Hi all,
I sincerely apologise for the downtime today. This was due to a fault on my line affecting the broadband. Hopefully there will be no more interruptions now.

Many thanks

Ian

What is happening to our hobby?  Every dxpedition we get now seems to be complained about, the operators called every name there is and frequencies abused by so called amateurs!  I can see a time shortly where people will stop doing dxpeditions.  They often stump up thousands of pounds of their own money as well as using up valuable holidays to activate rare and exotic places so we can claim them for IOTA or DXCC and all amateurs seem to do is complain!

Please think about the guys out there.  They are doing their best, often in difficult circumstances.  Give them some courtesy and respect please.

73 Ian

And our friends at Ubertechs, Mac and PC Computer Repairs in Morecambe, Lancaster and the surrounding area

Linda and Ian wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful New Year.  This last year has been very enjoyable for us radio wise and I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.  Hopefully 2009 will be a great year and see a few more sunspots!

73 Ian

Jura

Members of Sands Contest Group and Workington Amateur Radio Society will be joining together for a DXPedition to the Isle of Jura between September 22nd and 29th 2008. Several awards list this island and all the information is below.

We will be operational on all bands from 160m to 10m and hope to have 6m and 2m available as well, time and operators permitting. The callsign used will be MS0SCG

We will be operational from Jura House which is on the southern tip of the island. More information regarding the island can be found on our website http://www.m0scg.org.uk or on our blog at http://m0scg.blogspot.com and of course at qrz.com

Further to the problem of Homeplug devices, a video has been made showing and explaining the problem. Please take a look and maybe show it at your club meetings. I, personally, am sick of large corporations riding rough shod over the law in the name of connectivity. Remember, these devices have nothing to do with connection to the internet, they simply allow you to connect your computers together in the same way that existing cable and wireless devices do, neither of which cause this problem.
You can find the video at..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAzUtN29h1A

Ian

Hi all,

Further to my post below on Homeplug devices a petition has been set up to further publicize the problems inherent with these devices.  At a time where some manufacturers are lobbying to allow a further 20dB on their transmissions, it is *absolutely vital* that we continue to keep the pressure on.  Please take the time to sign the petition below.  I cannot stress enough what a threat this is to our hobby at hf.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SaveShortwave/

73 Ian

Hi all,

If you have not heard about it already, there is a serious threat to amateur radio in the UK and worldwide at HF.  This is being caused in the UK by the proliferation of HomePlug devices.  These come in many flavours but by far the biggest supplier in the UK is BT.  BT bundles 2 of these devices in with every BT Vision order.

Basically a HomePlug device allows you to send data over your mains wiring.  It turns the mains into a large aerial capable of transmitting over 200 feet!  The interference it generates varies but on the whole it is between 3 and 30MHz.  Getting the idea yet?  The latest devices have some notch filtering for the amateur bands but still make 5MHz virtually unusable and also interfere with the CB bands and many stations that Short Wave Listeners enjoy.

A group has been set up to try and combat this threat.  I urge you to join.  You can find lots of information there including how to see if you are within range of one of these devices.

UKQRM can be joined at

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/UKQRM/

and if you want to hear the noise it generates, follow this link..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S__UBDaL-aE

This is a serious threat to our HF bands folks, we need your support.

73 Ian

Hi all,

As promised, here we are on a new server.  Just about everything is working now, only minor niggles to sort out.  One thing I have added is a guest book.  It would be great to get some of you to pop a message in there, if only to see how many of you use the site on a regular basis.

I have also added a statistics page which you can get to from the ‘Cluster Links’ section at the top of the site.  This will present you with a series of graphs.  If you were interested in WWV for example, you can click on that graph and get more information and a deeper idea of what is happening.  I hope you find it useful.

I have also added a link to the documentation wiki for the cluster software in use here, DXSpider.  You can find the user manual on there and a complete command reference.  This is a work in progress but is complete as such and hopefully you will find it useful.

73 Ian

Hi alll,

The cluster is on the new server and I am gradually getting everything done.  There may be some small interruptions of service but hopefully not too many.  Some things are not yet working but hopefully I will get them sorted soon.  The Java cluster client is not working at the moment but I will sort it as quickly as possible.

Ian