.. and space junk.
Interesting Visualisation here.
Monthly Archives: January 2010
Vices can be good for you…
I haven’t read the book (to my shame), but here is the post from Jeff, KE9V that explains my title.
IEEE – Hams in Haiti
27 January 2010—Two weeks after a magnitude 7.3 earthquake devastated Haiti, amateur radio operators are hard at work there connecting rescuers within the country and to the outside world. But they are switching gears from rescue mode to recovery mode as aid workers set up camp and distribute food, water, medical supplies, and other aid to survivors. more
First tweet from space.
Spotted on the Southgate Amateur Radio club’s website.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station received a special software upgrade last week –
personal access to the Internet and the World Wide Web via the ultimate wireless connection.
Expedition 22 Flight Engineer T.J. Creamer, KC5WKI, made first use of the new system on Friday when he posted the first unassisted update to his Twitter account, @Astro_TJ, from the space station.
Amateur Satellite – Thesis
I spotted this on the Southgate Amateur Radio Clubs news feed this morning. Looking forward to learning something by reading it. Pretty cool project though, it has to be said.
A thesis based on the work done for the SO-67 Amateur Satellite is now available here.
Titled “Reusable Software Defined Radio Platform for Micro-satellites” it was written by John Foster Van Wyk of Stellenbosch University and describes the design and implementation of a software platform for the software defined radio (SDR) that formed part of the Sumbandila (SO-67) Amateur Radio satellite.
The Amateur Radio payload on SO-67 operates in conjunction with the Software Defined Receiver project sharing the VHF receiver and UHF transmitter used by the SDR project.
The nominal frequencies for SO-67 are Uplink 145.875 MHz and Downlink 435.345 MHz +/- Doppler shift
Sumbandila (SO-67) Mission Blog
Southern African Amateur Radio Satellite Association (SA AMSAT) and SO-67 schedule
Speeding fines
I travel one of three different routes into work every day. i tend to follow one most of the time that brings me onto the Waterford City outer ring road. Now, given that I’m not exactly the slowest driver on the road, and have been known to do the odd doughnut myself, I’m astonished at the speed many many cars overtake me at. If there was ever a speed trap, they’d be done for (and I would probably get a telling off).
Imagine my surprise over the last few days, with the icy threat of mashing their car off a roundabout or off someone elses vehicle, that I’ve been overtaken by precisely 1 driver in the last 3 or 4 days of driving into work.
So my disturbing conclusion is that the speeding fine and penalty points are of little interest to habitual speeders, and that the fine should be increased substantially (think of the price of replacing a panel or wheel or maybe a front bumper).
Now, what can we do with the folks that just drive too slow and hog the white line?
Zeniths back!
Twelve O’Clock in London
From Met Eireann
Every day at Twelve O’Clock Greenwich Mean Time, a thousand people from around the world synchronise their efforts in one global act, the launching of meteorological weather balloons.
This non-political agreement between all of the world’s governments forms the theme of Nin Brudermann’s art project “Twelve O’Clock in London”. Nin, sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts, has gathered 90 videos of balloon launches from around the world to assemble an illustrative short movie highlighting global scientific co-operation.
For more information visit www.12oclockinlondon.com
Midday launch from Valentia Observatory.
Midnight launch from Valentia Observatory.
