MS season 2013

The Quadrantids (QUA) shower was stronger this season, compared to a season of 2012. Maybe because of my new 6el DK7ZB monobander. I started monitoring at 1th of January, heard few "ping" late evening. And next two days band exploded with many bursts, with mach longer duration that last year!

Quadrantids - 2013

First and one of the three most powerful meteor showers of 2013 year.  Starts at December 28 2012, with peak at night of January 3, 2013. 

Velocity: 41 km/s

ZHR = 120 meteors/hour (may vary 60-200)

Radiant  coordinates: RA = 230.0  Dec: 49.0

Check here, Quadrantids will show up coming days.

Meteor showers calendar from TAU astronomy club.

SSA Jultesten 144 + 432MHz

Participated Jultesten today. No contacts on 432 MHZ and several SSB contacts made on 144MHz. So far it is the same result as last year, hi hi!
This year I used 6 el ultralight DK7ZB Yagi on 2 m boom, since my old SAT yagi is broken. It works fine on 70cm also so there is an opportunity to work on SSB and SAT frequencies. I have another 2m alu pipe and will try to stack 2x6el yagis, as soon as I find good support mast..

HAM SAT to flash morse code

On Christmas Eve (Dec. 24) the Japanese students who built FITSAT-1 are planning to activate the satellite's LED optical array and flash a message in Morse Code to Earth. The Morse message may be visible with the unaided eye. (Project web-site)

Wouxun KG-UV6D - First impression

Since my 2 meters handy Rexon RL-102 was too old and not in good condition, I decided to buy something new, like VHF/UHF handheld with DTMF and CTCSS. After reading the reviews of radios, I choosed Wouxun latest model KG-UV6D. This radio was praised for good voice quality of the speaker and attractive price. Well.. it was very easy to find a sellers of this radio at InterRadio, but quite difficult to buy it because of long queue!

Android Bluetooth Oscilloscope

ProjectProto's oscilloscope. Great project! Schematic, Project source codes for Android and dsPIC available on their website. I'd love to build one for myself :) Many features could be added to make a real oscilloscope from this (triggerring, data storage, etc) Of course, bandwidth will be limited to 1MHz, but this is enough for audio signals... Or build Android-based multimeter.

   

InterRadio Exhibition (Hannover) part II

YAGIs