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This archive for 2006 lists the past items of interest to the general amateur radio community in Hawaii.


Hams respond to Kiholo Earthquake

October 16, 2006

Amateur radio operators responded to the needs around the Kona Coast area following the magnitude 6.7 earthquake. ARES and RACES operators responded to State and Oahu Civil Defense. See: Kiholo Quake

www.arrl.org

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A PORTABLE AM/FM RADIO WITH EXTRA BATTERIES, OR ONE THAT HAS AN INTERNAL HAND-CRANKED GENERATOR!

See: www.arrl.org

A reminder: Being prepared is a personal responsibility. Being aware of emergency response and recovery procedures before an incident is also a personal responsibility.

A second reminder: During an emergency, emergency responders use the regular phone lines to activate and coordinate a response, especially between agencies. Nothing is more frustrating to a responder than to get no open phone lines, busy cell phone networks and busy signals -- it slows down their response. So do yourself a favor and keep the phone lines clear! Make ONE call to a relative on the mainland, let them know you're okay, and tell them to call the other relatives on the mainland. That frees up the phone lines for local emergency response.

A third reminder: At the exact moment a disaster occurs, assume everything is broken. What the responders are doing is building a response. If things are working, that's one less headache and the response is one step closer. If its broken, it'll be fixed in priority order. If people, equipment or materials need to be moved as part of that response, especially from a warehouse or staging center to the scene of the response, recognize that it takes some time. In the meantime, improvise.

The ISS page is updated

September 29, 2006

Another web page featuring contacting the ISS (International Space Station) has been added. Click on this link.

The ISS page is updated

September 16, 2006

The web page featuring contacting the ISS (International Space Station) has been updated. Click on this link.

The Hawaii Net page is up

September 16, 2006

The web page featuring radio nets in Hawaii is now available. Click on this link.

D-STAR Digital Voice Contact -- Oahu to Maui

August 10, 2006

KH6DT and AH6RH established a Hawaii terrestrial record for digital voice contact using Icom ID-1 D-STAR radios on Thursday, August 10, 2006 at 6:31 pm between Oahu and Maui. Analog voice contact quality was fair, with lots of background noise. The digital voice contact was very clear, but had the "Donald Duck" characteristic and artifact of Icom's D-STAR digital voice quality.

D-STAR Digital Voice Contact on Maui

July 30, 2006

KH6DT and AH6RH established digital voice contact using Icom ID-1 D-STAR radios on Saturday, July 29, 2006 at 7:08 pm. Analog voice contact quality was fair, with background "sizzing bacon" noise. Digital voice contact tended to be either (a) very clear, or (b) non-existent, depending on whether there was sufficient S+N/N to provide a digital voice contact.

The ISS and Getting Started in Ham Radio pages are up

July 12, 2006

A web page featuring contacting the ISS (International Space Station) is now available. Click on this link.

A web page featuring getting started in amateur radio is now available. Click on this link.

The APRS page is up

June 28, 2006

The web page featuring APRS in Hawaii is now available. Click on this link.

Page layout fixed!

June 28, 2006

Many thanks to Ernie Burnett for suggesting the code modification to make this page appear the way it was intended.

ISS Cross-band Repeater QSOs, Sat June 24, 2006

June 24, 2006

Four way QSO with Bev AH6NF (at the KH6J Field Day site at Kualoa Beach Park, NW side of Oahu), Dean KH6DT (Wailuku, Maui), Ray NH6RZ (Mililani, Oahu), and Ron AH6RH (Ala Moana, Oahu). 85 degree descending pass to the west. Total pass time was 9 minutes, 16 seconds starting at 13:04:57.

Click here to play the video file.

Total access time was 2 minutes 21 seconds from 03:09:11z to 03:11:32z. All stations were within a circle of diameter of about 120 miles. The north most station, AH6NF was the first on. The east most station, KH6DT was the second and the last on. NH6RZ was running 4 watts. AH6RH was running 10 watts at BL11bg.

Brief exchanges of callsigns and sig reports (59s) were done. The contacts tended to be unstable, with the sigs good for perhaps 2-3 seconds at certain moments, and other moments it would cut-off in the middle of the exchange. Not very good link quality for extended ragchew QSOs as experienced with the earlier 03:24z pass.

Attempts were made to compensate for doppler. In this event, access occurred on 437.800, and shifting freq to 437.805 extended the usability of the end of the pass about 10-15 seconds.

