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Est. 1938 Club Call G4HRS

Sponsored by:

The Journal of

Horsham Amateur Radio Club

May 2017

Affiliated to:

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Contents

In this issue 3. Notes from the Editor Validation and caught out

5. A Large valve? Mike explains the physics

12. Which way now? The fox is out again

13. 5NN Morse with nature, well almost!

14. NL HARC goes Dutch

16. Print away How to print difficult web page content

17. Listen to this Help the young and DX news

21. Picture this Hand held device and a collection of stars

22. Ionospheric All gone quiet!

27. Diary of events Full listings for the month

Member Score The latest results in the Club Championships

Cover picture: Number 16 spotted at Horsham’s Piazza Italia

Published by Horsham Amateur Radio ClubHARCNEWS is produced at home by G4JHI

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There have been comments and letters in the radio magazine press recently following changes last year with the Ofcom licensing portal. Myself I experienced problems whilst trying to login to revalidate and check my details on record. If you’ve not had an account before then the process is relatively easy but for existing users that’s another matter.

Editorial

For the latter you are invited to re-register with the same email address that was used when you first started using the previous system. The problem that I had as I hadn’t used the system for almost 5 years was that I didn’t know what email address I had used before! Anyway I filled in the details and included what was believed to be the correct email address and got an account but there was no licence information showing.

I contacted Ofcom and they sent me instructions on how to set up a new account with a current email address and not the one I had just used. This gave the same result with 2 accounts with no licence information! I phoned Ofcom and they looked into the issue and found the email address that had been used originally but I explained that this was now defunct.

The issue was resolved by one account being deleted and the original account transferred to one of my current email addresses and then deleting the account which had the original information stored in. Based on my experience I would recommend anyone who has issues signing up to phone Ofcom during office hours on the number on their website. There have been reports of email support taking 4 weeks to reply…………!

https://ofcom.force.com/licensingcomlogin

Following last month’s details about the world’s smallest Smart QSL Wallet several readers have commented on this. We’’ll it was certainly popular but now I give away the secret that you wont find one. Well it was the April edition of the magazine!

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Copy deadline for emailed items for June edition 20th May - For written items the deadline is 17th May.

For items sent by email please send to this address:

harc.news@g4jhi.co.uk

Membership list 2017 - last call

A list of HARC Club members for this year is now being compiled. For those who are new to this it includes your name, callsign, address with post code and telephone number. We do not put email addresses in this.

If anyone has any specific details not to be shared please let the Editor know and any changes to callsigns or other details.

If you have moved QTH in the last year and haven’t advised anyone on the committee please let me know the details. If in doubt please check last years list or ask me for a copy.

Amendment

HARCNEWS April 2017 page 16 paragraph 2 line 3 should have read:

in fact record producer Peter Waterman.

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April Meeting

The History of the Magnetron – from Radar to the Kitchen

For the HARC April meeting Prof Mike Underhill G3LHZ gave a talk entitled ‘The History of the Magnetron – from Radar to the Kitchen’ , Mike started the meeting by asking the question What is a Magnetron? A Magnetron is a diode vacuum tube consisting of a cylindrical (straight wire) cathode and a coaxial anode, between which a direct current potential creates an electric field. A magnetic field is then applied longitudinally by an external magnet and when connected to a resonant line, it acts as an oscillator. Magnetrons are capable of generating extremely high frequencies and also short bursts of very high power. They are an important source of power in radar systems and in microwave ovens.

Invention of the MagnetronSource material http://www.radartutorial.eu/04.history/hi80.en.html

In 1921 the Swiss physicist Heinrich Greinacher tried to use a diode tube with a cylindrically symmetric arrangement of the anode in an axis-parallel magnetic field to measure the ratio of the electron charge to its mass. This practical attempt failed due to a poor vacuum in the tube and consequently insufficient electron emission from the cathode. Greinacher supplied a basic mathematical description of the changes in the electron motion under the influence of the magnetic field.

Also in 1921 Albert W. Hull from the General Electric Company used Greinacher’s experimental arrangement and investigated the motion of electrons under the influence of a similar axial magnetic field. He noticed the ability to control the electron current to the anode by variation of the magnetic field.

