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<p>This Monday at 7pm Nick Edgington will talk about open source,
seriously powerful tools for embedded development. I'll let Nick
chime in if he wants to with an abstract of his plans for this
month and next as he covers an IDE and an open source RTOS as they
relate to Espressif parts (e.g. ESP32) during the May and June
meetings (or to correct me if I didn't get the gist right).<br>
</p>
<p>The TriLUG experts have made it clear that the Jitsi servers that
handle our virtual meetings like Firefox the best: Chrome
apparently stresses the server side more than Firefox, using much
more bandwidth. Since I'm not able to arrange for us to use
triembed.org to run the meetings we're on <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://jitsi.org/">somebody else's
dime</a> . Plus, you don't even need a plugin for Firefox, you
just need to give permission to it to invade the privacy of your
face (Chrome doesn't ask). Here's the URL for the meeting:<br>
</p>
<p> <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://meet.jit.si/TriEmbed">https://meet.jit.si/TriEmbed</a></p>
<p>I'll leave it to Paul to send a checklist before or at the start
of the meeting for how-to and protocols.</p>
<p>--------------<br>
</p>
<p>Some of you have probably been reading about the publication of
the science behind the relatively rapid movement of the earth's
north magnetic pole. Related to this is a "K index" that is a
normalized small integer expressing the "stability" of the earth's
magnetic field. (You might be saying to yourself 'who knew my
compass needle could jump and jive from one year/month/hour to the
next?') But this stability isn't one thing: the earth's magnetic
field dances in multiple places. Here's one of the world's most
capable amateur radio contesters (Frank Donovon W3LPL) shedding
more light on the K index and how to find out more about it:</p>
<p>(in reply to something another club member wrote)<br>
</p>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">As you discovered, transient
geomagnetic activity is measured by</span></div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">magnetometers
and the local K-index is calculated<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> and
reported every</span></div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">three hours </span><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">by dozens of </span><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">geomagnetic observatories around </span><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">the </span><span style="font-size:
12pt;">world. </span></div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;"><br>
</span></div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">Many of us </span><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">are </span><span style="font-size:
12pt;">familiar with </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">the
three hour </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Boulder
k-index, but a</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">lso</span></div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">of </span><span style="font-size:
12pt;">interest </span><font face="times new roman, new york,
times, serif"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">and readily </span>accessible<span
style="font-size: 12pt;"> on the internet at</span></font></div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a
href="https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/station-k-and-indices"
target="_blank">www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/station-k-and-indices</a></div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">are the estimated planetary K-index
and </span>three local K-indexes:</div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br>
</div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;"> - </span><span style="font-size:
12pt;">College </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Alaska
K-index,</span></div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;"> - Fredericksburg K</span><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">-index (NR4M's local</span><span
style="font-size: 12pt;"> K-index!), and</span></div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><font style="font-size:
12pt;" face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">-
estimated </font><font style="font-size: 12pt;" face="times new
roman, new york, times, serif">planetary Kp-index calculated
from k-indexes reported</font></div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font
style="font-size: 12pt;" face="times new roman, new york, times,
serif"> by a network of 13 geomagnetic observatories </font><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">at mid-latitudes.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif;"><font
face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"> </font><a
href="https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/planetary-k-index">swpc.noaa.gov/products/planetary-k-index</a></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif;"> <a
href="http://isgi.unistra.fr/Images/reseau_Kp.jpg">http://isgi.unistra.fr/Images/reseau_Kp.jpg</a></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif;">SWPC also <span
style="font-size: 12pt;">publishes near-real time alerts,
watches </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">and warnings based
on</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif;"><b
style="font-size: 12pt;">real-time</b><span style="font-size:
12pt;"> local K-index reports from the network of </span><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">geomagnetic </span><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">observatories.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;"><br>
</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif;"><a
href="https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/alerts-watches-and-warnings">www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/alerts-watches-and-warnings</a></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "times new
roman", "new york", times, serif;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;"><br>
</span></div>
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