Newsgroups: uk.radio.amateur,rec.radio.amateur.misc,rec.radio.info From: dave@llondel.demon.co.uk (David Hough) Path: news.cs.tut.fi!news.funet.fi!sunic!pipex!demon!llondel.demon.co.uk!dave Subject: GB2RS News 11th December 1994 Followup-To: uk.radio.amateur Approved: rec-radio-info@stat.com X-Mailer: cppnews $Revision: 1.42 $ Organization: last! Lines: 190 X-Posting-Host: llondel.demon.co.uk Date: Thu, 8 Dec 1994 19:06:20 +0000 Message-ID: <786938780snx@llondel.demon.co.uk> Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk Xref: news.cs.tut.fi uk.radio.amateur:740 rec.radio.amateur.misc:63644 rec.radio.info:7136 Good morning. It's Sunday the 11th of December and here is the GB2RS news broadcast, prepared by the RSGB and intended for all radio amateurs and short-wave listeners. Now this week's headlines:- We have the result of the RSGB Council election, The result of the voting at the RSGB Extraordinary General Meeting, and some repeater news. The Annual Meeting of the Radio Society of Great Britain took place at the Royal Society of Chemistry, London on the 3rd of December. The meeting included an Annual General Meeting and an Extraordinary General Meeting. At the AGM, the result of the election for four Ordinary Members for the 1995 - 97 Council were announced as follows: N Roberts, G4IJF received 1629 votes; G R Morris, GW1ATZ, 721 votes; R Horton, G3XWH, 1532 votes; M G Shread, GM6TAN, 1098 votes; D B Glover, G1VJP, 881 votes and E J Allaway, G3FKM, 1626 votes. The President declared elected: l: N Roberts, G4IJF, E J Allaway, G3FKM, M G Shread, GM6TAN and R Horton, G3XWH. The result of the election for Zone 'E' (Wales) is as follows: E P Essery, GW3KFE, 93 votes and M J Adcock, GW8CMU, 48 votes. Therefore E P Essery, GW3KFE was declared elected. P R Sheppard, G4EJP, has been elected unopposed for Zone A, the North of England. I J Kyle, GI8AYZ, has been elected unopposed for Zone F, Northern Ireland. A full list of the 1995 RSGB Council will be published in the January edition of Radio Communication. The EGM had been called by the Council to make a number of amendments to the Society's Articles of Association, which provide the ground rules for running the Society's affairs. All RSGB members received details of the proposed changes with the November edition of Radio Communication. At the meeting, all six Special Resolutions were carried overwhelmingly. The full Minutes of both meetings, together with a report on the question and answer session will be published in RadCom as soon as possible. Next week's GB2RS bulletin will include the first part of our annual review of the year. There will be no bulletin on Christmas Day, and the next GB2RS, on the 1st of January 1995, will conclude the review of 1994. GB0TEN is a special event station celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Brickfields Amateur Radio Society on the Isle of Wight. Operation will be from now until Friday the 30th of December on 80m, 2m and 70cm. The latest batch of repeater applications forwarded by the RSGB to the Radiocommunications Agency includes six for packet radio repeaters: GB7BS at Bristol for 144 and 439MHz, GB7EH at Edge Hill for 430, 432 and 439MHz and GB7EA at Bury St Edmunds for 1.3GHz. All applications are processed by the RSGB's Repeater Management Group to whom any enquiries should be addressed. As usual, the Society will inform keepers of progress by distributing the RA's monthly progress reports. The Rochester repeater, GB3RE, was closed down last Sunday and will remain out of service until its new site is cleared by the RA. For further information, contact the keeper, G4AKQ, whose address is correct in the RSGB Call Book. The Hexham repeater GB3TY, on channel R6, was switched off and is now closed down permanently, since Wednesday the 30th of November. For further information, contact the keeper G0GXO, whose address is correct in the RSGB Call Book. The new RSGB QSL Sub-Manager for the G6AAA - G6ZZZ callsign series is Mr C R J Healey, G0NCS, whose address is: 22 Sterling Road, Plymouth, Devon PL5 1PD. Now some items of HF DX news from the weekly RSGB DX News Sheet which is edited by Brendan McCartney, G4DYO. From Mauritius, F6HWU will sign 3B8/F6HWU from now until the middle of December on all bands 160 to 10 metres, especially CW. From New Caledonia, a group of Japanese operators will sign FK/Own Call from Thursday the 15th, until Tuesday the 20th of December on the WARC and LF bands. And from Rwanda, PA3DZN is now active as 9X5EE on 10 to 40 metres and hopes soon to be on 80 and 160 metres. Next the Rally News, and we know of one event for today, Sunday