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THURSDAY EDITION: Not much happening here, spent the day at the radio club and the Elks yesterday, never got on the air....

Every Ham Shack Needs a Ham Clock

Every ham radio shack needs a clock; ideally one with operator-friendly features like multiple time zones and more. [cburns42] found that most solutions relied too much on an internet connection for his liking, so in true hacker fashion he decided to make his own: the operator-oriented Ham Clock CYD.

The Ham Clock CYD is so named for being based on the Cheap Yellow Display (CYD), an economical ESP32-based color touchscreen LCD which provides most of the core functionality. The only extra hardware is a BME280 temperature and humidity sensor, and a battery-backed DS3231 RTC module, ensuring that accurate time is kept even when the device is otherwise powered off.

It displays a load of useful operator-oriented data on the touchscreen LCD, and even has a web-based configuration page for ease of use. While the Ham Clock is a standalone device that does not depend on internet access in order to function, it does have the ability to make the most of it if available. When it has internet access over the built-in WiFi, the display incorporates specialized amateur radio data including N0NBH solar forecasts and calculated VHF/HF band conditions alongside standard meteorological data.

The CYD, sensor, and RTC are very affordable pieces of hardware which makes this clock an extremely economical build. Check out the GitHub repository for everything you’ll need to make your own, and maybe even put your own spin on it with a custom enclosure. On the other hand, if you prefer your radio-themed clocks more on the minimalist side, this Morse code clock might be right up your alley.

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WEDNESDAY EDITION: 22 and sunny to start the day, it's coffee and donuts at the club from 10am until noon followed by a lunch at the Elks on the ocean.....“Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.”...

Is the US behind Cold War-style coded radio messages being sent to Iran?

Environment and Climate Change mothballs WeatherRadio service (Alberta)

Canada’s WeatherRadio service has gone silent.

On Monday, March 16, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) shut down its bilingual radio weather network, which broadcast local weather information and warnings on about 225 FM transmitters nationwide 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As part of the same move, ECCC also shuttered its Hello Weather phone service.

The move is estimated to save the government department $4 million annually.

The network of transmitters, 20 of which are in Alberta, with the nearest to the Town and Country This Week’s readership area in Whitecourt (162.550 MHz) was created in the 1970s to communicate weather information, especially weather alerts, to residents.

Environment and Climate Change Canada estimated the automated broadcast reached roughly 90 per cent of Canadians.

Read more – Town and Country Today: https://bit.ly/4dsUvGr

 

TUESDAY EDITION: Today my cousins from Southie will get loaded, like they do most every day to celebrate St. Pat's Day. Green beer, boiled dinner, singing and crying between throwing up. I don't miss those days.....Great new for the average ham....WTF! WWBOTA is Worldwide Bunkers on The Air. It is an amateur radio activity open to radio amateurs and shortwave listeners worldwide.

WWBOTA is an exciting mix of amateur radio and history enabling radio amateurs to ‘activate’ with portable and mobile operations from historic bunker locations and for hunters and chasers to have QSOs with those activating stations (and should they wish to, to ‘collect’ the special ‘bunker reference’ numbers). Free awards for activating and hunting bunkers are available but it’s also okay if you’re not interested in awards but just want to get involved by having a QSO or shortwave listening. Whatever your approach – have fun!

The Curse Of The Everything Device

In theory having a single device that combines the features of multiple dedicated devices is a great idea, saving a lot of space, time and money. However, in reality it mostly means that these features now conflict with each other, force us to deal with more complex devices that don’t last nearly as long, and become veritable vampires for your precious attention.

Whereas in the olden days a phone was just used for phone calls, now it’s also a video and photo camera, multimedia computer, pager, and more, but at any point an incoming phone call can interrupt what you are doing. There’s also always the temptation of doom scrolling on one of the infinite ‘social media’ apps. Even appliances like televisions and refrigerators are like that now, adding ‘smarts’ that also vie for your attention, whether it’s with advertisements, notifications, or worse.

Meanwhile trying to simply do some writing work on your PC is a battle against easy distractions, leading people to flee to the digital equivalent of typewriters out of sheer desperation. Similarly, we increasingly see ‘dumb’ phones, and other single-task devices making a comeback, both as commercial options and as DIY projects by the community.

Bored Is Good

In the before times, when the iPhones hadn’t yet flooded the planet and Facebooks weren’t even a twinkle yet in some bloke’s eye, your attention wasn’t nearly as much preyed upon as it is today. Spending time on the World Wide Web wasn’t that prevalent, people weren’t yet walking around with displays practically glued to their faces, and if you wanted to do any task it took real effort.

Although I learned to touch-type on an electric typewriter and briefly owned a Brother typewriter, I was already using PCs and word processor software most of the time. Of course, this was initially on MS-DOS with WordPerfect 5.1, running first on the family 286 PC and later the IBM PS/2 386SX system that my father’s work had sold off for a pittance. Back in the single-tasking MS-DOS days it meant that once you were running WordPerfect, or games like Stunts 3D or Doom, that was all you did.

Later I’d run Microsoft Office on Windows, but with only dial-up internet available the temptation from distractions were minimal. Not until the arrival of always-online broadband internet would you have to suffer through notifications from IRC, MSN, ICQ and whatever else you had running in the background, but even then you’d not be on the PC all the time.

When it came to entertainment, such as watching TV, playing a movie or music, it would be just that one thing with zero interruptions on the HiFi set, a Walkman or TV. Along with only landline phones that you were usually not within hearing distance of, it was easy to be ‘bored’ and do some quiet reading, drawing or prod at some small wildlife in a puddle outdoors. Even game consoles were still fully offline, so couch-based gaming – optionally with split-screen – was as multiplayer as things got.

Although even during the 1990s many people had email, you weren’t expected to check your mailbox more than once a week, perhaps a few times a day for serious nerds.

The Online Cacophony

Much of the curse of the ‘everything device’ can be reduced to the fact that everything has to be connected to some remote service or a dozen. Just imagine not having internet on your smartphone, smart TV or PC, and how it almost instantly plummets you into chronic anxiety as only just about everything is connected to some online service, or depends on data stored on remote servers.

Getting away from all this is hard, as signing up for a dozen social media services is part of social pressure, and each of these services make sure to incessantly pull you in with updates and notifications. Then there are advertisements that have become the main financing model for websites and even online services in the 21st century, which ever more intrusively barge into whatever it is that you’re trying to do.

Here the term ‘chronically online‘ along with similar terms has previously been pitched and would seem to be rather apt. Ever more people have to check their smartphone for new notifications and updates, and are constantly occupied with what is happening on social media, rather than in the real world.

