Hi everyone,

I hope this finds you safe and well as we enter these midsummer days. As you bake and broil in the sun, remember that fall is just a little over a month away, and eventually the heat and humidity will retreat back towards the tropical realms from whence it came and in about 6 months we will be griping and wishing we could borrow one of these days for a welcomed winter thaw..

As mentioned in last month’s newsletter ALERT dues are due.

We are in the process of updating our roster and databases. If you have not paid your dues by
September 1 you will be dropped from our membership rolls and will have to reapply for membership.

We don’t want this to happen, so if you haven’t paid your dues, I urge you to do

For information on where to send the dues and also for the form if you are not a member and would like to join, visit our blog at https://alert-alabama.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/Documents/alertapp.pdf

Our next ALERT meeting will be on August 14

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Cellphones And Emergency Communications

Cellphones have become society’s primary mode of communications. What was once an expensive luxury item is now just a part of everyday life. There is the joke that for the first time in human history we have at our fingertips access to the entirety of human knowledge and with this capability we share pictures of cats and call each other dogs. A fact which is, especially considering the times in which we live, painfully true.

As common as this technology is, the infrastructure which makes cellular communications possible is exceedingly fragile.

Physical damage to the towers, either due to an accident, severe weather or a deliberate act of man, or a failure of the T-1 line, which is the network digital channels that allow transmission of voice and data, and the cellular network is basically dead.

Even someone having a bad day with a backhoe in Dallas accidentally digging up the fiber optics lines can disable communications here in Alabama.

Even without damage to the system sometimes just the sheer number of calls being processed can jam communication lines, especially during and after an emergency or disaster. A prime example of this being during the Winter Storm of 2014 when “all circuits are busy” greeted those trying to make calls as the circuits were overwhelmed.
Also frequently we see the skies dotted with chubby cumulus clouds and a radar that showing plenty of nothing and calls mysteriously drop into some sort of RF vortex from whence they never return.

In these cases sometimes even though voice signals cannot make it through the circuits, text messages with their narrow bandwidth can worm their way through the logjam. A good example of this was during Hurricane Irma when I was in a continuous exchange of texts with my sister as the Category 4 storm’s eye passed directly over her house in September 2017.

Perhaps an even more dramatic example was the earthquake and tsunami which struck Japan in 2011.

Here we had, for that type disaster, the most prepared nation on Earth & yet with all that technology and knowledge, once the event began the population were helpless as they gazed into the eyes of a tragedy.

Yet with the communications infrastructure demolished, a flood of messages emerged. Not via voice communications, but via the internet with tweets & texting.

Texting is one of the most popular forms of communications. It’s handy & annoying. Just try talking to someone & them never ceasing to click away. It makes you want to grab both them and their phone and pitch both out of the window.

But, texting can be extremely useful for emergency communications.

For emergency preparedness it could be of value to have a set of brief emergency messages stored on your phone that you could copy, paste and send letting a contact person know of your status.

Everyone should have an emergency contact person, preferably out of town that everyone can coordinate their information with.

The list I concocted, which are saved in my “notes” folder are:

1. We have had to evacuate area due to ________________. Will contact you ASAP.
2. Tornado hit neighborhood, no damage, we are safe.
3. Tornado hit neighborhood, some damage, but, we are safe.
4. Tornado hit neighborhood, heavy damage, but we are ok.
5. 911…call me ASAP at ________.
6. ________ is in _________ hospital. Will call when able.
7, Departed at _______ ETA _________.
8. What’s your ETA?
9. Can’t reach you. Is everything ok?

These examples can be customized and tweaked to meet your own needs.

I all I have to do is go to the “notes” folder, click on the message, until it says “select all”, which sometimes takes more than one attempt, then click “copy” and then paste it in a text message.

Of course you can try to adlib and just type what you wish, but, the human body tends to lose its fine motor skills, such as those used for typing, during a crisis. So, having the messages ready to send is a definite advantage.

One additional little suggestion would be:

Make sure to sign the message!!!
Imagine getting a message from an unfamiliar number saying “Grandma is in ICU, probably won’t make it through the night, come ASAP”, with no signature. Is it your Grandma? Someone else’s Grandma? Is it a wrong number? Did someone borrow a phone to send the text? How do you know?

Many years ago I had an answering machine, but, no caller ID. I came home from work and on Monday I had a message from an elderly gentleman “We’ve left Chicago and are heading your way!” On Tuesday there was the message. “We spent the night in Louisville and are pulling out now.” On Wednesday I was greeted by “We spent some time in Nashville, but should be there in a couple of hours.”

No name, no number, no clue and no visitors arriving either.

I have this happen in group emails also and see it with callouts. “I can come in for a few hours Saturday”. That’s great, but who are you?

That’s why you should always sign your message!

You may have other ideas on how to better use this resource during emergencies.

Feel free to share them with us!

——————————————————————————————————————————-

Why Ham Radio Died

Periodically, in fact quite frequently, I have read either in magazines or online the reasons that ham radio is supposedly dying. This seems to be a common belief and in fact I have seen it used as an odd recruitment tool. Why “come and join our dying hobby” is supposed to attract people I never have figured out.

In 1975 I was a teenager and was researching and studying how to get in to amateur radio. The entry level license was the Novice license, which was good for two years. If you did not upgrade during that time period you would lose your license and would have to wait a year before you took the test again. You were issued a WN prefix to indicate that you were a Novice, which would be replaced with a WB callsign when you upgraded and you had to use a crystal controlled radio, as VFO’s were not allowed.

Ham radio, as I then read, had been dying since the FCC created the “incentive licensing” scheme in the late 1960’s. True there were 175,000 ham licenses, but, how many were actually active operators or even still alive? “A graying hobby, made up of old men…with no young people being attracted to keep it alive” was the common lament. Sound familiar?

Yep, the hobby was dying.

Just for fun, let’s look at the causes of death in rough chronological order from 1975 to 2020.

1. Novice Licenses are made renewable (no one will ever upgrade now}
2. Novices allowed can use VFO’s (now they will invade and bootleg in the General bands)
3. Novices get permanent callsigns, like mine WD4NYL (now you won’t know when they are
bootlegging in the General bands)
4. CB Radio (……boooooo…..hisssss)
5. Crotchety old men (sort of useful though, since they are the only ones who know how to keep
the repeater, which they financed and built, working}
6. Young whipper snappers just “given licenses”
7. KA callsigns are issued (they are making way for the 20 million CBers they are about to let in)
8. Volunteer Exams initiated (yep just say that all your fishing buddies passed the test)
9. That mystical lure of a ham that causes that uncontrollable urge to cheat (you know its true)
10. CW Exam eliminated (we are truly doomed)
11. KB callsigns (woe is us)
12. 300,000 hams (but, but, how many are active, how many dead?)
13. Crotchety Old Men
14. Know it all young whipper snappers
15. Mushy tests. (they should be made to walk through a blizzard like I did)
16. Commodore 64, TRS-80 and IBM computers (everyone will playing and no one will be
interested in ham radio)
17. Mobile telephones (if don’t need an autopatch, what’s to keep folk interested?)
18. KC callsigns (a sign of the times)
19. Cable TV (with 50 channels to choose from who will have time for hamming?)
20. 400,000 hams (how come I never hear em on?)
21. Low sunspots (it’s going supernova anyway. THEN see how far HF will get you, buddy)
22. Young whipper snappers becoming crotchety old men
23. Y2K (means QRT)
24. No code digital weather whackos (aka as ALERT)
25. D-STAR and any other digital mode (can’t afford it and FM will be dead soon)
26. Mayan Calendar (we dead)
27. Baofeng Radios (cheap n dirty)
28, Icom, Yaesu and Kenwood radios (too expensive for newbies)
29. FT8 (get a DXCC in 30 minutes while you mow the grass)
30 No one joining the ARRL (freeloaders!!!)
31. People joingin the ARRL (sheeple!!!).
32. Baotleg Boofang, er, I mean bootleg Baofeng Users
33. Preppers getting radios, but, not a license. (we don’t need no stinkin’ license)
34. Preppers getting radios and a ham license. (they ain’t in it fer the hobby!!!)
35. The price of pickles in Poughkeepsie.
36. Facebook (why get on the air when you can whine online about people not getting on the air
on Facebook instead?)
37. Auburn cheating, er I mean beating Alabama (Roll Tide anyway)
38, Covid-19
39. KO callsigns
40. 812,550 hams as of 7/29 (but, but, but, how many are really active, or dead?)

Ham radio changes, as it should and must to remain relevant. We may not always agree with the changes that occur, but, to butcher a quoe from Mark Twain:

“The reports of our death are greatly exaggerated.”

——————————————————————————————————————————-

Mark’s Almanac

August was originally named “Sextilis”, the sixth Roman month. It was renamed August in honor of Caesar Augustus and lengthened to 31 days, to equal Julius Caesar’s month of July.

