Hi Everyone,

There is a good chance that our resident groundhog Birmingham Bill will see his shadow this Groundhog Day. If true, and if the folklore were true, then we would have a late spring.

Whether late or timely, are you ready for the storms of spring and for the callouts that will come?

This is a good time to review your personal emergency preparedness plans and to brush up on your skills. Don’t wait until the sirens sound. For by then it may be too late.

In preparing, you should ask yourselves these questions:

Is my family shelter (and everyone should have one) ready?
Is my emergency equipment & radios working?
Are my emergency supplies still adequate?
Are the batteries still good and the rechargeable batteries charged?
Are my communications channels still functional? Including RF, Internet & telephone resources.
Can I reliably receive weather watches and warnings, in multiple ways?

Are you prepared both at home and at work?

Remember, keeping yourself and your family alive and intact during and after the storms is your number one priority.

Stay safe.

This month’s normal meeting date falls on Valentine’s Day, and as such we will be moving the date back one week to February 21 at 7PM, to help the aim of Cupid and his arrows.

I hope to see you there!

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

Tales Of Bread & Milk

As I was beginning this article, a message popped up on Facebook from a friend named “Ivy” saying “I realize that the entire population of Oklahoma needs bread and milk tonight…..Please watch, when you come out of Walmart pushing your cart and racing to your car like Mario Andretti, for other cars in the lot. It’s only by the grace of God that you weren’t hit.”

Now, before I get into the gist of this article, I will go ahead and apologize. If I am “tinkering” with sensitive sacred subjects, I don’t mean to step on toes. And, though I actually do know it all, I really don’t intend to sound like one, as I probably will.

Good old Bread and Milk, you know the drill. Let the slightest whisper of the word “snow” be mentioned and the bakeries have to shift into high gear, the wheat fields have to accelerate their growth and Elsie and her sisters have to put in overtime to meet the sudden demand as crowds of humanity descend upon the stores and the milk and bread shelves rapidly empty out.

Why does this occur? Or as CNN put it “Is there something about snowstorms that makes us want to eat French toast and sit on the toilet?”

In researching this article I did an online survey on a nationwide emergency preparedness group and sought ought comments from the regular public as well. I found the results interesting.

First of all, in spite what you constantly hear from Northern and Western “transplants”, this phenomenon is not “a southern thing” at all. I already knew this; for I saw the shelves clear out in Oklahoma City, when I was snowed in by an actual blizzard in 2010. Also, I knew they did this in Boston, based on photographs and news reports during a nor’easter last year.

Oklahoma City and Boston are not alone. “People always clear the shelves of milk, eggs and bread,” said Paul Shipman, of the American Red Cross’s Connecticut chapter in Hartford. Who added “Well, the milk doesn’t do well without refrigeration, eggs are useless if you can’t cook them and the bread is not going to provide much nutrition on its own. You need non-perishable food, water and other necessities to be safe.”

“David” in New York said “They do the same thing here in NY! It’s crazy that whenever there’s a threat of snow in excess of a couple of inches, people panic and run out to the stores and empty the shelves of milk, bread, and water.”

He added “I truly believe that most people really like the controversy. I see these people’s faces and I see not panic, but a sense of excitement. I know it’s weird but I really do believe that some people like whatever rush of excitement involved with the whole process.”

“Tina” commented “My husband and I always chuckle about this….and it’s true. People in NJ have always done this…they buy milk, bread and eggs.”

Some of the most entertaining comments came from overseas. “In America when it snows people stock up on milk, bread and toilet paper. In Britain its whiskey and cat litter” on Brit said.

“Ted” from Birmingham England says “Tea. I’m British and I would stock up on Tea. I wouldn’t want to face an oncoming storm/war/zombie holocaust without plenty of cups of Tea.”

“Les” from Melbourne said “In Australia, it’s Tim-Tams (chocolate cookies), Foster’s Lager and Chiko Rolls (an Australian offshoot of Chinese spring rolls).”

“Brad” in Liverpool explained British weather, which is not that very different from our own. “In the UK, our snowfalls don’t last long enough to bother stocking up. We get a day or two of widespread travel disruption, because we don’t have the infrastructure to deal with snow properly (understandable since we get maybe one moderate snowfall every 10 years), then it all melts. After we’ve scraped a few car wrecks off the roads and taken all the pensioners who died of hypothermia to the morgue, life gets back to normal quite quickly.

The likelihood of getting snowed in for long enough that you would run out of your normal stocks of food is practically zero here in the UK.”

“Cedric” from London chimed in “I think there are two comedy bits about this… something about stocking up on the most perishable items for when the power goes out, and something about a lot of people making French toast during disasters.”

As to the cat litter, in addition to using it on driveways, “Eric” from Worchester mentioned “after the water lines freeze, it also works well to fill a 5 gallon bucket with it halfway as a makeshift urinal. Which is important, especially if you’re riding out the storm in the pub.”

“Paul” in Manchester said “Meh, most suburban supermarkets in the UK will have an army of pensioners in the daytime clearing out the stocks of bread and milk. Their Blitz spirit tends to kick in at the slightest flurry of snow, as ‘rationing will undoubtedly occur’ if the snow goes above ankle height.”

So, we are far from alone in this tradition. But, how did it start?

No one really knows when the bread and milk craze began. It is a modern phenomenon, as it takes a media rumor of the slightest possibility of a lonely snowflake to set the cascade in motion.

Some say that Pittsburgh is credited with starting the bread & milk frenzy during the onset of a blizzard on November 24, 1950. An article in a local newspaper referenced milk as “the one shortage that has hit all sections” and bread as being “doled out in some stores” because of a storm that ultimately brought almost 3 feet of snow.

Others give the credit to New Englanders. Per Accuweather: “It appears that New Englanders can take credit for the purchasing of milk and bread prior to the storm,” the site reported. “It was the monumental blizzard in 1978 that trapped many in homes for weeks that get at least some credit for the current tradition.”

But why does it occur at all?

