ALERT NEWSLETTER – September 2022

Hi everyone,

I hope this newsletter finds you well.

During our last meeting, the subject of elections was discussed.

When in person meetings were moved to online meetings, due to COVID, the election cycles were by necessity interrupted. Now that in person meetings have been resumed the question of when to hold the elections naturally needed to be discussed.

It was decided that the current officers will remain in place until the elections can be held in the spring at their normal times. This will provide a “fresh start” with all positions, including the one and two year Board members.

I wish to thank our President, Johnny Knobloch for steering ALERT through these stormy times. He has remained at his post far beyond his original term. This dedication is much appreciated.
As is true with all of our Officers.

ALERT thanks you.

 

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NOAA Atlantic Hurricane Outlook Updated

With the lack of tropical activity in the Atlantic basin the National Hurricane Center has adjusted its seasonal outlook, while pointing out the peak of the season is yet to come.

They are still calling for an above normal season, but have slightly decreased the likelihood of an to 60%, which is lower than the May outlook which gave a 65% chance. The likelihood of near-normal activity has risen to 30% and the chances remain at 10% for a below-normal season.

They predict 14 to 20 named storms, 6 to 10 hurricanes 3 to 5 of which will be major, Category 3 or higher, hurricanes.

The last tropical system was Tropical Storm Colin, which dissipated on July 3. 2022 joins 1961 and 1997 as Augusts without tropical activity. 1997 remained a quiet season while 1961 became very active with 4 Tropical Storms and 7 Hurricanes including 3 Category 4 and 3 Category 5 Hurricanes.

So keep your eyes towards the seas.

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Aerials, Antennae & Feelers

As I type this article, I am looking at an HT. In this case a Midland GXT1000G for the General Mobile Radio Service or GMRS. I carry it to work along with a ham HT and listen to them as I sit at my desk. GMRS is interesting because you never know what you will hear. Sometimes I will hear construction crews, a middle school, a hospital, football coaches at cursing a storm because the place kicker stinks, with GMRS using the same frequencies as the Family Radio Service or FRS two little kids talking about needing to go potty, and at night, two young guys who apparently have just discovered cursing, and sound silly since they don’t know how to cuss correctly, or as a lady sweetly told a young guy at work who seemed to use an F word every fifth word “you don’t have much of a vocabulary do you?” Which left him speechless.

As I look at this HT, there is a pointy little gizmo on the top called a “rubber duck”. We are all familiar with them, but have you ever wondered what mysteries that black casing is covering? Well, I am here to enlighten you!

Underneath that casing is – wait for it – a coil of wire. That’s all.

With the Icom UHF commercial radios we use at work it is a tightly wound coil about 7 inches long. My Motorola FRS radio has a loosely wound coil 3 inches long. All standard rubber ducks are coils. Optional higher gain antennas have a whip attached. They provide more gain but present the danger of overstressing the antenna connector and breaking the wire leading to the center conductor.

IF one can access the connector, it is possible to resolder it, but, with everything so microminiaturized reaching it is nigh unto impossible.

But, if one is very careful, you can replace standard antenna with a higher gain antenna or even better yet run coax to an outside antenna. Using an outside antenna, you can achieve the same distances with an HT as you would with a “base” station. Unless you tell someone, no one will know the difference.

The following tables give the dimensions for various common HF, VHF & UHF antennas, that do not require an electrical engineering degree to build. Included are quarter wave, half wave, full wave, G5RV and Yagi dimensions.

A few hints and notes:

A good antenna has much more signal impact than an increase of transmitter power. Pouring a kilowatt into an antenna that doubles as a dummy load will not get you very far. On the other hand, a flea power radio on a decent to good antenna will “make you a contender”.

People tend to obsess over wire and wire diameter. This is a recent development. The truth is that for most applications a wire is a wire is a wire. I have made usable antennas out of actual “antenna wire”, zip cord, test leads, clothes hangers, fence wire, window screen wire and especially wire salvaged from junked TV’s.

To salvage TV wire, you would take the transformer out (and anything else salvageable), remove any case or screws holding the transformer together and then take a sledgehammer and beat the stew out of it until the laminations started falling apart. Then you would uncoil the wire, roll it up and use it for 10,000 projects.

