CQ CQ CQ .. calling all amateur radio operators

[linuxgeek]

src

When Hindu, Muslim didn't matter, helping did :

Chennai, Jan 1 : Drinking water, brought in pouches from tourist resorts, was supplied within hours of the tsunamis hitting the Tamil Nadu coast to 'kuppams' (fishing villages) by local youth. So was food.

The injured had access to medical aid, ferried to hospitals by local auto-rickshaw drivers and young men, and even passing strangers who carried people on bicycles and scooters.

"The injured were taken to hospital without being asked if they were Hindu or Muslim," said V. Uma, a victim from Kalpakkam.

One of the reasons why Sunday's tsunami toll is not greater than it has been - over 4,000 - is because very quickly locals rushed to the rescue of victims, irrespective of religion, cast or creed.

By nightfall, the mosque in Tambaram on Chennai's outskirts had turned into a shelter for 200, manned by Tamil Muslim Munntera Kazhagam (TMKK) volunteers.

Victims came from as far as Kalpakkam and Kovalam village. They were ferried by TMMK volunteers from highways and roads, from far and near, and provided immediate help, food and shelter besides safe water.

As many as 2,000 Hindu fishermen families were given shelter at the Nagoore Dargah.

At picturesque Tranquebar too, it is the mosque and the local community that has provided shelter to tsunami victims.

"Please help our relief effort at Neelangarai kuppams" - it was an SMS that went around to over a thousand people within hours of the tsunamis hitting the Tamil Nadu coast.

The message was from the local unit of Exnora International, and environmental NGO, asking for food, funds, clothing, anything possible, while mobilising volunteers.

At 4 p.m., at the mortuary of the Royapetah Hospital, young men like Bhanu helped identify the dead, carried them out of the mortuary, supported and guided the bereaved.

Without these local youths who swung into action immediately to carry the injured to hospital, or to carry the dead, it would have been impossible for the government to start at least identifying and disposing of bodies that had piled up at the morgue within hours of the tragedy.

Ham radio operators made some of the biggest contributions to post-tsunami communication.

It was the radio of the Amateur Radio Society of India team from Chennai, on an expedition to the Andaman Islands, that crackled to life within two hours of the devastation, telling the world that Andaman till had life on it.

"Every other form of communication was down. The expedition equipment was the only link with the mainland Port Blair had for several hours," Gopal Madhavan, a member of the society's governing council, told the media here.

Every small effort has mattered in the last few days.

On Sunday, boatman M. Babu had just taken his first boatful of visitors to a bridge in the middle of the Muttukadu lake.

"One of the tourists wanted to take a picture of the kids in the boat and asked me to bend down. I looked up from a bent position and suddenly saw this huge wall of water. I began rowing south as fast as I could, away from the wall of water, but it hit our boat. The tourist family was terrified."

Babu managed to ferry them towards the backwaters, into the jetty of a private engineering college at the far end of the lake as the boathouse jetty was smashed.

Schools, colleges, universities have all begun a massive fund-raising effort.

Within hours, political parties like the MDMK had organised food. Young men in small vans whizzed in and out of the narrow kuppam lanes, doling out lemon rice and pickle wrapped in paper or banana leaf.

It was dry food, lemon working as a preservative for the rice, which immediately helped to pep up severely traumatised communities.

Free meal centres, which took less than four hours to spring up all along the long coastline, have helped sustain thousands of people more than anything else.

--Indo-Asian News Service

 

[linuxgeek]

src

Radio lifeline for stricken islands
JAYANTA GUPTA

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SUNDAY, JANUARY 02, 2005 11:11:54 PM ]

KOLKATA: It is sheer providence that a team from the National Institute of Amateur Radio was in the Andamans on an expedition when the Tsunami struck on December 26. And even more providential that Port Blair's first HAM radio station got operational on December 15 - the 1987 bar on amateur radio operators was lifted last year.

Within hours of the tragedy, two stations had been set up at Port Blair and one more at Car Nicobar. Conventional communication links between the islands and the mainland having been snapped, these amateur radiomen turned out to be the only hope for thousands of marooned survivors. Now, a direct control room has been set up in Kolkata which acts as a relay centre between the islands and the rest of the country. "It is easier to reach Kolkata by radio from the Andamans.

We are relaying messages for the administration and relief organisations, such as the International Red Cross. A number of personal requests are also coming in from people whose relatives are still missing. We are doing our best to locate them but it is very difficult to trace individuals as we lack the manpower and the means. We have succeeded in helping out only 15-20 per cent of those approaching us with such requests," admits Indranil Majumdar of the Calcutta VHS Amateur Radio Society.

However, they have managed to provide accurate information about the state of affairs on individual islands. "Many have asked us to find out about the situation on a particular island. We have been able to tell them whether that island has been affected or not," Mukherjee added. According to him, 14-15 amateur radiomen will be soon leaving Chennai for the Andamans to set up additional stations at Little Andamans and other islands.