Model of Hulls magnetron anode

Hull wanted to develop this idea of a magnetically controlled relay or amplifier for General Electric in competition to the grid controlled triodes of the Western Electric Co. Hull also so noted the possibility of RF generation with this device. He called his novel device a “magnetron”.

In 1924 the use of the magnetron for high frequency oscillations was independently investigated by Erich Habann in Jena (Germany) and Napsal August Zázek in Prague (Czechia). Habann correctly predicted the conditions required for the appearance of a negative resistance which would overcome the usual damping

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caused by resonant circuit losses. In contrast to the Hull device, Habann employed a magnetic field which was constant (as with today’s magnetrons). Using his split-anode magnetron design, Habann was able to generate oscillations in the 100 MHz range. Zázek then developed the magnetron further with a solid cylindrical anode and was able to generated frequencies up to 1 GHz.

Model of Habann split-magnetron

The breakthrough in the generation of centimetric wavelengths by magnetrons came in 1929 when Kinjiro Okabe operated his slotted-anode design magnetron at 5.35 GHz at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan.

In 1935 Hans Erich Hollmann filed a patent for the multi-cavity magnetron in Germany on November 27, 1935. The corresponding US Patent 2,123,728 was granted on July 12, 1938, well ahead of John Randall’s and Henry Boot’s work in February 1940.

Model of Hol lmann’s mult i -cavity

In 1940 however, the multi-cavity magnetron built by two engineers from the university in Birmingham, John Randall and Henry Boot, was a milestone in the sub-marine war against Germany by mid-1940. They built a magnetron that used more than four cavities (as shown in the figures of Hollmanns patent) to increase the effectiveness of RF-generation. In Britain further development of the magnetron for radar applications had succeeded in improving on the prototype of a water-cooled

multi-cavity magnetron (one with 8 concentric resonant cavities) enabling the production of a relatively small, light-weight airborne transmitter which could generate RF pulses at 3 GHz, with an output power of 15 KW.

Model of multi-cavity magnetron built by Randall and Boot

This small but powerful radar using a Cavity-Magnetron gave operational improvements against airborne detection of German submarines. Using a frequency of 3 GHz the antenna could be relatively small but with high gain. With small high gain aerials, beamwidth this radar achieved greater accuracy in each dimension (azimuth and elevation) and bearing resolution.

The research results of Henry Gutton on the use of barium oxide cathodes in a multi-cavity magnetron were brought to England by Maurice Ponte of the General Society for wireless telegraphy, shortly before the occupation of France. Barium oxide cathodes had a lower operating temperature compared to the original tungsten cathodes being used at that time, although having the same comparable electron emission the use of barium oxide resulted in a longer service life. These results were integrated into the ongoing magnetron development of Randall and Boot. Henry Tizard then led a British delegation that brought all previously available research findings in the United States of America back to the UK to further develop the magnetron. It was then that the mass production of magnetron tubes for the war use was initiated.

Typical early form of a magnetron

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Plan Position Indicator (PPI) radar display

A photograph of an H2S PPI display taken during an attack on Cologne on 31/10/44. The annotations were added later for post-attack analysis. The Rhine River can clearly be seen.

In the post-war era the magnetron became less widely used in the radar role. This was because the magnetron’s output changes from pulse to pulse, both in frequency and phase. This makes the signal unsuitable for pulse-to-pulse comparisons, which is widely used for detecting and removing “clutter” from the radar display. The magnetron remains in use in some radars, but has become much more common as a low-cost microwave source for microwave ovens. In this form, approximately one billion magnetrons are in use today.

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Discovery of Microwave CookingSource material (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven)

The exploitation of high-frequency radio waves for heating substances was made possible by the development of vacuum tube radio transmitters around 1920. By 1930 the application of short waves to heat human tissue had developed into the medical therapy of diathermy. At the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, Westinghouse demonstrated the cooking of foods between two metal plates attached to a 10 kW, 60 MHz shortwave transmitter. The Westinghouse team, led by I. F. Mouromtseff, found that foods like steaks and potatoes could be cooked in minutes.

