ALERT NEWSLETTER – April 2019

Hi Everyone,

I hope this finds you well, amongst the piles and drifts of pollen.

The world looks as if it has been dusted with sulfur, and I can only hope that fire doesn’t join the brimstone dust that I am seeing everywhere.

Our next ALERT meeting will feature the Nominating Committee’s report of their search for the 2019 – 2020 ALERT Officers.

If you are interested in serving as an ALERT Officer, and have been a voting/operational member in good standing for over a year, let Justin Glass or Bill Rodgers know!

Barring unforeseen circumstances, the election for ALERT officers will be held at our May meeting.

One operational note. If you receive a text message or email when a callout is issued, and you are interested in responding, please call the number given in the message so you can be scheduled. If you respond via text or message, please indicate who you are by name and callsign. If you just reply “I’m available”, but, don’t indicate who you are, we may have no clue who you are.

For example, just receiving “I’m available” from skunkyhunk85@elvis.nut, but no other indication of who has sent this, doesn’t tell Russell that it is Mark WD4NYL.

Let us know who you are and come on down!

Our next ALERT meeting will occur April 9.

I hope to see you there!

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Proposed Amendment 7

To all Operational and Supporting ALERT Members,

The following proposed Amendment to the ALERT Bylaws was passed unanimously by
the ALERT Board of Directors and is presented for your consideration.

The membership at large will vote on this Amendment at our next regular meeting on April 9.

The Amendment is as follows:
Amendment 7

Section1
Those wishing to join ALERT may do so by submitting a completed membership application,
with appropriate dues to the ALERT Membership Officer.

1. A vote on the candidate member will be brought to the membership. The vote will be a
   secret ballot, reviewed by the Board.
2. Votes shall be counted by any two Board members, together in the same setting.
3. If there is a “no” vote or objection, this would result in a Board meeting or conference with the Board and the dissenting member.
4. A vote of the Board to approve or disapprove would be held in that meeting, or to be tabled if more information is needed.
5. Results will be announced at the regular meeting after the Board vote has occurred.

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Programming Your Radio

Programming a new or new to you radio can be a challenge. The more bells and whistles it has, the more grievous the process becomes. In “the old days” programming a radio ranged from “easy to challenging”, now it ranges from “painful to excruciating”. In the “old, old days” it was plug in a crystal, tweak, pray it worked and cross your fingers the owners didn’t change the repeater frequency – again.

For example, in the 1980’s Shelby County Repeater which is now on 146.980 MHz, was on 146.385 MHz +600, after being 147.070 MHz and another frequency before that, now long forgotten, all in the search for a non-interfering frequency.

Each morning just after sunrise there is usually a band opening due a natural temperature inversion formed by the rising Sun heating the upper levels of the atmosphere while the lower temperatures are still cool, which causes tropospheric ducting. Shelby County’s 146.385 MHz would lock up with a Kentucky repeater on the exact opposite frequencies, their output being on Shelby County’s input and vice versa. They would stay locked up sometimes until noon. Finally to cure this, they tried swapping the input and output frequencies, detuned a little and 146.980 MHz has worked ever since.

Though it is not in vogue, and not always pleasant, I feel that all hams really need to have an idea of how to program their radios, for reasons which will be discussed later.

Many hams programming new radios are opting to use or have a friend use CHIRP to program your radio instead.

CHIRP is defined as “a free, open-source tool for programming your amateur radio. It supports a large number of manufacturers and models, as well as provides a way to interface with multiple data sources and formats.”

When using CHIRP, the software can utilize data from Radio Reference, Repeater Book, RF Finder, DMR-MARC Repeaters, Przemienniki.net, and the preloaded data for FRS, GMRS, MURS, NOAA and several others.

It is perfectly legal to have FRS, GMRS, MURS & NOAA frequencies in your radio and monitor them. However it is illegal to transmit on them, even though MURS & FRS, for example are license free, because your radio is not type accepted by the FCC to be used on these frequencies.

The only radio frequencies which cannot be monitored legally are cellphone signals, thanks to the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which make it illegal to listen to certain radio signals, most notably cellular phone calls and voice pagers.