August is hot and humid and summer temperatures remain at or near their summer peak.

The rapid vegetation growth of spring is over, and, since conditions are now perfect for the growth of mold, fungi & germs, plants have a “used” look, which is enhanced if rainfall is scarce.

In August the choir of cicadas whine in the afternoon & towards the end of the month the big Yellow Sulphur Butterflies will begin heading to the South-Southeast, giving hints of their soon upcoming fall migration & cats will begin to hint of growing their winter coats.

Hurricane breeding grounds in August are the Atlantic, with Low Latitude “Cape Verde” storms forming off of Africa crossing the Ocean and either threatening the Eastern Seaboard or striking the Leeward Islands, entering the Caribbean and then striking the Yucatan, or the Western or Northern Gulf coast. Breeding grounds also include the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.

August is second only to September in the number of Tropical Storms and Hurricanes. From 1851 to 2019 there have been 396 Tropical Storms and 245 Hurricanes, 78 of which made landfall in the United States, the most notable storms being Hurricanes Camille and Katrina in 1969 and 2005, which devastated Mississippi and Louisiana and Hurricane Andrew which ravaged South Florida in 1992.

21% of a year’s Hurricanes occur in August, however, 85 to 95% of land falling Hurricanes have not occurred by August 15.

Days grow shorter as the Sun’s angle above the noonday horizon steadily decreases from 74.4 degrees at the beginning of the month to 65.0 degrees at the month’s end. Daylight decreases from 13 hours 48 minutes on August 1 to 12 hours 54 minutes on August 31.

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

August 1 Sunrise 6:00 AM Sunset 7:47 PM
August 15 Sunrise 6:09 AM Sunset 7:34 PM
August 31 Sunrise 6:20 AM Sunset 7:14 PM

Looking skyward, at the beginning of the month, the Sun, magnitude -26.7 is in Cancer.

Mercury, magnitude -0.9 in Gemini, glimmers low in the east-northeast during dawn. He will grow brighter, growing from magnitude –0.9 to –1.3 this week, but it gets a little lower each morning. He is about 30° lower left of brilliant Venus.

Mercury will be at his closest approach to the Sun or Perihelion on August 5.

Mercury then will slip beneath the Sunrise and pass directly behind the Sun or be at “Superior Conjunction” on August 17.

Venus, magnitude –4.5, is moving from eastern Taurus into the top of Orion’s Club and rises in deep darkness more than 1½ hours before the very beginning of dawn an shines brightly as the “Morning Star” at dawn.

At the beginning of the month Venus is a very thick crescent, as is moving away from the Earth. As she moves away its phase is increasing and will be nearly half lit, similar to a First Quarter Moon’s phase, also called “dichotomy” on August 12.

Venus will reach at Greatest Western Elongation or the highest point above the eastern horizon on August 13, when she will be 45.8 degrees from the Sun.

Venus along with Jupiter are the only two planets that can be spotted with the naked eye in broad daylight. Can you spot her as she passes south around 11 AM?

Earth, magnitude -4.0, as viewed from the Sun, is in Aquarius.

Mars, magnitude -1.2 in Pisces, rises in the east around 11 PM.

Mars will reach his closest approach to the Sun or Perihelion on August 3.

On August the 9th Mars will pass within 0.8 degrees of the Moon on August 9 just after moonrise.

Mars is growing larger in telescopes as the Earth, in its faster inner orbit speeds towards their closest approach in Early October.

Mars is 87% sunlit and his South Polar Cap is in good position for viewing.

With the Earth heading for Mars, the Earthlings are taking advantage of the opportunity by sending a flotilla of three craft towards the Red Planet. The United Arab Emirates spacecraft “Hope”, China’s “Tianwen-1” and the United States’ “Perseverance”.

And, to think, all these years we thought it would be Mars invading the Earth and it turns out to be us invading them instead…

Jupiter, magnitude –2.7 in Sagittarius, is bright in the southeast at twilight with Saturn nearby.

Saturn, magnitude +0.2 in Sagittarius, along with Jupiter 8 degrees to the right, loom in the southeast in twilight and pass highest in the south around midnight.

Uranus, magnitude 5.8, in Aries, is high in the east after midnight.

Neptune, magnitude 7.8, in Aquarius, is high in the south-southeast also after midnight.

August’s Full Moon will occur August 3 at 15:59 UTC or 10:59 AM CDT. August’s Full Moon was called “Fruit Moon” in Cherokee Folklore, “Women’s Moon” among the Choctaw, “Sturgeon Moon” by the Algonquin because the large sturgeon fish of the Great Lakes and other major lakes were more easily caught at this time of year. This moon has also been known as the Green Corn Moon and the Grain Moon and at one time was called “Dog Days Moon” by the Colonial Americans.

The moon will be at Apogee or its farthest distance from Earth on August 9, when she will be 251,443 miles from Earth.

Last Quarter Moon will occur August 11, with the visible portion of the Moon pointing East.

The Perseid Meteor Shower peaks on the night of August 12 & 13, with 50 to 60 meteors per hour. This shower, produce by debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, which was discovered in 1862, ranks as the best of the best, famous for producing bright meteors. The shower runs annually from July 17 to August 24. It peaks this year on the night of August 12 and the morning of August 13.

The Last Quarter moon will block many of the fainter meteors this year. But if you are patient, you should still be able to catch a few of the brighter ones. Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Perseus, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

New Moon will occur on August 19 at 10:42 PM CDT or 2:42 UTC on August 18. The Moon will be located on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters because there is no moonlight to interfere.

The moon will be at Perigee or her closest approach to Earth on August 21, when she will be 225,888 miles from Earth.

First Quarter Moon will occur August 25, with the visible portion of the Moon pointing West.

4197 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of July 23, per NASA’s
Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

This month’s meeting will be on July 11 at 7PM

The meeting will be done remotely as was last month’s meeting.

Details and instructions will be issued as the time nears.

Hope to “see” you there!

Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter
wd4nyl@bellsouth.net

Hi everyone & an early Happy 4th of July!

I hope you are staying cool and hydrated as we wind our way through the heat of Summer.

Our next ALERT meeting will be July 14 and as with last month’s meeting, it will be held remotely.

Dues time also arrives with the July meeting.

So join me as I dust off the wallet, shoo away the moths and cough up some dough, so I will remain current.

Since we can’t meet in person, I suggest visiting our blog at https://alert-alabama.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/Documents/alertapp.pdf for information on where to send the dues and also for the form if you are not a member and would like to join.

Everyone stay safe!

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Politics And ALERT

From its foundation in May 1996 ALERT has always been a non-political entity. In fact the purpose of its creation was to provide a neutral ground where people could direct their severe weather reports to the National Weather Service free of ham political posturing and hissing, as was hampering the NWS mission in those days, (and occasionally still does).

This neutrality extends to “secular” politics as well.

The membership of ALERT is and has always been made up of a diverse group of members with a wide range of political views, left wing, right wing and those in between.

ALERT works for our parent agency the NWS. Just as they are non-political, so are we and so shall we be,

I have tried to keep this newsletter free from politics, ham or otherwise, mindful that it isn’t my personal blog, but is designed to represent ALERT and the NWS, hopefully in a positive light. Also I have a strong dislike for stress and arguments, which I have seen irrevocably damage long standing relationships over problems that could not be solved by the screaming and over people that would not give them the time of day of they passed them on the street.

All of this is to say that ALERT will not to be drawn into or associated with political drama. Just as “storm chasing” is not something ALERT or the NWS participates in, neither is politics.

What people do outside of ALERT is their own business. But, if someone, either in the group or outside, drags our group’s name into the fray, it is not by our consent or knowledge.

So if the temptation hits you, do as I do. When the Wisdom whispers into my ear “this is not the right path”, heed her gentle voice and choose the wiser path.

It’s the better thing to do.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Where To Get Away From It All

One of the grand traditions of Amateur Radio is the DXepedition, where operators travel to distant lands to provide operators with the chance to contact the rarer of the 340 Amateur Radio “countries”.

Some of these locations may be jungles. lush tropical islands, uninhabited sandbars or rocks that jut out of the ocean only at high tide in a remote corner of the world

One question that may come to mind is what is the world’s most remote location?

One might think of the depths of the Amazon or the frozen world of Antarctica. But that is not the case.

The most distant spot on Earth, or the “Pole Of Inaccessibility” is located in the South Pacific
at latitude 48° 52′ 32″S and longitude 123° 23′ 33″W at spot known as “Point Nemo”, Nemo being Latin for “no one” and also a reference to Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo.

It lies more than 1,670 miles from the nearest lands.

To the north, Ducie Island, part of the Pitcairn Islands group. Motu Nui, part of the Easter Islands in the northeast, and Maher Island off the coast of Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica to the south.