The 1937 United States patent application by Bell Laboratories states and also in Canada “This invention relates to heating systems for dielectric materials and the object of the invention is to heat such materials uniformly and substantially simultaneously throughout their mass. It has been proposed therefore to heat such materials simultaneously throughout their mass by means of the dielectric loss produced in them when they are subjected to a high voltage, high frequency field.”

However, lower-frequency dielectric heating, as described in the aforementioned patent, is (like induction heating) an electromagnetic heating effect, the result of the so-called near-field effects that exist in an electromagnetic cavity that is small compared with the wavelength of the electromagnetic field. This patent proposed radio frequency heating, at 10 to 20 megahertz (wavelength 15 to 30 meters).

In 1945 the specific heating effect of a high-power microwave beam was accidentally discovered by Percy Spencer, an American self-taught engineer from Howland, Maine. Employed by Raytheon at the time he noticed that microwaves from an active radar set he was working on started to melt a candy bar (chocolate with peanuts) he had in his pocket.

The first food deliberately cooked with Spencer’s microwave was popcorn, and the second was an egg, which exploded in the face of one of the experimenters. To verify his finding, Spencer created a high density electromagnetic field by feeding microwave power from a magnetron into a metal box from which it had no way to escape. When food was placed in the box with the microwave energy, the temperature of the food rose rapidly.

On 8 October 1945, Raytheon filed a United States patent application for Spencer’s microwave cooking process, and an oven that heated food using microwave energy from a magnetron was soon placed in a Boston restaurant for testing.

The first time the public was able to use a microwave oven was in January 1947, when the Speedy Weeny vending machine was placed in Grand Central Terminal to dispense “sizzling delicious” hot dogs. Among those on the development team was robotics pioneer George Devol, who had spent the last part of the war developing radar countermeasures.

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Heating from microwaves that have a wavelength that is small relative to the cavity (as in a modern microwave oven) is due to “far-field” effects that are due to classical electromagnetic radiation that describes freely propagating light and microwaves suitably far from their source. Nevertheless, the primary heating effect of all types of electromagnetic fields at both radio and microwave frequencies occurs via the dielectric heating effect, as polarized molecules are affected by a rapidly alternating electric field.

Typical modern magnetron used in microwave ovens

Is there a future for magnetrons now that the latest microwave ovens are beginning to use solid state devices to produce RF. As an example Freescale’s new portfolio of high-power, high-efficiency RF heating products includes the MHT1003N, a 250 W transistor with 58 percent power added efficiency for 2.45 GHz microwave oven applications, and the MHT1002N, a 350 W transistor with 63 percent power added efficiency for 915 MHz microwave applications.

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As can be seen above solid state microwave ovens use multiple RF sources and have done away with the turn table, so no more watching your diner go round and round.

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Now that the lighter evenings are with us its time for our first Thursday evening Fox Hunt. The start will be at the QTH of Robin G3OGP ready for a first transmission on 144.725MHz at 7:30pm and every 10min there after until 9pm.

Maps required will be OS Land Ranger sheets 187, 197 and 198.

The Fox will be G4HRS/P (alias Adrian G4LRP).

The pub will be at….. you’ll have to find me or open the envelope.

Regards

Adrian G4LRP

HARC Spring Fox Hunt Thursday 18th May

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News from HARC

Dah-di-dah-dit Dah-dah-di-dah

CW Field Day

Please can we have some volunteers to help set up, and dismantle, the CW Field Day station?

We will set up on the first weekend of the month, Friday 2nd June at 4pm, but meet a bit earlier. Further details will be on the Website.

Operation time is 1500UTC on the Saturday for 24 hours.

We won this contest for the last two years.

The field is likely to be the same as before which is in Itchingfield, and the entrance driveway is next to the old school on the corner.