An odd fact it is that you can legally listen to police departments, the FBI, US military including our nuclear forces and really anything you want, except for your friendly local cocaine dealer making transactions on cellphones, which I am told if you DO listen in on these frequencies is as rampant as the flu.

As for the CHIP program, I won’t go into detail about how to use this software, as it varies somewhat depending on the brand or model radio you have, and at least for my ancient brain, isn’t easily explained.

Clear as mud, perhaps being a more accurate description, in my case.

But, it is currently the most popular way of programming VHF & UHF ham radios.

I will refer you to these websites:
https://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Home
https://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Beginners_Guide

After you have programmed and used your radio you may wish to consider learning how to program your radio manually. There are three reasons for this suggestion.

1. ALL radio databases are out of date. The moment a database creator hits the “save” button something somewhere has already changed. Repeaters go up, repeaters come down, sub tones may be added or changed, analog repeaters go digital, digital repeaters revert to analog, and so forth. Also, databases are good to include “paper repeaters”, or repeaters that haven’t been on the air for years, but, the owner will not relinquish the frequency so the Repeater Council can reassign it to someone else.
2. If a buddy “clones” his radio settings to yours, it does not necessarily mean his settings will work for your location, due to differences in topography, geography and bum luck. For example if he is in Trussville and you are in Bessemer he will be able to hit repeaters that you can’t hear and likewise you may be able to reach repeaters that he can’t hear. Simply because of the difference in location.
3. There are times when travelling or in an emergency you may need to quickly program a frequency or enter VFO settings and you may not have a cable and computer available to do so.

Most modern radios can be manually programmed. I did not say that they are by necessarily “easy” to program, however. Some are worse than others, and the snarky admonition you oftimes see on online forums of “read the manual” really doesn’t help much because the wording of the manuals can be as vague and complicated as the original Chinese and Japanese fonts they were written in.
My secret to learning how to manually program a radio is to look online for a “cheat sheet” for your specific radio and just giving it a try, fail, try again, fail again, get frustrated, try again, somehow succeed, try again thinking “I’ve got this”, fail again, curse a little, pray about having cursed a little and finally doing it correctly with increasing consistency, and increasing speed.

In manually programming a radio there are 10 key things to learn.

1. How to turn the radio ON and set the VOLUME.
   The sounds simple enough, but, this can vary widely with each brand or model. Some have a
   rotary switch that controls both and some use a combination of separate buttons and knobs. I found the radio at my workplace completely messed up because someone thought it was too
   loud and pressed some up/down buttons thinking it was the volume, when in fact he had
   changed its frequency to somewhere in the frequency spectrum marked “parts unknown.”
2. How to UNLOCK the keypad to change channels or settings.
   Sometimes this is as simple as pressing a key symbol on the keypad.
3. How to go from CHANNEL MODE to VFO MODE.
   Sometimes this is as simple as pressing a button, with other radios you have to search through
   the menu to find this option, which may be titled “CH REF”, “CH MEM” or “FREQ” In VFO mode you can search for repeaters and simplex signals.
4. How to INPUT A FREQUENCY.
   With some radios you set this by knob, some by direct input such as 146.520.
5. How to set an OFFSET +/- or SIMPLEX.
   Usually repeaters from 145 to 147 MHz have a minus .600 MHz offset, or input. 147 to 148 MHz a plus .600 MHz offset and 440 MHz repeaters have a plus 5 MHz offset. I have seen some oddball
   reverse splits over the years, however.
6. How to set a PL TONE.
   Once upon a time a toned repeater was misinterpreted as being inhabited one of the snobby “us four, no more” groups, when in fact it was to prevent interference. This allowed the same frequency pair to be used by several cities, freeing up spectrum.

For example Birmingham’s 146.880 MHz repeater frequency is also used by Greenville, Phenix City & Sheffield. 146.820 is used by Troy, Mobile, Gadsden and Tuscaloosa, each location having a different PL Tone to avoid interference.

