Via St George News, July 6 2016.  Written by Ric Wakeman.  Original post here.

ST. GEORGE — In the age of cell phones and internet, amateur radio operators – also known as “ham operators” – are commonly looked upon as an anachronism, a throwback to earlier times.  However, sometimes the old technology can be more reliable than the new high-tech gadgets and smartphones.

St. George ham operator Lynden Kendrick, who is a member of the Dixie Amateur Radio Club in St. George, the Community Emergency Response Team, the American Radio Relay League and Washington County Amateur Radio Emergency Services recently proved this point.

On the evening of June 26, Kendrick was talking on his radio to a fellow ham in Malad City, Idaho, on a radio system known locally as the “Intermountain Intertie,” a system of unmanned amateur radio repeaters linked up and down the state of Utah and into Nevada, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.

Kendrick said the ham in Malad City went to get a pencil, and another voice came on the radio asking for assistance.  Kendrick answered the voice, asking how he could help.  The ham on the other end introduced himself as Mike in Pahrump, Nevada.

Mike, who was later identified as Michael Hilbert of Moab, said the children’s ranch where he works was surrounded by fire.  The Lovell Canyon Ranch, also known as the Torino Ranch, is a summer camp ranch designed for at-risk and special needs children.  Hilbert is the assistant to Brett Torino, the founder and owner of Torino Ranch.

All children who had been camping at the ranch had been evacuated and there was only staff left at the ranch.  Firefighters were controlling the blaze, but the power was out as were the telephones, internet and cell phone service.  Hilbert asked Kendrick to call the local electric company and let them know.

Kendrick immediately found the phone number for Valley Electric in Pahrump and got on the telephone with them.  With a bit of back-and-forth between the radio and telephone, Kendrick was able to have the power company dispatch someone to the ranch to restore power.

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Ummm, there’s now 3 websites for the Lighthouse Weekend… (?)

On July 7th the ILLW Team wrote on their Facebook page:

With the advent of mobile friendly web site requirements, the ILLW team thought it was time to upgrade the ILLW site to make Google and the entrants happy.

Not only has the old site been given a facelift but two other site have been created as well.  There is now a mirror site at http://lighthouse-weekend.international which carries the bare essentials for mobile phone/tablet use, but there’s also http://wllw.org which has a new version of the lighthouse list.

It was intended to carry out these upgrades after August but an uninvited guest in the ILLW.net site brought things forward.

So, lets see if they work properly by getting your entries in for this year’s event.  The elusive 300 is just around the corner so go to either web site and fill in an entry form and treat yourself to a fun weekend on the air at a lighthouse.

ORARC will be participating in the ILLW event as usual.  See here for details.

Via ABC News, original post here.  By Georgia Hitch.  Posted 14 Jun 2016, 3:53pm

The ‘CubeSats’ measure 10 centimetres each side and are the product of collaboration between the University of Sydney, the Australian National University, the University of South Australia, University of Adelaide and the University of New South Wales.

The three satellites are part of a fleet of 50 that will all be launched into space as part of the European Union’s QB50 project.

Before they can be launched the CubeSats have to undergo rigorous testing to ensure they are “space qualified”.

“The testing will take place over the next day or week or so,” Director of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the ANU Professor Matthew Colless said.

“We’ll be simulating here the conditions that the satellite will have to survive in orbit and also the terrible shaking they get as they go up, into orbit.

“By doing that … we know that they should be able to survive when they get launched up to the space station.”

Satellites will return ‘wealth of data’

Professor Colless said each of the 50 CubeSats were designed to feed back different information, from the success of the technology to the science of the atmosphere.

“These satellites will return a wealth of data to us on the technology, on the science, and it will give our people a great deal of experience in running missions like this,” he said.

“For example, studying the atmosphere is very important because … then we can better predict what the orbit of satellites are.

“That’s becoming more and more important as space gets more crowded and satellites need to know exactly where they are so they can avoid each other.”

Professor Colless also said the research could better help satellites avoid the near 170 million pieces of space junk.

“They’re [CubeSats] actually beginning to test out technologies that mean that in future fleets, constellations of these small satellites could be continuously monitoring the earth, taking images of the earth on a much more regular basis than satellites currently do now, so we can track changes on the earth in real time,” he said.

“This could be used to track the course of a bushfire as it evolves very rapidly because many little satellites are passing overhead, each taking a picture and downloading it to the fire brigades on Earth.

“There’s many applications of these small satellites that are being tested.”

Ultimately, Professor Colless said the hope was that CubeSats would be able to provide real-time information on natural disasters and other weather events.

Date : 01 / 07 / 2016 
Author : Jim Linton – VK3PC

The Geelong Amateur Radio Club in Victoria will in July commemorate Australia’s engagement in battle as the ANZACs fought at Fromelles and Poziéres in France on the Western Front in WWI.

With support from the Wireless Institute of Australia, the Geelong Amateur Radio Club will activate the VK100ANZAC callsign.  A special QSL card has been designed and offered to all in the log.

The club joins a wreath laying service at the Shrine of Remembrance precinct in Melbourne on July 19, with others commemorating the centenary of the Western Front.  Those battles for freedom have resulted in a close relationship between France and Australia.

The club has been eagerly supported by Don Breguet aged 81, who lives at Lara near Geelong, and related to one of the fallen.  He recently was told that his DNA matched one of the last four unidentified soldiers from the mass grave at Pheasant Woods, Fromelles.  The previously unnamed grave is that of Geelong digger Justin Breguet, who died during Australia’s bloodiest 24 hours at war.  Fromelles was Australia’s greatest military catastrophe, with 5,500 killed and wounded in 12 hours.

WIA President Phil Wait VK2ASD has outlined the VK100ANZAC event and formally invited Reseau des Emetteurs Francais (REF) to be part of the commemoration.  Among other overseas interest has come from the Radio Club du Nord de la France F8KKH, near Roubaix, and the Mayor of Roubaix, a city close to the battlefields.

The State Minister for Veterans Affairs, John Eren, has written a letter to the Premier of the French Region of Pas de Calais-Picardy, which in part states: “Since that appalling conflict, there has existed a bond of friendship between the peoples of Australia and France in the knowledge that so many of the youth of both countries lie together and are remembered at the Fromelles Memorial Park, Poziéres, Villers Bretonneux and on many other battle-field memorials.”

VK100ANZAC will be set up on HF and VHF from July 19 to 21 at Osborne House in North Geelong, which was Australia’s first Naval College.  Local officials are also expected.  The club has endorsed as its ANZAC Ambassador for the Western Front, Ken Jewell VK3NW, who has a broad knowledge of military history, and organiser of the project is Barry Abley VK3SY.