Did anyone DX the Leonids last night?? Good on ya, Mike! Toast those marshmallows and hunker down by the bottle rig!

Listen to the Leonids Tonight Space Weather News for Nov. 17, 2000 http://www.spaceweather.com Scientists at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama are operating a radio meteor detection system that records audible echoes as meteors streak by. During the Nov. 18th Leonid meteor shower (Friday night and Saturday morning) sounds from the system will be available live on the web at http://www.spaceweather.com and http://www.leonidslive.com. Every ping you hear corresponds to a meteor over the Eastern U.S.! For more information visit SpaceWeather.com.

Propagation Forecast Bulletin 46 - November 17, 2000 Sunspot numbers and solar flux were down over the past week. Average sunspot numbers were down over 40 points and average solar flux was off by 36 points relative to the previous week. The expected geomagnetic disturbance arrived earlier than predicted, with Friday being the worst day, with a planetary A index of 41. Planetary K indices reached 6 for several periods on Friday. Saturday was fairly quiet, and Sunday was fairly active with the planetary K index at 20. Following the weekend the geomagnetic conditions have been quiet. Solar flux probably reached a short term minimum of 143.7 on Monday, and is now rising. Flux values for Friday through Tuesday are expected to be 155, 155, 160, 160 and 165. Solar flux is expected to peak around 200 from November 27-29. Expected planetary A index values for Friday through Tuesday are 12, 10, 20, 12 and 10, so the current predicted value for this Sunday is nearly identical to last Sunday. The unsettled conditions on Sunday will probably be due to a solar flair that occurred early Thursday. Beyond the weekend, the next predicted unsettled day is November 29, and December 5 looks like an active geomagnetic day, as well as December 8 and 9. Of course this is based upon the previous solar rotation. Look at the chart at http://www.wm7d.net/hamradio/solar/. It looks as if solar flux and sunspots generally declined over the past six months. Sunspot numbers for November 9 through 15 were 149, 141, 128, 112, 99, 131 and 144 with a mean of 129.1. 10.7 cm flux was 166.2, 153.4, 149.6, 146.6, 143.7, 148.6 and 146.5, with a mean of 150.7, and estimated planetary A indices were 11, 41, 12, 21, 8, 5 and 5 with a mean of 14.7.

Did you catch any, Mike? Anyone? We caught raindrops...! NASA Science News for November 21, 2000 The art of predicting Leonid meteors officially became a science this weekend as sky watchers around the globe enjoyed three predicted episodes of shooting stars. This story includes video and some unusual pictures of Leonid fireballs. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast21nov_1.htm?list89800

Shepherd makes first casual QSOs from ISS The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station program has announced that Commander William ''Shep'' Shepherd, KD5GSL, has made the first casual Amateur Radio contacts from Space Station Alpha. Shepherd reports that he was able to take a few minutes out of his busy schedule on Friday, November 17, to engage in contacts with a few lucky hams. Before then, the only Amateur Radio contacts involved engineering test passes between the ISS and Russian and US amateur facilities. ARISS spokesman Will Marchant, KC6ROL, says that with the recent arrival at ISS of a Progress cargo craft, the crew will have to redouble its work pace. The space shuttle Endeavour STS-97 mission to the ISS will launch November 30, so the Expedition 1 crew will continue to put in some long hours preparing for its arrival. Endeavour is carrying a large new solar panel for the ISS that will permit the station to be fully powered for the first time. More information about Amateur Radio on the International Space Station is available on the ARISS Web site, http://ariss.gsfc.nasa.gov/.

Limited AO-40 use possible in near future Plans are in place to make AO-40 available for a limited period of general amateur use ''possibly within a week or two,'' says AMSAT-NA President Robin Haighton, VE3FRH. Launched November 16, the next-generation Amateur Radio satellite formerly known as Phase 3D remains for now in a geostationary transfer orbit while initial housekeeping and checkout procedures are under way. Just when and how the ''limited operation'' will occur is up to the ground controllers, Haigton said. The provisional operation would involve ''one or two bands at a time.'' Since the satellite's solar panels will not be deployed until AO-40 is in its final orbit, full power will not be available. Haighton said the most likely configurations for the limited test period would be 70 cm up and 2 meters down and 1.2 GHz up and 2.4 GHz down, SSB and CW. Details of the limited test period will be announced. AMSAT has stressed that the Phase 3D/AO-40 controllers are closely monitoring the power budget and the satellite's current orbital parameters. ''These two areas will be among the most important factors that determine what happens with P3D in the near future,'' AMSAT said this week. From all indications, most AO-40 systems are working properly at this point, with the possible exception of the 70-cm transmitter. Phase 3D Project Manager Karl Meinzer, DJ4ZC, says ''a problem with the 70 cm transmitter'' led controllers to shift the telemetry downlink from 70-cm to 2 meters, 145.898 MHz. Phase 3D will not be opened for full amateur use until it's been placed in its final orbital configuration. That's expected to take about nine months. For more information, visit the AMSAT-NA Web site, http://www.amsat.org/.

