Topics and links of the broadcast 19-6-2022 11:00 am (CEST)

Home assistant has now a reporting service for ISS reachability

It is now possible along with your personal location to get a report when the International Space station is reachable in your location.

The iss platform uses the Open Notify API to let you know if the station is above your home location. This means that ISS is 10° above the horizon of your home. Read more here.

You can check in the attributes of the sensor to see the timestamp for the next rise of the station, its current coordinates, and the number of people in space.

How to defeat noise as QRM and QRN (by WU2D)

WU2D explains in a series of videos how a radio amateur can take simple measures to defeat noise caused by solar panels, bad LED lamps, inverters and other sources of interference. In a series of video articles he goes deeper into how this works and explains in different ways how by means of phase shifting, gain balancing and a matching network in a passive way a noise reduction of 10 to 15 dbm can be achieved with simple means. .

He also takes a closer look at commercially available equipment for this purpose, showing schematics and explaining the different techniques.

Furthermore, he goes deeper into how noise canceling can be done by means of simple (cheap) ways through a DIY project.

Noise cancellation part 1

Noise cancellation part 2

Electricity grid in the Limburg region under pressure

(A wakeup call for politicians)

In January I already mentioned through these broadcasts that I had discovered problems with the electricity grid in the Limburg region. Voltage peaks and voltage sags are now the order of the day and there is no end in sight. The monkey came out of the bag some time ago because grid administrators reported that the grid capacity has reached the maximum for our high-voltage network in the regions of Limburg and Brabant as well as a few northern provinces of the Netherlands.

It is also reported by the grid administrators that transfer requests should also be treated differently in the future. According to their network, capacity remains unused, which causes problems for the requests that need now to be processed. A first come first served policy would be obsolete, because important infrastructure capacity, such as intended for hospitals and other government services, is at risk.

Perhaps it is therefore high time as a radio amateur to start thinking about a battery backup option to be able to fall back on an emergency power supply in case of calamities. How this can be done I will further explain in subsequent broadcasts, explaining my own findings.

Sources: Enexis (link to pdf to download), Tennet (inside network only), RTL nieuws, Hoogspanningsnet and other cooky walled sites for news which i refuse to mention

From the RSGB news letter (by PC5D)

For those with a particular interest in VHF matters, the IARU Region 1 VHF+ Newsletter Number 89 is available on website, iaru-r1.org. This contains details of the hybrid interim meeting to be held at the Hamradio in Friedrichshafen. Topics of discussion include the preparation of the ITU World Radio Conference, WRC23, especially regarding the 23cm band. It also contains details about IARU VHF and above competitions and trophies.

The next Tonight @8 lecture will take place on July 4. This is the last lecture before the summer holidays. On the 4th, Peter G3XJE, the about radio waves and antennas. His presentation covers a array of antenna related information so there should be something for everyone. The webinars will be broadcast live on the RSGB's YouTube channel, YouTube.com/thersgb, at 9 p.m. NL time.

The radio station VP8GGM at the Goose Green Military Museum in the Falkland Islands will be on air during the international museum weekends. The dates are this weekend and next weekend, the 25th and 26th. QSL directly to VP8ADR. The KL7RRC IOTA DXpedition to Kiska Island, NA-070, has been rescheduled and is now expected to take place between 23-28 July. The team consists of KL5CX, N3QQ, N7QT, NL8F and W8HC. They will run in CW, SSB and FT8 on the 6 to 40m bands and operate with three stations. QSL over N7RO. See na-234.com for more information.

From the ARRL news letter (by PC5D)

On Thursday, June 16, the Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) launched its renewed website www.reversebeacon.net. The intent of the revised website was to replace the original and beta websites and a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to ensure the security of the improve site users.The RBN is a network of stations that listen to the tapes and report which stations they hear, including when and how loudly. Thanks to the website's database of past spots allows operators immediately check which stations (from a particular country or zone) have been heard, at what times and on what frequencies.

Operators can also see when they have been sighted, who has them perceived and how loud the contact was. There is a new option to compare your signal with others stations, in near real time, or historical data from previous
to watch broadcasts. If you're wondering how your signal is compared to that of others in a previous contest, the Signal Comparison Tool of the website real, quantitative data. For an instant report, ask which stations you want
compare, based on signals heard by a particular inverse beacon on a specific band at a specific time.

In 2009, Pete Smith N4ZR, and Felipe Ceglia CT7ANO, launched the first version of RBN put online. The work of Mark Glenn K7MJG, on the website and Dave Pascoe KM3T, connecting the servers, have contributed to RBN as a resource for listening and following signals. The new version is the first major upgrade for the site. A guide to the new features of the website is available on the beta site, as well as on the new site under the "about" tab.

