March 2001
Central Illinois Radio Club
P.O. Box 993
Bloomington, IL 61702-0993
President: Rick Kempf, WD9HRU
309-828-8054
Vice President: Larry Mays, KB9NPH
309-827-8183
Secretary: Dean Lacy, AA9BS
309-452-4309
Treasurer: Floyd Hofmann, W9EX
309-452-3612
Newsletter Editor: Norman Huber, N9ZKS
309-378-4674
The CIRC is a not-for-profit ARRL special service club
whose purpose is
to advance the service of Amateur Radio. Located
in Central Illinois,
CIRC and its members welcome all to use the 146.94 repeater
and to
attend club meetings.
Submissions for the newsletter must be received by the
10th of the month
and may be snail or e-mailed to the editor at:
Norm Huber
19268 E. US Hwy 150
Bloomington, IL 61704-5855
e-mail n9zks@earthlink.net
Permission is granted to Amateur Radio-related organizations
to
reproduce contents of Short CIRCuits provided full credit
is given.
***** MARCH PREZ COLUMN
QST all CIRC members and other interested Hams.
Now that spring is upon us. Its time to consider
that antenna work,
that was postponed until warm weather. With the
coming of spring, we
are entering severe storm season. The March meeting
program will about
ARES Net operation. This can be applied to net
operation, wither its
during a disaster or weather watch.
The direction finding antennas have been completed and
have tuned for
minimum SWR. They will be available for pick-up.
Practice DFing at
home on a known transmitter to get the feel for DFing.
"Shoot" the same
transmitter from three locations and plot the DF lines
to see if they
cross at the known transmitter location.
Hope to see a big turn-out at the meeting. 73's
Rick Kempf, WD9HRU
Calendar of Events
Weekly 2 Meter Net
Every Tuesday evening on the
146.940-146.340 repeater at
9:00 p.m.
10/10 Breakfast
First Saturday
of every month at 8 a.m. Baker's Square, Vernon & Vets
(Just south of College Hills Mall)
CIRC Meeting
Fourth Wednesday
of the month at 7:30 p.m. at the Red Cross building in
Bloomington (Just north of the airport).
**** CLUB PROJECT PROTOTYPE FOX HUNT YAGI
The antennas are complete!
A group of our members gathered at Dean's garage and had
a great time
setting up the assembly line and creating 20 fox hunting
antennas. The
first session was Saturday 10 March. It turned out to
be an ideal day
for the project, as it was warm enough to work in the
sun. As the
afternoon ended the crew had created most of the parts.
There was a
problem encountered in trying to solder dissimilar metals
and Floyd took
that problem home for study. You quickly find out why
the commercial
companies have the advantage with their spot welding
units, access to
material and large shops full of equipment. I believe
we all learned
something. Dean taught us that the answer to reproducibility
is to build
a jig. His drilling rig and driven element-forming jig
probably saved
hours in tuning time.
The crew reassembled on Tuesday the 13th and completed
the assembly of
the antennas. They are now ready for pickup at the meeting
Wednesday.
Get ready, for a fun fox-hunting season. It should be
great.
Our thanks to the following members:
Floyd - W9EX
Rick - WD9HRU
Mitch - KB9PXL
Dean - AA9BS
Kyle - KG9IW
Jim - KB9UWA
Norm - N9ZKS
****** LATE BREAKING NEWS
ESDA just announced the Spring Weather Watch training
is on
March 27th at 7 pm
--
Larry M. Keeran K9ORP - k9orp@arrl.net - Life ARRL -
past SCM-IL
EC McLean County - Pres QCWA Chap 59 - Life QCWA
***** BLOOMINGTON EXAM DATES
Following is the schedule for W5YI-VEC Amateur Radio
exams for the year
2001 at the Bloomington Public Library. Setup is from
Noon to 1:30
normally. Exams begin as listed. Questions may
be directed to Keith
Hanson.
Please bring two forms of identification. You must have
your Social
Security Number. We can not administer a test without
SSN. You will need
a copy of your Current license plus any CSCE you want
to apply.
Bloomington Public Library
205 E. Olive
Bloomington, IL 61701
Remaining dates for the year 2001 (Walk-ins are welcome)
May 12
\Jul 21
Nov 10
Keith, AC9S, is heading the testing.
****** MORTON EXAM DATES
Following is the schedule for W5YI-VEC Amateur Radio
exams for the year
2001 at the Morton Public Library. Setup is from 11 to
Noon. Exams begin
at noon but registration is typically from 11:45 to 12:30.
Questions
may be directed to Bob Davis (AA9MY) at 309-263-8620
(Day) or email to
redavis@dpc.net
Please bring two forms of identification. You must have
Social Security
Number. We can not administer a test without SSN. You
will need a copy
of your
Current license plus any CSCE you want to apply.