Worse, you’re no longer just taking snapshots on your photo camera or recording video on a camcorder, but everything goes straight into the Cloud from where you get pushed, harassed, and cajoled into sharing every single bit of content with everyone else, lest someone misses out on your Amazing New Experience.

Out Of Focus

The main problem with all of these chronically online everything devices is that you are never left alone with your thoughts, and thus never get ‘bored’. Everything wants a slice of your attention, with social media platforms being practically engineered to hoover up every last crumb of it, while counting on your inability to control your impulses and relying on your innate fear of missing out (FOMO), courtesy of you being a very social type of monkey.

For example, a 2021 study in Frontiers in Psychology by Christina Koessmeier and Oliver B. Büttner investigated the causes behind the distracting effect from social media in particular. FOMO is a big reason, as we are social monkeys who generally like to be part of the group rather than excluded. Self-regulatory issues are many, such as preferring to pop over to a social media app or site rather than complete an unpleasant or difficult task. It feeds the reward center of your brain, even if you’re not actually accomplishing the task you set out to do.

One could argue here that the demise of the third place alongside the rise of ‘everything devices’ like smartphones has led to a situation where being chronically online is a way to compensate for the lack of real-life connections, albeit in an environment that’s mentally rather toxic due to how social media in particular works. By providing a sense of belonging – whether false or not – these online places become an important part of our identity.

That a lot of unhealthy behavior is associated with such a chronically online existence ought to be self-evident. Meanwhile the push towards ‘everything devices’ like smartphones isn’t due to corporate benevolence, but rather to trap all of us into endless subscription services, accessed via a terminal device explicitly designed to siphon off every last drop of our attention, focus, and money.

Escape The Trap

Rather than hapless insects, caught in the slowly solidifying tree sap that will inevitably doom them, we humans like to brag about our intellect and ability to innovate. Thus, at least some of us are trying to get out of this veritable tar pit of FOMO and social manipulation, even as we try to figure out what exactly went wrong down this path of Future Technology

The question is: how far exactly should we go back in time? This is a question that’s been on the minds of many, with a wide variety of solutions offered. The most extreme is of course the digital detox approach, whereby a person completely removes all smartphones and similar technology from their lives for a set period of time. Although showing positive effects on people’s mental health, this can of course only ever be a temporary intervention.

For many people the allure of switching away from smartphones and to feature phones (‘dumbphones’) is an appealing one. Personally this is a step that I have also taken, switching from a regular Android smartphone to a KaiOS-based TCL Flip 3 feature phone that’s slightly more full-featured than a Motorola Razr V3, but also equally as user-friendly and devoid of most non-phone functionality. Photos you take also are saved to internal memory, with no cloud storage unless you jump through serious hoops.

When you’re on a PC, it is of course much harder to escape the pull of FOMO and easy ‘rewards’ by doomscrolling or watching funny cat videos on YouTube. Here you can either focus on training your self-control, or by using a zero-distraction typing device that removes all temptation.

On the training side of things, the Pomodoro Technique can be done using a bog-standard kitchen timer to set the intervals, any of a number of online timers, special YouTube videos, or by building your own physical timer, with even just recently a few examples already popping up here on Hackaday.

Back To WordPerfect 5.1

It’s hard to argue with simply installing good ol’ WordPerfect 5.1 or equivalent on some DOS flavor in a system of your choice and typing away there. We have recently seen a SvarDOS-based environment that comes preloaded with a range of word processors and kin to get you started. Since you won’t even have networking, you won’t be distracted by anything. This can of course be replicated in a variety of freely available software, with FreeDOS and any word processor available from Archive.org being fair game.

You can also go down the ‘digital typewriter’ route, with some commercial options even being available here, such as the Zerowriter Ink. Alternatively you can go fully minimalistic with an ESP32-based writer deck, or opt for something vaguely more laptop-like. A lot here depends on how much you require in terms of formatting and editing features. Although sometimes you really just need to hammer out lots of words, in which case the portable equivalent of Notepad is fine, you may want to add at least some formatting.

Personally I’m quite the fan of the calming white-on-blue text with full word processing capabilities alongside the deafening noise of the buckle-spring keyboard of an IBM PS/2, but everyone has their own preferences. And maybe that is another benefit of breaking away from the Everything Device — you get to find out what works best for yourself.

MONDAY EDITION: Let's see, anyone interested in my one owner FT-710 with speaker, box, manual for $775....or a Yaesu FT2DR Fusion/FM walkie with quick charge stand for $110? Time to make some room for more stuff I do not really need....Distractions...https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MSe2AbjUdBg....BOD invited a chick over for expresso last night, she looks wired!....Bulldogs do what they have to do....

Increasing Levels of Radio Interference Land U.S. Airlines With $8 Million Bill to Fix Faulty Equipment On Boeing 787s

Increasing levels of radio interference have resulted in U.S. airlines being landed with an $8 million bill to fix faulty equipment on Boeing 787 Dreamliner airplanes after it was discovered that simple radio signals can knock out a faulty transponder on the popular widebody plane used by American, United, and Alaska Airlines.

The issue came to light after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported “multiple instances of loss of transponder for airplanes entering airspace in the presence of CW interference.”

CW interference refers to continuous-wave radio signals like Morse code and military transmitters, which could interfere with the transponder on some Boeing 787s

When Dreamliners fitted with this faulty transponder fly through areas where continuous-wave radio signals are present, there is a risk that the Mode S transponder function doesn’t ‘reply’ to radar interrogations.

Without this electronic ‘reply,’ air traffic controllers might not be able to see where the aircraft is, and the emergency Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), often described by aviation safety experts as the ”last defense against mid-air collisions,” might not generate life-saving alerts properly.

In a worst case scenario, the FAA warned that a mid-air collision could occur.

When the FAA tested the faulty transponder in areas of CW interference, they discovered it didn’t send a reply to at least 90% of ‘interrogations,’ so the agency went about ordering a fix.

To do so, the FAA was required to issue an Airworthiness Directive, although this first required the agency to request feedback from stakeholders and other interested parties.

Boeing had no objection to the draft airworthiness directive, while the Air Line Pilots Association also supported the FAA’s intervention.

Several airlines did, however, raise some concerns. Kenya Airways, for example, asked whether the suggested fix could be delayed until the root cause of the problem could be identified.

Meanwhile, United Airlines and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines raised concerns about the availability of spare parts from the transponder’s manufacturer, Collins Aerospace.