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Weekend in the Netherlands

by Paul G4TMC

The Dutch National Radio Rally was held on the 11th March in the town of Rosmalen. A small contingent of us decided to spend a long weekend in Holland to investigate the Rally. Mick G4EFO organised the trip and rest of the group consisted of Chris G4CCC, Adrian G4LRP, Robin G3OGP, Dom M0GUZ, Paul G4TMC, Richard G4ANN and Richard G3ZIY.

We began on the Friday with a visit to the Dutch National Military Museum at Soesterberg Air-Force Base near Utrecht.

https://www.nmm.nl/en/

It is an interesting collection of military vehicles and aircraft. The exhibits tell the story of the Dutch Armed Forces from soldiers on horseback through to the modern jet aircraft.

We spent the night in a small hotel near Rosmalen, 15 minutes from the location of the Radio Rally.

The Veron Radio Rally.Last year over 5000 people attended the rally and there was no shortage of visitors in 2017.

Soesterberg

Rosmalenn

The event is held at the Autoton venue in Rosmalen. It is spread over two floors with traders offering everything from new and vintage radio equipment to surface-mount components.

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After a day at the Rally we drove to the town of Bergen op Zoom another overnight hotel stop. We took the opportunity to sample the local food and drink in one of the many restaurants near the town square. The next day we all headed back to the UK, some via Dunkirk and the ferry others went home via Calais and the Tunnel.

Thanks to Mick G4EFO for organising a very entertaining and enjoyable long weekend away.

Web Trawl

Do you visit web sites which look perfectly normal on the screen but then when one tries to print the pages out its all gobbledygook? The Editor assures you that there are probably more than you think! The reason behind this is the way pages are laid out in modern HTML and CSS. The days of just easy printing have gone to some extent. Saying that there are plenty of sites that just print the way they always did. Yes lots of contradiction here!

Anyway for those sites that just won’t print correctly what you need is to install a Browser extension, Add on or perhaps Plug in. For Mozilla Firefox it is suggested to use Save page to PDF. For Google Chrome try Print friendly & PDF. It may be necessary since found on test to use both on different sections of the same website in order get the pages to print how is required.

For Internet Explorer there are no doubt some that may work as well but the Editor couldn’t find any! It is suggested to do a Google search for what you are looking for. From then you will need to find from the support of the browser how to install.

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Broadcast Listener

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Vatican Radio Blasted for causing Childhood Cancers

by Julian Thompson G1ODN, Monday 17th April

As regular readers are probably aware, free-standing radio transmission masts situated in rural areas probably pose the least cancer risk from microwave energy. Here in the UK, guidelines published by Ofcom, in consultation with European and International Regulators, ensure that risk to the public is ‘as low as reasonably possible,’ known as ALARP. Radio masts that comply with guidelines always provide lower health risk from electromagnetic emissions broadcast from free-standing radio transmission masts, than those that don’t.

Why are certain radio masts exempt from ALARP?Key factors include the transmitting power, mast height and residential proximity. It’s understandable that masts that are situated on the top of buildings in densely populated areas need the most consideration; but UK’s Powerwatch lobbyists claim that far too often, planning law loopholes work against the ALARP tenet.

Big question about cancer causality where there’s no public scrutiny?During 1957, the Vatican established a vast array of powerful so-called short and medium wave radio transmitters, the most powerful of which was rated at 500kW. But it was not until fifty years later that a telecommunications expert attributed cancer causality in schoolchildren who’d lived near the masts, some 20km north of Rome.

Rationalization of Vatican RadioFaced by the threat of legal action, poor public relations and loss-making revenues at the radio station, Vatican officials took a leap-of-faith into the twenty-first Century. Earlier this year (2017) short and medium wave radio transmitters were rationalized, curtailing the perceived (but unsubstantiated) threat:- as mentioned above (see Willey, 2010). Today, Vatican radio still broadcasts in nearly 50 languages by (e.g.:) satellite, internet, digital and FM radio.

Summary/conclusionBack at the Vatican’s own administrative building, all that remains is a roof-top mast (pictured). It’s just another holiday snap. It would be misleading to say whether that was ever the cause of any trouble.