Morton Public Library
315 W. Pershing
Morton, IL 61550
Remaining dates for the year 2001 (Walk-ins are welcome)
Apr 21
Jun 16
Sep 16 (Peoria Superfest)
Oct 20
Dec 15
There will be VE testing at the Peoria SuperFest on Sunday
September 16,
2001
Testing at the Fest will begin at 10:00 A.M. Walk-ins
are welcome.
***** Boing-Boing
"Boing-Boing" Intruder Moves Off 12 Meters: Some said
it sounded like a
squeaky spring; others said it sounded like marching.
However one's ears
interpreted the recent intruder on the 12 meter amateur
band, it was
gone by Monday, March 19, thanks to successful direction-finding,
identification and diplomatic efforts by the FCC. Acting
on numerous
amateur reports--including one from ARRL President Jim
Haynie,
W5JBP--the FCC agreed to utilize its HF direction-finding
facility in
Columbia, Maryland, to locate the source of the periodic,
broadband
transmission. The HFDF facility isolated the transmissions
to Honduras.
It also promptly identified the transmissions as Coastal
Ocean Dynamics
Applications Radar (CODAR), an ocean current-mapping
technology used in
meteorological and commercial applications. A quick phone
call and
e-mail to the provider of the CODAR equipment at the
Honduras site set
the wheels in motion to make the signals disappear from
12 meters. "As
is often the case in many intrusions, the operator dialed
in the wrong
frequency," said Brennan Price, N4QX, administrator of
the ARRL
Monitoring System. "Fortunately, the equipment provider
and operator of
the CODAR equipment were very cooperative and wanted
to do the right
thing. We appreciate their efforts."
>From the ARRL Leter
***** HAM RADIO AIDS HIGH SEAS RESCUE
Taken from ARRL Web letter.
Amateur Radio operators assisted in a high seas rescue
operation after
pirates attacked a private sailing vessel March 20 off
Venezuela. The
as-yet-unidentified skipper reportedly was shot, and
his wife summoned
help via the Maritime Mobile Service Net on 20 meters.
The victim was
reported to be recovering in a Trinidad hospital.
The incident in the Caribbean occurred some 3200 km east-southeast
of a
similar pirate attack nearly a year ago. In that incident
armed
marauders shot young Willem van Tuijl from the Netherlands,
who was
sailing with his parents.
According to Coast Guard Lt. Jose Diaz, KP3J, of the Rescue
Coordination
Center in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the 44-foot ketch Lorna,
of Swedish
registry, was enroute to Trinidad and Tobago when pirates
attacked some
three nautical miles offshore. The husband was shot once
in the abdomen.
The pirates destroyed the VHF radio, so the woman activated
an emergency
locator transmitter (ELT). The San Juan Rescue Coordination
Center
received ELT ''hits'' from the Lorna and notified Venezuelan
authorities.
Word arrived at Miami Coast Guard some 90 minutes later
from the
Maritime Mobile Service Net's Mike Pilgrim, K5MP, of
a distress call
from the Lorna on 14.300 MHz. Miami Coast Guard forwarded
the
information to the San Juan rescue center. Diaz tuned
to 14.300, where
Bobby Graves, KB5HAV, Dave Dalziel, N4ICE, and Jim Hirschman,
K4TCV--a
physician who had assisted in the van Tuijl pirate attack
last
year--already had activated an emergency net. An amateur
in Trinidad,
Eric Mackie, 9Z4CP, also assisted in communications.
Among those standing by on frequency were Ed Petzolt,
K1LNC, in Florida,
and Hector Godoy, HR3HGB, in Honduras, both of whom were
instrumental in
the van Tuijl rescue operation a year ago. The amateurs
on 20 meters
were able to calm the woman aboard the sailboat and provide
medical
counseling.
Diaz got permission from Venezuela to allow a vessel from
Trinidad to
assist, and a Venezuelan Navy vessel arrived on scene
simultaneously
with a Trinidad Coast Guard fast boat, with medical personnel.
Trinidad
medical personnel and crew took control of the sailboat
from the shaken
and exhausted victim's wife.
High seas made it too risky to move the victim. Instead,
the Swedish
sailboat continued on to Trinidad escorted by the Venezuelan
Navy vessel
and the Trinidad CG cutter.
Diaz credited amateurs with doing ''a tremendous job''
in helping to
keep the injured man's wife calm and to relay information
for the US
Coast Guard to her and for maintaining order on frequency.
