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+ Available on ARRL Audio News
Two ARRL directors and five ARRL vice directors face competition this fall for their seats on the ARRL Board of Directors. The contests are in the Central, New England, Northwestern, Rocky Mountain, and West Gulf divisions.
Ballots will be distributed no later than October 1, 1998, to ARRL full members in the affected divisions on record as of September 10, 1998. Ballots must be returned by November 20, 1998.
Several candidates for director and vice director faced no opposition, and the Election Committee has declared them elected:
Terms of office for successful candidates begin January 1, 1999.
It was a busy weather week for Amateur Radio. The first major storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, Hurricane Bonnie, hit the North Carolina coast on August 26, knocking out power to thousands of homes and causing structural damage and widespread flooding from torrential rain. The New Hanover County EOC wound up having to operate from emergency power. Schools in the county were damaged. A hospital in Brunswick County lost its roof.
As the storm approached, more than a half million residents and visitors in the Carolinas were ordered to move inland. Mobile home owners in 44 North Carolina counties were asked to evacuate. Officials opened more than 100 shelters in North Carolina to accommodate those who were temporarily displaced. "Our goal is to have at least one ham in every shelter," North Carolina Section Manager Reed Whitten, AB4W, said.
Amateur Radio Emergency Service teams deployed in coastal Carolina regions as the massive hurricane approached. Hams at shelters provided communication support and backup, handled outgoing health-and-welfare traffic, and reassured shelter residents that they were not totally out of touch with the outside world. For that reason alone, Whitten said, hams working in the shelters were advised to maintain a high profile.
Hams also staffed emergency operations centers in the wake of ARES activations.
The Hurricane Watch Net was activated on 14.325 MHz. Hurricane Watch Net members provide ground-level meteorological reports to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, which houses W4EHW.
ARRL PIO Frank Ebbinghouser, N2EMR, in Wilmington, North Carolina, says a local TV station interviewed one ham at a shelter. "We are all fine," Ebbinghouser said in an e-mail message to ARRL Headquarters. He said damage from Bonnie did not appear to be as serious as in past storms.
By Friday, August 28, Whitten reported that many shelters and EOCs had released their Amateur Radio operators, although one relief operator was diverted to Carteret County after shelters in Sampson County closed.
The HF stations in Kinston and the state EOC went into standby. A few EOCs and shelters remained active, and the Tar Heel Emergency Net (3.923/7.232 MHz) was monitoring for them. The net remained in continuous operation for more than two days, providing communication for Emergency Management and relief agencies.
As Bonnie churned slowly away from North Carolina, hams in Virginia awaited their turn. On August 26, Virginia ARES/RACES had activated in anticipation of the storm. Virginia State RACES Officer and ARES SEC Frank Mackey, K4EC, said that many local emergency operation centers were staffed with hams, and many shelters opened in anticipation of evacuations. ARES station W4ZA at the state EOC was activated. As the storm appeared to be losing strength, Mackey reported that ham radio operations were standing down and shelters closing. Then, Bonnie changed her mind.
Hurricane Bonnie was downgraded to a tropical storm Thursday, August 27, but picked up steam again as it headed north and regained hurricane status, catching hams and emergency officials off guard. Hardest hit was the Tidewater area of Virginia, which experienced heavy rain and damaging winds--clocked unofficially at more than 100 MPH. At least one death has been reported in Virginia.
The home of District 9 Emergency Coordinator Cynthia Rohrer, AE4EF, in Chesapeake suffered extensive structural damage, and outbuildings were totally demolished. "It was impossible for her to get out of their residence due to extensive debris," Mackey said. "Damage from fallen trees and downed power poles appears to be very extensive." He said emergency managers and police were asking people to stay off the streets unless absolutely necessary.
Virginia Electric Power reported more than 250,000 customers without power. Officials closed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel due to the strong winds. A roof was reported blown off an apartment building in the Oceanview section of Norfolk.
"The Norfolk area was still reeling under continued battering, higher-than-expected tidal surges coupled with local high tides, and strong winds," Mackey said Friday.
SKYWARN and emergency nets remained active in the region.
The storm was sitting off the North Carolina/Virginia Border and was expected to hug the coast on its way to New England during the weekend.
Damage in North Carolina alone is estimated at up to $2 billion. Meanwhile, hams in the Southeast were keeping close watch on Hurricane Danielle, which could arrive August 31.
In Texas, meanwhile, the remnants of Tropical Storm Charley flooded parts of South Texas, leaving much of the town of Del Rio near the Rio Grande underwater. At least 15 deaths in Texas and Mexico were blamed on the floods. Del Rio remained under a flash flood warning on August 28, and President Clinton declared Val Verde County a disaster area.
