Hi Everyone,

I hope this finds you well as we cruise into summer!

With summer’s arrival the tornado threat, which never disappears, eases, and while we will be greeted by hail and high winds from systems moving out of Missouri, our focus will shift to the Gulf and Atlantic as the hurricane season begins.

Though the Atlantic Hurricane Season officially begins June 1, the National Hurricane Center, to err on the side of caution should there be an early arriving storm, began issuing outlooks on May 15.

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center has issued it’s 2025 outlook, released May 22, and is calling for an “above normal” Atlantic hurricane season. NOAA predicts a likely range of 13 to 19 named storms, of which 6 to 10 could become hurricanes, including 3 to 5 major hurricanes.

NOAA provides these ranges with 60% confidence in an above average season. A 30% chance of an average hurricane season, which normally produces 14 named storms, of which 7 become hurricanes, including 3 major hurricanes and 10% chance of a below normal season.

The UKMET Office is also calling for an “above average” season, with 16 named storms, of which 9 will become hurricanes and 4 becoming major hurricanes.

As mentioned last month, Colorado State University is also predicting an “above average” season, and AccuWeather is calling for an “dynamic” season, while the UK’s Tropical Storm Risk, calls for the season to be close to normal.

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

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2025-2026 officers for ALERT!

The results of the 2025 are in and your Officers are:

• President: Johnnie Knobloch, KJ4OPX
• Vice President: Roger Parsons, KK4UDU
• Treasurer & Membership: Bill Rodgers, K4FSO
• Secretary: Justin Glass, N0ZO
• Public Information Officer: Kaila Szmajda, KR4BZF
• Training: Steven Moss, KB4FKN
• Board At Large: Mark Wells, WD4NYL
• Board At Large: Dale Chambers, KD4QHZ

Thank you for your dedication and willingness to serve!

A Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Radio Frequency Spectrum – Part 4

At the last stop of our journey, we reached 10.000 MHz with WWV & WWVH.

Here are a few tidbits about WWV & WWVH you may find interesting.

The male voice used on WWV in Ft. Collins; Colorado is that of John Doyle. John Doyle was a veteran weathercaster for several television stations in the Atlanta metropolitan area, including WSB TV 2, WAGA TV 5, and WGCL TV 46.

The female voice used on WWVH in Kekaha Hawaii is an award winning Polynesian vocalist and hula dancer from Oahu….well, or so I of dreamed as a kid. In reality, the voice is that of American voice actress and singer Jane Barbe, also from Georgia. She was known as the “Time Lady” for the recordings she made for the Bell System and other phone companies. If you ever heard “the number you have reached is not in service at this time….” now you know who you were listening to.

To make these recordings, she sat in a recording studio and repeated the same words, phrases and sentences over and over and over, sometimes dozens of times. Then sound technicians carefully listened to each rendition, picking the best ones, equalizing and processing the audio and then stitch them together into the recordings you hear.

So, next time you are in an elevator and a ladies voice cheerfully says, “seventh floor”, just look up and say, “thanks Jane!”

People will think you are a lunatic, but that’s ok. They are probably thinking that anyway.

How much “juice” do these stations put out?

WWV 2.5 Kilowatts on 2.5, 20 & 25 MHz
10 Kilowatts on 5, 10 & 15 MHz
WWVH 5 Kilowatts on 2.5 MHz
10 Kilowatts on 5, 10 & 15 MHz

Both WWV & WWVH accept reception reports sent to the addresses mentioned in the station ID, and respond with a QSL card.

Make sure you include the frequency, time of day and an accurate signal report. Also, know that WWV has been requesting reports for its experimental 25 MHz broadcasts.

Continuing our tour, we find a small Aeronautical Band that lies from 10.005 to 10.100 MHz.

Aeronautical weather from Gander Newfoundland VOLMET is on 10.051 MHz, or will be until June 12, 2025, when it will permanently shut down.

Next we will come to the 30 Meter Amateur Band.

A small band, 30 Meters stretches from 10.100 to 10.150 MHz, and is open to General, Advanced and Extra class licensees. 30 Meters is unique in that it is the only non-voice HF ham band and there is a 200 Watt PEP power limit.

For some reason, 30 Meters is vaguely reminiscent of the old Novice bands of the 1970’s and 80’s, though not nearly as active. I guess the power limit, it being CW only, (not including the data signals), plus the fact that the signals I hear aren’t trying to break the sound barrier with speed, it just has an old comforting feel.

Most CW activity is found from 10.000 to 10.070 MHz and digital modes occupy the rest of the band.

Propagation on 30 Meters is similar to that of the 40 Meter Band, roughly 300 miles during the day and coast to coast and beyond at night.

Sadly, though 30 Meters is a very good band, it is a neglected little band. You hear some digital and a few CW stations at most. It’s a band worthy of more attention and respect.

The ARRL Band plan is as follows:

10.000 – 10.070 MHz – CW
10.074 MHz FT8
10.130 – 10.140 MHz – RTTY
10.140 – 10.150 MHz – Packet

The Fixed / Mobile Band stretches from 10.150 to 11.175 MHz.

The 11 MHz Aeronautical Band lies from 11.175 to 11.400 MHz, and is heavily used by the worlds militaries.

The US Air Force High Frequency Global Communications System – HF-GCS primary frequency is 11.175 MHz USB, or “triple-one-seven-five upper” as is sometimes heard.

The HF-GCS is a worldwide network of 15 high power HF stations that provide command and control communications between ground agencies and US and Allied military aircraft and ships.

Traffic may be heard 24/7, running phone patches and sending coded alpha-numeric EAM or Emergency Action Messages. These are rarely encrypted, always in USB and are perfectly legal to listen to.

An EAM is a high priority message that is transmitted around the world by the US Air Force. These messages are used for many of their strategic military operations, which include nuclear assets, which hopefully will never need to be used.

The messages you hear may mean something innocent, something ominous or it may be a test message meaning nothing at all.

These messages are broadcasted on the common HF-GCS frequencies which are 4.724 MHz, 6.739 MHz, 8.992 MHz, 11.175 MHz, 13.200 MHz, and 15.016 MHz and in AM on 311.000 MHz and 323.800 MHz.

Sometimes you will notice an echo of the voices in the background. These echoes are a result of propagation delays because of slow landlines and the time delay with satellites as the signal is sent to multiple widely spread transmission sites.

You are very likely to catch an EAM if you stay tuned to one of these frequencies, which are very well known incidentally, and so no, I’m not giving away “state secrets”.

On the 11 MHz band you will hear calls to aircraft over the Northeastern US from New York’s Air Traffic Control on 11.309 MHz.

New York’s LDOC or Long Distance Operations Control phone patches to aircraft is at 11.342 MHz.

Calls to aircraft over the North Atlantic and the Caribbean from New York’s Air Traffic Control is on 11.396 MHz.
The Fixed / Mobile Band stretches from 11.400 to 11.650 MHz.

The 25 Meter Shortwave Band lies from 11.600 – 12.100 MHz, partially extending into the Fixed / Mobile Bands above and below. 25 Meters is generally best during summer and year-round during the period before and after sunset.

The Fixed / Mobile Band stretches from 11.975 – 12.330 MHz.

The Marine Band lies from 12.330 to 13.200 MHz.

The 13 MHz Aeronautical Band lies from 13.200 to 13.360 MHz.

Aeronautical weather from Shannon Ireland VOLMET is on 13.264 MHz. and from Gander Newfoundland VOLMET is on 13.270 MHz. Gander will cease transmitting on June 12, 2025, when it will permanently shut down.

Air Traffic Control calls to aircraft over the Gulf and South America may be heard on 13.297 MHz, and over the Eastern Atlantic on 13.306 MHz.

LDOC or Long Distance Operations Control phone patches to aircraft is at 13.348 MHz

The Fixed / Mobile lies from 13.360 to 13.600 MHz.

The 22 Meter Shortwave Band stretches 13.570 to 13. 870 MHz, again overlapping into the Fixed / Mobile Bands. 22 Meters is heavily used in Eurasia and is similar to the 19 Meter band. It is best in summer.

The Fixed / Mobile Band 13.800 – 14.000 MHz

Next we will come to most popular and heavily used Amateur Band – the 20 Meter Amateur Band.

It is said that 20 meters is always open to somewhere, the “where” varying with the time of day and solar activity. Sometimes the “where” can change day by day. For example, one weekend the 7th Area QSO Party and the New England QSO Party were being held. On Saturday signals from the 7th call area were coming in, but no New England stations were to be heard. The next day no 7th area stations were heard, but New England was pouring in. Same band, same time of day, but a total change in direction in just 24 hours.

Since the 1960’s, access to the 20 meter band has been one of the carrots reserved for General class and above licenses, to provide an incentive for people to upgrade from Novice or Technician classes.

When I was newcomer in the late 70’s and early 80’s we would timidly enter or daresay just plain avoid 20 meters, as it had the reputation of being crowded with high powered stations that would mercilessly clobber low power or regular power stations. Which is why they nicknamed it “Kilowatt Alley”.

And daresay, some of the operators reminded us of some of the grouches we avoided on 2 Meters, having found that sometimes we new hams were welcomed with the middle finger of fellowship since we hadn’t taken the same test “they took” in 1967, 1957, 1947, 1937, 1887, etc..

As with today’s new hams, we had no choice but to take the test that the FCC required. If we had told the examiner “I don’t want to take this wimpy excuse of a test, gimme a test from 1966, like Elroy and Roscoe talk about on the Froggy Bottom repeater – NOW!”, we probably would have been escorted out and quite possibly committed to the loony bin, as perhaps Elroy and Roscoe should have been.
But those grouches are long gone and while there are some operators that do “pour on the gas” power wise, I find that I have good success running just 100 watts and a G5RV antenna. I receive well, and get decent to good signal reports. More times than not, if I hear them, I can work them.

It should be noted that the Canadian Phone Band is wider than the US phone band, starting at 14.112 MHz, instead of 14.150 MHz. With the US FCC allocation, 14.112 to 14.150 MHz is part of the non-voice CW / Data band. Sometimes US operators will hear voice activity in this range and get upset about “out of band” activity, or they call the stations, not knowing they are transmitting out of band.

Also, while I’m at it, I frequently see stations transmit exactly on a band edge, such as 14.350 MHz. They are apparently unaware that their signal is not limited to what the frequency readout says, (which may or may not be accurate, as they are not true “frequency counters” as one might use servicing equipment) and half their signal is drooping or slopping out of the band. That’s why a wise operator stays 3 – 5 kHz from the band edges.

This is a lesson I learned in 1978 by receiving an ARRL Official Observer citation for transmitting 1 kHz below the 80 Meter Novice Band on 3.699 kHz, because my sorry dial was off.

Here is the 20 Meter Amateur Band plan:

14.000 MHz Begin Extra CW/ Data Sub band
14.025 MHz Begin General & Advanced CW / Data Sub band
14.040 – 14.095 MHz RTTY
14.074 MHz FT8
14.100 MHz NCDXF Beacons
14.1005 – 14.112 MHz Packet
14.150 MHz Begin Extra Class Phone Band
14.175 MHz Begin Advance Class Phone Band
14.225 MHz Begin General Class Phone Band
14.230 MHz SSTV
14.286 MHz AM calling frequency
14.300 MHz Maritime Mobile Service Network Daily 11:00 AM
14.325 MHz Hurricane Watch Net – activated as needed
Salvation Army Emergency Radio Network – Mon, Wed & Fri 11 AM Central
14.345 MHz Central Area Net (restricted) Daily 2:30 PM
14.350 MHz End 20 Meter Band

The NCDXF beacons at 14.100 MHz are part a worldwide network of high-frequency radio beacons on 14.100, 18.110, 21.150, 24.930, and 28.200 MHz. These beacons, part of a joint project with the Northern California DX Foundation & International Amateur Radio Union help both amateur and commercial high-frequency radio users assess the current condition of the ionosphere. The entire system is designed, built and operated by volunteers at no cost except for the actual price of hardware components, shipping costs, and so on.

The transmission consists of the callsign of the beacon sent at 22 WPM followed by four one-second dashes. The callsign and the first dash are sent at 100 watts. The remaining dashes are sent at 10 watts, 1 watt and 100 milliwatts.

Each beacon transmits once on each band every three minutes, 24 hours a day. At the end of each 10 second transmission, the beacon steps to the next higher band and the next beacon in the sequence begins transmitting

The location of the beacons and schedules may be found at: International Beacon Project Transmission Schedule

The 14.345 MHz Central Area Net is a restricted net. This net is a Transcontinental Corps traffic net and is used for traffic handling only and is not open for general check-ins and requires prior permission from the Net Manager to join so that operations are not hindered by unnecessary activity.

Continuing on, the Fixed / Mobile Band stretches from 14.350 to 14.490 MHz.

CHU , Ottawa, Ontario, transmits it’s Time & Frequency Standard signal in English and French at 14.670 MHz. Which, like WWV & WWVH, will send you a QSL card for reception reports.

And finally at 15.000 MHz, you will find WWV in Fort Collins Colorado & WWVH – Kekaha, HI broadcasting Time & Frequency Standard signals.

Remember, if you are receiving WWV or WWVH, then 20 Meters is open also – whether anyone is transmitting or not.

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Mark’s Almanac

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

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

The beginning of meteorological Summer is June 1.

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

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

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

From 1851 to 2024 there have been 104 Tropical Storms and 34 Hurricanes, of which 20 impacted the United States. The most notable June hurricane was Audrey, one of the deadliest tropical cyclones in US history, which killed 416 as it devastated the southwestern Louisiana coast in 1957.

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

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

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

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

Looking skyward, the Sun, magnitude -26.7 is in Taurus, The Bull.

Mercury, magnitude -0.6 in Aires, The Ram, is lost in the glow of the Sun at the first of the month.

He emerges into the evening sky on June 13 becoming visible at around 8:17 PM CDT, 8° above the north-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting 1 hour and 11 minutes after the Sun at 9:08 PM CDT,

He will reach his highest point in the sky on June 28, reaching a peak altitude of 18° above the horizon at sunset, shining brightly at mag -0.4.

By months end he will become visible at around 8:32 PM CDT, 11° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting 1 hour and 34 minutes after the Sun at 9:34 PM CDT.

Venus, magnitude -4.6 in Piscis, The Fish, is a morning object.

At the first of the month, she rises at 3:17 AM CDT, 2 hours and 18 minutes before the Sun and reaches an altitude of 24° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 5:18 AM CDT.

Venus will reach her furthest point from the Sun, or Aphelion, on June 11.

At midmonth she rises at 3:04 AM CDT, 2 hours and 30 minutes before the Sun, reaching an altitude of 26° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 5:16 AM CDT.

By months end she rises at 2:55 AM CDT, 2 hours and 42 minutes before the Sun and reaches an altitude of 28° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 5:20 AM CDT.

