Wellington VHF Group, Inc: Online.

Yes, it's being tried by NASA.

TG Daily reported from Phandroid. Essentially they Nexus smartphone is put into a sealed, protected box and backed up with external batteries, etc. An interesting idea. Hit the links for more.

"Navy radio might be crippling Conn. garage doors" as reported by news.yahoo.com.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A radio signal being transmitted out of a submarine base is likely behind reports of garage doors failing to open and close in southeastern Connecticut, the U.S. Navy said Monday.

The signal is part of the Enterprise Land Mobile Radio system, which is used by the military to coordinate responses with civil emergency workers, said Chris Zendan, a spokesman for submarine base in Groton.

The problem, first reported by The Day of New London, is that the same frequency is used at very low levels by the manufacturers of garage door openers. The signals from remote controls to open or close the doors are blocked by the signal from the base.

Click the article for more.

Via the Wellington Thursday Night Curry group I became aware of a goodly supply of workshop equipment likely to be of interest to those with a more practical hands/on bent, currently for sale.

The listings can be viewed on TradeMe. The notice I received included the following:

A friend who is a brilliant inventor and engineer is in his 80s and close to the end of his time with us.

Cheers

http://www.itwire.com/it-policy-news/regulation/51390-senate-enquiry-calls-for-dedicated-emergency-comms-spectrum

The mobile telephony industry has failed to convince a parliamentary enquiry into the communications needs of emergency service organisations that these needs are best met through services provided by the mobile communications industry rather than by dedicating spectrum for emergency communications services.

Click above for more.

I picked up an article on Slashdot that may be of interest to some:

Bionic Implants and Spectrum Clash

"The battle over scarce radio spectrum that has embroiled the mobile broadband world even extends to a little-known type of wireless network that promises to reconnect the human nervous system with paralyzed limbs. At its monthly meeting next week, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission will consider whether four sets of frequencies between 413MHz and 457MHz can be used by networks of sensors implanted in patients who suffer from various forms of paralysis. One intended purpose of these MMNS (medical micropower network systems) is to transmit movement commands from a sensor on a patient's spinal cord, through a wearable MCU (master control unit), to implants that electrically stimulate nerves."

Slashdot being a discussion forum, folks will likely be interested in some of the comments likely to come up... both smart and witty.
The root article comes from Techworld Australia.

*** Update: The current status of KiwiSAT can be viewed on their website ***

An acquaintance of mine published http://futureofutc.org/ on their Facebook page today.

This is interesting. An excerpt from their front page:

A conclusive proposal to fundamentally redefine UTC is scheduled for a vote by the Radiocommunication Assembly of the ITU-R in January, 2012. The proposal will halt the contribution of so-called leap seconds to UTC after 2017, and will also terminate the requirement that time services transmit the difference between UT1 and UTC. If approved, UTC would no longer be useful as a type of Universal Time for most technical applications.

Many software and hardware systems needing to know how the Earth is oriented with respect to the sky rely on UTC for this purpose. Should UTC be redefined, significant consequences may be anticipated for applications and infrastructures across various fields. Applications that do not apply so-called Earth Orientation Parameters and/or DUT1 corrections to UTC would be most affected.

Sessions will cover diverse topics of pragmatic timekeeping in a possibly changing world.

It's obvious to anyone working within the IT Sector alone that changes to the way UTC is handled will have far-reaching affects. This may be something that we all need to keep an eye on; all sorts of technology makes use of accurate timekeeping and the flow on effects of a change such as the one proposed may be significant.

Today I was made aware that Jamie Pye ZL2NN, a friend and acquaintance through Amateur Radio and someone who I of recent years had a wee bit to do with in respects to his role as the Webmaster for NZART, has become a silent key. (More after the jump.)

Morse key that is.
A colleague of mine pointed out this rather clever Makezine.com Blog.

I concur; Geek Cred ++.

Peter ZL4WDR submitted the following article as of potential interest to Radio Amateurs:

"Revolutionary radio comes in cubes" (theregister.co.uk).

"Alcatel-Lucent has developed a magical radio that can do 2G, 3G and 4G in a two-inch cube, remove unsightly antennas, reduce network costs enormously, and save the planet too."

An interesting development, and worth a look. Thanks for the heads-up, Peter.