RASA's submission on the ACMA Class Proposal, Woodpeckers and NOAA

It's always nice to see something written by RASA without any hints of jabs a WIA Read the submission here

I generally agree with what they're proposing in lieu of hearing any kind of better suggestions. I still however maintain that ACMA have already decided the outcome and are just trying to create the illusion of "doing the right thing" to get there.

In other news, looking at a Facebook post recently, it seems that last Friday's woodpecker on 40m was probably an Over the horizon radar system - most likely from Jindalee in South Australia. Others have heard the same, recognised the noise and made complaints to ACMA (while we still can....). I jumped on that band wagon.

I decided yesterday to have a crack at trying to get weather images via NOAA satellites using my RTL-SDR.

It took a bit of fiddling around and some research, but I've finally managed to get some half decent images using the X200A antenna. I really should build something with a circular polarisation to improve it, but at least I'm getting something. 

I'm a little annoyed as a subsequent pass at a higher elevation wouldn't render with a warning that the signal might have been too strong, or it was lacking telemetry data or something.. too many different messages depending where I look. A little more work to be done perhaps, but still... cool. 

I've also just received the best SSTV images I'm yet to receive. Sadly they were on 20m so I can't respond..