If you’re not a boffin you may like the free service provided by the Australian Government’s Ionospheric Propagation Service. Every day at 0630z they email out a series of very short digests which sum up various aspects of the propagation forecast for the whole, or designated parts of the world for the next 24hrs. They do this automatically by continuously collecting and collating ionosonde data from hundreds of separate sites. To suit your needs you have a choice of dozens of these digests and you can subscribe to as many, or as few as you choose. I get the European Region Maximum Useable Frequency digest. An email pops up just after 0630z regular as clockwork. You can find out more at http://www.ips.gov.au/mailman/listinfo

The first issue of NoVs for the 5MHz experimental allocations have now expired but new NoVs are now available to all Full Licensees (but not club callsigns, unfortunately). With conditions on the regular bands so poor at present, 5MHz NVIS (Near Vertical Incidence Skywave) is easy to achieve with the poorest of antennas and it makes a very welcome change from the ‘59 73’ culture we seem to be plagued with on other bands. CW, SSB, and several data modes are permitted so you have lots of choice. There are even three beacons on 5.29 MHz. Of course to use 5MHz you’ve got to be able to wideband your rig to transmit there but, if it’s not more than a few years old, you can take it to Martin Lynch or Waters and Stanton who will do the magic programming tweak while you wait. But take along your current NoV which may be needed for them to be authorised to hand you back this ‘lethal weapon’ ! Old rigs you have to do yourself, but many years ago I was able to wideband my 25 year old Drake TR7 in just a few minutes.

Several WVARG members have renewed their NoVs and if a few more join in we could have club net on 5MHz. Make up a dipole about 90 feet long, lay it along a fence in the garden and off you go. It really is that easy. I worked Allan G5OD when I was /P in the Lake District. I had a dipole laying on a wet hedge and we were both 59+ on USB. Get lots of info and download an application form at: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/radiocomms/ifi/licensing/classes/amateur/Notices/5mhznov.pdf

Finally, I make no apology for mentioning an old favourite, the AZAD map. This is an easily downloaded program that displays a great circle map of the world, centered on any point of your choice, showing true angles to any part of the globe, with long and short path distances and the grey line (called the terminator). All this is updated each minute by the clock in your computer to form a very useful graphical representation of what propagation is all about. Impressive stuff for non-technical visitors to your shack, of course! You can change the pretty colours, go forwards and back in time, show the locations of the beacon stations and much more. Find it at http://www.aa6z.com/

Brian G3GJX

At our recent meeting when we were all enthralled by G3XON’s presentation of early wireless, someone mentioned they had a Wimshurst machine but couldn’t get it to work. Stan says he has always wanted one of these devices, working or not, and he’d like to hear from the person concerned. Contact him at stanleycasperd (at) compuserve.com (replace " (at) " with an &)

page 3