The radio does not know, or particularly care what kind of wire you are using. It conducts electricity, and that is what matters. For building a cheapo antenna, if it works, it works.

Concerning “true” antenna wire, it generally is available in two varieties – enamel covered solid single strand, and multistrand.

Long runs of single strand wire will “grow” or stretch over time due to exposure to the elements and especially the sun’s heat. Single strand wire has poor tinsel strength, and the “growth” causes the resonant frequency and SWR to change downward in frequency over time. Every now and then you may have to trim the antenna a little to tweak the SWR back into range.

Multi strand wire is stronger and has better tinsel strength but will corrode over time and become brittle. If there has been a kink in the wire at any point in time this will become a weak spot and eventually may break strand by strand.

When cutting antenna wire to the desired length always cut an antenna slightly too long. You can always trim it; but you cannot make it grow longer.

Measure twice, cut once (initially)

If the SWR is higher on the low end of the band, the antenna is too short.

If the SWR is higher on a high end of the of the band, the antenna is too long.

For me VHF and UHF antennas are the best antennas to experiment with because they are smaller, use smaller material and are less dramatic if they fail completely. Remembering Wernher Von Braun saying that “success comes in private, failure in full public view”, the evidence of failure is more easily disposed of when it is a 2 meter antenna rather than a failed 160 meter Yagi the size of an aeroplane.

With the antennas I have built over the years I used RG58 coax for ¼ wave antennas, 450 ohm ladder line for ½ wave dipoles and Yagi’s, while a G5RV uses a specific length of open wire, ladder line or TV twin lead. Coax is spliced onto the end of this line and a RF choke is made by winding 8 turns of the coax around a 6 inch form. I used a high tech form. I used a plastic flowerpot.

Open wire, Ladder line and TV twin lead must remain at lead 20 feet above ground level for best results. Coax does not care.

Ladder line has the distinct advantage in the it is easily repairable. Not so with coax.

If you are trimming the hedges near where ladder line goes into the house and you accidently chop it to pieces with hedge clippers, after doing the required crying, you just solder it back together, make sure the spacing is the same, wrap it in electrical wire and go on about your business. Coax is less forgiving.

It is said by some you cannot splice coax. They are full of malarkey. I have spliced coax by trimming the ragged ends, soldering the center conductor of the two strands, wrapping insulation around the center conductor and then as neatly as possible intermeshing the braid shielding and soldering that, and then taping it all together. The radio said it worked. Of course, we routinely splice coax anyway using two PL-259 connectors and a barrel connector and no one argues with you about it online. Online by graduates of YouTube University and The University of Facebook “Where experts are born.”

RG58 cable was the mainstay for cable for generations of hams. A newer cable that has gained popularity is LMR400. Its main selling point is that it has less signal loss than RG58. But, RG58 still has its place.

For long runs of cable, I would opt for LMR400, assuming I am not in a cheap mood. For, I am a tightwad. For short runs, 40 – 50 feet of RG58 or RG8 will work just fine.

The craziest antenna that I made was one featured in QST 40 years ago called a Quagi. It was a mix of a cubical quad and a Yagi. I built one for 2 meters using old straight branches I found in the field across from the house that I was living in at that time, and old junk wire. It worked great. That is until I saw something move on the post and spreaders and realized it was infested with termites. I took it and threw it as far as I could in the field.

I am probably the only person who can say they have had an antenna eaten by termites.

I currently use a G5RV antenna. It doesn’t like 60 or 30 meters, but 30 I can use with a tuner, as well as 6 meters. This antenna is a “compromise antenna” designed for limited space, seeing that I have no useable trees for a decent antenna. I use manufactured antennas for VHF and UHF and a home brew quarter wave for GMRS, which was featured in the February 2021 Newsletter, “The Great Cat Food Can Quarter-wave.”

The following chart includes measurements for ham, CB, MURS and GMRS antenna lengths. Note that GMRS frequencies are not in numerical order, since they are placed by the FCC “interstitially”, broken up into 22 channels, which are shared with FRS. So, I listed what some call Channel 15, which is the lowest frequency and the input to repeater “channel 22”, which is the highest.

