So, I have finally entered the world of the smartphone. Picked up my HTC Desire last week and am starting to get to grips with it. I dare say it will get a whole section to itself on the site.
Plenty of features, thousands of apps to download (many of which are free) and of course the Android operating system. I’ve even created this post on the Desire using the Wordpress app! More to come.

Every summer since the late 19th century, Earth’s polar skies have lit up with gossamer, electric-blue clouds, twisting and rippling in the twilight sky. They’re called noctilucent (“night-shining”) because they can be seen after dark. The origin of the clouds, which hover at the very top of Earth’s atmosphere in close proximity to space itself, is uncertain. They have been linked to causes as varied as meteoroids, climate change, and the icy exhaust of the space shuttle.

The 2010 noctilucent cloud season has just begun in the northern hemisphere, with sightings over Russia, Scotland and Denmark. Although noctilucent clouds were once a phenomenon of high latitudes only, in recent years they have been sighted in the United States as far south as Colorado and Utah.

Just arrived, an EBay purchase of an Alan HM70 low band VHF PMR radio. I already have a converted Nova set (elsewhere on this site) and a commercial AKD / Garex 4001 but what attracted me was the remote head function on this radio and the good price. With modern cars it’s not always easy to fins somewhere to put a radio, and the ‘chip shop’ arrangement of having the AKD strapped to the centre console with a bungee cord didn’t really complement the neat Icom 2820 installation.

Above is the display detail which has been programmed to indicate the operating frequency, along with the current of 2 RF power settings and a bar graph signal strength meter.

The rugged radio case (it’s MIL rated) and the front panel showing the integrated speaker (4W). The front panel can be remote mounted using a separation cable with stock 9-way d-type connectors on each end.