Volume 17, Number 2 (January 9, 1998)

The ARRL Letter Index
ARRL Audio News

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IN THIS EDITION:

+Available on ARRL Audio News

FCC ISSUES FIRST GATE 4 VANITY GRANTS

Be on the lookout for another round of new call signs. Right on schedule, on January 7, the FCC issued approximately 600 new call signs to those who were among the 900 or so who filed vanity call sign applications on December 2, the opening day for Gate 4! Another 300 or so applications ended up in the work in process (WIPs) stack and have been processed. The FCC issued another 79 vanity call signs on January 8.

Earlier this week, the FCC in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, set the stage by processing all vanity applications received through December 1, 1997, the day before vanity Gate 4 opened. The FCC granted 120 new call signs on January 6. The FCC reports that during December, it got 497 paper applications and 1873 electronic applications.

The Furr family of Chapel Hill, North Carolina--home of the University of North Carolina--took advantage of Gate 4 to standardize their suffixes to, what else, UNC! Mom and Dad are UNC graduates, and one of their daughters (19-year-old Mary, K5UNC) is about to graduate from UNC. Dad is Walter "Buddy" Furr III, who got his K4UNC call sign under Gate 2. Mom, Judy, is K2UNC. The couple's other two daughters are nine-year-old Cindy, K1UNC and 16-year-old Rebecca, K3UNC, a high school junior. Judy Furr says her husband "is a major UNC fan." The youngest daughter, Cindy, already holds a General ticket and has passed her 20 WPM code test on her way to the Extra. The Furr family--all ARRL members--plans to debut the new call signs on a local 2-meter net this week.

In the same vein, WE4UNC went to Judy Smith of Pulaski, Tennessee.

Among the other new call signs were KB1USA, KZ8ZZZ, and WA7AAA.

Deb McKay of Hamburg, New Jersey, formerly N2TTP, obtained WX2DEB. She's the Skywarn coordinator for Sussex County, New Jersey. KA1THY went to Kathy Swann of Coventry, Rhode Island. Many other "name" and "initial" call signs were among the batch issued on January 7.

RONNIE MILSAP, WB4KCG, IS HAMVENTION SPEAKER

Country music legend Ronnie Milsap, WB4KCG, will be the 1998 Dayton Hamvention banquet speaker. This year's Hamvention is May 15, 16, and 17, and the banquet will be the evening of May 16. Milsap also will serve as the evening's entertainment.

Blind since birth, Milsap discovered a connection to music while attending the North Carolina State School for the Blind. He learned to play piano, guitar, clarinet, violin and cello, and developed his vocal talents.

Milsap began performing professionally in the 1960s and has won numerous awards, including Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year (1974, 1976 and 1977) and CMA Album of the Year (1976, 1978 and 1986). In 1983, the Academy of Country Music voted Milsap Best Male Vocalist. He won Song of the Year in 1986 for Lost in the Fifties Tonight. He also received the only gold Braille album ever awarded. Today, Milsap can be seen regularly at The Ronnie Milsap Theater in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

The Hamvention 1998 banquet will be held at the Nutter Center at Wright State University in Fairborn, Ohio. The Nutter Center has free parking for banquet attendees, no steps, and handicapped access. The banquet also will feature the awards presentation for Amateur of the Year, Technical Excellence, and Special Achievement.

Banquet tickets are $30 in advance and $35 (if available) the day of the banquet. Seating is limited. Tickets for the concert only are $10 in advance, $15 at the door, and are available by fax, mail, at the Hara Arena box office or at the Nutter Center box office. There's a $3 charge for concert parking.

For more information, visit http://www.hamvention.org/

MIR TO STAY UP A BIT LONGER; NEXT CREW TO BE ALL HAMS

News reports say that the 12-year-old Russian Mir space station may stay in orbit until the first components of the International Space Station are in place in 1999--a few months longer than planned. The first ISS units are set to be launched later this year. Hams are scheduled to be among the first crew members to populate the ISS, but the US presence aboard Mir will come to an end this June.