It is so distant that the closet people to Point Nemo are the crew of the International Space Station as it passes 220 miles overhead.

Not even the man who discovered Point Nemo, survey engineer Hrvoje Lukatela has ever visited it.

In 1992 he located the point in the ocean that was farthest away from any land using a computer program that calculated the coordinates that were the greatest distance from three equidistant land coordinates. It is very possible no human has ever passed through those coordinates at all.

In fact even marine life is scarce as the coordinates are located within the “South Pacific Gyre”, an enormous rotating current that prevents nutrient-rich water from flowing into the area. Also, because the region is so isolated from land masses, the wind does not carry much organic matter which can fall into the 42 degree waters.

Without any food sources, it is impossible to sustain any life in this part of the ocean other than the bacteria and small crabs that live near the volcanic vents on the seafloor.

It has been described as “the least biologically active region of the world ocean”.

It also was the source of a mystery

In 1997, oceanographers recorded a mysterious noise less than 1,240 miles east of Point Nemo called “The Bloop”.

“The Bloop”, was louder than the sound of the largest living animal, the blue whale – leading to speculation that it was made by some larger unknown sea creature.

What strange one eyed multi-tentacled creature that could drag ships to their doom was heralding its discovery announcing its presence?

None, as it turned out, as NOAA confirmed the sound to be the sound of icebergs. When large icebergs crack and fracture, they generate powerful, ultra-low-frequency sounds. Subsequent recordings of known ice quakes have shared similarities with the Bloop.

The place is also a graveyard or “space cemetery” because more than 263 spacecraft were disposed in this area between 1971 and 2016. This includes hundreds of decommissioned satellites and various unmanned resupply spacecraft to the Mir space station and the International Space Station, including Russian Progress cargo craft, the defunct Soviet space station Mir and six Salyut space stations.

The area is officially known to space agencies as the “South Pacific Ocean Uninhabited Area”. In particular, the Russian, European and Japanese space agencies have long used it as a dumping ground, because of its remoteness and for its limited shipping traffic, so as not to endanger human life with any falling debris.

The stations do not fall intact, but create debris fields spread across the ocean floor, mainly fuel tanks and pressure vehicles.

Point Nemo isn’t the only space graveyard. There is another from Cape Canaveral stretching far into the Atlantic, which contains the spend rockets of countless unmanned satellites, the boosters of Project Mercury and Gemini and the stages of the Saturn V and 1B rockets that launched the Apollo spacecraft.

The other major graveyard stretches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan across Asiatic Russia and the trackless regions of Siberia, where pieces of the boosters that launched Vostok, Voshkod, Soyuz and the Soviet Space Shuttle Buran lay.

But, back to Point Nemo, it is said that on a calm day, the sea surface in the heart of the South Pacific Gyre is a beautiful clear cornflower blue, with a hint of violet.

So, if you have the urge to take the SS Minnow on a 3 hour tour, and be “rare DX” as a Maritime Mobile station, enjoy the view. Let us know when you will be available.

Just watch for falling space junk.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Mark’s Almanac

Originally called “Quintilis”, the fifth Roman month, Quintilis was renamed “July” in 44 BC in honor of Julius Caesar.
July is miserably hot, as land temperatures reach their peaks in late July through early August – the Dog Days of Summer.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac lists the traditional period of the Dog Days as the 40 days beginning July 3 and ending August 11.

The Romans on the other hand said that the Dog Days ran from July 24 through August 24, or, alternatively, from July 23 through August 23, coinciding with the Sun and the Dog Star Sirius rising at the same time & their combined heat supposedly adding to the summer misery.

As you endure this heat, remember to drink lots of fluids, hug the shade & avoid the afternoon sun.

Also please resist the temptation to take Fido for a walk during the heat of the day. Remember that the “official” temperature readings are taken 6 feet above ground level. It’s much, much hotter on the ground where Fido & Puss have to walk with bare paws, where it could easily be 150 degrees.

Before taking Muttley for a walk, place your hand on the pavement and see how hot it is. If it’s miserable to you, it will be miserable to him also. Just walk him in the morning or wait until the sun is setting and it cools off to a tolerable level and try to stick to grassy areas. Then go have a good time together.

The last week of July is usually the hottest week of the year. Tropical conditions are dominant, with conditions similar to that of the Amazon Valley.

This is the time to test the “Brown Grass Theory”. According to this theory, if the grass remains green the temperature will probably not reach 100, but, if the grass turns brown, get set for triple digits. This is a local Birmingham rule, which the Old Timers at the Birmingham NWS, such as Frank Makosky and J.B Elliott used for years.

In July the least rainfall falls in the Northern Hemisphere.

Tornado activity drops sharply, with a 47% decrease nationwide. July has an average of 103 tornadoes.

Hurricane activity increases, but major hurricanes are not yet frequent. By months end, one hurricane will have occurred. Seven percent of a year’s hurricane total occurs in July.

Long track hurricanes are possible, forming off the African coast and crossing the Atlantic, either to threaten the US East Coast, then eventually veering off towards Bermuda. Or in the case of “Low Latitude” storms, cross the Atlantic, strike the Leeward Islands; enter the Caribbean and then striking the Yucatan, or the Western or Northern Gulf coast.

July Tropical Cyclone Breeding Grounds

From 1851 to 2019 there have been 125 Tropical Storms and 59 Hurricanes, 27 of which made landfall in the United States.

Among notable storms are 2005’s Hurricane Emily, the only Category 5 storm to form in July, reaching 160 MPH and striking Mexico.

Hurricane Bertha, a 125 MPH storm holds the record for the longest lifespan for a July hurricane, churning for 17 days.

Days grow shorter as the Sun’s angle above the noonday horizon decreases from 79.6 degrees at the beginning of the month to 74.7 degrees at the month’s end. Daylight decreases from 14 hours 20 minutes on July 1 to 13 hours 49 minutes on July 31.

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

July 1 Sunrise 5:41 AM Sunset 8:01 PM
July 15 Sunrise 5:48 AM Sunset 7:58 PM
July 31 Sunrise 5:59 AM Sunset 7:48 PM

Looking skyward, at the beginning of the month Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Dwarf Planet Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto are in a rough planetary alignment on the same side of the solar system. Uranus and Neptune are being antisocial or perhaps socially distant off to the side of the solar system.

Other than causing people’s brain lubricant to shift to one side, it has no apparent effects.

Mercury is hidden in the glare of the Sun at the beginning of the month, but, then reemerges into the predawn skies.

On July 22 Mercury will reach his highest point in the sky or “Greatest Western Elongation” of 20.1 degrees from the Sun. This is the best time to view Mercury since it will be at its highest point above the horizon in the morning sky. Look for the planet low in the eastern sky just before sunrise.

Venus, magnitude –4.6 in Taurus, shines brightly low in the east in the dawn. She is moving slowly through the Hyades Star Cluster, which is at 153 light years distant is the nearest open star cluster. It makes up the “v shape” which is the heart of the constellation Taurus, with the apex being the red star Aldebaran.

Above this is another open star cluster, the Pleiades about 9° above it, but more distant at an estimated 444 light years.

These star clusters will be difficult to see at the start of the month due to the glow of dawn, but, will get easier as the month progresses and they rise earlier in the predawn sky. By the 12th the brightest stars should be visible, especially Aldebaran, which Venus will be passing near.

In a telescope Venus is a large, thin crescent, about 15% sunlit. Week by week, it will shrink into the distance while waxing in phase.

Venus will be at her greatest brightness on July 8, and her farthest distance from the Sun, or Aphelion on July 10, at 0.73 astronomical units or 66.7 million miles from the Sun.

She will be the bright “Morning Star” of summer and fall.

Earth, magnitude -4.0, as viewed from the Sun, is in Shaggytaurus, or rather Sagittarius.

Earth will reach her farthest distance from the Sun or Aphelion on July 4, when she will be 94.5 million miles from our home star, as she and the Moon wobble through space, the Moon tugging on the Earth like an unruly pup on a leash.

Mars, magnitude -0.4 in Cetus The Sea Monster, rises due east around midnight or 1 AM and at the first light of dawn shines very high and prominent in the southeast.

Earth, being in a faster orbit around the Sun, is speeding towards Mars. Mars will appear twice as large when the Earth passes by him at their closest approach or “Opposition” in the first half of October.

Mars is an 84% sunlit gibbous disk. A small telescope will show Mars’s gibbous shape, it’s shrinking South Polar Cap, which is a seasonal shrinkage, as it is Summer there, and, in good seeing, perhaps some of its dark surface markings.

Jupiter, magnitude -2.7 on the border of Sagittarius and Capricornus rises in late twilight.

