RSID: <<2018-04-14T15:30ZMFSK-32 @ 9400000+1500>>


The cherry blossoms here in Washington DC have passed their peak.

Tourists got a close-up look, if they were willing to tolerate
this year's cold spring weather ...


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RSID: <<2018-04-13T20:31Z MFSK-32 @ VIA US REMOTE SDR 7780000+1500>>

Welcome to program 43 of Shortwave Radiogram.

I'm Kim Andrew Elliott in Arlington, Virginia USA.

Here is the lineup for today's program, in MFSK modes as noted:

  1:37  MFSK32: Program preview (now)
  2:50  MFSK128: New line drawings revealed in Peru*
  4:33  MFSK64: Mars Express gets in-orbit upgrade*
  9:30  MFSK32: The rise of wooden skyscrapers*
20:04  Foot-powered washing machine in production*
25:09  Farewell 2018 cherry blossoms*
26:56  Closing announcements

* with image
 

Please send reception reports to radiogram@verizon.net

And visit http://swradiogram.net

Twitter: @SWRadiogram
 

Shortwave Radiogram now changes to MFSK128 ...

 

RSID: <<2018-04-13T20:33Z MFSK-128 @ 7780000+1500>>

This is Shortwave Radiogram in MFSK128


From Deutsche Welle:

Massive new line drawings revealed in Peru

     Using drone cameras, scientists have documented spectacular
     line drawings newly discovered in southern Peru. They are
     likely much older than the famous Nasca lines.

12 April 2018

The latest line drawings discovered by archeologists in Peru show
geometric figures portraying humans, apes and a whale, according
to a report published in National Geographic.

Twenty-five images of the previously undocumented line drawings -
so-called geoglyphs, or "ground drawings" - in Palpa province in
southern Peru were taken from drones, said Peruvian archeologist
Johny Isla Cuadrado in the Peruvian daily, "El Comercio."

Scientists flew the drones over the region about 30 meters above
the ground, and spotted 50 geoglyphs – 25 were unknown, while the
local population was aware of the other 25 drawings.

Researchers hope that documenting the newly found line art will
give them new insight into the area's ancient cultures.

Cuadrado said the massive drawings seem to point at "a tradition
of over a thousand years that precedes the famous geoglyphs of
the Nasca culture, and which opens the door to new hypotheses
about its function and meaning."

Predating the Nasca lines

Archeologists believe the Palpa drawings were created by the
Paracas and Topara cultures between 500 BC and 200 AD, which
would make them older by many centuries than the famous Nasca
lines in the neighboring Nasca Valley.

And unlike the renowned Nasca sketches that were etched into the
high desert sand and are only visible from above, the Palpa
geoglyphs were found on the slopes of the region's hills, meaning
they can also be observed from the ground.

http://www.dw.com/en/massive-new-line-drawings-revealed-in-peru/a-43353790

 
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Shortwave Radiogram now changes to MFSK64 ...
 

RSID: <<2018-04-13T20:34Z MFSK-64 @ 7780000+1500>>


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From New Atlas:

Mars Express spacecraft gets in-orbit upgrade

David Szondy
12 April 2018

ESA's Mars Express orbiter is getting a major software upgrade
that will extend its service life for years to come. On Sunday,
the space agency uploaded the update into the veteran deep space
probe's computers where it will remain stored in memory until a
scheduled restart on April 16. If successful, it will take some
of the burden off the aging gyroscopes used to keep the unmanned
spacecraft's vital high-gain radio antenna pointed at Earth.

As anyone who regularly uses digital devices can tell you,
software updates are a way of life. It turns out that Mars
orbiting spacecraft are no exception, with aging electronics that
need new instructions to deal with worn out components after
years of heavy use.

Mars Express is one of the oldest still-functioning missions to
the Red Planet. Launched on June 2, 2003 atop a Soyuz-FG rocket
from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the orbiter arrived at Mars on
December 25 of that year. Since then, it has spent 14 years
revolving about Mars taking photographs and gathering a mountain
of scientific data to send back to mission control in Darmstadt,
Germany.

According to ESA, Mars Express is still in remarkably good shape,
but that doesn't count for much because the six gyroscopes that
are used to keep the spacecraft properly orientated so it remains
in radio contact with Earth aren't what they once were. In fact,
four of them are close to failing. If that should happen, then
the orbiter might as well be a lump of dead iron.