1. How to set SQUELCH LEVEL.
   A squelch set too high can cause one to miss a transmission, too low and static and distant
   repeaters fading in can drive you nutty.
2. How to set POWER LEVEL.
   The FCC rules specify using the minimum power necessary for communications. For an HT
   transmitting high power will drain your battery, but, sometimes is unavoidable. Base stations
   running a kilowatt to reach a repeater they can throw a rock at, is another story altogether.
3. How to program a CHANNEL or MEMORY POSITION.
   I try to program my radios in “banks”. Channel positions 1 through 25, for instance will be
   for two meters, positions 40 through 50 will cover 440 MHz. The channel just below channel 1,
   which may be channel 128 or with some radios channel 0, will be NOAA weather radio. This serves two purposes: 1. I can get weather information. 2. It acts as a channel marker, so I
   can know where I am “on the dial” without looking. This is very valuable while driving.

This method is actually a throwback to old CB days. In the Stone Age of the mid 1970’s, 23 channel CB radios used a 24 position rotary switch for the channel selector. Between channels 22 and 23 there was a blank position and you could know where you were on the dial based on that dead spot.

Why a blank spot on the dial?

Many assumed that there might be a “hidden” channel. As it turns out this was true.

Early synthesized CBs used a method of generating thier 23 channels by mixing the signals of a set of 6 crystals with the signals of another set of 4 crystals. This arrangement gave 24 channels. But, only 23 channels were authorized. So what do you do with the unwanted frequency of 27.235 MHz?

To me the logical solution would be just use a 23 position switch and ignore that frequency. But, logic does not always win and so they used a 24 position switch leaving a disconnected blank slot, which some nefarious souls would reconnect and call “channel 22A”.

When the CB band was expanded to 40 channels 27.235 MHz became channel 24 and the blank spot was omitted, which was inconvenient, especially for the visually impaired, as they had depended on that blank dial position to keep track of where they were on the dial.

Today NOAA weatheradio is my marker.

My primary emergency frequency is 146.880 MHZ. That is “Channel 1”.

Channel 2 is exactly reversed, transmitting on 146.880, receiving 146.280 MHz. This way if the repeater dies, and the other station does not know how to go to 146.880 direct, I can still communicate. He hears me on the repeater output, I hear him on the repeater input.

This also allows you to help an NCS by listening on the input for stations trying to reach nets, but, are just out of range of the repeater.

Channel 3 is 146.880 direct.  This is the only repeater combination I have set this way. All 
other frequency pairs are programmed the “usual” way, which for me is numerical order.

When synthesized rigs first came out there was a theory that having frequencies in a random
arrangement “put a strain on the PLL.”  I always preferred a sequential arrangement because
it is easier to find things.

If a new repeater pops up, I just stick it at the end of the group, as I’m too lazy to start shifting things around.

1. How to exit VFO mode and go back to CHANNEL MODE.
   Maybe it’s a simple button push, maybe a pain in the neck search, poke and pray.

Other useful hints:

If you program all your radios, especially HTs with the same frequency configurations, so you don’t have to wonder “where is the Podunk Repeater on this hunk of junk?”

Keep the batteries charged.

Use the thing and let folk know you are still “above the daises”.

The more you use the radio, the more familiar you will become with it. It can become as trusted a friend as the computer you are using or the smartphone you are sneaking peeks at work.

Those are some of my suggestions. I’m sure you have some to.

What are they? Share them with us.

After all, this is your newsletter also.

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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 2018 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 2018, 8956 tornadoes were reported causing, as of 2018, 1772 deaths and as of 2013, 29,090 injuries.

As of 2017, Oklahoma leads the nation in killer violent tornados, having had 64, followed by Iowa with 54, Texas with 53, Kansas with 48 and Alabama 44.

As of 2015, Alabama ranks fourth in the number of April tornadoes, following Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. They along with Illinois belong to the “over 400 club” having had over 400 tornadoes since 1950.

As of 2017 Alabama leads the nation in F5 & EF5 tornadoes, having had 9, followed by Oklahoma and Kansas with 8, and two way tie for third between Iowa and Texas with 6.

As of 2016 Alabama leads the nation in tornado deaths with 633, followed by Texas with 552 and Mississippi with 477.
The counties most likely to be struck by violent EF5 tornadoes are Lawrence, Limestone, Morgan, Madison and Marion, all of which have been struck three times.

