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![]() The most powerful solar flare of the year erupted from the sun today (April 11) sparking a temporary radio blackout on Earth, NASA officials say. Today's M-class solar flare was about 10 times weaker than X-class flares, which are the strongest flares the sun can unleash. M-class solar flares are the weakest solar events that can still trigger space weather effects near Earth, such as communications interruptions or spectacular northern lights. This is a view of Adelaide, 'tthe City of Churchest, taken by Canadian astronaut Colonel Chris Hadfield, who is orbiting Earth as commander of the International Space Station (ISS).
![]() On March 15, 2013, at 2:54 a.m. EDT, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME), a solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space and can reach Earth one to three days later and affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground. Experimental NASA research models, based on observations from the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and ESA/NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, show that the CME left the sun at speeds of around 900 miles per second, which is a fairly fast speed for CMEs. Historically, CMEs at this speed have caused mild to moderate effects at Earth. The ESA and NASA Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) captured these images of the sun spitting out a coronal mass ejection (CME) on March 15, 2013, from 3:24 to 4:00 a.m. EDT. This type of image is known as a coronagraph, since a disk is placed over the sun to better see the dimmer atmosphere around it, called the corona A station signing as VK3HY has been active on 40m here in Australia. He has given his details as Bob from Bendigo.
He is a PIRATE !!!. The lic op of this call is aware. ![]() One island that probably won't be activated in the very near future is North Sentinel Island, which is one of the Andaman Island in the Bay of Bengal. It lies to the west of the southern part of South Andaman Island. Most of the island is forested. Because it is small, located away from the main settlements on Great Andaman, surrounded by coral reefs, and lacks natural harbours, it was never settled by Europeans. A group of indigenous people, the Sentinelese, live on North Sentinel Island. Their present numbers are estimated to be between 50 and 400 individuals. They reject any contact with other people, and are among the last people to remain virtually untouched by modern civilization. On 2 August 1981, the ship Primrose grounded on the North Sentinel Island reef. A few days later, crewmen on the immobile vessel observed that small black men were carrying spears and arrows and building boats on the beach. The captain of the Primrose radioed for an urgent airdrop of firearms so the crew could defend themselves, but did not receive them. Heavy seas kept the islanders away from the ship. After a week, the crew were rescued by an Indian navy helicopter. ![]() Tristan da Cunha, is a remote volcanic group of islands in the south Atlantic Ocean and the main island of that group. It is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, lying 2,816 kilometres (1,750 mi) from the nearest land, South Africa, and 3,360 kilometres (2,088 mi) from South America. It is within the 50 most wanted DXCC entities. ![]() Yesterday (1st Feb) the VK1 Association of SOTA kicked off. Congratulations to everyone involved in getting the VK1 Association up and going. There was a lot of activity on 40m from VK1. Some of the VK3 fellas and Ian VK5CZ also activated some VK3 & VK5 summits. I ended up working the following:-
![]() Well, another Australia Day has been & gone. Just after mid night on the 26th I turned the radio on and worked a huge pile up short path to Europe, the UK, the Middle East, & Africa, on 20m. Conditions were terrific with some very strong signals. Conditions not so good later that day on the long path on 20m. However I did end up working 228 stations, with quite a few new countries under the AX prefix. It was a lot of fun. Looking forward to next year ! |
AuthorPaul SIMMONDS, Archives
October 2014
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