Psychologist Judy Rosenberg of Los Angeles theorizes “Buying perishables is like saying, ‘the storm will be over soon and I won’t be stuck in this situation for long.’” Whereas buying nonperishable items is admitting that you are probably doomed.

Psychotherapist Lisa Batemen from New York believes “The thought to get milk before a storm is followed by the action or compulsion to go out and stockpile it. In one way or another, we spend a lot of time and energy trying to feel in control, and buying things you might throw out still gives the person a sense of control in an uncontrollable situation.”

Both theories may be true, or it may be giving people too much credit for being cerebral.

Among my initial theories were:

1. Lack of training or knowledge in emergency preparedness.

As to this theory, some folk look at me like I’m crazy and roll their eyes as I harp “you can go to Sam’s and get a butane stove for $22 and 12 fuel cylinders from Amazon for $25. That’s warm food for an investment around $50 that you can use time & time again, for camping, cookouts, power outages, etc.” Just add some cans of stew, chili or dumplings or really anything you may want to cook you can cook. You’re ready to rock and roll.”

Some do see it my way, as “Len” from Ohio said “I learned from my grandmother to just put on a big pot of soup, or something that normally takes three days to eat anyway, when they say somethings coming. If we lose power, I’ll just fire up the grill.”

I enjoy camping out; as a result I have several options for cooking. I can use the grill, the butane stove mentioned, which requires no ventilation, propane or Coleman stoves which would require a slightly opened window for ventilation.

“Yeah, but, who wants an open a window in a snowstorm?” “Dave” asked. “An Eskimo” I thought, since they always included a vent hole in the design of their igloos.

A “discussion” broke out with one lady, “Missy”, when some mentioned getting nutritious food, such as soup instead of the traditional B & M, and she said in a somewhat snarly exchange “but, what if I want French toast?”

“Do you usually eat French toast?” A guy named “Bill” asked.

“Uh, um, well no” she replied. When “Bill” asked when the last time was that she had had French toast period, she couldn’t answer except to say “but what if I did want some, hmmm?”

Reading this gave me my second reason, which is:

2. Fear of not having access to a resource, whether it is a resource normally used or not.

For example “Marie” stated “I normally throw out half a gallon of milk a week, and here I go buying two gallons of milk for a two day storm, just because ‘there may be none’, when I know good and well that the stores will be open and restocked in three days anyway. And, I don’t even like French toast.”

My other theories are:

3. People tend to act like sheep. When they see a few people doing something, they follow suit, whether it’s driving in the wrong direction, following some senseless fad, or in this case “They are pillaging Publix, so we better go pillaging too, while there’s something left to pillage” and so the feeding frenzy grows.

4. Habit or tradition. “Granny always got bread and milk, so I do it to”.

“It’s tradition. You need to make French toast when it snows! Don’t forget to buy eggs too!” said “Marion” in Washington DC.”

“Everyone has a “French toast party” whenever it snows. It really shouldn’t be that hard to figure out. DUH.” said “Shonda” – Bronx NY

Roughly half of those commenting were of the French Toast Army.

Other possible reasons revealed by my survey were as follow:

”Tom” said, “I was told by a friend she likes to bake on snow days and milk is important to baking/eating said baked goods”.

“Ralph” said “If the wife says ‘go get a truckload of bread’, Dear Lord go and get it, otherwise you will hear about it until the day you die.”

Several said that if they stuck bowl after bowl of cereal in front of their kids they would have blessed peace and quiet.

“Phil” said “I’ve seen children that have full on meltdowns if they don’t have milk, so for that reason I can see stocking up. If I had to spend days snowed in a house with a child screaming their head off cause they didn’t have milk, I think I’d rather the storm take me.”

“Kay” theorized “Maybe it’s just a matter of compressed time. Let’s say Monday is the last possible shopping day because it’s going to snow Tuesday. So everyone who normally would shop on Tuesday, Wednesday Thursday or Friday come in on Monday since they know they can’t go later in the week. So what looks like hoarding is actually the normal week’s grocery shopping, just bought during the Bread & Milk Riot.”

The other half of those responding was the French Toast Nonbelievers or Emergency Prepared.

“Tim” said “Never understood this myself, don’t these people have bread and milk in their homes already? Do they not have children? My kids would live off milk and P&B sandwiches if I let them.”

“Joe” commented “Seriously though, who only keeps a few days food in their house? I don’t ‘stock up’ on food and I could probably go a good month or two being well fed on what’s in my cabinets”.

“Doug” said “A lot of people really just do not plan on Monday past Thursday. My childhood taught me to think more about what ifs. We lived on a small farm, and had a good summer’s crop of mason jars filled in the root cellar, we were better off than a lot of people.

“Mark”, aka WD4NYL said “I remember Mom & Dad always had a well-stocked pantry. Homemade preserves, canned home grown tomatoes, frozen vegetables and such. I guess that has influenced my thinking. “Never let the pantry go bare” I remember Mom saying & I try to follow this.”

“Bart” added “People seem to have an unreasonable fear of starving, forgetting the times when they were so sick that even the thought of food made them want to hurl. If they, in a ‘sickly’ condition could go a few days without food and it didn’t kill them, why the thought that a couple of days without food, and them healthy, will kill them is beyond me. Now if kids or special needs persons are involved that would change the theory. I guess that’s where the ‘pre’ in ‘preparedness’ comes in.’”

Of course the rush is not limited to bread or milk. Toilet paper and booze rank high among targets.

Toilet paper I can understand. If there is even the slightest chance you will run out of the Morning Paper, you would be wise to grab some. If fact if your survival plan centers on eating milk and Captain Crunch for five days straight, it would behoove you to have gracious plenty. You wouldn’t want to get caught with your pants down.

As to booze, I may step on a few toes here. Last year after a round of winter weather the coworkers were discussing their adventures. One lady came to me asking for pain meds as she was still very hung over. “I spent the whole time drunk” she said. Then she suddenly got very defensive and huffy “well there was nothing else to do.” She snarled. As if I had said even a single word.