One commentator also suggested that the suggested compliance time to fix the transponder should be shortened over fears that it could be connected to 5G cell phone signals. The FAA rejected that request, explaining that the issue was not connected to 5G signals.

Although the fix applies to any Boeing 787 anywhere in the world that is fitted with the faulty transponder, the FAA only works out the cost that the airworthiness directive might have on U.S.-based carriers.

The total cost estimated by the FAA came to $7.95 million.

The final rule for this airworthiness directive was published this week, and airlines have up to four years to ensure that all of their Boeing 787s are fixed.

Wind Power Is Taking Off In China– All The Way to 2000 m

2000 m above ground level (AGL), winds are stronger and much, much more consistent than they are at surface. Even if the Earth were a perfect sphere, there’d be a sluggish boundry layer at the surface, but since it’s got all these interesting bumps and bits and bobs, it’s not just sluggish but horribly turbulent, too. Getting above that, as much as possible, is why wind turbines are on big towers. Rather than build really big tower, Beijing Lanyi Yunchuan Energy Technology Co. has gone for a more ambitious approach: an aerostat to take power from the steady winds found at high altitude. Ambitiously called the Stratosphere Airborne Wind Energy System (SAWES), the megawatt-scale prototype has recently begun feeding into the grid in Yibin, Sichuan Province.

The name might be a bit ambitious, since its 2000 m test flight is only one tenth of the way to the stratosphere, but Yibin isn’t a bad choice for testing: as it is well inland, the S2000 prototype won’t have to contend with typhoons or other ocean storms. The prototype is arguably as ambitious as the name: its 12 flying turbines have a peak capacity of three megawatts. True, there are larger turbines in wind farms right now, but at 60 m in length and 40 m in diameter, the S2000 has a lot of room to grow before hitting any kind of limit or even record for aerostats. We’re particularly interested in the double-hull construction– it would seem the ring of the outer gas bag would do a good job funneling and accelerating air into those turbines, but we’d love to see some wind tunnel testing or even CFD renderings of what’s going on in there.

During its first test flight in January 2026, the system generated generated 385 kilowatt-hours of electricity over the course of 30 minutes. That means it averaged about 25% capacity for the test, which is a good safe start. Doubtless the engineers have a full suite of test flights planned to demonstrate the endurance and power production capabilities of this prototype. Longer flights at higher capacity may have already happened by the time you read this.

Flying wind turbines isn’t a new idea by any means; a few years ago we featured this homemade kite generator, and the pros have been in on it too. Using helium instead represents an interesting design choice–on the plus side, its probably easier to control, and obviously allowing large structures, but the downside is the added cost of the gas. It will be interesting to see how it develops.

We’re willing to bet it catches on faster than harvesting wind energy from trees.

WEEEKEND EDITION: I picked up a Yaesu MD-200 mike for $100.00, I will have to set it up later on the FTDX10..

I have to laugh for all the ops that take the Sherwood website too seriously. Rob does a really good job of giving test bench specs for the radios he tests. However for those of you who thinks he is “RANKING” his list by the best radios would be wrong. All Rob does is sort the list by one parameter only. If you took time to read instead of just looking which radios are at the top of his list would have seen this:

Sunday night, around 7:00 PM local time, a bright fireball streaked across the western German sky, exploded, and rained chunks of space rock down on the region around Koblenz. One of the largest known chunks put a soccer-ball-sized hole in someone’s roof, landing in their bedroom. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. But given the apparent size of the explosion, there must be many more pieces out there for the finding, and a wave of hopeful meteorite hunters has descended upon the region.

But if you wanted a piece of the action, where exactly would you start looking? How do scientists find meteorites anyway? And what should you do if you happen to see a similar fireball in the night sky?

Citizen Science

In the age of always-on dashboard cameras, ubiquitous smartphones, and other video recording devices, it’s hard for a shy meteorite to find a quiet spot out of the public eye. That makes them a lot easier to find than they were in the past. Indeed, the International Meteor Organization, which aggregates amateur meteor observations, received more than 3,200 reports of this one, including several with video documentation. Some are stunning, and others may not even be of the event at all.

By collecting reports from many locations, they can hope to piece together the meteorite’s trajectory. However, if you look at the individual reports, it’s clear that this is a difficult task. Nobody is expecting a bright fireball to streak across the night sky, so many of the reports are reasonably vague on the details and heavy on the awe.

This report from [Sophie Z], for instance, is typical. She records where she was and roughly the location in the night sky where the meteorite passed, along with the comment “I’ve never seen anything so amazing and large before in my life.” Other amateur observers are more precise. [David C] (“I have a Ph.D in physics”) managed to record the start and the end heading of the meteorite to a couple of decimal places. He must have had a camera.

We’d love to know the exact algorithm used for combining the reports. It’s worth noting that reporters get an experience score, and the system presumably takes this into account when producing the average track. However, the system works, though, with 3,200 reports of a once-in-a-lifetime meteorite, it’s bound to come up with a pretty good estimate. But for smaller meteorites, like this one that flew by on Monday night, there are fewer observers, and deducing the actual track is a lot more difficult.

Everyday meteorites are better tracked by taking a more systematic approach. We’ve covered a few of these networks before, because the equipment needed to contribute meaningfully isn’t all that much more complicated than a single-board computer with a network connection, a camera module, and a weatherproof housing to keep it working all year round. We’ve covered the French meteorite-hunting network, Fripon, before, and have featured other amateur sky-camera builds to boot. But we’re not amateur astronomers, so we’re not in the loop on what the current state of the art is. If you know about coordinated citizen-science meteorite tracking efforts, let us know in the comments.

Geologists Get Into The Astronomy Game

This meteorite was big enough and loud enough when it exploded that participation in tracking wasn’t limited to those who are looking up. Geologists at the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT) found that the explosion registered on their seismometers. (Via Heise Online.) These have the advantage that they are in very well-known locations with extremely precise timestamps. After all, that’s what they’re used for every day, although the medium that the pressure waves travel through is usually the earth rather than the air.

This was also a particularly lucky event for the KIT team because it happened over a particularly dense network of seismological stations in the Eifel mountains, allowing for greater resolution. And as they point out, using the sound of the explosion has the additional advantage of not being hindered by light conditions during the day or clouds at night. This makes us think of how easy it would be to set up a distributed system of microphones to do something similar.

The KIT track estimate lines up fairly well with the aggregated estimate from amateur observers, but it’s not exactly the same. Who is right? We’ll see where more of the meteorites are found on the ground, presumably, in the next few weeks.

