While preparing the 2012 Jan VHF Sweepstakes log for submission, I discovered that I had not uploaded any log entries to eQSL since 2010. Duuuuh….
And on top of that, the latest (current) QSL image was not on-line.
So – since I was off today on Holiday – I took care of all that.

Our eQSL card is updated.

In addition to updating the image, I have uploaded the ADIF files for several recent VHF contests as well as a few Field Day activities. There is now a total of 614 outbound QSL entries on-line. We still need to process the previous STS special event logs into ADIF format so that we can upload those. We have lots of incoming eQSLs that we need to match up and verify with our logs.
This is how our Outbox looks as of now (mid-Feb of 2013)…

snapshot of eQSL Outbox summary

OK, Thanks again for all the support. This is how fun happens.
Keep up the good work thru 2013, and you will be proud of your club.
Spread the word, we can always find room for a few more new members.

Thanks  /;^)

We run in a “limited multi-op” category, so we sometimes had all three bands
going at the same time. The limited means we only submit contacts on three
bands (50, 144, and 432 MHz), rather than ‘unlimited’ which could also
include 220, 901, 1296, 2406, etc…)

Later in the evening the 6m band came back to life, with contacts to the
north east (best DX was New Hampshire @~1000 miles), and then the midwest
with stations in KS, NE, CO, OK . . .
Marvin and I were there until nearly midnite.!.

When we left there were 52 contacts in the log, with 23 grid multipliers.
The score showing in the log program was 1357 points.

This runs until 10pm CST, and I’ll be back out there shortly.
I need some more to eat, and maybe a nice hot shower first.
I’ll post this on the blog, along with a screen grab from last night of the DXmaps.com 6m map.

last night’s 6m activity from DXmaps.com

Thanks  /;^)

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 3,400 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 6 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Marshall Amateur Radio Club WA4NZD will participate in this exercise; and fortunately, we have our monthly meeting this Thursday (Oct.4) and can discuss our preparations to ensure that our station is ready for whatever comes. Stop in Bldg.4622 after work and help us prepare for this year’s SET.

One teaser, to help encourage folks to participate, is this ‘proposed plan‘ of how we might coordinate multiple agencies and individuals over a large area, utilizing multiple frequencies. Of course, the details are somewhat masked, as this is a work in progress, and we want to observe how our multi-talented pool of resources will evolve into meeting our needs for the exercise.

brain-storming a messaging network

Be thinking about how we structured our support last year after the tornadoes, and throughout that week-long power outage. What worked well, what might have helped. Bring your good ideas, and a desire to help to the annual SET.
We will figure out what works, and what doesn’t.

Thanks  /;^)

Find WB5RMG @ the AMSAT booth

Thanks  /;^)

Here are some links to more pics from WB5RMG for June 2012 activities :
GigaParts celebrates Ham Radio Day in Huntsville AL.
Full photo gallery for WA4NZD club activities for June 2012.

Don’t forget, we also have a monthly meeting, gathering ~4pm CDT, 2 Aug 2012. The short meeting typically starts by 5pm in Bldg 4622. Click for maps.

Thanks  /;^)

For this event, we staged two radio operators at our club radio station in Building 4622, much as we might during an actual tornado watch event. When the Marshall EOC notified their storm spotters via the commercial 800 MHz radio system, we received that notification as well, and established the Marshall Amateur Response Net on our radio system. We check-in club members from their work areas, as well as other participating stations. The goal here was to evaluate how well our personal hand held radios might be able to communicate with each other in the event of a live situation. During this exercise we established communications with 14 other stations, including the Marshall EOC, the Huntsville-Madison County EOC, and the Fox Army Medical Center. The remaining stations were individuals in various buildings about the center and around town in Huntsville. We primarily used a ‘full-duplex’ repeater system located on the Arsenal, but we also exercised a communications path via a ‘simplex’ or a ‘direct point-to-point’ method. In some cases the direct path offered better signals. We have some follow-on recommendations for our group – to be better prepared for next time.

This exercise was a great opportunity to demonstrate our inter-operability and effectiveness in collaboration with the Marshall EOC. We confirmed an ability to sustain completely independent communications channels between our radio station and the EOC. We received a simulated emergency weather report on our ham radio channel, and then relayed that message to the EOC over the commercial radio service. Under extreme/unusual conditions, we must be prepared to support communications that may be very time-sensitive and essential to the safety and well-being of center personnel. We felt that this was a very successful and useful exercise.

