Hams routinely check in with one another by participating in weekly Radio Nets. This allows everyone to get to know each other and become familiar with each others capabilities.

Now that I’ve settled back into Berea, Kentucky, I want to re-connect to it’s emergency communications system so that I’ll still be ‘online’ when the lights go out.  I’ve got a 2 Meter Radio, Antenna, and Emergency Power.  Only thing left to do is to find a good place to install the antenna and begin checking in on the local radio nets!

More info:

• In Kentucky, Officials See Ham Radio as a Backup
• NYT/AP: “In Kentucky, Officials See Ham Radio as a Backup”
• Madison County ARES
• Amateur Radio Emergency Services

It was a sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, when Hal Whiting, KI2U, Todd Kluxdal, Kluxdal’s father and Whiting’s two sons decided to go out to the Poverty Mountain area in Arizona to search for airplane crash sites. Whiting, who lives in St George, Utah, and Kluxdal, who lives in Mesquite, Nevada, took two vehicles that day. According to Whiting, they always take two vehicles, just in case a problem pops up: “We always have two spare tires, extra gasoline and a tow rope. We take enough food and supplies to stay two or three days.” In addition to the extra equipment, Whiting took the one thing he never goes without — his ham radio.

“It was a bit after lunch, about 73 miles into our trip,” Whiting told the ARRL, “when we were flagged down by a man wanting to know if we had a satellite phone, since he couldn’t get coverage on his cell phone.” Whiting didn’t have a satellite phone, but he asked the man if this was an emergency. Whiting said that the man told him that one of his friends had been injured when her ATV rolled on top of her. “I told him I could call for help on my ham radio,” he said. The injured woman was knocked unconscious by the fall, but had regained consciousness and was speaking coherently, but was in pain.

“I picked up my mic and put out a call on the 146.910 repeater, one of four repeaters run by Dean Cox, NR7K,” Whiting said. “I called for assistance a couple of times when Mac Magee, N6LRG, of the Cane Beds area in Arizona, answered.”

“Mac lives about 50 miles away from the accident site” Whiting said. “It’s funny — it’s usually Washington County hams who are on the repeaters, since that’s the direction they’re pointed in. But Mac lives in Mohave County. And the accident happened in Mohave County. We were lucky, since if the call was answered by a ham in Washington County, there would have been a delay in them getting the info to the proper authorities in Mohave County, but with Mac answering, all our information went right to the proper place.”

That morning, Magee told the ARRL that he came into my shack “and for some reason, turned on the 2 meter rig and it happened to be on the 146.910 repeater. I usually have a problem with the repeater ‘hearing’ me, so I rarely use it. About 11:20 Arizona time, I heard someone call and say they had emergency traffic and needed help. I fully expected a bevy of hams to answer the call, since so many are in range of that machine, but after his second call, and no answer, I took it.”

Magee said that the calling station had been flagged down by another motorist. “He told me there had been an accident in the vicinity of Poverty Mountain,” he said. “I really had no idea where that was, but I began to write down details. As soon as I had basic info, I called 911. The Mohave County Sheriff Office answered; I explained who I was and what the call was about.”

The dispatcher asked Magee for the coordinates to the site, and Magee relayed the request to Whiting. “I looked at my GPS and gave Mac my coordinates, but he said the dispatcher wanted the coordinates from the accident site,” Whiting said. “So I got in my 4-wheel drive and drove down the ridge to the site, about 5600 feet above sea level, and got the coordinates. I had to drive back to the ridge, another 1000 feet up, to call Mac back, because I couldn’t get a signal down there.”

Whiting told the ARRL that in addition to his ham radio, he also carries a set of FRS radios. “I gave one of the FRS radios to Todd and he drove his Jeep down the ridge to the accident site,” he said. “I kept the other one and Todd was able to relay me information about the injured woman’s condition and I was able to relay that information to Mac who in turn relayed it to the 911 dispatcher. Mac put the mic right up to the phone so the dispatcher could hear exactly what was going on.”

Magee said the 911 dispatcher requested more information: “While Hal was replying, I held the phone up to my radio speaker. When he finished with the details, I asked them if they copied that. The dispatcher said he did, and they held me on the line. Hal and I talked a while as he gave more data. When the dispatcher returned, they said a chopper was being dispatched from Phoenix! Well, we finished that call after they had the actual accident site GPS coordinates that Hal had passed on.”