To delay this threat for as long as possible, ESA is turning to
the Express' two star trackers. These simple cameras calculate
the angles of a number of bright reference stars to determine the
orientation of the spacecraft to within a few seconds of arc.
This information, combined with that of the gyros, keeps the
antenna on target. It also gave a warning to ESA engineers that
something was wrong.

"After looking at variations in the intensity of the gyros'
internal lasers, we realized last year that, with our current
usage, four of the six gyros were trending towards failure," says
spacecraft operations manager James Godfrey. "Mars Express was
never designed to fly without its gyros continuously available,
so we could foresee a certain end to the mission sometime between
January and June 2019."

To prevent this from happening, the engineers used their
experience of gyroscopes on other missions to come up with a
workaround that would extend the life of the gyros by relying
more on the star trackers. This would allow the gyros to be
switched off and saved for when they're really needed. It's a fix
similar to the one used on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
(MRO), which is suffering from the same problem.

The snag was that this meant rewriting a large part of the Mars
Express' software, then uploading it to the spacecraft.
Fortunately, they were helped by reusing code originally written
for the Rosetta comet orbiter. However, the task still took
months and the engineers weren't even certain that it would be
possible.

In the end, several months of coding and testing resulted in the
upload of the software into the orbiter's spare memory banks and
the final approval to proceed with the upgrade, which was given
on Tuesday. If the April 16 restart goes as planned, it will be
followed by weeks of testing and reconfiguration.

"Similar, but much smaller fixes, have been developed in the past
for other missions with old gyros, such as Rosetta, but this is
certainly the most complex and extensive software rewrite we've
done in recent memory," says mission manager Patrick Martin.
"Thanks to the skill of ESA's teams, Mars Express will fly well
into the 2020s, depending on fuel supply, and continue delivering
excellent science for many years yet. I look forward to seeing
continued joint science campaigns between Mars Express and other
Mars missions like ESA's Trace Gas Orbiter and incoming rover
missions."

https://newatlas.com/mars-express-upgrade/54176/


Image: From accompanying video, images showing a flyover of
Mawrth Vallis made from images collected by Mars Express ...

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Shortwave Radiogram now changes to MFSK32 ...
 

RSID: <<2018-04-13T20:39Z MFSK-32 @ 7780000+1500>>


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From Deutsche Welle:

The rise of wooden skyscrapers

     Forget steel and concrete - wood is the latest go-to
     material for building skyscrapers. The renewable
     resource has high potential.

Karin Jäger
10 April 2018

"The world's tallest wooden house!" reads a huge poster on the
side of a building under construction in the Norwegian
municipality of Brummundal.

The house doesn't have any scaffolding; cranes and an outdoor
elevator are used to transport the building material to where
it's needed. The wood is sourced from Norwegian forests.

When it's finished in March 2019, the wooden house will be 81
meters (265 feet) tall, and will have 18 stories with 27
apartments that ranging from 67 to 149 square meters (720 to
1,600 square feet) as well as a swimming pool, a hotel, offices
and restaurants.

Timber skyscrapers: an international trend?

But despite the declaration on the poster, this is not actually
the world's tallest wooden house after all. Vienna is currently
working on an 84-meter-tall wooden building 24 stories tall (with
a staircase made out of cement).

The building in Vienna will also combine apartments with offices,
shops and a spa.

Ask the Austrians and they will tell you they're the ones who
came up with the concept of using wood as an industrial product.
Austria is the world's largest producer of cross-laminated
timber.

And though that may sound unsustainable, it's done under the
number-one rule of Austria's lumber industry: Never log more than
can grow back.

In the Parisian district of Terne, an entire building complex is
being built from cross-laminated timber and glass.

The rooftops of the structures - which will be nine stories tall
- will be accessible to the public, and are supposed to encourage
citizens to engage in urban gardening.

In Germany, an eight-story wooden house was built on an area that
used to belong to the United States army in the Bavarian town of
Bad Aibling. It is a current showpiece for energy-efficient
construction.

'Wooden buildings aren't profitable yet'

Berlin architects Kaden+Lager are building Germany's tallest
building, the Skaio building in Heilbronn, using mostly wood. It
will have 10 stories and be 34 meters tall.