The Marshall Amateur Radio Club greatly appreciates this opportunity to contribute to the emergency preparedness environment at the Marshall Center. We are looking forward to future collaboration. We are also looking forward to meeting more folks interested in the personal radio hobby, that might be interested in learning more about ham radio and participating in our club activities.

Thanks  /;^)

Kotrous from the Marshall EOC visits the MARC station

Here is a brief summary presented for inclusion into the Center Notes :

NASA’s Emergency Communication Service recommendations (Draft Rev.13) suggests that in addition to official staffing, volunteer support from the Amateur Radio Service can be enlisted. This prompted Brian Kotrous, an Emergency Manager from NASA Protective Services, to attend a meeting of the Marshall Amateur Radio Club (MARC) on May 3, 2012. After describing his mission objectives and some brief discussion, Kotrous invited the membership to participate in future MSFC emergency preparedness exercises. Several MARC members are planning to participate in the upcoming Severe Weather exercise planned for June 14, 2012.

A distinct benefit of utilizing ham radio volunteers, is that many are already connected to and familiar with local and regional agencies such as the Huntsville-Madison County EMA, and the National Weather Service. In addition to providing alternate path communication services, the MARC membership also provides a pool of experienced radio operators that can augment the Center’s capabilities in an emergency.

An example of this type of  service the MARC can provide, was actualized on May 23, 2012 – when KHA945 (MSFC-EOC) was able to check into a regional shortwave radio “net” using equipment at the MARC radio station in Bldg. 4622. This is a weekly radio coordination test conducted by the National Communications System (NCS), for Shared Resources (SHARES). The MSFC EOC has been recently relocated and their HF (shortwave radio) system antenna is not available currently. The MARC will gladly continue to help facilitate this routine testing of operational readiness.

The Marshall Amateur Radio Club is looking forward to becoming more involved in the Center’s Emergency Preparedness activities, and is well positioned to provide additional communication support. More information can be found on the club’s blog http://wa4nzd.wordpress.com .

Anderson Hills Tornado 20110427

This response and recovery effort was enhanced by the participation of hundreds of Amateur Radio operators, that jumped at the chance to fill in where ordinary lines of communications were not available. This is an aspect of ham radio that many of us find greatly rewarding, as we plan and prepare for such situations. Historically ham radio has proven itself to be of great value after earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters.

Many of our club members participate in the ARRL’s ARES program, and are registered and participate on a formal level with agencies such as the National Weather Service, the US Army MARS program, and the Huntsville-Madison County EMA. Now that our Marshall Amateur Radio Club has begun to function again, we are pleased that the Marshall Emergency Management organization has taken an interest in who we are, and what we might be able to do to assist them as well. They have approached the club looking for some basic information, and intend to send a representative to our next regular meeting (which happens to be this Thursday, 3.May,2012), to open this dialog.

Here is an extract from the email response sent back to them last week :

We conducted a survey this week, and had response from
11 members, (~20% of our group). From the questions we
asked, here are some representative results to indicate
the level of interest in activities that might be of
value to the EOC:

-NWS Skywarn Storm Spotter, 7 members reported receiving
 this training within the last two years, and 5 reported
 receiving this training more than 3 times.
-FEMA ICS-100 online, 6 members report having completed.
-FEMA ICS-200 online, 5 members report having completed.
-FEMA ICS-700 online, 5 members report having completed.
-CERT , 1 member reported completing CERT training.
-local EMA, 4 members report regular monthly meetings.
-local and state-wide on-the-air training nets, 6 members.
-Simulated Emergency Tests (local & statewide), 4 members.
-field deployment & tabletop participation, 5 members.
-annual ARRL Field Day exercise, 8 members report regular
 participation, with 4 of those reporting participation
 from our 4622 club station.

Again, this response is from only 11 of our 50 members,
but likely with more participation the trend would
likely remain proportional. This is a very motivated
and functional group that appreciates the value
of community effort.

This could well be a valuable meeting for the Marshall EOC, for our club, and for the community at large. If you have been to our meetings, please plan to attend this one on Thursday. If you have had an interest in ham radio in the past, or have only recently learned about this interesting hobby, please feel free to visit our club radio station in Building 4622 for this meeting.

Again, the meeting will be held Thursday (5 to 6pm) May 3rd 2012.
Some of us get there as early as 4pm to get ready, so please drop in.
Building 4622 is located on Centaur Street, west from the southern end of Rideout Road (turn west onto Fowler Road for about 1/4 mile, and Centaur splits off to the left). We are the 2nd building on the left (the one with the 100 ft radio tower and big antenna…) HERE is an earlier page with maps.

Thanks for your support and participation…  /;^)

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  /;^)