Just wanted to send an email out to let everyone know that Hamshack Hotline is shutting down at the end of this month. But the good news is I have started a new VoIP server.
It is the W2DAN New England Exchange or NEXNET for short. Anyone wanting to connect to my server please send me an email with your Name Callsign and type of IP phone you have. Also after you get a hard phone on the system you can use Ground Wire on your cell phone to stay connected.
The system is growing and at present I do have Allstar RF Linking connected into the W1SYE Repeater and a few other good ones located in Fall River and also the KO4FRR East Coast Reflector.
Also I have 10 Audio links that allow you to listen to WBZ AM 1030 Boston, Old Time Radio, BBC World Service, WHJJ Fox News AM 920 Prov and Paranormal Radio, etc. With Hamshack Hotline going down I wanted to provide a service here in New England for Clubs, MARS and EOCs. Any questions please let me know. Also Attached is a copy of the latest W2DAN New England Exchange Directory.
Thanks
—
Dave Neal W2DAN
Quartermaster, Woodrow L. Silva VFW Post 5392
Life Member
W2DAN New England Exchange Ext: 4001
Cell: 401-241-9888
w2dan@cox.net
I am Drew Deskur, KA1M, and I am the Director of the Kopernik Observatory, a public observatory and Informal STEM Education Center in Vestal, New York, in the ARRL Western New York Section in south central New York State. www.kopernik.org
On Wednesday, August 13, Kopernik Observatory will be running a High Altitude Balloon camp for local high school students. On the payload of the balloon, we will be running APRS (K2ZRO-9) for tracking and we will also be flying SSTV on 145. 600 throughout the flight. We plan to launch hopefully between 10 to 10:30 AM (1400-1430 UTC) and the balloon should reach over 100,000 feet. In previous balloon flights, we have had APRS reports from up in Canada. Total flight time should be approximately 3 hours.
Please track the flight on aprs.fi and download the SSTV images if you are able to do so. We would love to receive copies of images received from stations in the Northeast and elsewhere so we can share with the students how altitude matters on VHF. Please send those images to k2zro@kopernik.org. Thank you!
—
Drew Deskur KA1M
Executive Director
Kopernik Observatory & Science Center
Look Up… Dream Big! www.kopernik.org
We’re organizing an antenna-building and help session for anyone who wants to get into radio direction finding, also known as fox hunting, radio orienteering, or transmitter hunting. Everyone is welcome, regardless of club membership or experience. Please contact us for details.
As an author, I respect copyright law, so can’t post the text or a PDF, but what it says is that the laws are changing. This apparently happened already on airlines that have experienced fires: South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Singapore. The US, EU, and UK may soon follow, so the situation is in flux because incidents have increased.
Currently, most (but not all) US airlines allow up to two 160 watt-hour batteries on-board in carry-on baggage. Lithium batteries are not allowed in checked bags. In case you are math-challenged, that’s a 12 amp-hour battery, like the one I mentioned in a post last week:
That is the battery I took with me for POTA in Arizona last year, and I can recommend it as near-perfect for QRO POTA if you want to travel by air to distant parks. I removed the power leads, taped over the terminals, and packed it in a heavy plastic freezer bag. TSA sniffed it (and my FT-891) and let it fly.
Just a reminder that the December New England Mesh Working Group monthly Zoom meeting is scheduled for Tuesday December 10th at 7:30PM. It is a pretty sparse agenda this month.Please let me know either here or offline if you have something to add.
Current Agenda:
* Intros
* Roundtable
* Closing
I’ve also been neglectful and never posted the recording of last month’s meeting. I will be fixing that shortly.
Please feel free to invite anyone who you may think would be interested.
Jonathan Taylor, K1RFD, Ridgefield, Connecticut, inventor of the highly popular program “EchoLink,” was featured as guest on the QSO Today podcast, episode #487. Taylor is also author of the NTS 2.0 Radiogram Portal web application.
From QSO Today: “Jonathan Taylor, K1RFD, has reached his 50th year has a ham radio operator, is the creator of Echolink, one of the first amateur radio Voice over Internet Service linking amateur radio stations, the receiver of technical innovation awards, and author of ‘VoIP: Internet Linking for Radio Amateurs,’ now in its second edition. K1RFD checks all of the ham radio boxes for operating, homebrewing, software development, radio restoration, and is my QSO Today.”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Dan Wright
k1was@was-ct.org
Phone: (203) 293-8759
Westport, Connecticut – March 13, 2024 – The Westport Astronomical Society (WAS) and its amateur radio station, K1WAS are excited to announce its participation in the observation of the total solar eclipse along the totality line in Texas on April 8, 2024, with a grant from NASA using high-altitude balloons launched by the University of Bridgeport and the University of New Haven.
The K1WAS team will assist the University of Bridgeport, and the University of New Haven with their effort in the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project. The amateur radio club, and many other amateur radio operator members and balloon enthusiasts, will help launch several high-altitude balloons equipped with cameras, sensors, and radio transmitters to capture the eclipse from a unique vantage point high above the Earth’s surface.
“We are thrilled to be able to contribute to the scientific community’s understanding of this celestial event,” said Dan Wright N3DAW, Board Member of the Westport Astronomical Society. “These high altitude balloon missions will offer a perspective of the eclipse that is both breathtaking and informative, helping researchers study the Sun’s corona and the Earth’s atmosphere in new and exciting ways.”
