OSCAR Meeting
The next OSCAR meeting is 08-Jan @ 9:00 AM, the second Saturday of the month. Meetings are held in the meeting room at the Owatonna HyVee, 18th Street @ Oak Avenue.

SKYWARN Meeting
The next SKYWARN meeting is 18-Jan @ 7:00 PM, the third Tuesday of the month. Meetings are held at the Owatonna Fire Station.

Local News

• Junior NXØP reports the 146.880 is back up and running on the new Motorola repeater.
• Kevin is now KØAJB, dropping the "D" from his prefix.

OSCAR Elections
The December meeting had a smaller than usual crowd due to the blizzard. A motion passed to delay the election of new officers until the January meeting. The existing officers will continue to serve until the January meeting. Membership dues ($10) are also payable to Mike KDØDKC.

OSCAR Breakfast
One nice thing we enjoy meeting at Hy-Vee is the breakfast. We have been able to order breakfast before the meeting and have it served while we enjoy the interactions. Starting with the January meeting, however, breakfast will not be served. We will individually need to purchase breakfast in the deli and bring it up to the meeting room.

CERT Annual Meeting
RCES/ARES members are invited to attend the CERT Annual Meeting on 06-Jan at 6:00PM. It will be held at the Steele County Community Center at the Fairgrounds.

OSCAR E-Mail
Qwest is moving between e-mail servers. There should not be an interruption in e-mail. Let us know if you believe you are experiencing any trouble getting a message to or from OSCAR.

VARS General Class
The Viking Amateur Radio Society will be offering a class for the General Class upgrade license starting Thursday, January 20th at 7:30 through Thursday, April 14th at the Waseca County EOC. A Testing Session will be held on April 16th running from 9:00am through 12:00 (noon). The required book for the General License Book is The ARRL General Class License Manual (ISBN-13: 978-0-87259-996-3) or (ISBN-10: 0-87259-996-5). The cost of the book is 24.95. They can be purchased from V.A.R.S. if paid in advance or through the various online book sellers and the ARRL web site. The exam fee is $15, government issued photo ID is required along with the original and copy of your existing amateur radio license. Contact Reg Cass at 507-835-2644 for more information.

OSCAR Technician License Class
OSCAR will again sponsor a Technician License Class and VE Session. Class begins on 01-Feb and will follow the same general format as recent years. This is the first year we will teach the new question pool. The full class plan is still being developed.

Dale WBØPKG and Tom NØUW will be the lead instructors, Dennis NØRPI offered to lead a session. Junior NXØP agreed to lead the VE Session and Brian KØBDD is taking charge of publicity. Anyone interested in authoring slides and/or teaching a session should contact Tom NØUW.

General Class Question Pool
The National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators (NCVEC) released the new General class (Element 3) question pool. All 457 questions will become effective for all General class examinations administered on or after 01-Jul.

Filaments and Prominences From Various Sources
Magnetic loops that hold cool, dense gas above the surface of the Sun are called filaments. When the filaments are seen profiled against the dark sky, they are referred to as Prominences. A 400,000 mile long filament traveled across the Sun in late November and early December. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) caught the action when the snake erupted. The width of this filament was more than 50 times wider than the Earth.

HelioViewer From Various Sources
Images of the Sun can now be seen at HelioViewer. A Java-based software allows users to make movies of the sun or add color to the images as they wish. Over a million images from the SOlar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) are available.

Long Delayed Echo From Multiple Sources
Long Delayed Echoes (LDE)were first reported in 1927 by a Norwegian civil engineer. German amateur radio operator DK6NP recently recorded a LDE, 46 seconds after transmitting his call sign. The event lasted for over an hour during a geomagnetic storm on the 40-meter band. The cause is not fully understood, but 15 Possible Explanations are summarized from a paper authored in 1989. You can hear some of the audio recordings made by DJ6NP.

Saltwater Battery From Popular Science
As more and more devices utilize battery power, replacing or recharging the battery becomes an issue. A battery manufacturer is using 2,000-year-old technology based on magnesium. The battery can be recharged using saltwater. Sodium from the saltwater reacts with magnesium to create a dose of low-voltage power.

Powerline Modem From Multiple SOurces
A French company is marketing a new modem. The technology is called Watt Pulse Communication (WPC), and is geared for applications such as control of lighting and appliances. The Wireless Institute of Australia (WIA) indicated the modem transmits in the 2 to 4 MHz segment, which covers the 75-meter and 80-meter bands.

IR Solar Cells From New Scientist
Nearly half of the available energy in the solar spectrum resides in the infrared (IR) band. Researchers are working on new method to capture it, calling it a light-sensative antenna. The antenna resonates when hit by light waves and generate an alternating current. Individual antennas can be tuned for specific optical frequencies and assembled in an array on a common platform. IR is emitted even after visable light disappears, so energy can be collected with the lights out or after sundown. Because the light waves have different frequencies, the energy needs to be converted to DC. The overall efficiency is expected to be far greater than conventional solar cells that operate only with visible light.