US astronaut David Wolf, KC5VPF, now aboard Mir, is scheduled to be replaced later this month by Australian-born US astronaut Andy Thomas, KC5CHF. Two new Russian crew members, both hams, are due to arrive at month's end. NASA has set January 22 as the launch date for the penultimate space shuttle trip to Mir. The shuttle Endeavour will carry supplies and a crew of seven, including Thomas.

Wolf has been living on Mir since late September. Thomas will work aboard Mir until June, when the US shuttle Discovery will dock with Mir for the final time, rounding off the Russian-US cooperative mission.

Wolf's research schedule has allowed him little spare time to use the ham radio equipment aboard Mir. The packet system aboard the space station has been experiencing problems because the crew has not had time to set up the correct parameters for the new TNC aboard Mir. This week, Wolf, 41, monitored and filmed the operation from inside Mir's main module as his two cosmonaut crewmates conducted a space walk to check a leaky hatch and to retrieve some equipment. Wolf and cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyov will carry out a NASA-run spacewalk on January 14 to recover experiments set up outside Mir by previous US astronauts.

The SAFEX repeater (downlink 437.950 MHz; uplink 435.750 MHz) has been active on an intermittent basis. The crew has turned off the CTCSS tone feature of the repeater, making it easier for weak stations to access the repeater. However, this also means the repeater may transmit noise and occasionally time out.

While the aging space station has been free of the kinds of major troubles that plagued it last year, Mir's computer malfunctioned just two days into the new year. The problem was subsequently fixed.

Later this month, Mir will get a bit crowded. French astronaut Leopold Eyharts is scheduled to join Russian cosmonauts Talgat Musabayev, RO3FT, and Nikolai Budarin, RV3FB (ex-RV3DB and R4MIR) in the first crew change of the year. They are scheduled to blast off to Mir on January 29. Eyharts' mission to Mir was planned for last August but had to be postponed after a Progress cargo rocket collided with Mir last June forcing emergency repairs. Eyharts will work aboard Mir for three weeks before returning to earth with Anatoly Solovyov and Pavel Vinogradov, the current Mir Russian contingent.

SPUTNIK PS2/RS-17 OFFICIALLY DECLARED DEAD

It's official. The Sputnik PS2/RS-17 mini-satellite is a silent key. It ceased transmitting on December 29, 1997. The little satellite, a one-third scale replica of the original Sputnik 1, beep-beeped its way around the globe for 55 days, more than two weeks longer than it had been projected to last. The 200-mW transmitter was powered by lithium batteries.

The Sputnik PS-2 was launched by hand from the Russian Mir space station on November 4, 1997, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the launching of the original Sputnik by the USSR in 1957. The original Sputnik only transmitted for about one month.

The Sputnik PS2 beacon, on 145.82, was widely monitored and recorded around the world. The satellite was fabricated by students in Russia and on France's Reunion Island. Sputnik 40 Years, which sponsored the satellite project, said the last known recordings of the Sputnik PS2 beacon were made on December 29 at approximately 2100 UTC by a ham in Washington and by FR1AJ on Reunion Island. At the time, the data indicated an internal temperature of 40 degrees C.

Those tracking the satellite reported that the Sputnik PS2's beacon signal had continued to get weaker as the end approached. Even after the beep-beep ceased, however, the satellite's unmodulated oscillator continued to transmit for a while longer.

Reception reports go to The Radio Club of Jules Reydellet school on Reunion Island. Those whose reports are confirmed will receive an approximately 6x9-inch color certificate on high-quality paper with number identification and the radio club stamp. Requests for these certificates should be made only by letter with an SASE (6x9 inch) and two (2) IRCs. Do not send requests via e-mail! The mailing address is FR5KJ Radio Club, 103 Rue de la Republique, 97 489 Saint Denis Cedex, Reunion Island.