With emergency help on the way, Kluxdal returned to the ridge and he and Whiting and his group went on their way to go check out an airplane crash site, the original intent of their trip. “The family members told us to go on and get on with our trip, so we did, after making sure they were all okay,” Whiting said. “So we left to go to the crash site, about 3-4 miles away. As we were getting ready to return, we saw the helicopter overhead, taking the injured woman to the hospital in Las Vegas. We returned to the top of the ridge and a sheriff’s deputy was there and he told us that our GPS coordinates were off, but only by 20 feet! He said that the helicopter crew was real happy that they were so on-target.”

Whiting said they were glad to have been able to help. “This is a remote area,” he said. “There’s only one way in, one way out with no shortcuts to get in and out. There are only dirt roads, and it can get very muddy when it rains a lot. I was out that way two weeks ago and got stuck in the mud there, but it was all dry this past weekend.”

Whiting said he learned a few things after this trip: “I am glad I had my radio equipment with me, and I am glad there was someone listening on the repeater to take the emergency call. Having the spare FRS radios created an efficient means for relay with a non-ham person, and having the GPS equipment provided a very effective means for the helicopter rescue team to locate the accident, since they did not want the road designation information but the exact patient coordinates. It would have been useless to have my equipment if there had not been someone listening, proving there is a good reason to keep your radios with you and in good operating condition.”

Whiting, who was first licensed in 1976, is the ARES® Assistant Emergency Coordinator for Washington County. A CAD Manager and Aerial Photographer for Bulloch Brothers in Mesquite, Nevada (he and Kluxdal are co-workers), he is currently teaching an Amateur Radio licensing class to 13 prospective hams at the Dixie Regional Medical Center in St George.

Magee said that before this incident he had never been involved in an actual emergency. “I have established emergency communications networks, in particular for the LDS Church in Newbury Park, California, where I was the Stake Emergency Communications Coordinator.” He told the ARRL. “Our communications group won the first worldwide test of the system back in the late 1980s. This is like ARRL Field Day, but involved mostly LDS members and facilities, then under the name of Mercury Amateur Radio Association (MARA). I feel very pleased in knowing that I had the opportunity to serve in this rescue incident and that every penny I spent on my system, radio and antenna was certainly worth it. In these days of extensive cell phone service and coverage, isn’t it satisfying to know that ham radio can still be of use for public service?”

Helioseismology is the study of pressure waves in the Sun, and can be used to detect sunspots on the far side by looking for magnetic variations corresponding to sunspots. Pressure waves bounce around inside the Sun, and the echoes change when they reflect off of magnetically complex areas.

Stanford University has a page devoted to acoustic imaging of the Sun’s far side at, http://soi.stanford.edu/press/ssu03-00/backside.html, and Wikipedia has a page at, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helioseismology.

NASA’s STEREO Mission (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) can provide views around the sides of the Sun, because it employs two identical satellite observatories, one leading earth’s orbit, and the other trailing. It can also provide three-dimensional images.

For details, see the NASA STEREO mission page at, http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/main/index.html and also check http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/gallery.shtml. You can see the satellite’s current positions at, http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/where.shtml.

Herbie Feichtinger, DC1YB wanted everyone to take a look at the STEREO images at, http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/beacon/beacon_secchi.shtml that show both current ahead and behind images. Also check out his projects on his web site at, http://herwig.shamrock.de/hamradio.htm.

Besides the spot indications from the far side, the NOAA/USAF daily forecast predicted a rise in daily solar flux, which could correlate with sunspot appearance.

On the site, http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpmenu/forecasts/45DF.html you can check the daily forecasts going back three weeks. Note on December 23 they first predicted a rise of solar flux to 71, running from December 31 through January 5. The next day, December 24, their prediction changed to December 27 through January 5. This remained until the December 29 forecast, when it changed to 70 for December 30 through January 7, and below 70 after that. The latest forecast on January 8 had solar flux remaining below 70 until January 15, then rising to 70 for January 16 through February 5, but never rising above 70.

On Wednesday, January 7 a sunspot appeared very briefly in the lower right portion of the Sun’s image. It was so brief that NOAA did not record it at http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/DSD.txt, but Spaceweather.com reported a sunspot number of 11 for the day, and the magnetic polarity was consistent with a new Cycle 24 spot.

Today on January 9 there is another Cycle 24 appearance, this time on the upper left of the image.

See it at, http://www.spaceweather.com/images2009/09jan09/newsunspot.jpg.

Last week’s Propagation Forecast Bulletin ARLP001 reported that the ionosphere is now at a lower elevation than in the past, but Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA wrote in suggesting that this isn’t really true, and our misunderstanding is probably due to some poor science reporting. The data reported is only accurate for equatorial latitudes.