The giant planet will be at its closest approach to Earth and its face will be fully illuminated by the Sun on July 14. It will be brighter than any other time of the year and will be visible all night long. This is the best time to view and photograph Jupiter and its moons. A medium-sized telescope should be able to show you some of the details in Jupiter’s cloud bands. A good pair of binoculars should allow you to see Jupiter’s four largest moons, Ganymede, Callisto, Europa, and Io, appearing as bright dots on either side of the planet.

Saturn, magnitude +0.2 on the border of Sagittarius and Capricornus also rises in late twilight.

Jupiter and Saturn form a striking pair that hangs low in the southeast after dark. Jupiter is the brightest. Saturn is lower left of Jupiter by about 6°.

The two giant planets shine at their highest and telescopic best around 1 or 2 AM in the south.

The ringed planet will be at “Opposition” on July 20. His face will be fully illuminated by the Sun. It will be brighter than any other time of the year and will be visible all night long. A medium-sized or larger telescope will allow you to see Saturn’s rings and a few of its brightest moons, including planet sized Titan, the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only known body in space, other than Earth, where clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found.

Uranus, magnitude 5.8, in Aries, is low in the east just before dawn.

Neptune, magnitude 7.9, in Aquarius, is well up in the southeast before dawn, east of Mars.

July’s Full Moon occurs July 4 at 11:44 PM CDT or 4:44 UTC on July 5 and is called “Buck Moon” in Native American folklore. This moon gets its name because the male buck deer begin to grow their new antlers at this time of year. It has also been called “Full Thunder Moon” & “Hay Moon”.

On July 4 & 5 there will be a Penumbral Lunar Eclipse. A penumbral lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes through the Earth’s partial shadow, or penumbra. During this type of eclipse the Moon will darken slightly but not completely. The eclipse will be visible throughout most of North America, South America, the eastern Pacific Ocean, the western Atlantic Ocean, and extreme western Africa.

In Birmingham the eclipse will begin on July 4 at 10:07 PM, with the maximum eclipse at 11:29 PM and ending at 12:52 AM on July 5.

This will not be a dramatic “Blood Moon” event.

What is noteworthy is that this will be the third eclipse in a row, as there was another Penumbral Lunar Eclipse on June 5 and an Annular Solar Eclipse on June 21.

It is normal to have eclipses paired with one lunar and one solar. But, a third eclipse is rather rare.

Since eclipses can only occur during a Full Moon or a New Moon and since we get one of each roughly every 15 days, you might wonder why we don’t get an eclipse every Full and New Moon?

The answer to this is that the Sun’s apparent movement across the sky and background stars is steady and unchanging along a path called the “Ecliptic”. The moons path is slightly tilted by just over 5 angular degrees, or as in official NASA terms, is “catawampus” from the Sun’s Ecliptical Plane or path.

Sometimes it is North of the Sun’s path and said to be in “Ascending Node”. Sometimes it is South of the path and said to be in “Descending Node”.

For an eclipse to occur the Moon has to exactly intersect the Ecliptical Plane or the “Nodal Axis” and be in a direct line with the Sun and the Earth.

To help complicate things, moon’s orbital plane “prescesses” or slowing turns like a spinning top or coin that is slowing down and this causes the nodes to move in a clockwise direction around the zodiac and takes 18 years, 7 months and 9 days to make one complete revolution. Eclipses occur when either the new or full moon occurs close to the nodal axis. The closer to the axis, this “deeper” the eclipse or the more “total” it becomes. The Moon’s orbit is also somewhat oval shaped, and so can be too far away to totally block the Sun, which is why you have Annular eclipses.

All of these events can be predicted mathematically. Given that I have but few functioning brain cells remaining and none of them are in the mathematical portion of my brain, I will not attempt to explain how these calculations work, but just be grateful that the gents at the US Naval Observatory are smarter than I.

The moon will be at Apogee or its farthest distance from Earth on July 12, when she will be 251,159 miles from Earth.

This will occur at Last Quarter Moon.

During Last Quarter Moon the visible portion of the Moon points East, with the dividing line between the dark and light portions of the Moon, or “Terminator” pointing roughly North and South, which can be useful to remember for rough direction finding when out in the wilds.

Though it won’t peak until the night and morning of August 12 & 13, the Perseid Meteor Shower begins July 17, and lasts until August 24. This shower, associated with comet Swift-Tuttle will peak at 60 meteors per hour in August.

New Moon will occur on July 20 at 12:33 PM CDT or 17:33 UTC. The Moon will be located on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters because there is no moonlight to interfere.

The moon will be at Perigee or its closest approach to Earth on July 24, when she will be 228,892 miles from Earth.

First Quarter Moon will occur July 27, with the visible portion of the Moon pointing West.

The Delta-Aquariad Meteor shower peaks on the night of July 28th into the morning of the 29th.
This shower annually occurs from July 12 through August 23 is made up of debris from Comet Marsden Kracht and produces a ZHR or Zenith Hourly Rate of 20 meteors per hour.

The First Quarter moon will block many of the fainter meteors this year. But if you are patient, you should still be able to catch a few of the brighter ones. Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Aquarius, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

4171 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of June 24, per NASA’s
Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

This month’s meeting will be on July 14 at 7PM

The meeting will be done remotely as was last month’s meeting.

Details and instructions will be issued as the time nears.

Hope to “see” you there!

Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter
wd4nyl@bellsouth.net

Hi Everyone,

I hope this finds you well during these troubled times.

Normally at this time I would mention the results of the ALERT elections. However due to the constraints of the current crises, the ALERT election process is a problematic affair. Therefore, in view of the current COVID-19 emergency, we, the ALERT leadership, have chosen to defer the election process until we reach some form of normalcy which will allow the process as stated in the Bylaws of forming a Nominating Committee, that Committee issuing its recommendations and a formal vote being held, can be feasible.

Until then the current leadership will remain in place.

In 2007 when I rewrote the Bylaws and they were adopted, I never envisioned a set of circumstances such as the ones which we are now seeing and living. I doubt Mr. Roberts did either when he wrote his “Rules of Order”.

So unless he happens to attend the next meeting and says “point of order” and has a better idea, Capone’s Third Law comes in to play, which states “in an emergency situation sometimes you just gotta do whatcha gotta do to get it done.”

ALERT is in good hands.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season Begins

The Atlantic Hurricane Season officially begins June 1. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is predicting an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season this year. NOAA predicts a likely range of 13 to 19 named storms, of which 6 to 10 could become hurricanes, including 3 to 6 major hurricanes. NOAA provides these ranges with a 70% confidence. An average hurricane season produces 12 named storms, of which 6 become hurricanes, including 3 major hurricanes.

As mentioned last month, both Colorado State University and Accuweather are also predicting above normal seasons.

In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really how many storms actually do form, what matters is where they end up arriving. A year with 28 storms that never reach land isn’t overly significant, where a year with only one named storm and it being a repeat of Katrina, Camille or Andrew is.

With the 2020 North Atlantic Hurricane Season beginning it is a good time to review our preparedness plans.

This has become an annual tradition which gets a little longer each year.
The source for much of this information is the late John Hope of the National Hurricane Center and later The Weather Channel.

While at the NHC, Hope developed a theory called the John Hope Rule. It consists of two parts. Part 1 states: “If a system is not a bona fide tropical storm before crossing the Windward Islands, or the Lesser Antilles, it will not survive the trek across the Eastern Caribbean Sea. If the wave is still present, formation in the Western Caribbean is possible.” Part 2 states: “If the structure of a wave or storm is good, never discount it or write it off”.

I call that “The Oops Rule” for when something shouldn’t have developed, but, it did anyway.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Hurricane Impact & Hurricane Response

Alabama is impacted by hurricanes in three ways:

1. Direct Impact – Where the core of the storm or the rain / wind field actually strikes or passes through a portion of Alabama. Examples being Hurricane’s Fredrick, Opal, Ivan and Katrina.

2. Indirect Impact – where the core is not over Alabama, but the feeder bands are passing through and causing havoc. Rita’s feeder bands being a good example, which dropped 21
tornadoes over west Alabama in a 4-hour period.

3. Distant Impact – A storm is not even near Alabama, but affecting our weather. Such as with Olivia, a Pacific Hurricane which was off Western Mexico. Her moisture was captured by the jet stream, crossed the Sonora desert, the Arklatex region & dumped monsoon type rains on Alabama & Mississippi, causing flooding.

ALERT typically will activate during scenarios 1 & 2. ALERT’s coverage would concentrate on monitoring D-Star directly and using a liaison station to monitor HF offsite on 3.965 MHz or the backup 40-meter frequency of 7.243 MHz.

Then as the storm moves northward into the BMX County Warning Area the focus would then shift to the individual county Skywarn Nets, as we would do during a “normal” callout.

