Almost 300 lighthouses in more than 40 countries and territories — from Argentina to Wales — will be on the air for 2010 International Lighthouse/Lightship Weekend (ILLW), organized by Scotland’s Ayr Amateur Radio Group (AARG). The event, held for the 12th year in a row, takes place Saturday, August 21 0001 UTC through Sunday, August 22 2359 UTC. While not a contest, the ILLW is more of a QSO Party and Amateur Radio demonstration. The ILLW aims to raise public awareness of lighthouses and lightships and the need for their preservation and restoration, promote Amateur Radio and foster international goodwill. Stations at more than 40 US lights are expected to be on the air for the event, and several stations will identify with special event call signs. Participating lighthouse/lightship stations do not have to be inside the structure or on the vessel itself; a Field Day-type setup at or adjacent to the light is sufficient. More information about the event, including a registration form and list of all lights scheduled to be on the air, is available on the ILLW Web site. The ILLW also has a Facebook page.

Please join the Milford Amateur Radio Club (MARC) for our ARRL Field Day operations. We will again be operating from Barb and Bill Steward’s house on Newtonsville-Hutchinson Rd. The club again thanks Barb and Bill for having our club out there for a couple of days!

Directions to Barb and Bill’s Field Day Site: Map Here

5681 Newtonsville-Hutchinson Rd
Batavia, OH 45103

Reminder: We will start setting up the site on Friday at 2:00 PM local time. Let Bill, WS6K know if you’ll be available to help. We will finish setting up on Saturday morning and start operating at 2:00 PM.

About Field Day
The first Field Day dates back to June 1933 when gasoline was 12 cents a gallon, transmitter tuning was done by holding a neon bulb near the plate tank circuit and tuned for maximum brilliance, and the transmitted frequency was fixed and not readily movable. Field Day was in 1933, and still is, a way to test a station’s or a club’s emergency preparedness.

Sponsored by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), Field Day is an annual event testing emergency preparedness and communication skills for hams. We use generators, and string antennas through trees to make contacts with other hams at field day sites across the country. The idea is to put together self-sufficient, working stations quickly and begin making contacts. It is an ideal event to practice skills in portable operation, erecting antennas, operating a HF station and logging contacts.

When is Field Day?
Field Day 2010 takes place June 26-27th, starting Saturday at 1800 UTC (2:00 PM) and ending at 1200 UTC (2:00 PM) Sunday running for 24 hours straight.

Setup and Tear Down
We need volunteers to help us setup, the day before, and to tear down, immediately at the end (Sunday 2:00 PM). We can start setting up equipment 24 hours before the start of Field Day. We will start setting up Friday afternoon, June 25th at 2:00 PM.

Who Can Operate the HF Stations?
You do not need to have a General License or an amateur radio license to operate a HF station during Field Day. If a technician class or someone totally new to ham radio is interested in operating the station, they can operate as long as there is a higher class operator present. We have Extra Class operators that are in the immediate area, allowing everyone to operate within the FCC rules. We encourage people interested in seeing what amateur radio is all about and to come out and visit us and operate. The Field Day event is operated under the club call W8MRC.

Have Fun
We want everyone to have a good time, be able to make SSB, PSK and CW contacts, and encourage camaraderie. You are welcome to just stop by and check things out, and if you are not interested in operating, you can help with the setup, take photos and/or video, log contacts for operators, or help us tear down. Hamburgers and hotdogs (typically) are provided for the potluck (bring a dish/snacks) dinner on Saturday night and breakfast is provided on Sunday morning.

Different clubs have different goals for what Field Day is. Some clubs, like the Milford Amateur Radio Club (MARC) encourage new people to get involved and when we can, try to make as many contacts as possible during the 24 hour period.

Here is another video from Randy, K7AGE looking at homebrew and commercial soundcard interfaces for PSK31, RTTY, SSTV and other digital modes.

I’ve been using PSK since 2001/2002 and it is a great digital mode for hams to use. PSK31 was developed by English amateur radio operator Peter Martinez (G3PLX) and introduced to the wider amateur radio community in December 1998.

I posted a video on September 25, 2009 about “PSK-31 Introduction (Receiving)”. You can find it by searching for “PSK” in the search box above, by clicking on the video tab above or go to the Archive page under the “Site” tab.