Once there was a discussion on an emergency preparedness group & the question arose “who packs liquor in their emergency supplies. Some said they did, most citing medicinal or “bartering” reasons, and a few for “recreational reasons, to take the edge off”. Many said they packed none.

My response was “Not to beat anyone over the head with a tambourine, but, if there was ever a time I would want to be ‘about my wits’ and sharp minded it would be during an emergency situation, where you may have to react and react very fast. For me to do something that will compromise that ability seems a foolish move.”

Many make a “booze snow haul” with the express purpose of getting completely wasted and passing out, which I have never understood. For it leaves you totally vulnerable, totally defenseless and absolutely helpless. Anything could happen to you. A fire breaks out, and you are dead. Anyone can do whatever their cold hearts wants to do to you and you are completely helpless. But, to each his own I guess.

As I close, I found that there is clear dividing line between the two camps. The subject of which
can trigger strong emotions, with one side feeling it is a ridiculous spectacle carried on by ill-informed, ill-prepared masses, who just help perpetuate stereotypes of ignorance, and the other side feeling that the naysayers are a dimwitted judgmental lot, making a big deal over nothing, and rather stupid for not understanding the “common sense of it all, that without power bread, milk , and sandwiches are the only things we can eat” “It’s not that it’s not that hard to figure out, it’s not rocket science, after all.”

So there you go, both sides drawing a line in the sand, waiting, waiting and waiting for enough snowflakes to arrive so they make a snowball to chunk at each other.

In the end the reasons for and against the Bread & Milk Rush are as varied as the population itself.

I remember the “Planters Theorem” – which states that “whether you are a walnut, a chestnut or a Brazil nut, it doesn’t matter. In the end were all just a bunch of mixed nuts anyway.”

Perhaps the most important question of all was that of “Ed” in Milwaukee – “Why is it that Walmart will have 25 checkout lines and only 5 open, with 500 people crowding trying to escape before the glaciers start moving in?” Why indeed.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

EMERGENCY FRENCH TOAST RECIPIE
“Just In Case”

Ingredients:

4 large eggs
1 teaspoon sugar, optional
dash salt
1 cup milk
8 to 10 slices white bread*
butter
maple syrup or other syrup

Preparation:

Break eggs into a wide, shallow bowl or pie plate; beat lightly with a fork or whisk. Stir in sugar, salt, and milk.

Over medium-low heat, heat griddle or skillet coated with a thin layer of butter or margarine.

Place the bread slices, one at a time, into the bowl or plate, letting slices soak up egg mixture for a few seconds, then carefully turn to coat the other side. Soak/coat only as many slices as you will be cooking at one time.

Transfer bread slices to a griddle or skillet. Heat slowly until bottom is golden brown. Turn and brown the other side. Serve French toast hot with butter and syrup.

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 10 minutes
Yield: Makes 4 Servings
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The French Toast Alert System
“The French Toast Alert System has been developed in consultation with local and federal emergency officials to help you determine when to panic and rush to the store to buy milk, eggs and bread.”
The following details the French Toast Alert System, totally fictitious of course, and biased for the Northeastern States, using Harvey Leonard, the chief meteorologist on WCVB-TV Channel 5 in Boston, Massachusetts as an example.
Low: No storm predicted. Harvey Leonard sighs and looks dour on the evening news. Go about your daily business but consider buying second refrigerator for basement, diesel generator. Good time to replenish stocks of maple syrup, cinnamon.
Guarded: Light snow predicted. Subtle grin appears on Harvey Leonard’s face. Check car fuel gauge, memorize quickest route to emergency supermarket should conditions change.
Elevated: Moderate, plowable snow predicted. Harvey Leonard openly smiles during report. Empty your trunk to make room for milk, eggs and bread. Clear space in refrigerator and head to store for an extra gallon of milk, a spare dozen eggs and a new loaf of bread.
High: Heavy snow predicted. Harvey Leonard breaks into huge grin, can’t keep his hands off the weather map. Proceed at speed limit before snow starts to nearest supermarket to pick up two gallons of milk, a couple dozen eggs and two loaves of bread – per person in household.
Severe: Nor’easter predicted. This is it, people, THE BIG ONE. Harvey Leonard makes repeated references to the Blizzard of ’78. RUSH to emergency supermarket NOW for multiple gallons of milk, cartons of eggs and loaves of bread. IGNORE cries of little old lady you’ve just trampled in mad rush to get last gallon of milk. Place pets in basement for use as emergency food supply if needed.
For your current local French Toast Alert Status go to http://frenchtoastalert.com/

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Mark’s Almanac

February, or Februarius, as the Romans called it is named after the Latin term februum, which means “purification”. Ancient Rome celebrated the Februa purification ritual on February 15, which was Full Moon on the old lunar based Latin calendar.

February was not originally included in the Roman calendar, which began in March, but was added, along with January by Numa Pompilius around 713 BC, and until 450 BC was considered the last month of the year.

February was originally 29 days long, but one day was taken and added to August, so the that Emperor Augustus’s month would be equal to Julius Caesar’s month of July. Now only Leap Year has 29 days, the next of which will occur in 2020.

In the Southern Hemisphere February is the equivalent of August. But, for us, February is a cold month with more snow falling in February than in any other month.

Statistically speaking, there is a 70% chance of snow flurries, and a 57% chance of snow up to one inch. There is a 13% chance of over one inch, and a 3% chance of 4 inches or more.

There is hope on the horizon though, as the worst of winter weather is usually over by February 15.

Ground Hog Day is on February 2 & believers will watch Punxsutawney Phil and Birmingham Bill, to see if they saw their shadows.

Looking towards the sky, Mercury, shining at magnitude -0.2, is sinking low in the glow of dawn. Look for him using binoculars 30 to 40 minutes before sunrise, just above the east-southeast horizon.

Brilliant Venus, magnitude -4.8 in Capricorn, is nearing her peak brightness, and looks like a UFO high in the southwest during and long after twilight.

In a telescope Venus is slightly less than half sunlit and is growing larger as she approaches us. For the rest of the winter, Venus will continue to enlarge as its phase wanes down to a thin crescent.