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Useful references accessed from the internet on 23/3/20171. Vatican Masts Blamed For Causing Cancer In Children, The Independent, Londonhttp://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/vatican-masts-blamed-for-causing-cancer-in-children-2026765.html

2. Low height high power base station scandal (2005) Powerwatchhttp://www.powerwatch.org.uk/news/20050207_tonight.asp

3. Willey, W (2010) Experts: Vatican Radio transmitters pose cancer risk 14/7/2010http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10634977

Vatican Radio

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Monthly Roundup

by David Ansell 2E0NKC

All times BST

There have been a number of schedule and frequency changes since last month’s HARC NEWS. KBS World Radio Seoul, South Korea heard in English at 17:00 on 9515 kHz with poor signal. Deutsche Well from Germany heard on new 21780 kHz in English via relay from the BBC site on Ascension Island. Radio Thailand has domestic and international news at 20:00 and again at 21:30 on 9390 kHz via Udorn Thani transmitter site in Northeast Thailand.

Radio Fana, GETA, Ethiopia heard at 21:00 in local language with local music on 6110 kHz. Voice of Islamic Republic of Iran has QSY-ed to 9810 kHz for English at 20:30. The audio level is very low on the transmitter. Vatican Radio via relay in Philippines heard at 16:30 on 11700 kHz. This is Saturdays only. There were unfounded rumours that the Vatican was to end Short-wave at the end of March. This is not the case. English direct from Vatican to Africa heard at 21:00 on 9670 kHz and 7360 kHz.

There are rumours that NHK Radio Japan wants to purchase the Vatican Radio transmitter site at Santa Maria Di Galeria near Rome. NHK Radio Japan is being relayed by the Vatican in English at 20:30 on 9710 kHz. United Nations Radio, New York, has English news and features Saturdays only at 19:30 on 7290 kHz via Sofia, Bulgaria. BBC World Service on new 15490 kHz at 16:00 via relay in Madagascar. Radio Tirana has gone QRT on Short-wave and Medium-wave.

Its Short-wave transmitter was on its last legs making terrible noises. However their German service which is a separate entity continues via relay from Radio 292 in Germany at 20:35 on 3985 kHz. China Radio International has QSY-ed at 16:00 from 31 metres to 19 metres on 15245 kHz via Kashi transmitter site. China Radio International has announced that the “Beijing Hour” at that time from April 20th will be replaced by a new programme called “Today”. “Brother Stair” the “last day prophet of God” heard on new 11590 kHz via Bulgaria at 19:00.

A 1972 tape of Radio North Sea International was heard on April 11th at 21:00 on 6070 kHz via Germany. Voice of America Sao Tome E Principe off west coast of Africa heard at 19:00 on 6080 kHz with VOA News. Radio WMLK Bethel, USA, which was on 9275 kHz, was destroyed by fire recently. $5,000 damage was done to transmitter building and $10,000 damage to electrical equipment. The Mighty KBC is on 9400 kHz at 16:00 via Bulgaria.

The format is rock music plus DX news and a short digital transmission. This is Saturdays only. The Mighty KBC is a Dutch station. Radio Romania is heard at 12:00 on new 17760 kHz, 15130 kHz and 13770 kHz. At 21:30 on 6170 kHz and new 9610 kHz and 11850 kHz. Other English transmissions are at 06:30, 17:00 and 23:00. Voice of Turkey is on 15450 kHz at 13:30 and 9785 kHz at 19:30. At 23:00 on 9830 kHz.

The exiting news this month is the return of Radio Kuwait to Short-wave. English is at 19:00 on 15540 kHz. The programme begins with an anthem and “Words of the Holy prophet”. News on Radio Kuwait is at 19:30. The only English from the Greenville South Carolina site is of the Voice of America is at 18:00 on 17530 kHz.

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“Jingle Bells” on 7075 kHz approximately, David G4JHI advised me he was hearing a continuous transmission in the 40 metre amateur band. It seems to be a beacon of some kind? Any ideas to G4JHI or 2E0NKC. Seems to be a permanent transmission.