Among the hams known to be passing message traffic with the Del Rio area was Loyd Overcash, KM5OE, in Houston. In New Braunfels, South Texas Section Manager Ray Taylor, N5NAV, worked with the American Red Cross and the Texas Department of Public Safety to coordinate communication. He also helped pass health-and-welfare traffic for those with family and friends in the flooded areas.
Hams in South Texas were asked August 24 to cooperate by recognizing a voluntary communications emergency and relinquishing frequencies on 40 and 75 meters for emergency and health-and-welfare traffic. The communications emergency was canceled August 27.
Despite numerous setbacks, optimism rules in the Phase 3D camp. AMSAT officials again express tentative confidence that Phase 3D will some day ride aboard an Ariane 5 series vehicle--or another compatible launcher--perhaps next year.
That's a change from the glum mood of last June, when the European Space Agency dropped the Phase 3D payload from the third and final Ariane 5 proveout series, replacing it with a dummy Eutelsat payload. This week, AMSAT-NA Executive Vice President Keith Baker, KB1SF, said that AMSAT still considers the Ariane 503 test important, even though Phase 3D won't be aboard
Baker said a successful Ariane 503 launch increases AMSAT's chances of hitching a ride aboard a subsequent commercial Ariane 5 launch. Discussions between Phase 3D officials in Europe, the European Space Agency, and ArianeSpace continue, but no action in that arena is expected until after a successful Ariane 503 launch. Baker said AMSAT continues to be optimistic that Phase 3D will be a standby passenger for the European Space Agency program.
However, AMSAT has not ruled out "other launch agencies" in hopes of finding a safe and affordable launch for Phase 3D. The more "trucks headed our way" to space the better for Phase 3D, Baker said.
Meanwhile, Baker said that, aside from a few minor modifications, the Phase 3D satellite is "all but complete" at the Orlando, Florida, integration lab. The next major phase involves testing the satellites ability to withstand the harsh environment of space.
Phase 3D Project Manager and AMSAT-DL President Karl Meinzer, DJ4ZC, recently gave his final approval to the Phase 3D transponder frequencies. The complete table of uplink, downlink and telemetry beacon frequencies is available at http://www.aball.de/~pg/amsat/p3dqrg.html.
The ARRLWeb Extra, the new ARRLWeb publication, debuts September 1 on the League's new Members Only Web Site, http://www.arrl.org/members/. The ARRLWeb Extra will offer news and features, photos and sounds from the world of Amateur Radio and the ever-changing communication scene.
A totally new online publication, The ARRLWeb Extra, will publish Amateur Radio news and features--including insider news, technical and how-to topics, additional information on Product Review items, "First Looks" at upcoming products that will be reviewed in QST, and occasional offbeat items, a "Foto Gallery," and information about--and links to--interesting Web sites. From time to time, The ARRLWeb Extra will explore subjects only indirectly related to Amateur Radio.
Web publication also will make it possible for Product Review and New Products items to include sound and more pictures that we might not have room for in QST.
Members now get a chance to actually hear what a new transceiver sounds like, for example. The first edition of The ARRLWeb Extra takes a closer look at the new SGC SG-2020 transceiver, providing sound clips of CW and SSB reception (in RealAudio format) plus interior photographs not included in QST. The full-blown SG-2020 Product Review will appear elsewhere on the Members Only Web Site as well as in October's QST.
The Members Only Web Site will make current and past QST Product Review columns available in a searchable archive as Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The QST Product Review Columns page lists all Product Reviews from 1990 to the present.
The premier edition of The ARRLWeb Extra will feature several general-interest articles. There's an exciting narrative by Ed Petzolt, K1LNC, of how he used ham radio to help save the lives of a missionary family, caught up in a hostage situation in a remote section of Guatemala. Sound clips of actual transmissions are included. Ralph Katz, KB8ZOY, tells the uplifting tale of how "Two Honest Hams"--who also happened to be pretty good detectives--retrieved his H-T, lost at the Dayton Hamvention.
News items for the Extra will be updated as soon as possible, which means that breaking stories sometimes will be available before they're published in The ARRL Letter or issued as W1AW bulletins. Whenever available, pictures and sound cuts will augment our news coverage. The ARRLWeb Extra is free of advertising and other "commercial clutter." News and article submittals are welcome via e-mail to awextra@arrl.org.
In a related move, The ARRL Letter now will become more available to League members. ARRL members may subscribe to The ARRL Letter and receive it via e-mail directly from ARRL Headquarters free-of-charge and without having to go through the third-party listserver. Members can choose to receive The ARRL Letter via e-mail when they register to use the Members Only Web Site. They'll also be able to start or stop their Letter subscription at any time from the Membership Data page on the Members Only site.
Current and back issues of The ARRL Letter will continue to be available on the public ARRLWeb as well. In addition, ARRL Audio News, the weekly RealAudio news broadcast that's compiled and edited from The ARRL Letter, will continue to be available via the public ARRLWeb site. ARRL Audio News also is available by telephone at 860-594-0384.
