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Owatonna Steele County Amateur Radio 14-Apr-2017

OSCAR News - October, 2Ø11

OSCAR Meeting
The next OSCAR meeting is 10-Oct @ 9:00 AM, the second Saturday of the month.

The October OSCAR meeting is being held on the first floor of the Owatonna Fire Station.

SKYWARN Meeting
The next SKYWARN meeting is 18-Oct @ 7:00 PM, the third Tuesday of the month. Meetings are held at the Owatonna Fire Station.

Rochester Tech Class From Bill KØRGR
Rochester scheduled a new Technician Class for Oct 22 and 29 at the Red Cross building in Rochester. Students from anywhere are welcome. This is on two consecutive Saturdays, beginning at 08:00 AM. Additional information is available at Rochester ARC.

SKYWARN Breakfast
SKYWARN and the Special Deputies are once again teaming up for a fund raising breakfast on Sunday, 11-Dec. The breakfast at the VFW includes french toast, eggs to order, sausage, coffee, milk, juice and all you can eat pancakes. See a SKYWARN member to get your advance sale ticket. SKYWARN does not get a "commission" for tickets sold at the door.

Online Monitoring From Michael KØRXR
Several Owatonna area scanner frequenciesare back online for listeners. Here’s what is being streamed at this time and more frequencies can be added as there are asked for:

  • Steele Co/Owatonna, Mn Police Dispatch - 154.040
  • Steele Co/Owatonna, Mn Police - 159.120
  • Minnesota State Patrol - 154.920
  • Statewide mutual aid - 155.475
  • Point to point - 155.370
  • Steele Co/Owatonna, Mn Fire - 154.175
  • OSCAR amateur repeaters - 147.105
Contact Michael KBØRXR (kb0rxr1@gmail.com) with issues or requests. I will do what I can to correct problems and/or add frequencies.

BWCA Fires From Bill KØRGR
Apparently, there is some ham activity in relation to the fires up north. This WDIO video tells the story of one Duluth operator.

Heathkit From ARRL Letter
The September Newsletter included an article about Heathkit getting back to making kits. The company now indicates it intends to reenter the Amateur Radio market this year. Initial Amateur Radio kits will be accessories and might include a dual watt meter, antenna tuner, or the venerable Cantenna.

GPS Interference From Multiple Sources
LightSquared is building a system to offer wireless coverage through satellite and wireless broadband networking. Beginning in 2012, they intend to begin operation with 3G networks while implementing Long Term Evolution (LTE) standards. The LTE network will be combined with one of the largest commercial satellites ever launched, to provide coverage of the entire United States. Some claim the company could cause widespread interference to the Global Positioning System by building high power broadband ground stations.

Broadband Map From Multiple Sources
Do you want to see what kind of broadband speeds are available? The National Broadband Map can show the types of technology available, providers, and speeds. It's meant to function both as a tool for consumers and businesses. It is interesting to look at the national maps and note the wide areas of the nation (almost 40%) not covered by high-speed broadband.

Just Add Water From Multiple Sources
A small fuel cell being developed by SiGNa Chemistry will use water. The target is to be price competitive on a watt-hour basis with batteries. The mobile-H2™ has the same 5 watt hour capacity as 4 AA batteries. Unlike batteries, the device provides a a steady level of power from beginning to end. myFC is using the technology in the PowerTrekk™ personal fuel cell being marketed in Europe.

Thermo-Spintronics From Multiple Sources
Computers are known to consume a fair amount of energy that is ultimately converted into heat. Developers are looking at ways to capture and reuse the waste heat. Spintronic devices that generate spin polarized electrons spin and an ability to detect them. Thermo-spintronics convert heat to electron spin for integrated circuits that run on heat rather than electricity. A YouTube Video explains how the spin of the electron could be exploited in completely new types of electronic circuits

Sympathetic Flares From From Multiple Sources
Solar flares are sudden bursts of energy that erupt from sunspots. Mass ejections are bubbles of gas threaded with lines of magnetic field that throw tons of solar plasma out into space when they explode. When they link together, they are referred to as sympathetic flares. Three NASA spacecraft were recently positioned to see almost the entire circumference of the Sun at the same time. The resulting observations showed that multiple events can be triggered by other events that occur in regions that cannot be observed from Earth orbit.

Android Satellite From Multiple Sources
Smart phones are behaving more like small computers with each new development. A team of experimenters at Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) want to take it to a new level. They plan to use a smart phone to control a microsatellite and takes images of earth using the built-in camera. During the initial phases of STRaND-1 (Surrey Training Research and Nanosatellite Demonstration), the smart phone will be used as a backup. The phone and its modified Android sodtware will be used for primary control later in the flight.

Honey Bees From Multiple Sources
The decline in the population of honey bees has been identified as a concern for almost a decade. Scientists have suspected pesticides, viruses, mites, genetically modified crops, and climate change. A Swiss researcher demonstrated that electromagnetic radiation from cell phones can alter the activities of honey bees. An active cell phone placed beneath a hive caused the bees the leave the hive. The disturbed behavior of the bees continued for up to 12 hours after the cell phone was turned off.

Another study suggests there was a rapid drop in the bee population as the result of recently installed cell phone towers. The study suggests the complete collapse of bee populations in Kerala, India could occur within 10 years study. This study suspects the electromagnetic waves from the towers shorted out the navigational abilities of worker bees so that they couldn't find their way home after going out to collect pollen.

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