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TV Addict

by David G4JHI

Keep in Touch

A 100 year history of the landline telephone in the Timeshift series was broadcast in April. Dial “B” for Britain – the Story of the Landline is the show that you are looking for and if you missed it you can catch up now on the BBC iPlayer. But don’t leave it too long as it will expire on 20th May. We started off with the invention of the telephone and went through the decade’s right up to modern times which included seeing the first ‘mobile phone’.

A clip from Tomorrows World was shown with a rather hefty unit with an antenna sticking out. We learnt that in Hull K6 phone boxes are in fact not red but cream (until 2007) due to an independent, municipal telephone network provider in the area. Tales were included of the downsides of telephone kiosks due to vandalism and theft of telephone directories.

GPO engineers were seen installing new telegraph wires and phones into residential properties which included the popular Trimphone with the illuminated dial… my family had one of those which glowed in the dark! This effect came from a small glass tube of tritium gas just under the dial. Popular in Victorian times were Candlestick phones.

Celebration

The Sky at Night 60th Anniversary Special will have been broadcast by the time that you read this. The team will be celebrating the programme’s birthday by looking at how the universe has been transformed over the last six decades. There will be guests such as Dallas Campbell and an array of starts will give birthday messages.

The current presenters are Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Chris Lintot who regularly explore the night skies each month. The show did take a break in March whilst Stargazing live Australia was on. There we learnt that the star constellations are in fact visible the other way up! Catch up on BBC iPlayer if you have missed this Anniversary special show!

Space weather (or what went wrong with the Sunday morning net?)

by Mike Tooley, G8CKT

Figure 1: At 35,000 feet aircraft can be susceptible to the effects of space weather. In particular, rendering HF radio and satellite navigation systems unusable

At 9 a.m. on Sunday 2nd April it was the usual 80 m Sunday morning net but surprisingly only two signals (G3OGP and G4LRP) could be heard. There were simply no other stations audible on any band. Not one! This situation, where only ground wave signals were viable over the whole HF spectrum, persisted for some time – just enough for a quick chat with Robin and Adrian!

What caused this problem and why was it so severe? The answer to the first question, of course, is our old friend (and potential enemy) the Sun. The answer to the second question was first considered by John Howard Dellinger in 1935. Dellinger identified the cause as a sudden ionospheric disturbance, or SID.

As radio amateurs all know, conditions on the Sun and in the solar wind, magnetosphere, ionosphere and thermosphere can have a major impact on radio signals. The probability and severity of these “space weather” events is shown in Table 1.

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Event Effect Typical probability

Solar flares Major Once per 100 years

Significant Once per year

Minor 100 days per year

Solar radiation Major Once per 100 years

Significant Once per five years

Minor Several days per year

Geomagnetic Major Once per 100 years

Significant Several days per year

Minor 100 days per year

Table 1: Probability and severity of various space weather events

Solar flares are violent explosions in the Sun's atmosphere with an energy equivalent to tens of millions of hydrogen bombs. Solar flares occur in the solar corona and in the chromosphere, and the heated plasma generated is at temperatures of tens of millions of Kelvin. The release of energy has the effect of accelerating electrons, protons and heavier ions to velocities close to the speed of light. Solar radiation storms occur when large-scale magnetic eruptions accelerate charged particles (in particular, protons) in the solar atmosphere to very high velocities. The protons can reach the Earth within 30-60 minutes, penetrating the magnetosphere.

Figure 2: M-class solar flare observed on 2nd April 2017

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Figure 3: GOES X-ray chart showing three M-class flares in a 24-hour period

Geomagnetic storms are temporary disturbances of the Earth's magnetosphere caused by a solar wind and/or cloud of magnetic field interacting with the Earth's magnetic field. The effect on HF communications, satellite communications and satellite navigation ranges from major disruption through to no significant effect.

Solar flares produce electromagnetic radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum from long-wave radio to the shortest wavelength Gamma rays. Most flares occur around visible sunspots, where intense magnetic fields emerge from the Sun's surface into the corona. The energy efficiency associated with solar flares may take several hours or even days to build up, but most flares take only a matter of minutes to release their energy.

