Massive X2-Class Solar Flare During Geomagnetic Storm Watch

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A massive solar flare erupted from the sun on Friday 17th February 2023 as the Earth was under a geomagnetic storm watch from flares earlier in the week.

The huge solar flare, which registered as a powerful X2.2 sun storm, occurred began at 2:38 p.m. EST (1938 GMT) and reached its peak strength 48 minutes later. From start to finish, the intense solar storm lasted one hour and 12 minutes, and created temporary radio blackouts on the sunlit side of Earth, according to an alert(opens in new tab) from the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Group operated by NOAA. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured video of the new flare.

The X2.2 solar flare followed a series of strong flares and a coronal mass ejection from the sun in recent days, including a strong X1.1 flare on Feb. 11. Those sun storms prompted space weather experts to issue a geomagnetic storm warning for northern latitudes from Feb. 16 to Feb. 18 that could make auroras visible as far south as Idaho and New York, as well as affect communications and other systems, according to the alert.

See the video - https://videos.space.com/m/8QcCX13G/sun-blasts-powerful-x2-class-solar-flare-spacecraft-sees-it?list=9wzCTV4g

44Net Assessment Survey Results are In!→

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44Net Assessment Survey Results are In!

One of the reasons that Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) exists is to manage – and encourage the use of – 44Net (also known as AMPRNet), the IP address space allocated to amateur radio. This space consists of about 12 million IPv4 addresses (44.0.0.0/9 and 44.128.0.0/10) and is used exclusively by radio amateurs for scientific research and experimentation with digital communications.

In early 2022, ARDC contracted with Two P, a consultancy with expertise in networking and systems management, to determine who is using 44Net and how they are using it. Two P’s first step was to conduct a survey of current users and potential users to get some basic data. They then conducted multiple focus groups to dive deeper into the data. Their report – ARDC 44Net Assessment Results – characterises 44Net users, details the applications and services that run on 44Net,  and comments on ARDC’s stewardship of 44Net.

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The Voice of ChatGPT is Now on the Air

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The Voice of ChatGPT is Now on the Air

AIs can now apparently carry on a passable conversation, depending on what you classify as passable conversation. The quality of your local pub’s banter aside, an AI stuck in a text box doesn’t have much of a living quality. human. An AI that holds a conversation aloud, though, is another thing entirely.

The concept is straightforward, if convoluted. A DSTAR digital voice transmission is received, which is then transcoded to regular digital audio. The audio then goes through a voice recognition engine, and that is used as a question for a ChatGPT AI. The AI’s output is then fed to a text-to-speech engine, and it speaks back with its own voice over the airwaves.

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