Contents Club Information Page 1 ........................................... President’s Message 2 ............................................. Treasurer’s Report 2 ................................................. How to Stay Healthy 2 .............................................. Lunar-Orbiting Microsats with Ham Radio Payloads Will Make Use of WSJT JT4G Sub-Mode 3 ............. Computer Terminology 3 .......................................... EchoLink 3 ................................................................ “Scouts BSA” Program to Enhance Ham Radio Opportunities for Young Women 4 ............................ Cuba’s “Operation Meteor” will Involve Amateur Radio 4 ..................................................................... Solar Eclipse QSO Party Research Results Pub- lished in Geophysical Research Letters 4 ................ Is the internet, millennials or FT-8 killing ham ra- dio? 5 ........................................................................ First Words 6 ............................................................ Watts News Watts News Monthly Newsletter of the Olympia Amateur Radio Society June 2018
Transcript
Contents
Club Information Page 1 ...........................................
“Scouts BSA” Program to Enhance Ham Radio Opportunities for Young Women 4 ............................
Cuba’s “Operation Meteor” will Involve Amateur Radio 4 .....................................................................
Solar Eclipse QSO Party Research Results Pub-lished in Geophysical Research Letters 4 ................
Is the internet, millennials or FT-8 killing ham ra-dio? 5 ........................................................................
First Words 6............................................................
WattsNews
Watts News
Monthly Newsletter of the Olympia Amateur Radio Society June 2018
Club Information Page
WattsNews � 1
OARS Net Check-insThe following stations checked in one or more times on the OARS General Information Net in
May 2018: * Net Control
AC7MG KB7GQP KG7PLJ W7BRR
AE7VG KB7TTD KI7CQ W7JIM
AF7IO KD7OQS KI7FKQ W7NN
K3AL KD7QAE KI7QVN W7PLC
K7HTZ KD7SQU KL7SK W7RUE
K7TAG KD7TQW N7DFF WA7BAM
K7TST KF7HXV N7TLF WB7ROZ
KB4LWQ KF7VWA N7WW WV7S
KB7ED KG7NQW W6EGV KI7SS *
The net meets at 7:30 every Tuesday evening on the 3 linked OARS repeaters: 147.36, 224.46, and
441.40 MHZ. All Hams are invited to check in.
License Exam Sessions 6:00 pm before each monthly OARS meet-ing Walk-ins allowedTo apply contact Klaus Neubert [email protected] In an effort to provide the best testing envi-ronment possible, the examiners request non-candidates remain outside for the dura-tion of the exam session. —Thank you.
Membership Application
❑ New ❑ Renewal
Date
Call
Name
Address
City, State
Home Phone
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email
Annual Dues: $ 50 single or family Pay to Treasurer at any meeting, or mail to:
OARS PO Box 2861 Olympia WA 98507
OARS Officers
President Bruce Montgomery WA7BAM 259-9300
Vice President Dennis Niles WV7S (808)283-3208
Secretary Frank Hamilton KF7HXV (360) 951-1174
Treasurer Ed Fitzgerald N7WW 360-628-0168
Member at Large Phil Cornell W7PLC 360-515-1263
Key Contacts
RFI Committee Ghery Pettit N6TPT 867-0756
Repeater Committee Fred Baker W7SIX 791-2444
Repeater Committee Ken Dahl K7TAG 534-9357
Club License Trustee Duane Braford WB7ROZ 412-1902