Depending on the peak flux emitted, solar flares are classified as A, B, C, M or X (see Table 2). The peak X-ray flux (in Watts per square meter, W/m2) is currently monitored by the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) system operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Figure 3 shows the GOES X-ray chart for the period in which the solar flare of Figure 2 occurred. Figure 4 shows the corresponding HF radio blackout that wiped out the 80m net on 2nd April.

When examining the chart shown in Figure 3 you should note that the vertical scale is logarithmic and each class has a peak flux is ten times greater than the preceding one, with X-class flares having a peak flux of order 10-4 W/m2. Within a class there is a linear scale from 1 to 9, so an X2 flare is twice as powerful as an X1 flare, and is four times more powerful than an M5 flare. The chart in Figure 3 shows three M-class solar flares occurring in the 24-hour period. Each flare produced an HF radio blackout extending for up to several hours.

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Physical measure

Average frequency (1 cycle = 11 years)

Severity Effect

X20 (2×10-3)

Less than 1 per cycle Extreme HF Radio: Complete HF radio blackout on the entire sunlit side of the Earth lasting for many hours. No HF communication is possible Navigation: LF navigation systems experience outages on the sunlit die of the Earth causing loss of positioning information. Increased satellite navigation errors for several hours which may spread into the night side of the Earth

X10 (1×10-3)

8 per cycle (8 days per cycle)

Severe HF Radio: HF radio blackout on most of the sunlit side of the Earth lasting for several hours. HF communication can be lost for some time Navigation: Outages of LF navigation signals resulting in positioning errors lasting for several hours. Minor disruption of satellite navigation on the sunlit side of the Earth

X1 (1×10-4)

175 per cycle (140 days per cycle)

Strong HF Radio: Wide area blackout of HF radio communication. Loss of radio contact for about one hour on the sunlit side of the Earth Navigation: LF navigation signals degraded for about an hour. Negligible effect on satellite systems

M5 (5×10-5)

350 per cycle (300 days per cycle)

Moderate HF Radio: Limited blackout of HF radio communication on the sunlit side of the Earth. Loss of radio contact lasting for tens of minutes Navigation: Degradation of LF navigation signals lasting for tens of minutes. No impact on satellite systems

M1 (1×10-5)

2000 per cycle (950 days per cycle)

Minor HF Radio: Weak or minor degradation of HF radio communication on the sunlit side of the Earth. Occasional loss of radio contact for brief periods Navigation: Occasional degradation of LF navigation signals. No impact on satellite systems

Table 2: Classification of solar flares

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Figure 4: Radio blackout resulting from the M-class solar flare shown in Figure 2

Finally, it is important to know about the most dangerous form of solar weather, an ejection of material from the solar corona known as a coronal mass ejection or CME. The ejected material consists of plasma consisting primarily of electrons and protons (in addition to small quantities of heavier elements such as helium, oxygen, and iron), plus the entrained coronal magnetic field. When the solar cloud reaches the Earth as an ICME (Interplanetary CME), it may disrupt the Earth's magnetosphere, compressing it on the day-side and extending the night-side tail. When the magnetosphere reconnects on the night-side, it creates energy that’s directed back towards the Earth's upper atmosphere. This process can cause particularly strong aurora, known as the Northern Lights (in the Northern Hemisphere) and the Southern Lights (in the Southern Hemisphere).

CME events, along with solar flares, can disrupt radio transmissions, cause power outages (blackouts), and also cause damage to satellites and electrical transmission lines. Fortunately, a major CME directed towards the Earth is a relatively rare occurrence. However, a large CME directed directly towards the earth has the capability of causing major power and telecommunications outages as well as the potential destruction of satellites and aircraft navigation and communication systems that just happen to be in its path!