I was surprised that attempts to shift down 10 and 5 khz for doppler in the first half of the pass didn't seem to have material effect. Your access time and link quality into the repeater may vary.

Remaining crossband repeater passes for Saturday are at 4:13:58 pm HST 10 degree pass and 5:48:07 pm HST 22 degreee pass. Sunday passes are 1:53:15 am HST 10 degrees and 3:28:20 am HST 15 degrees.

ISS Cross-band Repeater QSOs, Fri June 23, 2006

June 23, 2006

Kyle WH6BIE, Dean KH6DT and Ron AH6RH held a three-way QSO via the ISS UHF/VHF Cross-band repeater. The QSO occured at 5:26 pm HST, Fri June 23, 2006 on a 55 degree ascending pass to the east. The usable passtime was 1 minute, 40 seconds.

Kyle used a Yaesu FT-50rd for the uplink and FT-2800M 5/8 monoband mobile vertical on a bicycle for the downlink. Dean used an Icom IC-2720. Ron used a Kenwood TM-D700 at 10 watts and 1/4 wave verticals mounted on the car.

Click here to play the video file.

At 7:04 pm HST, Fri June 23, 2006 a 5 degree ascending pass to the wast was measured. The usable passtime was 15 seconds.

Station used was a Kenwood TM-D700 running 10 watts into a trunk-lid 1/4 wave UHF antenna. No attempt was made for doppler frequency correction on these measurements.

ISS Cross-band Repeater operational

June 22, 2006

The cross-band repeater on the International Space Station is operational from now until sometime Sunday, June 25, 2006. Don't miss this opportunity to operate this rare mode. You transmit on 437.800 Mhz, and receive on 145.800 Mhz.

The list of times of the passes over Honolulu in HST is here. Click on this link.

For realtime news, see http://www.issfanclub.com

State-wide VHF Repeater linking operational

June 10, 2006

The linking for the State-wide VHF repeater system is operational again. Many thanks to Robin, AH6CP for his efforts.

First Three-way 1.2 Ghz Simplex QSO

June 3, 2006

First three-way QSO over 1.2 Ghz was done on Saturday, June 3, 2006 between 8:36 and 9:00 pm between Rick KH7O, Toby KH7FR and Ron AH6RH. Stations were running 10 watts into gain antennas between 9 dB and 14 dB gain. None of these stations have line-of-sight on 2m or 440 UHF.

Museum Ships Weekend

June 03, 2006

Operated Radio Central onboard the USS Missouri, BB-63, as part of Museum Ships Weekend. 20 meters and 17 meters began to warm up about 2:00 pm local time, was still going strong with some mean QSB when I had to leave at 5:00 pm local. We were averaging about one QSO per minute on each band.

Station 1 was a Kenwood TS-450S with an amp running 600 watts into a vertical on 20m. Station 2 was a Kenwood TS-450S with an amp running 400 watts into a vertical on 17m. See photos at http://www.kh6bb.org

Was great to hook up to Al, KH6ILR/3 in Washington, D.C. on 17 meters. Many thanks to Ned, KH7JJ, for an absolutely wonderful day!

First IP connection using Icom ID-1s

May 29, 2006

First digital data exchange over 1.2 Ghz using Icom ID-1 radios was done on Sunday, May 28, 2006 at 8:51 pm. Web access and e-mail operations were transparent. This paves the way to further assessment for using the ID-1 as a rapid means of deploying Internet connectivity to disaster scenes. See ID-1 IP programming notes on how to program the radio for simplex IP operations.

Differences in Internet Explorer and Netscape/Mozilla

May 29, 2006

Still working (slowly) in solving the formatting problem caused by the differences in the way Internet Explorer and Netscape/Mozilla handles CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

Map of APRS Stations in Hawaii

May 12, 2006

A feature of amateur radio called APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) allows amateur radio operators to track vehicles and exchange instant messages using amateur radio and the Internet. This map displays recent activity on Oahu.

Hawaii Hall of Fame - KH6IJ

May 1, 2006

A new web page featuring Katashi Nose, KH6IJ is available.
http://www.qsl.net/ah6rh/am-radio/hof/kh6ij.html

QSO with Bill, KC5ACR on Saturday, April 1, 2006 3:01 am HST

April 12, 2006

Ron, AH6RH and KH6DT made a QSO with Bill on a 16 degree ascending pass east of Oahu. Ron secured a UHF two-way contact.

QSO with Bill, KC5ACR on Thursday, March 30, 2006 3:50 am HST

April 12, 2006

Dean, KH6DT made a QSO with Bill on a 18 degree ascending pass east of Maui.