President’s Message Whew! We did it! I mean the collective radio com-munity just successfully finished our busiest event weekend in my memory. Radio participation for the Capital City Marathon included about 20 hams. Two days of Olympus Road Rally brought approx-imately 85 radio operators from the Pacific North-west to cover the event. A check of their website shows a short video clip of the dust raising race. The weekly field day work party happened as did the 'meet and greet' Lacey Spring Fun Fair. By the end of January the first draft of the radio calendar was published and everyone knew we were going to be challenged May 19 and 20 to cover these important events. Thanks to all for stepping for-ward to help.These events get amateur radio in front of the pub-lic so they can see the service we perform for the community. Ultimately some of these people will develop an interest in our hobby and service and become licensed. This is the reason this year’s Hamvention theme is service. It is also the reason the business partners in Funeral Alternatives sup-port OARS and the radio hobby with the benefits we receive. Connections are being made and will continue to grow. From emergency communication to service events to station building to having fun, people are learning what this radio hobby is about.June 16 we have an empty store in Capital Mall to further explain our hobby to the public. What top-ics should we be covering at the different tables? This is the first of these events that we hope occur monthly for a long time. Much planning will go into this first event with improvements naturally follow-ing in the coming months. A show of hands at the last OARS meeting indicated about 10 hams inter-ested in helping. This is great; thanks to all!Phil the web master has a Field Day questionnaire for you to look at and return to him by email. Go to the OARS website, olyham.blogspot.com , click on the top link in the left column to open the form. Open a new email to Phil then copy and paste the form into your email. Answer all that is relevant and send the information to Phil. We will use this infor-mation to plan this year’s field day.Make sure Field Day is on your calendar, June 23 and 24. Located at Duane's, WB7ROZ, with 5 acres in East Olympia we have room to spread out the 3 HF stations and 1 VHF/UHF station. Each will be operating on emergency power including a small solar station. We will have flexibility to use multiple bands and modes at each station. If you want to learn how to set up and work digital modes or CW; this is the place to be. While opera-tions begin at 11 am on the 23rd, setup will be
happening all week and station specific setup be-gins Thursday at 5. Cleanup is important too — we take big dollar electronics home immediately and rest, but then return Monday to finish cleaning up. This is the greatest way to learn radio skills and socialize with great people. We hope to have at-tendance by the public and perhaps an elected official or two as well.We need to thank Dave, K7DOA, a partner in Funeral Alternatives, for their generous donation of $500.00 to the repeater fund at the May meeting. This and free rent at our amazingly nice meeting place are the rea-sons Watts News has a small advertisement for their services. Thanks to Dave and his partners for their generosity. I began this column with the word Whew!, and I mean it. We are busy but it is in a very productive way. Good things are happening, but I am always open to new ideas. If you think of any else you would like to see happen, please let me know. OARS is your radio club and all ideas need to be included.Attend Field Day, get on the radio and make contacts.—73, Bruce, WA7BAM�
Treasurer’s Report As of May 2018 GENERAL FUND (checking account) Previous balance $3,097.38......................... Income 350.00 ....................................... Expenses 642.73 ................................... Ending balance 2,804,91 .............................
REPEATER / PACKET FUND (savings account) Previous balance $ 5,362.46......................... Income 500.00........................................ Expenses 0.00........................................ Ending balance 5,862.46 ..............................
— Ed Fitzgerald, N7WW, Treasurer
How to Stay Healthy Exercise for people over 60 Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you have plenty of room on each side. With a 5 lb. potato bag in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides and hold them there as long as you can. Try to reach a full minute and then relax.