 

[linuxgeek]

A quicky flash primer on how HF/shortwave radio signals propagate around the earth:

http://www.ae4rv.com/tn/propflash.htm

 

[linuxgeek]

src

"Angel of the Seas": Post-Tsunami News Coverage Raises Ham Radio's Global Visibility

NEWINGTON, CT, Jan 4, 2005--News coverage about Amateur Radio's role in the tsunami relief effort have been widespread and positive. High-profile articles in the past few days have appeared in The Washington Post and the Orlando Sentinel in the US as well as in several South Asian news sources, including The Times of India and The Hindu. Other media, including Agence France Presse, the Wall Street Journal and MSNBC, also have run reports on the value of Amateur Radio in helping to open lines of communication cut off when the earthquake and tsunami struck December 26.

"Once again Amateur Radio operators have proven the value of the service by providing critical communications when other systems were disabled or overwhelmed," observed ARRL Media and Public Relations Manager Allen Pitts, W1AGP. "The immediate, organized and heroic response of the ham community in the Indian Ocean rim not only alerted the world of the seriousness of the situation, but saved lives by allowing responding agencies to coordinate early efforts to minimize further casualties and damage."

A Sify News article December 31 referred to Andaman and Nicobar Islands DXpedition team leader Bharathi Prasad, VU2RBI/VU4RBI, as "Angel of the Seas" for her team's efforts in the disaster's immediate. The VU4RBI/VU4NRO DXpedition team in Port Blair on Andaman Island immediately shifted into emergency communication mode. Re-establishing an emergency-powered station outside their hotel, Prasad and others diligently operated around the clock to pass health-and-welfare messages from panicked residents and visitors in Port Blair. At times even dodging pieces of falling concrete to get the message through to the outside world.

"I did not expect a disaster like this," Sify News quoted the 46-year-old Prasad, a housewife and mother of two from New Delhi. "It is no longer a game, and now we must help." Although she has since returned to the Indian mainland, other Indian amateurs have traveled to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to carry on.

Pitts says Prasad's experience "is a true story that needs telling." Prasad was on the air from VU4RBI running DXpedition contacts when the earthquake struck. "Tremors!" she reportedly shrieked into the microphone before abruptly leaving the air and her fifth-floor hotel room.

"Many government agencies' past relationships with hams were swept aside when the Amateur Radio operators came to their aid," Pitts said. As several news reports noted, it took some convincing on the part of the Amateur Radio community before the Indian government agreed to let the National Institute of Amateur Radio-sponsored team operate in the Andamans. After the earthquake and tsunami, AFP said, "a grateful Indian army" supported Prasad's team with equipment and batteries.

The Washington Post article, "Wave of Destruction, Wave of Salvation," by correspondent Rama Lakshmi, told how Prasad reestablished contact with Indian mainland amateurs to let them--and the world--know what had happened and that the team members were all okay. "I immediately abandoned my expedition and told all radio operators [presumably those still trying to log VU4] to stop disturbing me," the Post account quotes her as saying. "I was only on emergency communication from then on." She subsequently offered her team's expertise to local government officials, some of whom didn't even know what ham radio was.

As a result, the Post reported, Prasad became so popular in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands that she was nicknamed the "Teresa of the Bay of Bengal," an oblique reference to the late Mother Teresa, a nun who devoted her life to aiding and comforting the poor of Calcutta.

DXpedition visitor Charly Harpole, K4VUD, was the focus of an Orlando Sentinel article January 1. While not a participant in the DXpedition nor in the subsequent emergency operation from the Andamans, Harpole was instrumental in filing e-mail reports to the worldwide amateur community--many via The Daily DX newsletter.

The Sentinel story recounts Harpole's experiences when the earthquake first hit. It later tells how the DXpedition's emergency radio setup allowed a waiter at the hotel to let his mother in Hyderabad know he was okay. "He told us the mother was crying with joy," the paper quoted Harpole as saying.

Harpole left Andaman Islands for Thailand, where his wife and her family were, and from there, as HS0ZCW, he has been relaying disaster-related traffic throughout Thailand, India and Sri Lanka. He's also continued to file reports via e-mail.

"Many islands were washed completely over from one side to the other," the Sentinel quoted Harpole. "I've seen horrible, horrible destruction. It's shocking beyond the telling." MSNBC carried a five-minute live audio interview with Harpole on January 3.

A December 30 article in The Hindu, "Hams Lend a Helping Hand," quotes Gopal Madhavan, VU3GMN, who told the paper that ham radio operators "were the only link from the Andamans to the mainland for several hours after the disaster."

Gopal said the DXpedition team--and amateurs in India--were "getting calls from all over the world from people who are worried about friends and relatives." The article also noted that hams in Sri Lanka have been assisting in that country's devastated east coast, with help from Indian hams. "Hams worldwide are getting involved," The Hindu quotes Gopal. "Everybody's offering aid. Everybody wants to help."