SIX METERS TURNS HOT FOR NEW YEAR

The new year arrived with a bang on six meters--once again demonstrating why it's known as "The Magic Band." Rick, K6SIX, was among those benefiting from the apparent F2-layer propagation on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day available from some parts of the US. "I thought it was going to be a great start to 1998 when I worked ZF1DC," he said, "but just an hour later, I worked ZL3NW in grid RE66 on 50.125!"

Others also managed US-to-ZL contacts. "What a way to start the new year!!!" exclaimed Ron, K5LLL, who worked both ZL2TPY and ZL3NW just a few minutes into the new year (GMT).

Additional stations posted equally enthusiastic messages on the Internet reflectors. "WOW! what a way to start the New Year," wrote WB2QLP in Florida after he'd just worked several South American stations on six. "I think Cycle 23 has a lot of DX in store for us."

Mike, ZL3TIC/ZL3SIX, reported hearing American Samoa and the FO5DR beacon (50.050 MHz) as well as several US stations.

Newsline reports that Dave, KC6WFS, in California, turned on his old Gonset G-50 AM transceiver and worked Oklahoma and several other AM DX contacts. Other US stations managed to work stateside DX on FM.

Oscar, CO2OJ, in Cuba reported working several US stations, including some as far away as California and Texas.

ARRL antenna guru Dean Straw, N6BV, speculates the propagation involved was probably multiple F2 hops, most likely combined with sporadic E.

RS-12 AND OTHERS CONTINUE TO PROVIDE MODE-A ACCESS

If you've never operated through any of the ham radio satellites, you're missing a whole dimension of ham radio. It's very easy to get on most satellites, and Mode A is among the simplest of all. In Mode A, you transmit (SSB or CW) on 2 meters and receive the satellite's transponder downlink on 10 meters. Two Russian satellites still offer Mode A as well as other modes.

RS-12 is home to a lot of Mode A activity over North America. To operate Mode A, you transmit between 145.91 and 145.95 MHz on CW or SSB (do not attempt to use FM on these satellites), and listen for your signal between 29.41 and 29.45 MHz. The RS-12 beacon is at 29.408. If you're operating a simplex transceiver working crossband (such as the ICOM IC-706MkII), you'll need a separate receiver to hear your own signal coming back through the satellite. HQ staffer and satellite enthusiast Peter Budnik, KB1HY, says he gets good signal reports on Mode A via RS-12. Even a modest station should have no trouble making contacts through the satellites. He uses AMSAT's InstantTrack software to track satellite passes (http://www.amsat.org/amsat/catalog/software.html or call 301-589-6062). Keplerian elements also are available from AMSAT's Web site.

"It's a fun bird," says Budnik, adding that a typical pass at a high elevation might last up to 15 minutes and provide a 1500 to 2000 mile footprint on Earth. Passes closer to the horizon can offer much further distances. For instance, from the Eastern US, when the satellite is over the mid-Atlantic, you can easily work into Europe.

By the way, RS-12 also now operates in Mode KA, which is 15 or 2 meters up and 10 meters down.

Another Mode A satellite possibility is RS-15 (uplink 145.858-145.898 MHz; downlink 29.354-29.394 MHz; beacon 29.352.5 MHz). Experienced operators say CW is very easy to hear on the downlink via RS-15. HQ staffer and experienced satellite op Steve Ford, WB8IMY, suggests that RS-15 is "definitely not a beginner bird for Mode A." The RS-16 satellite also is designed for Mode A, but it's not yet available for ham radio, and no one seems to know when it will be.

Never run more power than you need to get an adequate signal back through the transponder. In some cases, where the pass is directly overhead, you can make the bird while running just a few watts ERP (effective radiated power), although Ford says your signal might be on the weak side. But you don't want to engage in overkill and run too much power either. Keep in mind that even 10 W to a multi-element (gain) antenna can mean you're developing an ERP of several hundred watts. The rule of thumb is that, in no case should your signal through the transponder be louder than the satellite's beacon. A satellite's transponder only has so much power to go around, and it's "spread" among all users. A stronger-than-necessary uplink signal will suck power away from other users.

