Ron Hashiro

Amateur radio operators are requested to keep clear from frequencies 14.270, 7.050 and 7.060 Megahertz in order to keep the frequency clear for radio operations regarding the emergency in China due to the recent earthquake.

Even at the bottom of the sunspot cycle, with zero sunspots on the surface of the sun, it's possible to work Europe from Hawaii. Ron, AH6RH tipped off Bev, AH6NF that there might be an opening on Monday or Tuesday of this week. A satellite had detected a burst of X-rays on 1408z on Apr 26, followed by a CME (Coronal Mass Ejection). NASA's twin STEREO satellites recorded a million mph particle wave spreading from the sun.

Bev tuned up on 20 meters on Apr 30, 0640z to 0815z (Tuesday, April 29 8:40 to 10:15 pm HST) and scored a nice pile-up with Europe. Bev got 75 European QSOs, 21 European countries (Scotland and Estonia were new for Bev) and was spotted 7 times. Bev noted that the band faded out just as if someone had turned off a light switch.

Another opening occurred the next night, from May 1, 0630-0745z (Wed, Apr 30 8:30-9:45 pm HST). Bev, AH6NF worked Europe during the opening. Randy, KH6IB and Bill KH7XS also had pile-ups. Bev talked with Roger, DL5RBW who noted that propagation to the Pacific has been poor the past month, until the past two evenings.

Eran, WH6R reports that he and Martin Barr worked several hundred European stations on 20 meters CW and 20 meters SSB to Ukraine on 100 watts that evening with a end-fed vertical ten feet from the ocean. They were active from 7:30 pm to 10:00 pm local.

On the evening of May 2, the opening to Europe had closed. Ron, AH6RH heard South Africa and China, and wound up working one UA0 for the evening. A solar wind from a coronal hole is scheduled to arrive around May 5.

Even if the solar indexes suck, a nice CME can make your day (or evening)! Stay on your toes, and you just might score another opening and a pile-up! Monitor www.spaceweather.com for more timely updates.

For those of you who missed out on Bill McArthur KC5ACR, the astronaut-ham aboard the ISS space station, there's another astronaut-ham expected to go up in Oct 2008.

Richard Garriott, KE5QNX is expected to be the sixth space tourist aboard the ISS. His father is Owen Garriot, W5LFL, who made history in 1983 as the first astronaut-ham operating the first Amatuer Radio station in space aboard Columbia STS-9.

See this link for further details.

Now is the time to read up on the section at this website on Space Communications, make preparations and get some practice.

The Mac for Ham Radio page has been updated.

This is the story of how the Anderson Powerpole became the national standard power connector for 12 VDC power for amateur radio operators involved in emergency communcations.

If you're looking to buy a Mac and wondered what you'll need to get it working for ham radio, you'll find this page interesting.

If you're studying for your Technician exam and wondered what kinds of options and equipment are possible for your first ham radio station, this page may be of use to you.

The EARC will be putting on an educational workshop. Tentatively set for Saturday morning, June 21. Details forthcoming.

Ron Hashiro, AH6RH, will be presenting on the basics of VHF direction finding at the EARC General Membership meeting, Thursday evening, May 29. He will be discussing advanced topics one-on-one after the presentation.

Peter, AF6DS has a good 40+ page PDF presentation on how to digipeat APRS packets through the ISS.

See this link

The state-wide link for the SCD RACES VHF repeater system has been restored to Kauai. It's been many years since the repeater and link has been restored. Many thanks to Robin, AH6CP for pulling together the project team to reconnect the system.

The double beep heard on the Kauai 147.04 repeater indicates that it requires attention for adjustments or repairs. Repairs will take a while.

The Diamond Head 147.06 repeater has been running substantially reduced power output since March 12. Repairs will take a while.

The first EARC General Membership meeting tonight was a huge success. The most lively ham radio club meeting I've been to in years. About 40 people were in attendance. Our president, Wayne KH6MEI opened it with updates and information from the various committees. After the break, Chuck NH7XL gave a short presentation on PSK-31 on 40 meters. After that, it was the swap-and-shop time, trading/buying/giving all kind of stuff and people breaking up into groups of two or three, mingling and talking about all kinds of ham and non-ham items. Very lively conversation. We had guest Cedric, WH7JI from Lanai City at the meeting. If you weren't there, you missed out! Next month's meeting will be at the Red Cross Headquarters on Diamond Head Road.

The HAARP research project in Alaska is conducting an unusual lunar experiment, bouncing 40 meter signals off the moon to an receiving array in New Mexico. Operating times are Jan 18 from 7:00 - 9:00 pm HST and Jan 19 8:30 - 10:30 pm HST. See ARRL Bulletin ARLX002 for details.

I filed this report for operations on Friday evening.

Copied the HAARP array direct on 6792.5 and 7407.5. Signal was about S6 on the 6.7 Mhz freq, and around S1 on the 7.4 Mhz freq. Could not copy the EME bounce.

Rig is Icom IC-706 MK II G, without antenna tuner. Narrow 500 Hz filter used. Antenna was random wire antenna, about 35 feet up 12 feet -- in a random pattern. DSP Noise filter is the Clearspeech filter. The HAARP signal could be heard direct on 22 inches of antenna!

Rick, KH7O reports unable to copy the moonbounce echo due to S9 noise.

Other reports from the west side of the Big Island for operations on Friday evening.

Eric, KH6CQ reports S9 up, S3 down, on 40 meter dipole up 10 feet.

Roland, AH6RR reports S9+10dB up, S4-7 down, on Double Bazooka up 30 feet.

