More from Kitty Hawk

Kitty Hawk N.C., Thanksgiving 2010. Wright Brother's test site. The big rock marks the take-off point. You can see a reproduction of the monorail they used in lieu of landing gear. the white markers behind me show the distances covered on those first four flights. Off in the distance you can see the final, longest flight of that day: 852 feet. 59 seconds aloft.

Thanksgiving at Kitty Hawk

We spent a very pleasant Thanksgiving day with family out on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, in Kitty Hawk. Of course, we visited the site 0f the Wright Brother's famous first flight. I'll have more about this in the next SolderSmoke podcast. For now, let me share with you this interesting quote about the importance of play and toys (from Wikipedia):

"In 1878 their father, who travelled often as a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, brought home a toy "helicopter" for his two younger sons. The device was based on an invention of French aeronautical pioneer Alphonse Pénaud. Made of paper, bamboo and cork with a rubber band to twirl its rotor, it was about a foot long. Wilbur and Orville played with it until it broke, and then built their own. In later years, they pointed to their experience with the toy as the initial spark of their interest in flying."

SolderSmoke in Botswana!

Frosty, K5LBU, sent us this report from Botswana:

I just completed reading your book tonight. I had taken it with me on the Dxpedition to Botswana and while there Jay W5SL read it and enjoyed it very much. But what was so great in his reading it was to see a good friend of mine mentioned in your book. He was there with us and having a great time working the pileups. This person was none other than Gianfranco I0ZY. I have visited with him at his office and operated his great station in his home there in Rome. What a small world it is. I will be back in Rome to pick up a new Amplifier from Gianfranco. 73' Charles Frost Frosty K5LBU

We had a blog post about Gianfranco and his amplifiers last year. Check it out here:
http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2009/06/italian-experimental-station-in-good.html

Jupiter's Moons Utility

"Sky and Telescope" has a nice collection of on-line astronomy utilities. One of my favorites displays the positions of Jupiter's Galilean moons. It also gives you some nice heads up on the transit and eclipses of the moons. Its fun to play with the "+10 minute" button and see how they move around. The view you see above is fairly close to what I see through my telescope (but Jupiter's stripes are not quite so pronounced). You can get the utility for free -- you just have to fill out a registration form.

N8ZRY's Homebrew SSB Rig

A while back we had post about amateur RADAR. The wizard behind that project was Greg, N8ZRY. (I liked his quote: "Old radars do not die... they simply phase array.") Greg's latest project is the 20 meter SSB rig pictured above. It was recently featured on the Make blog.
Check it out here. Be sure to look at the YouTube video. Nice job Greg!

The Secrets of Success of the Pensacola Snapper

Bill, W4HBK, sent a nice note in response to my blog post describing his MEPT QRSS grabber receive station. You can see the peninsula he describes above.
Bill writes:
Wow, what a pleasant surprise. I do remember pulling you out of the noise while you were in Italy and enjoying your reports from there. If there is a secret to my grabber it is a combination of environment and antenna. My neighborhood has underground utilities and is well away from town on a peninsula which juts out into Pensacola Bay. My main antenna is an inverted V 60' up in a tall pine tree for good low angle response and rejection of vertically polarized noise. About the only noise I hear is sferics. Thanks for the article. 73 bill w4hbk

Big Lulu Sale this Weekend: Save 20%

When you go to Lulu, don't just buy "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" but check out these other fine Knack-related publications:

http://stores.lulu.com/6sj7comics ("Lid, Kid, Space Cadet" "Sky Buddies" by Jeff K1NSS
http://stores.lulu.com/ian_g3roo (Ian, G3ROO's amazing antenna book)
http://www.lulu.com/copperwood ("Carl and Jerry" books -- scroll down a bit)
http://stores.lulu.com/soldersmoke (SolderSmoke and Bill's other book -- the other one is available in .pdf)

Put them all together in one package to save shipping. Help your wife with the Christmas shopping! Use the coupon code DONE and save 20%

Listen up for METEORS!

The folks at spaceweather.com have come up with something really cool. We are now in the final phases of the annual Leonids meteor shower. I can't see many meteors through my light-polluted skies (plus its COLD out there), but Spaceweather Radio has come to the rescue. They currently have on-line the audio feed from a receive station tuned to the freq of the The Air Force Space Surveillance Radar. It transmits 24/7 on 216.98 MHz. It is reported to be on of the most powerful transmitters in the world. You can hear the "pings" caused by the reflections of meteors. I've heard several as I typed this post! Be sure to visit the "how we do this page." I appears that there is ham running the receive station.

Occasionally I hear a longer tone. Could that be the reflection of a Low Earth Orbit satellite going over the site?

Balloons! Space Stations! Aurora!

My in-box seemed to have an outer space theme today. First, from Guanajuato, Mexico comes word that the radio club there is planning a second edge-of-space balloon launch. SARSEM ICARUS II is scheduled to go up on 20 November carrying a VHF/UHF repeater. SARSEM ICARUS I was obviously a big success. Check out the picture it took from 29000 meters up (above). Thanks Roberto!

A couple days ago we noted that the International Space Station would be visible over N. America this week. So far we have only one report of a sighting: Jim, AL7RV saw it from Mississippi. This morning Yahoo carried some pictures taken from the crew's cupola. This one shows some territory dear to our hearts!

Finally, spaceweather.com carried this beautiful aurora shot from Tromso, Norway. It was taken by Ole Christian Salomonsen on November 14. Spaceweather notes that "a solar wind stream has been buffeting the earth's magnetic field." This probably explains why Maria and I could hear very few stations on 75 meters last evening. And 75 seemed totally dead yesterday morning.

MAKE'S "Do More With Less" Contest

This from the MAKE blog this morning:

To promote the release of the Windows Phone 7, Microsoft is partnering with various websites, including MAKE, to give away a Windows Phone 7 to each site's readership. To be eligible, all you have to do is post a comment on the theme of "Do more with less" ...

Wow! This contest seems to be MADE for the G-QRP gang! (What is it? "It is vain to use more..." Something like that!) I think G3RJV could win this one!

This is all related to a quote from Buckminster Fuller, hence the image of the very cool stamp.

Details on the contest:
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/11/windows_phone_7_giveaway.html

Ham Stuff at Lulu (with 10% off)

Here's an idea for making maximum use of your heard earned dollars or euros or whatever: When you go to Lulu, don't just buy "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics"
but check out these other fine Knack-related publications:

http://stores.lulu.com/6sj7comics ("Lid, Kid, Space Cadet" "Sky Buddies" by Jeff K1NSS

http://stores.lulu.com/ian_g3roo (Ian, G3ROO's amazing antenna book)

http://www.lulu.com/copperwood ("Carl and Jerry" books -- scroll down a bit)

http://stores.lulu.com/soldersmoke (SolderSmoke and Bill's other book)

Put them all together in one package to save shipping. Help your wife with the Christmas shopping!

Then use the checkout password TURKEY to save 10% (through November only)

See the International Space Station THIS WEEK!

Spaceweather.com showed this beautiful picture of an International Space Station fly-over. It was taken by David Blanchard near Flagstaff, Arizona on Saturday.

The space station will be visible from much of North America in the evening this week. Spaceweather.com has a very handy calculator that will let you know when and where to look. Just plug in your zip code:

http://spaceweather.com/flybys/?PHPSESSID=t18llj67jtfvjsmruu6b7djif5

(There is a global version of the calculator for users outside the U.S.)

Let's see how many SolderSmoke readers get to see the ISS this week. Please let me know if you see it.