Meteorite Hunting

If the meteorite fell through our roof and chunks were scattered all around our bedroom, we’d count ourselves lucky. But would we get to keep it? Of course, it depends on the local laws, and in Germany, you can keep the meteorites in most cases, unless the state decides that it’s of special value for whatever reason, and then they get first dibs.

Apparently, the going rate for meteorites is between 1€ and 5,000€ per gram, so we’re not entirely sure that it will cover the damage. Maybe our homeowners’ insurance would? We’ll have to go dig out our policy to be sure, but however that plays out, we’d just be stoked to have the meteorite chunks and a good story.

While very big fireballs like this are rare, NASA estimates that around 44,000 kg of meteoritic material falls on the Earth every day. (Whoah!) Most of this burns up in the atmosphere, but some falls to the ground. Most of that fraction is in the form of micrometeorites, which are sand-grain-sized bits that are very likely raining down on us every day. Indeed, if you’re interested, you can try to collect them, and all you need is a tarp on the roof or a magnet in your downspout, a good microscope, and a bit of knowledge. So if all you want is some extraterrestrial rock, and you’re not worried so much about the size, maybe micrometeorite hunting is the path to success.

Have you gone looking for meteorites? Know of any up-to-date amateur fireball-hunting networks? Sound off in the comments!

Blog – Hackaday Read More

Amateur Radio Newsline Report

RESTRICTIONS TO IMPACT KANTON ISLAND DXPEDITIONS

STEPHEN/ANCHOR: While most every DX chaser's eyes have been on Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic lately, another DXpedition planned for later this month has taken on new importance for activators in the South Pacific. New restrictions will be in force soon that are expected to limit access there. Here's Graham Kemp VK4BB with an update.

GRAHAM: The Rebel DX Group’s plan to operate as T31TTT this month from Kanton Island in central Kiribati could well be the last for amateur radio for a long time, according to a report from organisers on the website DX-World.

Dom, 3D2USU, said that the nation’s fishery and environmental officials have put in place a full array of costs affecting visitors. He said that these new permit fees and other requirements will impose a great financial burden on teams. DXpeditioners will need to provide accommodation, food and transportation for four government officials who will need to be present on any future visits to Kanton.

He says that in simple terms future Kanton Island DXpeditions will cost about 200,000 US dollars which makes T31 prohibitive.

The obstacles are not unlike some of the restrictions the same group of operators face for its hoped-for trip to Conway Reef 3D2/C. Since Rebel DX’s 2024 operation there in May 2024 as 3D2CCC, Fiji’s Ministry of Fisheries has begun moving toward declaring it a restricted-access zone. The group announced in January that, with those plans in mind, the hams are accelerating their plans for an activation there.

Meanwhile, the DXpeditioners are hoping to get to Kanton Island and be on the air sometime around March 25th.

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WRTC NOT PERMITTING NATIONAL FLAGS, SYMBOLS

STEPHEN/ANCHOR: Symbols of national pride - and national identity - are not being permitted at this year's World Radiosport Team Championship. Dave Lee M7TLB brings us up to date.

DAVE: Spectators and participants can expect to see plenty of things at the World Radiosport Team Championship event in the UK this coming July. There will be antennas, rigs, cables, microphones and keys -- and plenty of spectators to cheer on the hams using them.

What will not be evident anywhere are any emblems, flags or other symbols of national identity. The Organising Committee of WRTC 2026 has reaffirmed the approach that was used during the WRTC event held in 2023 in Bologna, Italy. That means that, as before, this year's teams will avoid national symbols of any kind. This is especially significant because it is consistent with the competition's qualification process which identifies all participants by qualification area and not by their DXCC.

Like the Olympics, the WRTC is held every four years with different host countries each time. They have included Brazil, Finland, Germany, Russia, Slovenia and, in the US, San Francisco, Boston and

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NEW INDIANA LAW PROTECTS HAM RADIO ANTENNAS, TOWERS

STEPHEN/ANCHOR: While hams around the US remain optimistic over the hoped-for passage of a national law that would prevent homeowners’ association from restricting residents’ amateur radio equipment, Indiana’s governor has signed a new law to provide such protection for hams throughout the state. Andy Morrison K9AWM has that update.

ANDY: Starting on the 1st of July, amateur radio antennas, towers and feedlines cannot be restricted by homeowners associations in residential communities in Indiana. A new law signed by Gov. Mike Braun will afford hams such protection on any property they rent, lease or own within the association’s purview.

This is not a green light for all amateurs, however. According to the measure’s language on the Indiana General Assembly website House Bil number 1152 will only apply to homeowner’s associations that are formed or create documents containing such restrictions after June 30th, 2026.

Meanwhile, at the federal level, the Amateur Radio Emergency Preparedness Act, which would create protection nationwide, remains stalled in Washington, D.C. According to the website GovTrack.us, the bill was introduced into committee on the 6th of February where it must be considered and voted on before it can move along to either of the two main houses of Congress.

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HURDY GURDY MUSEUM STATION BACK ON THE AIR

STEPHEN/ANCHOR: A new antenna installation has put the beloved Hurdy Gurdy Museum station in Ireland back on the air, as Jeremy Boot G4NJH tells us.

JEREMY: The sun was shining above the Hurdy Gurdy Museum of Vintage Radio in Howth as Tony EI5EM and Reg Shannon, a short-wave listener, started some serious antenna work on the roof of the museum's Martello Tower.

They were installing a vertical HF antenna donated by Mike Keane, EI4-DF - a gift that has put County Dublin museum's ham radio station, EIØMAR back on the air - just in time for April’s International Marconi Day. The museum lost the use of the station after its previous antenna had been destroyed by storms. Although marked by periods of rain, installation day finally took place under clear skies, according to a report on the Irish Radio Transmitters’ website.

The tower has a celebrated role in radio history, not only because in 1902 American innovator Lee de Forest conducted experiments in wireless telegraphy, but also because it housed a Marconi receiving station that conducted ship-to-shore telegraphy experiments with HMS Monarch.

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WORLD OF DX

In the World of DX, listen for Masa, JA0RQV/JD1 and Rio, JR2GYA/JD1 operating holiday style from Chichijima [CHEE CHEE JEEMAH] IOTA Number AS-031, Ogasawara from the 13th through to the 16th of March. They are using FT8, FT4, CW, and SSB on 80-6 metres.

Kaare, LA8EKA, is on the air as JW8EKA from Longyearbyen, IOTA Number EU-026, Svalbard from the 13th through to the 15th of March. He customarily operates using SSB, RTTY, PSK31 and FT8. Listen for him on 20-10 metres.