Tuscaloosa has been stuck by four F4 & EF4 tornadoes including 1932, 1975, 2000 & 2011.

The suburbs of Birmingham, including Oak Grove, Pleasant Grove, McDonald Chapel and Smithfield have been struck by two F4 & EF4 tornadoes in 1956 & 2011 and by two F5 tornadoes in 1977 & 1998.

My Grandfather, who passed away in 1958, once said “someday a big tornado is going to go right up Jones Valley and tear everything up”.

Indeed there is no logical or climatological reason why and an EF4 or EF5 tornado hasn’t struck or won’t strike the densely populated areas of Birmingham, including the high rises of downtown.

Whether it is due to “Divine Providence” or “random chance” otherwise known as “luck”, Birmingham has been spared.

When will that luck run out?

Some notable Alabama tornados in past Aprils include:

April 18, 1953 F3 Lee & Russell County 6 dead 195 injured
April 18, 1953 F3 Shelby County 8 dead 495 injured
April 15, 1956 F4 Jefferson County 25 dead 200 injured “McDonald Chapel Tornado”
April 18, 1969 F4 Montgomery, Bullock, Butler & Crenshaw Counties 2 dead 15 injured

April 3 & 4, 1974 “Super Outbreak” or produced at least eight tornadoes in Alabama, including four extremely intense and long-lived storms that swept the state killing eighty-six persons and injuring 949. The Huntsville area had an F3, F4 & an F5 tornado. The F4 tornado struck a half mile from where they were still digging out from an F3 tornado that had struck earlier in that day. Guin was literally wiped off the map, as was Xenia Ohio. The entire Eastern US and Southern Canada was affected during “The Day Of 100 Tornadoes”.

April 3, 1974 F5 Lamar, Marion, Winston, Lawrence & Morgan Counties 30 dead 230 injured
April 3, 1974 F4 Pickens, Tuscaloosa, Fayette, Walker & Cullman Counties 3 dead 178 injured
April 3, 1974 F5 Limestone-Madison 28 dead 260 injured
April 4, 1977 F5 Jefferson County 22 dead 130 injured “Smithfield Tornado”
April 1, 1998 F3 Russell County 2 dead 23 injured
April 8, 1998 F5 Tuscaloosa & Jefferson County 32 dead 259 Injured “Oak Grove Tornado”

April 25 – 28, 2011 Super outbreak was the largest and deadliest tornado outbreak on record,
with 358 tornadoes in 21 states and southern Canada. April 27 alone had 211 tornadoes. Of 348
people killed, 324 were tornado related, the other 24 being non-tornado storm related deaths, such as straight line winds.

Alabama was hit by two distinct waves of tornadoes, the first hitting during the early morning hours resulting in 52 injuries and the second in the afternoon and evening resulting in 238 deaths and 1946 injuries in a total of 62 tornadoes.

April 27, 2011 F5 Marion County 18 dead 100 injured
April 27, 2011 F4 Pickens, Tuscaloosa, Fayette, Walker & Blount Counties 13 dead 54 injured
April 27, 2011 F3 Marion County 7 dead 100 injured
April 27, 2011 F4 Greene, Tuscaloosa & Jefferson counties 65 dead 1500 injured
April 27, 2011 F3 Greene, Hale & Bibb counties 7 dead 50 injured
April 27, 2011 F4 Jefferson, St. Clair, Calhoun, Etowah and Cherokee counties 22 dead 81 injured
April 27, 2011 F4 Elmore, Tallapoosa & Chambers counties 7 dead 30 injured
April 3, 2012 F2 Tallapoosa & Chambers counties 1 dead 2 injured
April 28, 2014 F3 Limestone County 1 dead 30 injured

Always beware of the storms of April.

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

For other locations go to http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.php and input the locations and dates you are interested in.

Looking skyward, at the beginning of the month Mercury is very deep in the glare of sunrise. As the month progresses Mercury reemerges in the morning sky, reaching Greatest Western Elongation, or the highest point above the horizon, 27.7 degrees above the Sun on April 11. This is the best time to view Mercury since it will be at its highest point above the horizon in the morning sky. Look for the planet low in the eastern sky just before sunrise.