Source: K7AGE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmsFhz_dyAg

Don’t forget the ARRL 10 Meter Contest is this weekend. Technicians can now operate in this band, so this is a good opportunity to make some HF contacts! Contest starts at 2400 Z Friday and ends at 2399 Z on Sunday.

I have included the ARRL write-up on the contest below.

73, Steve

The Doctor Is IN: Focusing on 10 Meters

By S. Khrystyne Keane, K1SFA
ARRL News Editor
k1sfa@arrl.org

December 09, 2009

Now with the ARRL 160 Meter Contest come and gone, it’s time for me to focus on the opposite end of the HF Spectrum: 10 meters. You guessed it — I’m gearing up for the 37th running of the ARRL 10 Meter Contest. This contest has a bit of a twist to it: Operators have the choice of using CW only, SSB only or they can mix it up and use both. So as I prepare this week for the ‘test, I went to ask the Doctor what is so special about 10 meters. Is there anything I need to be aware of and watch out for this weekend when I’m on the air?

The Doctor — who chortled and wondered about my fascination with this band that everyone claims is all but dead — told me that the 10 meter band is a very interesting band. Sometimes it shares propagation modes with 6 meters, the “magic” band. At other times, it can sound like 20 meters, but with less noise and stronger signals. During the current state of the sunspot cycle, the 20 meter-like occurrences are few and far between, but there are still almost always some kind of medium to long haul propagation modes available, such as sporadic E, transequatorial and the like.

He told me that he has always found the 10 meter contest the most fascinating in terms of showing what the band can do. His belief is that the band is often open to some exotic spot, but no one is on to notice. People turn on the receivers, hear nothing and then switch to 17 or 20 meters where there are some signals. During the 10 meter contest there are signals on from all over the world. If you tune the band you will hear signals from somewhere else. What’s fascinating is that the far end changes rapidly as the contest progresses — you might hear stations from southern Africa, but not northern Africa, a while later from Europe or South America and nowhere else. He said he knows the same propagation quirks are happening when it’s not the contest, but no one notices.

So why not give 10 meters a try? Hopefully you will get a great feel for this great band. Now that Technician class licensees can enjoy the fun, there will be even more signals. As with all operations, antennas can make a big difference, but when 10 is really open, you will be able to get to distant spots with almost anything. If you have yet to try your hand on the 10 meter band, a contest like the ARRL 10 Meter Contest might be just the ticket. Do you have a question or a problem for the Doctor? Send your questions via e-mail or to “The Doctor,” ARRL, 225 Main St, Newington, CT 06111 (no phone calls, please). Look for “The Doctor Is IN” every month in QST, the official journal of the ARRL.

I just tried this great Morse Code software program I found from the PA1JIM website. The Morse Machine is an adaption of the Morse Code Testing Machine. G4ILO’s website describes how to use this software and you can get the software download there.

This program is simple to use and helps you with your keyboard skills, too, if you need help with that. I plan on turning up the speed and increase my copying accuracy!

You can choose to learn letters only, numbers only, or a combination of letters, numbers and symbols. Morse Machine sends a character and then waits for you to type what you heard. If you get the character wrong it repeats it until you get it right. You start off with two characters, and when the program sees you are copying them correctly it adds another, and then another, until you are accurately copying the whole alphabet, numbers and punctuation characters!

This program works fine with Windows 7 64-bit.

__… …__, … _ . …_ .

I have just implemented a “Forum” for everyone to use. You access from the Page category in the Navigation bar above. Or Here There are many different Topics that I set up that you can read or reply to.

Topics I have created so far include: Contesting, DX, Digital Modes, Mobile, Propagation, QSL, SSB and CW Modes, Ham Shack Items, Antennas, HF and VHF/UHF radios, Accessories, For Sale/Trade/Wanted, Emergency Communications, APRS, Introductions, Help, Suggestions, and Club Related.

—
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site. It originated as the modern equivalent of a traditional bulletin board, and a technological evolution of the dialup bulletin board system. From a technological standpoint, forums or boards are web applications managing user-generated content.

People participating in an Internet forum may cultivate social bonds and interest groups for a topic may form from the discussions.

