Hi Everyone & Happy New Year.

I hope that Santa treated you well and that Father Time will be kind to you also.

As we unwind from the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, make sure to mark January 14 on your calendar, as that is our next ALERT meeting.

Other important dates to remember and hopefully attend are:

The Blount County Freezefest 2020, Saturday January 4, from 8 to 12 Noon, at the Locust Fork High School, in Locust Fork.

For more information got to: http://freezefest.w4blt.org/

Amateur Radio Exams will be administered at 2:00 PM Sunday January 12, 2020 at the Birmingham Amateur Radio Club’s site which is at the Alabama Historical Radio Society.

For more information go to: https://w4cue.com/vetest.html

Winter Field Day will he held January 25 & 26.

For more information contact Roger Parsons kk4udu@arrl.net or Johnnie Knobloch kj4opx@arrl.net

Winter Field Day and it’s spring counterpart Field Day are to me one of the most valuable events that ham radio operators can participate in, for it helps give actual experience in a “grid down” situation, where hams have to erect their antennas and power their equipment as in an actual post-disaster scenario. Whether it’s a club or group, providing their own generator and food, or an individual setting up and using his own equipment using alternate power sources, whether that be battery power or battery and solar power, this can provide valuable hands own experience and operating experience that someday could prove vital in during an actual emergency.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s a fun event? It is.

The Birmingham Hamfest is only nine weeks away, March 6 & 7, at the Trussville Civic Center.

This event, will as with last year’s event, will be a Friday & Saturday affair. There will be vendors, a flea market, forums, including one by ALERT and ARES, and Amateur Radio Examinations.

For more information go to: http://birminghamfest.org/

The 2020 Black Warrior Hamfest, which is a cooperative effort by Tuscaloosa Amateur community, will be held at the Tuscaloosa High School on May 2nd, 2020.

For more information go to: http://www.blackwarriorhamfest.org/ or their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/bwhamfest

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ALERT Dues

Before the December meeting, which featured the ALERT Christmas party, the subject of delinquent dues was discussed.

To be eligible to respond to ALERT callouts, vote in ALERT elections, hold leadership positions or have access to the NWSChat system under the auspices of ALERT, you have to be current with your membership dues.

In years past enforcement of this requirement was a perhaps a little lax, however this will now be corrected.

To maintain roster records according to ALERT’s Bylaws, effective January 31, 2020, members who have not paid 2019 dues (which were due on July 2019’s meeting date, per Article IV), will be removed from the ALERT roster. After this point, these members may re-apply.
Per the ALERT Bylaws, ALERT offers four levels of Membership: Friend, Support, Operations and Lifetime Membership.

Friend Membership is open to anyone who believes in and helps with ALERT. Friend Members pay no dues & do not have the right to vote.

This level is designed for those interested in ALERT’s mission, but, cannot take an active part in its operations.

Supporting Membership is open to any person interested in Amateur Radio, Skywarn, or Emergency Communications.

Supporting Members pay the appropriate dues and they have a right to vote.

Upon obtaining a valid Amateur Radio License & receiving training by ALERT, Supporting Members will become eligible for Operations Member status.

This level is designed for those interested in participating, but, do not have an Amateur Radio license. Perhaps they can monitor the Central Alabama Spotterchat and Social Media for instance or provide other means of assistance.

Operations Members must hold a valid Amateur Radio license.

Operations Members must be trained by ALERT in order to be designated as a Control Operator at the National Weather Service.

Operations Members must pay appropriate dues and they have a right to vote.

Finally there is Lifetime Membership.

This level is available after five consecutive years of ALERT Membership. Currently there are two Lifetime Members – Ron Arant – N4PHP and Brian Peters – WD4EPR.

Dues for ALERT are $20.00 for Operations & Supporting Members, $10.00 for family members, $10.00 for students and senior citizens over age 65. Dues are prorated by 50% if paid after January 1 of the current membership year.

Dues for Lifetime Membership are $450 after consecutive membership of five years.

In special cases or hardship, applicants or members may submit a confidential written request to the Board of Directors to have the dues waived or reduced. This request, which will be held in strictest confidence, may be brought to any Board Member: Mark Wells, Russell Thomas, Roger Parsons, Johnnie Knobloch, and Casey Benefield.

More information on dues, the ALERT Bylaws, Membership Applications and the payment address, may be found on the ALERT- Alabama.org website under Join/Documents.
https://alert-alabama.org/blog/?page_id=530

If you are a current member, but, forgot to pay the year dues, or a former member interested in becoming active again or if you have never been a member, but, believe in ALERT and ALERT’s mission of helping the NWS receive the vital information they need so they may issue their life saving warnings, I cordially invite to join or rejoin your Alabama Emergency Response Team!

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Mark’s Almanac

January is named for the Roman god Janus, the god of gates and doors, and so openings and beginnings.

January receives more sunlight than December, but the equilibrium between incoming solar heat and the heat radiated into space by the northern snowfields does not peak until late January and early February, six weeks after winter solstice. So the weather continues to cool, with January 8 – 20 being the coldest part of the year.

Typically in January there is a 53% chance of up to one inch of snow and a 25% chance of over one inch of snow.

With the exception of the southern tip of Nova Scotia, all of Canada and roughly one half of the Continental US, or “CONUS”, are now covered with snow. Canada’s Hudson’s Bay is frozen, as is the ocean water between Baffin Island and Greenland.

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_usa.gif
Barometric pressure is highest in January.

Though the Atlantic Hurricane Season officially ended November 30, every now and then Mother Nature will give us a surprise as there have been 5 tropical storms and 3 Category 1 hurricanes from 1851 to 2018. This includes an unnamed hurricane in 1938 in the Eastern Atlantic & Hurricane Alex which in 2016 effected Bermuda and the Azores.

Birmingham January climatology per Intellicast is monthly rainfall 5.45” inches and snowfall 0.7”. Average high temperature is 53 degrees and the average low 32 degrees. Record high of 81 degrees occurred in 1941 and a record low of -6 degrees in 1985.

Barometric pressure is highest in January.

Days grow longer as the Sun’s angle above the noonday horizon steadily increases from 33.5 degrees at the beginning of the month to 39.2 degrees at the month’s end. Daylight increases from 9 hours 59 minutes on January 1 to 10 hours 33 minutes on January 31.

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

January 1 Sunrise 6:52 AM Sunset 4:50 PM
January 15 Sunrise 6:51 AM Sunset 5:02 PM
January 31 Sunrise 6:44 AM Sunset 5:17 PM
Looking towards the sky, Mercury is hidden deep in the glare of the Sun. He will reach “Superior Conjunction” located directly behind the Sun on January 10. He will then begin moving towards the dusk sky.

Venus, magnitude –4.0, is crossing central Capricornus. She shines in the southwest in evening twilight, rising higher each week and is coming into a grand “Evening Star” apparition that will continue all winter and into the spring. As impressive as she will be, she is still nearly on the far side of the solar system from us.

Earth, magnitude -4.0, as viewed from the Sun, is in the Constellation Gemini near the 3.6 magnitude star Lambda Geminorum, 101 light years distant.

Earth will reach her closest distance to the Sun on Jan 4, when the planet will be 0.98324 Astronomical Units or 91,398,199 miles from the Sun.
Mars, magnitude +1.6, in Libra, is fairly low in the southeast before and during early dawn. He, like Venus is still on the far side of the solar system from us and so is appears very tiny in telescopes, but, by October he will be on our side of the solar system and will 50 times brighter than now.

Jupiter is hidden behind the Sun.

Saturn will be directly behind the Sun on January 13.

Uranus, magnitude 5.7, in southern Aries, is high in the south-southeast after dusk ends.

Neptune, magnitude 7.9, in eastern Aquarius, is in the southwest right after dark.

