Tech Net News 10-27-2018

cerebellum brain-scans-1
Credit: Courtesy of Jeremy Schmahmann

Today is Tech Net on the Hill! This is the nicest day we’ve had in weeks, and we’ve got the nicest, smartest people. Come on over!

The next club meeting will be on Tuesday, November 6th, 2018. Dr. Tim, N6DIY, will present on different types of code keys.

We have a surprise net coming up this Monday…and we are badly in need of a good surprise. Please contact the club and share your ideas.

It’s time to sign up for Turkey Trot! It’s just about the neatest thing you can do with your holiday morning, and you get to sleep in—we’re not getting started until 6:00 am this year.

In the world of contests, there’s a big one going on right now: the SSB installment of the famous CQ World Wide DX Contest. When you’re not at Tech Net on the Hill, you’d better be on the air. You might even think about bringing a portable HF setup with you wherever you go, so that you don’t miss any contacts.

In news from the world of ham radio:

The VP6D DX-pedition to Ducie Island is reportedly going well, though the operators are concerned that people are making duplicate contacts. If you’d like to pick up this rare one—as many of our club members are—you’d better get on the air. They’re even using FT-8 in fox-and-hound mode.

The Norwegian amateur operator Kenneth Opskar, LA7GIA, has been allowed to leave Chad! It seems that the country has very few nice hotels, and the national security police were concerned about his using antennas from the same hotel that the president and other local VIPs use.

Amateurs were asked earlier this week to avoid 7.060, 7.130, and 14.120 MHz because of Hurricane Willa response nets. Anyone with updated information, please provide it to the net tonight.

In news from the world of science:

The fossil bird archaeopteryx was at first hailed as a missing link between non-avian dionsaurs and modern birds, then dismissed as a dead end. Thanks to new research, it looks like there was more than one kind of archaeopteryx, and that one of them might be more significant than previously thought.

A new study shows that churches in Poland are serving as sanctuaries for birds, even more than open fields in rural areas do.

When I was in college, my professors were always bored by the cerebellum, the “Rodney Dangerfield of organs.” But thanks to new research, it looks like this long-neglected part of the brain is gaining some respect after all: it seems to be the headquarters of the quality control department.