Wa$s News �2
Each day you will find that you can cold this position just a bit longer. After a couple of weeks, move up to 10 pound potato bags. Then try 50 pound potato bags and eventually try to get to where you can lift a 100 pound potato bag in each hand and and hold your arms straight out for more than a minute. (I’m at this level.) After you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each bag. ! Lunar-Orbiting Microsats with Ham Radio Payloads Will Make Use of WSJT JT4G Sub-Mode 05/03/2018 China’s twin-launch Chang’e 4 mission to the far side of the moon will place a pair of micro-satellites in lunar orbit “to test low-frequency radio astronomy and space-based interferometry.” The two satellites, DSLWP-A1 and DSLWP-A2 (DSLWP = Discovering the Sky at Longest Wavelengths Pathfinder) are expected to launch in June. They will carry Amateur Radio and educational payloads, but not a transponder. Equipped with low-frequency antennas and receivers, the astronomy objectives of the two spacecraft will be to observe the sky at the lower end of the electromagnetic spectrum — 1 MHz to 30 MHz — with the aim of learning about energetic phenomena from celestial sources. They will use the moon to shield them from radio emissions from Earth. Developed by students at Harbin Institute of Technology (BY2HIT), the Amateur Radio payload onboard DSLWP-A1 will provide a telecommand uplink and telemetry/digital image downlink. The open telecommand protocol is designed to allow amateurs to send commands to take and download images. DSLWP-A1 downlinks are 435.425 MHz and 436.425 MHz; DSLWP-A2 downlinks are 435.400 MHz and 436.400 MHz, and they will use 250/500 bps GMSK using 10K0F1DCN or 10K0F1DEN (10 kHz wide FM single-channel data) with concatenated codes or JT4G. JT4 uses four-tone FSK, with a keying rate of 4.375 baud; the JT4G sub-mode uses 315 Hz tone spacing and 1260 Hz total bandwidth. The micro-satellites represent the first phase of the Chang’e 4 mission. The satellites will piggyback on the Chang’e 4 relay package and will deploy into 200 × 9,000 kilometer lunar orbits. The mission involves placing a relay satellite in a halo orbit to facilitate communication with the Chang’e 4 lander and rover, which will be sent to the far side of the
moon in December. Because the moon’s far side never faces Earth, the satellite is needed to serve as an Earth-moon relay. The Chang’e 4 mission will be the first-ever attempt at a soft-landing on the far side of the moon.
Hu Chaoran, BG2CR —from The ARRL Letter
Computer Terminology CHARACTER DENSITY: The number of very weird people in the office, divided by the floor space. COMPUTER: A device designed to speed and automate errors. COMPUTER CLUB: Used to strike computer forcefully upon receiving error messages. CONSOLE: What one does to a "down" computer. CURSOR: An expert in 4-letter words. DUMP: A system programmer's work area. FEATURE: Hardware limitation as described by a marketing representative. KEYBOARD: An instrument used for entering errors into a system. LANGUAGE: A system of organizing and defining error messages. PASSWORD: The nonsense word taped to your terminal.
! EchoLink Interested in using echolink from your iPhone or iPad ? Here is the link for downloading:
“Scouts BSA” Program to En-hance Ham Radio Opportunities for Young Women 05/15/2018Boy Scouts of America’s Radio Scouting Coordi-nator Jim Wilson, K5ND, says that, although the program name for ages 11 to 17 will change to “Scouts BSA” and begin admitting girls starting on February 1, 2019, the organization’s name re-mains the same.“Perhaps the big difference is that girls will now be eligible to earn the Radio merit badge as part of their Scouting program,” Wilson told ARRL. “Girls are already a part of Venturing, a coed pro-gram for ages 14 to 20.” He pointed out that Ven-ture Scouts of both sexes have always been able to earn the Amateur Radio Operator Rating Strip and the Morse Code Interpreter Strip.“For Jamboree on the Air, Girl Scouts have always been welcome to participate throughout the world,” Wilson added. “Now, they’ll be participat-ing in not only Girl Scouts, but also in Cub Scouts and Scouts BSA.”Wilson noted that worldwide, most national Scouting organizations have had female members for quite a while now, with just 8% of countries admitting boys only.—from the ARRL Website �
Cuba’s “Operation Meteor” will Involve Amateur Radio 05/15/2018Amateur Radio will have a role in Cuba’s soon-to-be-launched “Operation Meteor,” aimed at aiding the island nation in preparing for natural disasters. Among the new strategies under review for im-plementation are civilian first-aid training; assist and rescue missions; damage control, and large-scale needs assessment. The nationwide initiative aims to mitigate the impact of natural disasters, especially in rural areas, and safeguard life on the island, Lieutenant-Colonel Wilfredo Cobas said.Operation Meteor will also work with Cuba’s radio and television services, the island’s communica-tions system, and the Emergency Network of the Amateur Radio Federation of Cuba (FRC) to fine-tune their emergency responses. Alfredo Mesa Hormigó, CO8TVC, Information System Coordina-tor for the FRC’s Santiago affiliate, suggested that Operation Meteor will strengthen the capacity of