Interplanetary shock wave hits Earth; more to come.... Space Weather News for Nov. 26, 2000 http://www.spaceweather.com The first of several coronal mass ejections now heading toward Earth hit our planet's magnetosphere between 0500 and 0600 UT on Nov. 26th. Geomagnetic activity could become severe during the next 48 hours as one shock wave after another reaches Earth. We encourage sky watchers to be alert for auroras at middle- and perhaps even low-latitudes. The new Moon will afford dark skies for spotting faint Northern Lights. Visit http://www.spaceweather.com for details and updates.

Howdy All Sorry for falling off the face of the earth but those ledges at the prime meridian are not well marked and there is NOT a guard rail either.... Anyway, with grad skool complete for this semester, I actually have time to do stuff including finally bolting my 24 and 47 ghz up/down converters to their respective antenna switch assemblies. The main reason for this post is that I finally got the address for the SLF/ELF audio recordings - these are time compressed onto a 90 minute cassette and cover signals below 3 Hertz. The tape costs $10 money order mailed to John M. Lauerman 26810 S.E. Duthie Hill Road Issaquah, WA 98029 73 de Mike Radio Cosmo International

Mahalo Mike! Welcome out of your Ivory Tower Dungeon for the holidays.

Howdy Marcia and Geo-ites Yea, Ivory Tower Dungeon is an apt term - good thing I like going to school. Now, if I could just figure out how to do school full time and not have to work... Anyway, no exciting signal reports as of yet since I have not been listening to the radio much. The R390A got shipped off for restoration and the SP600 has been pressed into backup duty. It fired right up despite sitting dormant for a year. (No telling how long it sat dormant in a surplus warehouse... I plugged it in and it came right back to life. Ah, good ol tube gear....) Right now, catching up on microwave stuff which seems to have piled up again (and again and again...) Cheers from the radio room de Mike radio cosmo international

wishing I were a mouse in the corner so I could listen, too... I'd even share my cheese with you!!!

Propagation - December 8, 2000 Average solar flux was down and sunspot numbers were up this week. At least there weren't any major geomagnetic disturbances. Quiet and stable conditions prevailed, with A indices in the single digits. Solar flux probably reached a short term minimum at 1800z on December 6 of 140.2, and at the 1800z reading the next day it was 140.8. The official daily readings are at 2000z, which is why you won't see those numbers reported here in the summary at the end of this bulletin. After the low flux numbers for the previous two days, solar flux is expected to rise to a peak near 200 around December 20-23. Current prediction shows flux values for Friday through Tuesday, December 8-12 at 145, 150, 150, 155 and 160. The next short term minimum for solar flux is predicted for after the new year. Unfortunately for hams looking forward to the 10-Meter contest this weekend, the quiet conditions will probably not continue. The predicted planetary A index for Friday through Tuesday is 15, 25, 15, 12 and 10. The active conditions in this weekend's forecast are probably due to a coronal hole in the center of the visible solar disk. This will be a problem for high latitude and east-west propagation. There was also a solar flare toward the end of the UTC day on December 6. Sunspot numbers for November 30 through December 6 were 191, 157, 141, 186, 120, 90 and 99 with a mean of 140.6. 10.7 cm flux was 192.3, 184.5, 167, 163.6, 152, 147 and 141, with a mean of 163.9, and estimated planetary A indices were 6, 6, 4, 12, 10, 4 and 7 with a mean of 7.