Diary

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May 1st, 80m SSB Club Championship 20:00 - 21:30

May 4th, Club Night: Vive La Difference : Life and Amateur Radio in France - Mike G8CKT/F8VON

May 10th, 80m Data Club Championship 20:00 - 21:30

May 11th, Social Evening: The Fountain - Ashurstwww.fountainashurst.pub

May 14th, BVWS National Vintage Communications Fair - Warwick Exhibition Centre 10:30www.nvcf.org.uk

May 18th, Thursday Evening Fox Hunt - Adrian G4LRP

May 21st, Dunstable Downs Amateur Radio Car Boot Sale - Stockwood Park 09:00www.ddrcbootsale.org

May 25th, 80m CW Club Championship 20:00 - 21:30

May 28th, Waters & Stanton Open Day 10:00 - 16:00www.wsplc.com

June 1st, Club Night: DMR (Digital Mobile Radio)

June 3/4th, National Field Day (CW)

For details on the above contests use this link and follow to the appropriate sectionhttp://rsgb.org/main/radio-sport/

All above times are BST

Committee/Club Meetings and Socials start at 20:00

RSGB Club Champs 2017 - Horsham Club Scores Issue: 24th April 2017 Rev A

TOTAL

SSB Data CW SSB Data CW SSB Data CW SSB Data CW SSB Data CW SSB Data CW POINTS SSB DATA CW

G3LET Pete 947 947 5.1 0 0 947

G3OGP Robin 659 748 1407 7.6 0 0 1407

G3SWC Bryn 1000 805 850 818 854 919 5246 28.4 1854 1623 1769

G3VQO Les 0 0.0 0 0 0

G3WZT John 0 0.0 0 0 0

G3ZBU Alister 444 325 897 130 683 528 3007 16.3 2024 325 658

G4EFO Mick 0 0.0 0 0 0

G4LRP Adrian 481 342 823 4.5 823 0 0

G4TPO Steve 435 388 584 114 604 276 2401 13.0 1427 584 390

G7DFV Gavin 85 85 0.5 85 0 0

G8CKT Mike 306 545 293 468 1612 8.7 306 1013 293

M0GJH Andrew 0 0.0 0 0 0

M0GUZ Dominic 0 0.0 0 0 0

M0TWM Jon 259 519 128 325 532 358 106 2227 12.1 942 1051 234

2E0WEK Keith 324 393 717 3.9 717 0 0

2E0XRT Richard 0 0.0 0 0 0

Mode totals 3249 2194 2218 2430 2402 903 2499 0 2577 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8178 4596 5698

Month totals to date 7661 5735 5076 0 0 0 44% 25% 31%

Contest dates/times 6th 15th 23rd 23rd 6th 15th 12th 27th 3rd 1st 10th 25th 22nd 5th 14th 12th 27th 3rd - Start times are all 2000 clock time, ending 2130 local

2/27 3/28 2/31 3/37 2/32 3/32 3/37 3/37

Latest robot entries may be viewed at:-

Contest rules may be viewed at:-

Pos Total SSB DATA CW

1 Torbay ARS 22,897 12,751 4,831 5,315

2 Cambridge & DARC 20,906 9,044 6,550 5,312

3 Horsham ARC 18,472 8,178 4,596 5,698

4 Sheffield & DWS 14,967 8,039 2,476 4,452

5 RAF Waddington ARC 13,920 6,246 2,861 4,813

6 Scunthorpe Steel ARC 10,473 2,635 3,246 4,592

7 Reading & DARC 9,427 3705 440 5,282

8 Colchester RA 9,047 4608 2,056 2,383

(all results data courtesy of RSGB website) prep by: Bryn Tinton G3SWC

http://www.rsgbcc.org/hf/rules/2017/r80mcc.shtml

THE TOP EIGHT CLUBS - LOCAL CLUB SECTION

out of approx 37 participating in this section

(79 total all club participation)

HARC POSITION

Maintaining 3rd place

MODE TOTALS%

www.rsgbcc.org/cgi-bin/hfposted.plwww.rsgbcc.org/cgi-bin/hfenter.pl

APRIL JUNEMAYFEBRUARY

18472

http://www.rsgbcc.org/hf/

This update: - added: Apr CW & SSB results.

We are maintaining 3rd position but could do with more participants, so please join in!

PARTICIPANTSMARCH

All entries to be uploaded

with the

Contest Robot at:-

JULY

Club Name

HARC overall position after above

results announced

Contest results may be

viewed at:-