In Sri Lanka, Lanka Business Online reported December 29 in an article, "Sri Lanka Tsunami--Amateur Call," on Amateur Radio activities in that hard-hit nation, which also has been struggling with a civil war. Quoting Victor Goonetilleke, 4S7VK, president of the Radio Society of Sri Lanka (RSSL), the article noted how RSSL members Asantha Illesinghe, 4S7AK, Dimuthu Wickremesinghe, 4S7DZ and Kusal Epa, 4S7KE, operated a ham radio link between Hambantota and the prime minister's disaster management office and government offices in the stricken area.

The link was shut down after authorities managed to establish their own radio system. The article noted that a ham radio team was being sent to Tangalle to relay health-and-welfare traffic. "We can establish links," the article quotes Goonetilleke, "especially government offices do not have proper communications facilities.

In a message filed December 31 via The Daily DX, Harpole reflected similar observations. "Hams all over the affected area in multiple countries are stepping in and helping," he said. "It is a very gratifying international effort by hundreds of volunteer hams. I am proud of ham radio again today."


http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/01/04/2/VU4RBI-lrg.jpg
Before the earthquake: "Angel of the Seas" Bharati Prasad, VU4RBI, operates a ham radio demonstration at the Science Center near Port Blair, Andaman Island, on December 22 to introduce Amateur Radio to local navy cadets. Post-quake contact between Andaman and Nicobar islands is maintained by two groups of hams who participated in the DXpedition, who are relaying traffic to and from respective authorities and relief groups.

 

[linuxgeek]

src

Wave of Destruction, Wave of Salvation
Ham Radio Operator on a Chance Visit to a Remote Indian Island Becomes a Lifeline

By Rama Lakshmi
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, January 2, 2005; Page D01

PORT BLAIR, India -- About one month ago, Bharathi Prasad and her team of six young ham radio operators landed in this remote island capital with a hobbyist's dream: Set up a station and establish a new world record for global ham radio contacts. In the world of ham slang, it was called a "Dxpedition."

"It is a big honor to come to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and operate. There is no ham activity here because it is considered a very sensitive area by the Indian government," said Prasad, a 46-year-old mother of two from New Delhi.

In fact, the last ham activity in these scattered islands in the Bay of Bengal, 900 miles east of the Indian mainland, occurred in 1987, when Prasad set up a station in Port Blair and made 15,500 calls. "I had always wanted to come back and break that record," she said.

This time, Prasad set up an antenna in her hotel and turned Room 501 into a radio station. She made more than 1,000 contacts every day and said she operated "almost all day and all night, with just three hours of sleep."

In the early hours of Dec. 26, while the other hotel guests were fast asleep, Prasad's room was crackling with the usual squawks and beeps. At 6:29 a.m., she felt the first tremors of an earthquake. The tables in her room started shaking violently. She jumped up and shouted, "Tremors!" into her microphone. Then the radio went dead. She ran out and alerted the hotel staff and other guests.

But with that one word, she had alerted the world of radio hams, too.

Within a few hours, the extent of the damage was clear to everyone in Port Blair. But the tsunami had knocked out the power supply and telephone service of the entire archipelago of 500 islands, leaving the capital virtually cut off from the rest of India.

Undaunted, Prasad set up a temporary station on the hotel lawn with the help of a generator -- and put the city back on the ham radio map.

"I contacted Indian hams in other states and told them about what had happened. The whole world of radio hams were looking for us, because they had not heard from us after the tremors," she said later. "But I also knew this was going to be a big disaster. I immediately abandoned my expedition and told all radio operators to stop disturbing me. I was only on emergency communication from then on."

While news of the death and devastation caused by the tsunami in other parts of India was quickly transmitted around the world, the fate of the Andamans and Nicobars was slow to unfold.

Prasad kept broadcasting information about the situation to anyone who could hear her radio. Over and over, she repeated that there was no power, no water, no phone lines.

On Monday morning, she marched into the district commissioner's office and offered her services. "What is a ham?" he asked her. After she explained, he let her set up a radio station in his office, and a second one on Car Nicobar, the island hit hardest.

For the next two days, as the government grappled with the collapsed communication infrastructure, Prasad's ham call sign, VU2RBI, was the only link for thousands of Indians who were worried about their friends and families in the islands. She also became the hub for relief communications among officials.

"Survivors in Car Nicobar were communicating with their relatives in Port Blair through us," she said. When the phone lines were restored on Tuesday, Prasad's team in Car Nicobar radioed information about survivors to her team in Port Blair, whose members then called anxious relatives on the mainland to tell them that their loved ones were alive and well.

Prasad also helped 15 foreign tourists, including several from the United States, send news to their families. Offers of relief aid poured in from around the world through her radio, and she directed them to government officials. She also arranged for volunteer doctors to be sent from other Indian states.

Now she has become so popular in the islands, and in the ham world, that she said she has been affectionately nicknamed the "Teresa of the Bay of Bengal."