Paula, OK2YL and Vlad, OK2WX are using the callsigns V31YL and V31WX, respectively, from IOTA group NA-073, Belize through to the 22nd of March. They are operating holiday style using CW, SSB, and FT8 on various HF bands.

Listen for Aki, JK1JXZ, operating as YJ1JXZ from Port Vila, IOTA Number OC-035, Vanuatu [VAH-NOO-AHH-TOO] from the 15th of March through to the 3rd of April on 80-6 metres,

FRIDAY EDITION: I just got a call from my attorney, some wingnut in NH is trying to sue me because I misspelled his name yesterday on the web page. I am very sorry for the grief and humiliation you got on the air yesterday and will check my spelling more closely in the future....sorry Bod!

Why Peeling Adhesive Tape is so Unreasonably Noisy

Although not as reviled as the sound of nails on chalkboard, the sound of adhesive tape being peeled is quite probably at least as distinctive. With every millimeter of the tape’s removal from the roll sounding like it’s screaming in protest, it has led some to wonder just why this process is noisy enough to be heard from across an open-plan office. Recently [Er Qiang Li] et al. had their paper on a likely theory published in Physical Review E, in which they examine the supersonic air pulses at the core of this phenomenon.

Using rolls of adhesive tape and two microphones synchronized with two high-speed cameras in a Schlieren imaging setup, they gathered experimental data of this stick-slip mechanism. Incidentally, in addition to this auditory effect, adhesive tape is also known for the triboluminescence effect, as well as the generating of X-rays, making them quite the source of scientific demonstrations, even when they’re not also being used to create graphene with.

What they deduced from the recorded data was that the transverse fractures that suddenly appear after the extended stick phase hold a vacuum until they reach the end of the fracture during the brief slip phase, at which point the vacuum collapses very suddenly. This produces a pressure of 9600 Pa and clearly visible shock fronts on the Schlieren images.

Now that we know why peeling adhesive tape from its roll is so noisy, it won’t make it any more quiet, but at least we can add another fascinating science fact to its role of achievements.

Tech In Plain Sight: Projection Clocks

You wake up in the middle of the night. Is it time to get up? Well, you can look at the nightstand clock. Unless your partner is in the way. Whoops. Even then, without your glasses, the time is just a fuzzball of light. You could ask Alexa, but that’s sure to wake your partner, too. The answer is a projection clock. In its modern form, it shoots a digital time display on a wall or ceiling with digits so large that you don’t need your glasses. If you can see the ceiling, you can tell what time it is.

New Tech

A modern invention, of course. No, not really. According to [Roger Russel], a UK patent in 1909 used an analog clock face and lightbulbs to project the clock face and hands on the ceiling. Unfortunately, [Roger’s] website is no more, but the Wayback Machine is on the job. You can see a device of the same type at the British Museum.

In 1938, [Leendert Prins] filed for a patent on a similar projection clock. Sometimes known as “ceiling clocks” or “night clocks,” these devices often have a regular clock visible as well as a way to project the time. In the old days, this was often an image of a translucent analog clock lit up by light bulbs. In the modern era, it is almost always either LEDs or an LCD with a halogen backlight. Of course, there are many variations. A clock might use numbers on a rotating drum with a lamp behind it, for example.

Development

It isn’t hard to imagine someone putting a pocket watch in a magic lantern as a prototype. In general, some bright light source has to pass through a condenser lens. The light then travels through the LCD or translucent clock face. Finally, a projector lens expands the image.

We couldn’t find much about the actual history of old projection clocks outside of [Roger’s] defunct website. But if you can project an image and build a clock, all you need is the idea to combine them.

Teardowns

Want to get one and tear it open to see how it works? You don’t have to since [Soudnmisen] and [svetnovinek.cz] already did that for you, as you can see in the videos below.

Of course, what you project doesn’t have to be just the time. We’ve seen clocks that can project the weather, for example. But, usually, all you need in the middle of the night is the time.

DIY

Clocks are always a fun project, and a projection clock is certainly in the realm of a homebrew project. You could use a lot of methods to form the clock face, or, like [OSO POLAR MOVIES] did in the video below, just shine a light on your analog clock. Sure, that’s cheating, but it is certainly a hack.

If you prefer, try an LCD. Or a VFD. If you want to go analog and can’t put together a translucent clock face, try making a clock face from a mirror. You can remove the marks and numbers so they don’t reflect, and then use normal clock hands, which will block light just fine. You’ll just have to reverse the clock movement to run backwards, but that’s easy, too.

How about you? What strange method would you use to draw the time on the ceiling? A laser and a galvo come to mind. A tiny CRT? Then again, you could just mount a giant display on your ceiling. That’s how they did it at a Kentucky library. Let us know your plans in the comments, and when you have it done, send us a tip.

THURSDAY EDITION: 49 and fogged in and other than the plow piles, the snow is gone and I can see my lawn again....

Random Numbers, Persian Code: A Mysterious Signal Transfixes Radio Sleuths -- And Intelligence Experts

The radio signal first started broadcasting on February 28, about 12 hours after the United States and Israel began bombing Iran.

On a scratchy shortwave signal almost twice a day -- in the early morning and early evening on Coordinated Universal Time -- a man's voice can be heard speaking Persian, counting out a series of apparently random numbers. The numbers are read out for varying stretches of time, followed by a pause in which the word tavajjoh -- which translates as "attention" -- is spoken three times.

The mystery of the transmission transfixed many in the global community of amateur radio sleuths, who have traded notes and tips on the signal, who's behind it, and what its purpose might be.

Five days later, it got more interesting.

Beginning on March 4, the signal started to be jammed, with a cacophonous screech of electronic noise that made it all but impossible to hear the numbers. The original transmission paused for a period of time, then moved to another shortwave frequency.

"It's interesting because it started to be jammed on the initial frequency," said Akin Fernandez, who is widely considered an authority on the decades-old encoded radio technology known as a numbers station. "Someone doesn't want the recipient [of the signal] to hear the numbers."

"It's an adversarial situation, two groups acting against one another. The question [is] who has the technical means to jam a station," Fernandez said. "The United States has the means, which means this is being transmitted by Iran. Or then it could be Iran, which means the United States is the transmission source."

"More likely this is an operation against Iran," he said.

'Absolutely Unbreakable'

Regardless of whose transmission it is and who is doing the jamming -- there are plenty of competing theories -- the mysterious broadcast is a throwback to another era, before the advent of digital encryption used widely in apps like WhatsApp and Signal and other places.