Earth, and her Moon, magnitude -4.0, as viewed from the Sun, is in the constellation Ophiuchus, The Serpent Bearer.

Mars, with his moons Phobos and Deimos, magnitude +1.1, in Cancer, The Crab, is an early evening object receding into evening twilight.

At the first of the month, he becomes visible around 8:35 PM CDT, 46° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He then sinks towards the horizon, setting at 12:25 AM CDT.

The Moon will pass 1.4° south of Mars on June 1.

At midmonth he becomes visible around 8:43 PM CDT, 38° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting 3 hours and 54 minutes after the Sun at 11:52 PM CDT.

By months end he becomes visible around 8:47 PM CDT, 30° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting 3 hours and 15 minutes after the Sun at 11:15 PM CDT.

Dwarf Planet Ceres, magnitude +9.3 is in Cetus, The Whale.

Jupiter, and his 95 moons and (invisible from Earth) ring magnitude –2.0, in Taurus, The Bull, at the first of the month is low in the western sky.

At the first of the month, he becomes visible at around 8:09 PM CDT, 9° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting 1 hour and 13 minutes after the Sun at 9:04 PM CDT.

He will disappear into the glow of the Sun on June 4 and be hidden in the glow of the Sun for the rest of the month.

Jupiter will pass behind the Sun on June 24.

Saturn, and his 274 moons and extensive debris ring system, magnitude +1.1, in Pisces, The Fish, is emerging from behind the Sun.

At the first of the month, he rises at 2:12 AM CDT, 3 hours and 23 minutes before the Sun, and reaches an altitude of 32° above the south-eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 4:56 AM CDT.

By midmonth he rises at 1:19 AM CDT, and reaches an altitude of 41° above the south-eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 4:55 AM CDT.

At months end he rises at 12:22 AM CDT, and reaches an altitude of 50° above the south-eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 5:00 AM CDT.

Uranus, and his 28 moons and ring, magnitude +5.9 in Taurus, The Bull, is hidden in the glow of the Sun.

Neptune, and his 16 moons and ring, magnitude 7.8 in Pisces, The Fish, is emerging into the predawn sky.

At the first of the month, he rises at 2:12 AM CDT, 3 hours and 23 minutes before the Sun, reaching an altitude of 26° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 4:26 AM CDT.

By midmonth he rises at 1:18 AM CDT, and reaches an altitude of 36° above the south-eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 4:23 AM CDT.

At months end he rises at 12:09 AM CDT, and reaches an altitude of 46° above the southern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 4:27 AM CDT.

And Planet Nine?

If you browse through social media sites or crawl through the Internet, you may have seen the headlines “scientists may have found Planet Nine”.

Since so many people get their information and opinions from that trusted source “Trust Me Bro, It’s True”, the question becomes is there any truth to this news or is it just more Internet Fluff?

The answer is “maybe”.

According to a research paper, which has been accepted for publication in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia but not yet peer-reviewed, astronomers may have found new evidence that points to a celestial body that could be a possible candidate as “Planet Nine”.

A team led by astronomer Terry Long Phan of the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan has delved into the archives of two far-infrared all-sky surveys in search of Planet Nine.

The Infrared Astronomy Satellite, IRAS, was launched in 1983 and surveyed the sky for almost a year before being decommissioned. Then, in 2006, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched AKARI, another infrared astronomy satellite that was active between 2006 and 2011.

Phan’s team were looking for objects that appeared in IRAS’s database, that appeared to have moved by the time AKARI observed the same areas 23 years later.

This careful search led Phan’s team to a single object, a tiny dot in the infrared data.

If the object really is Planet Nine, it would be larger than Neptune and is 700 times further from the sun than Earth.

It appears in one position in IRAS’s 1983 image, but not in that position when AKARI looked. However, there is an object seen by AKARI that isn’t there in the IRAS imagery, and it is within the range that Planet Nine could have traveled in the intervening time, which would indicate movement.

If the object is a planet, it is in a wildly excentric elongated orbit. Could it be that it formed in the region where Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune formed and was scattered outward by the gravity of those planets during the early days of the solar system? Or is it a rogue planet that was captured by the Sun’s gravity during the early days of the solar system?

Not all are convinced that this is Planet Nine. Mike Brown an astronomer at Caltech calculated the orbit of the infrared signal and found that the object would be tilted about 120° from the Solar System’s plane. That tilt is much greater than Planet Nine’s predicted tilt of around 15 to 20 degrees, and means this object would be orbiting in a different direction from the known planets, which all sit roughly on the same plane.

This mismatch “doesn’t mean it’s not there, but it means it’s not Planet Nine,” says Brown.

Hopefully observations by NASA’s soon to launch Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope which will perform high-resolution deep surveys of the sky, and the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, set to open later this year, will help clarify the true nature of this object.

Regardless, I still maintain that poor old Pluto is still Planet #9. But they just won’t listen to me.

Speaking of which, Dwarf Planet Pluto, the largest Dwarf Planet, with his five moons shines at a dim 14.5 in Capricornus, The Sea Goat.

Dwarf Planet 136108 Haumea, her ring and moons Hiʻiaka and Namaka, shines at a faint magnitude of 17.2 in Bootes, The Herdsman.

Dwarf Planet 136472 Makemake with his moon S/2015 (136472) 1, nicknamed MK1 by the discovery team, shines faintly at magnitude +17.1 in Coma Berenices.

Dwarf Planet 136199 Eris, the second largest Dwarf Planet, and her moon Dysnomia, originally referred to as Xena and Gabrielle, is barely visible in the most powerful telescopes at magnitude +18.7 in Cetus the Sea Monster.

At least six additional bodies with the preliminary criteria for identifying dwarf planets, and though not “officially” declared as such, are generally called dwarf planets by astronomers as well.

90482 Orcus, and his moon Vanth shines at magnitude 19.1 in Sagittarius, The Archer.

50000 Quaoar, and his moon Waywot shines at magnitude +18.6 in Cetus, The Whale.

90377 Sedna, the coldest, and at one time, the most distant known place in the Solar System, glows faintly at magnitude +20.8 in Taurus, The Bull.

225088 Gonggong, the third largest Dwarf Planet, originally nicknamed Snow White by the discovery team, and his moon Xiangli glows dimly at +21.5 magnitude in Pisces, The Fish.

2014 UZ224 nicknamed “DeeDee” for “Distant Dwarf” is 8.5 billion miles from the Sun, at magnitude +23.0 in Eridanus, The River.

120347 Salacia, and her moon Actaea glows at magnitude 20.7 in Gemini, The Twins. Salacia is considered a “borderline” Dwarf Planet. Some astronomers saying she “most certainly is a Dwarf Planet”, while others disagreeing based on her size, saying she is too small to have compressed into a fully solid body, to have been resurfaced, or to have collapsed into “hydrostatic equilibrium”, that is to assume spherical shape like a planet.

A new “Dwarf Planet Candidate” has been discovered.

The discovery of the object was officially announced on May 21, 2025, by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center.

The object, discovered by Sihao Cheng, Jiaxuan Li and Eritas Yang, is designated 2017 OF201. 2017 OF201 is located in the constellation of Triangulum, is 8,504,349,226 miles from Earth as of May 25, 2025. The magnitude of 2017 OF201 is 23.19.

The object has an extremely elongated orbit with the farthest point of the is more than 1600 times that of the Earth’s orbit, while the closest point on its orbit to the Sun is 44.5 times that of the Earth’s orbit, similar to Pluto’s orbit.

Currently the most distant observable known object in the Solar System, an asteroid unofficially called Asteroid 2018 AG37, and nicknamed FarFarOut, glows at a barely detectable +25.5 magnitude in Lynx.

FarFarOut is currently 12,344,156,286 miles or in Light Time, 18 hours, 24 minutes and 26 seconds from Earth.

The most distant man-made object, Voyager 1, still operating after 47 years, 7 month and 11 days is 15,459,751,038 miles, or in Light Time, 23 hours, 03 minutes 10 Seconds from Earth as of 12:54 PM, May 14, 2025, sailing 38,027 miles per hour through Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer.

There are 1,449,382 known asteroids and 4,005 comets as of May 14, 2025, per NASA/JPL Solar Dynamics Website JPL Solar System Dynamics (nasa.gov).

Near Earth Object, asteroid 99942 Apophis, is expected to pass within 19,794 miles of the Earth on Friday, April 13, 2029.

Apophis, magnitude +21.3, in Taurus, The Bull, is 175,506,735 miles or 1430 days from the Earth as of 1:00, May 14, 2025.

Asteroid 2024 YR4, which will pass though the Earth – Moon system on Wednesday, December 22, 2032, dimly glows at magnitude +28.4, in Leo, The Lion. It currently is 187,457,142 Miles or 2783 days from the Earth as of 1:12 PM May 14, 2025.

5,893 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of May 7, 2025, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/.

First Quarter Moon, or when the moon has only the Western side illuminated, will occur June 2 at 10:41 PM or 4:141 UTC June 3.

During the Quarter Moons the Moon’s magnitude is -10.0.

The Moon will be at Apogee, or her farthest point from the Earth on June 14 at 251,999 Miles.

June’s Full Moon is “Strawberry Moon” in Native American folklore. This will occur on June 11 at 2:46 AM CDT or 07:46 UTC. The Moon will be located on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun and its face will be fully illuminated. It is called “Strawberry Moon” for it signals the time to start harvesting strawberries, as it is peak strawberry ripening time. Other names are “Rose Moon” and “Honey Moon”.

During a Full Moon the Moon’s magnitude is -12.7.

Summer Solstice will occur at 9:42 PM CDT or 02:42 UTC on June 21. The North Pole of the earth will be tilted toward the Sun, which will have reached its northernmost position in the sky and will be directly over the Tropic of Cancer at 23.44 degrees north latitude. This is the first day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere and the first day of winter in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Moon will be at Perigee, or her closest point from the Earth on June 22 at 225,668 Miles.

New Moon will occur at 5:33 AM CDT or 10:33 UTC on June 25. 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 June Bootids Meteor Shower will occur from June 26th until July 2nd. It peaks on June 27th. Normally the shower is very weak, with a Zenith Hourly Rate or ZHR of 1 or 2, but occasional outbursts produce a hundred or more meteors per hour. The source of the June Bootids is Comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke, which orbits the Sun once every 6.37 years.

The New Moon will not interfere with this unpredictable shower. Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight.

Around 10 PM in mid-June, Libra the Scales will be passing due South. When Alpha Librae, the lower-right of the two brightest stars of Libra, is due south, if you look directly below it you will see nothing but horizon. But, if you were at a lower latitude, say 29°, the latitude of Orlando, or points south would see our brilliant, -0.27 magnitude neighbor Alpha Centauri above the horizon.

At 4.37 light years distance, the Alpha Centauri system is nearest star system to our own.

It is a triple star consisting of Alpha Centauri A, also called Rigil Kentaurus, Alpha Centauri B or Toliman and the closest star to the Sun, Alpha Centauri C also called Proxima Centauri, 4.24 light years from Earth.

Alpha Centauri A is a near twin of our Sun in almost every way, including age, while Alpha Centauri B is somewhat smaller and dimmer but still quite like the Sun. The third member, Proxima Centauri is a much smaller red dwarf star that travels around the A-B pair.

Proxima Centauri has three known planets: Proxima b, an Earth-sized exoplanet in the habitable zone or so called “Goldilocks Zone” – not too hot and not too cold to support some form of life if it has a suitable atmosphere. Proxima c, a super-Earth, which is possibly surrounded by a huge ring system and Proxima d, which orbits very closely to the star.

Alpha Centauri A may have a Neptune-sized habitable-zone planet, though it is not yet known to be planetary in nature and could be an artifact of the discovery mechanism. Alpha Centauri B has no known planets.

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This month’s meeting will be on June 10, at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Calera.

I hope to see you there!

Mark / WD4NYL

Editor
ALERT Newsletter

Hi Everyone, I hope this finds you doing well & that you have been enjoying these cool spring days.

Our May 13 ALERT meeting will feature our annual elections.

Positions to be decided are President, Vice President, Treasurer/Membership and Secretary.

Those recommended by the Nominating Committee and any nominations from the floor (made by a current ALERT Operational Member) and any volunteers for those positions will be voted on by secret ballot, or acclamation if no other nominations exist from the floor.

If you are a paid up Operational Member or Supporting Member, which is a member interested in Amateur Radio, Skywarn or Emergency Communications, but doesn’t have a ham license, you may vote in the 2025-2026 ALERT leadership elections.

The officers will assume their positions at the July meeting.

July is also when ALERT dues are due. Remember, if you wish to respond to ALERT callouts or serve as an officer you MUST be current with your dues.

May your May be a happy one!

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2025 Hurricane Outlooks

Colorado State University has issued its outlook for the 2025 tropical season, which runs from June 1 to November.

EXTENDED-RANGE FORECAST OF ATLANTIC HURRICANE ACTIVITY FOR 2025

Their forecast predicts an “above average” season with 17 named storms during the Atlantic hurricane season. Of those, researchers expect 9 to become hurricanes and 4 to reach major hurricane strength of Category 3 or greater, with sustained winds of 111 miles per hour or greater.

There is a 51% chance for at least one major hurricane to strike the United States. The average from 1880 – 2020 is 43%.

There is a 26% chance for at least one major hurricane to strike the US East coast including the Florida Peninsula. The average from 1880 – 2020 is 21%.

There is a 33% chance for at least one major hurricane to strike the Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle to Brownsville Texas. The average from 1880 – 2020 is 27%.

There is a 56% chance of a major hurricane striking in the Caribbean.