Mars, magnitude +1.1 in Aquarius, glows in the south-southwest at dusk, is the faint reddish “star” upper left of Venus.

Jupiter, magnitude -2.2 in Virgo, rises around 11 PM is in the south in the hours before dawn.

Saturn, magnitude +0.5 in southern Ophiucus, is in the southeast in the hours before and during dawn.

Uranus, shining at a borderline naked eye brightness of +5.8 in Pisces, is high in the southwest right after dark.

Neptune, shining at magnitude +8.0 in Aquarius, sets shortly after the end of twilight.

3442 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of January 26, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

Full Moon will occur Friday, February 10, 6:33 PM CST or February 11 at 00:33 UTC
Penumbral Lunar Eclipse will be in progress as the moon rises at 5:23PM. 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 maximum eclipse will occur at 6:43 PM and the eclipse ends at 8:53 PM.

The eclipse will be visible throughout most of North America, South America, Canada, the Atlantic Ocean, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

February’s Full Moon is “Full Snow Moon” in Native American folklore, since the heaviest snows usually fell at this time of year. Since the harsh weather made hunting difficult, some tribes called it “Full Hunger Moon”.

New Moon will occur at 8:59 AM on Sunday, February 26, as the Moon will be located on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky.

An Annular Solar Eclipse will occur February 26 at 8:58 AM, but, will not be visible in the Northern Hemisphere, as the moon will pass below the sun as viewed from our latitude.

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 off the coast of Chile and pass through southern Chile and southern Argentina, across the southern Atlantic Ocean, and into Angola and Congo in Africa. A partial eclipse will be visible throughout parts of southern South America and southwestern Africa.

The February sky is alit with bright stars. Orion the Hunter is overhead, stalking Taurus The Bull, accompanied by his faithful hunting dogs, Canis Major & Canis Minor, the Large & Lesser Dogs. In Canis Major is the blue star Sirius, The Dog Star, which 8.6 light years away, is the brightest star in the night sky.

February and March are the best times of the year for seeing the Zodiacal Light. In the evening away from city lights and after twilight has faded you might see a faint, roughly triangular, whitish glow near the sunset point. This is Zodiacal Light, which is formed by the sunlight reflecting off millions of minute particles of cosmic dust aligned with the Earth’s orbital plane.

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

The Birmingham Hamfest http://birminghamfest.org/ is now only five weeks away, March 3 & 4.
As mentioned in last month’s newsletter, this it will be a Friday & Saturday affair; instead of the Saturday & Sunday dates of years past.

This month’s meeting will be on February 21 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 teleconference number is 1-877-951-0997 & and the participant code is 741083.

Hope to see you there!

Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter

Hi Everyone & Happy New Year.

I hope that Santa treated you well and that Father Time will do likewise and that you have a
blessed and prosperous 2017.

As we unwind from the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, remember that our next ALERT meeting on the 10th.

The Blount County Freezefest 2017 will be on my birthday, January 7, http://www.freezefest.w4blt.org/.

The Birmingham Hamfest http://birminghamfest.org/ is only nine weeks away, March 3 & 4.
This year, as with last year, will be a Friday & Saturday affair.
This Birminghamfest is not to be confused with the Birmingham Fest, in Birmingham UK which will run July 14 through 30, http://birminghamfest.co.uk/
I think I’ll fire up the ALERT Lear Jet and head that way.

As we enter the New Year I think of New Year’s Resolutions and my sorry ability to keep them. Perhaps this year I should resolve to NOT eat heathy foods, NOT exercise and NOT do anything useful or noteworthy.

That way when I break all these resolutions I’ll be on top of my game.

Whatever resolutions you make, I hope 2017 is a good year for you.

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

73 To Jim Stefkovich

We wish to congratulate our friend Jim Stefkovich on his retirement as Meteorologist in Charge of the Birmingham Weather Forecast Office.

Jim joined the Birmingham office succeeding Ken Graham is MIC on May 1, 2005.

A native of Franklin New Jersey, Jim earned a Bachelor Of Science Degree from Penn State in 1983. He started his meteorological career in 1982 as a student trainee/computer programmer at the National Weather Service Techniques Development Laboratory in Silver Spring, Md.
He served as a meteorological observer at the Weather Service Meteorological Observation site in Waycross, GA in 1984 and became a Forecaster intern at the Weather Service Office in Lake Charles, LA, in 1985.
In 1988, he became a Forecaster at Peachtree City/Atlanta, Ga office.
In 1991, he joined Southern Region Headquarters as the Next Generation Weather Radar regional focal point, responsible for coordinating NEXRAD Radar implementation.
He served as the Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the Weather Forecast Office in Fort Worth, Texas from 1993 to 2000 before being promoted to Meteorologist-In-Charge of the Weather Forecast Office in Jackson, MS.
He served as MIC in Jackson from July 200 to August 2002, MIC in Chicago IL from August 2002 to May 2005, and Birmingham from May 2005 to December 2016.
Jim is the recipient of numerous local and regional awards including:

Office Unit Citations for providing weather forecasts and support to the state of Alabama, including back up services for other local Weather Forecast Offices prior to, during and after landfall of Hurricane Katrina

The Department Of Commerce Bronze Medal for superior service during hurricane and tornado outbreaks.

The Alabama Emergency Public Service Award for contributions in advancing emergency management by providing timely, accurate and life-saving severe weather warnings to the citizens of Alabama.

The Department Of Commerce Silver Medal for exemplary customer service and extreme dedication to duty in the face of unprecedented challenges during the April 27, 2011 super outbreak.

He has also assisted in national leadership courses for multiple government agencies

We have been fortunate to have Jim as our Meteorologist In Charge. Jim being a ham operator, KD5HLE, and having dealt with many, many ham operators while at Jackson & Chicago, has been very understanding & patient in dealing with our ham community. Especially during those times when we have acted territorial and quirky, if not just plain nutty, as we are oftimes prone to do.