When the earthquake occurred, Prasad's worried husband called her from New Delhi and asked her to return home immediately.

"He reminded me that I have two children to look after back home," she said, laughing. "I told him that as a ham radio operator, I have a duty in times of disaster."

Under India's strict communications laws, a ham cannot leave home with his or her radio without going through an elaborate bureaucratic process to obtain permission from various ministries.

Prasad said that after her first expedition to Port Blair, she spent 17 years begging and badgering officials before she was allowed to return.

Now she hopes her work in the aftermath of the tsunami will ease the path for other hams in India.

"She looked like a simple housewife when she checked in," recalled Ravi Singh, the hotel manager in Port Blair. "But now I marvel at the courage she has shown."

 

[linuxgeek]

src

Delhi woman is Andaman's 'Angel of the Seas'
By Pratap Chakravarty in Port Blair
Friday, 31 December , 2004, 12:39

A Delhi woman in the Andaman islands has become the centre of a multi-nation effort by ham operators to unite thousands of families separated by the killer waves.

The Andamans account for about a third of India's reported death toll of 11,330 but thousands more are missing or have been separated from families in the archipelago's 572 islands because of massive damage to harbours, bridges and local ferry services.

A grateful Indian army is supporting 46-year-old Bharti Prasad with gear and batteries as the Delhi-based housewife has networked ham operators across the nations to reunite families and help in relief and rescue operations.

Ham radio buffs had not been permitted to operate in the Andamans since 1987 but the ban was lifted in November. Prasad was among the first to arrive to help establish a radio footrprint in the string of islands near Thailand.

"We arrived here on December 15 to support Andamans as a radio country ... Amatuer stations across the world wanted a footprint in these beautiful islands," Prasad told AFP in the capital of Port Blair.

"I did not expect a disaster like this. It is no longer a game and now we must help," Prasad said as her headset crackled with tsunami-related traffic from a high-frequency radio band spanning three megahertz to 30 megahertz.

"When the tidal waves struck, we just turned the beacon towards India and since then, we have been flooded with messages which we relay on local telephone lines," she said.

"Hams have also advertised in newspapers asking people to get in touch with us, and in that way, we are uniting families broken up by Sunday's waves," added Prasad. She has already handled around 30,000 emergency calls since disaster struck the tropical paradise.

"The only thing I am now afraid of is our telephone bill," said Prasad.

Mothers were separated from their children and husbands from their wives in the desperate scramble to escape the killer waves. Further chaos ensued when rescuers randomly plucked survivors from islands and sent them to special shelters.

"I thought I had lost my family but soon an official told me that he had received messages from a 'radio station' that all my relatives were safe in Port Blair," said survivor Roby Dey in the devastated island of Car Nicobar.

The "radio station" was none other than Prasad, a military rescuer said in Car Nicobar. Amateur stations in Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai are now linked with Prasad and the network is growing beyond Indian territory, said Suresh Babu, one of her five co-volunteers.

"Bharti, we are now on airnet. You take care. You are the Angel of the Seas. Without you out there, rescue will halt," a voice from Indonesia crackled in her hotel room, badly-damaged by Sunday's devastation.

Prasad and the other five ham operators now work round-the-clock from the hotel room where erratic power and water supplies have added to their difficulties.

"We are also helping the administration to streamline relief in Andamans as well as serving as a broadband listening post for stray SOS signals," said Prasad, a prominent member of the National Institute of Amateur Radio.

 

[Thunderbear]

That is the bees knees, right there.

I'm a professional radio op. USMC 0621.

Have a friend that's trying to talk me into getting licensed.

 

[linuxgeek]

That is the bees knees, right there.

I'm a professional radio op. USMC 0621.

Have a friend that's trying to talk me into getting licensed.

Doing radio operations professionally, you likely have all the background you need to do the technical requirements of the 3 levels of exams. If USMC is the Marine Corp, you likely have experience beyond the 5 words a minute morse code for the 2nd & 3rd level of licensing. Only thing I'd expect you may have to review are the FCC rules and regs specific to amateur radio. If you are not already invovled with MARS, it would be an addition to an amateur radio license for which you would find practical use.

 

[Thunderbear]

Without getting too far into the classified part of radio operations, we've gotten far away from morse code, as well as HF for the most part. The bandwidth allocation we [the military] has is primarily VHF. The few of us dinosaurs who know how HF works are getting fewer every day. That, and the HF toys we have can kill you real-quick-like-fast-in-a-hurry if you don't know what you're doing.

 

[linuxgeek]

Without getting too far into the classified part of radio operations, we've gotten far away from morse code, as well as HF for the most part. The bandwidth allocation we [the military] has is primarily VHF. The few of us dinosaurs who know how HF works are getting fewer every day. That, and the HF toys we have can kill you real-quick-like-fast-in-a-hurry if you don't know what you're doing.

