Nanaimo Club Celebrate Founding

The Nanaimo Amateur Radio Association will be celebrating their 67th anniversary as well as World Amateur Radio Day on April 18

The Nanaimo Daily News reports an open house is planned to mark the occasion. There will be demonstrations of voice and digital modes of ham radio and a direction finding hunt, where a radio transmitter is hidden and has to be found on a certain frequency through various search techniques.

Emergency preparedness will be covered at the April 18 event by members of the Coastal Emergency Communication Association.

Full story - http://www.nanaimodailynews.com/news/radio-waves-group-to-celebrate-its-founding-with-open-house-1.1816931

Nanaimo Amateur Radio Association - http://www.ve7na.ca/

UK Student to Contact Astronaut via Amateur / Ham Radio

Tim Peake KG5BVI, the first British ESA astronaut, has issued an invitation to UK school pupils to contact him via amateur radio whilst he is in space

Tim will arrive at the International Space Station (ISS) in November 2015 and will spend 6 months working and living on the ISS.

Thanks to a collaboration between Amateur Radio on the International Space Stations (ARISS), the UK Space Agency, the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) and the European Space Agency (ESA), UK school pupils will be able to contact him whilst he is on board the ISS via a scheduled amateur radio link-up.

he selected schools/organisations will host a direct link-up with the International Space Station during a two-day, space related STEM workshop.

ARISS UK will provide and set up all necessary radio equipment (for example, low earth orbit satellite tracking antennas and radios) to establishing a fully functional, direct radio link with the International Space Station from their very own premises. In a ten-minute window when the ISS will be over the UK, an amateur radio contact will be established with Tim, and students will be able to ask him questions about his life and work on board the ISS.

“I hope to share as much of my mission as possible and am delighted that I will be able to talk to UK students when the ISS flies over Britain, thanks to the radio amateur equipment on board the International Space Station and the ARISS programme.”

— Tim Peake, KG5BVI

During the contact with Tim the students will be able to hear and potentially see his response immediately. Tim will be using the amateur radio callsign GB1SS whilst he is talking to UK based schools.

Schools throughout the United Kingdom are being invited to host one of a limited number of these in-flight calls, which will include space workshops where students can explore space, space related technologies, the relevance of space to our digital lives and even analyse data being sent down from orbiting satellites.

The students taking part in the link-up will have to obtain their full amateur radio licence to be eligible to operate the radio and one lucky student at each of the selected schools will be responsible for making contact with the ISS.

An RSGB team and the ARISS UK Operations team will work with the chosen schools to prepare them for this exceptional opportunity during the mission of the first British ESA Astronaut.

How to Apply

The opportunity to be involved in this exciting project opens 20 March 2015. Eligible institutions are invited to apply in order to register their interest.

Stage 1 application forms, available from the European Space Education Resource Office web site at http://tinyurl.com/ariss-timpeake must be returned no later than Friday 24 April 2015.

Schools/Institutions that are to be invited to proceed to Stage 2 will be notified in the week commencing 11 May 2015.

Stage 2 applications must be submitted and received by 26 June 2015.

There will then be a selection process involving the UK Space Agency, ESA, ARISS and the RSGB. The successful schools will be announced at the UK Space Conference on 14 July 2015.

UK National STEM Centre – Amateur Radio on the International Space Station - http://www.nationalstemcentre.org.uk/elibrary/media/500/ariss

AMSAT-UK - http://amsat-uk.org/

SARL National Convention

The SARL National Convention, hosted by the Bloemfontein Amateur Radio Club will be held in the city of Roses from Friday 17 April to Sunday 19 April 2015.

On first evening there will be a visit to the Bloemfontein planetarium, which is the first and only digital planetarium in Africa.

On Saturday afternoon the SARL@Home event will feature four presentations including "WISPR and the SARL 5 MHZ propagation research project" by Stewart Moss, ZS6SGM. Prof. Matthiam Hoffman of the University of the Free State will be the guest speaker and we will take a look back over the past 90 years in an audio-visual presentation.

The Annual General Meeting will be held on Saturday morning. Members of the SARL attend the SARL@home free of charge. Please complete the registration form and return as soon as possible, even if you are only attending the AGM and SARL@home.

A partner programme has also be arranged. Bloemfontein is one of the friendliest cities in South Africa and well known for its hospitality.

Full details including a reservation form are available on the SARL web - http://www.sarl.org.za