Previous AARC News Bulletins

special message from AARC club president Mark Allard:

It is with profound sadness that I let you know that Delbert “Del” Philpott, WA6YOQ, passed away Sunday, December 11, 2005 at 2 pm as a result of surgical complications.

A memorial service was scheduled on Saturday, January 21, 2005 to celebrate Del’s life-

In lieu of flowers, Donna has requested that donations be made on Del’s behalf to-

Scottish Rite Clinic for Childhood Language Disorders
San Jose Scottish Rite
2455 Masonic Drive
San Jose, CA 95125

Del a longtime AARC member, past Vice President, and a principal “do-er” related to our successes with the SAREX program and other special AARC events, contributed much to the Ames Amateur Radio Club’s success through his efforts, elmering, and example.

He is survived by his wife, Donna, also a Ham, who, in support of Del’s interests, has also been a great and consistent supporter of AARC activities.

In addition to his many contributions and tireless hours supporting Amateur Radio at Ames and in his community, Del was internationally recognized as a premier researcher in Biomedical Electron microscopy, heading the Ames Electron Microscopy lab for many years starting in 1966, and was famous for being one of the US soldiers to link up with the Russians at the Elbe River in 1945, a significant historical event that signaled the end of the WWII and that he authored the book “Hands Across the Elbe” regarding.

During Del’s NASA career, that historic WWII event became the catalyst for several endeavors involving cooperation between the Soviet and American space programs and, even very recently, he was honored, in person, by both Russian and American leaders at a ceremony celebrating the WWII linkup.

I know I’m much richer for having the opportunity to have known Del and will miss his tireless enthusiasm, humor, and unique contributions.

Del made a positive difference in the world and in the lives of those he touched.

73, Mark Allard

Amateur Television, AARC June 16, 2005 Meeting

Amateur Television, ATV, was presented at the June 16 meeting of the Ames Amateur Radio Club. Michael Wright (K6MFW) demonstrated ATV transmission, reception, and use of ATV equipment.

Click here for the Amateur Television presentation

HF Radio at Sea, AARC May 19, 2005 Meeting

Richard Mogford (KG6TOJ) presented an overview of using high frequency (HF) radio on sailboats for voice and email communications. The talk included a demonstration of Airmail (an HF email program) and of radio equipment that can be used on powerboats or sailboats.

Click here for the HF Radio at Sea presentation

Amateur Radio Exhibit at Moffett Airshow on May 29-30, 2004

Click here to see some photos of the AARC exhibit at the airshow.

Ames Amateur Radio Club had a display featuring and promoting Amateur Radio and its value to the community and aviation. With a very short notice of a few days, we were able to assemble an exhibit and recruit volunteers.

Since the Airshow was a commercial event, they did not utilize Amateur Radio volunteers on Amateur frequencies. But some good demonstrations of HF, VHF/UHF, Wireless Video, APRS, and similar communications technologies such as radio over IP, went a long way to show the value of Amateur Radio support at such events and generate much interest among existing hams and potential new hams throughout the Bay Area.

Coax Cable Loss

You may figure to save a few bucks by buying cheaper coax, but this chart may show the low cost solution will be wasting your money. Especially for UHF frequencies, 90% of the signal in some types of coax can be lost after 100 feet.

AARC March 21 2002 Lunchtime Seminar
California Disaster Service Worker (DSW) Program and Communications

Larry Carr, Auxillary Communication Services (ACS) Officer for Santa Clara County, will be on-site Thursday, March 21, 2002 at noon to address the subject of the California Disaster Service Worker Volunteer Program with an emphasis on volunteers desiring to support Ames and the surrounding communities in the area of communications.

The talk is being hosted as part of volunteer communications support activities provided to the Center by the Ames Amateur Radio Club (AARC) and will be held at the Center's Amateur Radio station (NA6MF).

Disaster Service Worker registration protects volunteers from financial loss as a result of injuries that may be sustained while engaged in assigned service activities and provides an immunity from liability while providing these services.

Larry is one of only a few authorized individuals able to register Disaster Service Workers for communications and will have the appropriate registration materials available for those interested in registering.

AARC Shack Straighten-up
by Mark Allard, KD6CWM

I'd like to recognize the following AARC members who have been instrumental in the design, planning, and implementation of the new shack's layout and the station capabilities and resources we already have available. They have spent many hours working on our behalf to get our resources transitioned and operating better than before:

Walt Miller
Lou Salerno
Scott Emery
Michael Wright
Del Philpott
Donna Philpott
Bruce Gilbaugh
Frank Caradonna

See the photos at this link to see our hard-working volunteers in action.

ARISS Ham Radio Equipment Test a Success
from http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2000/11/13/2/?nc=1, December 2000

According to Will Marchant, KC6ROL, the International Space Station crew has completed installation of the Amateur Radio hardware in the Functional Cargo Block.

The initial two passes were tested at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC) ham shack R3K in Star City near Moscow. The control operators were Sergej Samburov, RV3DR, and Vladimir Zagainov, UA3DKR. Sergej is the Russian delegate to the ARISS team. Subsequent tests at the NN1SS station at the Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, MD) and the W5RRR station at Johnson Space Center (Houston, TX) were equally successful.

Engineering tests with the packet rig still need to be organized. The crew, while still very busy, expressed their interest and support of Amateur Radio activities on the ISS.

from CNN.Com, "Space Station Crew 'Hams' it up Ahead of Cargo Ship Visit"
The agency said the trio would use the radio to talk with school children and ham radio operators throughout the world. But a NASA spokesman at Mission Control in Houston said Monday he did not know who the crew spoke with during their first ham radio conversations.

Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) at http://ariss.gsfc.nasa.gov

FCC set to authorize MURS

With no fanfare, the FCC is set to authorize a new Citizens Band Radio Service to be called the Multi-Use Radio System, or MURS. The service, which came about as part of the biennial review of Part 90 of the FCC's rules, will deploy five former Private Land Mobile Radio Service VHF "color dot" channels for voice, data and imaging transmissions. The channels, 151.82, 151.88, 151.94, 154.57 and 154.60--will be authorized for up to 2 W on an unlicensed basis under Part 95 of the FCC's rules. The establishment of MURS was buried within a huge Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rule Making released this summer as WT Docket 98-182 and PR Docket 92-235. The FCC said it will "revisit" the issue of allocating additional MURS channels "at a later date should additional support develop." [Effective date of MURS was November 13.]
from ARRLWeb In Brief, Oct 11, 2000, at http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2000/11/13/2/?nc=1

Part 95, Personal Radio Services, can be downloaded in pdf or txt formats from http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_98/47cfr95_98.html. However, the final version of the new rules has not yet been published.

AARC Shack Transfer
by Mark Allard, KD6CWM

Our club station has relocated and we need volunteers to pitch in with all of the sorting and moving of things and reconfiguration of the stations. See the photos at this link to see our hard-working volunteers in action.

I don't have to tell you what a great opportunity this is to get a feeling for what the club has as available resources for you to use and to gain or share your experience in setting up stations and equipment.

In addition to the movement and re-installation of the AARC assets, there is exciting movement on the new repeater front as well that you will want to hear about and possibly participate in.

This is the time we need all AARC members, friends, family, and interested parties to make themselves available as much as possible over the next several weeks to complete our transition promptly and show the Center that we are a significantly sized and motivated group worthy of the significant support and investment they are making in our club.

Any work being performed needs to be coordinated with either myself, Bruce Gilbaugh, Frank Caradonna, or Scott Emery.

There is much to do and a wide variety of things to do, so, everyone can contribute.

I look forward to personally showing you through our new club facilities and ushering in a new wealth of opportunities and capabilities for those interested in Amateur Radio and communications technologies.

73,
Mark

Space Weather News for Oct. 25, 2000

This morning a full halo coronal mass ejection sped away from the Sun faster than 620 km/s. The leading edge of a solar wind shock wave could arrive in the neighborhood of Earth later this week and possibly trigger auroras. For details and animations please visit http://www.spaceweather.com

Expedition One Launch & Docking

The Expedition One Crew -- Commander Bill Shepherd, Soyuz Commander Yuri Gidzenko and Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev -- is scheduled for launch at approximately 11:53 p.m. PST October 30 (2:53 a.m. EST October 31), atop a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

AARC plans to re-transmit audio from NASA Television which plans extensive coverage of the crew's pre-launch preparations at Baikonur, launch and docking of the vehicle to the International Space Station (ISS). This should include replay the crew's final pre-launch news conference from the cosmonaut crew quarters at Baikonur at 2 a.m. PST (5 a.m. EST), with subsequent replays at 5 a.m. and 7 a.m PST (8 a.m. and 10 a.m EST).

Launch coverage on October 30 will begin at 11 p.m. PST (2 a.m. EST October 31), anchored from the Russian Mission Control Center in Korolev, outside Moscow, and at Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX.

A post-launch news conference at the Russian Mission Control Center will be conducted about 90 minutes after liftoff.

Live coverage of docking to the ISS Zvezda Service Module will begin about thirty minutes before the Soyuz linkup. The docking time on November 2 is expected to be around 1:20 a.m. PST (4:20 a.m. EST).

Air-to-ground conversations between the crewmembers and flight controllers in Houston and Korolev will be distributed in real time on Mission Audio circuits.

For related info and websites, click here

Ham Equipment Delivered to Space Station
from The ARRL Letter (http://www.arrl.org), September 20, 2000

The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station initial station equipment plus supplies that the ISS Expedition 1 crew will need later this year were delivered to the ISS this week. After entering the station itself, astronauts and cosmonauts worked to unload the cargo--including the ham gear--from the shuttle Atlantis and from a docked Russian Progress rocket and to set the ISS up for its first crew.

There are three hams on the shuttle Atlantis mission. No Amateur Radio operation will take place from the ISS until the Expedition 1 crew arrives in early November, however, nor will there be any ham activity from the shuttle on this trip.

On September 11, US astronaut Ed Lu, KC5WKJ, and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko completed a more than six-hour space walk. Lu and Malenchenko attached nine power, data and communication cables to the ISS's newest component, the Russian-built Zvezda service module, and to the Zarya control module. They also assembled a magnetometer boom on Zvezda's exterior.

Other amateurs aboard include astronauts Dan Burbank, KC5ZSX, and Richard Mastracchio, KC5ZTE.

Atlantis blasted off on schedule last Friday from the Kennedy Space Center. It delivered amateur VHF and UHF hand-held transceivers for the multi-national ARISS program, as well as a TNC for packet, a specially developed headset and signal adapter module plus power adapters and interconnecting cables. The gear will be stowed aboard the ISS until the Expedition 1 crew of US astronaut Bill Shepherd, KD5GSL, and Russian Cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev, U5MIR, and Yuri Gaidzenko come aboard.

The ARISS initial station gear will be installed temporarily aboard Zarya and will use an existing antenna that's being adapted to support FM voice and packet on 2 meters. The gear will be re-installed in the Zvezda Service Module next year, and it will have both 2-meter and 70-cm capabilities. A Russian call sign, RZ3DZR, has been issued for the ISS ham radio station.

For more information about Amateur Radio on the ISS and SAREX, visit the ARISS Web site at http://ariss.gsfc.nasa.gov (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station).

Solar Storm Effects
from Clif Horne, WS6G

There is a continued possibility of solar storm effects such as low-lattitude aurora visible tonight from coronal mass ejection (CME) events last Fri and Sat (Sept 15 and 16, 2000). See http://SpaceWeather.com for details.

RF safety rules now in force for all amateurs
ARRL Bulletin 37 ARLB037
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington CT September 1, 2000
To all radio amateurs:

Starting September 1, every US amateur is required to fully comply with the FCC's RF exposure guidelines.

The regulations, which went into effect January 1, 1998, require US Amateur Radio operators to read and understand the rules and, where necessary, perform technical evaluations to determine that their stations are compliant with the new regulations. Up until now, only hams who have had to file an Amateur Radio application with the FCC have had to certify compliance with the RF exposure rules. As of September 1, all amateurs must comply.

Under the regulations, an amateur station must not exceed the maximum permissible exposure limits for transmitter operation.

"These regulations are not a major burden on the Amateur Radio Service," said ARRL Lab Supervisor Ed Hare, W1RFI. "Most hams are already in compliance with the MPE requirements; some hams will need to conduct a simple station evaluation."

A complete description of the rules is available on the ARRL Web site at http://www.arrl.org/news/rfsafety/. The site also contains resources to make your station evaluation quite painless.

Address questions about RF safety and the FCC exposure guidelines to ARRL Lab Supervisor Ed Hare, W1RFI, ehare@arrl.org.

Communications for Exploration: Field Tests

Bruce Gilbaugh, KD6HWZ, will spend some time near the north pole in July. He is involved with the communications setup during July as part of NASA Ames' collaborations with other groups on telemedicine and mission operations in the remote area of area of the Haughton Crater. When Bruce returns, he will give a presentation about his adventures. Below are some sites and info links that others might be curious about in relation to Bruce's trip.

Haughton-Mars Project 2000 (Code S) at http://arctic-mars.org

Click on the link labeled "Communications for Exploration." This will give an idea of what Bruce will be focusing on.

When your done there click on "Science Reports Index" at the bottom and select the last link labeled "aid planetary exploration"

This will show you Rick Alena, Gilbaugh's Group Lead, and more specifically our project focus with Mobile Exploration Systems.

Mars Society web site at http://arctic.marssociety.org

This site will explain what the MARS Society is doing this summer in building their habitat near the Haughton Crater.

AARC Webpage Editor: Michael Wright, K6MFW, at (650) 604-6262 or email michael.f.wright@nasa.gov

Back to AARC Home Page (http://hamradio.arc.nasa.gov)