Ah, if VHF is the primary, I suspect all distant communication is done via satellite. Do they have morse still part of the training? Even with the military equipment likely able to survive the EMP of a nuke, I would figure they would want a fall back for the worst case.


A side question... An AR club I am a member of has a Hy-gain antenna which is labeled as being originally produced as USMC equipment. By chance, if I got you the USMC model info of the antenna, would you have access to records on the technical specs? I don't recall a date on the carry/storage box, but I'm fairly sure the club has had the antenna since the late 80's.

 

[Thunderbear]

Shit, missed this.


If you can find me the correct nomenclature for the item, I can probably find you what you're looking for.


Hell, we're probably still using the damn things.

 

[linuxgeek]

ID plate has

AS-1898 /G
For General Radio Use
USMC
Manufactured By Hy-Gain Elect. Corp.
Contract Nom. 73242


On the side it has stenciled in

5983-00-999-0153
I EA
C/C F/W

 

[linuxgeek]

http://chantry.acs.ucf.edu/~mikep/lit/antenna1.jpg

http://chantry.acs.ucf.edu/~mikep/lit/antenna2.jpg
http://chantry.acs.ucf.edu/~mikep/lit/antenna3.jpg http://chantry.acs.ucf.edu/~mikep/lit/antenna4.jpg

 

[Thunderbear]

I was almost sure that it was going to be an AS 2259. Anyway, that is a bit before my time, but since you have most of the info, I'll give it a shot.


The AS-1898 is Antenna System, 1898 / Golf for probably the sixth or so incarnation of the original. The 5985etc is the NSN, or the number that would go on a 4 card to order a new one, and the 1 each means that that box is probably the only part in the antenna system.

I'll ask a buddy if the TMs are still available, but it may take me awhile.

 

[linuxgeek]

thanx

 

[linuxgeek]

http://www.arrl.org/news/images/ARRL-Flag-waving-th.gif

ARRL releases radio public service announcement (Jan 6, 2005) -- The ARRL has released a topical public service announcement (PSA) for use by radio stations. The 30-second PSA may be downloaded free from the League's Web site in either .wav or .mp3 formats. "Ham radio works when other communications don't," is its central message. Conceived, written and voiced by ARRL Media and Publications Manager Allen Pitts, W1AGP, the PSA focuses on Amateur Radio's role in emergency communication--including activity by South Asia amateurs in the wake of the devastating earthquake and tsunami. "It is directed at getting people who are community-minded to look into becoming hams," Pitts commented. He urged ARRL Public Information Coordinators and Officers to aid in distributing the announcement to broadcasters. The PSA invites anyone interested in becoming a radio amateur to contact ARRL via its toll-free number, 800-326-3942. For additional information contact Allen Pitts, W1AGP.

PSA in MP3 format

 

[linuxgeek]

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/01/07/3/Moon-th.jpgClub announces "Project Diana" special event (Jan 7, 2005) -- The Ocean Monmouth Amateur Radio Club (OMARC) in New Jersey will operate a special event station Saturday and Sunday, January 15-16, to commemorate "Project Diana," the first-ever successful moonbounce experiment conducted January 10, 1946, by the US Army Signal Corps. OMARC will operate N2MO on CW, SSB and possibly other modes in the General and Novice-Technician subbands of 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 meters. An article on the Project Diana accomplishment, "A DX Record: To the Moon and Back--How the Moon-Radar Feat was Accomplished," appeared in the April 1946 issue of QST. Special event QSL information and more on Project Diana is on the OMARC Web site

 

[linuxgeek]

Television Channel Frequencies

Channel	Frequency	Picture		Sound
Number	Limits {MHz}	Carrier {MHz}	Carrier {MHz}

1		(Not assigned)	
2	54 - 60 	55.25		59.75
3	60 -66 		61.25		65.75
4	66 - 72 	67.25		71.75
5	76 - 82 	77.25		81.75
  	  	  	  
6	82 - 88 	83.25		87.75
7	174 - 180 	175.25		179.75
8	180 - 186 	181.25		185.75
9	186 - 192 	187.25		191.75
10	192 - 198 	193.25		197.75
  	  	  	  	
11	198 - 204 	199.25		203.75
12	204 - 210 	205.25		209.75
13	210 - 216 	211.25		215.75
14	470 - 476 	471.25		475.75
15	476 - 482	477.25		481.75

16	482 - 488 	483.25		487.75
17	488 - 494 	489.25		493.75
18	494 - 500 	495.25		499.75
19	500 - 506 	501.25		505.75
20	506 - 512 	507.25		511.75
  	  	  	  
21	512 - 518 	513.25		517.75
22	518 - 524 	519.25		523.75
23	524 - 530 	525.25		529.75
24	530 - 536 	531.25		535.75
25	536 - 542 	537.25		541.75
  	  	  	  
26	542 - 548 	543.25		547.75
27	548 - 554 	549.25		553.75
28	554 - 560 	555.25		559.75
29	560 - 566 	561.25		565.75
30	566 - 572 	567.25		571.75
  	  	  	  