Listen to the Geminids Space Weather News for Dec. 11, 2000 http://www.spaceweather.com GEMINID METEOR SHOWER: Scientists at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center have established a radio meteor detection system to monitor this week's Geminid meteor shower. Although the shower doesn't peak until December 13th, plenty of Geminid meteoroids are already streaking through Earth's atmosphere. You can listen to their eerie-sounding radio echoes in realtime at http://www.spaceweather.com. SUBMIT YOUR PHOTOS: The glare from this week's nearly-full Moon will substantially reduce the number of visible Geminid meteors. Nevertheless, sky watchers in rural areas will likely spot 20 or more shooting stars per hour -- a fairly pleasing shower. We invite photographers who capture images of Geminid meteors to submit their photos for display on spaceweather.com. Simply send your files as email attachments to webmaster@spaceweather.com.

PROJECT SETI@HOME UPDATE PROJECT STATUS Halfway through our second year of operation, SETI@home has processed over 7000 hours of digitally-recorded signals from the Arecibo radio telescope, using the power of millions of Internet-connected computers. As this processing continues, SETI@home's own computers are doing the next phase, in which we separate man-made radio signals from those originating outside our solar system. Our goal is to detect signals from other civilizations. By using the Internet to form the world's most powerful computer, SETI@home has inspired other scientific computing projects, and is often credited (along with Napster) with defining a new generation of computer system design, called "peer-to-peer". Because of the strong continued interest in SETI@home, the project will continue for at least a year beyond its original ending time. Plans are not finalized, but we hope to expand our search to the southern-hemisphere sky, and to search new frequency bands. We will also try to make SETI@home more fun and interesting by adding new content and features to our web site. Our small but hard-working staff (5 part-time members) has had little time to work on this area, but we're expanding our efforts. -------------------------- RELEASE OF VERSION 3 SOFTWARE After almost a year of testing and debugging, we recently released a major new version of our screensaver program. The new version does much better signal analysis; it looks for two new types of signals (pulses and triplets) and it covers a wider range of drift rates. As a result, it takes more time to process each work unit. The old version of SETI@home should automatically notify you when it's time to upgrade to the new version. You can download and install it from our web site: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/download.html -------------------------- NEW SPONSORSHIP FROM ONE COSMOS NETWORK AND THE PLANETARY SOCIETY We're proud to announce an alliance of SETI@home with One Cosmos Network and The Planetary Society. This alliance will give us the financial support necessary to continue and expand SETI@home, as well as enabling us to provide a richer Web experience. Founded by Internet executive Joe Firmage and Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's wife and collaborator of 20 years, One Cosmos Network is dedicated to carrying on Sagan's effort to humanize science and bring it to people everywhere. Toward this end, One Cosmos is constructing an Internet portal, OneCosmos.net, and a production studio, Cosmos Studios, which will create compelling science-based entertainment for television and film. Their first release is an updated, digitally remastered Collector's Edition of the Emmy and Peabody Award winning 13-hour television series, "Cosmos." The series is currently available for purchase in DVD or VHS format, with "The Music of Cosmos" available separately in a double-CD format; find them at http://OneCosmos.net. The Planetary Society is the founding sponsor of SETI@home, and its membership is open to anyone who shares the goals of exploring our solar system and searching for extraterrestrial life. In fact, the Society supports six different SETI efforts, along with many other projects in space exploration. We encourage you to join The Planetary Society and help advance their many worthy programs at http://planetary.org/html/member/JoinUs.html We are also extremely grateful to our other sponsors, including the University of California Digital Media Innovation Program, Sun Microsystems, Fuji Film Computer Products, Quantum, and the SETI Institute. Thanks also to the hundreds of individuals who have made contributions to SETI@home. Their names are listed at http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/donorlist.html SETI@home is free for everyone, but if you can consider making a tax-deductible donation to SETI@home, please visit http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/donor.html. -------------------------- NEW SETI@HOME GEAR IS HERE While our goal is to detect life in outer space, we can't do that without the support of our fellow Earthlings. Last year, we introduced several SETI@home products in our online store. The response was so great that this year we've expanded the product line. There are great new sweatshirts, mugs, T-shirts, jackets, desk clocks, lapel pins, patches, and even a heat-sensitive mouse pad. Want more? How about your very own, very elegant, blown-glass globe? Or (our personal favorite) a stylus, red and black pens, and mechanical pencil packed into one very cool gravity-fed tool. You'll find them all online at http://www.exploratoriumstore.com/setihome.html. The profits from each sale help fund the SETI@home project.

