THE      ISSUE 3,  FEBRUARY 2003

 NEWSLETTER OF THE QIN AND ICN INDIANA CW TRAFFIC NETS

NET SCHEDULES:

QIN - meets on 3.656 Mhz at 0000 UTC and 1430 UTC daily

ICN - meets on 3.705 Mhz at 2315 UTC daily

QIN NCS Schedule

- QIN JANUARY 2002 STATS -

* All station locations are in Indiana unless otherwise specified.

QIN Manager's Comments

Poor band conditions on 80 meters made it kind of rough during some morning sessions this month but our NCS stations made the most of it, in spite of Sol's noisy presence.

There were 18 different stations QNI in the month of January, and 116 pieces of traffic passed, 44 during the early net, and 72 during the late net. Average time per session for the early net was 17.6 minutes, and 26.1 minutes for the late net. The (1430z) late net reported 31 sessions for a 100% participation again, and the (0000z) early net 28 sessions for 90%. QNI's for the morning (Late) session were 168 total, and the evening (Early) session, 141 total.

Outstanding QNI's

Kirk/KO9D-20, Marv/W9KT -23, Jim/ K9ZBM -29, Gary/KB9TUI-34, Andy/KC9BZL-41, and Dick/K9PUI-54.

NCS Stations

Brent/N9HZ-5, Kirk/KO9D-6, Gary/KB9TUI-9, John/WB9OFG-12, Don/KA9QWC-13, and 4 Dick/K9PUI-14.
THANKS BRENT, KIRK, GARY, and JOHN for your dedicated QIN participation!

-Old timer stations returning were Mac/W9CM, and Mark/W9PC.

• WB9OZZ, Homer, is having difficulty bouncing back after his fall January 1, but he wants to thank all of QIN for their kindness. He is presently in Johnson Memorial Hospital, Todd-Aikens Health Center, Room 221, 1125 W. Jefferson St., Franklin, IN 46131. Apparently there is vertebrae damage in his lower back and continues to give him extreme pain and discomfort. We wish Homer the very best and miss his QNI on the nets. His daughter Lynda, and Ron, NA9F, have been keeping tabs on him and are giving us updates on his condition. GET WELL SOON HOMER

• KA9QWC, Don, has asked for a well-deserved rest from NCS duties on the morning net. He has been a mainstay on the 1430z QIN net for many years, and we have certainly appreciated his dedication and help in keeping QIN moving along, and the encouragement he has given to all. Besides having many other activities, commitments, and interests, and even with putting some pretty important projects on the back burner, Don has always given his very best to QIN, and we thank him immensely for his time and effort. A leave of duties is certainly more than earned and we hope he will continue to QNI as often as possible. I don't think we can thank him enough for all he has done...........MANY, MANY THANKS DON from both myself and Newt.

• KC9BZL, Andy, completed the ICN Basic Training, the ICN Liaison, and the ICN NCS Courses this month. Congratulations to Andy. He is now using the knowledge by helping with some NCS duties and 9RN Liaison duties, and is coming right along in getting into the swing of NTS traffic handling-plus. I think he is having fun doing it, but we all know it does take a lot of time and effort. THANKS ANDY.

• KB9TUI, Gary, has made many improvements and additions to the QIN/ICN website, and also is helping out with additional NCS support on the 1430z net. He is planning to continue on to the next level of the ARRL Emergency Communications Course when time permits, and when the lil' new young op will let him. THANKS GARY.

• W9PC, Mark, has been checking in regularly after a 25-year span of time when he was an active QIN member back in the mid-70's. Mark's QTH now is Rossville, near Frankfort, and we welcome him back. He has volunteered to take an active part in QIN, and we sure do appreciate that. WELCOME BACK MARK.

NCS Stations- Should frequently use other net stations to help, by occasionally asking them to temporarily call the net using the Q-Signal QPC, or "please call the net for QNI". They may pick up stations that may be having difficulty hearing you due to band conditions, or local noise in other parts of the state. They should give the net call two or three times and should relay any QNI to you as they check in, such as K9PUI/QRU R, or KO9D/9RN 1 R in the event you may not hear the station checking in, or, if none, NIL K.

Good Work- QIN exceeded last January's traffic total by about 10%, and exceeded the total QNI's by 93.
Thanks to each and every one of our stations for a good start in 2003.

73, Dick/K9PUI

"I Have Returned"

By Mark Phillips, W9PC

Date: Friday, February 21, 2003 10:29 PM

We returned to Rossville, IN Wednesday after a very successful vacation in Hawaii. My wonderful wife Linda and I celebrated our 25th Anniversary there on Feb 17th. We had never been out to Hawaii before. I will try to be on QIN (the Indiana Section CW Traffic Net) this Saturday and Sunday morning, and also Sunday evening.

On Oahu, we visited the Arizona Memorial, battleship Missouri, and the submarine Bowfin at Pearl Harbor. We could barely see the rusting Utah, still capsized with 58 men aboard, across about a mile of open water from Pearl City. The airfield on Ford Island still has the tall Control Tower seen in numerous movies, but it is abandoned and rusting. At least one of the original hangars still stands, but is in bad shape with many broken windows. It's painfully obvious that no one cares much about the preservation of military historical sites or buildings in Hawaii except for the Arizona, Missouri, and Bowfin.