We wish Jim the best in his retirement and look forward to supporting John De Block and Kevin Laws as they fill in as acting MIC’s until a new MIC is formally named.

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

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.
Looking towards the sky, at the beginning of the month Mercury has faded from view in the glow of sunset. By mid-month it will have risen to its highest point in the morning sky, or “greatest western elongation” of 24.1 degrees above 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.

Brilliant Venus, magnitude -4.4 in Capricorn, and sometimes confused for a UFO, is easy to spot as the bright white “evening Star” blazing in the southwest during and after twilight. She is climbing higher and higher in the sky and will reach peak altitude or “greatest eastern elongation” on January 12, when she reaches 47.1 degrees above the sun. In a telescope, it is a brilliant 60% illuminated gibbous disc. Both Mercury and Venus exhibit phases like the moon, since they are inner planets and we see varying degrees of their sunlit sides as they circle the sun.
Mars, magnitude +0.8 in Aquarius, glows in the south-southwest at dusk, 15 degrees upper left of Venus.

Jupiter, magnitude -1.9 in Virgo, rises around 1 AM and shines brightly high in the southeast by early dawn.

Saturn is lost deep in the glow of sunrise.

Uranus is shining at a borderline naked eye brightness of +5.8 in Pisces is high in the south after dark.

Faint Neptune shining at magnitude +7.9 in Aquarius is very near Mars in the south-southwest after dusk. They appear closest, only 0.2 degrees apart, on December 31st. Neptune will be above Mars that evening. Use a telescope at high power to try to discern its near 8th-magnitude disk, which will appear only slightly nonstellar.

This is a very rare chance to see the 8th planet, which usually is lost among the background stars.

3439 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of December 21, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

The Quadrantid Meteor Shower will occur overnight Sunday-Monday, 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.

This shower is a quirky shower in that it has a very narrow particle stream. Therefore, the peak time is only six hours long, and that peak varies each year. According the American Meteor Society, the 2017 peak will occur around 8 AM CST on January 4, which doesn’t help us much this year. Since the peak is six hours long, you should be able to bundle up and watch the first two or three hours in the predawn sky.

But, as with all things astronomical, one should look before the predicted time in case the timing should slip. That way even if the stream arrives earlier than the predicted time, you will see them as, they would still be zipping overhead and will appear longer in the cold sky. As Robert Lunsford of the American Meteor Society says “We haven’t got this one nailed down yet. It acts like it wants to.”

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.

The Quadrantid meteors take their name from an obsolete constellation, Quadrans Muralis, found in early 19th-century star atlases between Draco, Hercules, and Bootes.

The constellation Quadrans Muralis was removed, along with a few other constellations, from crowded sky maps in 1922 when the International Astronomical Union adopted the modern list of 88 officially-recognized constellations.

The first quarter moon will set shortly after midnight leaving fairly dark skies for what could be a good show. Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Bootes, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

Full Moon will occur Saturday January 12, 11:34 UTC 5:34 AM CST.

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”.

New Moon will occur Saturday, January 28 at 00:07 UTC, or we being 6 hours behind UTC this time of year, at 6:07 PM CST on Friday, January 27, as 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 biggest astronomical event of 2017 will be a total solar eclipse which will occur on August 21 and will see will see the sun 92.54% obscured in Birmingham & 100% obscured in a broad coast to coast arc, which will be closest to us in central Tennessee.

https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEgoogle/SEgoogle2001/SE2017Aug21Tgoogle.html

This eclipse cut through the Florida Panhandle, but, had no visible effects in Birmingham, since it was cloudier than smoke from a witches cauldron that day.

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

This month’s meeting will be on January 10 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 teleconference number is 1-877-951-0997 & and the participant code is 741083.

Hope to see you there!

Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter

www.freewebs.com/weatherlynx/

Mark’s Weatherlynx
Weather Resource Database

Hi Everyone,

I hope you made it through Thanksgiving and Black Friday unscathed or only slightly bruised. December will be a busy month for ALERT, as we look forward to Skywarn Recognition Day and the ALERT Christmas Party.

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 will operate from ham equipped NWS offices. 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, and 2 meters plus 70 centimeters. Contacts via repeaters are permitted.

Starting at 6PM Friday December 2nd, the ALERT Team will bring up K4NWS as part of this special event and will operate until Saturday December 3rd at 1PM.

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

We will be setting up an expeditionary HF system in the conference room with portable antennas in the yard.

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

Immediately following the event we will be celebrating the ALERT Christmas Party!

Johnnie, KJ4OPX is coordinating this event, which will feature ham, for the hams.

If you are available to help with the SRD, please respond to the callout that will be issued and also please coordinate with Johnnie in advance of the Christmas party at wxjohnnie@gmail.com.

Come on down and be prepared to have Christmas fun!

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

Using Mirages For VHF / UHF Communications

You are driving along on a hot summer day. As you round a curve the road stretches ahead as far as the eye can see. Up ahead, maybe a couple of hundred feet ahead you see a pool of water in the road. You keep waiting to drive through it, but, you never reach it, as it seems to stay tantalizingly just ahead.

You are seeing a mirage.

In the desert, mirages have caused lost travelers to wander for miles trying to reach the illusion of cool water so they could relieve their parched throats. Other types of mirages have also allowed explorers to see distant lands far beyond the horizon.

Mirages occur when light rays are bent or in some cases trapped by layers of air of differing temperatures.

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.

What, if anything, does this have to do with radio communications, you may ask?

This mirage effect is the exact same process that creates our VHF and UHF band openings. In radio terminology we call it “tropospheric ducting”. A fancy name for what is basically a radio mirage.

Radio waves and visible light are part of the same electromagnetic spectrum and subject to the same rules, quirks and limitations. The only thing that makes visible light special is that we have organs that can detect the “visible” portion of the electromagnet spectrum, and further resolve the wavelengths into the primary colors. Below visible light lie infrared, microwave and radio frequencies. Above are ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma rays and perhaps other realms yet to be discovered.

Using filters and electronic processing we have blurred broad view into the infrared and ultraviolet range. Is it possible that the infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths are also divided into “colors” beyond our ability to detect? Who is to say not? Perhaps just as sound waves have octave after octave or harmonic after harmonic, you could have octave after octave and harmonic after harmonic of unseen colors. Just because you can’t detect something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. For instance, you can’t see the magnetic field that moves a compass needle, yet it’s there.

For example, Wilhelm Röntgen didn’t invent X-rays; he just discovered something that had been there all along, but, until then was beyond our ability to detect.

Think of the question you ask when you see your dog or cat looking up and visually tracking something moving across the room, but, you see nothing. We can’t see anything, but, they obviously can. They can see things we can’t, just as they can hear things we can’t, which is why we use dogs as guard dogs. So it’s not as far-fetched a notion as it may seem.

But, that’s Mark’s Theory, for which my Nobel Prize has not yet arrived, and I’m drifting far off topic.

Our VHF/UHF band openings usually occur during two conditions. The first being when a cold front pushes through the area. Cold fronts are not shaped like a huge wall of cold air, but, rather a rounded boundary that tends to lift up the warm air ahead of it. This lifting process forces convection causing thunderstorm development and creates temperature inversions which create band openings.

Another, far more frequent occurrence, especially in the heat of late spring, summer and early fall, is around sunrise when the sun heats the upper levels of the atmosphere as it rises, but, the lower levels are still cold.

Every morning around sunrise you have a natural temperature inversion and a band opening. The opening may be a just few minutes or it can last for hours.

This can be a good thing, or a bad thing.

Many years ago, during the 1980’s when the Shelby County repeater first went on the air, finding a good frequency pair was a challenge due to interference with distant repeaters during band openings. One frequency pair they tried was 146.985 input / 146.385 output. Subtones weren’t widely used back then, during the Stone Age of crystal controlled 2 meter radios, and during a band opening the repeater would lock onto another repeater in Kentucky with the exact opposite frequency pair, and keep transmitting until they timed each other out, and then repeat the process over and over again all morning. Finally they chose the 98 frequency which they use today, which cured the problem.

Similarly, in the 70’s and 80’s the BARC repeater was on 146.94, with an input of 146.34, and was commonly referred to as the “34 94” repeater. The current repeater, 88, was privately owned by Ronnie Pitts. The only other repeaters back then were Hop Hayes & Henry Wingate’s 146.76 repeater, which they donated to HARC, the 147.74 “Hueytown Repeater” now on Red Mountain, a now defunct repeater on 147.94 & a short lived repeater on Lloyd Nolan Hospital In Fairfield on 146.66. The Lloyd Nolan repeater was ordered taken down by hospital authorities convinced it would interfere with hospital telemetry, which for some reason they didn’t seem to worry about with their own HEAR (Hospital Emergency Ambulance Radio) system, with which they talked to paramedics on 155.34 MHz. Fortunately such thinking has largely been overcome as witnessed by the very successful HCARC.

Anyway, frequently during severe weather outbreaks the band would open and BARC’s 94 and Huntsville’s 94 would interfere with each other. This problem was solved when 88 was donated to BARC. The 88 & 94 repeaters were identical, so they swapped crystals & 88 became the primary BARC repeater. 94 changed frequencies to 145.41 & later became the K4DSO D-Star repeater.

The younger generation of hams of the 70’s and 80’s, which would have include myself, the Spanos brothers, David Black, and others of our generation would stay on the BARC repeater. We were young, and assured by the older hams on the other repeaters that ham radio was dying and that we were the prime reason why. They didn’t like the FFC test we took nor did they like the way we conducted ourselves on the air, and were not hesitant to let us know. But, the truth was, we really didn’t do anything wrong, we were just young and acted young, and that made some, but, certainly not all, folk uncomfortable. In fact some told us we were the best entertainment on radio.

That generation of hooligans later founded SCARC, and ALERT and ended up being Presidents and officers of BARC, SCARC, ALERT and the state ARRL.

Back on topic, during these openings it may be possible to conduct usable communications with a distant repeater or station up to 800 miles away.

There are obstacles to overcome though.

If you attempt to communicate on a repeater using the same frequency as a local repeater, the local repeater will override the distant repeater. If the distant repeater uses a different subtone than that of the local repeater, you can use it until someone keys up the local repeater. Repeaters with no local competition are a piece of cake, as is simplex point to point operations. Simplex contacts, incidentally, are the only ones beside satellite contacts that count for the Work All States Award.

How far up and down the radio spectrum can this effect reach?

I have heard commercial FM stations in Oklahoma in the 89 MHz range and back in the days of analog TV, have seen distant stations on TV channel 2 just above the 6 Meter band. Can it extend another 20 MHz to the 10 Meter band? Maybe.

One article I read says this effect at UHF ranges is “nil”. I know this is bunk, because I’ve heard it numerous times on 440 MHz, and of course have seen visible mirages.

This is the effect of superior, downward bending radio mirages. What about the inferior, upward bending ones?

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.

That is assuming you have an unobstructed horizon. If a mountain blocks the view of the horizon you are out of luck. Or are you?

Back in the 80’s I made and erected a cubical quad antenna for 2 meters. From my location I had never been able to hit the 76 repeater, I assumed due to the hills around Birmingham Southern College. With my beam my first target was 76, and much to my disappointment I still could not hit the repeater. One day I was swinging the beam and suddenly the repeater came in full scale. This is how I discovered that if I “off aimed” 30 degrees to the south towards Red Mountain, the mountain range would act as a reflector or “passive repeater” and I could “see” around the hills and hit the repeater.

Knowing these effects add more tools to your ham radio “bag of tricks”.

Try them and see how they work for you, as you chase that elusive VHF/UHF Worked All States Certificate.

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

Mark’s Almanac

December was the tenth Roman Month, from whence it gets its name. 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 being 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 the 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.

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. Since 1822 there have been 8 Category 1 hurricanes that either lasted into or actually formed in December. The last December hurricane being Hurricane Epsilon during the 2005 season, the year in which we ran out of hurricane names. That year also featured Tropical Storm Zeta, the latest forming Tropical Storm which formed on December 30, 2005 and lasted until January 7, 2006.

