SCARC Roadtrip – Greenbank Observatory

Tour Guide:
Richard F. Bradley, Ph.D. — W4DZC

—Former Steel City ARC Member
—Scientist / Senior Research Engineer (NRAO)
—Research Professor of Astronomy (U. Virginia)
—Visiting Assistant Professor of EE (U. Virginia)
—Radio Science: Associate Editor

The Steel City behind the scenes tour of the Greenbank Observatory is on for September 8 & 9th.  This will be an overnight trip to the telescope which we will be leaving early Friday morning to get down to the telescope as early as possible.  After the tour we will be staying overnight at the telescope bunkhouse. Getting up early the next morning to head over to the CASS Railroad to take the train to the top of the mountain.  The are is a POTA & SOTA site so you might want to bring along your portable gear.

Rich has a great job of talking with the people at the telescope and have waived the $25 fee for the tour and to get it moved to a Firday when people can ask for the day off.  There will be a charge of $10 to spend the night at the bunk house.  Current the charge for the train trip will be around $79 but we will try to get a discount once we have a proper head count.  This tour will be limited to 20 people at the max so sign up early to reserve your spot.  It will be also required to fill out a :”Visitor Registration Form” {a basic background check} to go on this behind the scene tour.

More information will be provided at our June Business Meeting

Information on the Green Bank Telescope
Information about the behind the scene tour
Click Here For CASS Scenic Bald Knob Tour

National Hurricane Center Amateur Radio Station Annual Test

From The ARRL News Website

The amateur radio station of the National Hurricane Center, WX4NHC (NHC), located on the campus of Florida International University in Miami, will conduct their on-the-air Annual Communications Test on Saturday, May 27, 2023, from 9 AM – 5 PM EDT (1300z- 2100z).

This is the NHC’s 43rd year of public service. NHC Amateur Radio Assistant Coordinator Julio Ripoll, WD4R/WX4NHC, reports that the purpose of this event is to test amateur radio equipment and antennas at the NHC as well as operators’ home equipment, antennas, and computers prior to this year’s hurricane season. The 2023 hurricane season begins June 1 and runs through November 30.

This event is good practice for amateur radio operators worldwide to practice amateur radio communications during times of severe weather.

Ripoll said WX4NHC will be on HF, VHF, UHF, 2- and 30-meter APRS, and Winlink, To contact the NHC’s amateur radio station send an email to wx4nhc@winlink.org. The subject of the email must contain //WL2K.

WX4NHC will try to stay on the Hurricane Watch Net frequency, 14.325 MHz, for most of the time, as well as 7.268 MHz depending on propagation. They may also change frequencies due to potential QRM.

You may be able to find WX4NHC on HF by using one of the DX spotting networks, such as the DX Summit website at http://www.dxsummit.fi.

The VoIP Hurricane Net will also be active from 4 PM – 5 PM EDT (2000-2100z), RLP node 9219/EchoLink WX-TALK Conference node 7203. Visit their website for more information.

WX4NHC will also make a few contacts on local VHF and UHF repeaters, as well as the Florida Statewide Amateur Radio Network (SARnet) system to test station equipment.

QSL cards are available via WD4R with a self-addressed stamped envelope. More information about the NHC is available at their website.

ACTION NEEDED TO PROTECT OUR BANDS

ARRL Advocates for Radio Amateurs as FCC Proposes Changes to 60-Meter Band

04/28/2023The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is seeking comments about changing the secondary allocation available to radio amateurs on 60 meters. The FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on April 21, 2023, that deals with the band. In a prior petition, ARRL The National Association for Amateur Radio® urged protecting the existing use of the band by amateurs when adding a new allocation adopted internationally.

Currently, radio amateurs in the US have access to five discrete channels on a secondary basis: 5332 kHz, 5348 kHz, 5358.5 kHz, 5373 kHz, and 5405 kHz. Users of these channels are limited to an effective radiated power (ERP) of 100 W PEP.

The FCC proposes to allocate 15 kHz of contiguous bandwidth between 5351.5 – 5366.5 kHz on a secondary basis with a maximum power of 15 W EIRP (equivalent to 9.15 W ERP). This allocation was adopted at the 2015 World Radio Communication Conference (WRC-15).

READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON THE ARRL WEBSITE:
http://arrl.org/news/

Track a Weather Balloon

Want to track a weather balloon here is a very neat website that tracks all the weather balloon across the country.  Here in Pittsburgh the NWS launch balloons at  7:00 AM and 7:00 PM. Some times at other times like during storms.

https://tracker.sondehub.org

The SondeHub Tracker provides live and historical view of the data contained within the SondeHub Radiosonde telemetry database. This data is openly available, and licensed under Creative Commons By-SA 2.0. While primarily designed to assist with the tracking, recovery and re-use of meteorological radiosondes, it also provides a view of the meteorological data gathered by these devices.

