PARS BREAKFAST MEETING THIS COMING SATURDAY
Our next meeting will be at 0900 this Saturday, Nov 30th, at Brantley’s
Village Restaurant on Broad Street in Oriental. Please park on the side or
out back. Our meetings are held the last Saturday of each month except June
when the club participates in the annual ARRL Field Day or when in conflict
with a major holiday. After a short business meeting Bill will lead a
seminar on “Stealth Antennas”. We hope to see you all there. For more
information contact Pamlico Amateur Radio Society President Bill Olah,
KR4LO, 249-0287 or w_olah@yahoo.com.
PARS TOURS VOICE OF AMERICA TRANSMITTER STATION
For a visit arranged by PARS President Bill Olah KR4LO, last Wednesday
eleven members found their way along the back roads to Grimesland and the
the Edward R. Murrow VOA transmitter station. This station, Greenville “Site
B”, is the last of the VOA stateside HF transmission sites still in
operation. Built in the 1960’s, each of its seven big walk-in “industrial
strength” transmitters are still capable of sending 500KW out to any one of
the rhombic, fan dipoles, and Sturba Curtain antennas in the big treeless
field behind the building. Even with very limited funding by Congress,
Chief Engineer Macon Dial (KB4PMQ) and the small staff keep the station on
the air 24 hours a day broadcasting programs from Washington DC VOA studios
to listeners around the world. The programs are currently being directed
toward South America, Africa and the Far East but the station is capable of
pointing its short wave signals in any direction. The station transmits, not
only in conventional AM, but also SSB and several digital modes. A thick
binder full of reception reports attests to effectiveness of the station’s
transmitters to maintain the United States’ top standing in the world of
international radio broadcasting. Photos of the site taken during the visit
should be soon on the new Pamlico Amateur Radio Society website,
www.n4prs.org.
2013 ARRL FIELD DAY RESULTS ARE OUT
Check out your December issue of QST starting on page 72. On the 4th
weekend in June, the ARRL reports that over 36, 560 operators celebrated 80
years of portable amateur radio. The complete results — including a copy of
the QST article (with line scores) and a searchable results database — are
available on the ARRL website.
Our Pamlico Amateur Radio Society made 584 QSO’s and scored 2620 points
during the event– considerably more than our 310 QSO’s and 1910 points last
year. The PARS team placed 6th of 16 in our ARRL North Carolina Section, 2
transmitter class; 16th out of 25 in the Roanoke Division, and 146th out of
391 in the 2A class overall… pretty decent numbers when you consider we
operated only during the daylight hours and had limited operations on
Sunday. Over 34 hams, visitors, and guests enjoyed the laid-back
festivities at our site in Oriental overlooking the beautiful Neuse River.
SOLAR NUMBERS TODAY
NOAA reported that solar activity was low during the 24 hours ending Sunday
night at 5 pm local. The largest solar event of the period was
a C4 event observed at 24/0752Z from Region 1904 . There are currently 4
numbered sunspot regions on the disk. The Sunspot count this morning is 69
and the Solar Flux was 127. It is expected to stay about the same through
Wednesday, perhaps rise a few points. NOAA predicts Solar activity to be
low with a chance for M-class flares on Monday and Tuesday (25 Nov, 26 Nov)
and likely to be low with a slight chance for an M-class flare on Wednesday
(27 Nov).
The Earth’s geomagnetic field was quiet to unsettled over the weekend. The
estimated planetary K-index at 7 am local today, 25 November, was zero.
Geomagnetic conditions are expected to be quiet/unsettled through Wednesday.
Apparently, while we were away, the sunspot numbers made a profound leap for
a short period with the sunspot number on November 15 reaching 272, then it
hit 282 on November 17. According to Tad Cook, K7RA, this is a record for
the current solar cycle. He noted in his report on Friday that this level
of activity has not been observed for over a decade. The heightened activity
caused 10 meters to virtually explode with the band full of signals from
around the world. Unfortunately the sunspot number declined rapidly since
that Sunday a week ago.
Winter E Propagation is beginning on the VHF bands. Reports of Trans
Equatorial propagation into South America have also been on the rise the
last several weeks.
DX CHALLENGE FOR THE WEEK
LAKSHADWEEP ISLAND, VU7. A large group of operators are QRV as
VU7AG from Laccadive, IOTA AS-011, until December 10. Activity is
on 160 to 10 meters using CW, SSB and RTTY. QSL via W4VKU.
