Our Vice-President, David, KG5EIU, has won the Whit and Anne Griffith Community Service Award!

Our next Lecture and Lab will be all about using a cool, inexpensive software-defined receiver based on the RTL2832. Bring $20.00 and any computer—even a Raspberry Pi—to the 3rd-floor community room of the Dallas Medical Center at 10:00 am on April 28th, and be prepared to learn. We’ll be in the main hospital building. And, if you don’t like having fun on the cheap, the North Texas Mentorfest will be taking place in Rowlett on the same day.

In contesting, there are several operating events going on right now. The NA SSB Sprint runs from 7:00 pm to 11:00 pm tonight; a band change rule will keep everyone moving and active. Texas State Parks on the Air runs tonight until 9:00 pm, and from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm tomorrow. There’s a Florida State Parks on the Air event this weekend, too. DXers can enjoy the Italian QRP Club’s Quarterly Marathon, which ends tomorrow afternoon.

And finally, a US amateur has reported a big QRP success, having completed the first transatlantic contact from the US using the new 2200-meter band .

In the world of science:

UPDATE: Ginger, W5AAN, mentioned that monitor lizards have been in the news lately. The discovery of well-defined pineal and parapineal structures in fossil lizards has caused excitement among evolutionary biologists.

Bill, N5BB,  reminds us that Yuri’s Night is coming up this Thursday. Yuri’s night commemorates the first human spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin on April 12th, 1961.

2018 is the Year of the Bird, and I hope you’ve been planting some native plants. April is also a good month to learn more about the history of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Chirping of birds, some egg-shell-ent scientists have been learning more about the mysterious substances that help birds see the Earth’s magnetic field.

Humans can’t see magnetic fields, but it looks like rocks can help us see the sun (or at least, what direction it’s in) through clouds and rain.

Antimatter might be the same color as regular matter. No word on whether anti-people have to wear goatees.

Don’t eat bitter squash, if you like having hair.

And if you see a zombie raccoon on the loose, it’s probably just distemper…but that’s still pretty terrible for the raccoon. And I’d still advise a rabies shot if you’re bitten or scratched.