the country and its provinces to face strong earthquakes, hurricanes, intense drought, fires, health, and technological disasters, and would enhance the communication system’s capabilities to face disasters in Cuba.In 2017, Hurricane Irma affected 12 Cuban provinces, destroyed more than 150,000 homes, left 10 people dead, and caused some $13 million in damage.—from the ARRL Website �
Solar Eclipse QSO Party Research Results Published in Geophysical Research Letters 05/17/2018The first science results from the Solar Eclipse QSO Party (SEQP) last August 21 have been published in the American Geophysical Union journal Geophysical Research Letters. In the paper, “Modeling Amateur Radio Soundings of the Ionospheric Response to the 2017 Great American Eclipse,” Nathaniel Frissell, W2-NAF, and team present Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) observations of the SEQP and com-pare them with ray tracings through an eclipsed ver-sion of the physics-based ionospheric model SAMI3. Frissell, a New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) research professor, explains that ray tracing is a method of calculating where a radio wave will go based on electron density — essentially the same as calculating how a light ray goes through a lens. Ham-SCI, the Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation or-ganization, sponsored the event.“From a ham radio perspective, this paper very clearly shows the effect of the eclipse on not just a few, but a very large number of contacts,” Frissell told ARRL. “You can see from the charts that activity drops off steeply on 20 meters during eclipse totality, while 80 and 160 meters open up. On 40 meters, you can see how the contact distance increases in step with the eclipse.”Frissell said another key aspect of the paper is that the researchers were able to use ray tracing to com-pare the observations to a physics-based numerical model of the eclipsed ionosphere. “We did this by ray tracing hundreds of thousands of ray paths on the NJIT supercomputer,” Frissell explained. “The devel-opment of this method of comparison also gives us a new tool for comparing datasets like the RBN to actu-al models.”On 14 MHz (20 meters), eclipse effects were ob-served as a drop off in communications for an hour before and an hour after eclipse maximum. On 7 MHz (40 meters), typical path lengths ex-
tended from about 500 kilometers (310 miles) to 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) for 45 minutes before and after eclipse maximum. On 1.8 MHz (160 me-ters) and 3.5 MHz (80 meters), eclipse effects were observed as band openings 20 to 45 min-utes around eclipse maximum.By using ray tracing to compare these observa-tions with the SAMI3 model, it was found that the majority of 14 MHz signals refracted off the ionosphere at heights less than 125 kilometers (77.5 miles) in the E region. On the lower bands, 1.8, 3.5, and 7 MHz, it was found that signals like-ly refracted off heights greater than 125 kilometers (77.5 miles) in the F region.These observations suggest an eclipse-induced weakening of the ionosphere, and are consistent with numerous prior HF radio eclipse ionospheric studies.The SEQP generated more than 618,000 RBN spots, 630,000 Weak Signal Propagation Reporter Network (WSPRNet) spots, 1.2 million PSK Re-porter spots, and 29,000 log contacts.The SEQP research paper, along with the geo-lo-cated RBN data with solar eclipse obscuration values used in the paper, are being published un-der an open-access license to allow for further research. The data files can be found under the “Supporting Information” section of the paper. Additional HamSCI eclipse data is available on-line.—from the ARRL Letter �
Is the internet, millennials or FT-8 killing ham radio? By Dan Romanchik, KB6NU Amateur radio bloggers love to write about the demise of amateur radio. To wit, we have: * K0NR’s Is the Internet destroying amateur ra-dio? (http://www.k0nr.com/wordpress/2017/11/in-ternet-destroying-amateur-radio/) * N0SSC’s Millennials are killing ham radio (http://n0ssc.com/posts/583-millennials-are-killing-ham-radio) * PE4BAS’ Is FT-8 damaging amateur radio? (https://pe4bas.blogspot.com/2018/04/is-ft8-dam-aging-hamradio.html) * NZ0T’s Did Joe Taylor K1JT Destroy Amateur Radio? (http://www.ei5di.com/jt.html)