Renowned architect Tom Kaden told German magazine Das Haus that
he wants to make wooden houses affordable for everyone. That's
why he uses metal rather than wooden nails. It's all about making
the most of each material, he says.

Kaden teaches architecture and wooden construction at a
university in Austria. There aren't more wooden houses yet
because every architect and every carpenter has to create new
models every time. This is not efficient, he points out.

"Today, we have hundreds of different ways of building timber
houses. That's not profitable."

What's more, local planning and building laws often limit
construction with wood. Germany has no country-wide regulations
yet, and often individual permits are necessary, which are
time-intensive and costly.

It's not surprising then that projects for the most spectacular
wooden buildings only exist on paper so far.

Environmentally friendly alternative

Architects and researchers at the University of Cambridge created
a concept for London's first wooden skyscraper. The wooden frame
of the 80-story-high "Oakwood Towers" is supposed to rise 300
meters into the sky.

"Using wood as a construction material could change the way we
build in this city," says architect Kevin Flanagan. "Wooden
houses have the potential to create a more visually appealing,
relaxing and creative experience."

A wooden high-rise planned for Tokyo will stand at 70 stories and
350 meters tall.

Ever more people are moving into cities. By using wood as a
construction material for houses, nature can re-enter urban
spaces.

And wood can be an environmentally friendly choice as well. Wood
is a renewable resource - it grows back after being logged - and
growing trees remove the greenhouse gas CO2 from the atmosphere.

As long as a wooden building stands, that carbon dioxide is
locked away from contributing to climate change.

What's more, wood-based materials use less energy to create
compared to steel or cement. And even thin wooden walls suppress
sound.

The fact that wooden buildings are becoming increasingly taller
and more extensive is due to the possibilities inherent in the
original raw material.

Plywoods and laminated veneer can be glued together in order to
form several layers at right angles to one another.
Cross-laminated timber is easy to process, very stable across
dimensions, and can transfer its load both lengthwise and
crosswise.

Wooden elements can be used in construction of detached and
semi-detached houses, multi-story housing, schools, commercial,
religious, and industrial buildings for the roof, ceiling and
wall components.

Whole sections can be pre-made and erected quickly on-site. Due
to the relative strength and lightness of the wood, it is also
suitable for closing gaps, or construction projects on existing
buildings.

Some structures are quite spectacular, such as the wooden dome of
the elephant house in the Zurich Zoo.


Full text:
http://www.dw.com/en/the-rise-of-wooden-skyscrapers/a-43267745


Image: This wooden building in Vienna will combine apartments
with offices, shops and even a spa ...

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From New Atlas:

Drumi foot-powered washing machine in production at last

Paul Ridden
12 April 2018

Aimed at off-grid tiny home dwellers, campers and city folk
looking to reduce their environmental impact, and their utility
bills, the Drumi originally went up for pre-order back in 2015.
Now, after some design tweaks, the foot-powered mini washing
machine is rolling off the production line ahead of shipping in
the coming months.

Yirego says its Drumi clothes washing device has been over 10,000
hours in development, and has undergone a number of key design
changes since we covered it almost 3 years ago. The drum now
sports a handle so that it can be removed for cleaning, for
example, and the curved handle on the device itself not only
allows for one-handed transport, but also serves as a lock to
keep the lid secure during a wash. The production Drumi is also
slightly shorter than the earlier prototype, at 16.4 inches (416
mm) tall.

The basic operation principles are the same as before though. A
user loads up the drum with up to 2.25 kg (5 lb) of lightly
soiled clothing, then adds tap water (the lid can serve as a bowl
for pouring water into the device) and detergent. The lid is
locked in place and the pedal gently pumped for around 5 minutes.

After opening the drain to release the soapy water, the user can
add fresh water to rinse for 3 more minutes and drain again.
Finally, the Drumi is held in place while pumping the pedal more
aggressively to spin dry the clothing before emptying the drum.
All without electricity.

The Drumi has started rolling off the production line and should
begin making their way to customers in Q2/Q3 for US$299.

https://newatlas.com/drumi-foot-powered-washing-machine-production/54186/
 

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Here in Washington, we say goodbye to this year's cherry blossoms
...


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I'm Kim Elliott. Please join us for the next Shortwave
Radiogram.

 

RSID: <<2018-04-13T20:58Z OL 64-2K @ 7780000+1500>>


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