Balloon to Take Ham Payloads Aloft in South Africa

The lift-off of a balloon from a South African airstrip will carry a variety of ham radio payloads into near space.

A dramatic early-morning weather balloon launch on Saturday12th October 2024, is scheduled to lift a series of CubeSats into a near-space environment above South Africa as hams follow and track the balloon from locations as far away as possible. The hams were encouraged to use the various payloads, which included cross-band repeaters, LORA and APRS trackers, parrot repeaters, WSPR beacons and SSTV payloads The CubeSats remained aloft until the hydrogen-filled balloon bursts and then they parachute back to earth.

The launch at a model airstrip near Secunda, coordinated by the Secunda Radio Club, ZS6SRC, is known as BACAR-12. The acronym stands for Balloon Carrying Amateur Radio.

Source - ARnewline

Hams Respond to 2nd Hurricane in Southern US

While emergency communications were still continuing in the wake of Hurricane Helene’s impact on the Southeastern United States, hams in Florida had to begin their own activation for Hurricane Milton on Wednesday, October 9th. In addition to the Hurricane Watch Net on 20 and 40 meters, the Statewide Amateur Radio Network, or SARNet, was busy handling traffic from the state’s Emergency Operations Center. SARNet is a network of linked UHF repeaters run out of the EOC covering most of the state of Florida.

Approaching the state's western coast south of Tampa with Category 3 winds, Milton was already producing a number of tornadic supercells in southern Florida before making landfall, causing the storm’s first deaths. More than 3 million were without power as the hurricane moved out to sea on Thursday morning.

As with North Carolina's Mount Mitchell repeater during Hurricane Helene, SARNet was linked to Broadcastify, allowing individuals from around the world a front-row seat as amateurs passed emergency traffic. Unfortunately, in addition to hearing a professionally run net, listeners also witnessed malicious interference on the repeaters, which could have endangered clear communications. With handheld radios so easy to obtain nowadays, it is hard to know whether the interruptions came from licensed hams or not.

Source - ARNewline

UK, NZ Hams Mark 100 Years of Two-Way Radio Communication

Hams in the UK and New Zealand are getting ready to activate special callsigns to mark the first trans-global two-way radio communication and will be operating from the locations where it happened: the Mill Hill School in North London where young Cecil Goyder, G2SZ, made radio contact with Frank Bell, Z4AA, a ham in Shag Valley, Otago. The date of the hour-long CW contact was the 18th of October 1924.

Cecil's callsign will be back on the air in hopes of contacting hams around the world as operators call CQ from the school from the 14th through to the 20th of October. Frank's original callsign has been modified to ZL4AA for the New Zealand operation which will be on the air from the 12th through to the 20th of October.

The big day, of course, is the 18th of October, when hams will re-enact that first contact, using a frequency as close as possible to the 1924 original, which was around 92 metres).

Meanwhile, be listening as well for other stations taking part in the celebration: GB2NZ is on the air through the 26th of October 2024 throughout the UK. ZM100DX is on the air through the 26th of December throughout New Zealand. The New Zealand station will be using CW, SSB and several other modes. The QSL manager for all four special-event calls is MØOXO

More Information - http://www.GB2NZ.com