The quotation marks are used because while FRS channels are defined by FCC rules, GMRS frequencies are not specified by channel, but by frequency. Most GMRS radios “channel” numbers agree with the FRS designations, but a few don’t, which is why some say “use ‘frequency’ instead of ‘channel’ when discussing GMRS.”

My Midland GMRS radios agree with my Motorola FRS radios, so I say “channel”.

Here is a rough guide using approximate measurements. Links are provided for further information.

Radio Antenna Length Chart

Band Frequency ¼ Wave ½ Wave Full wave
Meters MHz Feet Feet Feet

160 1.800 130’0” 280’0” 558’4”
160 1.850 126’6” 253’0” 543’3”
160 1.900 123’2” 246’4” 528’11”
160 1.950 120’0” 240’0” 515’4”
160 2.000 117’0” 234’9” 502’6”
80 3.500 66’0” 133’9” 287.2”
80 3.600 65’0” 130’0” 279’2”
80 3.750 62’5” 124’10” 268’0”
75 3.900 60’0” 120’0” 257.3”
75 4.000 58.6” 117’0” 251’3”
60 5.330 43’9” 87’8” 188’5”
60 5.403 43’2” 86’6” 186’0”
40 7.000 33’5” 66’10” 143’7”
40 7.150 32’9” 65”5” 140’7”
40 7.300 32’1” 64’1” 137’8”
30 10.000 23’2” 46’4” 99’6”
30 10.150 23’1” 46’1” 90’0”
20 14.000 16’9” 33’5” 71’9”
20 14.150 16’6” 33’1” 71’0”
20 14.300 16’4” 32’9” 70’3”
20 14.350 16’4” 32’7” 70’0”
17 18.068 12’11” 25’11” 55’7”
17 18.168 12’11” 25’9” 55’4”
15 21.000 11’2” 22’3” 47’10”
15 21.200 11’0” 22’1” 47’5”
15 21.450 10’11” 21’10” 46’10”
12 24.890 9’5” 18’10” 40’5”
12 24.990 9’4” 18’9” 40’3”
CB 26.965 8’8” 17’4” 37’3” CB CH 1
CB 27.205 8’7” 17’2” 36’11” CB CH 20
CB 27.405 8’6” 17’0” 36’4” CB CH 40
10 28.000 8’4” 16’9” 35’11”
10 28.500 8’3” 16’5” 35’3”
10 29.700 7’11” 15’9” 33’10”
6 50.000 4’8” 9’4” 20’1”
6 52.000 4’6” 9’0” 19’3”
6 54.000 4’4” 8’8” 18’7”
2 144.000 1’8” 3’3” 7’0”
2 148.000 1’7” 3’2” 6’9”
MURS 151.820 1’6” 3’0” 6’7” MURS CH 1
MURS 154.600 1’6” 3’0” 6’6” MURS CH 5
1.25 222.000 1’0” 2’1” 4’6”
1.25 225.000 1’0” 2’0” 4’5”
70 CM 420.000 6” 1’1” 2’4”
70 CM 450.000 6” 1’0” 2’2”
GMRS 462.550 6” 1’0” 2’2”
GMRS 467.725 6” 1’0” 2’1”
33 CM 902.000 3” 6” 1’1”
33 CM 928.000 3” 6” 1’0”
23 CM 1240.000 2” 4” 9”
23 CM 1300.000 2” 4” 9”

G5RV Dimensions

Double Size Full Size Half Size aka “Jr”

Band Coverage 1.8 – 28 MHz 3.5 – 28 MHz 7 – 28MHz
Length Of Antenna 204 feet 102 feet 51 feet

Matching Section Length:

Open Wire 67.5 feet 33.7 feet 16.9 feet
Ladder Line 62.6 feet 31.2 feet 15.6 feet
TV Twin Lead 57.0 feet 28.5 feet 14.3 feet

https://www.hamuniverse.com/g5rv.html

 

 

 

 