HF Gulf Coast Nets to monitor are:

Primary State ARES Frequencies & Nets for Gulf of Mexico & regular meeting times.

3.965 MHz Alabama Emergency Net Mike 4:00 PM Sunday*
3.940 MHz Florida Amateur Single Sideband Net 6:00 PM
3.975 MHz Georgia Single Sideband Net 7:30 PM
3.910 MHz Louisiana Traffic Net 6:30 PM
3.862 MHz Mississippi Section Phone Net 6:00 PM
3.873 MHz Texas Traffic Net 6:30 PM

* Note that this is also the frequency of the Alabama Traffic Net Mike, meeting daily at 6:30PM Central & Sunday’s at 8:00 AM Central and the Alabama Day Net, which meets daily at 10:00 AM Central Time.

Wide Coverage Nets

14.235 MHz Hurricane Watch Net As Needed
3.935 MHz Central Gulf Coast Hurricane Net 1:00 UTC

The Hurricane Watch Net is only activated when a storm is within 300 miles of a populated land mass. Normally you shouldn’t check into this net, but you only listen. Only check in if you have a legitimate need to do so. A legitimate need being emergency or priority traffic or if the NCS specifically calls for a station in Central Alabama, only then should you pick the microphone up. Occasionally, if there is a lull in activity, they may actually give a call for general check-ins. But, don’t be surprised if they don’t. Helping stations in the affected area is their primary concern.

Once upon a time a, which if I remember correctly was in 1988 when Gilbert, was rearranging Jamaica, the NCS asked “do we have any stations in the affected area, the affected area only?” Some fellow from Zero-land, piped in and very slowly drawled out “This is Kay Zero Que Arr Emmm, Homer over in Tulsa Oklahoma, just wanting to tell you fellers what a fine job, a fine job you fellers are doing. And, if I can be of any help, any help at all just let me know. This is Homer, K0QRM, over in Tulsa Oklahoma on frequency and standing by on the side.”

Fifteen distress calls probably could have been received and handled in the time it took Homer to ooze over “on the side”.

Learn from a bad example. Don’t do this.

Some Internet resources you should have in your toolbox include:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ – The National Hurricane Center out of Coral Gables, FL

http://www.hwn.org/tools/streaming-audio.html – Hurricane Watch Net Streaming Audio.
Note that the audio feed is only active when the net is active.

http://derecho.math.uwm.edu/models/ & http://www.ral.ucar.edu/hurricanes/realtime/current/
– Hurricane Forecast Models

http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/TC.html – Satellite imagery and data – worldwide

https://www.hurricanezone.net/ – Storm centered satellite imagery

Many other resources, including coastal radar picket, Caribbean & Mexican radar,
charts and satellite imagery can be found on my website www.freewebs.com/weatherlynx/
and clicking on “Tropics, Charts & Satellites”.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Hurricane Tracking Gleams And Glints From Mark’s Crystal Ball

I’ve always enjoyed trying to second-guess the National Hurricane Center. It’s fun! Many times our forecasts agree, they have outguessed me an honorable number of times & every now and then, when Divine Providence intervenes, I have beaten them.

The following are some random hints and items I have stored in my dusty brain, which every now and then come into play as I gaze into my tropical crystal ball.

The first thing I will touch on is the name itself – “Hurricane” and its origin.

Some believe the name originated from “huracan” which was the Carib peoples of Northern South America term for “evil wind”. Others credit the Mayans of Central America and believe that is originates from “Hurakan”, the Mayan god of wind, storm and fire. According to the Mayan Creation Myth, Hurakan caused the Great Flood after the first humans angered the gods. According to the myth, he lived in the windy mists above the floodwaters and repeatedly called forth the earth until land came up from beneath the seas.

Whichever it’s origin, it is known that the names Hurican and Hurikan predate the appearance of Europeans on the horizons of what would become known as the “Americas”, stretching back into the dim mists of antiquity.

The Spanish word for “Hurricane” is “Huracan” to this day.

A couple of terms which you have undoubtedly heard of is “El Niño” & “La Niña”.

El Niño or more precisely the “El Niño Southern Oscillation” (ENSO), is a planetary-scale climate variation caused by interactions between the atmosphere and the Central and Eastern Pacific Ocean, which in turn affects the tropical climatology of the Gulf of Mexico and the North Atlantic Ocean.

El Niño refers to unusually warm ocean temperatures that occur every 2–7 years around Christmas time along Peruvian coast, extending into equatorial eastern and central Pacific Ocean, while La Niña refers to unusual cooler temperatures. A normal temperature is referred to as “neutral”.

Though many factors are used in making seasonal hurricane forecasts, El Niño & La Niña weigh heavily in the process.

The warm El Niño favors stronger hurricane activity in the central and eastern Pacific basins due to lower vertical wind shear, weaker trade winds and greater instability, while suppressing it in the Atlantic basin due to stronger wind shear tearing and shredding the thunderstorm columns of storms trying to form, stronger trade winds hampering large scale organization and greater atmospheric stability.

The cool La Niña does the opposite suppressing hurricane activity in the central and eastern Pacific basins, and enhancing activity in the Atlantic basin.

2020 is La Niña year, which is one of the reasons why 2020 is expected that we will have a vigorous tropical season.

Some other hurricane facts are:

The maximum number of tropical systems that the Atlantic Basin (which includes the Gulf and Caribbean) can simultaneously contain and support is four storms.

If major tropical systems get too close to one another they don’t merge as thunderstorms often do. The upper level winds associated with each storm counteract or buffets each other preventing this from occurring.

If you have a large storm and a smaller storm enters the influence or wind field of the larger storm, the smaller storm will tend to rotate counterclockwise around the primary storm in a process called the Fujiwhara Effect.

If the smaller storm is very weak, say a tropical storm versus a Category 4 storm, it is possible that the smaller storms circulation can be totally disrupted by the larger storm and then it can be absorbed into the larger storms circulation. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNjUSsqJgek&feature=relmfu as Typhoon Ma-On gobbles up Tropical Storm Tokage in 2011.

Tropical systems, for all of their tremendous energy, are totally without an engine or steering mechanism, but are at the mercy of the whims of the upper level winds. A tropical system can spin all it wants to, but unless the storms thunderstorm columns reach high enough to snag the upper level winds, and then act as a sail, the storm is going nowhere fast. If the upper level winds die down, the storm can drift aimlessly for days.

If the storm sits still long enough, it will begin to dissipate due to it stirring up the deeper cooler waters beneath it and it cooling the sea surface temperature below the 80 degree critical threshold needed to sustain a tropical storm. This is “upwelling”. The one exception to this rule is if it is sitting over the Gulf Stream, as the incoming current will continually replenish the warm water beneath the storm.

A well-formed storm will have a perfectly circular Central Dense Overcast or CDO, an area of thunderstorms surrounding the eye wall, with “feeder bands” of thunderstorms spiraling inward counterclockwise, parallel to the storm’s inbound horizontal winds, and “feeding” energy from the warm tropical ocean into the storm.

The winds being drawn into the eye, once arriving can only go in one direction – up – and in a well formed storm the system will be capped by high pressure, which helps evacuate these winds as they reach the stratosphere. This forms a false cirrus shield of clouds rotating in a clockwise fashion, as the winds are vented outward. If the storm has a tear drop shape or a long plume of clouds extending from the storm, this indicates heavy shearing, which will limit its growth, or shred the circulation. The storm will be veered by the shearing and try to deflect towards the direction of the plume.

A poorly organized storm can have a completely exposed center, with the cloud shield nowhere near the center. Until it starts “stacking up” it will remain a weak storm.

Intense, Category 3 or greater hurricanes will go through a process called an “eyewall replacement cycle”. In this case the eyewall contracts so small that some of the outer rain bands may strengthen and form an outer eyewall, causing the storm to weaken by robbing energy from the inner eyewall and will eventually choke it out completely and replace it, causing the storm to re-intensify.

This is a common occurrence. Less common is when you have a triple eyewall, as was the case with Typhoon June and Hurricane Juliette.

The fastest intensification from a Tropical Storm to a Category 5 Hurricane occurred with Hurricane Wilma in 2006, which in 16 hours went from 70 mph to 155 mph and then vacationed in the Yucatan.

The fastest intensification from a Tropical Depression to a Category 5 Hurricane occurred with Hurricane Felix, which took just 51 hours to bloom and then blessed Nicaragua with its presence in 2007.

Tropical systems cannot penetrate frontal boundaries. If a tropical system is threatening the coast, and you see that a front will be approaching the coast from the West, don’t worry about the coast, as it will either stall the storm, deflect it to the Northeast or as in the case of 2009’s Tropical Storm Danny, it can absorb a weak storm.

