The contest calendar for this week shows a couple of bits of excitement: the British Amateur Radio Teledata Group is hosting their annual RTTY contest, beginning at 21:00 local time today.

There’s also a St. Patrick’s Day operating activity going on right now. You can check out their website or Facebook page for more information.

If you’d like to help the club make friends and influence people, your help would be welcome at the Frontiers of Flight Museum on March 31st and April 1st. The DARC will be showing off our trailer and recruiting new members at the “Wings of Freedom” event. If you can help, please email Randy, KE5JIT, at his callsign at w5fc.org. We’ll be setting up at about 8:30 in the morning each day, and we’ll be closing down by 5 pm.

Don’t forget that the March Lecture and Lab is coming up this Saturday. The lab will be an extension of the club’s meeting program on digital hotspots, including help with programming your radio to use them. Bring your curiosity and your digital radio!

The popular Nambian amateur radio station V5VV is about to go off the air…in fact, it might be gone already.

If you remember the Russian Woodpecker, and you miss it—don’t worry, there’s now a Chinese one.

In the world of science:

Steve is in the news! Or, should that be STEVE? If you see a long sliver of glowing purple in the sky, and it has green stripes, you’ve met Steve. It’s pretty neat when amateurs can contribute to science.

The Great Red Spot is shrinking…or maybe it’s not? It could be that it’s getting tall instead of wide.

It turns out that just being around humans makes mice look like they’re domesticated, even though we don’t want them in our homes.

And finally, don’t forget that 2018 is the Year of the Bird! You could get Spring started right—and help birds—by planting native plants in your yard. Our state native plant society has more information.