Yagi Dimensions Examples

Frequency Reflector Driven Element Director Element Spacing

50.125 10’0” 9’6” 9’0” 2’5”
146.520 3’6” 3’3” 3’1” 10”
223.500 2’3” 2’2” 2’1” 7”
446.000 1’2” 1’1” 1’1” 4”
467.600 1’1” 1’1” 12” 4”

https://www.wireantennas.co.uk/yagi-antenna-calculator

The figures given in the first chart are based on the formulae ¼ wave = 234/frequency in MHz,
½ wave = 468/ frequency in MHz and full wave = 1005/frequency in MHz. Using these formulae will give you a result that does not agree with the chart. You must convert decimal feet into feet and inches

For those who have trouble converting decimal feet into feet and inches, as I, being as dumb as they come math wise do, here is a convenient calculator.

https://www.spikevm.com/calculators/decimal-feet.php

Try your hand at “homebrewing” an antenna. It is extremely useful during emergencies, if your primary antenna is damaged, and you need to get back on the air, is educational, and is just plain fun!

 

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Mark’s Almanac

September is the ninth month of the year and the seventh month of the Roman calendar, which is where the month gets its name.

Temperatures are still hot at the beginning of the month, but, by months end, fall will definitely be felt.

Noticeable in September will be the thickening of the cat’s fur, as she begins growing her winter coat & the drift of Yellow Giant Sulphur Butterflies as they migrate towards Florida.

Weather starts shifting from the summer to autumn pattern and then back again. Storm activity resembles the August pattern, but the Bermuda High starts shifting southward and begins weakening, which weakens the blocking effect that has hampered fronts attempting to invade from the northwest.

September is the peak of the hurricane season, the actual peak being on September 10. This peak coincides with the time of “syzygy”, when the effects of the solar and lunar gravity and autumnal equinox combine to provide the highest astronomical tides of the year. Add a hurricane’s storm surge on top of this and you can have incredibly destructive flooding.

From 1851 – 2020 there have been 630 Tropical Storms, 2 Subtropical Storm and 416 hurricanes, 110 of which made landfall in the United States.

Some notable September hurricanes are:

The Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which was a Category 4 Storm whose storm surge overwhelmed Galveston Island, killing 8000 people, and is still the deadliest weather disaster in US history.

The Labor Day Hurricane of 1936, the most intense storm to strike the US, was a Category 5 storm which moved through the Florida Keys and along West Florida, overturning trains and literally sandblasting people to death.

Ivan, the category 3 storm which struck Alabama & Florida in 2004, caused tremendous damage to Gulf Shores and extensive damage to the state’s electrical grid. At the height of the outages, Alabama Power reported 489,000 subscribers having lost electrical power—roughly half of its subscriber base.

Rita, a category 3 storm which struck the Texas – Louisiana border in 2005, and, despite the distance, dropped 22 tornadoes over Western Alabama.

 

 

 

Days continue to grow shorter as the Sun’s angle above the noonday horizon steadily decreases from 64.9 degrees at the beginning of the month to 53.6 degrees at the month’s end. Daylight decreases from 12 hours 52 minutes on August 1 to 11 hours 53 minutes on August 31.

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

September 1 Sunrise 6:21 AM Sunset 7:13 PM
September 15 Sunrise 6:30 AM Sunset 6:55 PM
September 31 Sunrise 6:41 AM Sunset 6:33 PM

Looking skyward, at the beginning of the month, the Sun, magnitude -26.7 is in Leo, The Lion.

Mercury, 0.3 in Virgo, The Virgin, is hidden in the slow of the Sun. He will emerge in the morning sky near the sunrise point around the last few days of the month.

He will be in “inferior conjunction” or pass between the Earth and the Sun on September 23.

At closest approach, Mercury would appear at a separation of only 2°51′ from the Sun, but he is totally unobservable since he is lost in the Sun’s glare.

Mercury will also pass perigee, the time when he is closest to the Earth, at around the same time since he will lie on exactly the same side of the Sun as the Earth in the Solar System.

Venus, Earth’s moonless sister, shines at magnitude –3.9 in Leo, rising about a half hour after dawn begins. As dawn brightens, she disappears into the glare of the Sun.

Venus’s 225 day orbit around the Sun will carry her to her closest point to the Sun, or perihelion, on September 4.

Earth, magnitude -4.0, and her moon, is in the constellation Capricornus, The Sea Goat.

Some might wonder since Venus and the Earth are so very similar in size and mass, why does the Earth have a moon while Venus does not.