ARRL Senior Assistant Technical Editor Rick Lindquist, N1RL, will edit The ARRLWeb Extra. He will continue to edit The ARRL Letter and edit and voice ARRL Audio News.
To access the ARRL Members Only Web Site welcome page, League members need only point their browsers to http://www.arrl.org/members/. Register by providing your call sign and your ARRL membership number--found on your QST mailing label. You'll also be prompted to select a password. If you're not a member, you can join the ARRL online via the ARRLWeb site at http://www.arrl.org.
Solar scholar Tad Cook, K7VVV, Seattle, Washington, reports: Feel the solar wind? This has been a very active week for the geomagnetic field, with solar flares and resulting geomagnetic storms creating lots of excitement. As this is being written, the planetary A index--which recently has typically been below 10--was at 112. It was 39 the day before. Currently, a major geomagnetic storm is raging, but conditions are expected to settle down the weekend of August 29-30.
Solar flux was down slightly from last week and the week before, while the average solar flux for the previous 90 days rose from 115 to 117. Solar flux was above these values on every day this week, indicating a general upward trend. A year ago the average solar flux for the week was 78.9, almost 50 points lower than the current level. Average sunspot numbers were about 100 points lower.
On August 24 there was a major proton flare. This caused a major HF fadeout, plus continuing geomagnetic disturbances. The flare was big enough to merit reporting in the news wire services. Reuters reported that the aurora may be strong enough to be visible across the United States, not just in the northern latitudes.
Conditions such as this are very bad for HF propagation but create many interesting VHF contacts via the aurora. K2SMN in New Jersey reported working VE2BKL and VE2PEP in Quebec, WA4HEI in Michigan, and W9JN in Wisconsin, all on 2 meters.
Look for conditions to calm down this weekend. Solar flux for August 28-30 is forecast at 135 for all days, and the planetary A index is predicted to be 30, 15 and 10 over the same period. Solar flux is expected to drop down near 115 for September 1 and 2, then peak around 145 around a week later. There is a strong possibility of recurrent coronal holes causing geomagnetic disturbances around September 18 and 19.
Contact me via e-mail at tad@ssc.com or via packet at K7VVV@N7FSP.WA.USA.NOAM.
Sunspot numbers for August 20 through 26 were 120, 138, 102, 121, 99, 109, and 146, with a mean of 119.3. The 10.7-cm flux was 138.6, 132.1, 132.9, 126.4, 121.2, 122.1, and 126.9, with a mean of 128.6. The estimated planetary A indices were 18, 6, 23, 23, 11, 11, and 39, with a mean of 18.7.
The ARRL has learned that ham radio pioneer Arnold R. Brilhart, K6GF, of Vista, California, died May 17. He was 93. Brilhart was first licensed as 2DN in Yonkers, New York, sometime prior to 1920. The spark signal from 2DN was heard calling 8AYN on December 11, 1921, by Paul Godley in Scotland, and the call sign is among those on the cover of the January 1922 edition of QST. Brilhart was an ARRL member. His fame extended into the area of music. He was a well-known jazz musician and had designed mouthpieces for woodwinds.
EMTECH owner Roy Gregson, W6EMT, of Bremerton, Washington, died August 21,1998. He was 70. Gregson was an ARRL member. His family has indicated that existing orders will be filled, but no decision has been made about the future of EMTECH.
The chairman of license exams at the Dayton Hamvention, L. T. Jones, W8RLW, of Trotwood, Ohio, died August 17. He was 78. Jones was an ARRL member and an ARRL Volunteer Examiner. He was the volunteer exam chairman for the Dayton Amateur Radio Club and the Dayton Hamvention for several years and an ARES Assistant Emergency Coordinator in Trotwood.--thanks to Gary Des Combes, N8EMO, Sue Stacy, KG8X, and Ernie Hudson, KI8O
The ARRL Letter is published Fridays, 50 times each year, by the American Radio Relay League--The National Association For Amateur Radio--225 Main St, Newington, CT 06111; tel 860-594-0200; fax 860-594-0259. Jim Haynie, W5JBP, President; David Sumner, K1ZZ, Executive Vice President.
The ARRL Letter offers a weekly summary of essential news of interest to active amateurs that's available in advance of publication in QST, our official journal. The ARRL Letter strives to be timely, accurate, concise, and readable. The ARRLWeb Extra at http://www.arrl.org/members-only/extra offers ARRL members access to late-breaking news and informative features, updated regularly.
Material from The ARRL Letter may be republished or reproduced in whole or in part in any form without additional permission. Credit must be given to The ARRL Letter and The American Radio Relay League.
Delivery problems (ARRL member direct delivery only!): letter-dlvy@arrl.org
Editorial questions or comments: Rick Lindquist, N1RL, rlindquist@arrl.org.
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