31	572 - 578 	573.25		577.75
32	578 - 584 	579.25		583.75
33	584 - 590 	585.25		589.75
34	590 - 596 	591.25		595.75
35	596 - 602 	597.25		601.75
  	  	  	  
36	602 - 608 	603.25		607.75
37	608 - 614 	609.25		613.75
38	614 - 620 	615.25		619.75
39	620 - 626 	621.25		625.75
40	626 - 632 	627.25		631.75
  	  	  	  
41	632 - 638 	633.25		637.75
42	638 - 644 	639.25		643.75
43	644 - 650 	645.25		649.75
44	650 - 656 	651.25		655.75
45	656 - 662 	657.25		661.75
  	  	  	  
46	662 - 668 	663.25		667.75
47	668 - 674 	669.25		673.75
48	674 - 680 	675.25		679.75
49	680 - 686 	681.25		685.75
50	686 - 692	687.25		691.75

51	692 - 698 	693.25		697.75
52	698 - 704 	699.25		703.75
53	704 - 710 	705.25		709.75
54	710 - 716 	711.25		715.75
55	716 - 722 	717.25		721.75
  	  	  	  
56	722 - 728 	723.25		727.75
57	728 - 734 	729.25		733.75
58	734 - 740 	735.25		739.75
59	740 - 746 	741.25		745.75
60	746 - 752 	747.25		751.75
  	  	  	  
61	752 - 758 	753.25		757.75
62	758 - 764 	759.25		763.75
63	764 - 770 	765.25		769.75
64	770 - 776 	771.25		775.75
65	776 - 782 	777.25		781.75
  	  	  	  
66	782 - 788 	783.25		787.75
67	788 - 794 	789.25		793.75
68	794 - 800 	795.25		799.75
69	800 - 806 	801.25		805.75
70	806 - 812 	807.25		811.75
  	  	  	  
71	812 - 818 	813.25		817.75
72	818 - 824 	819.25		823.75
73	824 - 830 	825.25		829.75
74	830 - 836 	831.25		835.75
75	836 - 842 	837.25		841.75
  	  	  	  
76	842 - 848 	843.25		847.75
77	848 - 854 	849.25		853.75
78	854 - 860 	855.25		859.75
79	860 - 866 	861.25		865.75
80	866 - 872 	867.25		871.75
  	  	  	  
81	872 - 878 	873.25		877.75
82	878 - 884 	879.25		883.75
83	884 - 890	885.25		889.75

 

[linuxgeek]

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Amateur Radio Praised as Lifeline in South Asia

NEWINGTON, CT, Jan 7, 2005--As the tsunami relief and recovery effort continues in South Asia, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has joined those paying tribute to Amateur Radio's ongoing emergency communication role. Director and Executive Vice Chairman S. Suri, VU2MY, of India's National Institute of Amateur Radio (NIAR), noted January 5 that the PM "was all praise for hams in India and the entire world who helped us in this hour of need." Suri said the administrator of hard-hit Car Nicobar Island has asked NIAR to keep on duty Rama Mohan, VU2MYH, and five other radio amateurs who have been providing communication with the island since shortly after the December 26 disaster.

"The district administration chief of Car Nicobar Island spoke to me this morning to say even now it is only the ham communication that is aiding them for relief and rehabilitation measures," Suri said in an e-mail to Jay Wilson, W0AIR, of the Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response Association (DERA) and shared with ARRL. Mohan, who had received DERA training in the US, was part of NIAR's VU4NRO/VU4RBI DXpedition to Andaman and Nicobar Islands. When the earthquake and tsunami struck the region, DXpedition team leader Bharathi Prasad, VU2RBI, promptly shifted the operation to handle emergency traffic and health-and-welfare inquiries between the island and the Indian mainland. More than 20 Indian radio amateurs are said to be involved in providing emergency communication support in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands--a location from which the Indian government had not allowed Amateur Radio operation for 17 years until the recent NIAR DXpedition.

In the disaster's immediate aftermath, Suri said, Mohan and other DXpedition team members risked their lives to alert the chief of administration on Andaman Island, since tsunami waves later overran the road they had traveled. An NIAR staff member, Jose Jacob, VU2JOS, has provided emergency communication from another remote island, Hutbay. For the first nine days after the disaster, only the NIAR team was assisting, until other amateurs from the mainland were able to reach the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Bharathi Prasad reported via Tony Waltham, HS0ZDX, that the VU4NRO/VU4RBI logs are safe and at the NIAR headquarters in Hyderabad. QSLing will commence once the emergency operation in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands concludes. DXer Charly Harpole, K4VUD/HS0ZCW, now near Bangkok, Thailand, told The Daily DX that QSL cards already are showing up at NIAR.

Harpole, who was visiting the DXpedition in Port Blair on Andaman Island when the earthquake and tsunami hit, has since been helping to handle emergency traffic from Thailand, where his wife's family lives. "The DXpedition and the emergency seem to have energized VU hams all over," he said in an e-mail made available by Carl Smith, N4AA, who edits QRZ DX. "I have been listening to the traffic from VU4 back to the India mainland, and by now it is smooth as silk with lots of H&W and some government messages running almost constantly."

Harpole advised amateurs worldwide to avoid the primary emergency traffic frequency of 14.190 MHz.

"The military and government are partners now with these hams," Harpole observed, noting that hams from India have been deployed throughout the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

In Thailand, he reports, hams have been using mostly 2 meters for their emergency traffic "and doing a huge job." Harpole said he's heard very little from Bangladesh, and nothing from Sumatra and Burma (Myanmar), "which may tell us something," he added. The earthquake's epicenter was some 100 miles off Sumatra, which is part of Indonesia.

Just three days after the calamitous tsunami, Radio Society of Sri Lanka (RSSL) President Victor Goonetilleke, 4S7VK, declared that "uncomplicated short wave" radio had saved lives.

"Ham radio played an important part and will continue to do so," he said in an e-mail relayed to ARRL. Goonetilleke said Sri Lanka's prime minister had no contact with the outside world until Amateur Radio operators stepped in. "Our control center was inside the prime minister's official house in his operational room," he recounted. "[This] will show how they valued our services."

Ironically, Mohan's emergency operation marked the very first Amateur Radio operation from Nicobar Island. "Mohan's signals were extremely weak, and he was in the skip zone of the Andaman stations on 20 meters," said Horey Majumdar, VU2HFR, in Calcutta, shortly after the disaster. "Improvisation was the name of the game. Hams had to switch to good old CW and switch frequencies from 14.190 and 14.160 MHz to 7.090 MHz." Majumdar said hams from Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Israel and elsewhere "have been checking into the VU emergency nets and extending their fullest cooperation in the truest spirit of Amateur Radio."

According to the latest estimate, more than 150,000 people died as a result of the tsunami, about one-third of them children. Many others are still unaccounted for, and health workers in the affected countries now fear disease will raise the toll substantially.

Although the US does not have third-party traffic agreements with any of the countries affected by the disaster, international emergency and disaster relief communications are permitted unless otherwise provided. While FCC Part 97 has not yet been updated to reflect revisions to third-party traffic rules at World Radiocommunication Conference 2003, ARRL understands from FCC staff that if the government agencies responsible for the Amateur Service in affected countries do not object to their amateur stations receiving messages from US amateur stations on behalf of third parties, the US has no objection to its amateur stations transmitting international communications in support of the disaster.

 

[linuxgeek]

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Ham operators keep communication lines open

By Sarah Barnes
Staff Reporter

CONYERS — When disasters strike, a number of reactions and responses go into play among those trying to help.

Medical professionals communicate back and forth about the number of staff needed and what areas need to be served. Law enforcement officials communicate about possible looting, traffic issues or dangerous areas that need to be closed off to civilians. Emergency volunteers cooperate on where to go, what supplies are needed and how to disperse those supplies. For all those groups, communication is key.

However, what if all lines of communication are down? Telephone lines cut, power lines down, Internet access disconnected. Enter amateur radio operators. Commonly referred to as Hams, these technicians are an elite group of radio experts able to access frequencies well beyond local ranges, and hence facilitate communications during times of disaster.

Tim Rosing is the contact person for one local Ham group called ARES (American Radio Emergency Service), which often works with the city of Conyers and Rockdale County during times of disaster.

Rosing described how Hams work: “The federal government has given us space on the radio and we don’t have as many restrictions as a lot of other groups,” Rosing said. “We can get out there and experiment, and that’s a lot of what the hobby is about. On the other side of it, we recognize that it’s a benefit to the community. Part of our license is that we are allowed to use the radio for public community operations at no charge. So we volunteer our equipment to different groups that need our support.”

There are hundreds of thousands of Hams worldwide who organize themselves on the local level through clubs. Hams are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, and through their groups are largely self regulated. The clubs test incoming members so they can be licensed in one of three classes: beginner, general and advanced. Hams also police their radio frequencies, discouraging frivolous uses. For instance, in the recent tsunami disaster, Rosing said many local Hams would not tap into communications in South Asia for fear of complicating messages or taking up frequency space.
“The priority lies in the stations that are at the disaster,” Rosing said. “They call the shots, and it’s best for outside Hams to stay out of the way, unless we are called for help.”

However, in the case that help was needed, local groups can communicate worldwide. Through the use of satellites and other technology, Hams can reach just about anywhere, depending on the frequencies they are licensed to access. This range allows Hams to meet some interesting characters that are also plugged in. Rosing said that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was a Ham, as well as country music singer Patty Loveless.

“You never know who you are going to talk to,” Rosing said.