4104 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of December 5, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

The Moon will be at Apogee or its farthest distance from Earth on January 1, when she will be 251394 miles from Earth.

The Quadrantids Meteor Shower will occur Wednesday & Thursday, January 3 & 4. This is an above average shower producing between 40 to 100 meteors per hour radiating from the constellation Bootes, in the area near the end of the handle of the Big Dipper and the head of Draco the Dragon.

It peaks this year on the night of the 3rd and morning of the 4th. The first quarter moon will set shortly after midnight, leaving fairly dark skies for what could be a good show

This shower favors the Northern Hemisphere because its radiant point, or the point where the meteors appear to originated in the sky, is so far north on the sky’s dome.

This shower is believed to be produced by dust grains from burnt out comet 2003 EH1, which may also be the remainder of comet c/1490 Y1, which was lost to history after a prominent meteor shower was observed in 1490, possibly due to the breakup of the comet.

Full Moon will occur Monday January 10, at 1:23 PM CST or 19:23 PM UTC.

January’s Full Moon is “Wolf Moon” in Native American folklore. This was also called “Wulf-Monath” or “Wolf Month” by the Saxons, because at this full Moon, packs of wolves howled in hunger outside of the villages.

It has also been called “Old Moon” and “Moon After Yule”.
Also on January 10 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 Europe, Africa, Asia, the Indian Ocean, and Western Australia. So get your jet ready!

The Moon will be at Perigee or its closest approach to Earth on January 23, when she will be 237,399 miles from Earth.

New Moon occurs January 25 at 3:44 PM CST or 21:44 UTC, when the Moon will 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 Apogee or its farthest distance from Earth again on January 29, when she will be 251,898 miles from Earth.

Now we come to the strange case of Betelgeuse.

Betelgeuse or Alpha Orionis is the bright red star marking the left shoulder of Orion The Hunter.

Sitting 640 light years away, Betelgeuse is normally the ninth most luminous star in the sky. However since December it has suddenly and rapidly dimmed to the point that it doesn’t even break the Top Twenty in luminosity.

Betelgeuse is a variable star, known for wild fluctuations, but, not at this rapid a shift.

Betelgeuse is also believed to be on the brink of going supernova and exploding and becoming briefly the brightest nighttime star ever seen. This could happen at any moment, but, with human lifespans being just a flicker of time, this has been the case since long before the days if the Pyramids and may not occur for another thousand millennia.

Or it could be tonight.

More than likely though, it will wait until it’s been raining for a week, as that often tends to be my luck with these kinds of things, for instance the Total Solar Eclipse of March 7, 1970, Comet Kohoutek of December 1973, and others that I could whine about, but I guess I won’t.

One thing that I am especially looking forward to in 2020 is the United States is expected to regaining manned spaceflight launch capability, with both SpaceX and Boeing scheduled to launch crews to the International Space Station.

This will be the first crewed missions the United States has launched into orbit since the conclusion of the Space Shuttle program on July 21, 2011, with the landing of the Space Shuttle Atlantis.

Since that date, all American astronauts entering space have been launched aboard Russian Soyuz craft, at currently $86 million per seat.

Using Boeing the cost is $90 million and SpaceX $56 million per seat.

But, it eliminates our foreign dependency for manned spaceflight access, which is good, in case Russia decides that they don’t particularly like us anymore.

Later in this decade, NASA’s Artemis program is scheduled to begin as we return to the Moon and aim towards sending a manned mission to Mars.

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This month’s meeting will be on January 14 at 7PM at the National Weather Service Forecast office at the Shelby County Airport.

If for some reason you cannot attend the meeting in person, you can still participate via telephone. The NEW teleconference number is 1-866-231-8384 & and the conference code is
2056215645#.

Don’t use the old number given in previous newsletters, as it won’t work.

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,

Welcome to the One Hundred and Fiftieth ALERT Newsletter!

The newsletter has always been a “labor of love” to me, as it’s a way I can contribute to and participate in an organization that I believe in, and help “spread the word” of who we are and what we do.

Since it is a labor of love, I would love to get some articles and items for the newsletter. Articles about radio, ham radio, emergency preparedness, concerns, suggestions, good news and bad news. Let’s just say there is a wide latitude of possibilities.

While, I reserve the right to edit for clarity and to keep us from being sued, tarred and feathered, articles are welcome and needed. Please send them to wd4nyl (at) bellsouth (dot) net

Thanks!

Of news of note, the ALERT Pot Luck Christmas Party will occur Tuesday December 10th at 7PM during our regular meeting time.

There will be food, non-alcoholic drinks, desserts and goodies. Come have Christmas dinner with your ALERT family!

If you can attend, please go to our online signup sheet, and tell us who you are, what you will bring (so we don’t end up with 18 turkeys) and how many will attend.

https://alertalabama-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/g/personal/nz2o_alert-alabama_org/EZzJWTLCkzNMm2MdyFgg5qABf75nxwE6Glpizj7WN0Dc5w?e=g7LvHk

We hope to see you there!

The weekend before the meeting, on Saturday 6 & 7 K4NWS will be activated for Skywarn Appreciation Day from 6PM to 6PM.

Skywarn Recognition Day was developed in 1999 by the National Weather Service and the ARRL to honor the contributions that Skywarn volunteers make to the NWS mission – the protection of life and property during threatening weather.

During the Skywarn special event, hams operate from ham equipped NWS offices nationwide. The object of the event is for all participating Amateur Radio stations to exchange contact information with as many NWS stations as possible on 80, 40, 20, 15, 10, 6, 2 meters, 220 MHz and 70 centimeters. Contacts via repeaters are permitted.

Starting at 6PM Friday December 6th, the ALERT Team will activate K4NWS as part of this special event and will operate until Saturday, December 7th at 6PM.

We will be operating on all bands & radios in the Forecast Office Station including 2-Meter, 220, 440, and D-Star,

Because of space limitations, this will be an ALERT Operational Members Only event.

Our President, Johnnie, KJ4OPX is coordinating this event. So if you are available to help with the SRD, please coordinate with Johnnie in advance at wxjohnnie@gmail.com.

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WX4RON

We wish to congratulate Ronnie King, WX4RON on becoming the new ARES Emergency Coordinator for Jefferson County.

Ronnie is well versed in emergency communications, preparedness and emergency response. Ronnie, is a long term ALERT member, former ALERT President, former Net Manager of the ALERT Sunday Night Net and a firefighter.

Ronnie is planning a meeting for January 30 to discuss the future direction of ARES including training. The time and venue of the meeting are to be determined later.

Let’s all make sure to give Ronnie and our sister organization ARES all the help, support and encouragement we can.

If you are not active in ARES, I would consider becoming active, by participating in nets, training and public service events.

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Amateur Radio Testing Opportunity

In the fall of 1977 I was interested in becoming a Ham radio operator. I had been researching and studying since I discovered hams working a severe weather event in 1973. I wanted to become one, but, did not know any hams who could guide me into the realms of hamdom.

Meanwhile, I got a CB radio, and talked on it, not engaging in the shenanigans I heard, but trying to emulate the hams I listened to on two meters on an old multiband “police radio”.

While at UAB, I happened upon a car with the callsign WA4LVC. I took a chance, a shot in the dark and wrote a note “CBer needs help becoming a ham. Please call Mark – 747-7424”, (not my current number, by the way), and left it on his car.

Being then, as well as now, a shy introvert, I halfway hoped he would toss the note in the trash. But, he did call, and directed me to Jim Bonner, K4UMD who tutored or “elmered” me and gave me my Novice test, which led to a teenage Mark becoming WD4NYL on December 27, 1977.

Becoming a ham was one of the better decisions I’ve made in my life. It has been an adventure and eventually led to me meeting, monopolizing on the air and marrying a lady ham, Teresa KQ4JC.

