40th anniversary of ham radio satellite OSCAR 7

Patrick Stoddard WD9EWK/VA7EWK has secured the special call sign W7O (Whiskey Seven Oscar) for use in commemorating the 40th anniversary of the launch of OSCAR 7 on 15 November 1974

OSCAR 7 with Dick Daniels W4PUJ, Jan King K8VTR-W3GEY, Marie Marr and Perry Klein K3JTE

Stoddard is planning on having the special callsign W7O on the air between 15-24 November  2014, working satellites and possibly other bands.  Stoddard will work satellite passes from Arizona, including AO-7 passes, and hope to recruit a small group of operators who can work other passes that cover eastern North America along with other places I can’t work from here (Europe, North Africa, South America).  He may also try to get some operators working HF with this call.

“I will handle the QSL requests for W7O during this period. I am thinking of incorporating the original QSL card design AMSAT used to confirm AO-7 reception reports from the 1970s in the W7O card.”

— Patrick Stoddard, WD9EWK/VA7EWK

The QSL cards will be printed after the W7O activity wraps up and will also be uploaded to the ARRL’s Logbook of the World system.

The amateur radio satellite AMSAT-OSCAR 7 was launched by a Delta rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base on November 15, 1974 and provided many years of service until it went silent from battery failure in mid 1981.

For 21 years nothing more was heard until June 21, 2002 when Pat Gowen G3IOR came across a beacon sending slow 8 -10 wpm CW on 145.973.8 MHz. It sounded like old OSCAR satellite telemetry, it had the familiar HI HI followed by a string of numbers in groups of three. After monitoring by many radio amateurs it turned out to be OSCAR-7, and it seemed to have come back from the dead.

It is believed that in 1981 the batteries failed short-circuit, however, in 2002 they became open-circuit enabling the satellite to run again from the solar panels. Since that day OSCAR 7 has been operational when in sunlight and provided radio amateurs with many long distance (DX) SSB/CW contacts.

Oscar 7 Information - http://ww2.amsat.org/?page_id=1031

Raspberry Pi HDTV Transmitter

Alexandru Csete OZ9AEC has detailed how to turn your Raspberry Pi into a live HDTV transmitter

He notes that the setup can be made small enough to be carried by a medium size drone and the range can be increased using power amplifiers.

Full information - http://www.oz9aec.net/index.php/dvb/490-turn-your-raspberry-pi-into-a-live-hdtv-transmitter

London Science Museum - New Exhibition

More than 200 years of innovation in communication and information technologies are celebrated in Information Age: Six Networks That Changed Our World, our biggest and most ambitious gallery to date.

Information Age  is divided into six zones, each representing a different information and communication technology network: The Cable, The Telephone Exchange, Broadcast, The Constellation, The Cell and The Web.

The gallery explores the important events which shaped the development of these networks, from the dramatic stories behind the growth of the worldwide telegraph network in the 19th century, to the influence of mobile phones on our lives today.

Re-live remarkable moments in history, told through the eyes of those who invented, operated or were affected by the new wave of technology, from the first BBC radio broadcast in 1922 to the dawn of digital TV.

Discover how wireless technology enabled lives to be saved and news of the Titanic disaster to be spread to the world within hours of the event, and hear the personal stories of the operators who worked on the Enfield Telephone Exchange, the last manual exchange which marked the end of an era in communication history.

Plan your visit - http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/exhibitions/information_age.aspx