Now we have 2012

Time to start another year .!.

Sometimes it seems like we didn’t do much as a club, but just look back on this last year in the blog, and you will find NanoSail-D, VHF contests, Field Day, the Final Shuttle Launch Special Event, and points in between. We have come a long way in bringing the MARC back to life, and can be proud of that. We logged over 250 HF contacts during the STS-135 commemorative, and have sent certificates to all stations who sent us a SASE. The eQSL logs for this last year’s events will be uploaded before long, so please be patient.  /;^)

Sure we have a ways to go – but we already have plans in place to replace the HF beam rotor, and get our satellite tracking hardware back into operation. We need to focus our attention and get our motivation into gear to operate the multiple modes available on the International Space Station (ARISS is now a formal payload). We are very close to being ready to support voice and packet contacts. Just a little more and we can even support school contacts via telebridge, as requested by the ARISS payload manager N5VHO.

In addition to now holding Army MARS license AAR4CMF, we will likely be hosting a remotely managed HF transceiver for the MSFC-EOC, and be in a position to support their participation in local/regional SKYWARN activations.           (We need to draft a new MOU…)
AND… BTW, speaking of EOCs – our participation in the 2011 Field Day event was nothing to sneeze at. We may have only logged 99 contacts, but that gave us a  score of 248 points in the 1F category. There were only 38 entries nationwide in the ‘EOC’ class, and we were the only entry from Alabama, so we actually took top place in our category for this section.!.!. Wow.

ISS 003UTC2250 over Alabama

OK, so if that is not enough motivational content, here is a quick picture I shot last might watching the ISS fly over my backyard. About 30 seconds of light captured the neighbor’s rooftop, my HF vertical, and a slice of the ISS orbit as they pass by at 17,500  miles/hr…. We need to establish WA4NZD as a presence both with voice and on the packet radio with our Space Station…..
Come by the club station at Bldg 4622 and see how things look these days, it has come a long ways just this year. (Oh Yeah, it is time to pay up some dues – for those that haven’t yet… ) This is NOT a government funded operation, and we do need YOUR support).

Thanks  /;^)

December 1st is meeting day.

Our first Thursday meeting schedule happens to land on the 1st next month.
The December meeting, will be held on Thursday the 1st at 4:30pm CST.
Several of us get there early, and stay late – so please stop by Bldg 4622.
Seems to catch me off guard when it is this early in the month, as I like to post something on the blog. I wish there was more news to report, but very little has changed. Looking at the building log, it appears that I am the only one that has been there since the November meeting. We are still planning the overhaul of the HF beam and rotor on the big tower, but are also still on hold pending repair of the hi-lift ‘cherry-picker’.

The recent acquisition of the salvaged desk/console makes an attractive addition to the club station. Come see it in person, and help us figure out how we might want to setup the various equipment pieces.
Here is a fairly recent recent photo of the new furniture arrangement :

almost looks 'modern' . . .

There will be plenty of ‘old business’ to discuss, and we are still trying to get dues collected before the end of the year. We need our members to continue their support of ‘our club’ . . . Please make plans to attend this last meeting of the year, and catch up on the various projects and plans we are making for 2012.

Thanks  /;^)

Summer is gone

This was a hot summer, and not having any air-conditioning in the club station (again) makes the Alabama summer seem even hotter. We did press on tho, and enjoyed Field Day with minimal suffering. Understandably, not so many members came out to help, but we submitted a score based upon 99 contacts.

Field Day 2011 @ WA4NZD

We also conducted a special event operation during the Final Shuttle Flight, and logged over 260 contacts during the STS-135 mission. We have

STS-135 concludes

The pre-dawn landing of the Atlantis orbiter marked the end of the US Space Shuttle Program. New developments and technologies will continue to evolve our world, but only if we push the limits of our imagination – and encourage this upcoming generation of scientists and engineers to continue in our footsteps. We will need more than Prime-Time TV and unlimited downloads to actually motivate our offspring to seek answers to the world’s questions. Show them the wonders of the world in such a way as to generate questions. Don’t just give them the easy answers. They will in time derive solutions much better than ours.

I always like to think that ham radio plays an important role in fostering exploration and discovery, that surely was the case for me. Speaking for the handful of ham operators that performed this special event here for the last two weeks; we certainly had our share of challenges and constraints, but we feel our mission was accomplished. We pulled together our limited resources, pooled our talents, and shared our enthusiasm for the space program with hundreds of fellow operators that nearly always thanked us and congratulated us on the success of NASA. We greatly appreciated your enthusiasm and interest.

WA4NZD Mission Patch for STS135

Nine of our club members have collectively logged contact with