***** ISS EXPEDITION 2 CREW TRIES OUT HAM GEAR; SCHOOL QSOS SET
Expedition 2 crew member Susan Helms, KC7NHZ, had barely
settled in
aboard the International Space Station when she apparently
felt the urge
to do a little hamming. Helms, who traveled to the ISS
last week aboard
the shuttle Discovery with crewmates Yury Usachev, UA9AD--the
Expedition
2 commander--and fellow US astronaut Jim Voss--worked
a couple of US
stations March 18 and 19 and was monitored by another
in Australia.
The ham who had snagged the first-ever casual ham contact
with the
ISS--Randy Shriver, KG3N, of Hanover, Pennsylvania--got
lucky again with
the Expedition 2 crew. Shriver heard Helms calling CQ
early on the
morning of March 18 and gave her a call. "Using NA1SS
she came back to
me," he reports. "I was able to talk to her for 45 seconds."
On November
13, Shriver worked Expedition 1 crew commander William
Shepherd, KD5GSL.
Samuel Danner, N3MPE, of Smithsburg, Maryland, had his
police scanner
set to a ISS 2-meter downlink frequency on the off chance
he might hear
something--and he did. Danner reports he wasn't prepared
for the shock
of hearing Helms' voice calling CQ. Danner says he ran
out to his car,
equipped with a scanner programmed with ISS frequencies,
to listen
further. "It was 29 degrees in the car; I didn't care."
he said, adding
that he could even see the space station overhead at
the time. "It was
fantastic!" Danner also was able to make contact with
NA1SS.
Gordon Williams, VK6IU, reports that he heard Helms calling
while the
ISS was over Western Australia on March 18.
Helms likely will handle on-air duties next week when
the first Amateur
Radio on the International Space Station school contacts
for the
Expedition 2 crew are scheduled to occur. Students at
the John B. Reible
School in Santa Rosa, California, are scheduled to speak
with the crew
March 26 or 27, while students at Vicksburg High School
in Mississippi
are scheduled for April 4 or April 6.
The Expedition 1 crew of William Shepherd, KD5GSL, Yuri
Gidzenko, and
Sergei Krikalev, U5MIR, arrived back on Earth this week
aboard the
Discovery. Usachev, Helms and Voss were reported to be
adapting to the
new quarters they'll call home for the next four months.
For more information on the ARISS program, visit the ARISS
Web site,
http://ariss.gsfc.nasa.gov.
Taken from ARRL newsletter.
***** AMATEUR RADIO SPECTRUM PROTECTION ACT OF 2001
INTRODUCED IN
SENATE
The Amateur Radio Spectrum Protection Act of 2001, introduced
earlier
this month in the US House, now is officially a Senate
bill, S.549.
Republican Sen Michael Crapo of Idaho introduced the
bill in the upper
chamber March 15.
Democratic Sen Daniel Akaka of Hawaii was a cosponsor.
The bill has been
referred to the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Committee.
In introducing the Senate measure again this year, Crapo
and Akaka
referred to the importance of Amateur Radio in providing
communication
in times of disaster
S.549 is identical in its wording to H.R.817, introduced
in the House of
Representatives March 1 by Rep Michael Bilirakis of Florida.
If approved
by both chambers and signed by Pres George W. Bush, the
Spectrum
Protection Act would require the FCC to provide equivalent
replacement
spectrum should it ever reallocate primary Amateur Radio
spectrum to
another service. The same requirement would apply if
the FCC acted to
diminish any secondary amateur allocations or to make
additional
allocations in ham bands that diminish their utility.
Bilirakis and Crapo introduced the Spectrum Protection
Act in a past
session of Congress at the request of the ARRL. The League's
Legislative
and Public Affairs Manager Steve Mansfield, N1MZA, says
he's encouraged
by the fact that the Spectrum Protection bill is getting
a head start
with early introduction in both chambers this time around.
More information on the Spectrum Protection Act, including
a copy of the
House and Senate versions of the bill, is available on
the ARRL Web
site, http://www.arrl.org/govrelations/arspa.html .
***** Europe Adopts 5 WPM as Morse Code Standard
The Conference of Postal and Telecommunications
Administrations--CEPT--has effectively lowered the Amateur
Radio Morse
code test speed to 5 WPM for all European countries.
The CEPT Radio
Regulatory Working Group (WGRR), meeting last month in
The Hague,
adopted a revision of Recommendation 61-02 to include
the 5 WPM
standard. The European Radiocommunication Office published
the revised
version of T/R 61-02 this month. The revision, which
establishes
requirements for the issuance of a Harmonised Amateur
Radio Examination
Certificate (HAREC), reduces the Morse requirement from
12 WPM. "In
revising what is known as the CEPT Recommendation T/R
61-02, it has in
effect recommended to 44 European countries to adopt
the 5 WPM
standard," said Wireless Institute of Australia-Victoria
President Jim
Linton, VK3PC, who closely follows global developments
in Amateur Radio
Morse code trends. Additional information is available
on Linton's Morse
code watch site, http://www.wiavic.org.au/mcw . More
information on CEPT
is on the ERO Web site, http://www.ero.dk .
Taken from the ARRL Letter
Monday 9:00 P.M.
146.730 123.0 PL Open Net
Tuesday 7:00 P.M.
146.910 Tazwell County ESDA Net
Tuesday 9:00 P.M.
146.940 CIRC Open Net
Wednesday 9:00 P.M.
147.060 Open Net Has Newsline
Wednesday 9:00 P.M.
442.250 123.0 PL ARES Open Net
Wednesday Varies
147.100 Trader's Net follows ARES
Net on 442.250
Thursday 9:00
P.M. 146.760 Open Net with Newsline
Thursday 9:00
P.M. 146.895 North central IL Traders
Net
Friday 7:30 P.M.
147.345 Open Net with Traders Net
Sunday 8:30P.M 147.075 Open Net with Newsline
(Please help me correct this list. I know it's not
up to date at this
time. Norm N9ZKS)
***** Blomington-Normal Area Repeaters
Freq Callsign Location PL
145.390 N9EZJ Lincoln
145.430 KD9F Gridley 103.5
146.790 K9CYW Bloomington
146.940 W9AML Bloomington
147.015 NX9M Normal 88.5 (open*)
147.150 WD9FTV Bloomington 103.5
147.345 K9ZM Lincoln
442.700 WB9UUS Normal 107.2 (open**)
443.325 KE9HB Congerville 107.2
444.350 W9EX Bloomington 107.2
444.975 N9FZF Normal 136.5
* Repeater is currently in open mode with pl for those
with QRM
** Repeater RX with tight carrier squelch and loose tone
squelch (107.2)
***** Local DX Packet Cluster Information
Bloomington Access and Transport node BMIDX1
(AB9M-7) 144.91 1200
baud
Champaign Access and Transport node
ILDX1 (KA6A) 144.91 1200
baud
Champaign Network Node Server
CMIDXC (K9CW) 144.91 1200
baud
Connections to the network are made by first connecting
to BMIDX1, then
connecting to ILDX1, then connecting to K9CW.
The primary purpose of BMIDX1 is to provide local access
for DX Packet
Cluster.
***** AMSAT DETAILS LIKELY AO-40 FAILURE SCENARIO
AMSAT-NA President Robin Haighton, VE3FRH, has issued
a likely
explanation of why AO-40 suddenly went silent in mid-December.
Haighton's March 16 statement outlines a three-part failure
scenario
theorizing that AO-40's problems began with a fault in
a helium valve.
"Initial thoughts were that the spacecraft was completely
dead and that
chances of recovery were remote, with the possibility
that AO-40 was in
multiple pieces," Haighton said. The satellite's 2-meter
beacon quit
while ground controllers were testing the onboard 400-newton
motor
system after anomalies with an orbit-shifting burn that
lasted several
minutes too long. It was almost two weeks before ground
controllers were
able to reset the onboard computers and restart a beacon
on 2.4 GHz.
Ground controllers have been somewhat successful in regaining
control of
the next-generation amateur satellite since telemetry
transmissions
resumed Christmas Day, but Haighton concedes some onboard
systems may
not be recoverable.
Haighton said that while the Phase 3D team may never know
exactly what
happened, the likely scenario includes what Haighton
told ARRL was "a
minor explosion" aboard AO-40, as out-of-place fuel mixed
and then
ignited as a result of a blocked exhaust port on a helium
valve.
"We think it was a human error thing," Haighton conceded
in an interview
with the ARRL. He did not elaborate.
Ground controllers have used AO-40's magnetorquing system
to reduce the
satellite's spin rate to around 5 RPM and are optimistic
that they'll be
able to re-orient the satellite for communication with
Earth. The
satellite's omnidirectional antennas appear to be lost,
but ground
controllers hope the high-gain directional antennas still
work and that
reorienting the spacecraft will bring about a resumption
of signals from
other transmitters.
AO-40's heat pipe system--which could not work at the
higher spin
rates--has begun operating again too, considerably reducing
internal
temperatures. But ground controllers are pessimistic
about being able to
restore AO-40's 2-meter and 70 cm transmitters.
Yet to be tested is the onboard arc-jet motor, which ground
controllers
hope to use to reorient the satellite so that the high-gain
antennas
will face the Earth.
"Following the reorientation it will be possible to test
the remaining
systems on board the spacecraft and to determine which
systems and bands
will be available for future operations and under what
conditions,"
Haighton said.
Taken from ARRL Letter
73's from your newsletter editor