So who wants to go on a fox hunt?

NASA Need Ham Radio Operators

The HamSCI Festivals of Eclipse Ionospheric Science will occur October 14, 2023 and April 8, 2024 during spectacular North American solar eclipses.

The Festivals will consist of multiple events, each with a goal of increasing our understanding of sun-ionosphere-earth relationships. ​Participants will include volunteer amateur radio operators, short wave listeners and science researchers from multiple US universities.

HamSCI FoEIS Events in which you can participate

  • The Solar Eclipse QSO Party (SEQP)
  • The Gladstone Signal Spotting Challenge (GSSC)
  • Learn how to participate by visiting the HamSCI FoEIS Contest Info Page
Planned Events – Details To Be Announced at a Future Time
  • Doppler Effects on the Reception of WWV and CHU Utilizing the Grape 2 Low-IF Receiver
  • The Use of Time Delay of Arrival (TDOA) Measurements to Profile Ionospheric Layer Height Changes During Solar Eclipses
  • Tracking Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances Using Doppler-shifts of AM Broadcast Stations
  • ​VLF Reception Exercise

Read More about this here:
https://science.nasa.gov
https://hamsci.org/eclipse

VE Testing Session – Feb 25th

VE Testing Session

Steel City Amateur Radio Club will be conducting a VE testing session Public Demo at the Carnegie Library in Carnegie PA.  The testing session will start at 2:00 PM on Feb 25th and is open for new hams and upgrades.  Please check out our VE Testing Page for more information. Also please contact Chris K3PQ at k3pq@w3kwh.com for pre-registration to guarantee a spot for you at the testing location.  Walk in allowed but register people will be tested first.

Carnegie Library
300 Beechwood Avenue
Carnegie, PA 15106-2644
Google Map Link

Bill to Eliminate Private Land Use Restrictions on Amateur Radio

FROM: ARRL.ORG

Congressman Bill Johnson (OH-6) introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R.9670) on Thursday, December 22, 2022, to eliminate private land use restrictions that prohibit, restrict, or impair the ability of an Amateur Radio Operator from operating and installing amateur station antennas on property subject to the control of the Amateur Radio Operator.

The exponential growth of communities subject to private land use restrictions that prohibit both the operation of Amateur Radio and the installation of amateur station antennas has significantly restricted the growth of the Amateur Radio Service. These restrictions are pervasive in private common interest residential communities such as single-family subdivisions, condominiums, cooperatives, gated communities, master-planned communities, planned unit developments, and communities governed by community associations. The restrictions have particularly impacted the ability of Amateur Radio to fulfill its statutorily mandated duty of serving as a voluntary noncommercial emergency communications service.

Congress in 1996 directed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to promulgate regulations (Public Law 104–104, title II, section 207, 110 Stat. 114; 47 U.S.C. 303 note) that have preempted all private land use restrictions applicable to exterior communications facilities that impair the ability of citizens to receive television broadcast signals, direct broadcast satellite services, or multichannel multipoint distribution services, or to transmit and receive wireless internet services. ARRL attempts to obtain similar relief for Amateur Radio were rejected by the FCC with a statement such relief would have to come from Congress.

ARRL Legislative Advocacy Committee Chairman John Robert Stratton, N5AUS, noted that Congress, in 1994 by Joint Resolution, S.J.Res.90/H.J.Res.199, declared that regulations at all levels of government should facilitate and encourage the effective operation of Amateur Radio from residences as a public benefit. He continued by stating that “H.R.9670, the Amateur Radio Emergency Preparedness Act, is intended to fulfill that mandate and preserve the ability of Amateur Radio Operators to continue to serve as a key component of American critical communications infrastructure.

ARRL President Rick Roderick, K5UR, and Mr. Stratton both extended on behalf of the ARRL, its Members, and the Amateur Radio community their thanks and appreciation for the leadership of Rep. Johnson in his tireless efforts to support and protect the rights of all Amateur Radio Operators.

For the full text of the bill, click here (PDF).