Mercury will pass within 4.3° of Venus on April 16.

Venus magnitude –3.9, rises above the east-southeast horizon in early dawn. It’s still quite low by the time dawn grows bright.

Venus will reach aphelion, its farthest distance from the Sun, April 18 when she will be 67,693,000 miles from the Sun.

Mars, magnitude +1.5, in Taurus, glows in the west after dusk, near the Pleiades Star Cluster.

Jupiter, magnitude –2.3, in the feet of Ophiuchus, rises in the southeast around 1 AM. He is high in the south just as dawn begins to brighten, the best time to observe it telescopically. The farther south you are, the higher it will be.

A medium-sized telescope should be able to show you some of the details of Jupiter’s cloud bands, while a good pair of binoculars should allow you to see Jupiter’s four largest moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto as bright dots on either side of the planet.

Each night their positions will have changed as they continue the waltz they have danced with Jupiter for millennia uncounted.

Saturn, magnitude +0.6, in Sagittarius, glows in early dawn, to the left or lower left of Jupiter by about 26°.

Saturn’s rings are currently tilted +23.5 degrees as viewed from Earth. Small telescopes will easily reveal his rings along with a small dot nearby, the moon Titan. The only moon with a dense atmosphere and the only moon besides Earth’s that has had a spacecraft land on its surface. The European Space Agency’s Huygens probe in January 2005, which is also the farthest landing from Earth a spacecraft has ever made.

On April 25 Saturn will pass just North of the Moon.

Uranus will pass directly behind the Sun on April 22.

Neptune is hidden in the glare of the Sun.

April’s New Moon will occur April 5 at 3:51 AM CDT or 8:51 UTC. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters, as there will be no moonlight to wash out the evening sky.

The Moon will be the closest to the Earth or Perigee on April 16, when she is 226309 miles from the Earth.

April’s Full Moon occurs April 19 at 5:12 AM CDT or 11:12 UTC. This Moon was known as “Full Pink Moon” in Native American folklore as it marked the reappearance of pink wild ground phlox. This moon was also called by various tribes, the “Sprouting Grass Moon”, “Growing Moon”, “Egg Moon” and “Fish Moon”, as this is when shad swam upstream to spawn.

The Lyrid Meteor Shower which, runs annually from April16 – 25, peaks on the evening of April 22 and morning of April 23. This is a minor 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 waning gibbous moon will block out many of the fainter meteors this year, but if you are patient you should still be able to catch a few of the brightest ones. 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 the farthest distance from the Earth or Apogee on April 28, when she is 251392 miles from the Earth

Evenings in early April offer an excellent opportunity to view the zodiacal light. Zodiacal light is a faint, roughly triangular whitish glow seen in the night sky which appears to extend up from the vicinity of the sun along the ecliptical plane. It is caused by sunlight scattered by space dust in the orbital plane of the Earth.

From the Northern Hemisphere, early spring is the best time of year to observe this elusive glow after sunset. It appears slightly fainter than the Milky Way, so you’ll need a clear moonless sky and an observing site located far from the city. Look for the cone-shaped glow, which points nearly straight up from the western horizon, after the last vestiges of twilight have faded away.

This is the time of year when the dim Little Dipper – Ursa Minor – juts to the right from the North Star, Polaris, which is the end of the Little Dipper’s handle, during late evening. The much brighter Big Dipper curls over high above it, “dumping water” into it. They do the reverse in the fall.

Now that it’s spring, the signature fall-and-winter constellation Cassiopeia is retreating down after dark. But for mid-northern latitudes Cassiopeia is circumpolar, never going away completely. Look for it fairly low in the north-northwest these evenings. It’s standing nearly on end.

3926 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of March 21, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

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This month’s meeting will be on April 9 at 7PM at the National Weather Service Forecast office at the Shelby County Airport.

If for some reason you cannot attend the meeting in person, you can still participate via telephone. The teleconference number is 1-877-951-0997 & and the participant code is 741083.

Hope to see you there!

Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter

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