ZS2X VHF beacon now covering most of South Africa

The two-element Yagi of the ZS2X beacon on 50,007 MHz FSK, near Port Elizabeth, has been turned north by Tim Joubert, ZS2X, as requested to cover most of South Africa.

This 25 Watt beacon will produce very strong radio bursts on the daylight meteor shower Arietids that is currently active until 2 July 2013, which is the most intense daylight meteor shower of the year.

This VHF beacon can also indicate country-wide Tropo Ducting as well as Tropo Scatter propagation on 50 MHz in the early mornings after sunrise as well as Aircraft Scatter along the flight paths.

It will be the most effective during the summer months when it can give early warnings of the strong but unpredictable Sporadic-E openings that could occur during the mornings, afternoons and/or evenings.

Reception reports of the ZS2X beacon would be appreciated

Oklahoma storm - Radio Hams respond

The EF5 tornado that swept through Oklahoma on 20 May 2013, benefited from the response of radio amateurs operators, who assisted the state and the American Red Cross with its communications efforts.

“Amateur Radio operators were asked to support voice communications from the American Red Cross Oklahoma City Chapter Headquarters to their feeding station at the Incident Command Post located in Moore,” explained ARRL Oklahoma Section Emergency Coordinator Mark Conklin, N7XYO.

Moore, located about halfway between Norman and Oklahoma City, suffered the brunt of the tornado damage. As of 8:30 CDT on 22 May 2013, all Amateur Radio operations in support of the American Red Cross ceased.

Read the full story - http://www.arrl.org/news/amateurs-in-oklahoma-respond-to-storm-aftermath

Oklahoma Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES) Yahoo Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aresoklahoma/

ARES Oklahoma -  http://www.aresok.org/

Spotter Network - https://twitter.com/spotternetwork

Radio News in Irish

The weekly Irish Radio Transmitters Society radio news in Irish, which is read by Paddy Maher EI7GK on Sundays at 11.30 am local time, is moving from 80 metres to 40 metres with effect from Sunday 9th June 2013.

The news frequency will be 7.128 MHz, which is 5kHz above the English-language 40 metre news frequency.

As well as "as Gaeilge", call-ins in English are welcome to the news in Irish.