AMSAT OSCAR-40 remains silent, and command stations on the ground still have been unable to reestablish contact with the Amateur Radio satellite. It had been hoped that an onboard computer timeout expected on or about December 16 would restart the beacon telemetry and give the ground crew some clues as to why AO-40 suddenly stopped transmitting on December 13. AMSAT-Germany's Peter Guelzow, DB2OS, of the AO-40 team, said nothing was heard over the weekend, and command stations tried to re-establish communication by sending blind commands. If the reset had occurred, the satellite would have been restored to its post-launch configuration and attempt to transmit on 70 cm. However, the 70-cm transmitter has been problematic, and the satellite likely still would need to be reconfigured for 2-meter transmission at that point to be heard on Earth. The AO-40 team is continuing to investigate reports of weak signals on the 2-meter downlink frequency of 145.898 MHz that seem to be coming from AO-40, but it has discounted reports of telemetry heard there as a hoax. Other reports persist of a weak, unmodulated carrier, however. Guelzow said today that the AO-40 team is encouraged by a report from the North American Air Defense Command--NORAD. The report indicates that AO-40 was found to be in one piece, that the orbit was exactly were it should be, that the radar cross-section was as expected, and that no other pieces were found. Guelzow said the NORAD data counter rumors ''which no one on the inner team believed'' that AO-40 might have exploded. AMSAT-NA President Robin Haighton said ground controllers were exploring several options. When and whether the satellite will be heard from again depends, in part, on whether AO-40 has picked up any of the ''blind commands'' sent by ground controllers. Guelzow says that if no commands were accepted by the IHU-1 onboard computer since contact was lost December 13, then a ''command-assist'' watchdog routine on December 21 will cycle the satellite through various receive, transmit, high-gain and low-gain antenna modes. If AO-40 did pick up some commands, Guelzow said, the command-assist watchdog will be reset for another 10 orbits. That could extend the wait until sometime after Christmas. Guelzow says the ''watchdogs'' are software resets. Ground controllers want to avoid doing a hard re-boot of the main computer, which is considered a last resort. ''There is no need to hurry, and the command team doesn't want to miss any option,'' he said.

Propagation Forecast Bulletin 51 - December 22, 2000 Average solar flux and sunspot numbers were up sharply this week. The solar flux average for the week was up over 47 points and sunspot numbers rose over 85 points. It has been a quiet week geomagnetically, with planetary A indices in the single digits. Solar flux probably peaked at 2200z on December 20, when it reached 207.7. Solar flux is predicted over the next few days, Friday through Monday at 195, 195, 190 and 190. The planetary A index for those days is predicted at 12, 15, 15 and 12. The reason for the unsettled geomagnetic condition is a coronal mass ejection on December 18 that is expected to cause a weak disturbance. Beyond this weekend look for solar flux to drop to a short term minimum of 140 around January 3-5. The next peak is expected from January 16-19. Check the bottom of Jan Alvestad's Solar Terrestrial Activity Report at http://www.dxlc.com/solar/ . He has a table showing monthly averages of solar flux and sunspot numbers, as well as a smoothed sunspot number. According to his table, the highest average monthly solar flux was in March of this year, although July was almost as high. The highest sunspot number was in July, and during April he shows a smoothed sunspot number of 120.8, which may be the peak of this solar cycle. The peak of cycle 23 has probably passed, although we could get an increase in activity which would extend the peak. Fortunately, sunspot cycles seem to go up faster than they decline. Sunspot numbers for December 14 through 20 were 157, 181, 217, 229, 174, 163 and 183 with a mean of 186.3. 10.7 cm flux was 182.2, 187.8, 190.5, 196.7, 198, 198.6 and 201.3, with a mean of 193.6, and estimated planetary A indices were 4, 3, 4, 8, 10, 5 and 4 with a mean of 6.3.

