Subj : Amateur Radio Newsline (A) To : All From : Daryl Stout Date : Wed Apr 28 2021 17:34:23 Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2269 for Friday April 23, 2021 Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2269, with a release date of Friday, April 23, 2021 to follow in 5-4-3-2-1. The following is a QST. History is made with a first flight on Mars. Youth ham radio camp is postponed again in Region 1 -- and supersleuth ham helps rescue a stranded hiker. All this and more, as Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2269 comes your way right now. *** BILLBOARD CART ** DRONE MAKES 1ST POWERED FLIGHT ON MARS JIM/ANCHOR: We begin this week with the greatest moment not on Earth....but on Mars. The American aviation pioneers, Wilbur and Orville Wright, would be proud that the spirit of their 1903 achievement lives on 173 million miles away - on Mars. Paul Braun, WD9GCO, brings us that story. PAUL: It only lasted a minute but it was the moment of many lifetimes. Ingenuity the drone aboard NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover, took to the air on Monday April 19th, marking the first powered controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet. With Mars' freezing temperatures, plus an atmospheric density that is 1 percent of Earth's and a gravity one-third of Earth's, the challenge of achieving liftoff was different from what the Wright brothers faced in 1903 with their pioneering flight here on Earth. In fact, a tiny portion of the original Wright flyer was on board. Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California were hailing the pioneering flight as a "Wright Brothers Moment" on Mars. The little drone achieved a height of about 3 metres during the 40-second flight. Data was sent back to Earth via the Mars rover. There will be other flights, expected to be farther and at greater heights. NASA announced that this newest of all airfields on the red planet would be named Wright Brothers Field. Following the flight, the International Civil Aviation Organization, an agency of the UN, gave NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration an official designator of IGY, call-sign INGENUITY. For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Paul Braun, WD9GCO. (NASA, BBC) ** REGION 1 YOUTH AMATEUR RADIO CAMP POSTPONED JIM/ANCHOR: Young amateurs in IARU Region 1 are going to have to wait another year to attend ham radio camp. Ed Durrant, DD5LP, brings us up to date. ED: Concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic have postponed the YOTA summer camp planned for this summer by the Youth Working Group of IARU Region 1. In making the announcement, Philipp, DK6SP, and Markus, DL8GM, the group's chair and vice chair respectively, said that the organisers' intention is to reschedule the camp for the summer of 2022. This is the second pandemic-related postponement for the camp, which was being held with support from the Croatian Amateur Radio Society. In place of in- person events, Youngsters on the Air in Region 1 has been hosting a number of online workshops. Meanwhile, in IARU Region 2, planners have said they are still optimistic that they will be able hold the first Youth on the Air camp for young amateurs in North, Central, and South America this summer, and will be providing a COVID-regulations-compliant environment. For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Ed Durrant, DD5LP. JIM/ANCHOR: As Newsline went to production, we also learned that the IARU Region 1 YOTA Subregional Camp in Hungary was also being postponed. The Hungarian Amateur Radio Society made the decision based on Region 1's COVID-19 event cancellation policy. (SOUTHGATE, YOTA REGION 1) ** EXPERIMENTAL SENSOR SHOWS NOISE-REDUCTION POTENTIAL JIM/ANCHOR: If you're constantly battling noise in the environment in your attempts to get on the air, this next story from Kent Peterson, KC0DGY, might just show some promise. KENT: Researchers in the US who have been working with atom-based sensors and receivers say their work holds potential for weeding out environmental noise and other radio interference. Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology see the sensor as a vital component because of its ability to measure what they call the "angle of arrival" of a wireless signal, a capability that they believe will have a positive impact on transmissions for radar, 5G and other modes. According to an article in phys.org, the system is able to take incoming signals, and convert them to different frequencies. After measuring the separate electromagnetic waves' frequencies and their phase–that is, the position of the waves relative to each other–the system can determine where the signal is coming from. The scientists say that's necessary in order to differentiate real communications from interfering signals. According to the phys.org article, atom-based radio receivers and antennas have other added benefits: They can be a great deal smaller than their traditional counterparts and, by making use of atoms to do the main work, have no need for more conventional forms of electronics to do signal conversion. For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Kent Peterson, KC0DGY. (PHYS.ORG) --- SBBSecho 3.14-Win32 * Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (454:1/33) .