Per CSU, the likelihood that coastal states will be impacted by a hurricane during the 2025 season is:

• Alabama: Alabama has a 67% chance of being impacted by a named storm, a 34% chance of a hurricane and a 10% chance of a major hurricane
• Connecticut: Connecticut has a 27% chance of being impacted by a named storm, a 9% chance of a hurricane and a 2% chance of a major hurricane
• Delaware: Delaware has a 28% chance of being impacted by a named storm, an 8% chance of a hurricane and a 1% chance of a major hurricane
• Florida: Florida has a 92% chance of being impacted by a named storm, a 65% chance of a hurricane and a 35% chance of a major hurricane
• Georgia: Georgia has a 72% chance of being impacted by a named storm, an 37% chance of a hurricane and an 8% chance of a major hurricane
• Louisiana: Louisiana has a 74% chance of being impacted by a named storm, a 46% chance of a hurricane and an 18% chance of a major hurricane
• Maine: Maine has a 26% chance of being impacted by a named storm, a 9% chance of a hurricane and a 2% chance of a major hurricane
• Maryland: Maryland has a 37% chance of being impacted by a named storm, a 13% chance of a hurricane and a 1% chance of a major hurricane
• Massachusetts: Massachusetts has a 40% chance of being impacted by a named storm, an 18% chance of a hurricane and a 4% chance of a major hurricane
• Mississippi: Mississippi has a 62% chance of being impacted by a named storm, a 35% chance of a hurricane and a 9% chance of a major hurricane
• New Hampshire: New Hampshire has a 22% chance of being impacted by a named storm, a 7% chance of a hurricane and a 2% chance of a major hurricane
• New Jersey: New Jersey has a 28% chance of being impacted by a named storm in 2025, a 9% chance of a hurricane and a 1% chance of a major hurricane.
• New York: New York has a 32% chance of being impacted by a named storm, a 12% chance of a hurricane and a 3% chance of a major hurricane
• North Carolina: North Carolina has a 76% chance of being impacted by a named storm, a 46% chance of a hurricane and a 9% chance of a major hurricane
• Rhode Island: Rhode Island has a 25% chance of being impacted by a named storm, a 9% chance of a hurricane and a 2% chance of a major hurricane
• South Carolina: South Carolina has a 66% chance of being impacted by a named storm, a 35% chance of a hurricane and a 10% chance of a major hurricane
• Texas: Texas has a 70% chance of being impacted by a named storm, a 44% chance of a hurricane and a 19% chance of a major hurricane
• Virginia: Virginia has a 54% chance of being impacted by a named storm, a 24% chance of a hurricane and a 2% chance of a major hurricane

Per CSU “Current La Niña conditions are likely to transition to ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) neutral conditions in the next couple of months; however, there remains considerable uncertainty as to what the phase of ENSO will be this summer and fall. Sea surface temperatures across the eastern and central Atlantic are generally warmer than normal, but not as warm as they were last year at this time. A warmer-than-normal tropical Atlantic combined with likely ENSO neutral (or potential La Niña) conditions typically provides a more conducive dynamic and thermodynamic environment for hurricane formation and intensification. We anticipate an above-average probability for major hurricanes making landfall along the continental United States coastline and in the Caribbean. As with all hurricane seasons, coastal residents are reminded that it only takes one hurricane making landfall to make it an active season. Thorough preparations should be made every season, regardless of predicted activity.”

AccuWeather’s 2025 Atlantic hurricane outlook calls for an “dynamic” season with 13 – 18 named storms. Of those storms, 7 to 10 are forecast to become hurricanes, 3 to 5 being major hurricanes and 4 to 6 hurricanes are likely to hit the United States.

Hurricane season forecast 2025

The UK Tropical Storm Risk,com outlook on the other hand calls the season to be close to the 1991-2020 30-year norm, with 14 named storms, 7 hurricanes and 3 “intense” hurricanes, with the US being visited by 4 tropical storms and 2 hurricanes, intensity unpredictable.

TSRATLForecastApril2025.pdf

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

The active 2024 Atlantic hurricane season featured 18 named storms, 11 hurricanes and of those 11, 5 becoming major hurricanes, including multiple Category 5 hurricanes.

Of those 18 storms, only six directly impacted the US.

The 2025 North Atlantic Basin Tropical Cyclone names are Andrea, Barry, Chantal, Dexter, Erin,
Fernand, Gabrielle, Humberto, Imelda, Jerry, Karen, Lorenzo, Melissa, Nestor, Olga, Pablo, Rebekah, Sebastien, Tanya, Van & Wendy.

If so many storms occur that the 2025 list is depleted, the storm names will revert to the World Meteorological Organization supplemental list of names: Adria, Braylen, Caridad, Deshawn, Emery, Foster, Gemma, Heath, Isla, Jacobus, Kenzie, Lucio, Makayla, Nolan, Orlanda, Pax, Ronin, Sophie, Tayshaun, Viviana and Will.

The National Hurricane Center will issue their outlook in May.

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A Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Radio Frequency Spectrum – Part 3

Our journey so far has taken us through the staticky realm of the AM band, 160 meters and the jungle of 75 Meter nets, pausing with the faithful tick, tick, tick of WWV on 5 MHz.

As we continue our Grand Tour of the Radio Frequency Spectrum we come across an unusual ham frequency. The Alaska Statewide Emergency Frequency on 5167.5 KHz.

This frequency, which is shared with other services, is only used during emergencies, and not for casual operations. USB is used and stations are limited to 150 Watts.

Many radios have this frequency built in; however, you need to go into the radio’s menu to activate the frequency.

While researching this frequency, the Alaska ARES site had some interesting hints for operations that can apply to general operations, SOTA, POTA or WOTA (Summits On The Air, Parks On The Air & Walmarts On The Air).

“HF Operations: Use headphones for better listening………In power emergencies, a 100W rig at 25W saves batteries and is only 1 “S” unit weaker. Reducing CW speed improves copy. Know the standard phonetic alphabet.”

https://www.qsl.net/aresalaska/training/ARES_Emergency_communications_guide.htm#Part%204%20%E2%80%93%20Operating

In addition to the recommendation regarding headphones and reducing the output power, I totally agree with reducing CW speed. There seems to be more of an emphasis on high speed CW now than when we were sweating trying to reach 20 WPM for the Extra code exam. In those days 20 WPM was considered “high speed”, not “moderate speed” as it is today. I have been known to copy 30 WPM, but using a straight key I send 18 WPM at best, and it be legible. So rather than torture other operators with lousy sending, I stick to speeds between 12 to 18 WPM. Which might torture them anyway by me being too slow. At higher speeds, maybe due to too many years and or too much rock and roll, I can’t hear the dots. Plus, high speeds are just not enjoyable to me. If the cat sneezes or the dog passes gas, you have lost half of the contact. Hobbies are supposed to be fun.

Soooo….if you feel that need for speed, please consider slowing down just a bit for us snails.

You probably will make more contacts if you do.

Next we come to the 60 Meter Amateur Band.

60 Meters, which is open to General, Advanced and Extra Classes, is unique as it is the only channelized US ham band. It is allocated on a secondary basis, and if the primary users, the US Government & military, are active, hams must refrain from operating. Only one signal is permitted on any channel, and hams are limited to 100 Watts PEP. Sideband signals are limited to 2.8 kHz bandwidth and CW and digital signals must be centered 1.5 kHz above the voice frequencies.

There are a few beacons you may hear on:

5195.0 kHz Germany DRA5
5205.25 kHz Luxembourg LX0HF
5288.8 kHz Croatia 9A5ADI/B
5291.0 kHz Switzerland HB9AW

US channels per “dial frequency” (and other countries frequencies allocations can and do vary) and their unofficial uses are:

5.330.5 MHz – Channel 1 – Calling Frequency
5.346.5 MHz – Channel 2
5.357.0 MHz – Channel 3 – Data, RTTY, FT8
5.371.5 MHz – Channel 4 – Secondary DX Window
5.403.5 MHz – Channel 5 – Primary DX Window

A couple of items to note; many radios, such as the Yaesu FT-450 & FT-817 have 60 Meters built in as memory channels. Older models have 5368 kHz as Channel 3. In March 2012, the FCC per the ARRL recommendation changed Channel 3 from 5368 kHz to 5357 kHz citing it’s being “heavily used by one of the primary users.”

So, before you transmit on Channel 3, you need to verify that it is the correct frequency.

On the channels I hear occasional CW and voice signals. One night two stations, one in Mississippi and one in Texas, who seemed to be long acquaintances, tied up the “DX window” for hours on end having a 75 Meter like bromance. And, since there are only four or five channels available, to me it seemed inconsiderate to other users. But at least they proved my receiver was working.

Moving on up the dial, an Aeronautical Band lies from 5.480 – 5.730 MHz.

Here you will find aeronautical weather from Shannon Ireland VOLMET on 5.505 MHz and calls to aircraft over the Caribbean and North Atlantic from New York’s Air Traffic Control on 5.555 & 5.598 MHz respectively.

The 49 Meter Shortwave Band stretches from 5.900 to 6.200 MHz. which is a good year-round nighttime band, though daytime long distance reception poor.

6.200 to 6.525 MHz is the Fixed Band

6.525 to 6.725 MHz is another Aeronautical Band.

Here you will find aeronautical weather from Gander Newfoundland VOLMET on 6.604 MHz and calls to aircraft over the Caribbean and North Atlantic from New York’s Air Traffic Control on 6.577 & 6.628 MHz respectively.

New Yorks’s LDOC or Long Distance Operations Control phone patches to aircraft from is at 6.640 MHz.

From 6.765 to 7.000 MHz one might find pirate radio stations in AM or SSB and fishing vessels, or “Pescadores”, legal or otherwise.

Occasionally and particularly is this area you will hear someone repeating a sequence of numbers, especially in Spanish.

These are sometimes called “numbers stations” or “Spy and Numbers” stations.

These appear at irregular intervals up and down the band, but, usually just below the 40 meter band. They were always in AM, and though I have heard them in English and German, the strongest were in Spanish, usually female, with a strange regularly spaced clacking sound in the background.

The typical format is as follows:

Either at the top or the bottom of the hour after about 20 minutes of a carrier with that strange clacking sound, the call would begin something like this:

“Attencion, attencion…..quatro cinco uno…..quatro cinco uno…..quarto cinco uno…
uno ocho sies ocho quatro ocho tres uno tres……repeata….. uno ocho sies ocho quatro ocho tres uno tres…..fine…fine…”

And then the signal would disappear as mysteriously as it had appeared.

What were these signals?

The leading theory was that they originated in Cuba and were being sent to covert operatives in the US. But, nothing could ever be proved.

Until now.

Recently Dateline NBC had the story of an ex-Soviet spy who defected and fell off the radar and for decades lived and raised a family using an assumed identity. In the story he said he received his instructions “from numbers given in Spanish on a shortwave radio from Cuba”.

Mystery solved. But, how did it work?

The following is what I was told by a gentleman, now deceased who was in the Air Force OSI – Office Of Special Investigations.

The code was an unbreakable code.

To use it you simply needed two people with two identical books, with the same publisher and edition. Which book didn’t matter really. It could be Macbeth, The Gospel of Luke, The ALERT Newsletter, etc.

They just had to have the same page number, paragraph and word location.

The first three numbers given after the “Attencion” was the operative’s number.

The long sequence of numbers told where to look in the book.

“uno ocho sies ocho quatro ocho tres uno tres” or in English “106040313”

Which meant Page 106, Paragraph 04, Line 03, Word 13

They would simply write down the numbers and look them up in the book.

But, which book? That’s what made it unbreakable. Only the two parties involved knew which book, and they would change that on a regular basis or as needed.

Let’s say Agent 008 (that’s 007’s clutzy partner) needed money. He might use the Gideon Bible, and choose:

“my God will meet all your NEEDS according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” and then
“For the love of MONEY is the root of all evil…”

After deciphering the page, paragraph and locating words 7 & 5 the recipient would that know Agent 008 “needs money”.

And that is the mystery of the Spy & Numbers stations.

Next we will come to the 40 Meter Amateur Band.

40 Meters will give you coverage out to roughly 300 miles during the day and coast to coast and beyond at night. Like 80 / 75 Meters, 40 is very noisy during thunderstorm season at night.

The 40 Meter ham band and 41 Meter Shortwave band overlap each other, so at night Shortwave Broadcast stations will barrel in from 7.200 to 7.300 MHz, making life miserable. This is normal and to be expected. And it is better than the old days, when you would hear stations all the way down to 7.100 MHz trashing out the old Novice Band. Though they did make excellent tune-up frequencies back in the day, or so it was rumored.

41 Meter Shortwave reception varies by region, with reasonably good night reception, but few transmitters in this band target North America, they just interfere with their ham neighbors.

Also, stuck almost in the middle of the CW Sub band is a voice Sub band stretching from 7.075 to 7.100 MHz for ITU Regions 1 & 3, and FCC regions west of 130° West Longitude and below 20° North Latitude. But, continental US hams can’t use this voice segment. So, if you tune there and hear voice signals from afar, it’s ok and normal. You just can’t talk to them – unless you use CW and work cross mode, which is perfectly legal, but, might confuse the heck out of them.

The voice section of 40, except for AM, uses LSB. There are various nets and long QSO’s, similar to 75 Meters.

The Band plan for 40 Meters is as follows:

7.000 MHz Begin Extra CW/ Data Sub band
7.025 MHz Begin Novice, Technician, General & Advanced CW / Data Sub band
7.040 MHz RTTY / Data DX Window
7.052 MHz Fifth Region Net Summer Daily 7:30 PM & 9:30 PM CT
Central Area Net Daily 8:30 PM
7.074 MHz FT8
7.075 MHz Begin Region 1 & 3 Voice Sub band
7.080 MHz Begin Region 2 RTTY / Data
7.125 MHz End Novice, Technician, General & Advanced CW / Data Sub band
End Region 1 & 3 Voice Sub band
End Begin Region 2 RTTY / Data
Begin Advanced & Extra Voice Sub band
7.171 Mhz SSTV Window
7.175 MHz Begin General Sub band
7.198 MHz Northern Florida ARES Mon – Sat 8:00 AM
7.200 MHz Begin 41 Meter Shortwave Band
7.242 MHz Northern Florida Phone Net (alternate frequency)
7.243 MHZ Alabama Traffic Net Mike (alternate frequency
7.247 MHz Northern Florida Phone Net (alternate frequency)
7.265 MHz Northern Florida ARES (alternate frequency)
7.268 MHz Hurricane Watch Net Night
7.280 MHz Fifth Region Net Mon – Sat 10:30 AM CT
Sunday 1:30 PM CT
Daily 3:30 PM CT
7.282 MHz Nebraska Northeast 40 Meter Net Daily 11:00 AM
7.285 MHz Texas Traffic Net Mon – Sat 8:30 AM
7.290 MHz AM calling frequency
7.300 MHz End 40 Meter Amateur Band
Begin Fixed / Mobile Band
7.450 MHz End 41 Meter Shortwave Band

CHU in Ottawa, Ontario broadcasts Time & Frequency signals at 7.850 Mhz.

The Fixed / Mobile Band ends further up the band at 8.195 MHz and the Marine Band begins, which stretches to 8.815 MHz.

The 8 MHz Aeronautical Band stretches from 8.815 to 9.040 MHz.

Here you will hear calls to aircraft over the North Atlantic and the Caribbean from New York’s Air Traffic Control on 8.846 & the Northeastern US on 8.825 MHz.

New Yorks’s LDOC or Long Distance Operations Control phone patches to aircraft from is at 8.933 MHz.

Aeronautical weather from Gander Newfoundland VOLMET is on 8.957 MHz.

The 31 Meter Shortwave Broadcast Band, the most heavily used Shortwave Band, stretches from 9.400 to 9.900 MHz. This band is a good year-round night band; seasonal during the day, with best reception in winter.

And finally at 10.000 MHz, you find WWV in Fort Collins Colorado & WWVH – Kekaha, HI broadcasting Time & Frequency Standard signals.