“Since the University of Bridgeport (UB) began its balloon science and payload work in 2013, K1WAS/WAS members have served as mentors and instructors to both myself and dozens of our students,” said Jani Macari Pallis, Ph.D., professor of mechanical engineering, who leads the engineering teams for NASA/Montana State’s Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project (NEBP) for the central northeast. “Early on K1WAS/WAS members took the time to instruct in all aspects of high altitude balloon flight: from safe helium usage and transportation, stacking and tying payloads together, creating containers to protect the instruments, communications, launch, tracking and balloon and payload recovery. K1WAS/WAS members have been at each of our launches and served as mentors and team members for UB’s 2017 total solar eclipse team as well as our 2023 annular eclipse team and upcoming 2024 total solar eclipse team. We are particularly indebted to K1WAS/WAS members Larry Reed, AB1JC, Gary Moyher, WE1M, Mike Miciukiewicz, K1MJM, and David Schadlich, KB1LTW.”
The University of New Haven’s Texas team will include ozonesonde payloads during this eclipse to monitor the ozone levels in the atmosphere. Both traditional weather balloons and a newly improved altitude-controlled balloon will be used for this mission. These experiments will provide data analysis, and valuable information to scientists across the planet that will be analyzed after the event.
The launch of the high-altitude balloon will take place from a location near the path of totality in Junction Texas at Texas Tech, where the eclipse will be visible for the longest duration. The balloons will ascend and hover at an altitude of 80,000 feet while gathering data, providing a clear view of the earth as the eclipse’s shadow passes.
Amateur radio operators and astronomy enthusiasts are invited to join the Westport Astronomical Society’s observation efforts by following the balloon’s location which will be captured in real-time using an amateur radio system called APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System), and participating in related events and discussions. Details on how to access the data and participate in the event will be shared on the Westport Astronomical Society’s website and social media channels.
The total solar eclipse, a rare astronomical event where the moon passes between the Earth and the Sun, will be visible across parts of North America but the sun is only 90% obscured in Westport and much of New England. The Westport Astronomical Society, known for its dedication to promoting astronomy and space exploration, is leveraging its resources and expertise to enhance the viewing experience for enthusiasts and researchers alike. Locally, WAS will have telescopes set up to safely view the partial eclipse with our partner, the Westport Library on April 8th from 2 – 4 PM.
In Connecticut, the next partial solar eclipses aren’t until 2028 and 2029 and will not obscure the sun anywhere near what we’ll see in April. For that, you’ll have to wait until the total solar eclipse on the morning of May 1, 2079.
More on WAS:
WAS opens up the Westport Observatory to the public every clear Wednesday from 8- 10 pm. For more information about the Westport Astronomical Society and its amateur radio station KIWAS, visit www.was-ct.org. Follow the Society on Facebook, Mastodon, LinkedIn, and Instagram for updates on the total solar eclipse observation mission.
Members of the Westport Astronomical Society’s Amateur Radio Station K1WAS launching a high-altitude balloon from Bridgeport’s Discovery Museum
Total Solar Eclipse, courtesy WAS Member Carl Lancaster, KB1NTN
We are writing to you on a matter of scientific urgency.
HamSCI stands for Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation. We have been actively engaged in scientific data collection for both the October 14, 2023, annular solar eclipse and the upcoming April 8, 2024, total eclipse.
Two major activities that HamSCI will be involved around the solar events will be The Solar Eclipse QSO Party (SEQP) and the Gladstone Signal Spotting Challenge (GSSC) which are part of theHamSCI Festivals of Eclipse Ionospheric Science. Other experiments that will also to be conducted include the Time Delay of Arrival (TDOA) experiment, the Very Low Frequency (VLF) Reception Exercise and the Medium Wave Recordings Event. Members of HamSCI, along with the amateur radio community, will be creating data for researchers by transmitting, receiving, and recording signals across the high frequency (HF) spectrum.
We would like to encourage you to cooperate on a joint astronomy/radio outreach event for the upcoming eclipse. The event promises to be one of the science highlights of the decade. Many astronomy clubs are planning to host outreach events in their town or near the centerline of totality. However, seeing the eclipse visually might be clouded out by unpredictable April weather.
But terrestrial weather is not space weather. At radio frequencies. amateur radio operators can still bounce their signals off the ionosphere high above the clouds to communicate with other hams hundreds or thousands of miles away. It is the Sun’s light which ionizes the upper air and produces the ionosphere, so during a solar eclipse the ionization lessens, and the ionosphere gets weaker, and its bottom level gets higher. This change can be observed with amateur radio equipment. At high frequencies a distant bounced signal fades, but at very low frequencies it strengthens as an absorbing layer weakens. With specialized equipment (go to www.hamsci.org/eclipse) you can even observe the changing Doppler shift as the bounce altitude recedes skyward then returns toward the ground as the Moon passes off the face of the Sun using the Grape 1 personal space weather system equipment).
For ideas on eclipse activities visit the NASA/Arizona State University (https://scope.asu.edu/eclipse-activities/) and also the HamSCI (hamsci.org/eclipse) websites where you will be encouraged to join the solar eclipse QSO party (SEQP).
Please let us know if you need any help. We hope you have a great eclipse experience and can send us a photo or a short report after the event.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