Norm, NH7UA reports S6-7 up, -10dB down, on 160m half-wave doublet up 20 feet.

Eric, KH6CQ filed this report from Waikoloa.

Aloha,

My station is located in Waikoloa Village which is on the northwest coast of the big island of Hawaii. I am using a Kenwood TS-850S transceiver and a half wavelength 40 meter dipole antenna which is 10 feet above ground level.

At 0500Z the moon was about 70 degrees above the eastern horizon.

Between 0500 and 0600 on 6.7925 MHz I could hear both the transmitted signal and the reflected signal. I presume the stronger one was the one you were transmitting and the weaker one was the reflection from the moon. During the hour I heard the weaker signal about 90 percent of the time and it was just above my noise level with the exception that at 0546 it peaked at S3. I noticed a brief pause in transmitting about 0530.

Between 0600 and 0700 on 7.4075 MHz I also could hear both signals. I heard the weaker signal about 50 percent of the time. The weaker signal started at S1, climbed to S3 by 0630, dropped to S2 by 0645 and was barely heard at the end of transmission due to interference from a shortwave broadcaster with a signal strength between S2 and S3. I noticed about a 30 second pause in transmitting about 0629. There was more fading on the stronger signal at this frequency than the previous one.

At 0700 the moon was directly over head.

Details on Roland's report

I received the HAARP test on 6.792.5 MHz. Transmit was S9+10db. Lunar Bounce was S4-7 with flutter at times my noise was S3-5. I did not listen on the second test. It seems that the bounce signal was about a 3 to 4 sec delay and would be in with the transmit signal than following so if your GC was not on a faster recovery time you might have missed the lunar bounce with a strong transmit signal. Antenna is a Double Bazooka @ 30ft and the Radio is a Kenwood TS-850S with Inrad filters. Roland Spoon AH6RR

Details on Norm's report

Click here for one of the MP3 audio files.

I'll update these video links on occasion.

• Making homebrew radio tubes
• New film featuring ham radio
• Biggest Tesla Coil in Oklahoma
• "Radio Hams", 1939
• Ham Radio AO-51 Satellite Demonstration at Dayton 2007 Part 1 -- I was there!
• Ham Radio AO-51 Satellite Demonstration at Dayton 2007 Part 2 -- I was there!
• Ham Radio AO-51 Satellite Demonstration
• Jeff Williams, KD5TVQ reentry aboard Soyuz TMA-8, Sept 24, 2006
• Space Shuttle Atlantis 2006 Night Landing
• Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-88 Night Landing
• The CF Rap
• The Ham Band

Icom Radio News

• Icom Radio News Volume 1, Field Day 2004, Microsoft, IC-7800
• Icom Radio News Volume 2, Newington, CT Radiosport
• Icom Radio News Volume 3, Dayton 2005
• Icom Radio News Volume 4
• Icom Radio News Volume 5, K3LR Super Station
• Icom, Ham Radio helps in Indonesian and Indian Tsunami Disaster

The ICS-213 message form is the standard message form used by emergency management agencies during emergencies. 2008 is the year that emergency communitors in Hawaii will be pressing to practice and become proficient in handling the ICS-213 form on the air. The goal is to use that proficiency for the October 2008 SET. See the next item for details on how to pass the ICS-213 form on the air.

See this web page for information on how to pass messages that are not composed on the ARRL Radiogram message form, including the ICS-213 NIMS message form used by emergency management agencies. It also contains a sample test message.

See this web page for tips on how to write practice test messages for practice emergency nets. It also contains a sample test message.

The Space Weather Prediction Center of the NOAA has reported that the first sunspot of Cycle 24 has appeared in the sun's northern hemisphere. Happy days of better HF are coming! Thanks Ernie (NH7L) and Pete (KH6IRT) for passing that along.

The ANDE satellite has de-orbited.

• The last packet received at 22:27:08z December 24, 2007 by JA0CAW, and audio is available at the ANDE de-orbit website.
• The last received packet on the global APRS network was at 21:14:11z December 24, 2007 by W6MSU. "W5MSU]APRS,ANDE-1*,qAO,W6MSU-3:=3803.21NS12121.62W&" It was received in California.
• About 20 minutes earlier in Japan, JA6PL captured a packet.
• A little more than an hour prior, WA4AEJ had captured packets in Niceville, FL.

You can see the internal Side A battery temperature rise as the telemetry is captured real-time by amateur radio stations around the world. The rise started at approximately 12:00z on Dec 24, so ANDE lasted only about another 12 hours.

The final altitude prior to the descent may have been 94.65 statute miles or lower, as calculated by keplerian elements only 16 minutes old.

The ANDE satellite lasted one year, three days, four hours in space, having been released at an altitude of 216 statue miles on 18:22z on December 21, 2006 by the Space Shuttle Discovery, mission STS-116 while over the South Pacific. It exceeded the estimated mission life of nine months.

The EARC 146.880 VHF repeater was down Dec 10 to 16 due to wind damage to the Diamond F23 antenna. The antenna was replaced with a spare.

The Oahu incidents web page has been updated. Check out the YouTube video newscasts under the Contingency section! You can see our recent experience with high wind and high rain storms has been felt before.

Just worked Cedric, WH7JI from Lanai City. He passed his Technician class exam on November 14 on Oahu, and I happened to be his first contact. Lanai City hasn't had an active ham in about 25 years.

Cedric is running a Yaesu FT-2800, and can be heard on the state-wide VHF system.

If you're looking for past items, click here.