Become your own time lord

INTRODUCTION
Twenty years ago it would have been unlikely for a private individual to have an atomic clock at home. With few exceptions, precise time technology was used exclusively by professionals at national scientific laboratories, the military, and a small number of specialized commercial companies. But in the past ten years an abundance of military, dot-com, and telecom surplus has made it possible for motivated individuals to obtain yesterday’s start-of-the-art timing technology for personal use today. High-end precise timekeeping instruments, such as atomic frequency standards and frequency counters,
VLF receivers and phase comparators, Loran-C and GPS disciplined oscillators can be hunted and purchased for cents on the dollar. Today hundreds of individuals own rubidium, cesium, or GPS-based frequency standards and are keeping time at home to fractions of a microsecond. Many of these people are ham radio operators who have a
technical appreciation of, and need for, precise frequency. Some are retired military personnel who are nostalgic for gear they used years ago in the service. A few are curious engineers who enjoy the challenge of building clocks with ever increasing accuracy. Others are clock and watch collectors who want to augment their mechanical collections with specimens of modern electronic timekeepers. Whatever the circumstances precise timekeeping is a historically rich, intellectually stimulating, and
technically challenging field. Amateur time enthusiasts join mailing lists such as time-nuts or TACGPS. The latter was started by Dr. Tom Clark about ten years ago to freely share his clever, low-cost, PC software controlled, Motorola VP GPS receiver-based precise timing solution. In short, some of us have caught the “time bug” and are on the slippery slope of ever greater frequency stability and more precise time.
The following sections are a view into my clock collection, time & frequency experiments, and home timing laboratory.

ATOMIC CLOCK COLLECTION
People collect just about anything: books, stuffed animals, postage stamps, cars, vacuum tubes, clocks  and watches. Some of us have a hobby of collecting modern and vintage electronic instruments related to precise time: oscillators, atomic frequency standards, phase comparators, time code displays, and radio (WWV, WWVB, Loran-C) or satellite time/frequency receivers (GOES, GPS). Over the years my collection has grown to include instruments from companies such as Austron, Astrodata, Berkeley, Bliley, Datum, Efratom, FEI, Fluke, FTS, General Radio, Hewlett-Packard/Agilent,
Kinemetrics, Odetics, Oscilloquartz, Sigma Tau, Stanford Research, Spectracom, Sulzer, Symmetricom, Systron-Donner, Tracor, Trak, True Time, TST, and Vectron. Photos of the collection may be found on my web site. There are frequency standards ranging from a vintage 1 kc General Radio tuning fork oscillator to a modern 100 MHz Sigma Tau hydrogen maser, representing stabilities from 10-3 to 10-15.

Read the full article here at: www.leapsecond.com

Ham radio repeater connects lost hiker with help

FROM: The Laconia Daily Sun

BELMONT — Off trail, after sundown, as the temperature and snowflakes are falling, and with a dead cellphone, it seemed that all factors were against a local man in the woods Sunday evening. Yet he was safely home by the end of his ordeal, and was able to communicate with his wife and emergency services via his amateur radio skills.

Edward Lawson, 79, set out late Sunday afternoon to take a walk with his dog, an Alaskan malamute named Molly. They headed to a section of woods south of Leavitt Road, an area they were both familiar with, with the plan to do a short hike and then head home.

“I did not take my daypack,” Lawson said. Had it been a longer hike, he said he would bring a pack containing extra clothing, a flashlight, orienteering tools, and other equipment in case of unforeseen circumstances. But this was just going to be a short walk in the woods, so he left the pack behind.

The plan changed, though, when they got into the woods. Molly and Ed were feeling energetic, so they departed from their intended trail to head off a side path. Ed knew this trail ended with a need to bushwhack in order to meet up with a snowmobile trail, but what he didn’t know was that the area had been logged recently, and the area he had to bushwhack through now looked different.

When he wasn’t able to connect with the snowmobile trail, he realized that his departure from his plan would mean a much longer time in the woods than originally intended. He pulled out his cellphone to notify his wife, and saw that the battery was completely drained. However, he had one more piece of equipment: a small, handheld radio.

Lawson, a ham radio hobbyist, knew that the radio would be able to connect with a repeater set up on top of Gunstock Mountain, which would broadcast the signal across a network of other repeaters throughout the state. His message, asking for someone to contact his wife, was immediately answered by Bill Barber, a ham radio operator in Hudson. Barber also looped in Rick Zach, another ham radio hobbyist, who lives in Gilford and is familiar with hiking trails in the region.

When Lawson’s wife heard that her husband was in the woods after dark on a December evening, she called 911.

“They started a search using both police and fire apparatus,” said Zach, who was impressed by the industrious solution emergency responders employed. They positioned emergency vehicles in strategic areas around where they thought Lawson might be, and they sounded each vehicle’s siren, one at a time, at timed intervals. Then they radioed to Lawson to see if he heard any of them, and if so, at what time. Lawson didn’t, but even that information was helpful, Zach said

Finish Reading on the papers website here…