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Mark’s Almanac

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eastern Pacific hurricane season begins May 15, and although the North Atlantic hurricane season has not arrived, occasionally a tropical system will form in the Gulf of Mexico. From 1851 to 2023 there have been 27 Tropical Storms and 5 Hurricanes, including an 1863 Category 2 storm, the knowledge of which is based on historical reanalysis by NOAA’s Michael Chenoweth and Cary Mock in 2013 and posthumously given the name Hurricane Amanda, named after, a Union ship the storm washed ashore. It made landfall near Apalachicola Florida.

60% of off-season Hurricanes occur in May.

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

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

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

Looking skyward, the Sun, magnitude -26.7 is in Pisces, The Fish.

Mercury, magnitude +0.6 in Pisces, The Fish, is lost in the glow of the Sun.

Mercury will pass behind the Sun, or be in Superior Conjunction on May 29 and will reach his closest distance from the Sun, or perihelion, on May 31.

Venus, magnitude -4.8 in Pisces, The Fish, is an early morning object.

At the first of the month, she will rise at 4:00 AM CDT, reaching an altitude of 19° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 5:40 AM CDT.

By midmonth he will rise at 3:38 AM CDT, reaching an altitude of 21° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 5:27 AM CDT.

By the end of the month, reaching an altitude of 24° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 5:19 AM CDT.

Venus will reach her greatest distance above the Sun or Greatest Western Elongation on May 31, when she will be 45.9° degrees from the Sun.

This is the best time to view Venus since it will be at its highest point above the horizon in the morning sky. Look for the bright planet in the eastern sky before sunrise.

Earth, and her Moon, magnitude -4.0, as viewed from the Sun, is in the constellation Libra, The Scales.

Mars, with his moons Phobos and Deimos magnitude +0.7, in Cancer, The Crab, is an early evening object.

At the beginning of the month, he will become visible around 8:06 PM CDT, 66° above the southwestern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 1:40 AM CDT.

By midmonth he becomes visible around 8:20 PM CDT, 57° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 1:06 AM CDT.

By the end of the month, he will become visible around 8:33 PM CDT, 47° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 12:30 AM CDT.

Dwarf Planet Ceres, magnitude +9.3 is in Aquarius, The Water Bearer.

Jupiter, and his 95 moons and (invisible from Earth) ring, magnitude –2.2 is in Taurus, The Bull, is receding into the evening twilight.

At the beginning of the month, he will become visible around 7:45 PM CDT, 32° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 10:26 PM CDT.

By midmonth he becomes visible around 7:57 PM CDT, 22° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 9:54 PM CDT.

By the end of the month, he will become visible around 8:07 PM CDT, 11° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 9:10 PM CDT.

Now, here’s a little secret…

Try listening to the 17 or 15 meter bands when they are closed. Not counting garbage static from LEDs, traffic lights, appliances and other gizmos, you probably will hear the normal background hiss of band noise. This noise is from It comes mainly from noise from atmospheric discharges which are always taking place somewhere in the world and are propagated by the ionosphere. There is also the noise coming from space usually called galactic or cosmic noise, caused by relativistic electrons spiraling in the galactic magnetic field. Both sources sound like white noise.

But, if things in the universe cause the right cosmic dominoes to fall into place, if you hear a sound like waves crashing on a beach, or popcorn popping or a sound like gravel being thrown on a tin roof, you are probably hearing static crashes from radio noise storms on Jupiter.

If you have a Yagi antenna and point it to the eastern horizon when Jupiter is rising, or the western horizon when Jupiter sinking toward the horizon, if Jupiter is 44° or less above the horizon, and if you tune between 18 – 22 MHz, you may hear these static crashes from the giant planet.

18 – 22 MHz is the best frequency range for receiving these signals. You cannot hear these below 15 MHz, due to the Earth’s ionosphere attenuating them or refracting them away, or above 39.5 MHz due to the strength of Jupiter’s magnetic field smothering them.

AM or SSB reception will work. Just remember to turn off the AGC or Automatic Gain Control of the receiver as it can distort the noise bursts.

I would even try seeing if you can catch them using just a dipole or other type of wire antenna.

You never know until you try.

Saturn, and his 274 moons and extensive debris ring system, magnitude +1.2, in Aquarius, is visible in the dawn sky.

At the first of the month, he rises at 4:06 AM, 1 hours and 50 minutes before the Sun, and reaches an altitude of 14° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 5:19 AM CDT.

Equinox on Saturn will occur May 6.

By midmonth he rises at 3:15 AM, 2 hours and 29 minutes before the Sun and reaches an altitude of 21° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 5:06 AM CDT.

At months end he rises at 2:19 AM, 3 hours and 17 minutes before the Sun and reaches an altitude of 31° above the south-eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 4:57 AM CDT.

Uranus, and his 28 moons and ring, magnitude +5.8 in Taurus, The Bull, is lost in the glow of the Sun.

He will pass behind the Sun on May 17.

Neptune, and his 16 moons and ring, magnitude 7.8 in Pisces, The Fish, is lost in the glow of the Sun for most of the month, until finally emerging into the predawn sky on May 25. rising at 2:35 AM CDT, 3 hours and 2 minutes before the Sun and reaching an altitude of 22° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 4:29 AM CDT.

Dwarf Planet Pluto, the largest Dwarf Planet, with his five moons shines at a dim 14.5 in Capricornus, The Sea Goat.

Dwarf Planet 136108 Haumea, her ring and moons Hiʻiaka and Namaka, shines at a faint magnitude of 17.2 in Bootes, The Herdsman.

Dwarf Planet 136472 Makemake with his moon S/2015 (136472) 1, nicknamed MK1 by the discovery team, shines faintly at magnitude +17.1 in Coma Berenices.

Dwarf Planet 136199 Eris, the second largest Dwarf Planet, and her moon Dysnomia, originally referred to as Xena and Gabrielle, is barely visible in the most powerful telescopes at magnitude +18.6 in Cetus the Sea Monster.

At least six additional bodies with the preliminary criteria for identifying dwarf planets, and though not “officially” declared as such, are generally called dwarf planets by astronomers as well.

90482 Orcus, and his moon Vanth shines at magnitude 19.1 in Sagittarius, The Archer.

50000 Quaoar, and his moon Waywot shines at magnitude +18.6 in Cetus, The Whale.

90377 Sedna, the coldest, and at one time, the most distant known place in the Solar System, glows faintly at magnitude +20.8 in Taurus, The Bull.

225088 Gonggong, the third largest Dwarf Planet, originally nicknamed Snow White by the discovery team, and his moon Xiangli glows dimly at +21.5 magnitude in Pisces, The Fish.

2014 UZ224 nicknamed “DeeDee” for “Distant Dwarf” is 8.5 billion miles from the Sun, at magnitude +23.0 in Eridanus, The River.

120347 Salacia, and her moon Actaea glows at magnitude 20.7 in Gemini, The Twins. Salacia is considered a “borderline” Dwarf Planet. Some astronomers saying she “most certainly is a Dwarf Planet”, while others disagreeing based on her size, saying she is too small to have compressed into a fully solid body, to have been resurfaced, or to have collapsed into “hydrostatic equilibrium”, that is to assume spherical shape like a planet.

Currently the most distant observable known object in the Solar System, an asteroid unofficially called Asteroid 2018 AG37, and nicknamed FarFarOut, glows at a barely detectable +25.5 magnitude in Lynx.

FarFarOut is currently 12,303,530,741 miles or in Light Time, 18 hours, 20 minutes and 47 seconds from Earth.

The most distant man-made object, Voyager 1, still operating after 47 years, 7 month and 11 days is 15,456,578,007 miles, or in Light Time, 23 hours, 02 minutes 53 Seconds from Earth as of 1:29 PM, April 16, 2025, sailing 38,027 miles per hour through Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer.
Voyager – Mission Status (nasa.gov) & Voyager 1 | TheSkyLive

There are 1,445,190 known asteroids and 4,005 comets as of April 16, 2025 per NASA/JPL Solar Dynamics Website JPL Solar System Dynamics (nasa.gov).

Near Earth Object, asteroid 99942 Apophis, is expected to pass within 19,794 miles of the Earth on Friday, April 13, 2029.

Apophis, magnitude +20.1, in Aries, The Ram, is 167,922,322 miles or 1461 days from the Earth as of 1:34 PM, April 16, 2025.

Asteroid 2024 YR4, which will pass though the Earth – Moon system on Wednesday, December 22, 2032, dimly glows at magnitude +27.5, in Cancer, The Crab. It currently is 136,606,531 Miles or 2811 days from the Earth as of 1:37 PM April 16, 2025.

5,869 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of March 18, 2025, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/.

First Quarter Moon, or when the moon has only the Western side illuminated, will occur May 15 at 8:53 AM or 13:53 UTC.

During the Quarter Moons the Moon’s magnitude is -10.0.

The Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower, an above average shower, peaks May 6 & 7. It can produce up to 60 meteors per hour at its peak, but most of the activity is seen in the Southern Hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, the rate can reach about 30 meteors per hour, which is still a decent shower. It is produced by dust particles left behind by comet Halley, due to return in a mere 36 years in the summer of 2061. The shower runs annually from April 19 to May 28. It peaks this year on the night of May 6 and the morning of May 7.

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

The Moon will be at Apogee, or her farthest point from the Earth on May 10 at 252,429 miles.

Full Moon will occur May 23th at 11:57 AM CDT or 16:57 UTC. The Moon will be located on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun and its face will be fully illuminated. May’s Moon is “Flower Moon” in Native American folklore, because of the abundance of spring flowers. It has also been called “Corn Planting Moon” & “Milk Moon”.

During a Full Moon the Moon’s magnitude is -12.7.

This month’s Full Moon is a Micromoon, as it is occurring as the Moon is near her farthest distance from the Earth 251,606 miles.

Last Quarter Moon, or when the moon has only the Eastern side illuminated, will occur May 20 at 7:00 AM or 12:00 UTC.

During the Quarter Moons the Moon’s magnitude is -10.0.

The Moon will be at Perigee or its closest distance from Earth on May 25, when she will be 223.087 miles from Earth.

New Moon will occur on May 27 at 10:04 PM CDT or May 28 at 3:04 UTC. The Moon will be located on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters because there is no moonlight to interfere.

Because this New Moon will occur at her closest approach to Earth, this will be a Super New Moon.

In the Northern Sky the Big Dipper, part of Ursa Major, the Great Bear, begins the month upside down, “spilling its water” on Polaris, the North Star, which is the tip of the handle of the Little Dipper or Ursa Minor, the Little Bear.

Interestingly, the Big and Little Dippers are arranged so that when one is upright, the other is upside down. In addition, their handles appear to extend in opposite directions. The Big Dipper is by far the brighter of the two, appearing as a long-handled pan, while the Little Dipper resembles a dim ladle.

The Big Dipper is called by other names across the world. In the Netherlands it’s the “Saucepan”, “The Plough” in England and “The Great Wagon” in other parts of Europe.

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This month’s meeting will be on May13 at 7 PM.

The meeting will be held at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Calera.

I hope to see you there!

Mark Wells
WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter

Articles and suggestions are welcome!

Hi everyone,

I hope this finds you all well and unscathed from the recent tornadoes.

This widespread and deadly tornado outbreak was the second largest tornado outbreak on record nationwide for the month of March, with 112 tornadoes nationwide, 17 of which struck Alabama, including 15 in central Alabama, 1 in Mobile & Washington County and 1 in Lauderdale County.

The Alabama tornadoes were rated as:

EF0 – 4
EF1 – 6
EF2 – 6

EF3 – 1

Total 17

Longest was an EF2 tornado which tracked through Tuscaloosa & Walker Counties and was on the ground for 39.48 miles.

The widest was an EF1 tornado that moved through Greene, Pickens and Tuscaloosa Counties and was 1200 feet wide.

Tuscaloosa County had the most tornadoes with two EF1 & one EF2 tornadoes.

Sadly, these storms caused 3 fatalities and 6 injuries in Alabama.

Nationwide there were 43 fatalities and over 174 injuries.

The tornadoes were rated as:

EF0 – 20
EF1 – 47
EF2 – 31
EF3 – 11
EF4 – 3

EF5 – 0

Total 112

The strongest tornadoes were 3 EF4 tornadoes. Two in Arkansas and one in Mississippi.

There were no E5 tornadoes.

The last EF5 tornadoes in Alabama were the two EF5 tornadoes which struck Rainsville in DeKalb County and one which swept through Hackleburg and Phil Campbell in Marion and Franklin Counties on April 27,2011.

Though 59 EF5/F5 tornadoes have occurred since 1950, the last EF5 tornado in the United States occurred on May 20, 2013, when an EF5 tornado tore a 17 mile path through the suburbs of Oklahoma City.

This begs the question: “Where have all the EF5s gone?”

According to the National Severe Storms Laboratory the “drought” of EF5 tornadoes in the past decade is perhaps less due to a weakening of tornadoes and more likely due to a stricter use of damage ratings. And, that a storm which might have qualified as an EF5 tornado prior to 2013, might not qualify today, remembering that the EF scale is based on the severity of the storm damage, and the quality of the building’s construction – a well-built, well anchored, substantial structure vs a trailer park or a cluster of rotted barns.

For example, some survey teams rated the Tuscaloosa / Jefferson County tornado of April 27, 2011, as an EF5, however since the structures that were swept away by this tornado were either improperly anchored, lacked interior walls, or were surrounded by damage not consistent with winds exceeding 200 mph, an EF5 rating could not be applied. So, it was given a final rating as a high end EF4, with winds estimated at 190 mph

On January 23, 2025, Anthony W. Lyza with the National Severe Storms Laboratory along with Harold E. Brooks and Makenzie J. Kroca with the University of Oklahoma’s School of Meteorology published a paper to the American Meteorological Society, where they stated the tornado in Tuscaloosa/Jefferson was an “EF5 candidate”. It was also explained that the EF5 starting wind speed should be modified to start at 190 miles per hour instead of 201 miles per hour.

Researchers from the University of Oklahoma determined that lowering the current EF5 wind threshold from 201 mph to 190 mph would create more continuity based on previous climatology, without adjusting damage assessments. For now thought, 201 MPH is still the threshold.

In the end, it’s just a matter of statistics. It doesn’t really matter if it is an EF4 tornado instead of an EF5 that obliterates your house. She’s a goner either way.

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A Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Radio Frequency Spectrum – Part 2

Last month we started our Grand Tour of The Radio Dial, covering 135.7 kHz to 3.155 MHz.

Looking back, I’ll mention that occasionally from 1.700 – 2.000 kHz you may occasionally hear a CW signal being repeated over and over. These are buoys or “Drift Net” fish net buoys in the Atlantic and Gulf. Generally, they repeat with three ID’s, which are preprogrammed by the manufacturer, such as “3GL”. OM540”, and so forth, followed by a long steady carrier, and a very long pause of no signal. They are battery powered and low power, but they can be heard for hundreds of miles.

