The International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend is tracking ahead of last year's record with four weeks left to go, and now stands at 385 registrations from 43 countries.

Among the latest is Estonia, with its 9-metre tall cylindrical concrete tower Lou Lighthouse built in 1934 near the Estonian village of Lou, and put on air by Russ Rowlett ES0/OH1EJY.

The South Point Lighthouse of Barbados is a new country registered by Amateur Radio Society of Barbados 8P6AW. That club will now also put the Ragged Point Lighthouse on the air.

Thanks to Dale Miller KC2CBD for mentioning our club website to Ham Nation. Our site was mentioned by Dale Puckett, wo had some nice things to say about our website. For those of you have never watched one of their episodes, (just as I had never watched before) please check it out. Its a very informative program. Watch episode 138 here.

Ever wondered what all the information on the solar data panels means? Many Ham sites place the solar data panes in the sidebars of their sites but they all have different information and most of us don't know how to interpret the numbers we see in them. The SMRC Solar Data Page has the key for interpreting these panels and also provides some other great indicators and widgets for determining propagation conditions as it relates to solar activity.

As you know, I call the Traders' Net on Thursday nights at 8PM CST. As a part of our format, we discuss ham-related topics as well as facilitate the exchange of gear. Our recent topic has been the History and Forefathers of Ham Radio and I've been studying a very thorough article by Chris Codella W2PA to understand more about the subject.

In May of 1917, war with Germany was eminent and amateur radio operators, at that time the ARRL, received a mandate to stop all radio operations from the Department of Commerce. With the future of amateur radio unsure and in jeopardy, the editors of QST published the following article in their May issue:

Want to make a contact that is out of this world? Then you might want to try your luck at contacting the International Space Station. The odds aren’t the greatest and you will just have to listen as they pass over your part of the world but when they do call CQ, if you are listening and ready to transmit it can be one of the rarest contacts you will ever make. There are scads of sites and applications that can inform you of the time when passes are made over this part of the world on the web. I use one called NASA HD for the Ipad, but there are many others. The information in this article was collected from several sites discussing how amateurs can contact the ISS. It has been stated by the astronauts that some of them like to play with the ham radio for relaxation in their off time.

Basic radio setup

As you are looking at the webpage, you will see a "User login" area on the left side of the page. Under the Username and Password fields, you will see a link that says: "Create a new account." Click that link with your left mouse button and you will be taken to the form to register your new account. Enter your first and last name in the Name field. User names or abbreviated names will not be approved for acess to the website so please enter in your real name. All the information you enter in this account page is private and will not be used in any way exept to supplement your profiles. Be sure to to click on the Location link at the top of the page. Again, this information is required here because google Maps requires any use of their service to not be utilized solely via registered content. By filling in the location information, a pin will be placed on our user map with your username.  For the username field, please enter your call sign in uppercase letters.  If you are not a licensed Ham, select a username of your choice.