When looking at hurricane forecast model ensembles, such as http://derecho.math.uwm.edu/models/ & http://www.ral.ucar.edu/hurricanes/realtime/current/,
you can judge the “confidence” of the models by the grouping of the plotted tracks. If the plots are tightly grouped together, you can have “high confidence” in the reliability of the track and if the timing given by the plots agree, that also. The narrower the spread, the greater the confidence, and the wider the spread, the lesser the confidence. Some tracks will be obviously wrong, those you can dismiss. If the forecast tracks go look like they were written by a drunken spider, with paths going in every direction at once, that storm is heading nowhere fast.

Theoretically Tropical Storms will lose strength over land. The 1997 version of Danny (which came up I-65 reached Birmingham and then turned East heading along I-20 towards Atlanta, as if He knew what he was doing) forgot this and strengthened while over the swamps of South Carolina and then moved into the Atlantic as a rejuvenated system heading for New England. The theory at that time was that the swamps were so warm and humid that the storm “thought” it was over the sea. Now they say it was due to the effects a frontal system closely following the storm. I always preferred the first explanation, as it seemed more logical, if not niftier.

Storms named “Danny” and I are old companions, incidentally. In 1985 I accidentally managed to intercept Hurricane Danny a few hours after it struck Louisiana. I remember the feeder bands passing with heavy rain and gusts, and then it calming and clearing in between waves. “Looks like it can’t decide whether it’s coming or going” said the old guy at a truck stop where I was refueling. I also remember making a ham sandwich for an old dog at a rest stop. Old Shep looked hungry, so I fixed him one. He woofed it down, thanked me kindly and then disappeared into the mist.

If a storm strikes just West of Alabama, expect sorry weather. If it strikes just East of Alabama, expect dry weather and lowering humidity, as the storm drags the moisture away with it.

If a 120 MPH storm is moving North at 20 MPH the wind field around the eye will be effected as follows. The winds on the Eastern side combine and are in effect 140 MPH, while the winds to the West subtract and are in effect 100 MPH. This is the “fast moving hurricane rule”.

If the Eastern Pacific Basin is active, the Atlantic Basin will be quiet & if the Atlantic Basin is active the Eastern Pacific Basin will be quiet.

Category 5 storms have never occurred in both the Atlantic & Pacific Basins in the same year.

Hurricanes can cross Central America from either the Atlantic or Pacific Basins, enter the other Basin and restrengthen and be renamed. The last being in 1996 when Category 1 Hurricane Cesar which scraped Northern South America, crossed Central America & restrenghtened into Category 4 Hurricane Douglas.

Then there is the case of 1961’s Hurricane Hattie, which formed in the Caribbean, stuck Central America on Halloween, dissipated, then after reaching the Pacific, her remnants helped generate Tropical Storm Simone on November 1. Simone then turned Northwest striking Southern Mexico on November 2, dissipated and her remnants crossed Mexico, entering the Gulf of Mexico. These remnants in turn helped generate Tropical Storm Inga, which dissipated on November 8.

Alphabetical name position can’t be used as an indicator of possible storm strength. Andrew and Opal, both unruly guests, with names toward the opposite ends of the alphabet, are good examples.

Never underestimate the potential impacts of late season storms. Category 5 Hurricane Mitch was active from October 22 – November 5, 1998, with maximum sustained winds of 180 MPH. This storm struck Central America, Yucatán Peninsula & South Florida causing 6.2 billion dollars in damage and caused 11,000 deaths.
Remember that winds do not blow OUT of a hurricane; they are drawn INTO the storm in a spiraling motion. By factoring in the Coriolis Effect of the Earth’s rotation and the counter-effects of surface friction you can determine the general direction of any tropical storm or non-tropical low pressure center using the surface wind direction as follows:

Wind Direction Storm Center Location

South North West
Southeast West
East Southwest
Northeast South
North Southeast
Northwest East
West Northeast
Southwest North

Calm winds suddenly occurring during a hurricane indicates the eye is over you. The winds will return just as suddenly, often stronger in the opposite direction.

My sister’s family was living at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines in 1974, when Typhoon Bidang passed directly over. When the winds suddenly died down they knew they were in the eye. Suddenly there was a knock on the door and opening it she found a delivery van with the furniture she had ordered. The Filipinos crew unloaded everything, said “thank you” and drove off into the darkness as the rear of the eyewall appeared and began blowing at full force.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..………………

NHC Hurricane Tracking Chart PDF’s

Here are handy hurricane tracking charts from the National Hurricane Center.

For the Atlantic Ocean: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/tracking_chart_atlantic.pdf
For the Pacific Ocean: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/tracking_chart_epacific.pdf

Someone once asked me “why do you bother tracking the Pacific ones?” For practice, so that when the Atlantic ones do appear you are already ahead of the game experience wise.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Mark’s Almanac

Originally the fourth Roman Month, June at one time had 29 days, until Julius Caesar in a glow of inspiration added the 30th day.

What June was named for is uncertain. Some say it was named for Juno, wife & sister of Jupiter. Juno was the goddess of marriage and a married couple’s household, so some consider it good luck to be married in this month, which is why June has become a month for so many marriages.

The beginning of meteorological Summer is June 1.

Storm activity retains many of the characteristics of spring, but more and more the pattern takes on the summer pattern of pop-up thunderstorms.

Hurricane season begins, June 1, however June hurricanes are usually small and of minor intensity, occurring roughly once every two years.

The centers for June Tropical Cyclone activity are the extreme Western Caribbean, with the storm tracks striking the Yucatan or veering toward Western Florida & the Southwestern Gulf of Mexico, with other storm tracks aiming toward the Mexican mainland.

From 1851 to 2019 there have been 94 Tropical Storms and 33 Hurricanes, of which 19 impacted the United States. The most notable June hurricane was Audrey, one of the deadliest tropical cyclones in US history, which killed 416 as it devastated the southwestern Louisiana coast in 1957.

The center of maximum tornadic activity shifts northward over Kansas and Iowa. Activity in Texas and Oklahoma dies down. There is a 5% decrease in tornadic activity over the May average & by June 4th 50% of the years tornadoes have occurred.

Days continue to grow longer as the Sun’s angle above the noonday horizon increases from 78.5 degrees at the beginning of the month to maximum of 79.9 on Summer Solstice on June 21 and then lowering to 79.6 degrees at the month’s end. Daylight increases from 14 hours 14 minutes on June 1 to the maximum daylight of 14 hours 23 minutes at Summer Solstice on June 21 and then decreases to 14 hours 21 minutes on June 30.

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

June 1 Sunrise 5:38 AM Sunset 7:52 PM
June 15 Sunrise 5:37 AM Sunset 7:59 PM
June 30 Sunrise 5:40 AM Sunset 8:01 PM

Looking towards the sky, The Sun, magnitude -26.7 is currently located in Taurus.

Mercury, magnitude 0.0, is at “Greatest Elongation” or as high in the western twilight as it will get, at 23.6 degrees above the horizon.

By the end of the month he will have slipped behind the western horizon and on the 30th will be at “Inferior Conjunction” or almost directly between the Earth and the Sun.
Venus is barely above the west-northwest horizon in the bright twilight, a mere 20 minutes after sunset.

Venus is closing in on the Sun and will disappear below the western horizon. She will reach “Inferior Conjunction” on June 3rd, when she passes less than one solar radius from the Sun’s northern limb.

She will then emerge as the Morning Star in the eastern dawn.

Earth, magnitude -4.0, as viewed from the Sun, is on the border of the Constellations Scorpius and Ophiuchus,

Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn shine in the southeast to south before and during early dawn.

Mars, magnitude +0.1, in dim Aquarius, is far to the left of Saturn as dawn begins. It has been slowly brightening and enlarging. In a telescope Mars is a little gibbous disk.

Jupiter, at magnitude -2.5, in Sagittarius the brightest, is on the right.

Saturn, magnitude +0.4 in Capricorn, glows pale yellow just to Jupiter’s left. They both rise now around midnight daylight-saving time.

Uranus is hidden in the glow of dawn.

Neptune, magnitude 7.9, in Aquarius, is in the east-southeast before dawn begins, in the vicinity of Mars.

The Moon will be at Perigee, or her closest point from the Earth on June 2 at a distance of 226,406 Miles.

June’s Full Moon is “Strawberry Moon” in Native American folklore. This will occur on June 5 at 2:12 PM CDT or 19:12 UTC. It is called “Strawberry Moon” for it signals the time to start harvesting strawberries, as it is peak strawberry ripening time. Other names are “Rose Moon” & “Honey Moon”.

There will be a Penumbral Lunar Eclipse on June 5. A penumbral lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes through the Earth’s partial shadow, or penumbra. During this type of eclipse the Moon will darken slightly but not completely. The eclipse will be visible throughout most of Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, the Indian Ocean, and Australia, but not North America.

The Moon will be at Apogee, or her farthest point from the Earth on June 14 at a distance of 251,404 Miles.

