and other resources “on the air” (up and running!). In other words, you are helping the entire community. So, check out this book:

Here is the link to Amazon: http://g.nw7us.us/fbssw-aSWSC

We’re on Facebook: http://NW7US.us/swhfr

Be sure to subscribe to our space weather and propagation email group, on Groups.io

https://groups.io/g/propagation-and-space-weather

Spread the word!

= = = =

BOOK SALE: Space Weather and Sun Science – get these books from Amazon, and help this service stay online!

NOTICE: When you buy this (or any item after starting with this link), you are helping keep SunSpotWatch.com and other resources “on the air” (up and running!). In other words, you are helping the entire community. So, check out these books:

Here is the link to Amazon: http://g.nw7us.us/fbssw-aSWSC

= = = =

If you are on Twitter, please follow these two users:

1) https://Twitter.com/NW7US

2) https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

= = = =

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

I am working on launching a YouTube channel overhaul, that includes series of videos about space weather, radio signal propagation, and more.

Additionally, I am working on improving the educational efforts via the email, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, and other activities.

You can help!

Please consider becoming a Patron of these space weather and radio communications services, beginning with the YouTube channel:

https://www.patreon.com/NW7US

The YouTube channel:
https://YouTube.com/NW7US

..

Visit, subscribe: NW7US Radio Communications and Propagation YouTube Channel

In this special episode, Colin M6BOY and Chris M0TCH talk to a collection of people at Ham Radio 2018 about the state of Youth Amateur Radio and ways to promote new entrees to the hobby.

We would like to thank our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

Over the past few years, the Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) has been utilized by thousands of amateurs to gauge the performance of their antenna systems, to check propagation or to compare their station's antenna performance against another nearby amateur's system.



For those not familiar with the RBN, it is the opposite of a network of 'on-air beacons' and consists of a network of 'on-air receivers', usually SDRs, that automatically skim a wide range of frequencies within the CW bands and report back what they hear, along with a definitive signal strength report ... all posted immediately back to a central website where you can read the data from the various stations that have heard your signal. Calling 'CQ' or sending a few 'TEST de' signals, followed by your call sign, will trigger the desired network response.

I have recently been testing a new 40m antenna, an inverted-V dipole at 80', against my long-used half-sloper, but have been using a different online receiver network to make my real-time comparisons ... the KiwiSDR receivers, mentioned in previous blogs. I'll have more to report about the new antenna and its performance in an upcoming blog, once everything is finished and the antenna is fully optimized.


When it comes to real-time 'A-B' antenna comparisons, I found the KiwiSDR network much more interesting and informative than using the RBN. If hard data is what you want, then the RBN will provide it, but not in the same real-time, 'A-B' style that the Kiwis can offer. Once set up so that the two antennas may be fast switched, 'A-B' style, you can actually hear the difference immediately, with your own ears, as if sitting at the online receiver hundreds or even thousands of miles away. By sending a continuous series of dashes while switching between antennas, the comparison can be strikingly obvious, as the propagation variances experienced in an RBN comparison are no longer a factor. One might argue that using longer RBN comparisons, averaging the signal strength over a period of minutes, may yield a truer picture of antenna performance ... but this method lets you hear the second-by-second differences as they happen.
 
My antenna testing is not yet complete, as much of the initial time was spent trying to determine which online receivers were suitably quiet enough to utilize. Many of them were rejected for being far too noisy to be useful while many others were found to be ideally quiet. I am slowly working my way through the list!

So far, I have been able to listen to my transmitted signal and compare the two 40m antennas on numerous receivers from coast to coast, both near and far, as well as into the Caribbean and South America. I have found the best power to use is between 1 and 5 watts, as making the signal intentionally weak at the receiver end makes subtle differences of just a few db easier to detect.

The gathering comparisons are fascinating as often the signal strengths between my two antennas are very different. Often the sloper and the inverted-V are neck and neck, while in different directions or at different distances, one or the other is a clear winner. On many far-off receivers, I was easily able to detect my signal with all power controls set to '0' with no indication of any output showing on my meters, a rather surprising observation and another reminder of how RF just loves to radiate ... even at very low levels!

If you want to try this yourself and can quickly switch antennas 'A-B' style, here are the direct links to a few of the receivers that I have found to work very well so far ... with low noise levels and no man-made crud, while listening on 40m.

KA7U SDR - Idaho

K1RA/KW4VA - Virginia

W0AY - Montana

K2SDR - New Jersey

G8JNJ - England

K2ZN - New York

WA2ZKD - New York 

KD4HSO - Kansas

VE6JY - Alberta

W3SWL - Pennsylvania

N6GN - Colorado

N8DTT/6 - California

VE6JW - Alberta 

Kingwood - Texas

TWR - Bonaire

EA8DGL - Canary Islands

Wellbrook ALA1530LNP - Southern Finland

NO2CW - Florida

Pardinho - Brazil

I will continue to update this list as more receivers are tested ... now back to some outdoor antenna tweeking!



Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].