If you or anyone you know is interested in becoming a ham operator or if you are interested in upgrading, the Amateur Radio Advancement Group will be administering Amateur Radio Testing at 2:00 PM Sunday, December 1 at the Shelby County Amateur Radio Club Site at the Pelham Fire Department Training Center at 663 Stuart Lane.
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For more information, including directions, visit https://aragroup.org/

Be bold, be determined and become a ham!

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Mark’s Almanac

December was the tenth Roman Month, from whence it gets its name, “decem” meaning “ten”. Among many Native American tribes it was called “the Moon of Clacking Rocks”, as it was the time when they prepared and manufactured stone tools, implements and weapons, since the growing season was over, and bad weather prevented them from hunting.

December is the cloudiest month of the year, with only 40 to 60% of possible sunshine poking through the clouds. It is also the stormiest month of the year for the Continental US & the Gulf of Mexico. By “stormy” meaning large-scale storms, not necessarily the tornadic storms that they bring, even though we are still in our Second Tornado Season.

A region of heavy rainfall usually forms from Texas to Northwest Florida to Tennessee and Arkansas. Cold waves bringing rain, snow, ice and occasionally tornadoes, sweep across the region.

Average precipitation in Birmingham is 4.47” of rainfall and 0.1” of snowfall.

December can be cloudy and cold, and, then it can swing into spring like warmth, luring plants to bloom early, only to have the frosts and freezes return and the plants are “nipped in the bud”.

Hurricane season is now “officially” over, however Mother Nature sometimes throws a surprise in to make life interesting.

From 1851 – 2018 there have been 19 Tropical Storms and from 1822 to 2017 there have been 8 Category 1 hurricanes, but, none have ever struck the United States.

Two notable December hurricanes are:

Hurricane Alice of 1954, which is the only known Atlantic hurricane to span two calendar years and one of only two named Atlantic tropical cyclones, along with Tropical Storm Zeta of 2005, to do so.

Alice developed on December 30, 1954 from a trough of low pressure in the central Atlantic Ocean in an area of unusually favorable conditions. The storm moved southwestward and gradually strengthened to reach hurricane status. After passing through the Leeward Islands on January 2, 1955, Alice reached peak winds of 90 mph before encountering cold air and turning to the southeast. It dissipated on January 6 over the southeastern Caribbean Sea.

The last December hurricane to occur was Hurricane Epsilon during the 2005 season, the year in which we ran out of hurricane names. The year also featured Tropical Storm Zeta, the latest forming Tropical Storm which formed on December 30, 2005 and lasted until January 7, 2006.

Days continue to grow shorter as the Sun’s angle above the noonday horizon steadily decreases from 34.6 degrees at the beginning of the month to 33.0 degrees at Winter Solstice on December 21 and then the angle begins to lift reaching 33.4 degrees on New Year’s Eve,

Daylight decreases from 10 hours 6 minutes on December 1 to 9 hours 56 minutes at Winter Solstice and then increases to 9 hours 58 minutes on December 31

Sunrise and Sunset times for Birmingham are:

December 1 Sunrise 6:33 AM Sunset 4:39 PM
December 15 Sunrise 6:43 AM Sunset 4:40 PM
December 21 Sunrise 6:47 AM Sunset 4:43 PM
December 31 Sunrise 6:51 AM Sunset 4:49 PM

Looking towards the sky, at the beginning of the month Mercury, magnitude –0.6, is having its best dawn appearance of 2019. Spot him low in the east-southeast as much as an hour before sunrise.

Venus, magnitude –3.9, in Sagittarius, shines low in the southwest in evening twilight, a little higher each week. She will continue to rise and become the brilliant “Evening Star” dominating the western skies all this coming winter and into the spring.

Earth, magnitude -4.0, as viewed from the Sun, is in the Constellation Taurus near Zeta Tauri, the star that marks the tip of the Bull’s southern horn, 444.7 light years away. In ancient Chinese sky lore this star was known as Tien Kwan, the “Gate of Heaven”.

Mars, magnitude +1.8, in Virgo, is low in the east-southeast in early dawn to the upper right of Mercury.

Jupiter, magnitude –1.8, in southern Ophiuchus, moves farther to the lower right of Venus in twilight and becomes trickier to spot before it sets.

Saturn, magnitude +0.6, in Sagittarius, is the steady yellow “star” upper left of bright Venus. Every evening Venus gets closer to Saturn.

They’ll be sitting next to each other in conjunction, on December 10th and 11th.

Uranus, magnitude +5.7, in southern Aries is high in the South in the early evening.

Neptune, magnitude +7.9 in eastern Aquarius is high in the southeast in the early evenings.

4099 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of November 21, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

The Moon will be at Apogee or its farthest distance from Earth on December 4, when she will be 251312 miles from Earth.

Full Moon occurs at 11:14 PM on December 11 or 5:14 UTC on December 12. This full moon was known by early Native American tribes as the Full Cold Moon because this is the time of year when the cold winter air settles in and the nights become long and dark. This moon has also been known as the Moon Before Yule and the Full Long Nights Moon.

The Geminid Meteor Shower peaks on December 13-14. Geminids are one of the year’s best meteor showers. It is my favorite meteor shower and considered by many to be the best shower in the heavens. It’s a consistent and prolific shower, and usually the most satisfying of all the annual showers, even surpassing the more widely recognized Perseids of August. This shower typically produces 50 or more multicolored meteors an hour, or about one every minute.

As a general rule, the dazzling Geminid meteor shower starts around mid-evening and tends to pick up steam as evening deepens into late night. No matter where you live worldwide, the greatest number of meteors usually fall in the wee hours after midnight, or for a few hours centered around 2 a.m. local time. If you’re game, you can watch the Geminid shower all the way from mid-evening until dawn.

This year the glare from the Full Moon will hide all but the brightest meteors. If you are extremely patient, you might still be able to catch a few good ones.

The Geminids are produced by debris left behind by an asteroid known as 3200 Phaethon, which was discovered in 1982. The shower runs annually from December 7-17. It peaks this year on the night of the 13th and morning of the 14th.

Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Gemini, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

The Moon will be at Perigee or its closest approach to Earth on December 24, when she will be 230,069 miles from Earth.

Winter Solstice will be December 21 at 10:19 PM or 04:19 UTC on December 22. The South Pole of the earth will be tilted toward the Sun, which will have reached its southernmost position in the sky and will be directly over the Tropic of Capricorn at 23.44 degrees south latitude. This is the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the first day of summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Ursid meteor shower, a minor meteor shower, which runs annually from December 17-25 will peak on the night and morning of December 21 – 22 producing about 5-10 meteors per hour. It is produced by dust grains left behind by comet Tuttle, which was first discovered in 1790.

The waning crescent moon should not interfere too much this year. Skies should still be dark enough for what could be a good show.

Best viewing will be just after midnight from a dark location far away from city lights. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Ursa Minor, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

New Moon occurs December 25 at 11:15 PM CST or 05:15 UTC December 26 when the Moon will 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.

Five minutes after New Moon there will be an Annular Solar Eclipse. 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 begins in Saudi Arabia and then moves east through southern India, northern Sri Lanka, parts of the Indian Ocean, and Indonesia before ending in the Pacific Ocean. A partial eclipse will be visible throughout most of Asia and northern Australia.

I’m fueling up the jet as I type.

’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’

Christmas

Christmas is my favorite time of the year.

Christmastime is a time of wonder & mystery. A time of bright lights, shining trees and the time of hide and seek, as presents are hid from inquiring minds and fingers.

It is a time when one’s mind and memories drift back to days of childhood, and Christmases now long gone by. Remembering friends and family, some here, some now gone & longing that they were near once again, as it was once upon a time not so long ago. And, it is a time when, if we allow ourselves and don’t choose to “Grinch out” and be sour pusses, we can become kids once again.