As we continue from 3.155 MHz, the next major feature is the 90 Meter Shortwave Band which stretching from 3.200 – 3.400 MHz, which is mostly used locally in tropical regions, with limited long distance reception at night.

In the middle of this band, you will find CHU, Ottawa, Ontario, it’s transmitting Time & Frequency Standard signal in English and French at 3.330 MHz.

There is an Aeronautical Band from 3.400 to 3.500 MHz. Here you will find VOLMET aviation weather broadcasts from Shannon Ireland on 3.413 MHz and New York & Gander Newfoundland on 3.485 MHz.

The acronym “VOLMET” is of French origin from “vol” (flight) and “météo“ (weather report).

Also, you can eaves drop on air traffic control stations talking to aircraft over the Caribbean, North Atlantic and Eastern US on 3.455 Mhz.

Also, there are military stations scattered here and there within this band.

Then we come to the second largest High Frequency Amateur Band – 80 Meters.

450 kHz wide, 80 Meters is also wide wavelength wise, as the bottom is near 80 meters long and the top near 75 meters long. The CW portion has traditionally been called “80 meters” and the voice segment “75 meters”.

75 Meters is home to HF Nets and general chit chat. There is a joke that old timers (and I qualify) tune to a frequency, solder the VFO shaft and break off the knob, never leaving the frequency again, discussing colonoscopies and bursitis. Regardless, the good thing about this is if you know a state’s net frequency, and each state and province has a 75 Meter net, as with a popular repeater, operators will hang out on that frequency, so you probably can find someone in that state, even when a net is not in session.

This can be a great advantage if you need to contact a specific state during an emergency.

75 Meter voice operations, with the exception occasional AM operators, lower sideband is used, as is the case on 160 & 40 Meters. Elsewhere on the Amateur bands, upper sideband is used.

LSB’s use in the lower Amateur bands is a relic from the early days of radio when SSB rigs used a 9 MHz Intermediate Frequency system, and it was easier and cheaper to generate LSB below 9 MHz and USB above 9 MHz. With most designs these days, USB and LSB are equally easy to use, but we keep to the old convention.

LSB is often preferred for shorter range communications, while USB excels for long range
DXing in higher HF bands as USB has a better Signal-to-Noise Ratio and provides a clear, efficient signal and utilizes the available bandwidth more efficiently than LSB, allowing for more efficient spectrum utilization.

On the other hand, LSB is less susceptible to phase noise, making it more robust in noisy environments, such as that encountered in the lower bands, which deal with static from thunderstorms. Also, LSB modulation consumes less power, resulting in improved power efficiency and requires simpler circuitry and signal processing as compared to USB modulation.

Personally, I have always thought LSB has a “richer” sound, which is more pleasing to the ear, as opposed to USB, but that’s just me and my rotted out ears.

There is no FCC restriction that says you can’t use USB on 160, 80 or 40 meters. But, if 99.99999% of hams are using LSB and you use USB, you may unknowingly interfere with other operators, and if nothing else, you will sound weird, which will cause folk to avoid you, since they don’t want to sound weird too. So “when in Rome do as the Romans do”.

In the daylight hours, the 80/75 Meter range is roughly 250 miles, which from Birmingham, means Georgia, Mississippi, North Florida and Tennessee are in range. During the evening hours the distance stretches to 800 miles or more, as is evident from AM signals drifting in from Europe, as elsewhere in the world 3.900 – 4.000 MHz is also the 75 Meter Shortwave band, mostly used in the Eastern Hemisphere after dark; and usually not widely received in North and South America. Also, elsewhere in the world there is a civilian aircraft band from 3.900 – 4.000 MHz.

So, if you hear non-ham and broadcast stations late at night, don’t panic or get mad as some do, it just means that the band is open to Europe and Africa. Go work some DX instead!

The ARRL band plan and usage is as follows:

3.500 MHz Begin Extra CW/Data Sub band
3.525 MHz Begin Novice, Technician, General & Advanced CW / Data Sub band
3.574 MHz FT8
3.590 MHz RTTY/Data DX
3.570 – 3.600 MHz RTTY/Data
3.600 MHz End CW/Data Sub band
Begin Extra Phone Sub band
3.668 MHz Geratol Worked All States Net Oct 1 – Apr 30 1:00 UTC
3.700 MHz Begin Advanced Phone Sub band
3.742 MHz Ontario Phone Net Daily 7:00 PM
3.790 – 3.800 MHz DX window
3.800 MHz Begin General Phone Sub band
3.810 MHz West Virgina Fone Net Daily 5:00 PM
3.816 MHz Kentucky Phone Net Nightly 5:00 PM
3.820 MHz Maryland Emergency Phone Net Daily 5:00 PM
3.845 MHz SSTV window
3.860 MHz Minnesota ARES Phone Net Daily 5:30 PM
3.862 MHz Mississippi Section Phone Net Daily 6:00 PM
3.8625 MHz Magnolia Section Net Mon – Fri 6:00 AM
Magnolia Section Net Sat & Sun 7:00 AM
3.873 MHz Texas Traffic Net Mon – Sat 6:30 PM
Louisiana ARES Net Sunday 7:30 PM
3.885 MHz AM calling frequency
3.900 MHz Begin 75 Meter Shortwave Band
Oklahoma Traffic & Weather Net Mon – Sat 5:00 Indiana Section ARES HF Net Sun 5:00 PM
3.905 MHz Delaware Traffic Net Mon – Sat 5:30 PM Winter
Illinois Sideband Net Daily 6:00 PM
DelMarVa Phone Emergency Net Sunday 6:30 PM
3.910 MHz Louisiana Traffic Net Daily 6:00 PM
3.912 MHz Indiana Traffic Net Daily 6:00 PM
3.915 MHz South Carolina SSB Net Daily 6:00 PM
3.918 MHz Western Penn Phone Traffic Net Daily 4:30 PM
3.920 MHz Kansas Sideband Net Daily 6:30 PM
Kansas Evening Weather Net Daily 6:00 PM
Pennsylvania Fone Net M, W & F 7:00 PM
3.923 MHz Tarheel Emergency Net Daily 6:30 PM
North Carolina Evening Net Daily 5;30 PM
3.925 MHz New York State Phone & EM Net Daily 5:00 PM
3.9275 MHz Kentucky Emergency Net Mon 6:30 PM
3.935 MHz Wolverine Single Sideband Net Daily 4:00 PM
Central Gulf Coast Hurricane Net Daily 6:30 PM
3.940 MHz South Florida Traffic Net Daily 9:30 PM
3.942 MHz Tropical Florida Amateur SSB Net Daily 6:00 PM
3.947 MHz Virgina Sideband Net Daily 5:00 PM
3.950 MHz New Jersey Phone Net Daily 5:00 PM
Northern Florida Phone Net Daily 6:30 PM
3.963 MHz Missouri Traffic Net Daily 5:45 PM
Missouri Emergency Services Net Sunday 6:30 PM
3.965 MHz Alabama Traffic Net Mike Daily 6:00 PM
Alabama Day Net Daily 10:00 AM
Alabama Emergency Net Sunday 4:00 PM
3.970 MHz Iowa 75 Meter Net Mon – Sat 13:30 PM
Iowa 75 Meter Net Mon – Sat 5:30 PM
Iowa Traffic And Emergency Net Sun 6:00 PM
3.9725 MHz Ohio Single Sideband Net Daily 5:30 PM
3.975 MHz Georgia Single Sideband Net Daily 6:00 PM
Georgia Traffic Net Mon – Sat 12:00 PM
Georgia Cracker Net Mon – Sat 6:00 AM
Georgia Cracker Net Sun 7:00 AM
Georgia ARES Net Sun 5:00 PM
3.978 MHz Mass/Rhode Island Phone Net Daily 4:00 PM
3.980 MHz Tennessee Phone Net Mon – Fri 5:40 AM
Tennessee Phone Net Mon – Fri 6:45 AM
Tennessee Phone Net Mon – Sat 6:30 PM
Tennessee Phone Net Sat & Sun 7:00 AM
3.982 MHz Cornhusker Net Daily 5:30 PM
Nebraska Storm Net Daily 6:30 PM
3.9825 Wisconsin Sideband Net Daily 5:15 PM
3.983 MHz Western Penn ARES Voice Net Sat 8:00 PM
3.985 MHz Badger Emergency Net Daily 12:00 PM
Wisconsin Sideband Net Daily 5:15 PM
3.9875 MHz Arkansas Razorback Net Daily 5:25 PM
Arkansas Section Net 1st Monday 6:00 PM
Arkansas Weather Net As Needed
3.995 MHz South Carolina ARES/RACES Net 1st & 3rd Mon 5:00 PM
4.000 MHz End 80 Meter Amateur Band
End 75 Meter Shortwave Band

From 4.000 to 4.063 MHz there is a Fixed / Mobile Band,

From 4.063 to 4.438 MHz is the 4 MHz Marine Band.

The 4 MHz Aeronautical Band lies from 4.650 to 4.750 MHz, however it is lightly used.

The 60 Meter Shortwave Band lies from 4.750 MHz to 4.995 MHz, and is mostly used locally in tropical regions, especially Brazil, although it is widely usable at night.

And finally at 5.000 MHz, you find WWV in Fort Collins Colorado & WWVH – Kekaha, HI broadcasting Time & Frequency Standard signals

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Mark’s Almanac

The Romans called April “Aprilis”, probably from the word “aperire”, which means, “to open”. This time of year being when buds open. It was originally the second month of the Roman calendar, before Roman King Numa Pompilius added January & February in 700 BC.

Freezing weather comes to an end as Birmingham’s average last freeze is April 1, while Tuscaloosa’s is March 26. The record for the latest freeze date is April 21, 1953 for Tuscaloosa and April 23, 1986 for Birmingham.

Snowfall is still possible though, as April 3, 1987’s 5 inches proves. The latest trace of snow was April 25, 1910.

April is less wet than March & rain becomes more localized and less widespread in nature. The sun heats the lower atmosphere near the ground and since the upper atmosphere is still cold, the warm air rises, reaches the dew point line, forms clouds & then it may rain. April is the first time in the spring season that favors local convective activity, which is why you have “April Showers”.

North Atlantic Tropical activity remains at a minimum. From 1851 to 2024 there has never been a Hurricane and only two Tropical Storms – Ana in 2003 and Arlene in 2017 which affected only shipping.

April is peak tornado month, with wide scale outbreaks possible. There are 2 ½ times the number of tornadoes as in March. 25% of the year’s tornadoes will have occurred by April 28.

From April 1950 to 2024, 3045 tornadoes were reported in Alabama. From 1950 – 2024 there were 689 direct and indirect deaths, and 8,448 direct and indirect injuries.

Some notable occurrences include:

April 23, 1908, a “generational” outbreak began that would be called the “Dixie Tornado Outbreak” which killed 320 people. Though Alabama was struck by only 4 of the 29 tornadoes spawned, one was an F4 or a family of long track tornadoes that stayed on the ground for 105 miles for nearly an hour and a half from Walker & Jefferson County, though Blount, Marshall and Dekalb Counties killing 35 and injuring 188.

April 15, 1956, “The McDonalds Chapel Tornado”, an F4 tornado that, killed 25 and injured 200.

April 3 – 4, 1974, also known as “The Day of 100 Tornadoes” or the 1974 Super Outbreak, which killed 315, including 86 in Alabama, which endured 8 of the 148 tornadoes spawned. Of particular note was the F5 tornado that devastated the town of Guin. This was the longest-duration tornado recorded in the outbreak at one hour forty minutes, travelling 79 miles, and is one of the most violent tornadoes ever recorded.

The devastation was so complete in one six block area that NWS damage surveyor Bill Herman, remarked that “It was just like the ground had been swept clean. It was just as much of a total wipeout as you can have”. J.B. Elliot noted that the destruction was so complete that even some of the foundations were “dislodged, and in some cases swept away.”

April 4, 1977, the F5 “Smithfield” tornado struck Jefferson county, killing 22 and injuring 130. One of seven tornadoes that day. This tornado was so devastating that Dr. Ted Fujita initially considered assigning it a rating of F6.

Only two tornadoes have ever had a preliminary F6 rating. The Lubbock Tornado of May 11, 1970, and the Xenia Ohio Tornado of April 3, 1974, both of which were downgraded to F5. The Enhanced Fujita Scale now in use goes to EF5 and, like the Saffir-Simpson hurricane Scale is an open ended scale.

April 8, 1998, an outbreak produced five tornadoes including the F5 “Oak Grove Tornado”, which killed 32 and injured 259.

April 25-28, 2011, would see the next and latest “generational” outbreak producing 360 tornadoes, peaking with 217 on April 27. Of Alabama’s 62 tornadoes, 29 occurred in central Alabama in two distinct waves.

This includes the EF4 tornado, which tore through Tuscaloosa and Jefferson County. A photogenic storm causing heavy damage in Tuscaloosa County and after entering Jefferson County rapidly intensifying to its maximum intensity and width, appearing as an ugly massive wedge tornado as it reached the suburbs of Birmingham, in total killing 64 and injuring 1500.

So, as past Aprils remind us, keep an eye to the sky!

Days continue to grow longer as the Sun’s angle above the noonday horizon rapidly increases from 61.1 degrees at the beginning of the month to 71.3 degrees at the end. Daylight increases from 12 hours 32 minutes on April 1 to 13 hours 29 minutes on April 30.

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

April 1 Sunrise 6:35 AM Sunset 7:08 PM
April 15 Sunrise 6:17 AM Sunset 7:18 PM
April 30 Sunrise 6:00 AM Sunset 7:29 PM

Looking skyward, the Sun, magnitude -26.7 is in Pisces, The Fish.

Mercury, magnitude 3.7, is in Pisces, The Fish, is hidden in the glow of the Sun.

Venus, magnitude –4.2, is in Pisces, The Fish, has emerged into the predawn sky.

At the first of the month, she will rise at 5:26 AM CDT, 1 hour and 6 minutes before the Sun, and reach an altitude of 9° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 6:17 AM CDT.

By midmonth he will rise at 4:36 AM CDT, 1 hour and 38 minutes before the Sun, and reach an altitude of 16° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 5:58 AM CDT.

By the end of the month, she will rise at 4:02 AM CDT, 1 hour and 55 minutes before the Sun and reach an altitude of 19° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 5:41 AM CDT.

Venus, like Mercury, has no moon, most likely because they are too close to the Sun.

Any moon with too great a distance from these planets would be in an unstable orbit and it would be captured by the Sun, and if they were too close to these planets they would be destroyed by planet’s tidal gravitational forces. The zones around these planets where a moon could enter a stable orbit are so narrow that no object was ever captured into orbit, or created from space debris.