The transmission is called a numbers station, a Cold War-era tool that employs radio transmissions and old-school cryptology to transmit secret messages, usually to spies around the world.

The concept: Using a random series of a numbers, generated by some mechanical or electronic device or something more powerful, a person can send a coded message to another person in possession of a decoder, often called a "one-time pad."   ARTICLE

WEDNESDAY EDITION: Club coffee and donuts this morning, all are welcome...

‘Hamwaves of History:’ Honoring World War II heroes at the historic Buckingham Army Airfield

The Fort Myers Amateur Radio Club has announced the return of “Hamwaves of History,” a live commemorative amateur radio event taking place from March 17-19. This unique tribute honors the brave men and women who served at Buckingham Army Airfield during World War II, a site that was once the largest airfield in Florida.

Members of the public are invited to join us at the Lee County Mosquito Control District Homestead House (the former site of the airfield) to witness history in action.

The events, which are free and open to the public, will be held March 17 and 18, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and March 19, from 8 a.m.to 3 p.m., at the Homestead House 15140 Homestead Road, Lehigh Acres.

Read more – North Ft. Myers Neighbor: https://bit.ly/3Pty3mu

Quieting Noisy Resistors

[Hans Rosenberg] has a new video talking about a nasty side effect of using resistors: noise. If you watch the video below, you’ll learn that there are two sources of resistor noise: Johnson noise, which doesn’t depend on the construction of the resistor, and 1/f noise, which does vary depending on the material and construction of the resistor.

In simple terms, some resistors use materials that cause electron flow to take different paths through the resistor. That means that different parts of the signal experience slightly different resistance values. In simple applications, it won’t matter much, but in places where noise is an important factor, the 1/f or excess noise contributes more  to errors than the Johnson noise at low frequencies.

[Hans] doesn’t just talk the math. He also built a simple test rig that lets him measure the 1/f noise with some limitations. While you might pretend that all resistors are the same, the test shows that thick film resistors produce much more noise than other types.

The video shows some rule-of-thumb lists indicating which resistors have better noise figures than others. Of course, resistors are only one source of noise in circuits. But they are so common that it is easy to forget they aren’t as perfect as we pretend in our schematics.

Want to learn more about noise? We can help. On the other hand, noise isn’t always a bad thing.

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Ham radio opens a connection to the world (Ohio)

The Mount Vernon Amateur Radio Club (MVARC) opened their doors to the public on Saturday, March 7, in the Old Academy Building at 790 Fairgrounds Road. Their open house was an opportunity to view demonstrations of modern ham radio and its applications in the world of hi-tech.

On display were modern digital transceivers. Some were very small, but powerful. There were demonstrations of VHF, UHF, and Shortwave radios.

There were some Ohio-made Drake brand radios along with some other American radios. Some brands, like Drake, are no longer manufactured, but are sought after none the less.

Read more – Your Ohio News: https://bit.ly/3Nx4Y9c

TUESDAY EDITION: It is supposed to hit 70 degrees today in most spots, I suspect we will be in the 60's due to the ocean effect on our temps...no complaints!...This would make a great ham shack....Why is black rain falling on Iran and how dangerous is it?

On February 28, the day that bombs started falling on the Islamic Republic, a man’s voice began broadcasting in Farsi on a shortwave-radio frequency. He announced himself—“Tavajjoh! Tavajjoh!” (Attention! Attention!)—and then read a string of seemingly random numbers. Anyone with a shortwave radio could hear him. But the announcer’s intended audience was likely no more than a handful of people using a centuries-old system to decipher his otherwise incoherent message.

The eerie and still-unattributed radio transmission came from a numbers station. You don’t hear them much anymore. But when the CIA and the KGB needed to communicate with their spies working undercover, such broadcasts were convenient and safe ways to send orders around the world. The intended recipient turns on their radio at a set time to a specific station and writes down the numbers they hear. Using a technique called a “one-time pad,” they convert each number into a letter, eventually revealing a message. The transmission is out in the open. But if only the sender and the recipient have the pad—which is written down and destroyed immediately after the message is sent—only they can understand the message.

Meshtastic Does More Than Simple Communication

Meshtastic has been experiencing a bit of a renaissance lately, as the off-grid, long-range radio text messaging protocol gains a ton of new users. It’s been used to create mesh networks in cities, during disasters and protests, in small groups while hiking or camping, and for search and rescue operations. Although it’s connected plenty of people together in all of these ways, [GreatScott!] wanted to put it to work connecting some computing resources instead. He has a garden shed that’s too far for WiFi, so Meshtastic was used to connect it instead.

This isn’t a project to bring broadband Internet out to the shed, though; Meshtastic is much too slow for that. All he really wanted to do here was to implement a basic alarm system that would let him know if someone had broken in. The actual alarm triggering mechanism is an LED emitter-detector pair installed in two bars, one of which sends a 12V signal out if the infrared beam from the other is broken. They’re connected to a Heltec ESP32 LoRa module which is set up to publish messages out on the Meshtastic communications channel. A second module is connected to the WiFi at the house which is communicates with his Home Assistant server.

Integrating Meshtastic devices into Home Assistant can be pretty straightforward thanks to the various integrations already available, but there is some configuration to get these specific modules working as an alarm. One of the pins on the remote module had to be set up to watch the light bar, and although sending the alarm message out when this triggered worked well, the received signal never passed through to Home Assistant until [GreatScott!] switched to using the RadioLib library an an MQTT integration instead. But with perhaps more configuration than he planned for out of the way, [GreatScott!]’s alarm is up and running. Meshtastic projects often balloon into more than we had originally planned though, in more ways than one. You can follow along as our own [Tom Nardi] attempts to connect all of New Jersey with this new protocol.

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MONDAY EDITION: I haven't even heard Bouvet Island never mind worked them yet....

K9 Veterans Day Activation Honors Military Dogs

The following is a message from the Dog Day Amateur Radio Club:

The Dog Day Radio Amateur Radio Club, K0DOG, best known for participation in International Dog Day each August, will be calling CQ in tribute to dogs who have supported members of the military over the years.

Starting at 0000 UTC March 12 through to 2359 UTC March 13, hams will be active on the HF bands using CW and SSB, commemorating K9 Veterans Day.

The late Joe White, a Vietnam veteran and K9 handler, popularized March 13th as K9 Veterans Day because the date marks the start of dogs’ formal military training in the US in 1942 through the formation of the K9 Corps, or the War Dogs Program of the US Army.

This amateur radio activation is a tribute to all dogs throughout history who have served – wherever they have served.