Most importantly though, it’s a time to remember that the true “reason for the season” occurred in a manger, long ago on that first cold and chilly “Silent Night.”

So as you go about your Christmas preparations remember the magic that was there when you were a child & don’t let that magic die. Make it magic once again

For Christmas truly is “the most wonderful time of the year”.

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This month’s meeting will feature the ALERT Christmas Party on December 10 at 7:00 PM at the National Weather Service Forecast office at the Shelby County Airport.

Hope to see you there!

Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter
Wd4nyl@bellsouth.net

Mark’s Weatherlynx
Weather Resource Database
https://weatherlynx.webs.com/

Hi everyone,

I hope this finds you well.

The colors of Fall are brightening all around us, which is one of the “treats” of the seasons.
The “trick” of the season is that we have now entered our second tornado season.

This is a good time to review your emergency plans and check your emergency equipment.

Are you still ready?

Ask yourselves these simple questions.

Can you receive weather warnings? This includes at home, at work and on the road, even with a power outage.

The best methods for receiving warnings are NOAA Weather Radio, apps from local news outlets and on Social Media following the National Weather Service directly.

Other sources, such as Facebook blurbs and depending on sirens are not good choices. Sirens can fail, either due to storm damage or a power failure and those Facebook blurbs may be anywhere from an hour to a week old. I don’t care who puts the information out. Check the dates and verify the NWS products being issued for your area using directly from the NWS.

Have multiple methods. Have backups of backups.

Do you have a place where you can take shelter at home, at work or on the road?

And, if a tornado strikes near you, do you know what to do?

Is your emergency equipment still ready? This includes radios, supplies, kits and tools.

These are questions that need to be asked and any necessary corrective actions taken.

You and your family’s life depend on it. For though ALERT responds to the NWS to take storm reports, our primary responsibility is to take care of ourselves, our families and then our community.

So take time to learn about disaster preparedness. Think about what you will do if “it” happens to you. Educate your family, friends, coworkers and neighbors as to what they can do and why they should prepare also.

If your message seems to meet unreceptive ears, don’t worry. Those little seeds of knowledge can grow into large trees. Knowledge saves lives.

Saving lives is what we are in “the business” for.

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Amateur Radio Callsign Databases

Over the years Hams have always been interested in researching other hams locations or mailing addresses. The primary reasons being to send a QSL card and hopefully obtain one in return or for those seeking a vanity call to see if a certain callsign is currently in use.

I will mention that there are now those who are concerned, if not paranoid, about people being able to look up their callsign and finding their location. The truth is that that cat has long been out of the bag, as we have left and are leaving a “digital fingerprint” the size of Texas.

Whether it is Twitter posts, Instagram pictures or Facebook comments, reactions and group memberships, anything you post, even if you delete it is “out there” somewhere on some server and subject to resurfacing at the most inopportune moments, which is why I WILL NOT be running for President in 2020. Though I do appreciate donations you have made.

Some of the same ones so worried about random people looking them up are the same ones who will readily post the most intimate details of their lives online. After all we are all “friends” right?

But, is that “friend” you befriended really the same friend you knew in High School, or has life and life choices changed them into sketchy strangers that you would never for a moment consider injecting into your and your families lives “if only you had known”?

These days you don’t need to hire a Private Investigator to “profile” someone or “case out the joint”. Just “friend” someone up on Facebook and then dig into what they have put posted online for the world to see. In short order you will learn who they are, where they are, where they work, where they went to school, their political leanings, hobbies, interests, financial, physical and medical conditions, the make-up of their family, including that 16 year old Patricia is a cheerleader at Sunnydale School, but, that closest family friends call her “Trixie”, and that you will be out of town in Arizona next week.

This is why one should be exceedingly careful what they put online, for there are creepers creeping out there. Plus it takes all the fun out of gossiping, after all, all the dirty laundry is now posted proudly for the entire world to see.

So in reality callsign lookups are very the least of our worries.

Just because it’s late as I write this and since it is crossing my mind, do you know where the term “letting the cat out of the bag” comes from?

In the Middle Ages people would go to the market in town and purchase produce and livestock. Piglets were sold and carried home in sacks called “pokes”, which is where “pig in a poke” comes from. Some unscrupulous merchants would put a stray cat in the poke instead and the farmer would not realize it until he reached home, opened the sack and quite literally “let the cat out of the bag”.

Most hams are aware of how to look up a callsign, the primary methods being sites such as:

https://www.qrz.com/lookup/
http://www.arrl.org/advanced-call-sign-search
https://www.qth.com/callsign.php

The most reliable method for US callsigns is from the FCC itself:

https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/searchAmateur.jsp

With this you can look up information using the callsign, FRN number or for a “fuzzy search”, the licensee name.

It pays to check the status your callsign and licenses now and then to make sure they aren’t about to expire. I say licenses because many hams have a ham license, radiotelephone license or a GMRS license among others.
Often on online ham radio forums there are questions about how one can look up old callsigns or callsign histories.

In the “old days” hams would use a “Callbook” to look up ham’s addresses. Callbooks were basically telephone book like directories of callsigns and addresses. There was a domestic and a DX edition. For many of the new hams, including myself, they were not particularly affordable and if we were lucky we would know someone with patience and deeper pockets that would look up some calls for you.

The Callbook, which began publication in 1920, is still in existence, now in CD-Rom and USB Stick format. For more information see http://callbook.biz/.

For older Callbooks, including those from 1933 to 1997, Callbooks from the US Department of Commerce published from 1913 to 1932 and the granddaddy of the all, the 1909 to 1911 Wireless Association Of America, Wireless Blue Book, go to https://archive.org/details/callbook.

Thumbing through old call books is like a journey through time as you see callsigns of hams you talked to over the years, and remember the early years of your ham “career”.

That, and looking through old handwritten logbooks.

Often new hams will ask “what logging programs do you use?” Older hams, sometimes derisively called “Gray Beards” often say “pen and paper”. It really isn’t meant as a snarky response. When I look through my old logs and the notes written in the margins I see the journey of a young ham named Mark. His first shaky contacts, comments about tests taken, tests passed, tests failed and tests taken again. That first DX contact to Germany, that first time checking in to a CW net, becoming a Net Control Station, then a Net Manager, and so forth.

So whether you have been a ham a week or half a century or more, even if you use the best logging program available, consider writing it down also. Let it become your ham radio diary.

You will discover that your history is a history worth remembering.

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Mark’s Almanac

With the arrival of November we enter our second tornado season. Alabama and the Southeast are “blessed” by being the only area on Earth having two tornado seasons. The cause of the second season is the same as the spring season – clashes of cold and warm air masses. The cold air of winter is invading and trying to push the warmth of the summer back into the sea, which is the same process of springtime.

This second season is often more destructive than the spring season. From 1950 to 2018 there have been 275 November tornadoes in Alabama resulting in 52 fatalities and 1069 injuries. The third largest tornado outbreak occurred on November 24 – 25 2001 when 36 tornadoes occurred and 21 tornadoes occurred during the outbreak of November 23 – 24 2004.

November was Alabama’s leading tornado month from 2001 to 2011 until the dual outbreaks of April 15 and April 27 2011 erased that record.

So beware of a warm & muggy November day. Especially one with a south wind, as something may really be “in the air”.

The Hurricane threat greatly diminishes, with hurricane activity occurring mainly in the open Atlantic, threatening the Eastern Seaboard, but usually veering off into sea as cold fronts off the East Coast deflect them. Hurricanes can still form in the Caribbean, which usually visit the Yucatan, but can enter the Gulf.