But, that doesn’t mean that Venus is necessarily alone, for Venus has a “quasi-satellite” or quasi-moon.

While a traditional moon orbits a planet, a quasi-satellite stays close to a planet while orbiting the Sun in a similar orbit. In this case, it has a more oblong orbit than Venus, which doesn’t exert enough gravity to hold the asteroid in its own orbit. Although the planet’s gravitational influence affects the stability of the quasi-moon orbit, the orbit is so complex and unstable that the gravitational factors of other objects in space will pull it away within about 500 years, at which point it will lose its quasi-satellite status and just be an asteroid.

This companion is called 524522 Zoozve.

Venus’ quasi-moon is the first of its kind to be discovered orbiting the Sun near a major planet and has most likely been its companion for at least 7,000 years. It is between 660 feet and 1,640 feet in diameter based on its brightness.

The object had a preliminary designation as 2002VE, which someone misread on a chart as “Zoozve” and the International Astronomical Union approved the name.

Earth, magnitude -4.0, as viewed from the Sun, and her Moon is in the constellation Virgo, The Virgin, has seven known quasi-satellites.

164207 Cardea (provisional designation 2004 GU9) is a small 525 – 1180 feet asteroid that will hang around the neighborhood until 2600.

(277810) 2006 FV35, provisional designation 2006 FV35, is a 459 – 1050 foot asteroid. It has an orbital period is almost exactly 1 year, but, the orbit is highly eccentric, causing it to cross the
Paths of both Venus and Mars.

2013 LX28, is a 425 – 985 foot asteroid, in a kidney-shaped retrograde orbit around the Earth orbital plane.

2014 OL339 is an Aten 558 foot asteroid moving in a retrograde kidney-shaped path going from east to west relative to Earth. It became a quasi-satellite at least 775 years ago and after a “close” encounter with Earth will cease being one 165 years from now.

469219 Kamoʻoalewa provisionally designated 2016 HO3, is a very small 130 – 33- foot elongated asteroid, and currently the second-smallest, closest, and most stable known such quasi-satellite.

The object’s Earth-like orbit, proximity to the Earth-Moon system, higher spectral reddening to other asteroids, and similarity to space weathered lunar materials indicate that it is likely lunar ejecta, possibly from the lunar far-side highland crust crater, Giordano Bruno.

The name Kamoʻoalewa is derived from the Hawaiian words ka ‘the’, moʻo ‘fragment’, referring to it being a piece broken off a larger object, a ‘of’, and lewa ‘to oscillate’, referring to its motion in the sky as viewed from Earth.

2020 PP1 is a 33 – 100 foot asteroid, and quasi satellite.

2023 FW13 is a newly discovered quasi satellite, spotted on March 28, 2023, from the Pan-STARRS telescope at Hawaii. It has a very eccentric orbit, reaching out halfway to Mars and halfway to Venus. It’s estimated that it has circled Earth since 100 B.C. and will continue until 3700 A.D.

Mars, with his moons Phobos and Deimos, magnitude +0.2, in Gemini, The Twins, is an early evening object.

At the beginning of the month, he will become visible around 7:36 PM CDT, 59° above the southern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then reach his highest point in the sky at 7:47 PM CDT, 80° above the southern horizon. He will continue to be observable until around 1:58 AM CDT, when he sinks below 10° above the western horizon.

Mars will reach his furthest point from the Sun, or Aphelion on April 16 when he will be 154,869,952 miles from the Sun.

By midmonth he becomes visible around 7:50 PM CDT, 76° above the south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 2:21 AM CDT.

By the end of the month, he will become visible around 8:05 PM CDT, 67° above the south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 1:43 AM CDT.

Dwarf Planet Ceres, magnitude 9.2, is in Aquarius, The Water Bearer.

Jupiter, and his 95 moons and (invisible from Earth) ring, magnitude –2.2 is in Taurus, The Bull, is receding into the evening twilight.

At the beginning of the month, he will become visible around 7:22 PM CDT, 57° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting at midnight.

By midmonth he becomes visible around 7:33 PM CDT, 45° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 11:25 PM CDT.

By the end of the month, he will become visible around 7:45 PM CDT, 33° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 10:39 PM CDT.

Saturn, and his swarm of moons and extensive debris ring system, magnitude +1.1, is in Aquarius, The Water Bearer.

The biggest news in the Solar System regards Saturn’s moon. On March 11, 2025, the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center announced the discovery of 128 new moons around Saturn, bringing the total number of moons to 274.

These are potato shaped rocks, some less than 2.5 miles in size.

Saturn will be lost in the glow of the Sun until April 28, when he will emerge into the morning sky rising at 4:17 AM CDT, 1 hour and 42 minutes before the Sun and reach an altitude of 12° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 5:22 AM CDT.

Uranus, and his 28 moons and ring, magnitude +5.8, in Taurus The Bull, is an early evening object, now receding into evening twilight.

At the first of the month he become visible around 8:06 PM CDT, 27° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting 3 hours and 21 minutes after the Sun at 10:28 PM CDT.

On April 8 he will disappear from the night sky being lost in the glow of the Sun.

Neptune, and his 16 moons and ring, magnitude +7.8 in Pisces, The Fish, is hidden in the glow of the Sun.

Dwarf Planet Pluto, the largest Dwarf Planet, with his five moons shines at a dim 14.6 in Capricornus, The Sea Goat.

Dwarf Planet 136108 Haumea, her ring and moons Hiʻiaka and Namaka, shines at a faint magnitude of 17.3 in Bootes, The Herdsman.

Dwarf Planet 136472 Makemake with his moon S/2015 (136472) 1, nicknamed MK1 by the discovery team, shines faintly at magnitude +17.1 in Coma Berenices.

Dwarf Planet 136199 Eris, the second largest Dwarf Planet, and her moon Dysnomia, originally referred to as Xena and Gabrielle, is barely visible in the most powerful telescopes at magnitude +18.7 in Cetus the Sea Monster.

At least six additional bodies with the preliminary criteria for identifying dwarf planets, and though not “officially” declared as such, are generally called dwarf planets by astronomers as well.

90482 Orcus, and his moon Vanth shines at magnitude 19.1 in Sagittarius, The Archer.
.
50000 Quaoar, and his moon Waywot shines at magnitude +18.6 in Pisces, The Fish.

90377 Sedna, the coldest, and at one time, the most distant known place in the Solar System, glows faintly at magnitude +20.9 in Taurus, The Bull.

225088 Gonggong, the third largest Dwarf Planet, originally nicknamed Snow White by the discovery team, and his moon Xiangli glows dimly at +21.5 magnitude in Pisces, The Fish.

2014 UZ224 nicknamed “DeeDee” for “Distant Dwarf” is 8.5 billion miles from the Sun, at magnitude +23.0 in Eridanus, The River.

120347 Salacia, and her moon Actaea glows at magnitude 20.7 in Gemini, The Twins. Salacia is considered a “borderline” Dwarf Planet. Some astronomers saying she “most certainly is a Dwarf Planet”, while others disagreeing based on her size, saying she is too small to have compressed into a fully solid body, to have been resurfaced, or to have collapsed into “hydrostatic equilibrium”, that is to assume spherical shape like a planet.

Currently the most distant observable known object in the Solar System, an asteroid unofficially called Asteroid 2018 AG37, and nicknamed FarFarOut, glows at a barely detectable +25.5 magnitude in Lynx.
s
FarFarOut is currently 12,264,525,210 miles or in Light Time, 18 hours, 17 minutes and 18 seconds from Earth.

The most distant man-made object, Voyager 1, still operating after 47 years, 6 month and 15 days is 15,602,033,032 miles, or in Light Time, 23 hours, 15 minutes 54 Seconds from Earth as of 12:16 PM, March 20, 2025, sailing 38,027 miles per hour through Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer.
Voyager – Mission Status (nasa.gov) & Voyager 1 | TheSkyLive

There are 1,442,263 known asteroids and 4,001 comets as of March 20, 2025 per NASA/JPL Solar Dynamics Website JPL Solar System Dynamics (nasa.gov).

Near Earth Object, asteroid 99942 Apophis, is expected to pass within 19,794 miles of the Earth on Friday, April 13, 2029.

Apophis, magnitude +20.6, in Piscis, The Fish, is 162,668,840 miles or 1484 days from the Earth as of 1:33 PM, , February 21, 2025.

Asteroid 2024 YR4, which will pass though the Earth – Moon system on Wednesday, December 22, 2032, dimly glows at magnitude +26.3, in Cancer, The Crab. It currently is 91,671,126 Miles or 2834 days from the Earth as of 12:43 PM March 20, 2025.

5,862 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of March 18, 2025, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/.

First Quarter Moon, or when the moon has only the Western side illuminated, will occur April 4 at 9:16 PM or 02:16 UTC on April 5.

During the Quarter Moons the Moon’s magnitude is -10.0.

April’s Full Moon will occur on April 12 at 7:23 PM CST or 00:24 UTC April 13. This full moon was known by early Native American tribes as the Pink Moon because it marked the appearance of the moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the first spring flowers. This moon has also been known as the Sprouting Grass Moon, the Growing Moon, and the Egg Moon. Many coastal tribes called it the Fish Moon because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn.

This moon has also been known as the Full Crow Moon, the Full Crust Moon, the Full Sap Moon, and the Lenten Moon.

During a Full Moon the Moon’s magnitude is -12.7.

This month’s Full Moon is a Micromoon, as it is occurring as the Moon is near her farthest distance from the Earth 252,062 miles.

The Moon will be at Apogee or its farthest distance from Earth on April 13, when she will be 252,460 miles from Earth.

Last Quarter Moon, or when the moon has only the Eastern side illuminated, will occur April 20 at 8:37 PM CDT or 01:37 UTC April 21

During the Quarter Moons the Moon’s magnitude is -10.0.

The Lyrid Meteor Shower which, runs annually from April 16 – 25, peaks on the evening of April 22 and morning of April 23. This is a average shower, with only 12 to 24 meteors per hour. These meteors sometimes produce bright dust trails that last for several seconds.

This shower is produced by dust particles left behind by comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher, which was discovered in 1861.

The thin crescent moon will not pose much of a problem so this should be a good show. Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Lyra, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

The Moon will be at Perigee or her closest approach to Earth on April 27, when she will be 221,903 miles from Earth.

New Moon will occur on April 27 at 2:33 PM CDT or 19:33 UTC. The Moon will be located on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters because there is no moonlight to interfere.

Because this New Moon will occur at her closest approach to Earth, this will be a Super New Moon.

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The CQ Worldwide WPX SSB Contest will occur March 29 & the ARRL SSB Rookie Roundup will take place on April 13. For more information see WA7BNM Contest Calendar: 12-Month Calendar

This month’s meeting will be on April 8 at 7PM.

The meeting will held at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Calera.

Mark Wells
WD4NYL

Hi Everyone,

The 2025 Birminghamfest is almost here, and I hope you can attend!

This event will be held at the Trussville Civic Center on Friday February 28 from 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM and Saturday, March 1 from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM.

The address is:

5381 Trussville-Clay Road
Trussville, AL 35173

There will be forums, vendors, ham radio testing and a flea market with parts and equipment needing a new home.

Admission is $10, which includes 1 prize ticket. Children under 12 will be admitted for free.

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

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ALERT Election Committee

In accordance with ARTICLE V, Section 1 of the ALERT Constitution and Bylaws, this month’s meeting will feature the selection of the two person Nominating Committee for the upcoming elections in May.

President will appoint a Nominating Committee of 2 voting members. That Committee will contact members about serving as officers. Since there are no term limits for current officers, if the Committee can hornswoggle them into serving another term, or rather, continue in the fine job they have been doing, that’s copacetic.

The Nominating Committee will present its report at the April meeting for all the voting members to review. Nominations from the floor will be accepted at the meeting of the elections in May.

Originally the elected Officers of ALERT were:

President
Vice-President / Membership
Treasurer
Secretary
NWS Liaison
Operations
Training
Public Information

Over the years, as circumstances dictated, the process has evolved or perhaps devolved, out of necessity, both due to the chaos wreaked by Covid 19, and a shortage of willing volunteers so that the elected positions have become:

President
Vice President
Treasurer & Membership
Secretary

NWS Liaison has been faithfully performed for decades by Russell KV4S. If no one ever says thank you for this, Russell, know that what you are doing is much appreciated. You are the backbone of the callout process. Thank you so very much!

Operations, Training and Public Relations duties have been met informally by other members or Officers, even though there might not have been an “official” Official in place.

As to the Board of Directors, it is composed of the President, immediate past President, Trustee of the station and 2 operational “At Large” members appointed by the President.

I have served as the 2 year “At Large” member for some time now, and I have done an abysmal job of doing so, as job duties and other circumstances have kept me absent from meetings, either live or via Teams, which I can’t seem to remember how to work. For this I sincerely apologize.

Both “At Large” positions are open for appointment by the President in 2025. They are not elected positions; the President chooses them.

Please plan on attending the March meeting & don’t be shy about volunteering to serve on the Committee or to make yourself available for a leadership role. All it takes is a willing heart and once elected a commitment to faithfully fulfill your duties of office to the best of your abilities.

We need you to be actively involved in ALERT’s leadership and to help us build a strong ALERT organization for the future.

Your time has arrived.

Your ALERT needs you.

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A Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Radio Frequency Spectrum – Part 1

Amateur Radio is one of the most enjoyable, “coolest” hobbies around. Whether you enjoy contesting, looooooooooong draaaaawn out rag chews, public service or just lurking and listening, there is something out there waiting for you.

There are so many options and modes out there, from FT8 and other digital forms, voice and CW, and so many bands to choose from. Each with its own unique characteristics and range. Whether you want to talk locally or across the world, if the Sun cooperates, and depending on the time of day, there is a place for you.

The following are the band plans for the ham radio world, with a few other realms thrown in.

By learning these you can know where to effectively transmit and how to know when something special is occurring. For instance, band openings bringing in stations you usually don’t hear on a regular basis. By learning, listening and using these bands you can tell the usual from the unusual. You can be the “expert” on your favorite band in a very short time.

As the line from the old song Limbo Rock says “how low can you go?”

And the answer for us is waaaaay down low. Or as Elvis sang “way on dooooown.”

The lowest Amateur Radio Band is the 2,200 Meter Band, which is the only Low Frequency / Long Wave Amateur Radio band.

2,200 Meters, which stretches from 135.7 – 137.8 kHz, is available for General, Advanced and Extra licensees for CW, phone and data operations with 1 Watt EIRP.

This band is heavily affected by natural and manmade interference and distance is limited by signal absorption by the D layer of the ionosphere during the daytime, not unlike the AM Broadcast Band, similarly after sunset longer distances can be achieved.

The equipment used is usually homebrew and very slow speed CW or QRSS seems to be the preferred mode.

Most modern HF ham radios can receive this frequency range, as usually they cover from 30 – 100 kHz to 30.000 MHz. There is a problem though, in that many of these receivers, for example the Yaesu FT-450 & Kenwood TS-570, automatically activate a 20 dB attenuator below 1.8 MHz, which effective kills weak signal reception below 1.8 MHz, including the AM Broadcast Band. Much to the chagrin of AM DXer’s like me. The tiny Yaesu FT-817 does not do this, however, so my hope is not lost.

The best receiver I have used for this realm is an ancient Radio Shack DX-300 receiver and a homemade loop antenna. With that and 1,000 feet or so of random wire going along a fence line. I could receive the Russian Alpha Navigation Beacons on 10.9 kHz.

If one wishes to use this band they are required to first register with the Utilities Technology Council online at https://utc.org/plc-database-amateur-notification-process, giving their intent to operate by submitting their call signs, the intended bands of operation, and the coordinates of their antenna’s fixed location.

Amateur stations are permitted to commence operations after a 30 day period unless UTC notifies the station that its fixed location is within one kilometer or 0.621 miles of Power Line Carrier (PLC) systems operating on the same or overlapping frequencies. This is intended to ensure that amateur stations are located beyond a minimum separation distance from PLC transmission lines, which helps promote shared use of the bands.

Though the US currently has no detailed band plan, the IARU Region 1 (Africa, Europe, Middle East, and northern Asia) band plan may serve as a guide

135.7–136.0 kHz – Station Tests and transatlantic reception window
136.0–137.4 kHz – Telegraphy
137.4–137.6 kHz – Digital modes
137.6–137.8 kHz – Very slow telegraphy centered on 137.7 kHz

Just above this band lies a sparsely used AM broadcast band stretching from 148.5 and 283.5 kHz used in Europe, Africa, and large parts of Asia.

Nestled in this band is a real of critters known as a “LowFERs”.

LowFERs or “Low Frequency Experimental Radio”, are unlicensed experimental stations that operate below the AM Broadcast Band from 160 – 190 kHz, with up to 1 Watt using a 3 meter (9.84 feet) antenna.

Most LowFER activity is in the form of CW beacons, though actual CW QSO’s do occur, and with good band conditions and a lot of luck, 100 – 300 miles or more range is possible during winter nights.

LowFER activity is hindered by interference from power line control carriers, utility stations and if the conditions are VERY good, the broadcasters from Europe and Africa.

From 190 – 525 kHz lie the realm of Aviation Non Directional Beacons. Though there are still some that cheerfully send their CW ID’s, such as “BH” from Birmingham’s Mcden NDB on 224 kHz, many have shut down, opting for satellite options instead. In the 1970’s & 80’s the band was a jingle jangle of CE ID’s from all over the Southeast. It was fun using an aeronautical chart trying to figure out where the signals that we’re drifting in and out we’re located.

Crossing 300 kHz we enter the Medium Frequency / Medium Wave bands

Within this spread we find the first Medium Frequency ham band – the 630 Meter Band.

From 405 to 525 kHz lies the low Medium Wave Maritime Band. Nestled within that band is the 630 Meter Amateur Band

630 Meters, which stretches from 473 – 479 kHz, is available for General, Advanced and Extra licensees for CW, phone and data operations with 5 Watt EIRP, except in Alaska within 496 from Russia, where hams are limited to 1 Watt EIRP.

This band has the same propagation characteristics as the lower AM Broadcast Band – for example during the day I can receive country music from WSM in Nashville on 650 kHz, 180 miles away and at night elevator music from “Radio Enciclopedia” – CMBR in Havana on 530 kHz, 766 miles away.

One informal band plan is:

472.0 – 479.0 kHz – Telegraphy
474.2 kHz CW Calling Frequency
474.5 – 479.0 kHz – Digital Modes
476.0 – 479.0 kHz – SSB

As with 2,200 Meters, users must first register with the Utilities Technology Council online at https://utc.org/plc-database-amateur-notification-process/.

You need to only register once for each band

From 530 to 1700 kHz lies the AM Broadcast Band, which in the Americas are divided into 10 kHz spaced channels. In the rest of the world the channels use 9 kHz spacing. In fact, during exceptional conditions, stations from Europe may appear between the 10 kHz US, Canadian and Mexican stations.

From Birmingham I hear signals out to 180 miles and at night the entire eastern United States and Canada, as well as Cuba and Mexico. The Farthest west I have received from Birmingham is KSL 1160 kHz in Salt Lake City and PJB3 800 kHz from Bonaire in the Netherlands Antilles, very late at night when youth allowed me to stay up all night listening to static and left no ill effect. Unfortunately, the Bluebird of Youth flew south for the winter one day and decided to stay.

One asset of the AM Broadcast band that may prove crucial are Primary Entry Point Radio Stations

Primary Entry Point, or “PEP” stations, officially known as the National Public Warning System, are a network of 77 privately owned commercial and non-commercial radio broadcast stations, usually in the medium wave AM broadcast band, that cooperatively participate with FEMA to provide emergency alert and warning information to the public before, during, and after a national or local emergency.

PEP stations are located throughout the country and have a direct link to FEMA and serve as the primary broadcast source for Presidential National Emergency Alert System (EAS) messages. PEP stations network to other broadcast stations to disseminate messages throughout the country.

In a widespread disaster they would be vital information sources if the local infrastructure is down.

During more localized emergencies State and local public safety officials can utilize EAS and FEMA PEP stations when they are not in use for National EAS warning messages.

PEP stations are “hardened” with additional broadcasting equipment, backup communications equipment, power generators, fuel systems, emergency provisions, a rest area, and an air filtration system. The stations have been enhanced into shelters with increased survivability from chemical, biological, radiological air protection and protection from an electromagnetic pulse or EMP.

They are designed to enable them to continue broadcasting information to the public during and after a catastrophic national event.

North Alabama’s PEP station is WJOX 690 kHz in Birmingham, which normally broadcasts at 50,000 watts during the day and only 500 watts during nighttime hours. But, as they say “I bet they can crank that puppy up to full power if they needed to.”

If there was a national emergency FEMA’s PEP National Operating Center would signal the state’s Point Entry Station, in our case WJOX, which in turn will signal state relay, the Alabama Public Television Network which in turn signal State Public Radio Network and Global Security System Satellite Net, composed of broadcast stations, such as in Birmingham, WJOX AM 690 kHz, WJOX FM 94.5 MHz, WZZK FM 104.7 MHz, WUAL FM 91.5 MHz in Tuscaloosa and so forth. From there the notification is spread on down the emergency notification and outlet line.

Other PEP stations of note would be WSM 650 kHz in Nashville, TN, which I can receive day or night, WWL 870 kHz in New Orleans and KMOX 1120 kHz in St. Louis, Mo. All of which are standard features of the nighttime AM radio band.

For a full map of PEP Radio Stations go to Primary Entry Point (PEP) AM Radio Stations – Miscellaneous – Fort Worth Forum

For more information on Alabama’s plan see 2017-ALABAMA-EAS-PLAN-072717.pdf

In the early days of radio, hams we’re considered a nuisance and so we were relegated to the “useless” frequencies above 200 Meters or above 1500 kHz. Then the “useless frequencies” proved to be capable of long distance communications and so the government said “gimme those frequencies back”, reserving certain bands for Amateur use.

The oldest ham band is the 160 Meter Band.

160 Meters, stretching from 1.800 – 2.000 MHz is sometimes referred to as the “Top Band” as it had the longest wavelength or the “Gentleman’s Band”, as it is known for long casual contacts. .

Some Contests which are held on 160 Meters are:

CQ 160 Meter Contest – CW – January
CQ 160 Meter Contest – SSB – February
ARRL 160 Meter Contest – December
Stew Perry Top Band Challenge – March, June, October and December

For specific dates go to WA7BNM Contest Calendar: Perpetual Calendar
The ARRL band plan is as follows:

1.800 – 2.000 MHz – CW
1.800 – 1.810 MHz – Digital Modes
1.810 MHz CW QRP
1.840 MHz FT8
1.843 – 2.000 MHz LSB, SSTV, and other wideband modes
1.910 MHz LSB QRP
1.995 – 2.000 MHz Experimental
1.999 – 2.000 MHz Beacons

Propagation is similar to that of the upper AM Broadcast Band.

The following is a list of tips, slanted toward the DX aspect of operation on 160 Meters, to help you enjoy your experience on 160.

Put out as much wire as possible for your transmit antenna. This is the biggest drawback to operating on 160 Meters – antenna length. A simple 160 meter dipole antenna is 250 long. My dinky yard is nowhere close to that size. A full sized antennat wouldn’t even fit my next two neighbors yards, though there is a temptation to sneak one in. “Burglar protection”. They might believe it. I’m going to figure something out sooner than later.

Some say, “work with the utility company and/or neighbors to fix noise sources”. Right, good luck with that.

“Listen, listen, listen”. That’s a good idea, on any band, especially if you are calling CQ. Listen for a couple of seconds before droning on. Many call CQ, few seem to listen.

Know when the desired path is in or very near darkness. Pay particular attention to sunrise and sunset times. Check paths to the southwest at your sunrise and southeast at your sunset.

In between the ham and medium and shortwave bands are marine, aeronautical, military and fixed bands and rogue shortwave stations – licensed but not located in a normal band. These transmissions, except for broadcast, are USB, RTTY and occasional CW.

Though some believe everything has switched to satellite, the world’s militaries still use MF and HF frequencies. Usually unencrypted and usually using USB. They also use the area from 30 to 35 MHz FM. That’s why you see Humvees with CB like whip antennas. They are using Low VHF frequencies. Again, usually unencrypted. If 10 meters is open and you have a scanner, scan those VHF Low frequencies. You never know what you may hear.

Here’s another operating hint – if a ham band seems dead, tune above and below them. The area between the ham bands may be crawling with signals, which lets you know that the ham band isn’t dead at all, just no one is talking. So, go back to that band and start calling CQ – someone may be just waiting for your signal.

Moving up the dial, you will find activity on the 2.000 – 2.300 MHz – Marine Band

The 120 Meter Mediumwave Broadcast Ban, is from 2.300 – 2.495 MHz and don’t forget WWV in Ft. Collins, Co and WWVH in Kekaha, HI which broadcast time and frequency standard signals on 2.500 MHz.

Another Marine Band lies from 2.450 – 2.850 MHz and an Aeronautical Band lies at 2.850 – 3.155 MHz.

Who knows what you may find.

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Mark’s Almanac

Originally called Martius, March is the third month & first month of the Roman calendar. March is named for Mars, the god of war, and was the start of the military campaign season.

The beginning of “Meteorological Spring”, which is based on changes in temperature and precipitation, not the solar angle, is March 1

March is a wet month. Most floods occur in March and rainfall averages around 6 inches.
Tornadic activity sharply increases in March with there being an increase of 2.2 times the number of tornadoes over the February amount. The focal point for this tornadic activity is the Gulf States.

March is the hail maximum for the Deep South. This is due both to the number of thunderstorms & due to the freezing level still being near the surface. This allows hail to form at lower altitudes and reach the ground intact, as opposed to summer months, when the freezing level is higher and near surface level temperatures are higher melting the hail into liquid before impact.

North Atlantic Tropical activity remains at a minimum. From 1851 to 2024 there has been only one Hurricane to occur. A 100 MPH unnamed Hurricane which affected the Lesser Antilles in March 6- 9, 1908. Some sources also cite a pre-Civil War Tropical Storm also occurring, but others do not.

South Atlantic Tropical activity doesn’t have a sharp peak as the North Atlantic season does in September, however currently March has a thin lead in activity, as from 1957 – 2024 there have been 92 identified Tropical or Subtopical Storms, including the only known South Atlantic Hurricane – Hurricane Catarina which struck Brazil March 28, 2004.

Brazilian authorities at first were unwilling to admit that Catarina was a hurricane, for up until that time is was considered impossible for the South Atlantic to generate a tropical system, due to wind shear, cold sea surface temperatures and the lack of storm systems from which a storm could develop. With extensive damage from an impossible storm looking at them, they finally reluctantly agreed that maybe NOAA’s opinion was right.

Meanwhile, back in Alabama…

Killing frosts are gone and the last average frost is on March 16.

March is a snow month for Alabama & there is a 45% chance of snow up to one inch, and an 8% chance of one inch or more.

The good news is that there is hope on the horizon as Spring will arrive at Vernal Equinox on March 19 at 10:06 PM CDT or 03:06 UTC March 20.

The Sun will shine directly on the equator and there will be nearly equal amounts of day and night throughout the world. This is also the first day of fall, or Autumnal Equinox, in the Southern Hemisphere.

Remember to get the eggs out, as it is said that you can stand eggs on their ends at the hour of equinox.

You might also think about the Aurora, for Auroras love equinoxes. At this time of year, the interplanetary magnetic field or IMF can link up with Earth’s magnetic field, prying open cracks. Solar wind then pours in to fuel displays of the aurora borealis with no geomagnetic storm required. Researchers call this the Russell-McPherron Effect, named after the physicists who first described it in the 1970s

If you do see them be cautioned though, for among some northern Native American tribes it is said that as you are looking at the northern lights do not wave sing or whistle at them. Alerted to your presence the spirits of the lights will come down and take you away.

This month sees the return of Ruby Throated Humming Birds and the Giant Yellow Sulfur Butterflies that migrated south during the Fall and the clouds of pollen that we love so well.

Days grow longer as the Sun’s angle above the noonday horizon rapidly increases from 49.0 degrees at the beginning of the month to 60.7 degrees at the end. Daylight increases from 11 hours 28 minutes on March 1 to 12 hours 30 minutes on March 31.

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

March 1 Sunrise 6:16 AM Sunset 5:44 PM
March 15 Sunrise 6:58 AM Sunset 6:55 PM
March 31 Sunrise 6:36 AM Sunset 7:07 PM *Daylight Savings Time

Why the sunrise is later midmonth as opposed to the first and the last of the month is due to a combination of the quirks in the Earth’s orbit, it’s axial tilt and it being near equinox affecting the length of day based on sunlight as opposed to the measurement of time based on the Earth’s rotation.

Daylight Savings Time begins at 2 AM on March 9. So, remember to “spring forward” one hour. This, of course means I will lose one hour of “beauty sleep”, which is something I desperately need.

I don’t particularly care for Daylight Savings Time. I share the same opinion I found on the “Republic Of Lakotah” website:

When told the reason for daylight saving time the old Native American said…“Only a white man would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom of a blanket and have a longer blanket.”

Saint Patrick’s Day is Thursday March 17, and you might better participate by wearing a Touch O’ The Green or you will be plagued by leprechauns and gnomes. Not a pleasant experience, I can assure you.

Looking skyward, the Sun, magnitude -26.8 is in Aquarius, The Water Bearer.