Propagation news (by PC5D)

Last week's expectation that the solar flux index would rise has been generously fulfilled. Saturday it had climbed to 149. In the same period there were also a series phenomena in space and radio weather. On the 13th there was a big coronal mass ejection with a disturbed geomagnetic field 2 days later. The prolonged M3.4 solar flare on June 13 at 0400 UTC not only caused a coronal mass ejection, but also a radiation burst that intensified the D layer. As a result, the signal attenuation on the daylight side of the earth increases noticeably. The geomagnetic field became quite active on the morning of June 13. The cause of this was a passing plasma cloud, which eventually led to isolated stormy intervals. The solar wind speed had clearly increased.

The maximum usable frequency via the F layer over a distance of 3000 km, the so-called MUF3000, rarely exceeded 21 MHz. Propagation conditions deteriorated also noticeable at night - the 20 m band was no longer open all the time. The fact that there were nevertheless numerous connections above 21 MHz was due to the sporadic E-area, which will see conditions on the higher bands up to 50MHz and above this week dominated.

There have also been some occasional 10m F2 low vents, with Sporadic-E and multi-hop Es events as other likely modes of propagation. As a result, there are many DX messages came in, including Vasco 7Q7CT in Malawi and Harald 9X2AW in Rwanda on 10 meters FT8. The sporadic E was at times so stable that it shielded the space wave to the F regions. at 12 and 10 meters there were noticeably stable short-skip conditions with loud European signals, and in the 6-m band there were almost daily multi-hop trails and sometimes links between the sporadic E and F2 regions.

Propagation on HF fell short of expectations. Solar activity was low with except for the M flare on Monday morning, with a few Class C flames that mainly came from two regions, one in the northwest and the other in the southwest. Currently, eight numbered and two new sunspot regions can be seen on the visible disk are detected. The fast solar wind with speeds around 600 km/s from a coronal hole will passed on Sunday. Until the 23rd it remains relatively quiet.

NOAA expects low solar activity for the coming days, with a small chance of class M isolated solar flares. The SFI will drop from approximately 146 to 100. The maximum usable frequency will vary between 12 MHz at night to 21 MHz during the day. Incidentally, these NOAA/USAF forecasts come from the 557th Weather Wing on the Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue, Nebraska - the main military meteorological center of the US Air Force. It provides comprehensive weather analysis and space weather forecasts to the Air Force, Army, Joint Forces, National Intelligence and United States Department of Defense around the world. In addition, the USAF publishes its

AP and Solarflux forecasts for the next 45 days on the website usaf-45-day-ap-and-f107cm-flux-forecast

VHF, EME

A smaller high pressure area is expected over England in the coming days. With that flow of air across the North Sea to the Netherlands. On the maps of dxinfocentre.com translates in somewhat elevated tropo conditions for the next few days. The Sporadic-E season is in full swing. Those who played the 6 m band in the kept an eye out, were able to use a fairly stable path in the evening until almost midnight to North America and many loud American stations log. Widespread activity up to Mexico and Texas is uncommon and plots of weather patterns showed that there are multiple jet streams of activity to complete the required sequence of four or five hops of Es to form. The band was buzzing with DX signals. This was the first prominent Sporadic E highlight of the 2022 season.

Since the weather pattern that caused this was not exceptional, it could happen again happen, so the tip idea to check 6m from mid evening 2000-2200UTC during the rest of the month. There are still plenty of meteor showers to fill up between the Sporadic-E in June. The Aretids, Zeta-Perseids, Beta-Taurids, and Juni Bootids are all active this week. The latter is generally low active, but it produced unexpected activity in 1998 with a ZHR to 100 for more than half a day and in 2004 with a ZHR to 50 for a comparable period.

Moon declination goes positive again on Wednesday, and we are past the perigee of this one month, so increasing moon availability and increasing pad losses it is story for EME enthusiasts this week. 144MHz sky noise is low, no more than 300 Kelvin to Thursday.

Propagation news is curated by Tom PC5D. In the composition he makes other use of the information relevant to the Netherlands from the weekly Propagation News of the British radio amateur association RSGB, dxinfocentre , darc.de/der-club/referate/hf/ , Make More Miles on VHF and poollicht.be. Propagation news is also part of the radio news of the South Limburg Sunday morning round. The audio recording of this round is back listened on a22.veron.nl