From 1851 – 2018 there have been 99 Tropical Storms and 47 hurricanes, 5 of which made landfall in the United States.

Some notable November hurricanes are:

The 1932 Cuba hurricane, known also as the Hurricane of Santa Cruz del Sur or the 1932 Camagüey Hurricane. Although forming as a tropical depression on October 30, it became the only Category 5 Atlantic hurricane ever recorded in November, and was the deadliest and one of the most intense tropical cyclones in Cuban history. On November 6, the tropical cyclone reached its peak intensity as a Category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph. The storm weakened to Category 4 intensity as it came ashore in Cuba’s Camagüey Province on November 9 with winds of 150 mph. The storm took 3,033 lives.

Hurricane Ida, in 2009 was the strongest land falling tropical cyclone during the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season. Ida formed on November 4 in the southwestern Caribbean, and within 24 hours struck the Nicaragua coast with winds of 80 mph. It weakened significantly over land, although it restrengthened in the Yucatán Channel to peak winds of 105 mph. Ida weakened and became an extratropical cyclone in the northern Gulf of Mexico before spreading across the southeastern United States. The remnants of Ida contributed to the formation of a nor’easter that significantly affected the eastern coast of the United States.

1985’s Hurricane Kate was the latest Hurricane in any calendar year to strike the United States.
Kate formed on November, 15 and reached hurricane intensity on November 16, and reached Category 2 intensity three days later. Kate struck the northern coast of Cuba on November 19. Once clear of land, she strengthened quickly, becoming a Category 3 storm and reached its peak intensity of 120 mph. On November 21 Kate came ashore near Mexico Beach, Florida, as Category 2 hurricane with winds of 100 mph.

Hurricane Lenny, or Wrong Way Lenny, occurred in 1999. It is the second-strongest November Atlantic hurricane on record, behind the 1932 Cuba hurricane. Lenny formed on November 13 in the western Caribbean Sea and moved retrograde from the West to East passing South of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. He reached hurricane status south of Jamaica on November 15 and rapidly intensified over the northeastern Caribbean on November 17, attaining peak winds of 155 mph near Saint Croix in the United States Virgin Islands. It gradually weakened while moving through the Leeward Islands, eventually dissipating on November 23 over the open Atlantic Ocean.

1994’s Hurricane Gordon claimed 1122 lives in Haiti when it passed just west of the country as a tropical storm on November 13, 1994.

Figure 2 – November Tropical Cyclone Breeding Grounds

Both the Atlantic and Pacific Hurricane seasons ends November 30.

Days rapidly grow shorter as the Sun’s angle above the noonday horizon steadily decreases from 40.9 degrees at the beginning of the month to 34.8 degrees at the month’s end. Daylight decreases from 10 hours 40 minutes on November 1 to 10 hours 07 minutes on November 30.

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

November 1 Sunrise 7:06 AM Sunset 5:55 PM
November 15 Sunrise 6:19 AM Sunset 4:45 PM – After Daylight Savings Time Ends
November 31 Sunrise 6:33 AM Sunset 4:39 PM

The blooms of summer have faded, but you may find yourself still sneezing, due to ragweed and mold.

Mold is a fall allergy trigger. You may think of mold growing in your basement or bathroom – damp areas in the house – but mold spores also love wet spots outside. Piles of damp leaves are ideal breeding grounds for mold.

Oh, and did I mention dust mites? While they are common during the humid summer months, they can get stirred into the air the first time you turn on your heat in the fall. Dust mites can trigger sneezes, wheezes, and runny noses.

November welcomes the peak of fall colors. For Birmingham the peak occurs around November 15, but the date can vary depending on your elevation & latitude.

Indian Summer and Squaw Winter continue to battle it out, but the cool or cold weather will eventually win, with the first average frost being on November 11.

The usual fall effects occur in North America with Canada’s Hudson Bay becoming unnavigable due to pack ice & icebergs. Navigation in the Great Lakes becomes perilous due to storms bringing the “Gales Of November” made famous in the Gordon Lightfoot song “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald”.

And, don’t be surprised if you hear ducks overhead & see wedges of Canadian geese heading south for the winter. And if you see strange birds appearing in your front yard, remember that for 336 species of birds Alabama IS south for the winter.

Looking towards the sky, at the beginning of the month Mercury, magnitude 0.0, is very low in bright twilight after sunset.

He is sinking towards the horizon and will disappear shortly.

On November 11 Mercury will be at “Inferior Conjunction” or directly between the Earth and the Sun.
On this occasion there will be a transit of Mercury across the Sun. A Transit it basically the same process as an eclipse, but Mercury being much more distant will appear as a dark spot crossing the face of the Sun.

This transit will be visible throughout all of South America and Central America, Eastern North America, Mexico, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

In central Alabama first contact will occur at 12:36 UTC or 6:36 AM CST, maximum transit will occur at 15:20 UTC or 9:20 AM CST and last contact will be at 18:04 UTC or 12:04 PM CST. Due to the viewing angle and orbital tracks of the Earth and Mercury, the path will follow a broad horseshoe pattern as Mercury crosses the Sun. Other locations on the globe will have differing tracks.

Observers with telescopes and approved solar filters will be able to observe the dark disk of Mercury moving across the face of the Sun. Some sources say it is not visible without a telescope; however I have seen Mercurial transits before without optical aids.

Treat this the same way you would a solar eclipse, in other words do not try to observe this without a solar filter. Otherwise you may not be able to observing anything at all for a long, long time.

This is an extremely rare event that occurs only once every few years. The next transit of Mercury will not take place until 2032.

Mercury will be at his the closest distance to the Sun or Perihelion on November 16.

On November 28 Mercury will reach “Greatest Western Elongation”, or his highest point above the horizon, in this case 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 is very low in bright twilight after sunset at the beginning of the month and slowly rises in the night sky as the month progresses to become the brilliant “Evening Star”.

We often take for granted that Venus is one of the most constant fixtures in our night sky, shining brightly in the mornings and evenings. Venus occasionally becomes the third brightest object in the sky after the sun and moon. It is no wonder that some look with worry at this strange “UFO”.

Mars, magnitude +1.8, in Virgo, is just above the east horizon in early dawn.

Jupiter, magnitude –1.9, in southern Ophiuchus, is the creamy-white dot low in the southwest as twilight fades.

On November 24 Jupiter and Venus will sit together in the evening sky in “conjunction”. The two bright planets will be visible within 1.4 degrees of each other in the evening sky. Look for this impressive sight in the western sky just after sunset. So now the worrisome among us will have two “UFOs” to ponder upon.

Just to make things prettier, the thin crescent Moon will join the pair as she passes close to Jupiter on November 28.

Saturn, magnitude +0.6, in Sagittarius, is the steady yellow “star” in the south-southwest during and after dusk.

The Moon will pass near him on the 2nd and 29th.

Uranus, magnitude 5.7, in southern Aries, is well up in the east by 9 PM and highest in the south around midnight or 1 AM.

Neptune, magnitude 7.8, in eastern Aquarius, is high in the southern evening.

The Taurid Meteor Shower will occur November 5 & 6. The Taurids is a long-running minor meteor shower producing only about 5-10 meteors per hour. It is unusual in that it consists of two separate streams. The first is produced by dust grains left behind by Asteroid 2004 TG10. The second stream is produced by debris left behind by Comet 2P Encke.

The shower runs annually from September 7 to December 10. It peaks this year on the night of November 5. The first quarter moon will set shortly after midnight leaving dark skies for viewing. Best viewing will be just after midnight from a dark location far away from city lights. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Taurus, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

The Moon will be at Apogee or its farthest distance from Earth on November 6, when she will be 251692 miles from Earth.