There have been four theories as to why the Earth has a moon:

1. A single body split to form the Earth and Moon.
2. The Earth’s gravity captured the Moon.
3. The Earth and Moon were formed at the same time from the same debris ring.
4. The Earth was struck by an object, partially destroying the Earth and the debris from the Earth and the object formed the moon

Lunar rock samples from the Apollo missions found that the Moon’s composition is very similar to the Earth’s crust and so were likely removed from Earth in some violent event.

The current theory is that in the early Solar system, an ancient Mars sized planet, now called Theia, collided with the early Earth around 4.5 billion years ago, with the resulting ejected debris gathering to form the Moon.

The Earth and Theia’s, core and mantle fused together resulting in the Earth’s core being larger than expected for a body its size.

Evidence published in 2019 suggests that Theia might have formed in the outer Solar System rather than the inner Solar System, as originally believed and that much of Earth’s water originated on Theia.

Venus had no such collision, and therefore the poor old gal is pretty, but moonless.

Mars, with his moons Phobos and Deimos, magnitude 0.0 in Taurus, The Bull, is currently a morning object, rising around midnight, and reaching an altitude of 73° above the south-eastern horizon before fading from view at dawn.

Dwarf Planet Ceres shines at magnitude 8.6 in Cancer, The Crab,

Jupiter, and his 79 moons and ring, at magnitude –2.9, is in Cetus, The Sea Monster, rising due east in twilight, and stands highest in the south around 2 or 3 AM.

He is currently approaching opposition or the point when he is opposite the Earth from the Sun, which is the best time to observe him, as this is when he is nearest Earth and is visible as a morning object, when he will be 57° above the southern horizon. He drops to 35° above the south-western horizon before becoming lost in the dawn twilight around 6 AM.

He will reach opposition on September 26, and his face will be fully illuminated by the Sun. He will be brighter than any other time of the year and will be visible all night long. This is the best time to view and photograph Jupiter and its moons. A medium-sized telescope should be able to show you some of the details in Jupiter’s cloud bands. A good pair of binoculars should allow you to see Jupiter’s four largest moons, appearing as bright dots on either side of the planet.

Saturn, his 82 moons and extensive debris ring system, shines at magnitude +0.4, in Capricornus, The Sea Goat, becoming visible in the south-east around 8 PM as dusk fades into darkness. He will reach his highest point around midnight when he will be 40° above the southern horizon. He will continue to be observable until the beginning of dawn.

Saturn’s rings appear roughly as wide, end to end, as Jupiter’s globe.

Uranus, his 27 moons and ring, glow at magnitude 5.8, in Aries, The Ram, west of Mars before dawn, rising around 11 PM and reaches an altitude of 73° above the southern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks.

Neptune, his 14 moons and ring, at magnitude 7.7 is at the Aquarius-Pisces border, rising in the evening twilight west of Jupiter.

He is currently approaching opposition and is visible as a morning object. Around 11 PM he
reaches an altitude of 21° above the eastern horizon and will then reach his highest point in the sky at 2 AM, 53° above the southern horizon and then will be lost in the dawn twilight on the south-western horizon.

The blue giant planet will be at its closest approach to Earth or “opposition”, on September 16. He will be fully illuminated and brighter than any other time of the year and will be visible all night long.

However, due to his extreme distance from Earth, he will only appear as a tiny blue dot in all but the most powerful telescopes.

Dwarf Planet Pluto, with his five moons shines at a dim 14.3 in Sagittarius, The Archer.

Dwarf Planet 136108 Haumea, her ring and moons Hiʻiaka and Namaka, shines at a faint magnitude of 17.4 in Bootes, The Herdsman.

Dwarf Planet 136472 Makemake with his moon S/2015 (136472) faintly shines at magnitude 17.2 in Coma Berenices or “Berenices Hair”.

Dwarf Planet 136199 Eris and her moon Dysnomia is barely visible in the most powerful telescopes at magnitude 18.7 in Cetus the Sea Monster.

At least five 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 between Hydra and Serpens, The Snake.

50000 Quaoar,and his moon Waywot shines at magnitude +18.6 in Ophiucus,, The Serpent Bearer,

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, and his moon Xiangli glows dimly at +21.5 magnitude in Aquarius, The Water Bearer.