the 11th of December: The Verulam Amateur Radio Club Rally is being held at the Watford Leisure Centre, Horseshoe Lane, Garston, Watford, a new venue for this event. Doors open at 10am. The event features a bring and buy stall, and a grand raffle. Refreshments will be available and talk-in is on 2 metres, channel S22. Now for the HF contest news: The ARRL 10 metre Contest finishes today Sunday the 11th at 2359 UTC. See December's edition of RadCom, page 19 for further details. Next some VHF contest news: The last of five RSGB 432MHz Cumulative Contest will take place next Tuesday the 13th of December from 2030 to 2300 UTC. For further details see July RadCom page 82. The first of the RSGB Winter 2.3GHz-and-Up Cumulatives Contest takes place next Sunday the 18th of December, from 0900 to 2100 UTC. For details see November RadCom page 78. And now the solar factual data: We are pleased to announce that all of our data sources are now back on line. The period from the 28th of November to the 4th of December saw solar activity at very low levels. However a small series of B-class flares on the 30th and 3rd, together with the passage of a coronal mass ejection, increased the geomagnetic activity to 'mostly unsettled'. The sunspot indices fell from 32 on the 28th to 11 by the 3rd, with a mean of 22 for the period. Only some minor B-class flares were reported on the 30th, but a B7.4/SF flare was reported on the 3rd at 12.46, but nothing came of it. Solar flux levels are now remaining fairly constant at about the 90-day average levels, varying only slightly from day to day and averaging 80 units. Previous minima have flattened out at around 68 units, so we have still some way to go before that point is reached. The x-ray flux levels showed a steady increase from A4.2 on the 30th up to A7.2 units by the 4th. The period averaged A4.7 units. The 90-day solar flux averaged 82 units on the 4th of December. Geomagnetic activity was mostly unsettled with the most disturbed day being the 2nd, when the Ap index was 18 units. The 29th of November and the 4th of December were quiet days, with the Ap index at 7 and 6 units respectively. The average Ap index for the period was 11 units. The state as been 'nil, nothing to report'. The aa indices, as reported by the British Geological Survey for the period from the 22nd to the 27th of November, started at quiet levels with the 25th being down to only 7.3 nanoTeslas, about K1. By midday on the 26th, levels had increased considerably up to 137 nanoTeslas, about K6, because of the passage of a coronal hole. This gave a daily index for that day of 66.1 nanoTeslas. The period averaged 24.2 nanoTeslas, about K3. The monthly RI sunspot number for November was 18.0 with a maximum of 48 on the 2nd and a minimum of 7 on the 21st. The smoothed sunspot number for May 1994 was RI 32.6 +/- 5. I'll repeat the figures: Spots - 22, Flux - 80, Ap index - 11, x-ray flux - A4.7, November spots RI 18.0. We have been able to catch up with some of last week's missing data. The F2 daytime critical frequencies at Poitiers, as reported by Meudon from the 22nd of November to the 27th, saw average daytime levels of 7.9MHz. However, the 26th saw a pre-auroral enhancement to 11.1MHz just before the magnetic storm. The period from the 28th November to the 4th December saw daylight levels average 7.4MHz, with little variation from day to day. The darkness hour lows have seen little change over both periods and averaged 2.7MHz. Spread-F was reported during some early mornings. The highs are now taking place around noon, and the lows between 04.00 and 06.00 hours. I'll repeat the figures. Highs - 7.9 and 7.4MHz; lows - 2.7MHz. And lastly the solar forecast: This week, the quiet side of the sun is expected to be looking our way. Solar activity is expected to be very low, with solar flux levels down to the mid 70s. Geomagnetic activity is expected to be mostly quiet but may increase to unsettled levels towards next weekend. Ionospheric MUFs during daylight hours in the south are expected to reach 24MHz, and in the north 20MHz. Darkness hour lows are expected to reach 10MHz on north/south paths with east/west paths being about 7MHz. And that's the end of the solar information. Finally in the main news, SSL has informed the Society that as of last Wednesday morning, the latest callsigns allocated were in the G0 Victor Mike and G7 Tango Whiskey series, and Novice calls in the 2 0 Alpha Juliet and 2 1 Delta Oscar series. -- GB2RS is prepared by the Radio Society of Great Britain and is broadcast in the 80m, 40m, 6m and 2m bands. Tel +44 1707 659015 Fax +44 1707 645105