Space Bulletin 027 - December 22, 2000 It was a historic moment for Amateur Radio. Some 200 youngsters, teachers, parents, and news media representatives were on hand at Luther Burbank Elementary School near Chicago December 21 to witness the first successful Amateur Radio on the International Space Station school contact. Several pupils plus one teacher got to chat with Space Station Alpha Commander William ''Shep'' Shepherd, KD5GSL, via ham radio. Earlier attempts by the school on December 19 were unsuccessful, despite the extensive technical preparations. On December 21, however, Shepherd, using the special NA1SS call sign, came right back to a call from veteran SAREX/ARISS mentor Charlie Sufana, AJ9N, at the school. Sufana and his ARISS team had spent the better part of two weeks setting up gear and antennas for the scheduled contact. Antenna setup was hampered by repeated snowstorms and frigid temperatures, but the efforts paid off. ''I'm happy that we were able to pull it off,'' Sufana said. ''The kids were bouncing off the walls.'' During the 10-minute pass, 14 first through eighth graders plus science and math teacher Rita Wright got a chance to pose questions about life aboard Space Station Alpha to Shepherd. Shepherd said he especially enjoyed being able to float around in the space station. He said the crew is keeping detailed logs about life on the space station, and that the crew was enjoying taking pictures of Earth from space, ''because you can see things that you can't see from the ground.'' Shepherd also explained that about 90 percent of water in the air inside the space station is recovered and reused. At the conclusion of the successful contact, the grateful crowd applauded loudly and offered up a hearty ''thank you!'' and ''73!'' to Shepherd and his Russian crewmates. Shepherd said he was looking forward to future school contacts. Another two dozen schools are under consideration for ARISS school contacts. Schools in Virginia and New York are tentatively scheduled for contacts next month. More information about requesting dedicated contacts is available on the ARISS web pages, http://ariss.gsfc.nasa.gov/.

That's great, I'd like to find the frequencies they're on and post them here. Or maybe you know the recent schedule, Marci?

I'll see what I can find Terry! FCC Requests Voluntary Communications Emergency in and around TEXAS The FCC has requested that Amateur Radio operators in and around Texas voluntarily relinquish the use of 3870 to 3878 kHz to enable the handling of emergency traffic. Ice storms have disrupted power and communication and made for hazardous travel conditions in the region. Amateur Radio operators have activated the Emergency and Tactical Traffic Net to handle traffic related to the weather emergency. At the request of ARRL South Texas Section Manager Ray Taylor, N5NAV, Leroy Pittman of the FCC has asked the amateur community to cooperate in recognizing the existence of a voluntary communications emergency and to stay clear of the specified 75-meter frequencies. Taylor reports that Amateur Radio operators already have helped with hospital communications after hospital telephones were knocked out. A net on 7285 kHz has been handling much of the winter storm-related traffic during daylight hours. A copy of Pittman's request to voluntarily relinquish use of the specified 75-meter frequencies was sent to the FCC's HF Direction Finding facility in Columbia, Maryland.

Howdy All Well, one very good bit of news. Control stations were able to jump start AO40 and its transmitting with its mode S (2.4ghz) beacon. There is hope for the satellite future! Of course, way too busy as of late but progress has been made on the 5.7ghz system and some tests were run on a cobbled together 24ghz receive system. Plus playing with the new Christmas toy - a Garmin GPS receiver. Anyway, back to the lab. Happy Holidays from the Radio Cosmo Collective

Yes, Mike!!! Good show and great news about AO40. Much concern about that. Happy New Year *hugs* for keeping us up to date

AO-40 Recovery Continues - January 4, 2001 Efforts continue to assess the status of AO-40 following a resumption of telemetry transmissions. AO-40 went silent December 13, but ground controllers successfully reset the main computer on Christmas Day and got the satellite transmitting again. Ground controllers now are analyzing the telemetry sent via the S2 beacon on 2401.305 MHz. AMSAT-NA President Robin Haighton, VE3FRH, says the command team worked through the holidays in an effort to determine just what went wrong aboard AO-40. Among other things, ground controllers would like to know what actually happened on December 13 and why, as well as which telemetry functions are known to be correct and which data are suspect and why. The satellite went silent during maneuvers to test its onboard 400-Newton propulsion system following an earlier orbit-shifting burn. Ground controllers also want to know the spacecraft's actual attitude with respect to Earth--and if it has changed attitude. Other parameters they'll be examining include spin velocity, the status of batteries, battery chargers and regulators, and what happened to the onboard computers, IHU-1 and IHU 2, and why. The AO-40 command team also wants to find out if all the antennas are operational and what can be done next to improve communications, and if there are any risks involved in attempting to restart onboard systems. So far, the 2-meter beacon transmitter has remained off the air since AO-40 was returned to ground control on Christmas Day. It's believed that problems with the 70-cm transmitter developed shortly after launch. The 2.4 GHz transmitter appears to be operating ''nominally,'' however. ''When questions such as these--and others--are answered, it may be possible to determine the working capability of the spacecraft, and, if appropriate, to start to try operation on other bands,'' Haighton said. He said critical decisions will be made over the next week or two ''based on the results of the analysis and much discussion among the command team.''

