The West of Scotland Amateur Radio Society — WELCOME
During ‘On-Air’ chats, members of WoSARS often hear me describe some of the fun that can be had on microwave frequencies; especially for myself 13cms (2.3/2.4GHz) whilst out Activating a SOTA summit.
These escapades evolved from the creation of the GM13 GROUP of likeminded amateurs in 2017.
Following the successful launch and operation of OSCAR 100 in 2018/19; this has opened up the opportunity to predictably work distant stations around Europe, Asia, Africa and even South America. Using the Satellite’s 13cms UP and 3cms (10GHz) DOWN translator; some of our hardy band of SOTA-microeers have put together kit to access this facility.
Andrew’s GM/SS-037 – LOG
Andrew G4VFL was an early adopter of this challenge (see WoSARS Web March 2020 Article – HERE ) along with his ‘partner-in-crime’ Nick G0HIK; they have been progressively ‘knockin’ off summits in LD (Lake District) and SS (Southern Scotland).
And I’ll leave the last word to Nick:
“……… Hi Guys,
Dear Licence Holder,
We are writing to you again as we became aware that two of the hyperlinks in our previous email did not work. The links to the Final Decision and EMF compliance flowchart have now been corrected. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.
As stated in our previous correspondence, we are writing to make you aware of some important changes to your radiocommunications licence(s) issued by Ofcom. The changes mean you may now need to take action to make sure your radio equipment complies with a new licence condition to protect the general public from exposure to Electromagnetic fields (EMF).
We wrote to you in March this year to let you know we were proposing these changes. They apply to virtually all licence holders. We gave licensees until 18 April to submit any representations they wanted to make about the changes. We have listened to licensees’ concerns and made some changes to the new licence condition and guidance document as a result.
Full details of our Final Decision are published on our website. The Decision means your licence has now been changed to include a requirement to comply with internationally recognised limits on EMF exposure.
Alongside the Final Decision we have published Guidance on what you should do to ensure compliance. We have also produced a simple EMF compliance flowchart which tells you whether or not you need to take action and, if you do, what action is needed.
To help further, we will also shortly publish an updated version of our on-line calculator which you can use to work out an appropriate compliance distance for your equipment. We are also preparing a new simplified version of the full Guidance, plus specific advice for holders of amateur, ship radio and aeronautical licences. We expect to publish these documents on our website by 8 June.
All documents – plus other relevant information – can be found on a dedicated EMF webpage.
Licensees will have the following time periods to make sure they have up-to-date records in place:
a) Until 18 November 2021 for any equipment which operates on frequencies at or above 110 MHz.
b) Until 18 May 2022 for any equipment which operates on frequencies above 10 MHz but below 110 MHz.
c) Until 18 November 2022 for any equipment which operates on frequencies at or below 10 MHz.
To view and download your new terms, conditions and limitations please click the appropriate link below:
Amateur Radio Licence Terms, Conditions and Limitations
Ship Radio and Ship Portable Radio Licence Terms, Conditions and Limitations
Please note: if we make any further changes to licences in future, we may not contact licensees individually. For that reason we urge all licensees to subscribe to email spectrum updates by going to this page on our website.
If you have any questions about this change and what it means for you, further information can be found on the dedicated EMF webpage using the address provided above.
Yours faithfully,
Ofcom
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Bruce Frederick who shares the following recording and notes:
VOYAGER 1 90 Deg Bank Angle 8.822 MHz 20 Dec 1986 2200 UTC
Recently when cleaning out our attic I came across QSLs that I received from the Voyager crew from their historic1986 circumnavigation of the earth. After continued searching I also came across the cassette recordings I made of some of their communications between Dec 20 - 22, 1986. The first hour provides the most compelling listening, as I started the tape just before Voyage unexpectedly ran into severe weather issues off the coast of Brazil. The small aircraft was tossed to a bank angle of 90 degrees, which theoretically it shouldn't have recovered from, yet Rutan was just barely able to maintain control and keep flying. At the worst possible time, the Vandenburg transmitter went down leaving Rutan and Yeager out of communication with their weather team who they were depending on to give them a safe heading to fly out of the storms. The stress and tension of the situation are very evident in the voices. I have several hours of additional comms, but this excerpt is the most compelling. While preparing this submission, I discovered that Tom Gavaras from MN made a similar contribution on July 28, 2020, covering a period a couple of days after this event. These contributions are complementary and should probably be cross-linked for people interested in hearing different days of the mission. Note that like Tom, I also have the QSLs I received a few months after the mission.
BROADCASTER:
Voyager Mission Control at Vandenburg AFB and Voyage aircraft in-flight near Brazil
DATE OF RECORDING:
12/20/1986
STARTING TIME:
~2200 UTC
FREQUENCY:
8.822 MHz
RX LOCATION:
Boston, MA USA
RECEIVER AND ANTENNA:
Icom 745 with horizontal wire dipole at ~30 ft.
MODE:
Single Side Band
Additional details:
Regarding the QSL card, Bruce notes:
"...I was never a big QSL collector when I was active in the '80s but this was kind of special: QSLs for the Voyager 1 non-stop flight around the world in 1986, signed by Dick Rutan, Jeana Yeager, and Larry Gaskey (Mission Operations Director). Since this this wasn't a commercial broadcast organization, I didn't think they would have QSL cards (or even know what a QSL request was), so I followed the protocol of the time and prepared my own 8.5" x 11" printout and polite cover letter explaining why I was writing. I was blown away when I received not only detailed info on my home brew form, but a classy postcard signed personally by Rutan and Yeager..."
The Voyage flight plan from this website:
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