Learn more about hero dogs and how to be a part of this special celebration by visiting the QRZ.com bio page for K0DOG.

RaDAR Rally 2026 Registration is Now Open

Registration is now open for the 2026 RaDAR Rally event. RaDAR is Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio, an event in which ham radio operators deploy into the field, make five contacts, then redeploy again all within a 4 hour window.

See the RaDAR Rally info page for registration details. The event takes place April 4th with registrations accepted through April 3rd. An intro video and roster are also available.

What the FDA’s 2026 Wellness Device Update Means for Wearables

With more and more sensors being crammed into the consumer devices that many of us wear every day, the question of where medical devices begin and end, and how they should be regulated become ever more pertinent. When a ‘watch’ no longer just shows the time, but can keep track of a dozen vital measurements, and the line between ‘earbud’ and ‘hearing aid’ is a rather fuzzy one, this necessitates that institutions like the US FDA update their medical device rules, as was done recently in its 2026 update.

This determines how exactly these devices are regulated, and in how far their data can be used for medical purposes. An important clarification made in the 2026 update is the distinction between ‘medical information’ and ‘signals/patterns’. Meaning that while a non-calibrated fitness tracker or smart watch does not provide medically valid information, it can be used to detect patterns and events that warrant a closer look, such as indications of arrhythmia or low blood oxygen saturation.

As detailed in the IEEE Spectrum article, these consumer devices are thus  ‘general wellness’ devices, and should be marketed as such, without embellished claims. Least of all should they be sold as devices that can provide medical information.

Another major aspect with these general wellness devices is what happens to the data that they generate. While not medical information, it does provide health information about a person that e.g. a marketing company would kill for to obtain. This privacy issue is unresolved in the US market, while other countries prescribe strict requirements about such data handling.

Effectively, this leaves the designers of wearables relatively free to do whatever they want, as long as they do not claim that the medical data being produced from any sensors is medical information. How this data is being handled is strictly regulated in most markets, except for the US, which is quite worrying and something you should definitely be aware of.

As for other medical device purposes like hearing aids, the earbuds capable of this fortunately do not generally collect information. They do need to have local regulatory approval to 

Why Western states are pushing for plug-in solar

Last October, Colorado state Rep. Lesley Smith was in Germany, visiting her husband’s family. While strolling around her sister-in-law’s neighborhood, she glimpsed a solar panel hanging off an apartment building balcony — something she’d never seen before. “Oh, my goodness, look at that,” Smith remembered thinking.

Small-scale household solar is common in Germany, where an estimated 4 million units have been installed. It’s a simple concept: Just plug one or two solar panels attached to a microinverter into any household outlet, place the panels outside on a patio or balcony, and you can generate enough power to offset around 15% to 20% of your energy usage. The gear costs several hundred dollars and can be set up almost anywhere, so renters and homeowners alike can enjoy the cost savings and climate benefits of clean energy.

But in the U.S., a tangle of regulatory and market constraints has prevented widespread adoption of the technology, known as balcony or plug-in solar.y standard.

That familiar gray plastic E-ZPass mounted on your windshield may soon be a thing of the past

Massachusetts state transportation officials have confirmed they are transitioning away from traditional hard-case E-ZPass transponders and replacing them with low-cost windshield sticker tags — a move expected to save millions of dollars annually.

The sticker adheres directly to the inside of a vehicle’s windshield and performs the same toll-reading function as the plastic device.

MassDOT Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver told WBUR the stickers cost about 55 cents each, compared to roughly $6 to $7 per traditional plastic transponder — a significant cost difference that could generate substantial long-term savings for the state.

Harmonic Radar Finds Hidden Electronics

For as long as small, hidden radio transmitters have existed, people have wanted a technology to detect them. One of the more effective ways to find hidden electronics is the nonlinear junction detector, which illuminates the area under investigation with high-frequency radio waves. Any P-N semiconductor junctions in the area will emit radio waves at harmonic frequencies of the original wave, due to their non-linear electronic response. If, however, you suspect that the electronics might be connected to a dangerous device, you’ll want a way to detect them from a distance. One solution is harmonic radar (also known as nonlinear radar), such as this phased-array system, which detects and localizes the harmonic response to a radio wave.

One basic problem is that semiconductor devices are very rarely connected to antennas optimized for the transmission of whatever harmonic you’re looking for, so the amount of electromagnetic radiation they emit is extremely low. To generate a detectable signal, a high-power transmitter and a very high-gain receiver are necessary. Since semiconductor junctions emit stronger lower harmonics, this system transmits in the 3-3.2 GHz range and only receives the 6-6.4 GHz second harmonic; to avoid false positives, the transmitter provides 28.8 decibels of self-generated harmonic suppression. To localize a stronger illumination signal to a particular point, both the transmit and receive channels use beam-steering antenna arrays.

In testing, the system was able to easily detect several cameras, an infrared sensor, a drone, a walkie-talkie, and a touch sensor, all while they were completely unpowered, at a range up to about ten meters. Concealing the devices in a desk drawer increased the ranging error, but only by about ten percent. Even in the worst-case scenario, when the system was detecting multiple devices in the same scene, the ranging error never got worse than about 0.7 meters, and the angular error was never worse than about one degree.

For a refresher on the principles of the technology, we’ve covered nonlinear junction detectors before. While the complexity of this system seems to put it beyond the reach of amateurs, we’ve seen some equally impressive homemade radar systems before.

THURSDAY EDITION: I picked up a ft991A and a ft5 yesterday and spent all afternoon fooling around with them and doing some programming, power poles on the 99A, etc.....yikes I missed the 3928 4-5pm ragchew....I have two FT2DR handhelds if anyone would like one with the stand charger- $120 shipped, as is all my stuff, like new, no dents, tape, or smoke smell.....Covert One Time Pad Numbers Station in Iran War - and AI Warning...

Mysterious explosion on Bouvet Island

Some time later, another equally mysterious incident occurred in connection with this enigmatic place. According to unofficial data, in 1979, a powerful flash was recorded at some distance from the island as a result of an explosion, which, according to scientists, could indicate nuclear weapons testing. However, no one was able to detect its source, and no sufficient evidence of this fact was ever obtained. No country has taken responsibility for this incident, and none of the countries that have ever possessed nuclear weapons have been seen transporting such devices to this area, and the radiation background on the island has remained unchanged. The reasons for this inexplicable phenomenon remain a mystery to this day.

 

Why Diamond Transistors Are So Hard To Make

Many things about diamonds seem eternal, including the many engineering problems related to making them work as a silicon replacement in semiconductor technology. Yet much like a diamond exposed to a stream of oxygen-rich air and a roughly 750°C heat source, time will eventually erase all of them. As detailed in a recent [Asianometry] video, over the decades the challenges with creating diamond wafers and finding the right way to dope pure diamond have been slowly solved, even if some challenges still remain today.

Diamond is basically the exact opposite as silicon when it comes to suitability as a semiconductor material, with a large bandgap (5.5 eV vs the 1.2 of silicon), and excellent thermal conductivity characteristics. This means that diamond transistors are very reliable, albeit harder to switch, and heat produced during switching is rapidly carried away instead of risking a meltdown as with silicon semiconductors.

Unlike silicon, however, diamond is much harder to turn into wafers as you cannot simply melt graphite and draw perfectly crystallized diamond out of said molten puddle. The journey of getting to the state-of-the art soon-to-be-4″ wafers grown on iridium alongside the current mosaic method is a good indication of the complete pain in the neck that just this challenge already is.

Doping with silicon semiconductors is done using ion implantation, but diamond has to be special and cannot just have phosphorus and boron implanted like its sibling. The main challenge here is that of availability of charge carriers from this doping, with diamond greedily hanging on to these charge carriers unless you run the transistor at very high temperatures.

Since you can only add so much dopant to a material before it stops being that material, a more subtle solution was sought. At this point we know that ion implantation causes damage to the diamond lattice, so delta-doping – which sandwiches heavily doped diamond between non-doped diamond – was developed instead. This got P-type transistors using boron, but only after we pacified dangling carbon electron bonds with hydrogen atoms and later more stable oxygen.

State-of-the art switching with diamond transistors is currently done with MESFETs, which are metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors, and research is ongoing to improve the design. Much like with silicon carbide it can take a while before all the engineering and production scaling issues have been worked out. It’s quite possible that we’ll see diamond integrated into silicon semiconductors as heatsinks long before that.

Assuming we can make diamond work for semiconductor transistors, it should allow us to pack more and smaller transistors together than even before, opening up many options that are not possible with silicon, especially in more hostile environments like space.

 

WEDNESDAY EDITION: We received another 2.5 inches of now turned slush to the impdressive totals...

Simple D-STAR Transceiver Uses Inexpensive Hardware

[Yeckel] recently put the finishing touches on an ambitious implementation of a simple D-STAR (Digital Smart Technologies for Amateur Radio) transceiver using some very accessible and affordable hardware. The project is D-StarBeacon, and [Yeckel] shows it working on a LilyGO TTGO T-Beam, an ESP32-based development board that includes a SX1278 radio module and GPS receiver. It even serves a web interface for easy configuration.

What is D-STAR? It’s a protocol used by radio operators for voice that also allows transmitting low-speed data, such as short text messages or GPS coordinates. While voice is out of scope for [Yeckel]’s project (more on that in a moment) it can do all the rest, including send images. That makes beacon-type functions possible on inexpensive hardware, instead of requiring a full-blown radio.

As mentioned, voice is a big part of D-STAR. While [Yeckel] was able to access the voice data, attempts to decode it were unsuccessful. A valiant effort, but we suppose voice decoding isn’t terribly relevant to beacon-type operations like transmitting APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System).

So far as [Yeckel] is aware, D-StarBeacon is currently the only open-source implementation of a D-STAR radio available on the internet, which is pretty interesting. We’ve seen projects that touch indirectly on D-STAR, but nothing like this.

Watch it go through its paces in the video embedded below. Since the T-Beam is just a microcontroller development board, the user interface comes from an Android app on a mobile phone, which is why you see a phone in the video.

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A Beacon On a Budget

Created by Eric Owen, KD4MZM

TUESDAY EDITION: I celebrated my birthday at my sons house last night, even had a glass of wine to celebrate this old corpse.....They landed on the island and I can safely say I wouldn't want to be them...doesn't look too comfy to me! It sounds like a few bootleggers have been trying to screw things up but in the end, good luck to them....

 

Forget Waldo. Where’s Luna 9?

`Luna 9 was the first spacecraft to soft-land on the moon. In 1966, the main spacecraft ejected a 99-kg lander module that used a landing bag to survive impact. The problem is, given the technology limitations of 1966, no one is exactly sure where it is now. But it looks like that’s about to change.Luna 9 was the first spacecraft to soft-land on the moon. In 1966, the main spacecraft ejected a 99-kg lander module that used a landing bag to survive impact. The problem is, given the technology limitations of 1966, no one is exactly sure where it is now. But it looks like that’s about to change.

We know that the lander bounced a few times and came to rest somewhere in Oceanus Procellarum, in the area of the Reiner and Marius craters. The craft deployed four stabilizing petals and sent back dramatic panoramas of the lunar surface. The Soviets were not keen to share, but Western radio astronomers noticed the pictures were in the standard Radiofax format, so the world got a glimpse of the moon, and journalists speculated that the use of a standard might have been a deliberate choice of the designers to end run against the government’s unwillingness to share data.

Several scientists have been looking for the remains of the historic mission, but with limited success. But there are a few promising theories, and the Indian Chandrayaan-2 orbiter may soon confirm which theory is correct. Interestingly, Pravda published exact landing coordinates, but given the state of the art in 1966, those coordinates are unlikely to be completely correct. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter couldn’t find it at that location. The leading candidates are within 5 to 25 km of the presumed site.

The Luna series had a number of firsts, including — probably — the distinction of being the first spacecraft stolen by a foreign government. Don’t worry, though. They returned it. Since the Russians didn’t talk much about plans or failures, you can wonder what they wanted to build but didn’t. There were plenty of unbuilt dreams on the American side.

MONDAY EDITION: Sunny and 15,but warm weather is on the way...

Inovato, N0LSR Design Endorse Open HamClock Backend Public Server

When the creator of HamClock became a silent key earlier this year, the HamClock project was expected to be sunset in June 2026. While the HamClock application is open source, the backend server that powers many HamClock features was closed. OHB provides a replacement for that backend service.

Open HamClock Backend (OHB) is a community project by a team of developers with Brian Wilkins (KO4AQF) as the main contributor. It is fully open source, and it runs on servers in a commercial data center. Another example of what the ham radio community is capable of. The hosting in the data center is donated. This provides very high availability with no costs for anyone.

With the stability of the OHB project making its way to a centralized public server, Inovato and N9LSR Design recently announced that they would endorse OHB for their HamClock appliances.

Source: N0LSR Design

Amateur Radio Daily – Read More

Hams Help Forecasters with Real-Time Data on Northeast Blizzard