Budnik says he's experienced some QRM and transponder desensing from terrestrial simplex FM activity in the 2-meter uplink band. Stations should avoid operating terrestrial FM in those portions of the band set aside for satellite operation.

FCC SEQUENTIAL CALL SIGN UPDATE

The following is a list of FCC sequentially assigned call signs issued as of January 5, 1998. Note that the last Group C call sign has been issued in the First District. New Technician and General class licensees are now being issued Group D call signs.

District Group A
Extra		 Group B
Advanced		 Group C
Tech/Gen		 Group D
Novice
Ø ABØGT KIØLF ++ KCØCNK
1 AA1TA KE1IZ ++ KB1CHB
2 AB2EQ KG2NJ ++ KC2CWL
3 AA3QP KF3AT ++ KB3BZY
4 AF4HM KU4NR ++ KF4VIK
5 AC5OQ KM5NZ ++ KD5DAE
6 AD6EF KQ6TW ++ KF6PBV
7 AB7XB KK7LM ++ KC7ZYZ
8 AB8BT KI8EV ++ KC8JBN
9 AA9VI KG9MH ++ KB9RXH
N Mariana Island NHØB AHØAY KHØGV WHØABI
Guam ++ AH2DF KH2TA WH2ANV
Hawaii KH7W AH6PF KH7HL WH6DEL
American Samoa AH8P AH8AH KH8DL WH8ABF
Alaska ALØH AL7QW KLØLM WL7CUO
Virgin Islands ++ KP2CM NP2JW WP2AIJ
Puerto Rico NP3S KP3BE NP3TN WP4NNN

++All call signs in this group have been issued in this district.

SOLAR REPORT

Solar scholar Tad Cook, K7VVV, Seattle, Washington, reports: Solar activity was down over the past week, with average sunspot numbers about half what they were for the last week of 1997, and average solar flux down almost 9 points. In addition, there was a nasty geomagnetic disturbance on January 7 when the planetary A index shot up to 29. This was believed to have been caused by a coronal mass ejection from the sun on January 3. Average solar flux for the previous 90 days remained at 95, and the daily flux numbers were below this value over four out of seven days this week.

Currently the solar disk is devoid of any activity, but a small active region should rotate into view over the weekend. Solar flux is expected to remain in the mid-80s until January 17 when it rises above 90 again. Flux levels should increase above 100 around January 22, then back below 90 around the end of the month. Over this weekend for the Japan International DX CW Contest look for solar flux around 84 with quiet geomagnetic conditions.

With winter upon us and lackluster solar activity, look for less performance on the higher frequencies and to the low bands for DX. Ten meters will probably not pick up until this spring, or perhaps in the fall.

Sunspot numbers for January 1 through 7 were 55, 50, 31, 30, 22, 23 and 0, with a mean of 30.1. The 10.7-cm flux was 101.6, 101, 101.1, 90.7, 89.3, 87 and 84.9, with a mean of 93.7, and estimated planetary A indices were 5, 4, 4, 4, 2, 14, and 29, with a mean of 8.9.

Here are some path projections to Japan for the DX contest this weekend:

From Seattle, check 80 meters from 0700-1730 UTC, with best signals from 1000-1530 UTC. Forty meters looks good from 0830-1130 UTC and 1530- 1930 UTC. Check 20 meters 2130-0100 UTC.

From Los Angeles, check 80 meters 0700-1530 UTC, 40 meters 0530-1730 UTC, 20 meters 2130-0100 UTC and 15 meters 2230-2345 UTC. Ten meters might open around 2230-0000 UTC.

From the geographic center of the continental United States, check 80 meters 0700-1500 UTC, 40 meters 0600-1200 UTC and 1200-1615 UTC, and 20 meters around 2145-2315 UTC.

From Ohio, check 80 meters 0715-1400 UTC, 40 meters 0615-1030 UTC and 1315-1530 UTC. Twenty meters may open around 2130 UTC.