Looking towards the sky, Mercury, magnitude –0.5, is tucked in the glare of the sunset at the beginning of the month but by December 11 it will have risen to its highest point in the sky, or “greatest eastern elongation” of 20.8 degrees above 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.

Brilliant Venus, magnitude -4.2, shines brightly as the “evening Star” in the southwest during and after twilight.

Mars, magnitude +0.5, glows in the south-southwest at dusk, 25 degrees upper left of Venus, as he crosses central Capricorn.

Jupiter, magnitude -1.8, rises around 2 or 3 AM and shines brightly in the southeast in Virgo by early dawn.

Saturn, magnitude +0.5, is hiding deep in the glare of sunset, 30 degrees lower right of Venus, in Ophiucus The Serpent Bearer.

Uranus, magnitude 5.7 in Pisces is high in the southeast shortly after dark.

Neptune, magnitude 7.9 in Aquarius is high in the southern sky shortly after dark.

3414 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of November 17, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

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. 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 we will have one major drawback, as the nearly full moon will block out many of the fainter meteors this year, but the Geminids are so bright and numerous that it could still be a good show.

The Geminids is 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.

Full Moon occurs at 00:06 UTC December 14 or 6:06 PM CST on December 13. As with last month’s full moon, this will also be a “Supermoon”, the moon being at its closest approach to Earth, and may appear slightly larger and brighter than usual. This will be the last of the three supermoons of 2016. 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.

Winter Solstice will be December 21 at 10:44 UTC or 5:44 AM CST. 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, 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 shower runs annually from December 17-25. The second quarter moon will block out many of the fainter meteors. But if you are patient, you might be able to catch a few of the brighter ones before hypothermia sets in.

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 29 at 06:53 UTC or 12:53 AM CST when the Moon will on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky.

Looking towards the sky, the stars of Winter have begun drifting into the night sky. Low in the southern sky is the bright star Fomalhaut.

Whenever Fomalhaut is “southing” (crossing the meridian due south, which it does around 7 p.m. now depending on your location), the first stars of Orion are just about to rise in the east, and the Pointers of the Big Dipper stand vertical straight below Polaris, towards The North Star.

Orion is also valuable as a rough navigation aid as the two left stars forming the elongated square forming Orion always lie on a general north / south line, and the bottom two stars of the square lie on a rough east / west line.

‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’

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.

A time 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”.

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

This month’s meeting will the Chritmas Party on December 3 at 1PM at the National Weather Service Forecast office at the Shelby County Airport.

Hope to see you there!
Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter

www.freewebs.com/weatherlynx/

Mark’s Weatherlynx
Weather Resource Database

Hi everyone,

Halloween is upon us. My idea of a good Halloween is to buy lots of candy, turn off the lights; pretend I’m in Tucson and then eat every stinking piece.

I’m not being selfish. Really I’m not.

I figure that I’m actually doing a vital public service by doing this. Just think of all the dental bills that parents won’t have to pay for their children thanks to my noble sacrifice.

At any rate, I hope you have a good Halloween and I hope to see you at our next ALERT meeting, which will be on Election Day, Tuesday November the 8th.