Full Moon will occur at 13:36 UTC or 7:36 AM CST November 12. November’s Full Moon is called “Beaver Moon” in Native American folklore, because this was the time of year to set the beaver traps before the swamps and rivers froze. It has also been known as the Frosty Moon and the Hunter’s Moon.

The annual Leonid meteor shower occurs from November 6 – 30 and peaks on the night of November 17 & the morning of the 18th. Though the Leonids are an “average shower”, producing only an average of 15 meteors per hour, they are well known for producing bright meteors and fireballs.

This shower is also unique in that it has a cyclonic peak about every 33 years where hundreds of meteors per hour can be seen. That last of these occurred in 2001. The Leonids are produced by dust grains left behind by Comet Tempel-Tuttle, which was discovered in 1865.

Its productivity varies per year, but it can deposit 12 to 13 tons of particles across the planet. Which is why having an atmosphere to shield us is such a nifty thing.

The second quarter moon will block many of the fainter meteors this year, but if you are patient you should be able to catch quite a few of the brightest ones. Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Leo, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

The Moon will be at Perigee or its closest approach to Earth on November 22, when she will be 227,870 miles from Earth.

New Moon will occur November 26. 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 phase occurs at 15:06 UTC or 9:06 AM CST. 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.

4084 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of October 24, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/.

Finally, don’t forget to set your clocks back one hour at 2 AM, Sunday morning November 3th, as Daylight Savings Time ends and the clock goes back to the way the Good Lord intended.

Look up Hezekiah 4:7, I dare you.

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This month’s meeting will be on November 12 at 7PM at the National Weather Service Forecast office at the Shelby County Airport.

If for some reason you cannot attend the meeting in person, you can still participate via telephone. The NEW teleconference number is 1-866-231-8384 & and the conference code is
2056215645#.

Don’t use the old number given in previous newsletters. It won’t work.
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 and welcome to the October ALERT Newsletter.

Fall has arrived and with it we can look forward to the changing of the fall leaves, the occasional nip in the air, and the Hobgoblins that will visit us at the end of the month.

October is a fun time of the year, usually being not too hot and not too cold – the “Goldilocks” of seasons.

It is a time to enjoy fall football, the baseball playoffs and the last outdoor adventures of the year.

Here is hoping that you enjoy the days that this season brings, and the pretty weather October brings. letting you rest before the storms of Fall.

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Birmingham NWS Fall 2019 Spotter Courses

The Birmingham NWS office will present several online Basic Spotter Courses and a single Advanced Spotter Course this fall. These online classes allow individuals to complete the course(s) in the comfort of their own home or office with the use of https://www.join.me/ meeting site.

By attending any course, which runs about 2 hours, individuals or a group of individuals will become SKYWARN Spotters.

Unless you are in need of or just want to attend a refresher Course, you do not need to attend more than one Basic SKYWARN Course, as the material covered is the same; however it is required you to attend at least one Basic SKYWARN Course before taking the Advanced SKYWARN Course.

These courses are two-way, meaning you will be able to interact with the meteorologist leading the training. You will be muted while training is in-progress, and unmuted when applicable (e.g., for questions); or, you can use the built-in chat feature.

The current schedule is as follows:

Basic Class Tuesday, October 1 at 1:00 PM Online Use Session Code 311-943-999
Basic Class Thursday, October 3 at 6:30 PM Online Use Session Code 450-865-396
Basic Class Tuesday, October 8 at 6:30 PM Online Use Session Code 207-142-069
Basic Class Thursday, October 17 at 6:30 PM Online Use Session Code 487-062-501
Basic Class Thursday, October 24 at 1:00 PM Online Use Session Code 319-671-009
Basic Class Monday, October 28 at 6:30 PM Online Use Session Code 327-797-522
Advanced Class Tuesday, November 7 at 6:30 PM Online Use Session Code 763-403-007

Enter the session code at https://www.join.me/

There will be three live Basic Classes this fall:

Basic Class Monday, September 30 at 6:00 PM Elmore County Courthouse
100 E Commerce Street
Wetumpka, AL
Basic Class Tuesday, October 15 at 6:00 PM Southern /union State Community
College, Building 8
1701 Lafayette Parkway
Opelika, AL
Basic Class Tuesday, October 22 at 6:00 PM Russell County EMA
7:00 PM Eastern Operations Center
311 Pretiss Drive
Phenix City, AL

These classes will help you provide the NWS the vital “ground truth” information they need to verify radar indications, target their attention and help you relay reports in a clear manner to the NWS, either directly via the1-800-856-0758 number, online at https://www.weather.gov/bmx/submit_storm_report
or via chat or amateur radio. This knowledge helps Skywarn Net Control stations filter reports, by giving them knowledge of what reporting stations are trying to describe. This way they can tell if the report is a valid report, an invalid report by an overly excited operator or a valid, but, poorly described report, which without this knowledge would be mistakenly dismissed.

For further information on these classes visit: http://www.weather.gov/bmx/skywarnschedule

A PDF of the September 20, 2018 Basic presentation may be found at:
https://www.weather.gov/media/bmx/skywarn/BasicSpotterGSAT.pdf

A PDF of the April 4, 2019 Advanced presentation may be found at:
https://www.weather.gov/media/bmx/skywarn/Gerald_Satterwhite_Advanced_WEBPAGE.pdf

For information on classes being held by the Huntsville NWS office visit: https://www.weather.gov/hun/skywarn

For information on classes being held by the Mobile NWS office visit:
https://www.weather.gov/mob/spotter_training

For information on classes being held by the Tallahassee NWS office visit:
https://www.weather.gov/tae/taeskywarn

There are no reasons other than distance to why you can’t attend these classes if you wish. I attended an aviation weather seminar strictly out of curiosity and to gain knowledge, which even though hopefully I will never pilot a plane, the knowledge gain has proven very useful.

Other useful resources:

ABC33/40 Basic Storm Spotter Training
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_MzKUTfUKA
ABC 33/40 Storm Spotter Extreme Part 1 – April 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOE69nsaKWE
ABC 33/40 Storm Spotter Extreme Part 2 – April 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8hT7gCCQB0

For information on online training visit:
https://www.meted.ucar.edu/training_course.php?id=23

Note this online course IS NOT intended to replace the courses offered by the NWS offices. The local meteorologists will know factors and variations in the area microclimate that may need to be considered in assessing the observed phenomena. Consider this online course as supplemental information.

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Predicting VHF & UHF Band Openings

One cool October evening I was soldering some equipment listening to what I assumed was a new FM radio station at the far end of the FM band, where the public broadcasting, university and religious stations seem to be relegated.

“and you too can receive this commemorative 10 CD set of Slim Whitman’s Best of Bluegrass Hip-hop for your generous donation of $100 supporting you Oklahoma Public Radio Stations.”

Well, maybe I don’t remember the actual offer, but, I do remember it was about as tempting, and, I do remember being tempted to call and say “your signal has made it into Alabama”, but, being occupied with destroying an innocent radio I resisted that urge.

The FM band or at least the lower portion of the 20 MHz wide band was open, which was unknown to most people, because most people don’t check the “empty” frequencies between the local stations for unusual activity.

If you want to be an “expert” on a particular band, whether its’s two meters, 440, an HF band or a broadcast band, the way to do this is to listen for a week or so to the entire band or the band segment you are “specializing” in and identify and log every station and signal that you consistently hear, whether it’s a broadcast station or repeater. This way, when a strange signal appears you know that something is afoot.

VHF and UHF band openings, with the exception of meteor scatter, with signals being reflected off of meteor ion trails left as they (hopefully) streak to their doom and the fluttery signals being bounced off of the aurora (which sound like someone talking while rapidly shaking their heads back and forth) the majority of band openings are cause by “tropospheric ducting”, caused by cold or cool air being overlaid by warmer air.

There are four main situations that will lead to this scenario.