New Moon will occur June 21 at 1:42 AM CDT or 6:42 UTC. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters because there is no moonlight to interfere.

There will be an Annular Solar Eclipse on June 21. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon is too far away from the Earth to completely cover the Sun. This results in a ring of light around the darkened Moon. The Sun’s corona is not visible during an annular eclipse. The path of the eclipse will begin in central Africa and travel through Saudi Arabia, northern India, and southern China before ending in the Pacific Ocean. A partial eclipse will be visible throughout most of eastern Africa, the Middle East, and southern Asia, but, not North America.

Summer Solstice will occur at 4:43 PM CDT or 21:43 UTC on June 20. The North Pole of the earth will be tilted toward the Sun, which will have reached its northernmost position in the sky and will be directly over the Tropic of Cancer at 23.44 degrees north latitude. This is the first day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere and the first day of winter in the Southern Hemisphere.

The June Bootids Meteor Shower will occur from June 26th until July 2nd. It peaks on June 27th. Normally the shower is very weak, with a Zenith Hourly Rate or ZHR of 1 or 2, but occasional outbursts produce a hundred or more meteors per hour. The source of the June Bootids is Comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke, which orbits the Sun once every 6.37 years.

The Moon, being one day before First Quarter will not pose a major problem.

The Moon will be at Perigee, or her closest point from the Earth on June 29 at a distance of 229,260 Miles.

4158 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of May 21, per NASA’s
Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

This month’s meeting will be on May 9. The meeting will be done remotely as was last month’s meeting.

Details and instructions will be issued as the time nears.

Hope to “see” you there!

Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter

Wd4nyl@bellsouth.net

Mark’s Weatherlynx
Weather Resource Database

www.freewebs.com/weatherlynx/

Hi Everyone,

I hope this finds you well.

Many of you are currently homebound as we struggle with the spread and effects of Covid-19.

One interesting side effects of this, as they say, “hunkering down”, are the numerous reports of good HF band conditions and scores of stations being heard.

Is it a coincidence that with so many being stuck at home that radio propagation has suddenly come alive, or is it a case that the conditions have been there all along, but, operators have just been elsewhere, perhaps haunting social media instead?

So if you have HF capability and time, throw a CQ out into the ether. You never know what you may reel in.

Our next ALERT meeting will occur May 12.

I hope to “see” you there!

One final word before we continue. Though it has been occasionally discussed, ALERT does not have its own dedicated 2 meter repeater. We have never needed one as we by normal procedure seek out reports on other repeaters. When we deploy to the NWS, K4NWS does continuously monitor 220 MHz as a direct link to the ham station at the State EMA, and the Atlanta/Peachtree City NWS office has contacted us directly on 220. Also, for a while we thought about, and tried using a 440 MHz repeater as an ALERT frequency for in-house ALERT coordination. But, while we try to monitor 146.880 during severe weather, we may be anywhere on the 2 meter band, targeting affected areas.

So, ALERT cannot do what I am about to suggest.

While we are dealing with the restrictions caused by the pandemic, clubs have held online meetings using Zoom and other methods. If you are reading this and your club has a repeater, why not consider an on the air meeting?

This could give good exposure to your club, its purposes and its achievements.

It’s free advertising, certainly legal, as it’s basically a net and it might generate interest in hams who might not have had interest in clubs or meetings before. So, there could be a distinct membership boost.

It’s something to think about anyway!

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Yes Still Need A Ham License

With the strangeness of the times, there is a myth floating around, even among some “seasoned” amateurs, that “you really don’t need a ham license right now, after all were under a ‘national emergency’”.

It is true that the President declared a national emergency on March 13.

It is also true that there were already 31 national emergencies already in effect, including one dating back to 1979 in response to the Iranian Hostage Crisis during the Carter Administration.

So the question comes, has the normal communications infrastructure been damaged, compromised or collapsed? Are you in a dire emergency, where there are no other means of communications available to call for help?

If you are reading this you know the internet is working, the flickering across the room indicates that the TV is working; the phone keeps bugging you with telemarketer calls, so that’s working also. And since, (hopefully) you have no reason to call 911, then the answer is no and yes. No, we are not experiencing a communication emergency and yes you still need a ham license to transmit in a ham band.

Now one question arises as to how to get take a ham radio examination when “social distancing”
has been mandated.

One answer is just wait until all this passes, for it will surely end and take the test then.

Or, organizations could do as one club did and do open air testing in a tent, with proper distancing.

Another possible answer is, the FCC ruled on April 30 that “nothing in the FCC’s rules prohibits remote testing, and prior FCC approval is not required to conduct remote tests.” See: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-20-467A1.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3-Ggmt71lAnepf_oycJ6C09fPOOpECcaJP0WQx4C8J8nCsE7oQ-RShnPk

In fact the first virtual technician testing session has already occurred. See: https://qrznow.com/usa-conducts-first-all-online-ham-radio-exam/

So, as VECs gear up for online testing, look for opportunities and take advantage of those opportunities.

Some of us old timers will be heard moaning about this development. I also remember hearing moaning when the Volunteer Exam concept itself was proposed and adopted in 1984. “Everyone is going to cheat”. “Just get two buddies to sign a certificate and you are an instant ham. Why not certify your collie while you are at it?” “That’s one way to build an instant club.” “All this started when they started with those blasted KA calls…you know they are making way for those million CBers…um hmm you just wait and see.”

I guess the mystical lure of an Amateur Radio License just causes an uncontrollable urge to cheat in people. My thinking is some might, but most won’t. I also believe that those who do will quickly lose interest in the realm, since the commitment level is so abysmally low to begin with.

The only real problem I have with online testing is that there needs to be a system or pool of “Elmers” available to mentor the new hams. Don’t just throw them into the water and expect them to know how to swim.

The license just opens the door. The rest is learned by “on the job experience” with trial, error and trying again until you get it right. Having a friendly patient ham to help me through the rough spots was a gift from above. My Elmer, Jim K4UMD, helped me study, gave me my test, found a radio for me so I could get on the air and guided me in the do’s and don’ts of the hobby.

Hams new and old often find that ham radio communications can be a complicated little beast. So, if you hear someone struggling, or someone not doing something “exactly right”, help them out, don’t jump on them. And, don’t whine about how good licensing was in the “old days”.

After all, though you may not remember it, but someone called you a “dummy” for the test you passed also.

So remember how it was when YOU first started out, and be someone’s mentor today.

It will do you good and help you to.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Starlink

On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union shocked the world by placing Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite into orbit. Ham radio operators worldwide tuned to its radio beacon on 20.005 MHz and 40.010 MHz to hear the “beep beep beep” of Earth’s “new moon”. Some believe it was sending back data about its orbital environment. Others think it just went “beep beep beep” to prove it was really there.

While its transmissions ceased 21 days later, due to its batteries being exhausted, amateur observers using powerful binoculars continued to track it across the sky until its reentry on January 4, 1958

In more modern times observers have enjoyed looking towards the sky as the International Space Station passed over. The station, which began with the launch of the first section in 1998, is the largest manmade object in space. It will become even larger in 2021 when the Russians will launch the Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to dock with the station.

The brightness of the station as it passes over varies depending on the solar angle and the angle of the stations huge solar arrays.

If you have never seen the station, or it has been a while, information on when you can spot the station can be found at https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/

But, now we have another target, or set of targets to search for in the sky – the Starlink satellite constellation.

SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, which hopefully on May 27 will launch the first Americans into space from American soil since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, has created the Starlink Satellites.

The goal of the Starlink Satellites is to provide high speed broadband internet to locations around the globe where internet access is unreliable, expensive, or unavailable. They are currently targeting areas of the Northern U.S. and Canada for high speed broadband internet access. They are hoping to make this global by 2021.

Launched 60 satellites at a time, new Starlink satellites are injected into a preliminary orbit of 174 miles, but each of the 60 satellites is equipped with an ion engine to slowly raise its orbit to an altitude of about 217 miles. For a period of time after launch they float across the sky like a brilliant string of celestial pearls and but as the days progress they spread out into their final orbits and become less spectacular.

For details on observing opportunities go to https://findstarlink.com/

Naturally not everyone is thrilled by this project.

In 1960 astronomers were worried about an experimental satellite NASA was about to launch called Echo 1.

Echo 1, would be a 100 foot metalized balloon, launched into low Earth orbit that would act as a passive communications satellite.

The balloon satellite would function as a reflector, not a transceiver. A signal would be sent to it, reflected by its surface, and returned to Earth.

Astronomers worried that Echo 1 would drift by when they were making long exposure photographs of deep sky objects. But, as things turned out, Echo 1 and its even larger sister, 135 foot Echo 2 launched in 1964 presented no problems.

