I’ve mentioned before my association with and affinity for the BATC. It’s a wildly active group of experimenters just a short hop across the pond who have been instrumental in pioneering the modern era of amateur television. That tribal knowledge is shared via its excellent quarterly publication, CQ-TV, and on it’s active online forums.

Alerted that the Summer 2023 edition of the periodical was available for download, I grabbed it and then noticed my two-year membership will be coming due for renewal in a few weeks. My how time flies and most certainly I’ll be renewing. Not being present in the UK I choose the cyber member option which is an affordable £15.00 for two years that includes full access to all BATC facilities as well as a download link to the PDF version whenever a new edition of CQ-TV magazine is made available.

While my affiliation with the group is long-distance and outside typical radio range, I join their weekly net each Thursday via streaming video. The live net is conducted throughout Europe and Africa via the QO-100 satellite. This feed is then streamed live via the BATC web site where I watch - and participate via online chat. After a few years of this I feel like I know many of the regulars on that net.

If you’ve never watched I’d encourage you to stop in for a bit some Thursday afternoon. The streaming link only appears when the net is active. It’s an amazing technology demonstration that highlights one of the ways we on this side of the planet might benefit from our own GEO satellite with a wide band transponder available for experimentation such as this and we need to continue striving for this at every opportunity.