The first is caused by the cold outflow of thunderstorms or clusters of thunderstorms striking the ground and undercutting the surrounding warm air. On radar this will appear as a line or wave expanding from the storms, like a shock wave, and will travel far from the storm, often continuing after the storm which caused this “gust front” has long disappeared.

This line, which acts like a miniature cold front, can ram into other storms causing them to flare, initiate new storms, pass unnoticeably or cause sudden gusty weather. If it is caused by an entire line of storms venting simultaneously, the wind can intensify, like wind trapped between buildings forming a “gravity wave” and cause 80 MPH winds to wreak havoc hundreds of miles away, even though the skies there are perfectly clear.

From a radio point of view these can cause localized band openings on VHF and UHF and are highly unpredictable, but, are created by conditions detectable by NOAA weather radar.

A much more frequent scenario is when a strong cold front passes through. Cold fronts do not approach like a wall of cold air, but, rather undercuts the warm air mass it is invading, like a wave pushing in. Along the axis of the cold front this cold air pushing the warm air above it can cause a band opening along the length of the cold front.

This posed a problem in the Birmingham and Huntsville areas in the 1970’s and 1980’s as both cities had repeaters on 146.940 MHz and both were the respective areas emergency ARES or Skywarn frequencies and would unintentionally interfere with each other during severe weather situations if the band opened up.

Few repeaters in the 1970’s and 80’s had PL tones and fewer radios had the capability to encode the transmission if the repeater did have this capability. In fact “toning” a repeater was often misunderstood as an act of “snobbery” indicating to some that it was a “closed repeater” where “me, my friends Roscoe, Bubba and our kinfolk are the only ones welcome”. To be honest, there were repeaters back then where this “left hand of fellowship” attitude would have been a fair assessment.

The “34 94 problem” was cured when the 88 repeater, then called the “28 88 repeater” was donated the Birmingham Amateur Radio Club and became Birmingham’s emergency repeater and the old 34 94 repeaters frequency was changed to 145.410 MHz, which is now the K4DSO D-Star repeater.

Cold fronts can often be detected weather radar as a line of showers or thunderstorms along the actual front, and this may tip you off that a band opening may occur.

The most reliable band opening occurs, unless the atmosphere is turbulent and being churning up, is every morning at dawn. As dawn approaches the Sun’s rays will begin reaching and warming the upper layers of the atmosphere. This warming will reach lower and lower until finally reaching ground level. During this time when warm air is overlaying colder air a natural band opening will occur. Sometimes this opening will be weak, short-lived and barely noticeable; sometimes it will be very strong and may last until midday.

This is why you may hear distant repeaters in the morning. One frequent visitor is the W4BIT repeater on 146.880 MHz (PL 100.0 Hz) in Kennehoochee Georgia.

These early morning band openings, if occurring when a frigid air mass is in place, can extend upward reaching optical wavelengths letting one see objects beyond the horizon.

In the case of optics this is referred to as a “superior mirage”.

There are two basic types of mirages, an “inferior mirage” and a “superior mirage”.

These terms have nothing to with the quality of the mirage, but, rather which direction a light ray is bent.

An inferior mirage occurs due to the sharp temperature difference between warm or hot air at a low level and cool or cold air at a higher level, such as hot desert sand or road pavement beneath cooler air. This arrangement will bend light rays slightly upward making objects at higher altitudes appear beneath a lower object, for instance the blue of the sky appearing in the middle of a road. The image is distorted due to turbulence and usually inverted, so that it appears like a pool of water.

A superior mirage occurs when cold air is overlaid or trapped by warm air, which is a temperature inversion. In this case the light rays are bent downward, and the mirage appears above the true object. In some cases if the boundary between cold and warm air is sharp enough the light can be reflected off the boundary, back toward the ground, and reflected by the ground towards the boundary, or become trapped between layers of air, and follow the curvature of the earth making far distant objects appear on the horizon. Some believe this is how the Norsemen knew that Greenland existed and how once reaching Greenland they knew another larger landmass lay farther to the west, now known as North America.

I’ve seen this once myself, when the temperature in Birmingham was in the low teens. The mountains toward Blount County had an exact reflection, albeit upside down hovering above them.

At midday VHF/UHF radio range decreases. This was explained to me through the years that as temperature increased; the air molecules absorbed the signal. Maybe this is true. But, I also wondered since warm air is less dense than cool air, why a warmer thinner atmosphere would absorb more signals than a cooler denser, higher humidity atmosphere?

Another possibility is that the signal is being bent skyward by the inferior mirage effect, just as visible light is. In this case, if you are transmitting a 50 watt signal, and 30 watts of it are being bent skyward, then only 20 watts is hitting your target area.

Then factor in the same distortion you see when you see objects shimmering in the heat. If the radio signal is subject to the same effect, then your remaining 20 watts is a signal being distorted and “blurred” or scattered by the heat, causing even less usable signal at the repeater site.

Another atmospheric effect is that the atmosphere near the horizon acts like a lens and bends light and radio signals over the horizon. This sometimes will cause the silhouette of distant mountains to be seen in front of the setting sun. With radio signals the effect is that the “radio horizon” is 15 % farther than the geographic horizon.

Another though weaker band opening may occur after sunset as the hot / warm air lifts from the surface and rises as a warm layer overlying the now cooler surface air it leaves behind. On radar
this may a appear as a “radar bloom” where the it appears that precipitation forms around the radar site and expands in all directions like a time lapse of a rose blooming, as bugs, birds, bats and humidity at ground level are detected with increasing range.

These radar returns are most likely during the spring and fall seasons. While they don’t definitively betray a band openings presence, they do provide the hint that conditions are favorable for them.
Remember that NOAA weather radar is sensitive enough to pick up tiny flying bags of water also known as bugs. In some locations it is sensitive enough to pick up what an alien in a movie described as “ugly bags of water”, namely us.

I prefer the more optimistic outlook of “If you like water, you like 60% of me already.”

As you can see, band openings on VHF, UHF and beyond may be more frequent that one imagines.
Sometimes a band may seem “dead” when in fact it is wide open, just no one is transmitting.

But, can you tune to the “empty frequencies” that may suddenly become “filled”?

At the risk of sounding like an “old goat”, learning how to program your radio manually has some distinct advantages over using programs such as CHIRP or having a buddy do it for you…

The disadvantage of using Chirp and basing the programming on online repeater databases is that no matter how recently the database has been updated, it is already out of date. Repeaters can switch PL tones, temporarily go off the air, switch from analog to digital or from digital to analog, switch from one form of digital to another, or a frequency pair could be listed that hasn’t been used for years, but, the owner won’t relinquish the frequencies so the Repeater Council can reallocate them to someone else, since the frequency availability is very limited and pairs are not easily obtained.

As to having a buddy program your radio for you, he might, due to differences in geography be able to hit repeaters you won’t be able to reach, and vice versa. You might be able to easily hit the Podunk repeater, where he can’t even hear it since Walton’s Mountain is in the way, and as such he doesn’t include it when programming your radio.

So, as painful as it may be to learn and try, try to learn how to program your radios.

It’s exceedingly useful during emergencies and on trips, and will give you RF flexibility that many will never realize and a DX advantage.

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Mark’s Almanac

The tenth Month, October is so named because it is the eighth month on the Roman calendar. To the Slavs of Eastern Europe it is called “yellow month,” from the fading of the leaves, while to the Anglo-Saxons it was known as Winterfylleth, because at this full moon (fylleth) winter was supposed to begin.

By whichever name you call it, October is a mild and dry month, the driest of the year, in fact. And, it is a sunny month with the amount of possible sunshine reaching the ground in the 60% or greater range.

