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By John AE5X, June 8, 2013

I’m okay up to 50 feet.

Here’s photographer Joe McNally and a couple of workers dangling off the world’s tallest building at 2722 feet (830m):

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Comments (3)

By John AE5X, March 15, 2013

Mark Gee is an Australian photographer I first heard about several weeks ago. In fact, it was about the time an Estonian ham was bouncing his 15m signals off the moon.

Operating at a much shorter wavelength than ES5TV, Mark decided to exercise the video capabilities of his digital SLR.

The video below may appear to be a slow-motion capture of the full moon rising but it’s actually recorded in real time. By using a very long telephoto lens, the motion of the moon was made apparent in much the same way that a close-up video of a clock would show motion of the minute hand.

Long story short, it makes a compelling video, in part, due to the inclusion of people in the foreground. “Foreground” is a relative term – in this case, it’s 2.1 km away.

Tech details from Mark:

Full Moon Silhouettes is a real time video of the moon rising over the Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington, New Zealand. People had gathered up there this night to get the best view possible of the moon rising. I captured the video from 2.1km away on the other side of the city. It’s something that I’ve been wanting to photograph for a long time now, and a lot of planning and failed attempts had taken place. Finally, during moon rise on the 28th January 2013, everything fell into place and I got my footage.

The video is as it came off the memory card and there has been no manipulation whatsoever. Technically it was quite a challenge to get the final result. I shot it on a Canon ID MkIV in video mode with a Canon EF 500mm f/4L and a Canon 2x extender II, giving me the equivalent focal length of 1300mm.

Watch it full-screen by clicking on the icon:

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Comments (9)

By John AE5X, February 5, 2013

I think this a First… (see comment below)

Back in October I posted about a monster 15m antenna (read ES5TV’s description here) going up in Estonia. It is composed of eight 5-element monoband Yagis on a 230-foot (70m) tower.

Tonno ES5TV, the lucky owner, pondered at that time whether it might be possible to use such a high-gain antenna to work EME on 15 meters.

Mission Accomplished! Continue reading 'ES5TV: 15 meter moonbounce successful!'»

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By John AE5X, December 17, 2012

Ham radio seems so trivial lately and fails miserably as the escapism I’ve sought for the past three days. My thoughts are dominated by events in Connecticut on Friday and I expect that is true for many other Americans as well.

If only any one of us could go back in time and be waiting in that classroom as the monster entered…

My wife and I had dinner out last night. At the table next to us was a family with two children who appeared to be the same age as those killed in Newtown. Looking at them, I couldn’t help but wonder how it’s possible for anyone to want to harm such innocence. Incomprehensible.

If anything lifts my spirits, it’s the humanity of the adults who acted so heroically as they sought to protect and comfort the children. I only wish I could be as courageous as any of those women under such horrific circumstances. Continue reading 'Sandy Hook'»

Comments (5)

By John AE5X, December 10, 2012

Contests for me have always been less about competition and more about discovering new things in radio. Due to the sheer number of stations on the air, contests provide the perfect venue for compressing a variety of radio experimentation into a minimal amount of time:

• A/B antenna comparisons
• QRP possibilities on 160 meters
• bands open later than thought possible

and more, depending on your interests.

This past weekend’s 10m DX Contest was a lesson for me in the phenomena of long-path. If radio is Magic, long-path propagation is Magic squared (or magic for squares, as my XYL might say). Continue reading 'Secondary path on 10 meters'»

Comments (1)

By John AE5X, December 5, 2012

An entertaining look at how things once were:

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