Just so you know, from Wikipedia, Lakshadweep, formerly known as
the Laccadive, Minicoy, and Amindivi Islands is a group of islands in the
Laccadive Sea, 120 to 270 miles off the south western coast of India.
Lakshadweep comes from “Lakshadweepa”, which means “one hundred thousand
islands” in Sanskrit as well as many Indian languages like Hindi, Malayalam,
Kannada, Telugu and others. The islands are the northernmost of the
Lakshadweep-Maldives-Chagos group of islands, which are the tops of a vast
undersea mountain range, the Chagos-Laccadive Ridge. The main occupation of
the people is fishing and coconut cultivation, with tuna being the main item
of export. Due to their beauty and isolation, tourists now flock to these
islands throughout the year except during the South-west monsoon months when
seas are extremely rough.
QSO CORNER
This is the place to post contacts with DXpeditions, Special Event
Stations, or special QSO’s you would like to share.
No reports were received from PARS members for the last several weeks
although there were plenty of opportunities to work distant and infrequently
heard countries. Not only is Lakshadweep being seen on the cluster, but
DXpedition signals were heard in Whortonsville from K9W, 5J0R, XR0YY, T33A,
XR0ZR, 3DA0ET and more. It’s best to all the DX you can this Winter before
Solar Cycle 24 winds down.
OTHER ACTIVITY ON THE RADIO:
This info is extracted from the ARRL Letter, from the WA7BNM Contest
Calendar or the ARRL Contest Corral. You can receive the Letter weekly via
email as a member of ARRL :
* Nov 28 — Top Band Sprint, CW+SSB
* Nov 30 — Full Day of Hell
* Dec 1 — SARL Digital Contest
All dates & times, unless otherwise stated, are UTC.
See the ARRL Contest Branch page <http://www.arrl.org/contests/>, the ARRL
Contest Update http://www.arrl.org/The-ARRL-Contest-Update/ and the WA7BNM
Contest Calendar <http://www.hornucopia.com/contestcal/index.html> for more
info. Looking for a Special Event station? Be sure to check out the ARRL
Special Event Station Web page<http://www.arrl.org/special-events>. For a
LIST OF STATE QSO PARTIES, see
http://www.hornucopia.com/contestcal/stateparties.html. (State QSO parties
are a great way to get those last states on your Worked All States (WAS)
Award list.)
HAM EQUIPMENT FOR SALE, TRADE, OR WANTED
——————–
* SOLD Yaesu FT-450D, 100W HF&6M Transceiver with built in
tuner
——————–
* FS Beckman Industrial 60 MHz Oscilloscope model 9106
asking $100 but make an offer, Jamie King KJ4JK, 252-514-7497,
kj4jk@arrl.net (20130722/20131104)
——————–
(Send me your amateur radio related items for sale, trade, or wanted for
listing in the PARSgram. PLEASE let me know if your listing is no longer
needed. ITEMS listed will EXPIRE AFTER 90 DAYS unless I hear
otherwise.–Jim).
PARS CALENDAR:
* Nov 30, PARS Monthly Meeting, Saturday, 9 am, Brantley’s Village
Restaurant, Oriental. Bill Olah, KR4LO, 249-0287 or w_olah@yahoo.com
* Dec 6-7, SKYWARN Appreciation Day, 7 pm Fri – 7 pm Sat, NWS
Newport-Morehead City
* Dec 28, PARS Monthly Meeting, Saturday, 9 am, Brantley’s Village
Restaurant, Oriental. Bill Olah, KR4LO, 249-0287 or w_olah@yahoo.com
PARS NETS:
* Mondays, Pete’s “Swamp Talk” roundtable, around 8:15 pm local, 28.463
MHz plus or minus, USB. An informal forum originally established to assist
our new Hams, this freq. is in the 10M voice segment open to technician
licensees and above. Radio topics/questions/issues welcomed.
* Wednesdays, Pamlico Emergency Net Practice and Rag Chew, 7:30 pm,
Oriental Repeater, 147.210 + (PL151.4).
PARS WEB SITE:
https://www.n4prs.org/
Web Master is Larry Wall, KK4SEO, wallmailbox@yahoo.com.
PARSgram ITEMS
We are always looking for items of interest to PARS members to put in the
PARSgram. If you run across a timely item or think of something you think
would interest our folks, please send it to me. Thanks
Have a very Happy Thanksgiving….
Jim, AI4WL