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www.southgatearc.org
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BAA Radio Astronomy Group News 29 Jul 2006 A reminder that our next public meeting is at: We have so far confirmed professional speakers: The development team will be bringing us up to date on the progress made
in the last year, and there will be demos of As usual there will be a raffle for some interesting books... Bring along a poster describing your work! I am now writing volume 1, issue 4 of the Circular, and invite further contributions, by no later than August 20 please. As usual I will publish your name and email address in the list of members, unless I hear from you to the contrary. The PDF should be available by the end of August, the printed one certainly ready for Sept 23. Those of you who purchased the book 'Amateur Radio Astronomy', (and there were quite a few!) may like to send me a few comments for inclusion in the review in the Circular? We have also sold some of the books at the Cavendish Exhibition meeting this summer, at a reduced rate for members. The RSGB intend to have someone at the IoA meeting, to sell radio-related books. I have been contacted by Dr Mike Inglis who is an editor of the Springer-Verlag range of amateur astronomy books, asking if we have any member(s) would would like to write an introductory book on RA? I would very much like to do this (delivery date 2007 December), but it is just not practical with the current workload of the coordinator's position... So, if you would like to have a go, maybe collaborating with others, please let me know. A very brief roundup of the project news - for the details you will have to wait for the Circular! 2.7GHz total power - Martyn Kinder - an end-to-end testbed has been completed. Output may be seen on Martyn's website, courtesy of Radio SkyPipe 1.4GHz total power - David Farn and Alan Morgan - ditto testbed, requires a RAG IF strip and detector VLF Rx - now with 10 beta testers, working well! Undergoing a redesign by Martyn to fit I2C/RS232 interfaces instead of 64way, and go surface-mount Controller - Mark Byrne, Trevor Sutton, Laurence Newell - prototyping in progress Magnetometer John Cook - design prototyped, undergoing tests and calibration. This one also has I2C and RS232 interfaces for stand-alone use MRAO 151MHZ liasion - Trevor Sutton, Peter King, Karen Holland, Terry Ashton - we now have a target to produce a demo for the Cambridge alumni weekend, on Sept 23! All going well, we hope to have an internet connection showing the telescope output... Leicester Space Centre Jeff Lashley (Terry Ashton?) - new project to use 3m steerable dish on roof of space centre, initial findings look encouraging. Do you live near Leicester?! Starbase software - Laurence Newell (Alan Morgan?) - working demo of basic 'container' to be sent to dev team, now XML compliant! There will be a demo at the meeting, if possible showing the MRAO link and/or a VLF receiver. Database - discussions with Andy Wilson of the Variable Star Section to try to rationalise the BAA's databases... So, you can see there is a lot going on. If you would like to help out, please contact the appropriate member of the dev. team. Plese note that I am now 'on holiday' and therefore cannot reply to emails sent to my work address. I look forward to meeting you in September! Laurence Newell
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