eHam.net News

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Cambie Students to Chat with International Space Station Astronauts:

Posted: 11 Jan 2014 04:02 PM PST
http://www.eham.net/articles/31514


A chance to chat with astronauts aboard the International Space Station
doesn't come along very often. But a handful of students at H.J. Cambie
Secondary hope to do precisely that this March, as the satellite whizzes by
more than 300 kilometres overhead at speeds approaching 28,000 kilometres
per hour -- almost eight kilometres per second -- for a brief six-minute
communication window. The opportunity comes courtesy Cambie science teacher
Karen Ibbott -- who made the successful application to the ARISS (Amateur
Radio on the International Space Station) program -- and the technical
expertise of the Richmond Amateur Radio Club, which is throwing its
support, equipment and manpower behind the effort. The local hobbyist radio
club's members were busy Wednesday camped outside Cambie's brick walls,
braving the downpour as they ran through the first of several mock
exercises they plan for the coming weeks, setting up the antennas, rolling
out cables, and connecting amplifiers with radios, computers and
generators. They want to work out all the bugs long before the big show,
which is happening at a still-unconfirmed date in the first two weeks of
March. Wednesday's exercise buoyed their confidence, though they did
identify a couple of areas that could be improved, said Kishore Nair, a
10-year member of the club and an electronics technician with Seaspan
Marine who does radio communication as both a profession and a hobby. The
March long-distance call to outer space will be near the culmination of a
school-wide effort to make this an unforgettable teaching moment.


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Dude, Where Are My Sunspots?

Posted: 11 Jan 2014 04:02 PM PST
http://www.eham.net/articles/31513


Welcome to Solar Maximum! Sorry, it turns out to not be much of a solar
maximum. Not only is it a weak solar maximum, but it's late. It was
supposed to be here back in 2011. But what can we say about natural
events? Just when you think you have them figured out, along comes reality
and we're back to the drawing board. We have been following the solar
cycle, off and on, since March of 2010 here, with a follow up in February
of 2013 here. To summarize, we proposed a hypothesis that (1) as sunspot
activity increased global temperatures would increase, and (2) that AGW
proponents would hail the increase in temperatures as proof positive that
the Earth is warming and that it's our fault because CO2 levels would
continue to increase. However, lackluster solar activity ensued, and the
Earth stayed pretty much the same temperature. The one may or may not have
been related to the other, but since no significant warming resulted the
AGW camp has not, as noted back in February, been making any extraordinary
claims outside certain circles. Those circles mainly being people who want
to believe that the Earth is warming and that it is the fault of humans.
But then something happened. A theory emerged in 2013 that the Earth
actually is getting warmer, just not in the atmosphere as expected.
Rather, the increase is in the deep ocean. The amount of increase is,
according to the Discovery.com article cited, "alarming." How alarming? A
chart is provided in the cited reference.