Radio hams get access to 18m EME dish

A huge tracking dish is to become available for amateur radio EME operation on 432 MHz

The InfoAge Science History Museum in Wall Township, New Jersey, plans to make a 60 foot tracking dish antenna available to hams for moonbounce, secondary to its function as a radiotelescope.

It was on the InfoAge site, then part of Fort Monmouth, that the US Army’s “Project Diana” team in 1946 first received radio signals bounced from the moon.

According to InfoAge’s Martin Flynn, W2RWJ, Daniel Marlow, K2QM, an InfoAge board member who teaches physics at Princeton, wants to use the dish, currently under rehabilitation after being dormant since the 1970s, to pursue radio astronomy for instructional purposes.

Marlow’s primary goal is to restore the TLM-18 dish antenna to working order and use it to see the 21 centimeter radiation from the Milky Way. But he also wants to observe radio pulsars, and since that activity can be performed at 70 centimeters, the TLM-18 will be made available to the Amateur Radio community for EME at 432 MHz on a secondary basis.

ARRL story - http://www.arrl.org/news/huge-tracking-dish-to-become-available-for-eme

Vintage Newsreel of Project Diana Earth-Moon-Earth - http://www.southgatearc.org/news/march2013/vintage_newsreel_of_project_diana_earth_moon_earth.htm

 

15-year-old develops body heat powered flashlight

A 15-year-old Canadian girl used her knowledge of electronics to develop an innovative flashlight

Ann Makosinski realized that Peltier tiles, which produce electricity when one side of the tile is heated and the other is cooled, could use body-heat to create energy for a flashlight.

The voltage created by the tiles was not enough to power an LED light so she developed an electrical circuit to increase the voltage.

In September she will be one of fifteen finalists presenting their project at the Google Science Fair in Mountain View, California. The winner gets a prize of $50,000 and a trip to the Galapagos Islands.

Full story - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2351791/15-year-old-Canadian-girl-invents-flashlight-powered-body-heat-earns-spot-Google-Science-Fair-finals.html

5 GHz Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communications

Car-to-car communications protocols have passed field testing trials  The frequency range 5.875 to 5.925 GHz is being used for Cooperative Transport Systems using modified WiFi technology.

The evaluation of a large Car2x communications field test proves that the technology is now ready for mass deployment, say its promoters. The simTD (Safe Intelligent Mobility - Test Field Deutschland) test involved 123 vehicles - including cars and motorbikes - in real-world traffic. Results indicate that the number of accidents could be significantly reduced if the technology were widely deployed.

Read the EE Times story - http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/en/car-to-car-communications-protocols-pass-field-testing-trials.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=222917326

Siemens - Cooperativity in Motion -http://www.mobility.siemens.com/mobility/global/SiteCollectionDocuments/en/road-solutions/urban/cooperativity-in-motion.pdf

The Vehicular Radio Channel in the 5 GHz Band -http://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/PubDat_188736.pdf