2003 SKYWARN Recognition Day Results
Preliminary Information

ALERT participated in the 2003 SKYWARN Recognition Day (SRD) using K4NWS that ran from 6 pm, Dec. 5, to 6 pm, Dec. 6 operating on all available amateur radio frequencies from the National Weather Service (NWS) Birmingham office in Calera. Special thanks go to those hams who made it possible by volunteering their time to staff the radios and make the contacts:

Results for ALERT from NWS Birmingham

Those amateurs above worked a total of 33 hours and 33 minutes operating the radio equipment. During the 24-hour period, 207 contacts were made including 32 National Weather Service stations. This was our second year to participate in SKYWARN Recognition Day, and we exceeded last years contacts by about 30 percent (last year was 159).

Of a possible 14 endorsements (endorsement list link), the 32 NWS contacts made qualified K4NWS for two endorsements to our certificate, Lake Effect Snow endorsement and Record Hail Stone endorsement. Endorsements require a certain number of stations from a particular list, and we were close to achieving endorsements for May 2003 Tornado Outbreak (made 6 needed 8), Hurricane (made 5 needed 7), and Tornado (made 5 needed 7). Last year we made contact with only 25 NWS offices, so we improved this count by 28 percent.

Pictures from 2003 SRD at NWS Birmingham

Left to right, Steven (KB4FKN), Chuck (KF4SSX), and Brian (WD4EPR)	Left to right, Steven (KB4FKN) and Nathan (KG4VVU)

Click on image for a larger view (about 110K files).

Other SRD Statistics

• 116 out of 122 NWS stations were registered to participate
• 98% of NWS stations have some sort of HF capability
• 6% of stations have "NWS" in their call sign
• 52% of stations have "WX" in the prefix of call sign
• 94% of NWS stations capable of 20 meters
• 92% of NWS stations capable of 40 meters
• Only 2% of NWS stations capable of UHF

Additional information on SKYWARN Recognition Day can be found at http://hamradio.noaa.gov

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Updated by WD4EPR, 2140 CST 12/09/03