Source: Wiki

THE 2009 EXPEDITION TO MIDWAY ISLAND

October 9th to 19th 2009
DXCC ENTITY: KH4
Latitude: 28° 12′ N. Longitude: 177° 22′ W.

One of our local hams will be operating on Midway. Joe Pater-W8GEX, Team Equipment Manager
is from Oxford, Ohio. He is a member of Southwest Ohio DX Association (SWODXA) and has been on many DX Expeditions.

Planned Operating Frequencies:

BAND SSB CW RTTY
10 28475 28024 28080
12 24945 24894 -
15 21295 21024 21080
17 18145 18074 18100
20 14200 14024 14080
30 - 10104 10140
40 7078 7004 7040
80 3799 3504 -
160 - 1826.5 -
6 50.115 50.115 -

Midway Atoll is an unorganized, unincorporated territory of the United States. It is less than 140 nautical miles (259 km; 161 mi) east of the International Date Line, about 2,800 nautical miles (5,200 km; 3,200 mi) west of San Francisco and 2,200 nautical miles (4,100 km; 2,500 mi) east of Tokyo. It consists of a ring-shaped barrier reef and several sand islets. The two significant pieces of land, Sand Island and Eastern Island, provide habitat for hundreds of thousands of seabirds.

Source: Midway DX Expedition Official Website

It is now time to start dumping your old International Reply Coupons (IRCs): The “Beijing Model No 2” must be redeemed before December 31, 2009.

According to The Daily DX editor Bernie McClenny, W3UR, many QSL managers are now only accepting the new Nairobi Model IRC, so he advises that it is now time to start getting rid of the old IRCs and not get stuck with any! The new IRC, available in the US since September 10 and elsewhere since July, costs $2.10 each in the US. For those in the US who will be exchanging the old version of IRCs for new ones, USPS Bulletin #22267 advises postal workers to tell customers “to exchange IRCs that expire on December 31, 2009 for the new IRC version (Item 330800) or for other postage stamps. Retail associates (RAs) can exchange unused US-issued IRCs for $0.01 less than the value of the IRC. (The amount to exchange is the printed price of the IRC along with any additional postage affixed minus one penny.)”

The Nairobi Model was designed by Rob Van Goor, a graphic artist from the Luxembourg Post. It was selected from among 10 designs presented by Universal Postal Union member countries. Van Goor interpreted the theme of the contest — “The Postage Stamp: A Vehicle for Exchange” — by depicting the world being cradled by a hand and the perforated outline of a postage stamp. For more information on IRCs, see the July and September 2006 issues of QST (page 86).

The Beijing Model No 2 IRC must be redeemed before December 31, 2009.

The Nairobi Model IRC is now available at US post offices. It will expire in 2013.

There are currently two DX Expeditions that are now operating.

Conway Reef

We are glad to inform you that a group of eight ham radio operators will be on from Conway Reef (IOTA OC-112). Based on the crew that activated Chesterfield Islands as TX9 in 2004 Hawa (DK9KX, ex 3D2CR) formed a new crew, which will operate during the period of Oct. 1st to Oct. 10th 2009.

The coordinates: 21o44’18″ S, 174o38’24″ E

Conway Reef, known since 1976 by its Fijian name Ceva-I-Ra, is a coral reef about 450km southwest of the Fiji Islands. It is a remote and lonely place with a size of 250m (800ft) in length and 150m (500ft) in width. The reef is a separate DXCC entity and ranking on place 19 of the Most Wanted DXCC entities in 2009. Go to their website for additional information here.

Operating Frequencies:

Glorioso Archipelago:

The Glorioso Archipelago (7 km²) consists of two coral islands: Grande Glorieuse (3 km in its larger diameter) where the human installations are, and Ile du Lys (circular island, 600 metres in diameter) which is desert. The archipelago also includes two rock islets – Roches Vertes and l’Ile aux Crabes – as well as a sand bank more or less above water at high tide. At the East and North east of Grande Glorieuse are a series of dunes reaching a maximum elevation of 12 m. The islands and rocks are surrounded by a reef and a lagoon which is drained dry at low tide. The Glorioso islands are situated 220km North West of Diego Suarez (Madagascar). Visit there website for additional information here.

Here is the latest Amateur Radio Band Plan. Download here.