Mills on the air (MOTA) 2025

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The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (S.P.A.B) runs a Mills Celebration event every year, on or around the second weekend in May.

The Denby Dale Amateur Radio Club (Formerly Denby Dale Amateur Radio Society) have organised the Mills on the Air event since 1996.

Without their hard work over the years the event would not have taken place and become a staple in many clubs radio events calendars.

So a huge, thank you to the team at the former Denby Dale Radio Society for their hard work and for entrusting us at Nunsfield House ARG to take the event into the future.

This year’s event takes place on Saturday 10th & Sunday 11th May.

The event itself is not run as a contest. The aim is to bring together amateur radio operators and clubs to promote the hobby, whilst helping preserve some of the wonderful heritage of our Windmills and Watermills. However we will welcome any Tidal Mills, Treadle Mills or Horse Mills (with a wide variation of types within those!). There is a wealth of historic sites that the UK has to offer. It would be lovely to see a wide variety this year!

New home for Mills on the Air, details and registration - http://www.nharg.org.uk/mota

Thanks to friend of the show Stefan Latimer (M0OSL) for letting us know

Combined Technologies Help Astronomers Fight RFI

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Combined Technologies Help Astronomers Fight RFI

An unlikely source of RFI that was compromising signals received by a radio telescope in Western Australia has been identified as an airplane deflecting broadcast signals. Realising that the ever-growing presence of orbiting satellites may pose the same hazard, causing astronomers' data to become contaminated, scientists have devised what they hope is a solution.

The stray signals that were interfering with the sensitive telescopes in the Murchison Widefield Array were even more puzzling because the array is an area designated by the government as a radio quiet zone. Stranger still, the signal turned out to be a broadcast signal from Australian TV and appeared to move across the sky. Researchers at Brown University in the US who are involved with the Murchison project, determined that an airplane had been deflecting the signal, and had likely been doing so for nearly five years.

Read More

Get Ready for Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio

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What amateur radio operating strategy combines a little bit of being mobile, a little bit of fixed and - if you so choose - a little bit of maritime? It’s spelled R a D A R, which is the acronym for Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio. Get ready, RaDAR Rally day is just weeks away.

Eddie Leighton, ZS6BNE pioneered the operating concept more than a decade ago in South Africa with an event known as the RaDAR Challenge which was embraced worldwide by portable operators. This year the RaDAR Rally, which takes place on April 5th, keeps the spirit and the strategy of the original challenge. The four-hour rally is particularly appealing to hams who are accustomed to working portable outdoors and this is an activity that can be combined with Summits On The Air and Parks On The Air. Operators spend four hours setting up a station as quickly as possible, making five contacts, then dismantling the station and moving to another location to do the same thing again. According to the rules, the required distances vary depending on whether the radio operator is walking, cycling, driving or even canoeing. All bands and modes are acceptable but use of terrestrial repeaters is not.

More Information - http://www.radarrally.info