AO-40 Could Be Leaking AO-40 team member Peter Guelzow, DB2OS, says a small leak on AO-40 could account for the higher spin rate ground controllers have noticed since the satellite resumed telemetry transmissions on Christmas Day. Guelzow called on the amateur community to be patient during the AO-40 recovery. ''The good thing is that AO-40 seems to be in a very stable condition, and there are no signs of further damage,'' Guelzow said today in a posting to the AMSAT bulletin board. ''However, there is a sign of a small leak.'' Ground controllers continue to look into the reason for the higher spin rate as well as into other items under investigation, Guelzow said, and the results will be reported when the AO-40 team reaches its final conclusions. He said the priority for now is to get AO-40 back to normal as soon as possible. AO-40 went silent December 13 while ground controllers were testing the onboard 400-newton propulsion system. Guelzow's posting did not indicate whether he thought that propulsion system fuel or some other substance was escaping through the suspected leak. A computer reset command Christmas Day brought the satellite back to life, but telemetry data suggest that AO-40 suffered some damage. Since Christmas, the AO-40 ground team has been analyzing telemetry sent via the 2.4 GHz beacon--the only transmitter now operating--to determine the status of AO-40's onboard systems. Guelzow said that once the AO-40 team has a handle on the antenna situation it might attempt to get the 2-meter and possibly the 70-cm transmitters working. Until then, he said, AO-40 will continue to use the 2.4 GHz downlink. Guelzow said that because of the currently limited downlink capabilities, uploading of new commands and analyzing the results is taking somewhat longer than it would under normal circumstances. The AO-40 team also is evaluating the satellite's magnetorquing attitude control system and wants to spin down the spacecraft and adjust AO-40's attitude for better sun and squint angles. In addition, ground controllers will be taking a close look at various other systems and experiments onboard, including the arcjet and the stabilization wheels. ''Once this is completed and we have a complete overview, then we can declare the spacecraft to work normally and perhaps think about re-defining the mission of AO-40, whatever it will be,'' Guelzow said.

Hey Kids Well, still waiting for the AO40 reports to trickle in. The way things are looking, I will have plenty of time to cobble bits together in time for the spring thaw. (Got up to 32 deg today - yow!) Playing with some new toys from the most recent ham fest. One step closer to amateur television with the new CCD camera unit (in CosmoVision, of course....) Also picked up a Delorme Tripmate GPS unit very cheap. Hooked it up to the pc and ran a terminal emulator - after goofing around for a bit, got the unit to come to life by sending over the correct init code which resulted in the unit spewing over raw GPS data. Finally, a multimode RF data modem so I can play with Packet, Amtor, RTTY, APRS, etc.... enuf stuff to keep me humored/annoyed for a while.... 73 de AA9IL Mike radio cosmo international

Mike! Fantastic - now just hook up your little computer tv cam and we can watch you do all this stuff! Seems as though cabin fever is held in abeyance by your soldering finger together and fluxing... thanks for sharing! Seti settings currently for me: 179 blocks of data crunched 16 hr 45' 28" RA +9� 3' 36" Dec 1.420664063 Ghz

Yow! 179 blocks? I wont say what my piss weak P90 has finally completed. I guess there is justification for shelling out some bucks for a 1GHz system. Either that, or hit all the local garage sales, buy a bunch of P90's and build up a Beowulf cluster. While I was at the last ham fest, I saw P90 boards with CPU -and- memory for less than $50. You can guess what I payed for mine all those years ago. Sort of like back in ye olden daze when 386's were being taken over by the 486 and folks spend a couple thousand for that tricked out 386 that was destined to be a big paperweight for the desk.... Oh well, progress.... 73 de AA9IL Mike radio cosmo international

Yup...technology has struck again - I started out on a Commodore which we upgraded to 64! Before that we had to load programs via tape - it HAD no memory. Uh huh...this is my 6th genereation computer is about 10 years... I have a thief to thank for one upgrade...

183 blocks completed now...