Moon bouncing and radar imaging with LoRa

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Moon bouncing and radar imaging with LoRa

The LoRa radio protocol is well known to hardware hackers because of its Long Range (hence the name) but also its extremely low power use, making it a go-to for battery powered devices with tiny antennae. But what if the power wasn’t low, and the antenna not tiny? You might just bounce a LoRa message off the moon. But that’s not all.

The team that pulled off the LoRa Moonbounce consisted of folks from the European Space Agency, Lacuna Space, and the CA Muller Radio Astronomy Station Foundation which operates the Dwingeloo Radio Telescope. The Dwingeloo Radio Telescope is no stranger to Amateur Radio experiments, but this one was unique.

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Hoovers and Handhelds

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The German Bundesnetz Agentur has banned the sale of TESVOR model6 robotic vacuum cleaners, because it not only used lasers to chase your cat or dog, it also sported a wireless link, complete with a networked remote control.

It came into circulation without CE mark or any appropriate paperwork regards the wireless parts, so the TESVOR model S6 does no longer makes its rounds. While we could smile about that, the same Bundesnetz Agentur struck closer to home, and also banned the import, sale and use of the popular Baofeng UV5R dualband handhelds. Several Amateur Radio news outlets reported speculations that this may lead to a ban across Europe.

Informed postings on the Ei7Gl blogspot confirmed what Polish authorities found out in tests conducted on imported UV5R radios: Their transmitted spectrum is not clean enough, so the Polish authorities informed their German colleagues, who in turn quickly announced this ban

New Web-Based RSGB EMF Calculator

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The RSGB has launched a new version of the Society’s EMF calculator v11d which is now available in a new browser-based version as well as the spreadsheet version. The web browser version does not require you to have Excel or another spreadsheet on your computer. It also has several great new features to make compliance checking simpler and quicker. You can find both versions on the RSGB emf web pages or you can go direct to the new web version.

RSGB EMF Calculator - https://rsgb.services/public/software/emccalculator/