An explanation is on Carl’s web site, http://mysite.verizon.net/k9la/. Just click on “Timely Topics” toward the top, then the January 3 report, titled “Is the ionosphere really lower?”

Michael Mona, KD0ZW, of Clive, Iowa wrote about his QRP experiences, and said that even with no sunspots he is having fun running 5 watts, and only batteries powered by a solar cell. Read about it on his web site at, http://www.kd0zw.com/.

Flavio Archangelo, PY2ZX, wrote to tell us about an interesting experiment he is participating in with the Japy DX Group. They are traveling north in Brazil to Bahia to experiment with transatlantic tropospheric ducting propagation with Africa. An English language web page is at, http://www.japydx.org/ta/bahia2.html and http://japydx.org/ta/index.html is in Portuguese. You can paste that last URL into a translation tool at, http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en under the Translate a Web Page heading. Just select Portuguese for the first language option, and English or any other language for the second option.

Of course, it is currently several weeks into Summer on that side of the equator.

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers, email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net.

For more information concerning radio propagation, see the ARRL Technical Information Service web page at, http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/propagation.html. For a detailed explanation of the numbers used in this bulletin see, http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/k9la-prop.html. An archive of past propagation bulletins is at, http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/prop/.

Monthly propagation charts between four USA regions and twelve overseas locations are at http://www.arrl.org/qst/propcharts/.

Sunspot numbers for January 1 through 7 were 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, and 0 with a mean of 0. 10.7 cm flux was 68.9, 69.9, 69.5, 68.8, 69.2, 68.7, and 69 with a mean of 69.1. Estimated planetary A indices were 6, 3, 9, 4, 4, 3 and 3 with a mean of 4.6. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 5, 3, 8, 5, 3, 2 and 1 with a mean of 3.9.
NNNN
/EX

Source: W1AW Bulletin via the ARRL.

My brother got the books, absorbed all the material in front of him, and passed the Amateur Radio exam today.  His call sign will be in a few days.

Congratulations Robert!

Many Amateur Radio Satellites have a very tight orbit around the Earth and usually have very short windows; around 10 minutes. These satellites are also known as LEOSATS (Low Earth Orbiting Satellites).

Tonight I used Heavens-Above.com to generate a forecast, based on my location, of all Amateur satellites that would be ‘visible’ to my radio. I choose a few that that would pass ‘high in sky’ (almost overhead). The first few passed by without any incident.

Then SaudiSat (So-50) passed by at 21:20 with an elevation of 80 degrees; transmitting on a down link of 435.225Mhz. At first I heard a very faint voices and then, almost suddenly, I could hear several stations exchanging Call signs. There were stations in Sweden, upper New York, Cincinnati, DC, and Texas.

After a few minutes the signal began fading away, however, the experience was still fresh in my mind!

After I have the Arrow Antenna I will stand a good chance of getting a clear signal in the satellite but for now I am content with just listening.

The FT-60R feels fairly comfortable in the hand and unlike other HT’s I have owned, it does have a very solid feel to it. Programming the radio is fairly straight forward with a rather intuitive menu system. I also purchased a 2m/70cm Diamond Antenna; which showed an immediate improvement on reception.

My main motivation for getting this dual band radio was so that I could to some satellite work. Most Amateur satellites have a 2m up link and a 70cm down link. Using the radio’s odd split feature I can program in frequency pairs for all satellites. Not too shabby!

Next on my list is a dual band Arrow antenna that will allow me to direct my radio signal anywhere I want (including satellites).

Overall the FT-60R a solid performer that is well built for around $180.00

Here is a video that visualizes my ultimate goal with this HT:

My Call sign is KF4LXS and I currently hold a Technician class license. I’ll be hitting the books again and will be upgrading my license so that I can operate on other bands.

I choose the Icom IC-2200H because of the new Digital D-Star mode. The receiver covers 118-174 MHz and the transmitter delivers 65, 25, 10 or 5 watts of output. It also uses an improved receive IMD which helps provide protection from excessively strong signals. My 2200H supports three different scan modes: Full Scan, Memory Scan, Programmed Scan and four scan resume methods. Other features of my radio include: 207 memories, alphanumeric notes, 3-way priority watch and independently programmable Rx/Tx and tone squelch. My 2200H is also one of the first mobiles to be GPS NMEA compatible which I use with my Garmin GPS. I plan on getting the UT-118 D-STAR Digital plug in unit for digital callsign squelch and digital code squelch, short text messaging, break-in and GPS position beaconing.