Other large satellites, such as the Salyut, Skylab and Mir space stations caused no problems, and even the largest object in space, the International Space Station, has caused no troubles.

But, Starlink is another story. With 420 satellites already in orbit, the Starlink system will eventually consist of 12,000 satellites.

Starlink satellites have appeared as bright streaks across images taken by observatory telescopes, ever since SpaceX launched the first mission almost a year ago.

SpaceX in recent months has taken to addressing astronomer’s concerns directly, reaching out to the American Astronomical Society (AAS) to establish a line of communication.

As a result there will be changes made to the design of its Starlink satellites, as well as changes to how the satellites move in space, to help reduce the brightness and damage to astronomer’s images.

“SpaceX is committed to making future satellite designs as dark as possible,” the company said in a press release following a presentation to the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

How dim will they become? Only time will tell.

Until then though, we can have the fun of tracking the Starlink train and the ISS, which is scheduled to exist to at least 2028, and then either be partially disassemble and used for another Russian / European space station, or deorbited completely to crash into an ocean.

So catch them while you can.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Mark’s Almanac

May is the fifth month & third month of the Roman calendar. May is named for the Greek goddess Maia, who was identified with, Bona Dea, the Goddess of Fertility, who was celebrated in May.

Since ancient times the first day of the month, “May Day” has been a time of celebration. In Rome it honored Flora, the goddess of flowers.

On May the fifth Mexican’s celebrate Cinco De Mayo, the celebration Mexico’s 1862 victory over Napoleon III’s forces at Puebla. This is not, as many assume, Mexico’s Independence Day, which is actually on September 16.

Rainfall decreases in May as the Azores-Bermuda High strengthens, expands Westward over the Southeastern US & begins rerouting storm systems northward.

The door opens to the Gulf of Mexico & Gulf moisture spreads northward over the continent.

The center of maximum tornadic activity also shifts northward over the Nation’s Heartland. May is the peak tornado month, with a 42% increase over April’s amount.

Eastern Pacific hurricane season begins May 15, and although the North Atlantic hurricane season has not arrived, occasionally a tropical system will form in the Gulf of Mexico. From 1851 to 2019 there have been 24 Tropical Storms and 5 Hurricanes, including an 1863 Category 2 storm, the knowledge of which is based on historical reanalysis by NOAA’s Michael Chenoweth and Cary Mock in 2013 and posthumously given the name Hurricane Amanda, named after, a Union ship the storm washed ashore. It made landfall near Apalachicola Florida.

60% of off-season Hurricanes occur in May.

Colorado State University has issued its outlook for the 2020 tropical season.

Their forecast predicts 16 named storms during the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30. Of those, researchers expect eight to become hurricanes and four to reach major hurricane strength of Category 3 or greater, with sustained winds of 111 miles per hour or greater.

A “Normal” season sees about 12 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes.

AccuWeather released its 2020 Atlantic hurricane forecast earlier. Their outlook also calls for an above average season with 14 to 18 tropical storms during the upcoming season, which runs from June 1 through November 30. Of those storms, seven to nine are forecast to become hurricanes; and two to four are predicted to strengthen into major hurricanes.

NOAA’s forecast is due at the end of May.

The Atlantic Hurricane names for 2020 are: Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gonzalo, Hanna, Isaias, Josephine, Kyle, Laura, Marco, Nana, Omar, Paulette, Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky and Wilfred.

Should they run out of names they will use the Greek alphabet for names, as they did with Tropical Storm Alpha in 2005.

Days continue to grow longer as the Sun’s angle above the noonday horizon increases from 71.6 degrees at the beginning of the month to 78.4 degrees at the month’s end. Daylight increases from 13 hours 31 minutes on May 1 to 14 hours 13 minutes on May 31.

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

May 1 Sunrise 5:59 AM Sunset 7:30 PM
May 15 Sunrise 5:47 AM Sunset 7:41 PM
May 30 Sunrise 5:39 AM Sunset 7:52 PM

Looking towards the sky, The Sun, magnitude -26.7 is currently located in Aries.

At the beginning of the month Mercury is hidden behind the Sun. On May 4 he will pass directly behind the Sun or be in “Superior Conjunction”.

On May 9 he will be at his closest approach to the Sun, or “Perihelion” when he will be 28.8 million miles from the Sun.

On May 11 he reappears in the evening sky and will be steadily rising and by month’s end will be a -0.1 object 20 degrees above the Western horizon in Gemini.

Venus, magnitude –4.7, in north-central Taurus, is the dazzling white “Evening Star” in the west during and after dusk. She is now at her maximum brightness.

Venus is now sinking lower in the evening sky, at the first of the month she sets 90 minutes after twilights end.

In a telescope, Venus is a 28% sunlit crescent. Towards the end of the month she will be a dramatically thin crescent low in the twilight as she nears conjunction with the Sun.

Earth, magnitude -4.0, as viewed from the Sun, is in the Constellation Libra.

Mars, magnitude +0.4 in Capricorn, shines in the southeast before and during early dawn.

Jupiter, magnitude -2.3 in Sagittarius, shines brightly in the southeast before and during the early dawn.

Saturn, magnitudes +0.6 in Capricorn, shines in the southeast before and during early dawn.

Mars, Jupiter and Saturn form a trio with Jupiter, the brightest, on the right and Saturn glowing pale yellow 5° to Jupiter’s left.

Mars is ever farther to Saturn’s lower left, moving eastward against the stars away from the other two.

Uranus is hidden in conjunction with the Sun.

Neptune, magnitude +7.9 in Aquarius, is barely risen in the east as dawn begins.

4152 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of April 23, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

The Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower, an above average shower, peaks May 4 & 5. It is capable of producing up to 60 meteors per hour at its peak, but, most of the activity is seen in the Southern Hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, the rate can reach about 30 meteors per hour, which is still a decent shower. It is produced by dust particles left behind by comet Halley, due to return in a mere 42 years in the summer of 2061. The shower runs annually from April 19 to May 28. It peaks this year on the night of May 4 and the morning of the May 5. The nearly full moon will be a problem this year, blocking out all but the brightest meteors. But if you are patient, you should still be able to catch a few good ones. Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Aquarius, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

The Moon will be at Perigee, or her closest point from the Earth on May 5 at a distance of 223,480 Miles.

Full Moon will occur May 7th at 5:45 AM CDT or 10:45 UTC. The Moon will be located on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun and its face will be will be fully illuminated. May’s Moon is “Flower Moon” in Native American folklore, because of the abundance of spring flowers. It has also been called “Corn Planting Moon” & “Milk Moon”.

This is also the last of four Supermoons for 2020. The Moon will be near its closest approach to the Earth and may look slightly larger and brighter than usual.

The Moon will be at Apogee, or her farthest point from the Earth on May 18 at a distance of 252018 Miles.

New Moon will occur May 22 at 12:39 PM CDT or 17:39 UTC. The Moon will located on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky This is the best time of the month to observe faint deep sky objects such as galaxies and star clusters, as there will be no moonlight to wash out the evening sky.

Last month I mentioned the possibility of a bright comet arriving named Comet Atlas. Well as celestial things don’t always go as expected, Atlas has fragmented and the remains will never reach naked eye visibility.

There is, however, a new kid in town in the form of Comet Swan which is inbound and will make its closest approach to Earth on May 13 and brighten to magnitude 3.5.

Unfortunately, the Southern Hemisphere is expected to get the best view as Swan sails past Earth.

Swan will be at its brightest in the US towards the end of May but will only be visible extremely low in the Eastern morning sky.

But, if you happen to be in Australia or Chile in the next couple of weeks, then you are in luck as you will get a great view of a bright comet.

Last year, amateur and professional astronomers discovered about 50 new comets, and recovered 17 returning visitors. Not a single one was bright enough to be seen by the naked eye or by amateur equipment, except for interstellar comet 2I/Borisov which was visible only if you had dark skies and a telescope with a primary lens or mirror 16 inches across.

So, we are currently in a cometary drought.

The good thing is, all droughts do eventually come to an end. So who knows, the Fall may see the yet to be discovered Great Comet of 2020.

Perhaps we won’t be needing biohazard suits by then!

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Articles and suggestions for the Newsletter are welcome and needed. Share your knowledge and experience with us. If you like DX, tell us about it. Digital communications, whether FT4, FT8, Fusion, p25, D-Star DMR or CW, and yes dash dot CW is a digital mode, tell us about it. How does it work. What works best locally?

While I may tweak the article to flow smoothly in the newsletter, any topic that is weather or ham radio related is welcome!

This month’s meeting will be on May 12. The meeting will be done remotely as was last month’s meeting.

Details and instructions will be issued as the time nears.

Hope to “see” you there!

Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter

Wd4nyl@bellsouth.net

Mark’s Weatherlynx
Weather Resource Database

www.freewebs.com/weatherlynx/