From Atlanta, check 80 meters 0700-1330 UTC, 40 meters 0600-1400 UTC, and 20 meters 2130-2230 UTC.

From Boston, check 80 meters 0700-1315 UTC, and 40 meters 0615-1100 UTC, 1230-1500 UTC and 2030-2230 UTC.

In Brief:

  • This weekend on the radio: It's a busy one, with something for everyone. The Japan International DX CW Contest (low-band portion) is this weekend, along with Meet the Novices and Technicians Day, the Hunting Lions in the Air Contest, the QRP ARCI Winter Fireside SSB Sprint, and the North American QSO Party. See January QST, page 105, for more information on these operating events.

  • AES changes hands: Amateur Electronic Supply has changed hands, effective January 1, 1998. The new owner is Amateur Electronic Supply LLC, headed by Phil Majerus, a prominent Wisconsin businessman. Now in its 41st year, AES was founded in 1957 by Terry Sterman, W9DIA, who became interested in ham radio by working in his dad's electronics shop and went on to have a substantial impact on the ham radio marketplace. The retailer's current management team and most employees will remain in place, and a spokesman said it's "business as usual." AES expects to have its latest Amateur Radio products catalog available at the Dayton Hamvention in mid-May. The company, headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has branches in Ohio, Florida, and Nevada.

  • Lunar Prospector monitored: Well-known VHF-UHF op Al Ward, WB5LUA, in the Dallas, Texas, area has monitored a signal from the just-launched Lunar Prospector on 2272.998 MHz using the 5-meter dish he uses for EME work at 2.3 GHz. Ward reports he heard the signal January 8 at around 0500 UTC at "5 to 10 dB over noise, a steady carrier." He estimated that the Lunar Prospector was about one-quarter of the way to the moon--or about 60,000 miles away. Ward has submitted a report to NASA.--Al Ward, WB5LUA

  • Little LEOs launched: One of the Little LEOs, ORBCOMM, has successfully launched eight data and messaging satellites. The launch--right before Christmas--brings to 10 the number of satellites in ORBCOMM's "constellation" of low-Earth orbit satellites. The satellite downlinks operate in the 137-MHz range.

  • Wisconsin hams eye bill: Hams in Wisconsin plan to monitor a bill to be introduced in the next legislative session that could have implications for ham radio mobile operators. The measure, Assembly Bill 680, states in part, "No person while driving a motor vehicle shall be so engaged or occupied with the use of a mobile telecommunications device as to interfere with the safe driving of such vehicle or as to impede the normal and reasonable movement of traffic." While the bill is aimed primarily at cell phone users, Wisconsin hams will keep a close eye on the measure to make sure ham radio is not adversely affected. The bill has had a first reading and has been referred to the Assembly's Committee on Highways and Transportation. For a copy of the bill, see http://www.legis.state.wi.us/billtext/AB680.pdf.--thanks to Jim Romelfanger, K9ZZ, and others

  • Metroplex club marks 20 years: The Metroplex Amateur Communications Association is celebrating its 20th anniversary. The club operates repeaters in the Greater New York City area. According to club president Alex Magocsi, W2OV, the club recently signed up its 803 member, making it the second largest amateur repeater club in the country.--Alex Magocsi, W2OV

  • Oldest Australian ham turns 106: Australia's oldest radio amateur, Harry Angel, VK4HA, turned 106 on December 14. A native of the UK, Angel arrived in VK-land from California after a trip around the Horn as a very young sailor. A World War I veteran and radio repairman, Angel has been a ham since 1935. Television stations in Australia featured reports about VK4HA on his birthday.--QNews

  • Israel Amateur Radio Club celebrates 50 years of ham radio: The Israel Amateur Radio Club will celebrate its 50th anniversary February 12 with a gala celebration in Tel Aviv. For more information, visit http://www.iarc.org/50.--Shlomo Mussali, 4X6LM