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

2016 Simulated Emergency Test Results
The Simulated Emergency Test (SET) which was held on October 15 was a great success, both for ARES and ALERT. A callout was issued for the SET by NWS Liaison Russell Thomas, KV4S at 1:44PM October 13.
ALERT Responders were Casey Benefield NZ2O, Justin Glass N0ZO, Ronnie King WX4RON, Michael Lamb KK4OHW and Roger Parsons KK4UDU.
The following are excerpts from Casey’s After Action Report:
“OVERVIEW
(From SET Script Overview) This year’s statewide SET event is being conducted to simulate our communication response to a Category 5 Hurricane making landfall near Ft. Walton Beach, FL, travelling due north. The NWS requested us to share our coverage maps that indicate where we have operators who can provide information in advance of weather emergencies. The target is to produce maps that indicate where our operators, repeaters, and primary served agencies are located, as well as the capability of contacting and passing messages to and from each county EMA representative.
In addition to the original purpose of SET, ALERT responders would be tested on what we might do to establish an operational station by the start time of the event at 13:00 UTC (12:45 UTC for ideal start time), in the event of radio station damage, or in this case a dismantled station due to renovations being done.
EVENT TIMELINE
* 11:45 UTC – Arrival, NWS Sign-in and Briefing, Equipment Unload/Setup. Event/photos announced on social media, to show how amateur radio works when the primary communication station fails.
* 12:55 UTC – Station in conference room brought online. Capabilities/set-up as follows:
o Equipment (NZ2O): 115AH Gel Cell (Not Used), Astron RS-20, ICOM ID-5100 (VHF, UHF, Analog/D-Star), 100FT 50 Ohm Coax, Comet GP-1 Dual Band Base Antenna, Pofung GT-5, Baofeng BF-F8+, Channel Master Tripod, military mast (1 guy ring, 4x 4ft Pieces – 16 ft, antenna at approximately 17 ft, total height approximately 21 ft), 66ft of non-galvanized guy wire, 3 stakes. Tools: Hammers for stake install/removal. Multi-tool for cutting/dealing with guy wires. Gloves for handling fiberglass. Consumables: Electrical tape, for cable wrapping, orange safety flag tape, to flag the guy wires for safety reasons.
o Equipment (WX4RON): Laptop PC, Wouxum VHF/UHF Radio, Bridgecom 220MHz Radio for EMA contact.
o Equipment (N0ZO): Ultrabook PC, Internet Access Point for NWSChat, Cross-band repeater to KK4BSK (146.76MHz) in vehicle, ICOM D-Star Capable VHF/UHF Radio.
o Reachable Repeaters/Frequencies: 146.76 (Main), 146.88, 147.32, 146.98, 145.35, 146.58S, K4DSO D-Star
o Unreachable, Monitored Repeater: 147.39 (Jasper, AL)
* 15:40 UTC – NWSChat Test Messages, with Mary Keiser’s guidance.
* Approximately 16:30 UTC – Net Control Stations declare this SET session to be complete. ALERT/K4NWS advises Net Control Stations on 146.76/146.88 that the station is standing down, as courtesy to Net Control.
* Approximately 17:10 UTC – Temporary station being dismantled, returned to owners.
OUTCOMES
K4NWS was not online at the pre-planned 12:45 UTC, but we only missed by 10 minutes. We were online before the SET exercise began at 13:00 UTC. An acceptable result.
* The reason for this appears to be our initial choice of a site for the antenna support was too close to the building, and there was a lot of coiled excess cable, which might have resulted in degraded station performance/air-choke behavior. The antenna was moved more to the front of the building, which also likely eliminated the building as a source of line-of-sight interference.
We also were working with new guy-wire, which had not been cut to the proper length prior to the event. It will be useful in the next event, and it may be a good idea for temporary station antenna guy wires to be pre-cut. Today was a sunny and clear day, but measuring, cutting, and putting together the same in dark or rain conditions would have made it much more difficult. Note: It is not safe to work with an antenna during a storm with thunder.
* If this were a real emergency, we may be well-served by first establishing cross-band repeat operations first, and then have the temporary antenna and support structure being worked on afterwards.
* For the temporary station that we deployed today, we were on street power, but capable of emergency power by both gel-cell battery and the permanent on-site generator. The cable was run through a wire conduit to the outside, from the conference room. The NWS’s conference room computer was not used.
* A headset/earpiece in a multi-radio, multi-operator setup might be helpful for clarity/noise level.
K4NWS was ready for reports, and conducted test reports with NWS. The standard Local Storm Report form was used, and the reports were also entered in NWSChat as a test.
* As part of our storm reports, let’s be reminded that the time that an event occurred is important to the meteorologist, and may be different from the time that the report is received.
o SKYWARN® spotters are trained to wait until danger has passed, if any, to provide reports.
o Meteorologists might find the event time useful, when comparing a report with data or other reports.
o This demonstrates and reinforces the value in re-taking/refreshing our SKYWARN® storm spotter training once yearly, or more.
* NWSChat Best Practice shared by Justin (N0ZO): Have a notepad window up, and type the report up in full in that notepad. This prevents accidentally pressing enter, which immediately sends messages. This may also assist, by giving the operator a template to work with, reducing time typing messages. Note: In many cases by procedure, unless responding to a callout/severe event at home, the LSR form is handed directly to meteorologists, instead of NWSChat.
K4NWS’s temporary station was dismantled within 30 minutes, without incident.
Both the temporary station and the cross-band repeater worked well for the entire event. No uncommon occurrences took place.”
This test demonstrates clearly the resilience of ALERT and our capability of providing emergency communications under emergency conditions. I’ll add that if needed, HF capability could be added in “on the fly” just as successfully as VHF/UHF communications were.
I wish to say “thanks” to our responders.
You “did us proud”.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
K4NWS Operational Again
As mentioned in Casey’s After Action Report, the NWS office has been undergoing renovations, and as a result K4NWS has been temporarily out of commission as the cubical was modified to fit the new office scheme.
Roger, KK4UDU went by the office and tested K4NWS and everything appears to be operational again. He made successful contacts on 146.76, 147.140, 146.88 (on both the Alinco and the ICOM), 440 (the Shelby Co 440 input into the 146.88), and was able to activate the repeaters on 220 and D-Star.
He reports “we have an operable station again.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

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. And, 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. 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.

Hurricane season ends November 30.

November Tropical Cyclone Breeding Grounds

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 skyward, Mercury is hidden in the glare of the Sun

Venus shines low in the Southwest at evening twilight, at magnitude -4.0.

Mars glows at magnitude +0.3 in the south-southwest at dusk, 40 degrees upper left of Venus.

Giant Jupiter, magnitude -1.7 is low in the east in the early dawn.

Saturn, magnitude +0.5 is low in the southwest about 4 degrees above Venus as evening twilight fades.

Uranus, magnitude +5.7 in Pisces is well up after dark in the east

Neptune, magnitude +7.8 Aquarius is also well up after dark in the southeast.

The Taurid Meteor Shower will occur the night of November 4 & 5. This is a minor shower producing only 5 to 10 meteors per hour. It is an unusual shower in that it consists of two separate meteor streams. The first stream is dust grains left behind from Asteroid 2004 TG10, while the second stream is debris from Comet 2P Encke. The shower runs from September 7 to December 10, but, peaks overnight on November 4 & 5. The first quarter moon will set just after midnight leaving the skies dark for viewing the shower. The meteors will radiate from Taurus, but, can appear anywhere in the sky.

Full Moon will occur at 13:52 UTC or 7:52 AM CST November 14. 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.

This will be a Supermoon, as the Moon will be at its closest approach to the Earth and may appear slightly larger and brighter than normal

The annual Leonid meteor shower occurs from November 10 – 21 and peaks on the night of November 16/17. 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.

A waning gibbous moon will block many of the fainter meteors, but, you should be able to catch the brighter ones. The meteors will radiate from the constellation Leo, but, can appear anywhere in the sky.

New Moon will occur November 29 as the Moon is located on the same side of the Earth as the Sun. This phase will occur at 12:18 UTC or 6:18 AM CST.
.
3402 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of October 27, 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 6nd, as Daylight Savings Time ends.

Remember that according to the National Time Act of 2014 states you MUST wait until 2 AM to reset your clocks, or you will be in violation of Section 15, Paragraph 114, Subset 195485 (24(234b)) (see page 4537) of said act.

I saw it on social media, so it must be true. For NO ONE would post unverified muck on the internet, oh perish the thought.

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

This month’s meeting will be on November 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 teleconference number is 1-877-951-0997 & and the participant code is 741083.
Hope to see you there!
Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter

www.freewebs.com/weatherlynx/

Mark’s Weatherlynx
Weather Resource Database