QSO with Bill, KC5ACR on Sunday, March 26, 2006 6:58:23 - 7:05:16: am HST

April 12, 2006

Three stations made contact with Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, on the 17 degree pass west of Oahu. Ran 1/2-wave vertical mag mount in the center of the roof.

  • 16:57:23 Acquisition of signal.
  • 16:57:23 - 17:01:05 Maritime Mobile
  • 17:00:22 - 17:00:41 AH6RH, Ron
  • 17:00:46 - 17:03:58 NH6PU, Pat
  • 17:03:58 - 17:04:41 KH6DT, Dean
  • 17:04:56 - 17:05:11 Called for AH7E
  • 17:05:16 End of Pass

QSO with Bill, KC5ACR on Saturday, March 25, 2006 6:32:35 - 6:42:20 am HST

April 12, 2006

Six stations made contact with Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, in nine minutes, 45 seconds on the 81 degree pass between Oahu and Molokai. Ran Arrow Antenna beam.

  • 16:32:35 Acquisition of signal.
  • 16:32:35 - 16:35:05 W0CXX, Maritime Mobile
  • 16:35:06 KH6DT, Dean
  • 16:37:10 - 16:37:20 AH6RH, Ron
  • 16:37:49 AH6SH, Michael
  • 16:38:38 G3SEA, Paul
  • 16:39:22 NH7NM, Ed
  • 16:40:10 - 16:40:56 AH6RH
  • 16:41:02 Loss Of Signal over the Koolau Mountain Range
  • 16:41:xx NH6RZ
  • 16:42:20 End of Pass

Alert links have moved

April 1, 2006, updated March 27, 2009

The links to web pages containing alert information for Hawaii has moved to a separate web page as of April 1, 2006, then again on March 27, 2009. The new location is:

http://www.qsl.net/ah6rh/alert/

Two-way radio contact made with the ISS Space Station!

March 5, 2006

Seventeen hams across Hawaii made two-way radio contact with the International Space Station on March 5, 2006.

Watch the video: Two-way contact with Bill McArthur, KC5ACR

Six stations checked into the 147.06 Mhz net just prior to the pass. An additional five stations were at Waikiki.

Seventeen stations made contact with Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, in eight minutes, 51 seconds on the 19 degree pass.

With Bill's schedule, he may be on Friday night 8:00 pm to Saturday noon HST, and also Saturday night 8:00 pm to Sunday noon HST. Sunday UTC (Saturday night to Sunday noon) is his day off, so there is a better chance of contact.

Bill returns to earth at the end of March. Now is a good time to prepare for any future operation. Let's see if we can triple the number of contacts per pass by practicing NOW.

  • Program your radio's offset for -1.31 Mhz (Don't forget the negative offset).
  • Tune to receive on 145.80
  • Test that the transmit freq is 144.49
  • Do not transmit on 145.80. Bill is not listening on 145.80.
  • Listen for Bill to complete his acknowledgement of the previous station.
  • Call Bill with your callsign phonetically, and say "59".
  • Listen for Bill to acknowledge you with your callsign and "59".
  • 11:08:31 AH6RH Acquisition of signal.
  • 11:09:07 AH7E
  • 11:09:33 KH6W
  • 11:09:55 KH7GN
  • 11:10:19 KH6CQ
  • 11:11:01 NH6RZ
  • 11:11:12 NH7L
  • 11:11:23 NH6RZ
  • 11:11:45 NH6RZ
  • 11:12:20 AH6NM
  • 11:12:38 AH6DT (KH6DT)
  • 11:12:51 AH6NF
  • 11:13:02 AH6DT (KH6DT) QSL?
  • 11:13:51 AH6RH Query on crossband repeater operations
  • 11:14:23 AH6DT (KH6DT)
  • 11:14:55 KH7FR
  • 11:15:20 NH7XQ
  • 11:15:33 WH6GS
  • 11:15:58 WH7O
  • 11:16:14 AH6J
  • 11:16:36 WH6FC
  • 11:16:58-11:17:09 AH6RH Loss of signal.

Get ready for SuitSat -- February 3, 2006 12:20 pm HST

Feb 2006

The astronauts on the International Space Station will be releasing the first-of-its-kind satellite made from a discarded spacesuit.

See: January 26 NASA article.

To track the space suit: www.suitsat.org

To track the space station: www.issfanclub.com

Find out more by contacting:  rhashiro(remove this part)@hawaiiantel.net
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