Mercury, magnitude -1.3, in Aquarius The Water Bearer, is an early evening object.

At the beginning of the month, he will become visible around 5:58 PM CST, 10° above the south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will continue to be observable until he sets around 6:53 PM CST.

Mercury will reach his greatest separation from the Sun, or Greatest Eastern Elongation, February 7, and will reach his highest point in the sky in his February – March 2025 evening apparition on February 8, when he will be shining brightly at magnitude -0.4, 16° above the horizon.

By midmonth he will become invisible, having receded into the glow of the Sun on February 12.

Mercury’s 88 day orbit around the Sun will carry it to its closest point to the Sun – its perihelion on March 4.

Mercury will pass between the Sun and the Earth, or be in Inferior Conjunction on March 24.

Venus, magnitude –4.9, in Piscis, The Fish, shines brightly in evening sky.

At the first of the month, she becomes visible at around 5:58 PM CST, 25° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. She will then sink towards the horizon, setting 2 hours and 23 minutes after the Sun at 8:06 PM CST.

As the month progresses she will rapidly recede towards the Sun.

By midmonth he becomes visible at 8:09 PM CDT, 8° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. She will then sink towards the horizon, setting 1 hour and 1 minute after the Sun at 8:55 PM CDT.

She will disappear from the night sky on March 16 and will pass between the Sun and the Earth, or be in Inferior Conjunction on March 24.

She will emerge in the predawn skies on March 30, rising at 6:35 AM CDT, 1 hour and 0 minutes before the Sun, reaching an altitude of 8° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 7:19 AM CDT.

Earth and her Moon, magnitude -4.0, as viewed from the Sun, is in Virgo, The Virgin.

Dwarf Planet Ceres, magnitude +9.0, is in Aquarius, The Water Bearer.

Mars, with his moons Phobos and Deimos, magnitude +0.5, in Gemini, The Twins, is an evening object.

At the beginning of the month, he will become visible around 6:05 PM CST, 59° above the eastern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then reach its highest point in the sky at 8:21, 82° above the southern horizon. He will continue to be observable until around 2:45 AM CST, when he sinks below 9° above the north-western horizon.

The Moon will pass 1.7° north of Mars on March 8.

By midmonth he becomes accessible around 8:20 PM CDT, 71° above the eastern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then reach its highest point in the sky at 9:34 PM CDT, 81° above the southern horizon. He will continue to be observable until around 3:52 AM CDT, when he sinks below 9° above the north-western horizon.

By the end of the month, he will become accessible around 8:35 PM CDT, 80° above the southern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then reach his highest point in the sky at 8:49 PM CDT, 80° above the southern horizon. He will continue to be observable until around 3:01 AM CDT, when he sinks below 10° above the western horizon.

Jupiter, and his 95 moons and (invisible from Earth) ring, magnitude -2.4, is in Taurus, The Bull, is an early evening object and is receding into the evening twilight.

At the beginning of the month, he will become visible around 5:58 PM CST, 78° above the southern horizon, as dusk fades into darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 12:53 AM CST.

By midmonth he becomes accessible around 8:09 PM CDT, 70° above the south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 2:05 AM CDT.

By the end of the month, he will become visible at around 8:21PM CDT, 58° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 1:12 AM CDT.

Saturn, magnitude +1.1, and his 146 moons and extensive debris ring system, is in Aquarius, The Water Bearer, is lost in the glow of the Sun.

Saturn will pass behind the Sun, or be in Solar Conjunction on March 12.
Earth will cross Saturn’s ring plane on March 23 and his rings will disappear from view.

Saturn, like the Earth, is tilted on its axis. Saturn’s axial tilt is 26.7°, and as the planet’s 29.4 year orbit progresses, the rings angle changes with time as viewed from the Earth. Every 13 to 15 years, or about every half Saturn year, the rings will appear edge on when viewed from Earth.

This provides scientists with opportunities to study the rings structure and thickness.

Unfortunately, this year, the planet will be masked by the Sun.

Uranus, magnitude +5.8, and his 27 moons and ring, in Aries, The Ram, early evening object, now receding into evening twilight.

At the first of the month he becomes visible at around 6:42 PM CST, 57° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 11:24 PM CST.

By midmonth he will become visible around 8:53 PM CDT, 43° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 12:31 AM CDT.

At month’s end he visible at around 9:06 PM CDT, 28° above the western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. He will then sink towards the horizon, setting 3 hours and 26 minutes after the Sun at 11:32 PM CDT.

Neptune, magnitude +7.8, and his 14 moons and ring, in Pisces, The Fish, is lost in the glow of the Sun.

He will pass close to the Sun or be in Conjunction on March 19,

Dwarf Planet Pluto, the largest Dwarf Planet, with his five moons shines at a dim 14.6 in Capricornus, The Sea Goat.

Dwarf Planet 136108 Haumea, her ring and moons Hiʻiaka and Namaka, shines at a faint magnitude of 17.3 in Bootes, The Herdsman.

Dwarf Planet 136472 Makemake with his moon S/2015 (136472) 1, nicknamed MK1 by the discovery team, shines faintly at magnitude +17.1 in Coma Berenices.

Dwarf Planet 136199 Eris, the second largest Dwarf Planet, and her moon Dysnomia, originally referred to as Xena and Gabrielle, is barely visible in the most powerful telescopes at magnitude +18.7 in Cetus the Sea Monster.

At least six additional bodies with the preliminary criteria for identifying dwarf planets, and though not “officially” declared as such, are generally called dwarf planets by astronomers as well.

90482 Orcus, and his moon Vanth shines at magnitude 19.1 in Ophiuchus, The Serpent Bearer.
.
50000 Quaoar, and his moon Waywot shines at magnitude +18.6 in Pisces, The Fish.

90377 Sedna, the coldest, and at one time, the most distant known place in the Solar System, glows faintly at magnitude +20.8 in Taurus, The Bull.

225088 Gonggong, the third largest Dwarf Planet, originally nicknamed Snow White by the discovery team, and his moon Xiangli glows dimly at +21.5 magnitude in Pisces, The Fish.

2014 UZ224 nicknamed “DeeDee” for “Distant Dwarf” is 8.5 billion miles from the Sun, at magnitude +23.0 in Eridanus, The River.

120347 Salacia, and her moon Actaea glows at magnitude 20.7 in Gemini, The Twins. Salacia is considered a “borderline” Dwarf Planet. Some astronomers saying she “most certainly is a Dwarf Planet”, while others disagreeing based on her size, saying she is too small to have compressed into a fully solid body, to have been resurfaced, or to have collapsed into “hydrostatic equilibrium”, that is to assume spherical shape like a planet.

Currently the most distant observable known object in the Solar System, an asteroid unofficially called Asteroid 2018 AG37, and nicknamed FarFarOut, glows at a barely detectable +25.5 magnitude in Lynx.

FarFarOut is currently 12,235,630,414 miles or in Light Time, 18 hours, 14 minutes and 43 seconds from Earth.

The most distant man-made object, Voyager 1, still operating after 47 years, 5 month and 16 days is 15,566,282,017 miles, or in Light Time, 23 hours, 12 minutes 42 Seconds from Earth as of 1:19 PM, February 21, 2025, sailing 38,027 miles per hour through Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer.
Voyager – Mission Status (nasa.gov) & Voyager 1 | TheSkyLive

There are 1,438,652 known asteroids and 3,994 comets as of February 21, 2025 per NASA/JPL Solar Dynamics Website JPL Solar System Dynamics (nasa.gov).

Near Earth Object, asteroid 99942 Apophis, is expected to pass within 19,794 miles of the Earth on Friday, April 13, 2029.

Apophis, magnitude +20.1, in Aquarius The Waterbearer, is 160,717,505 miles or 1511 days from the Earth as of 1:33 PM, , February 21, 2025.

A newcomer to our world of worries is an Apollo Type (Earth Crossing) Near Earth Object, asteroid 2024 YR4.

Discovered by the Chilean station of the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) at Río Hurtado on 27 December 2024, this 131 – 295 foot rock had a 3.1% chance of striking the Earth on Wednesday, December 22, 2032. Now it has been reduced to 0.001% to according to the European Space Agency or 0.0027% according to NASA.

If this object we’re to strike the Earth, it would NOT be an extinction level event, but would be large enough to destroy a city. The current risk corridor is a band near the equator stretching from just west of Central America, crossing northern South America, crossing the Atlantic, central Africa and southern Saudi Arabia, the Arabian Sea and Central India.

2024 YR4 has visited us before. It passed 515,000 miles from the Earth on December 25, 2024, two days before it’s discovery, and will pass 4,965,000 miles ± 122,000 miles on December 17, 2028.

With NASA’s estimated diameter, mass, and density for 2024 YR4, if it were to impact Earth at its predicted velocity at atmospheric entry of 10.76 miles per second, the asteroid would release energy equivalent to 7.8 megatons of TNT, causing damage as far as 50 miles from the impact site.

Due to its stony composition, this would more likely produce a meteor air burst rather than an impact crater if it strikes a continent or a tsunami if it struck an ocean.

There is also a 1% chance that 2024 Yr4 will hit the Moon, with a potential impact zone extending from just south of Mare Crisium, a solidified lava plain, to Tycho, an ancient crater, all located on the visible side of the waning gibbous Moon.

The 2028 encounter will allow astronomers to tweak the forecast, which I wouldn’t be surprised (or disappointed) if it turns out to be a non-event.

2024 YR4, magnitude +24.7, in Cancer, The Crab, is 54,089,35 Miles or 2861 days from the Earth as of 2:25 PM February 21, 2025

5,834 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of February 12, 2025, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/.

The Moon will be at Perigee or its closest approach to Earth on March , when she will be 224,916 miles from Earth.

First Quarter Moon, or when the moon has only the Western side illuminated, will occur March 6 at 10:33 AM CST or 16:33 UTC.

During a Quarter Moon the Moon’s magnitude is -10.0.

March’s Full Moon will occur on March 14 at 1:56 AM CDT or 6:56 UTC. This full moon was known by early Native American tribes as “Worm Moon”. So called because the rains disturb the earthworms & they are seen wiggling around after the rains.

This moon has also been known as the Full Crow Moon, the Full Crust Moon, the Full Sap Moon, and the Lenten Moon.

This month’s Full Moon is a Micromoon, as it is occurring as the Moon is near her farthest distance from the Earth, 249,398 miles

During a Full Moon the Moon’s magnitude is -12.7.

There will be a Total Lunar Eclipse on March 14. The eclipse, which some style as a Blood Moon will be visible throughout all North America, Mexico, Central America, and South America.

The eclipse will begin at 10:57 PM CDT
Partial Eclipse begins at 12:09 AM CDT
Total Eclipse begins at 1:26 AM CDT
Maximum eclipse will occur at 1:58 AM CDT
Total Eclipse ends at 2:31 AM CDT
Partial eclipse ends at 3:47 AM CDT
The eclipse ends at 5:00 AM CDT

The Moon will be at Apogee or its farthest distance from Earth on March 23 when she will be 252,124 miles from Earth.

Vernal Equinox occurs at 4:01 AM CDT or 09:01 UTC March 20. The Sun will shine directly on the equator and there will be nearly equal amounts of day and night throughout the world. This is also the first day of fall, autumnal equinox, in the Southern Hemisphere.

The name “Vernal” comes from the Latin vernālis, which means “of those things pertaining to the spring”.

Last Quarter Moon, or when the moon has only the Eastern side illuminated, will occur March 22, at 6:32 AM CST or 11:32 UTC.

During a Quarter Moon the Moon’s magnitude is -10.0.

New Moon will occur on March 29 at 6:02 AM CDT or 11:00 UTC. The Moon will be located on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters because there is no moonlight to interfere.

You have heard of a “Supermoon”, which occurs when a Full Moon occurs at her nearest point to the Earth. When a New Moon occurs near her closest point to Earth, in this case 222,902 miles, it is known as a Super New Moon.

Eclipses usually come in pairs. The second eclipse with be a Partial Solar Eclipse on March 29.

A partial solar eclipse occurs when the Moon covers only a part of the Sun, sometimes resembling a bite taken out of a cookie.

This partial eclipse will be visible throughout Greenland and most of northern Europe and northern Russia. It will be best seen from Canada with 93% coverage, but alas, it will still be dark in Birmingham.

The Moon will be at Perigee or its closest distance from Earth on March 29 when she will be 222,530 miles from Earth.

The celestial carnivores are emerging from hibernation. After dinnertime at this time of year, five carnivore constellations are rising upright in a ragged row from the northeast to south. They’re all seen in profile with their noses pointed up and their feet (if any) to the right. These are The Great Bear, Ursa Major in the northeast, with the Big Dipper as its brightest part, Leo the Lion in the east, Hydra the Sea Serpent in the southeast, The Lesser Dog, Canis Minor higher in the south-southeast, and The Greater Dog, bright Canis Major in the south.

Sirius, shining at magnitude −1.46, the brightest nighttime star, blazes high in the south on the meridian, in Canis Major by about 8 or 9 p.m. Using binoculars, you will find a fuzzy spot 4 degrees south of Sirius, directly below it when the constellation is directly South. Four degrees is somewhat less than the width of a typical binocular’s field of view.

That dim little patch of gray haze is open star cluster Messier 41, a small gravitationally bound group of 100 stars about 2,200 light-years away and moving away from us at 869 miles per second. Sirius, by comparison, is only 8.6 light-years away.

Canopus, shining at magnitude -0.72, making it the second-brightest star after Sirius, lies 36° almost due south of Sirius. That’s far enough south that it never appears above the horizon if you are above latitude 37° N, such as southern Virginia, southern Missouri and central California. Luckily we lie south of that latitude, with our horizon lying, in the case of Central Alabama, around latitude 33°.

Canopus is located in the southern constellation Carina, The Keel, part of the defunct constellation Argo Navis, the ship of Jason and the Argonauts who searched for the Golden Fleece.

The constellation of Argo was introduced in ancient Greece. However, due to the massive size of Argo Navis and the sheer number of stars that required separate designation, Nicolas Louis de Lacaille divided Argo into three sections in 1763, including Carina, the Hull or Keel, Puppis, the Poop Deck, and Vela the Sails.

In the 19th century, these three became established as separate constellations, and were formally included in the list of 88 modern IAU constellations in 1930.

Canopus, 313 light years away, crosses low above the horizon, due south just 21 minutes before Sirius and is worthy of a peak.

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The ARRL International DX Contest, Sideband version is March 1
WA7BNM Contest Calendar: Contest Details & ARRL DX

The CQ Worldwide WPX Contest – Sideband version is March 29 WA7BNM Contest Calendar: Contest Details & CQ WPX – Rules

This month’s ALERT meeting will be on March 11 at 7PM.

The meeting will be held at the National Weather Service Forecast Office at the Shelby County Airport in Calera.

I hope to see you there!

Mark Wells
WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter