ALERT NEWSLETTER – November 2013

Hi everyone, I hope this finds you well, after the Hobgoblin attack of the 31th. We had no trick or treaters this year, which means I will have to eat all the Halloween candy. This is a tough job, but someone has to do it. After all it’s my civic duty. The colors of Fall are brightening all around us, which is one of the “treats” of the seasons. The “trick” of the season is that we have now entered our second tornado season. So, this is a good time to review your emergency plans and check your emergency equipment. Are you ready? Can you receive weather warnings? This includes at home, at work and on the road, even with a power outage. Do you have a place where you can take shelter at home, at work or on the road? And, if a tornado strikes near you, do you know what to do? Is your emergency equipment ready? These are questions that need to be asked and resolved. You and your family’s life depend on it. At ALERT werespond to the NWS to take storm reports. But, our primary responsibility is to take care of ourselves, our families and then our community. So take time to learn about disaster preparedness. Think about what you will do if “it” happens to you. And, educate your family, friends, coworkers and neighbors as to what they can do and why they should prepare also. If your message meets unreceptive ears, don’t worry. Those little seeds of knowledge can grow into large trees. And, knowledge saves lives. And, saving lives is what we are in “the business” for. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Ten Things That Elmer Forgot To Tell You Our newer hams may ask “who is Elmer”? “Elmer” is the older ham radio mentor who helps guide you into the hobby and teaches you about equipment, dos and don’ts and ham life in general. We all have our mentors. My first mentor was Jim Bonner K4UMD who gave me my Novice test back in November of 1977. Jim was the first of many, such as Joe Smith WA4RNP & Joe Bowerman WA4LXP who taught me the mystic art of being a net control station & Jake Rosecrans WA4UCT who taught me that you can have fun while you are being one. We all have our mentors and we all are mentors, whether we realize it or not, for we all lead by example, both good and bad. Thinking as a mentor, I thought I would mention some practical dos and don’ts that we should all keep in mind. This article is not designed to be “preachy”, and I’ll say that many of these items I am still working on, for we all should be willing to learn and fine tune our operating practices. So, without further ado, here are ten “helpful hints” to help you and others enjoy the “ham radio experience”. Sermon 1# – Listen before you transmit. Don’t just turn on the radio and start talking. Listen for a minute or two. An emergency net may be in session or a QSO may be in progress. If you are not sure the coast is clear, you can simply ask “is this frequency in use?” If it is busy, wait until the frequency is clear. If you get no response, then proceed with your activity. The fact that you checked will show others you are a courteous operator, and that makes a lasting good impression. If you are trying a new band, listen to the band for a while. Learn the band’s characteristics. What signals are usually there? When does it “open” and to what direction? Learning these things will give you an edge DX wise by letting you know what to expect and when to expect it. Are you on the right frequency? Try calling a net on the wrong repeater or the wrong day, both of which I have done and you quickly learn not to expect too much success. Sermon 2# – Key the microphone and take a breath before you speak. Stated somewhat weirdly, a radio can be thought of as a collection of valves, switches, relays and constrictors which control a flow of current, much like the flow of a river. All of these components take a certain amount of time to do their job of controlling the flow, force and direction of current. The more complicated the system becomes, the longer this time delay becomes. A transmitting station has to determine the correct transmitting frequency, the proper power level, control the audio rate, insert the proper tones or subtones and switch from receive to transmit mode. This takes time. The receiving station has to determine the correct frequency, switch between transmit to receive, decode the tones or subtones to release the squelch, and activate the audio amplifiers. This too takes time. If you go through a repeater or a linked system, the equipment has to do all of the above, at each stage of the link, adding yet more time delay. The net result is, if you simply key the microphone and speak, you may not be allowing these systems enough time to activate and do their jobs, which will result in the first part of your transmission being clipped out. Every radio has a certain amount of lag time. The amount of time will vary with each radio. Some models are faster, some slower and there is nothing you can do to speed up the process. Thankfully the “workaround” to this problem is simple. Just key the microphone, take a breath and then talk. This will allow enough time for the chain reaction to take place At my place of work they never remember this. The company radio will blurb out “…come in” and various departments have to call and say “who was that for?” Learn by bad example, key & take a breath. It will work better that way. Sermon 3# – Don’t “quick key”, but, leave a second or two pause between transmissions. Someone may have an emergency and desperately need to access the repeater, and may not be able to wait all