Weather shifts from autumn pattern to revisiting the summer pattern and back again. The Azores-Bermuda High shifts eastward into the Atlantic, but, leaves weakened high pressure centers over the Virginias, which still try to block out approaching fronts.

October is usually a quite month for tornadoes, with a 40% decrease in activity. Nationwide an average of 28 tornadoes occur in October and those tornadoes are usually weak.

Our Hurricane threat continues, with hurricane activity increasing during the first half of the month, concentrating in the Caribbean, both from formation in the Caribbean and from the long track Cape Verde hurricanes, which enter the Caribbean. And, we still have the little “gifts” that the Gulf of Mexico occasionally will provide.

Florida, due to its low latitude, becomes especially vulnerable to hurricanes. Since 1851, Florida has endured 31 October hurricane landfalls, nearly triple the next highest state — Louisiana, which has had eight. Also, about 60 percent of all U.S. hurricanes that made landfall after September 26 have done so in Florida. One factor being the cold fronts of Fall penetrating the Gulf and then deflecting storms towards the West coast of Florida.

Luckily after the second half of the month the activity will begin a steady decrease.

28% of the year’s hurricanes occur in October.

From 1851 – 2018 there have been 340 Tropical Storms and 208 hurricanes, 57 of which made landfall in the United States.

Some notable October hurricanes are:

The Great Hurricane of 1780, also known as Huracán San Calixto, the Great Hurricane of the Antilles, and the 1780 Disaster, the deadliest Atlantic hurricane, which killed between 20,000 to 22, 000 people in the Lesser Antilles as it passed through from October 10 – 16, 1780. It is possible that it had winds in excess of 200 MPH when it reached Barbados.

Hurricane Hazel struck the Carolinas in 1954. Weather satellite did not yet exist and the Hurricane Hunters were unable to observe the core of the storm until it neared land on October 15. Hazel made landfall just west of the North Carolina/South Carolina border slightly northeast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with a Category 4 intensity of 130 mph.

Hurricane Wilma still holds the record as the most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin. In 24 hours Wilma went from a Category 1 storm on October 18 to a Category 5 storm with 185 MPH Maximum Sustained Winds. She weakened to Category 4 and struck the Yucatan, then restrengthened and struck Cape Romano Florida as a Category 3 storm on October 24, 2005.

Hurricane Mitch became a Category 1 hurricane on October 24, 1998 and within 48 hours grew to Category 5 intensity, and though he weakened to Category 1 before making landfall, he became the second deadliest hurricane on record killing over 11,000, with nearly that number missing in Central America due to intense rainfall and mudslides. He would eventually reach the United States making landfall near Naples Florida on November 5.

Hurricane Michael formed near the Yucatan Peninsula on October 7, 2018 and in 72 hours grew from a Tropical Depression to a Category 5 hurricane striking struck Mexico Beach Florida.

Beware of October hurricanes, for as Wilma, Mitch and Michael have demonstrated, they can experience explosive growth.

October Tropical Cyclone Breeding Grounds

This is the month for Alabama’s version of “Indian Summer’s” arrival.

Technically speaking Indian Summer doesn’t occur until “Squaw Winter” or the first frost arrives, but exact date when Indian Summer arrives varies with latitude.

We live in Alabama, and while the earliest frosts have been known to occur by October 17, they usually wait until November. So, we, in our milder climate call the first warm up after the first cool down “Indian Summer”.

The Yellow Giant Sulphur Butterflies are very noticeable as they continue to drift South-Southeast on their migration towards Florida. They prefer red things & if you have red flowers they will zero in on them.

The Monarchs also will be seen gliding by in their migration towards Central America.

Fall colors will become prominent & by late October & early November the leaves will be reaching their peak fall colors.

Days rapidly grow shorter as the Sun’s angle above the noonday horizon steadily decreases from 53.2 degrees at the beginning of the month to 42.3 degrees at the month’s end. Daylight decreases from 11 hours 50 minutes on October 1 to 10 hours 51 minutes on October 31.

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

October 1 Sunrise 5:41 AM Sunset 6:32 PM
October 15 Sunrise 6:51 AM Sunset 6:14 PM
October 31 Sunrise 7:05 AM Sunset 5:56 PM

Looking towards the sky, Mercury is hidden by the Sun at the beginning of the month. But, then moves into the evening sky. On October 20 He will reach his highest elevation above the western horizon or “Greatest Eastern Elongation” of 24.6 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 evening sky. Look for the planet low in the western sky just after sunset.

Venus is hidden in the glare of the Sun.

Mars is also hidden in the glare of the Sun.

Jupiter, magnitude –2.0, between the feet of Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer, is a white dot low in the southwest as twilight fades away.
Saturn, magnitude +0.5, low over the Sagittarius Teapot. Below Saturn is the handle of the Sagittarius Teapot. Barely above it is the dimmer, smaller bowl of the Sagittarius Teaspoon.
Uranus, magnitude 5.7, in Aries, is well up in the east by 10 PM CST. It’s highest in the south around 2 AM.

The blue-green planet will be at its closest approach to Earth or “Opposition” on October 27 and 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.

This is the best time to view Uranus, but, due to its distance, it will only appear as a tiny blue-green dot in all but the most powerful telescopes.

Neptune, magnitude 7.8, in Aquarius, is in the southeast after dark and highest in the south around 11 PM.

The Draconid Meteor Shower will peak on October 8. This minor shower is produced by dust grains left behind by Comet 21P Giacobini-Zinner, which was discovered in 1900. This shower, which runs from October 6 – 10, is unusual in that it is best observed in the early evening, instead of the early morning hours as with most other showers.

The first quarter moon will set shortly after midnight leaving fairly dark skies for observing. Best viewing will be in the early evening from a dark location far away from city lights. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Draco, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

The Moon will be at Apogee or its farthest distance from Earth on October 10, when she will be 252,215 miles from Earth.

October’s Full Moon will occur October 13. The Moon will be directly opposite the Earth from the Sun and will be fully illuminated as seen from Earth. This phase occurs at 21:09 UTC or 4:09 AM CDT. This full moon was known by early Native American tribes as the Full Hunters Moon because at this time of year the leaves are falling and the game is fat and ready to hunt. This moon has also been known as the Travel Moon and the Blood Moon.

The Orionid Meteor Shower peaks on October 21 & 22. The Orionids is an average shower producing up to 20 meteors per hour at its peak This shower, which runs from October 2 to November 7, is produced by the broad debris trail of Halley’s Comet. The crescent moon will set early in the evening leaving dark skies for what should be a good show. Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Orion, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

The Moon will be at Perigee or its closest approach to Earth on October 26, when she will be 224,511 miles from Earth.

New Moon will occur October 28. 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 phase occurs at 9:39 CDT or 3:39 UTC which in Greenwich England is the 29th. 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

This is the time of year when the rich star clouds of the Milky Way in Cygnus crosses the zenith, looking like a ghostly band overhead in the hour after nightfall is complete. The Milky Way now rises straight up from the southwest horizon, passes overhead, and runs straight down to the northeast. Later at midnight, Orion the Hunter and the stars of winter rise over the eastern horizon, reminding us to enjoy the mild weather while it is here, for this season, as all seasons, is but a fleeting moment in the never ending waltz of time.

4057 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of September 26, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/.

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If you know anyone who is interested in getting into ham radio or upgrading, the next Volunteer Examination FCC test session will be 2:00 PM Sunday, October 6 at SCARC’s meeting site in Pelham. For more information visit https://aragroup.org/ for details.

This month’s meeting will be on October 8 at 7PM at the National Weather Service Forecast office at the Shelby County Airport.

If for some reason you cannot attend the meeting in person, you can still participate via telephone. The NEW teleconference number is 1-866-231-8384 & and the conference code is
2056215645#.

Hope to see you there!

Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter

www.freewebs.com/weatherlynx/

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