Subj : Newsline Part 1
To : All
From : Daryl Stout
Date : Fri Feb 17 2017 09:15 am
Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2051, February 17th, 2017
Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2051, with a release date of Friday,
February 17th, 2017 to follow in 5-4-3-2-1.
The following is a QST. Intensive studies of the ionosphere are resuming
at last at a high-profile research site in Alaska. A group of DXers in the
U.S. gets a ham in the North Cook Islands on the air after three decades -
and shortwave listeners prepare for their 30th annual gathering. All this
and more, as Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2051, comes your way right now.
**
BILLBOARD CART
***
PAUL: We open this week's report with word that the ionosphere, the very
thing that lets us hams BE hams, is about to go back under formal
scientific scrutiny this month at a former military site in Alaska. Now,
of course, the study is an academic exercise, as we learn from Amateur
Radio Newsline's Jim Damron, N8TMW.
JIM'S REPORT:: The University of Alaska at Fairbanks is about to embark
on its first radio research project later this month at the High Frequency
Active Auroral Research Program site. The experiments will occur within
HAARP's transmitter tuning range of 2.7 to 10 MHz. According to university
researcher Chris Fallen, KL3WX, the transmissions are likely to be audible
outside Alaska, and may even be visibly detected within the state.
He said that if conditions are favorable, HAARP radio transmissions may
also be heard from virtually anywhere in the world using an inexpensive
shortwave radio. The transmissions' exact frequencies will not be
determined until right before the experiment, and will be posted on
Twitter as soon as they are known. Listeners are advised to follow the
site by its Twitter handle, which is at-U-A-F-G-I (@UAFGI).
The work is being done under a grant from the National Science Foundation.
The university took over the Gakona, Alaska site 18 months ago from the
U.S. Air Force, which had used the 40-acre grid of antennas and powerful
array of HF transmitters to conduct research into the properties and
behavior of the ionosphere.
Later experiments will include a look at over-the-horizon radar and
satellite-to-ground communications.
For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Jim Damron, N8TMW.
(UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA, ARRL)
**
NO RADIO SILENCE IN ANTARCTICA
PAUL: In another cold place, on the opposite end of the planet, hams still
await signals from hams at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. There are,
however, alternatives as we hear from Amateur Radio Newsline's Jeremy Boot,
G4NJH.
JEREMY'S REPORT: The ice hasn't melted in Antarctica, but there appears to
be something of a thaw anyway - at least in terms of amateur radio
communications. The KC4USV operation at McMurdo Station hasn't been on the
air in two years but if you've been listening during the last few weeks,
you might have heard someone else - KC4AAA -- at the U.S. Amundsen-Scott
South Pole Station. Sure enough, there was activity on SSB on 40 meters.
Even though the station wasn't on the air too often during 2016, it was
active in December and January, and will be sending out QSL cards in
March, according to the QSL Manager Larry Skilton K1IED
(KAY-ONE-EYE-EE-DEE).
If you can't get through to KC4AAA, try Mikhail "Mike" Fokin, RI1AND, at
Novolazarevskaya Base, Antarctica. He has been working stations in the
U.S. on 40 and 20 meters using PSK31. You also have a few more days -
until the 22nd of February, to contact Oleg Neruchev, ZS1OIN/UA3HK. He
is active as RI1ANN from the Russian Progress station.
Meanwhile, McMurdo Station KC4USV is waiting for a thaw of its own and
K1IED requests, on its QRZ page, that hams contact the National Science
Foundation and press them to put the station back on the air.
For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Jeremy Boot, G4NJH.