day until someone finally runs out of steam. You can actually be endangering someone’s life by being, as our CB brethren used to say, a “ratchet jaw” or “bucket mouth”. Also, don’t assume that because there is a “courtesy tone” on a repeater that the repeater timer resets when the tone sounds. On some repeaters it does reset, on others it simple means the other station has stopped transmitting. If in doubt, let the carrier drop completely. This way you won’t “time out the repeater”. Keeping transmissions reasonably short will help also. Sermon 4# – Don’t monopolize conversations in a “roundtable” or group. Let the other operators have a chance to join in the conversation. They may want to add something to the discussion also. After numerous times of trying to speak and no one letting me get a word in edgewise, I usually just give up and mosey on to other more interesting things. Sermon 5# – Learn how to politely break into a conversation. Unless it is an emergency, don’t just interrupt a conversation, call some station, and then take over the frequency starting a new conversation. That’s the way to earn the “Lid Of The Month Award”. Instead ask if you can make a call, make your call, and then either go to another frequency or arrange to talk to the person once the frequency is clear. Sermon 6# – Make sure that your audio level is correct. Some stations have audio so loud that it punctures your eardrums. Others are so faint that you have to turn the volume wide open and then a station with normal audio comes on and again you ears take a beating. This is especially prevalent with users operating multiband radios, where the operator turns the audio up to get more power while using SSB and forgets to turn it back down for FM operations. You might, when talking to two or more stations ask them what audio level sounds the best. Remember that this depends on both the volume of you voice and the way you hold your microphone. This too will vary with each radio make and mode, and sometimes you have to experiment to get it right. Sermon 7# – Avoid “CBisms” Why don’t we step on some toes for a moment? 146.88 MHz isn’t “the eighty eight”. You have a name not a handle, and please don’t “ten four” me. On the other hand, I’m not going to jump on someone if they say 10-20 or 10-4. The gent may be the police officer who is driving behind me. As the Book of Hezekiah says “Thou shall not antagonize the local po po”. Sermon 8# – Use “standard ITU phonetics”. Net control stations become trained to quickly recognize ITU phonetics. Let someone “get cute” by saying “this is Witch Doctor Four Nice Yeller Lemons” and it will completely derail the net control’s thought processes and bring the flow of net operations to a screeching halt, forcing the net control to stop and to get the guy to repeat his callsign the right way. Sermon 9# – Avoid “Old Goat-isms”. Older hams need to realize that the prospective new hams have to take the FCC test that the FCC requires TODAY, not one from 1965, when the ham world was supposedly such a wonderful place. A new ham can’t go to the examiner and say ”I don’t want to take this ‘girlie test’; gimme a ‘real’ one like WD4NYL took back in 1977”. It doesn’t work that way. I remember back in 1980 when some old soak “gave me the treatment” for having passed the Extra exam, 20 WPM code and all. “Why, when I took my test back in 1962 you had to build a radio, smelt the wire, mine the ore, blah, blah, blah, blah.” I remember thinking “Yeah, but they’ve invented dirt since then, you old goat”. To be honest, a friend and I took the current practice General exam and we both failed so miserably that we ought to be downgraded from Extra to Novice. So Mark’s not going to be slinging any mud. To our new hams just know that every one of us has “gotten the treatment”, at one time or the other. So if someone calls you a “No Code Digital Weather Wacko” don’t worry about it. It just goes with the territory. To the older hams I say, whether you agree with the current testing methods or not, make new hams “feel at home”. Let them know that they “belong”. Remember that YOU were a “brand new” ham once yourself. If they make a mistake or two, just remember when YOU did (and still do) a masterful job of messing up and just smile and help them. Maybe they will help you someday also. Sermon 10# – Avoid “Young Squirt-isms”. New hams should hesitate condemning the older hams for not adopting every new “revolutionary” mode or gizmo that comes along. The reason some things became “tried and true” is because they actually worked. I’ve lost count of the number of “new, exciting multitronic-thermothrocker controlled” widgets that came along, with much fanfare and devotees, but eventually proved to be as useful as rust. This is a “trial and error” hobby. Some of us Old Goats do know a thing or two, based on experience. That’s why it’s good to have a mentor. These are just a few things we can work on. Just as we have to “tweak” a knob every now and then to make a radio operate better, we need to tweak ourselves every now and then also, so we will become better operators. Then we can, as the preacher in the old country church once said, teach our “brethren and cistern” also. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Mark’s Almanac With the arrival of November we enter our second tornado season. Alabama and the Southeast are “blessed” by being the only area on Earth having two tornado seasons. And, the cause of the second season is the same as the spring season – clashes of cold and warm air masses. The cold air of winter is invading and trying to push the warmth of the summer back into the sea, which is the same process of springtime, just in reverse. This second season is often more destructive than the spring season. So beware of a warm & muggy November day. Especially one with a south wind, as something may really be “in the air”. The Hurricane threat greatly diminishes, with hurricane activity occurring mainly in the open Atlantic, threatening the Eastern Seaboard, but usually veering off into sea as cold fronts off the East Coast deflect them. Hurricanes can still form in the Caribbean, which usually visit the Yucatan, but can enter the Gulf. Hurricane season ends November 30. The blooms of summer have faded, but you may find yourself still sneezing, due to ragweed and mold. Mold is a fall allergy trigger. You may think of mold growing in your basement or bathroom – damp areas in the house – but mold spores also love wet spots outside. Piles of damp leaves are ideal breeding grounds for mold. Oh, and did I mention dust mites? While they are common during the humid summer months, they can get stirred into the air the first time you turn on your heat in the fall. Dust mites can trigger sneezes, wheezes, and runny noses. November welcomes the peak of fall colors. For Birmingham the peak occurs around November 15, but the date can vary depending on your elevation & latitude. Indian Summer and Squaw Winter continue to battle it out, but the cool or cold weather will eventually win, with the first average frost being on November 11. The usual fall effects occur in North America with Canada’s Hudson Bay becoming unnavigable due to pack ice & icebergs. Navigation in the Great Lakes becomes perilous due to storms bringing the “Gales Of November” made famous in song “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald”. And, don’t be surprised if you hear ducks overhead & see wedges of Canadian geese heading south for the winter. And if you see strange birds appearing in your front yard, remember that for 336 species of birds Alabama IS south for the winter. Looking skyward, Mercury is lost in the sunset Venus shines brightly in the southwest during dusk, setting an hour after sunset. Mars rises around 2 or 3 a.m.in Leo. Comet ISON is below Mars, but, at magnitude 9 or 10 is still too faint to be seen with an unaided eye. Comet ISON continues its journey through the inner solar system, having crossed the Earth’s orbit on October 30th and is heading towards a very close encounter with the Sun on November 28, when it will pass within about 700,000 miles of the solar surface. There is great uncertainty regarding whether or not it will remain disappointingly dim or whether it will end up evolving into a spectacularly bright object. Or whether it will even survive the Solar passage, or disintegrate due to the Sun’s heat and tidal pressure. If ISON survives its close approach to the Sun, it may briefly brighten as it rises into the morning sky to begin its journey back into the depths of the solar system. First it will appear just before sunrise very low in the east-south-east. Each morning it will climb higher into the sky and away from the Sun’s glare. Soon ISON might be seen in morning twilight, and then will rise into a darker sky. It’s merely guesswork at this point what may be seen. Also after its solar passage, or perihelion, ISON will become visible in the evening sky right after sunset. However, during the first couple of weeks in December ISON will hang very low above the west to north-west horizon. You’ll need an unobstructed view to observe the comet. Originally astronomers were saying the tail would extend far into the sky. Now scientist feel is not likely to happen. But, if ISON ends up being a nice, not “great”, comet visible to the naked-eye, I’ll still be happy. As the weeks progress, ISON will begin to rise above the north-western horizon. By December 25, it will still be visible in telescopes as it climbs towards the north. On January 7, it will pass within two degrees (four Full Moon diameters) of Polaris, which shines at magnitude +2. The comet will be about +7 magnitude and not visible to the naked-eye. Binoculars may still show it, but it is mere speculation whether a tail will still be detectable. After that the comet will fade from view and memory. Jupiter rises in the east-southeast around 10 or 11 pm. It is growing brighter as its orbit draws it closer to the Earth. Saturn is lost in the sunset. Uranus in Pisces and Neptune in Aquarius, respectively, are high in the southeast and south by 8 or 9 p.m. November’s Full Moon is “Beaver Moon” in Native American folklore, and will occur 11:16 am CST November 17. The annual Leonid meteor shower occurs from November 10 – 21 and peaks November 17. The Leonids are well known for producing bright meteors and fireballs. Its productivity varies per year, but it can deposit 12 to 13 tons of particles across the planet. Which is why having an atmosphere to shield us is such a nifty thing. If you can’t see them, you can listen to them. Try http://spaceweatherradio.com/index.php and click “listen”. You may hear them “pinging” off the US Air Force Space Surveillance radar system. ………………………………………………………………………………………. This month’s meeting will be on November 12 at 7PM at the National Weather Service Forecast office at the Shelby County Airport If for some reason you cannot attend the meeting in person, you can still participate via telephone. The teleconference number is 1-877-951-0997 & and the participant code is 741083. Until then, 73 and take care. Mark WD4NYL ALERT www.freewebs.com/weatherlynx