In Rockdale County, Hams got to test their disaster preparedness last May. Residents should have no problem recalling the infamous BioLab fire, and subsequent evacuations within Conyers. This was a massive effort considering the town’s population of roughly 10,000 residents, many of whom are elderly or reside in nursing homes.

David Wagner, a recent convert to Ham Radio and member of the ARES group was called in during the fire. He recalled how the group set up stations at Heritage High School and J.H. House elementary, to communicate back and forth with the Conyers 911 center.
And while the disaster was ultimately well managed with few injuries, at the time, Wagner said emotions were high. With nursing home residents and many elderly being sent to the schools, officials worried about how the groups would cope. The ARES group was critical for keeping emergency responders abreast of the situation on the ground level.

Sgt. Jody Shupe, spokeswoman for the Rockdale County Sheriffs Office, appreciates the contribution of local Hams. She works with many of the operators through the county’s Citizen’s Sheriff’s Academy, a program that allows citizens to train and serve as volunteers with the sheriff’s department.

Many local Hams have completed the program and are on call through its alumni roster, as well as through their Ham affiliation.

“It’s very good to have these guys in the community, the main reason being they have access to a satellite system,” Shupe said. “Our radio system works on certain channels and in the event of a disaster that might go down, and Ham can go through their networks and pick up more frequencies. It’s a great service.”

And Carolyn Hunter, director of the county’s 911 center, says the possibility for Hams helping out is endless. She notes that President George Bush has created initiatives where Hams can be incorporated into homeland security efforts. This includes paying for Hams to complete courses on emergency preparedness, foremost through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

[rjohns86us]

rocksdale County

I just wanted to add that Rockdale is a neighboring County, and I want to add my thanks to Jody for all the work she does. This a fine example of cooperation between volunteers and County government.
During the Bio-Lab incident, amateur radio operators worked for more than two days and it is great to see their work recognized. This is just one of many such groups around this country giving their time and equiopment to serve their communities.









"Sgt. Jody Shupe, spokeswoman for the Rockdale County Sheriffs Office, appreciates the contribution of local Hams. She works with many of the operators through the county’s Citizen’s Sheriff’s Academy, a program that allows citizens to train and serve as volunteers with the sheriff’s department."

 

[linuxgeek]

New World Record, 13 Million Miles per Watt

Bill Tippett, W4ZV, of New London, NC correctly copied code word OMAHA from the N2XE beacon transmitting with a peak carrier power of .0000406 watts at 3.5455 MHz on the 80 meter Amateur Radio band. Bill confirmed reception of the beacon at 2328Z, January 2, 2005. The precise distance between the two stations is 546.8 miles, establishing Bill's record reception distance at 13,467,980 miles per watt. Tippett used a Ten Tec Orion Transceiver with a 1000 foot Beverage antenna (named after Dr. Harold Beverage who invented it in the 1920s).

The N2XE beacon transmits from an Elecraft K1 (heavily attenuated) using an 80 meter off-center fed dipole, 45 feet AGL (above ground level). The beacon peak carrier output was measured using an Agilent 8563EC Spectrum Analyzer at 40.6 uW (40 millionths of a watt). The beacon transmits a unique code word each evening. Receiving stations are required to correctly copy the code word in their report. The word is published the following morning.

The N2XE Beacon Project was started in December, 2004 by Paul Stroud, AA4XX, Raleigh, NC and John Ceccherelli, N2XE, Wappingers Falls, NY with the goal of having a little fun and to go where no diminutive signal has gone before. Beacon times and frequencies are posted daily on the QRP-L reflector www.kkn.net/archives/html/QRP-L. Tests will continue on 160, 80 and 40 meters through the end of February 2005.

Commenting on his remarkable success, Bill said "I've spent 25 years on 80 & 160 listening to below noise level signals. There are at least three factors to this stuff: Antennas with good signal to noise like Beverages, a good receiver and the knowledge to use it and an operator with good ears and knowledge of propagation--not to mention patience and persistence."

Beacon station operator John Ceccherelli, N2XE, seemed more exited than Tippett about the achievement, even though it requires almost no effort on his part. "Hey, I have to flip the switch, grab a beer and go watch TV—that’s effort" he's reported saying, adding “I’m thrilled the record was set by an all-American team using all-American equipment.” The Ten Tec receiver is manufactured in Severville, TN and the Elecraft transmitter is produced in California and offered as a kit

 

[Thunderbear]

How does that guy have an AA4? I thought NC was W4XXX?

 

[linuxgeek]

How does that guy have an AA4? I thought NC was W4XXX?

States are divided up in zones 0 through 9. The letter prefixes for the US as I know them are AA-AL,K,N,WA-WZ.


This link has the specifics for the US and the rest of the world. It isn't the most readable, unfortunately.

http://www.ac6v.com/prefixes.htm

Also, with the FCC allowing vanity calls, the zone number doesn't mean as much as it use to.

 

[Thunderbear]

So the WXXX , KXX and NXX are expansion signs?