You may have seen Marine Bugleman Richard Fiske on TV from the Battleship West Virginia several times over the past 10 or 15 years telling his eyewitness account of the attack. He is now 81 years old and a daily volunteer at Arizona visitor center. It was an honor to be able to talk with him. You may be surprised to know that his "second job" was Signalman. Thus, he was trained on semaphore and flashing signal light. The signal light of course uses our good friend Morse Code. He still knows some semaphore, and demonstrated it briefly. I'm not sure about his code proficiency and did not have a chance to ask. He put signaling to practical use when he hit the beach with the Marines at Iwo Jima. His favorite signaling device was a light gun, which apparently looked like a shotgun with a tube to hide the light from the enemy, actuated by a trigger on the stock. Mr. Fiske still plays taps once a month at the Arizona and lays a wreath. He even had his mouthpiece in his pocket! It appeared to be a Shilke trumpet mouthpiece, with a shank far too big to fit a bugle. I recall seeing him playing taps on a trumpet on TV programs.

The Bowfin interior is in by far the best condition of any of the many WWII subs I have visited, and it has the largest radio room I have ever seen on a WWII sub, complete with a regular typewriter and a "mill". Boy, I have always wanted a mill! Maybe someone knows where I can get one, or at least knows of software that can make a computer emulate a mill. Better yet, maybe someone has software that has an ARRL Radiogram blank on it. The software should allow us traffic freaks to just fill in the blanks, put a maximum of 5 word groups per line, automatically produce an accurate word count, keep a traffic log, apply a message serial number automatically, file the message, and do other useful stuff associated with traffic handling. The museum staff polishes brass every day, or so they say, and there is a whole lot of brass. A 12 inch signal lamp is mounted on the conning tower. I assume it is dismounted and stowed below while preparing to dive, but the curator of the museum knew nothing about that.

The Missouri was very disappointing, with access only to the second level (one deck below the main deck). There was no access to the 16 inch gun turrets, or to radio rooms, or to Combat Information Center. Not very good for $14 admission price. We paid $20, which included the Missouri, the Bowfin, and the Bowfin museum. For an additional $49, a guided tour with hardhats and flashlights can be obtained to "black" portions of the ship. Or, for a similar additional fee, you can eat off of genuine "flag" china. The port side signal bridge is under reconstruction due to badly rusted deck steel plate. The starboard side signal bridge was much better, with a signal lamp that appeared to be intact. An extension cord was connected to it, with the cord coming from somewhere forward beneath the navigation bridge. I was excited that it looked promising that I could fire it up and signal a couple of destroyers or cruisers across the harbor! Something was wrong, however. The shutter handle operated backwards. The lamp was upside down! No problem. I thought, all I have to do is pivot it 180 degrees end over end in the yoke mounting to get it upright, then swivel it 180 degrees to aim back out across the harbor. But, while pivoting the lamp, there was an ominous loud rattling sound. I opened the shutter and looked in, and was shocked to see the expensive 1000 watt special light bulb was lying loose inside the lamp fixture. It requires a wrench to mount this type of bulb, after gaining access by opening the back of the fixture. I carefully returned everything to the original position and quickly left the area. A ship without an operational signal light is not hardly a ship at all.

The best thing about visiting the Missouri is that the shuttle bus to it is the only way for regular civilians to get onto Ford Island.

We visited the deactivated Barbers Point Naval Air Station (used to be the Ewa air field), and found the long abandoned Hali'ewa auxiliary field where pilots Taylor and Welch heroically took off in their P-40's and shot down a few Japanese planes, and saw the site of the Opana Point radar station where the incoming attack was detected and then ignored by the duty officer at Ft. Shafter. We saw several old concrete costal artillery gun emplacements on mountainsides. Most historical sites other than those mentioned are within active duty bases, and are therefore inaccessible to all but the military, contractors, and retired military, especially right now!

We found and photographed the beach used by Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in the classis movie "From Here to Eternity". That's where they filmed the famous Surf Smooch scene. We even drove through some fairly large pineapple fields.

We also went to the "Big Island" of Hawaii, and there we saw 2000 degree F lava from about 20 feet distance. The air was extremely hot and full of Sulfur and maybe Methane. The lava was being shock cooled by the sea waves breaking upon it, sending up clouds of steam. It occasionally broke off and fell into the sea to form "new land", about 5 acres in the last week. We then drove up a mountain peak 13, 657 feet above sea level. There was a lot of snow up there, with about 20 degree air temperature. I helped shovel some of the snow into the local folks' pick up trucks to take back to their towns, I suppose so their kids could play in it for a while until it melted under the 80 degree weather conditions at home. There are about a dozen huge telescope observatory installations on the peak, one with a 384 inch diameter aperture! We ended up by going to a Luau before starting the very long and exhausting trip back home.

About the only thing we did not do was to hit the beach. It was either raining, or very windy, or there were a lot of dangerous waves and big rocks, or we were in traveling mode. I'm not much of a beach person, so I did not particularly care.

Not bad for 5 days in "Paradise", huh?

All the time in Hawaii, I kept a casual look out for Ham antennas in case communications to the mainland were cut off by the impending fracas in the Middle East or Korea. We did spot at least 6 Yagis on Oahu, with one about 2 miles from our hotel in Hilo on the Big Island.

It's good to be back home again in Indiana, but it was even better to miss the big storm that hit here last weekend. 73 and CW Forever.

Mark, W9PC

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