Of course, none of these posts are really saying that the internet, millennials, or FT-8 has killed amateur radio. What they are saying is that all of these are changing amateur radio as we know it. Well, duh, the way we live our lives changes every day. Why should amateur radio be any different? For example, Bob, K0NR, discusses how the op-eration of remote stations is changing the game of DX. Can you really claim that you worked a DX station if you rented time on a super station? I’ve written about that topic, too (https://www.kb6nu.-com/dx-advisory-committee-wants-to-put-the-screws-to-remote-operation/). There has also been much written about how FT8 is changing the amateur radio game. One blog post (https://ve7sl.blogspot.com/2017/10/160m-ft8-end-of-era.html), talking about the effect of FT8 on 160m operation, even goes so far to say that this is the “end of an era.” On DX World, the results of the poll, “FT8 – Damaging to Amateur Radio?” (https://dx-world.net/yes-or-no-a-poll-on-ft8/) show more than half of the respondents think that FT8 is damaging amateur radio. I specifically used the word “game” in the previous two paragraphs because that’s exactly what’s changing. The physics of amateur radio certainly isn’t changing. Our transmitters are still generat-ing electromagnetic waves like they have been for decades, and on the HF bands, anyway, those radio waves are bouncing off the ionosphere just as they have been for more than the past 100 years. What’s changing is the human component. By that I mean what’s changing is how we think people should participate in the hobby. The hams that are complaining that the internet or millennials or FT8 is killing amateur radio are really just complaining that people aren’t participating in amateur radio the way they want them to participate. Here’s where we talk about millennials. In his blog post, Sterling, N0SSC, suggests that setting up remote stations is one way to engage young peo-ple. He writes, “I believe that remote operating, and other internet-assisted means of ham radio operation, are critical to youth engagement.” He’s also big on an idea he calls “ham radio hackathons.” He writes,“A hackathon isn’t a cod-ing competition. It’s explained well in this Medium
article (https://medium.com/hackathons-anony-mous/wtf-is-a-hackathon-92668579601). It goes even further than that, not limited to coders and engineers, but open to thinkers, doers, philoso-phers, system engineers, math people, teachers, students, artists, stakeholders…anyone with an interest in solving a problem with technology.” I support both of these ideas, but I think that mil-lennials (and, to be fair, it isn’t just millennials we’re talking about here, but any newcomers to the hobby) need to step up and get these things going. I don’t think it’s my job to try to get kids in-terested in amateur radio. I don’t even know if that’s really possible. What I can do, however, is be there to encourage and support kids (and any-one else that expresses a sincere interest in ama-teur radio). For example, I’m not sure how fruitful it would be to set up my station to be remotely operable and then saying to some kids, “Hey, come and operate my station.” What I think would be more fruitful is to say to a kid, “Hey, come help me set up my re-mote control station, so that we both can use it.” Then, it turns into a learning situation, and we both gain from the exercise. The same kind of thing has to happen with ham radio hackathons. The motivation has to come from the ground up, not the top down. I do hope that this idea gets off the ground, though, and I’m standing by, ready to support this effort however I can. I think that millennials (I’m really getting tired of that term, by the way) need to grab the bull by the horns and take amateur radio in the direction they want it to go. Feel free to kill amateur radio as we know it. Make it better! —When he's not trying to figure out how to save amateur radio, Dan builds stuff, blogs about ama-teur radio at KB6NU.Com, teaches amateur radio classes, and operates CW on the HF bands. Look for him on 30m, 40m, and 80m. You can email him about what you think is killing amateur radio at [email protected]. !
First Words My son crawled for the first time while I was away on business. I also missed his first
steps. I was now afraid I would miss his first words. Each day, I called home and asked if he had spoken yet. The answer was always "no" until one day my wife said, "Harry has something to say to you.... 'Daddy, daddy,'"I heard it over the phone and I glowed with pride. My wife came back on the line and said, "You should come home as soon as possible.""Why?" I asked."He was speaking to the dog.”�
South Sound Manor Event Center 455 North Street SE
Tumwater
If you are a Ham who has received this newsletter, but are not yet a member of OARS, you are cordially in-vited to join us. Please complete the membership ap-plication found elsewhere in this newsletter and mail it to:
OARS PO Box 2861Olympia WA 98507
or bring it to an OARS meeting and see Treasurer Ed Fitzgerald.
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