Courage Kenny Handiham World Weekly E-Letter for the week of Wednesday, 08 January 2014

Welcome to Handiham World.

Here's a quick look at what's important this week:

Read/listen to the entire newsletter here.

• Spaceweather.com has sent out an alert about sunspot AR1944.  If you can see this group on the website solar image, it is truly awesome in size - and it's rotated toward Earth. 
  
  "One of the largest sunspots in years, AR1944, has turned toward  Earth and it is crackling with strong flares.  So far on Jan. 7th, the active region has produced M7- and X1-class eruptions, and more appear to be in the offing.  As this alert is being issued, analysts are waiting for more data from solar observatories to clarify the possibility of CME impacts and geomagnetic storms in the days ahead." 
  
  For updates, stay tuned to http://spaceweather.com.  
  
  It is also worth noting that the solar weather widget from G4ILO on Handiham.org predicts HF blackouts.  Be that as it may, a single sunspot group's behavior does not determine the fate of the entire solar cycle.  We have been reading grumpy downer articles about how lousy cycle 24 is, but wait - there's a possibility that "24" will serve up a second peak thanks to a solar flux high:  Read about it on the ARRL website.
• The CQ and Worldradio Online magazines for January have been released in digital format.  This follows the announcement by the CQ Newsroom that there will be a realignment of several CQ Communications, Inc. publications beginning in February.  At this point the Handiham Program is still planning to produce DAISY digital audio versions of both publications for our blind members.  CQ for December in print has not yet arrived, so the latest DAISY version is November 2013.
  
  "Effective with the February 2014 issue of CQ," said CQ Publisher Dick Ross, K2MGA, "content from  the magazine's three sister publications, Popular Communications,  CQ VHF and WorldRadio Online, will be incorporated into CQ's digital edition as a supplement to be called CQ Plus."
  
  Is there interest in Popular Communications as a DAISY offering among our blind members?  As with the other publications, we would consider a "digest" version that includes several articles of interest.  If the publication is already offered in DAISY by the NLS, Library of Congress, we would not duplicate their efforts. 

Patrick Tice, WA0TDA
Courage Kenny Handiham Coordinator