2014 UZ224 nicknamed “DeeDee” for “Distant Dwarf” is 8.5 billion miles from the Sun, at magnitude +23.1 in Eridanus, The River.

Currently the most distant observable known object in the Solar System, Asteroid 2018 AG37, nicknamed “FarFarOut”, which is 12.4 billion miles or 18.5 light hours from Earth, glows at a barely detectable +25.5 magnitude in Lynx.

5071 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of June 16, 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 September 3 at 1:08 PM CDT or 06:08 UTC.

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

The Moon will be at Perigee or her closest approach to Earth on September 7, when she will be 226,484 miles from Earth

September’s Full Moon will occur September 10 at 4:58 AM CDT or 09:58 UTC.

The Moon will be located on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun and its face will be fully illuminated. This full moon was known by early Native American tribes as the “Corn Moon” because the corn is harvested around this time of year.

This moon is also known as the Harvest Moon. The Harvest Moon is the full moon that occurs closest to the September equinox each year.

The name “Harvest Moon” dates from the time before electricity, when farmers depended on the Moon’s light to harvest their crops late into the night. The Harvest Moon was especially important since it coincided with the largest harvest of the year.

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

Last Quarter Moon, or when the moon has only the Eastern side illuminated, will occur September 17 at 4:52 PM CDT or 9:52 UTC.

The Moon will be at Apogee or its farthest distance from Earth on September 19, when she will be 251,379 miles from Earth.

Fall begins at Autumnal Equinox on September 22 at 8:55 PM CDT or 00:55 UTC September 23, when the Sun crosses directly over the equator and night and day is approximately the same length throughout the world. For the Southern Hemisphere it is Vernal Equinox, the first day of Spring.

One term that occasionally pops up is “equinoctial storms”. Which are severe storms in North America and the UK that supposedly accompany the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. Where this belief originated is obscure. Some say perhaps from the 1700’s when sailors were greeted by West Indies hurricanes, or due to the coincidence of the first fall severe storms sometimes coming in the latter half of September. At any rate, statistics show no evidence to support the belief.

On this date, if there is sufficient solar activity, and you are away from city lights, the aurora may possibly be seen, as the Equinox dates are the two most favored times of the year for auroral sightings.

At this time of year, the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) can link up with Earth’s magnetic field, prying open cracks. Solar wind pours in to fuel displays of the aurora borealis with no geomagnetic storm required. Researchers call this the “Russell-McPherron” effect after the space physicists who first described it in the 1970s.

New Moon occurs September 25 at 4:54 PM CDT or 21:54 UTC on September 8, when the Moon will on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters because there is no moonlight to interfere.

High in the Southern night sky an asterism or a group of stars appearing clustered together, but not actually gravitationally bound, will be seen that resembles a teapot. This is the Teapot of Sagittarius.

To the naked eye, the Teapot is roughly the size of your fist at arm’s length. Above the spout of the Teapot lies a band of light, emerging like steam from the spout of the Teapot, which is the Large Sagittarius Star Cloud. A pair of binoculars will reveal a sea of stars and faint grayish patches, the largest of which is the Lagoon Nebula. When you look upon these nebulae you are seeing stars in the process of being born.

The spout, which is tilting and pouring to the right, also points towards the galactic center of the Milky Way, located just beyond the Large Sagittarius Star cloud, but largely hidden by the dust clouds, which lie along the plane of the Sagittarius arm of the galaxy.

While we sweat through Summer, do you want at sneak peek at the Winter sky? Step out before the first light of dawn, and the sky displays the same starry panorama it does at dinnertime around New Year’s. With Orion the Hunter striding up in the southeast, Taurus the Bull with Aldebaran and then the Pleiades high above it. Sirius the Dog Star sparkles far down below Orion, and Gemini The Twins are lying on their sides well up in the east, left of Orion.

 

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Comments, suggestions, articles and items for YOUR Newsletter are welcome!

This month’s meeting will be on September 13 at 7 PM at the NWS Forecast Office in Calera.

The Board of Directors will meet prior to the regular meeting at 6:30 PM.

Hope to see you there!

Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter