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TUESDAY EDITION: We still have a few leaves on the trees, it is hard to believe with all the wind we have had....I am going over to the club and hookup the Yeasu FL7000 this morning and see how it plays....I wish it wasnt so damn heavy, 66 pounds. It must have a very heavy duty power supply.

A very basic overview of Polar Modulation and the implications for Amateur Radio

MONDAY EDITION: Another good weekend, big shot BC football lost its 9th straight game and the KC Chiefs lost....32 degrees here at 730am....

The radio club has a Yaesu FL7000 amplifier for sale in mint condition.This is a solid state, no tune, 600 watt amplifier that can be run or 110 or 220 vac. It is wired for 110 currently. I will post pictures, it weighs 66 pounds! . If you have a FT1000 or similar Yaesu radio it has the cabling to permit autoband switching but can be used with any radio as well. It also has the built in autotuner for a 3-1 or less swr. If you have any interest, email me.

Connecting “Little Harmonics” And Jolly Ol’ St. Nick Via Ham Radio

Santa Net is an annual December event where licensed amateur radio operators use RF and EchoLink technology to connect children with Santa Claus on the airwaves.

Did you know we’re experiencing a shortage of Santas? Yep, since 2020, the number of experienced, available Santas has dropped by 10%, driven by factors such as an aging workforce, pandemic-related health concerns, and … well … performers “going to the North Pole in the sky.”

At the same time, according to ABC News, there’s been a surge in demand. Event planners and families sought to make up for lost celebrations, leading to a spike in bookings for holiday Santas as COVID-19 restrictions began to ease, outpacing the number of available performers.​ Then there’s a less-discussed aspect: a shortage of costumes and accessories due to broader global supply chain delays, making it harder and more costly for new performers to enter the field.​

Read more – RF GlobalNet: https://bit.ly/4oMLVoQ

HAARP Campaign Focuses on HF and VLF Propagation

The following is a press release from the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program:

The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) will be conducting a research
campaign November 17-22 UTC, with operating times specified in the table below. Operating
frequencies will vary, but all HAARP transmissions will be between 2.75 MHz and 10 MHz. Actual
transmit days and times are highly variable based on real-time ionospheric and/or geomagnetic
conditions. All information is subject to change.

This campaign is being conducted in support of research proposals from the University of Alaska
Fairbanks, Aerospace Corporation, the University of Colorado-Denver, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical
University, the University of Florida, Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, the
Naval Research Laboratory, and the University of Texas-San Antonio. This research is supported
by the Subauroral Geophysical Observatory award (#2054361) from the National Science
Foundation. Scientific goals of these experiments include studies on the effects of ionospheric
conditions on high-frequency radio wave propagation and generation and propagation of
extremely low frequency/very low frequency (ELF/VLF) waves. This campaign will also introduce a
Rayleigh LIDAR system as a new diagnostic tool for measuring temperature and density at an
altitude of 11-85 km. More information on the LIDAR is available here:
https://www.gi.alaska.edu/news/new-lidar-advances-atmospheric-science-uaf-research-site

The table below contains some of the frequencies that are expected to be used for these
experiments. Note that these are subject to change based on real-time conditions in the
ionosphere. The included transmission notice supplement contains information on the
frequencies HAARP is authorized to transmit. HAARP transmissions will only occur on our
authorized frequencies. There are no specific data collection requests from funded investigators,
but reception reports are appreciated and may be submitted to our online form at
https://haarp.gi.alaska.edu/form/reception-reports.

November 17

• 1800-2400 UTC
• 2.75, 4.3 MHz

November 18

• 0000-0330 UTC
• 4.29, 5.25, 5.8, foF2 MHz

November 19

• 0030-0530 UTC
• 4.3, 5.25, 9.6, foF2 MHz

November 20

• 0130-0800 UTC
• 3.25, 4.3, 5.25, 9.6, foF2 MHz

November 21

• 0000-0800 UTC
• 3.25, 4.3, 5.25, 9.6, foF2 MHz

November 22

• 0400-1100 UTC
• 3.089, 9.6 MHz

Additional Resources for Reading Ionograms

Understanding HF Propagation and Reading Ionograms from Bootstrap Workbench:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTFKNCo3Cl8

Reading Your Ionogram-Keeping It Simple from John (VE6EY):
https://play.fallows.ca/wp/radio/shortwave-radio/reading-your-ionogram-keeping-it-simple/

 

 

WEEKEND EDITION: Another cold start but nice and sunny here on the island....another day of blowing some leaves...

Get On the Air for 2025 ARRL November Sweepstakes

Amateur Radio Newsline Report

**
HAMS ASSIST GOVT. RESPONDERS DURING PHILIPPINE SUPER TYPHOON

NEIL/ANCHOR: We begin this week with a report of disaster preparedness that rallied quickly as a super typhoon in the South China Sea was bearing down on the Philippines on the 8th of November. Emergency amateur frequencies in the region were cleared for the Philippine Amateur Radio Association and others to use for traffic. The association's operators were among those engaged by the Philippine National Telecommunications Commission to help government responders, especially in those regions where communication connections had been destroyed by the powerful storm, known internationally as Fung-wong.

The death toll kept rising and more than a million people were displaced in the archipelago nation as floods and landslides took over much of the landscape in the northern provinces. Sustained winds were reported at up to 185 km/h, or 115 mph, with gusts of as much as 230 km/h or 143 mph.

Amateur radio has traditionally been a part of disaster response and the recovery process.

(BBC, MARTS, ABC NEWS)

**
SIMULATED TSUNAMI TESTS READINESS OF HAMS IN SRI LANKA

NEIL/ANCHOR: Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, amateurs have just completed a successful national readiness exercise which simulated a tsunami, recalling the one that struck the region in December of 2004. Jim Meachen ZL2BHF has those details.

JIM: It was a magnitude 9.2 undersea earthquake happening off Northern Sumatra on the 5th of November - but fortunately, it was simulated. The Disaster Management Centre and the Radio Society of Sri Lanka responded as if it were happening for real, sending traffic designed to coordinate evacuations and respond to health emergencies and other critical situations.

A statement from the radio society's management council, posted on their Facebook page, said that the hams' field operations on VHF from Colombo, Galle and Kalutara provided uninterrupted data relay across the island. The scenario called for disaster response from a variety of agencies where such coordination was crucial. The field operators had strong support from home-based listening stations.

Frequencies were also monitored by the Amateur Radio Society of India and member societies of IARU Region 3.

The council statement said: [quote] "This exercise not only demonstrated the vital role and effectiveness of Amateur Radio in emergency response, but also reaffirmed the importance of strong collaboration between the RSSL and the Disaster Management Centre in building national communication resilience and public awareness." [endquote]

Sri Lanka was among the many nations struck by the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in late 2004 that killed tens of thousands.

This is Jim Meachen ZL2BHF.

(RADIO SOCIETY OF SRI LANKA, FACEBOOK)

**
SILENT KEY: POPULAR BANGALORE NET CONTROl OP SUBBU, VU2ZUB

NEIL/ANCHOR: An active and prominent ham from Bangalore, India has become a Silent Key. We hear more about him from Jeremy Boot G4NJH.

JEREMY: He was known on the air as Subbu and his callsign, VU2ZUB, could be heard on any number of nets - especially when serving as the net control operator. A member of the Bangalore Amateur Radio Club, he was active on HF, VHF, UHF, Echolink and satellite.

Subbu was reported as having become a Silent Key on the 10th of November. There were no other details.

His commitment to public service through radio extended into his off-the-air activities: A longtime member of Rotary Bangalore East, he was recognised by Rotary International as a Paul Harris Fellow for his long record of work benefitting the community. Subbu had also belonged to Rotarians on Amateur Radio, or R O A R.

A post by the Institute of Amateur Radio in Kerala recalled him as [quote]: "a dedicated radio amateur, ever helpful and kind-hearted, he will be remembered for his passion for communication and his warm camaraderie on and off the air." [endquote]

This is Jeremy Boot G4NJH

(QRZ.COM, INSTITUTE OF AMATEUR RADIO IN KERALA)

**

INTREPID-DX LAUNCHES 'AMATEUR RADIO FOR THE GREATER GOOD'

NEIL/ANCHOR: Although many remember this annual competition as the Intrepid-DX Group's Youth "Dream Rig" Essay Contest, there have been some changes - some very big changes -- as the sixth annual challenge begins. Ralph Squillace KK6ITB tells us what has happened.

RALPH: For the past five years, licensed hams 25 and younger were challenged to write an essay on a topic relevant to ham radio's place in the world. It's part of the Intrepid-DX Group's mission to encourage the growth of amateur radio in all nations around the world, especially in areas that are still developing.

This year's challenge focuses not just on words but action - the contest is being called "Amateur Radio for the Greater Good." In a departure from previous contests, this one asks the young hams to submit proposals to establish a public-access radio station somewhere in the US. The station can be intended for any public building - a school, a house of worship, a fire station, a hospital or a community center.

The winner will receive a complete HF, VHF/UHF station, including coax and antennas, to make their proposal a reality where it can be used for club use, mentoring, training and emergency communication. The winner will also receive an own HF radio for personal use.

The deadline for submission of proposals is the 10th of December, with the awardee's name announced on the 15th. They will be required to provide written permission from the facility that they have chosen, authorizing the installation of the station and antenna. The awardee may become the station's trustee.

See the text version of this week's newscast script at arnewsline.org for the email or US mail address where inquiries or submissions may be sent.

This is Ralph Squillace KK6ITB.
(INTREPID DX GROUP)

**
ARDC GRANTS SUPPORT STUDENTS' SATELLITE COURSES

NEIL/ANCHOR: A pair of AMSAT courses to teach students about satellites have gained support from Amateur Radio Digital Communications, as we hear from Jack Parker W8ISH.

JACK: In 2022, AMSAT rolled out its community-based Youth Initiative Program which provides age-appropriate lessons about satellites for youngsters in two age groups, grades 5-7 and grades 8-12. In that first year, a grant from the Quarter Century Wireless Association helped get things going.

Three years later, as the initiative gathers even more momentum, Amateur Radio Digital Communication has announced that it is providing the initiative with two grants designed to enhance both of the student groups' learning experiences. One grant will allow production of a coloring book for the younger students, who are of elementary school age. The pages will depict satellites being used to aid in pollution control, wildfire fighting, broadcasting and navigation.

The other grant will help secure more software licenses for online courses for the older students, who are of high school age. The first course is called "Introduction to Satellite Meteorology," and visitors to Hamvention this past spring got a preview of its contents.

Central to the initiative are its two websites, KidzSat and BuzzSat, which contain age-appropriate activities for the younger and older students, respectively. The students also have access to a network of online software-defined radios they can use as ground stations for receiving images and telemetry from satellites making passes overhead.

This is Jack Parker W8ISH.


BRISBANE HAMS HOST INAUGURAL QTECH CONFERENCE

NEIL/ANCHOR: The weekend of November 1st and 2nd ushered in an inaugural amateur radio conference in Australia organised by the Brisbane VHF Group. John Williams VK4JJW brings us up to date.

JOHN: Known as QTech2025, the conference in Brisbane suburb of Chermside it focused on the next generation of radio operators who will become stewards of the airwaves. Their varied voices were heard throughout the two-day programme, both as presenters and guests.

Two university students, Otto VK4OTZ and Finn VK4II sparked dialogue with a talk on their theme, "Young Hams: YES We Do Exist." Young amateurs' voices were also well-heard during a town hall style meeting to discuss ways to attract new hams and ensure amateur radio's future.

According to a report by Kevin VK4UH, the Brisbane VHF Group's president, more than 70 registered delegates attended and although a handful did participate remotely, most of them were present in person.

Kevin's report, which appeared first in a Wireless Institute of Australia newscast, said one of the high points of the conference was perhaps one of its briefest: an 11-minute contact between 15 students and astronaut Jonny Kim KJ5HFP at the moment the ISS orbit passed over Queensland.

Like amateur radio itself, the conference is expected to have a bright future: Kevin said organisers are already working on QTech2027.

This is John Williams VK4JJW.

(WIA)

**
COLLEGE DONATES LAPTOPS WISCONSIN HAM CLUB

NEIL/ANCHOR: Community generosity works in both directions, as one amateur radio club in Wisconsin found out recently. Andy Morrison K9AWM has the details.

ANDY: Hams are accustomed to being the ones providing community service -- and so it was a special privilege for the Fond du Lac Amateur Radio Club in Wisconsin to be on the receiving end recently. The Moraine Park Technical College donated five laptops to assist the club with its work in amateur radio education, license testing and emergency communications, including its Field Day operations.

The donations kept club member Lloyd Vandervort N9RPU hard at work setting up the club logging programs,

Dave McCumber, N9WQ, club president, issued a statement saying that the additional computing power will [quote] "strengthen our ability to teach, train and support both new and experienced radio operators throughout the region." [endquote]

This is Andy Morrison K9AWM.

(FDL REPORTER, FOND DU LAC ARC FACEBOOK PAGE)

**
INSIGHTS INTO LOSS OF ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY

NEIL/ANCHOR: What happens when a material loses its ability to conduct electricity -- seemingly for no reason? Researchers have been working to solve that mystery and they think they've figured it out, as we hear from Kent Peterson KCØDGY.

KENT: It's uncommon but when it happens, as it does in the quantum realm, scientists have previously been left shrugging their shoulders. Now when material that had been capable of conducting electricity loses that property, becoming an insulator, they're nodding their heads in recognition instead.

As explained in a recent paper published in Physical Review Letters, an international team of researchers working at the DESY Institute in Germany made their discovery while working with a compound of the rare earth metals: tellurium, selenium and thulium. They found that the compound lost its inherent conductivity because of what researchers described as a "particle dance" involving a group of particles called polarons (POLE A RONS) -- quasiparticles which can combine and behave as one particle instead of several. The polarons can spur activity between electrons and the nearby atoms, impeding the flow of electricity by slowing it down and eventually halting it altogether.

The researchers wrote that their findings show "that the properties of a material cannot be explained by its chemical composition alone."

The scientists concluded that their findings about polarons may ultimately lead to development of new types of matter or the ability to alter some materials' optical, magnetic or electrical properties.

This is Kent Peterson KCØDGY.

(GIZMODO, AZO QUANTUM.COM)

**
STUDENTS' SATELLITE HAS NEWEST MICROWAVE LINEAR TRANSPONDER

NEIL/ANCHOR: There's a new microwave-band linear transponder in the sky - and it was put there by university students, as we hear from Sel Embee KB3TZD.

SEL: A student-built CubeSat from the University of Arizona is providing the latest microwave-band linear transponder for use by amateur radio operators.

After entering orbit more than a year ago, the spacecraft known as CatSat began the earliest parts of its mission: taking images of the Earth, monitoring the ionosphere via HF radio measurements and demonstrating inflatable-antenna technology. CatSat completes a full circle of the earth every 90 minutes in a polar orbit that is nearly sun-synchronous.

The linear transponder was commissioned successfully during the past few weeks. It listens on an uplink of 5.663 GHz and transmits on a downlink of 10.47 GHz, with an estimated bandwidth of 200 kHz. For more details or to follow its operation, visit the CatSat mission website at catsat - that's C-A-T-S-A-T - dot arizona dot edu (catsat.arizona.edu)

This is Sel Embee, K-B-3-T-Zed-D.

(AMSAT NEWS)

**
WORLD OF DX

In the World of DX, members of the Wingles Radio Club, F4KLR, are marking the 60th anniversary of the first French satellite, known as Asterix, which was launched on the 26th of November, 1965. The operators will be using the callsign TM6ØATX on Fridays and Saturdays between the 14th of November and the 13th of December – and again on the 19th through to the 23rd of December.

Listen for Red, DL1BUG, operating as TY5FR from Cotonou, Benin from the 15th of November through to the 11th of December. Red will be using CW and SSB on 80-10 metres and will participate in the CQ WW DX CW Contest.

For all contacts listed in World of DX, please see QRZ.com for QSL details, frequencies, or other operating information.

(425 DX BULLETIN)

**
KICKER: ROYAL TREATMENT FOR YL WHO'S A TOP SOTA OP

NEIL/ANCHOR: Finally, we introduce - NOT the "King of the Hill" but one of the Queens of the Mountains. There may not be a crown on her head - at least not yet - but this South African amateur is getting a royal treatment from the international community of YL SOTA activators. Graham Kemp VK4BB tells us why.

GRAHAM: The event known as Queens of the Mountains ascended to the summits again this past June for its second year -- and YL SOTA activators around the world did their best during two days of activating. The highest achievement this year belongs to Adele Tyler, ZS5APT, who has been chosen to receive the K1LIZ Memorial Achievement Award for having achieved most of the goals set.

Announcing Adele's achievement on the SOTA Reflector, Paula K9IR and Amy AG7GP, said that she activated two summits jointly with other YLs, logged a minimum of two QSOs with YL stations and completed at least five QSOs with YL chasers. They said, however, her most prominent accomplishment was her recruitment of six YL operators from South Africa as well as 22 YL and OM chasers from South Africa and Namibia to participate.

The K1LIZ award carries the callsign, the name and the memory of Liz Burns, a top-achieving SOTA activator who became a Silent Key in February of 2022. Liz became a symbol of determination and devotion to SOTA because she did not let her blindness deter her from tackling the challenge of activating.

This is Graham Kemp VK4BB.

(SOTA REFLECTOR)

FRIDAY EDITION: NE Patriots are still rolling on, they are fun to watch...Russian robot manufacturer looks foolish in demonstration...

Images Beamed from Space Celebrate 25 Years of Ham Radio on the ISS

Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) will mark two major milestones this month with a special Slow Scan Television (SSTV) event aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Beginning November 12 through November 20, the station will transmit a series of 12 commemorative SSTV images, pausing only for a scheduled educational contact.

The “SSTV Spacetacular” will highlight both…

Read more- American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources – Read More

John Telek, VK1JT is putting lives at risk (Australia)

John Telek, VK1JT, has been caught by fellow amateur ‘ham’ radio operators sending false data via ADS-B to commercial and civilian aircraft on 1090MHz.

No longer is Telek content with causing harmful interference on the amateur radio service; he is now allegedly causing potentially life-threatening interference to aviation, allegedly transmitting data on 1090MHz to civilian and commercial aircraft.

An amateur radio operator, Josh Mesilane, VK2MES, who is also a civilian pilot, is extremely concerned for aviation safety.

“I’ve successfully tested the ADSB transmit function,” Telek said in a Facebook post. Thereby, Telek has confirmed and admitted publicly that he is transmitting ADS-B data on aviation frequencies. This is a serious federal offence that, if found guilty, can include a prison sentence of up to two years’ imprisonment.

Read more – VictoriaNews: https://bit.ly/47UjoGD

 

THURSDAY EDITION: Cold start this morning, time to blow some more leaves....

A Treasure Trove Of Random Vintage Tech Resources

Finding, collecting, and restoring vintage tech is the rewarding pastime of many a Hackaday reader. Working with old-school gear can be tough, though, when documentation or supporting resources are hard to find. If you’re in need of an old manual or a little scrap of software, you might find the Vintage Technology Digital Archive (VTDA) a useful destination.

The VTDA is a simple website. There is no search function, or fancy graphical way to browse the resources on offer. Instead, it’s merely a collection of files in a well-ordered directory tree. Click through /pics/DiskSleeves/VTDA/ and you’ll find a collection of high-resolution scans of various old diskettes and their packaging. /docs/computing/Centronics/ will give you all kinds of useful documentation, from press releases to datasheets for printers long forgotten. You can even find Heathkit schematics and old Windows bootdisk images if you dive into the depths.

While it doesn’t have everything, by any means, the VTDA has lots of interesting little bits and pieces that you might not find anywhere else. It’s a great counterpart to other archival efforts out on the web, particularly if you’re a member of the retrocomputing massive.

Sun erupts with strongest solar flares since Oct 2024, blacks out radio signals in Africa, Europe

The Sun recently erupted with its most powerful solar flare of 2025, a massive burst of energy that immediately impacted Earth’s atmosphere, leading to widespread radio blackouts across parts of Africa and Europe, as reported by Space.com. This event marks another sign that the Sun is heating up as it nears the peak of its powerful solar cycle.

The flare was classified as an X-class flare, which represents the most intense category of solar events. These powerful bursts of radiation travel at the speed of light, reaching Earth in just over eight minutes, and are known to cause significant disturbances, particularly to communication systems.

Radio signals knocked out

Upon hitting our planet’s atmosphere, this surge of radiation caused an immediate and rapid ionization of the upper layers.

This dense, energised atmosphere then absorbed high-frequency radio waves, preventing them from bouncing back down to Earth. The result was a sudden shortwave radio blackout that affected vast swathes of both Africa and Europe.

These blackouts severely disrupted shortwave communication used by amateur radio operators, aviation, and some maritime traffic.

Although the flare was the strongest of the year, these events are a natural part of the Sun’s 11-year cycle of activity. As the Sun moves toward the maximum of this cycle, space weather experts anticipate more frequent and intense flares, meaning more potential disruptions to technology on Earth and in orbit.

DXLook Launches Realtime View

The following is a message from DXLook.com.

DXLook Launches “Realtime View — Live HF Propagation at Your Fingertips

DXLook has introduced a brand-new feature called Realtime View, giving amateur radio operators the ability to watch HF propagation unfold live — second by second — anywhere in the world.

If you’ve ever wanted to see where signals are being heard right now, or track a band opening as it happens, this new view makes it possible. Realtime View connects to live reports from PSK Reporter and instantly displays digital mode activity — including FT8, FT4, and more — as colorful arcs showing real signal paths across the globe.

🌎 What You’ll See

• Spots appearing within seconds of real reception
• Live visualization of band openings and activity
• Filters to focus by callsign, grid square, or band
• Works great on mobile and desktop devices

Realtime View focuses exclusively on digital modes, so you’ll see real data from live transmissions — no models or predictions. It’s perfect for testing antennas, chasing DX, or simply exploring what’s happening on the bands right now.

🚀 Try It Now

Visit dxlook.com, select Realtime from the view menu, and click Go — you’ll see HF propagation come alive within seconds.

 

WEDNESDAY EDITION: US mint is no longer going to make pennies, that should be interersting....

EMAIL:

Each year on November 10, Marines gather in ballrooms, hangars, and field tents around the world to celebrate the founding of their Corps. The rituals like cake-cutting, the reading of General Lejeune’s order, the toast to absent comrades are so familiar that they can feel timeless. Behind the ceremony lies a story of reinvention, memory, and meaning that many Marines never get to study closely.

The Date

The date itself, November 10, 1775, comes from a resolution of the Second Continental Congress calling for “two battalions of Marines” to serve aboard the fledgling Continental Navy. Those first Marines fought in the Caribbean and at sea before the unit was disbanded after the Revolution. The Corps was formally re-established in 1798, but it was not until 1921 that the 13th Commandant, Major General John A. Lejeune, issued Marine Corps Order No. 47 directing that the original date be observed as the official birthday of the Corps. The decision linked two eras – the Revolutionary “soldiers of the sea” and the modern amphibious force that would go ashore at Belleau Wood, Tarawa, and Fallujah – into a single lineage.

The earliest celebrations were modest. The first formal Marine Corps Ball was held in Philadelphia in 1925, featuring a memorial plaque at Tun Tavern, the tavern widely regarded as the Corps’ birthplace, followed by a dinner at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel. Some early balls were eccentric: one 1937 event featured a cake baked in the shape of Tun Tavern. The now-standard cake-cutting sequence – where the first slice goes to the guest of honor, the second to the oldest Marine present, and the third to the youngest – was not codified until 1952. Each detail, from the reading of the order to the distribution of cake, layers tradition with symbolism: the transmission of knowledge and duty from generation to generation.

The Importance of Continuity

One of the less discussed aspects of the birthday is its link to continuity amid change. Lejeune issued Order No. 47 in a period when the Corps was fighting for institutional survival, facing congressional scrutiny and budget threats. By institutionalizing the celebration, he created an annual ritual that reaffirmed the Corps’ distinct identity and moral purpose even when its future seemed uncertain. The order’s language of honoring “the illustrious record of the Corps” was both history and strategic advocacy. It tied Marines to an unbroken narrative of service that continues to sustain esprit de corps through the present day.

There are also fascinating nuances around the Tun Tavern legend. Although the tavern is enshrined in Marine lore, some historians point out that recruitment records may indicate another site in Philadelphia, the Conestoga Wagon Tavern, as the actual meeting place. The ambiguity matters less than the story’s endurance: Tun Tavern serves as a symbolic hearth, the imagined point where the first Marines gathered to form something larger than themselves.

Modern observances of the birthday blend reflection with realism. Marines deployed in remote areas such as embassy detachments to forward operating locations often improvise celebrations, sometimes with ration cakes or handwritten versions of Lejeune’s message. The consistency of those small observances demonstrates that the birthday is not about luxury or spectacle; it is about belonging. As the Corps approaches its 250th anniversary in 2025, the official campaign reminds Marines that they have “fought in every clime and place,” and that continuity of service is itself a form of readiness.

Modern observances of the birthday blend reflection with realism. Marines deployed in remote areas such as embassy detachments to forward operating locations often improvise celebrations, sometimes with ration cakes or handwritten versions of Lejeune’s message. The consistency of those small observances demonstrates that the birthday is not about luxury or spectacle; it is about belonging. As the Corps approaches its 250th anniversary in 2025, the official campaign reminds Marines that they have “fought in every clime and place,” and that continuity of service is itself a form of readiness.

MONDAY EDITION: NE Patriots continue to win, I never thought they would put together a season like this so soon in the rebuilding stage..3928 "The Learning Channel" discussed the best value for a sub sandwich in New England. The Market Basket chain seems to get the heads up for best value, I totally agree! Joe mentioned the foot long sub was a great deal and someone asked if that was 12 inches long, lol......

2025 Veterans Day - Amateur Radio Events. ARRL Closed Nov. 11

The Great Northeast Blackout of 1965

At 5:20 PM on November 9, 1965, the Tuesday rush hour was in full bloom outside the studios of WABC in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The drive-time DJ was Big Dan Ingram, who had just dropped the needle on Jonathan King’s “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon.” To Dan’s trained ear, something was off about the sound, like the turntable speed was off — sometimes running at the usual speed, sometimes running slow. But being a pro, he carried on with his show, injecting practiced patter between ad reads and Top 40 songs, cracking a few jokes about the sound quality along the way.

Within a few minutes, with the studio cart machines now suffering a similar fate and the lights in the studio flickering, it became obvious that something was wrong. Big Dan and the rest of New York City were about to learn that they were on the tail end of a cascading wave of power outages that started minutes before at Niagara Falls before sweeping south and east. The warbling turntable and cartridge machines were just a leading indicator of what was to come, their synchronous motors keeping time with the ever-widening gyrations in power line frequency as grid operators scattered across six states and one Canadian province fought to keep the lights on.

They would fail, of course, with the result being 30 million people over 80,000 square miles (207,000 km2) plunged into darkness. The Great Northeast Blackout of 1965 was underway, and when it wrapped up a mere thirteen hours later, it left plenty of lessons about how to engineer a safe and reliable grid, lessons that still echo through the power engineering community 60 years later.

Silent Sentinels

Although it wouldn’t be known until later, the root cause of what was then the largest power outage in world history began with equipment that was designed to protect the grid. Despite its continent-spanning scale and the gargantuan size of the generators, transformers, and switchgear that make it up, the grid is actually quite fragile, in part due to its wide geographic distribution, which exposes most of its components to the ravages of the elements. Without protection, a single lightning strike or windstorm could destroy vital pieces of infrastructure, some of it nearly irreplaceable in practical terms.

Tasked with this critical protective job are a series of relays. The term “relay” has a certain connotation among electronics hobbyists, one that can be misleading in discussions of power engineering. While we tend to think of relays as electromechanical devices that use electromagnets to make and break contacts to switch heavy loads, in the context of grid protection, relays are instead the instruments that detect a fault and send a control signal to switchgear, such as a circuit breaker.

Relays generally sense faults through a series of instrumentation transformers located at critical points in the system, usually directly within the substation or switchyard. These can either be current transformers, which measure the current in a toroidal coil wrapped around a conductor, much like a clamp meter, or voltage transformers, which use a high-voltage capacitor network as a divider to measure the voltage at the monitored point.

Relays can be configured to use the data from these sensors to detect an overcurrent fault on a transmission line; contacts within the relay would then send 125 VDC from the station’s battery bank to trip the massive circuit breakers out in the yard, opening the circuit. Other relays, such as induction disc relays, sense problems via the torque created on an aluminum disk by opposing sensing coils. They operate on the same principle as the old mechanical electrical meters did, except that under normal conditions, the force exerted by the coils is in balance, keeping the disk from rotating. When an overcurrent fault or a phase shift between the coils occurs, the disc rotates enough to close contacts, which sends the signal to trip the breakers.

The circuit breakers themselves are interesting, too. Turning off a circuit with perhaps 345,000 volts on it is no mean feat, and the circuit breakers that do the job must be engineered to safely handle the inevitable arc that occurs when the circuit is broken. They do this by isolating the contacts from the atmosphere, either by removing the air completely or by replacing the air with pressurized sulfur hexafluoride, a dense, inert gas that quenches arcs quickly. The breaker also has to draw the contacts apart as quickly as possible, to reduce the time during which they’re within breakdown distance. To do this, most transmission line breakers are pneumatically triggered, with the 125 VDC signal from the protective relays triggering a large-diameter dump valve to release pressurized air from a reservoir into a pneumatic cylinder, which operates the contacts via linkages.

The Cascade Begins

At the time of the incident, each of the five 230 kV lines heading north into Ontario from the Sir Adam Beck Hydroelectric Generating Station, located on the west bank on the Niagara River, was protected by two relays: a primary relay set to open the breakers in the event of a short circuit, and a backup relay to make sure the line would open if the primary relays failed to trip the breaker for some reason. These relays were installed in 1951, but after a near-catastrophe in 1956, where a transmission line fault wasn’t detected and the breaker failed to open, the protective relays were reconfigured to operate at approximately 375 megawatts. When this change was made in 1963, the setting was well above the expected load on the Beck lines. But thanks to the growth of the Toronto-Hamilton area, especially all the newly constructed subdivisions, the margins on those lines had narrowed. Coupled with an emergency outage of a generating station further up the line in Lakeview and increased loads thanks to the deepening cold of the approaching Canadian winter, the relays were edging closer to their limit.

Data collected during the event indicates that one of the backup relays tripped at 5:16:11 PM on November 9; the recorded load on the line was only 356 MW, but it’s likely that a fluctuation that didn’t get recorded pushed the relay over its setpoint. That relay immediately tripped its breaker on one of the five northbound 230 kV lines, with the other four relays doing the same within the next three seconds. With all five lines open, the Beck generating plant suddenly lost 1,500 megawatts of load, and all that power had nowhere else to go but the 345 kV intertie lines heading east to the Robert Moses Generating Plant, a hydroelectric plant on the U.S. side of the Niagara River, directly across from Beck. That almost instantly overloaded the lines heading east to Rochester and Syracuse, tripping their protective relays to isolate the Moses plant and leaving another 1,346 MW of excess generation with nowhere to go. The cascade of failures marched across upstate New York, with protective relays detecting worsening line instabilities and tripping off transmission lines in rapid succession. The detailed event log, which measured events with 1/2-cycle resolution, shows 24 separate circuit trips with the first second of the outage.

While many of the trips and events were automatically triggered, snap decisions by grid operators all through the system resulted in some circuits being manually opened. For example, the Connecticut Valley Electrical Exchange, which included all of the major utilities covering the tiny state wedged between New York and Massachusetts, noticed that Consolidated Edison, which operated in and around the five boroughs of New York City, was drawing an excess amount of power from their system, in an attempt to make up for the generation capacity lost from upstate. They tried to keep New York afloat, but the CONVEX operators had to make the difficult decision to manually open their ties to the rest of New England to shed excess load about a minute after the outage started, finally completely isolating their generators and loads by 5:21.

Heroics aside, New York City was in deep trouble. The first effects were felt almost within the first second of the event, as automatic protective relays detected excessive power flow and disconnected a substation in Brooklyn from an intertie into New Jersey. Operators at Long Island Light tried to save their system by cutting ties to the Con Ed system, which reduced the generation capacity available to the city and made its problem worse. Operators tried to spin up their steam turbine plants to increase generation capacity, but it was too little, too late. Frequency fluctuations began to mount throughout New York City, resulting in Big Dan’s wobbly turntables at WABC.

As a last-ditch effort to keep the city connected, Con Ed operators started shedding load to better match the dwindling available supply. But with no major industrial users — even in 1965, New York City was almost completely deindustrialized — the only option was to start shutting down sections of the city. Despite these efforts, the frequency dropped lower and lower as the remaining generators became more heavily loaded, tripping automatic relays to disconnect them and prevent permanent damage. Even so, a steam turbine generator at the Con Ed Ravenswood generating plant was damaged when an auxiliary oil feed pump lost power during the outage, starving the bearings of lubrication while the turbine was spinning down.

By 5:28 or so, the outage reached its fullest extent. Over 30 million people began to deal with life without electricity, briefly for some, but up to thirteen hours for others, particularly those in New York City. Luckily, the weather around most of the downstate outage area was unusually clement for early November, so the risk of cold injuries was relatively low, and fires from improvised heating arrangements were minimal. Transportation systems were perhaps the hardest hit, with some 600,000 unfortunates trapped in the dark in packed subway cars. The rail system reaching out into the suburbs was completely shut down, and Kennedy and LaGuardia airports were closed after the last few inbound flights landed by the light of the full moon. Road traffic was snarled thanks to the loss of traffic signals, and the bridges and tunnels in and out of Manhattan quickly became impassable.

Almost as soon as the lights went out, recovery efforts began. Aside from the damaged turbine in New York and a few transformers and motors scattered throughout the outage area, no major equipment losses were reported. Still, a massive mobilization of line workers and engineers was needed to manually verify that equipment would be safe to re-energize.

Black start power sources had to be located, too, to power fuel and lubrication pumps, reset circuit breakers, and restart conveyors at coal-fired plants. Some generators, especially the ones that spun to a stop and had been sitting idle for hours, also required external power to “jump start” their field coils. For the idled thermal plants upstate, the nearby hydroelectric plants provided excitation current in most cases, but downstate, diesel electric generators had to be brought in for black starts.

In a strange coincidence, neither of the two nuclear plants in the outage area, the Yankee Rowe plant in Massachusetts and the Indian Point station in Westchester County, New York, was online at the time, and so couldn’t participate in the recovery.

For most people, the Great Northeast Power Outage of 1965 was over fairly quickly, but its effects were lasting. Within hours of the outage, President Lyndon Johnson issued an order to the chairman of the Federal Power Commission to launch a thorough study of its cause. Once the lights were back on, the commission was assembled and started gathering data, and by December 6, they had issued their report. Along with a blow-by-blow account of the cascade of failures and a critique of the response and recovery efforts, they made tentative recommendations on what to change to prevent a recurrence and to speed the recovery process should it happen again, which included better and more frequent checks on relay settings, as well as the formation of a body to oversee electrical reliability throughout the nation.

Unfortunately, the next major outage in the region wasn’t all that far away. In July of 1977, lightning strikes damaged equipment and tripped breakers in substations around New York City, plunging the city into chaos. Luckily, the outage was contained to the city proper, and not all of it at that, but it still resulted in several deaths and widespread rioting and looting, which the outage in ’65 managed to avoid. That was followed by the more widespread 2003 Northeast Blackout, which started with an overloaded transmission line in Ohio and eventually spread into Ontario, across Pennsylvania and New York, and into Southern New England.

Listening for the Next Wow! Signal with Low-Cost SDR

As you might expect, the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo has a fascination with radio signals from space. While doing research into the legendary “Wow! Signal” detected back in 1977, they realized that the burst was so strong that a small DIY radio telescope would be able to pick it up using modern software-defined radio (SDR) technology.

This realization gave birth to the Wow@Home project, an effort to document both the hardware and software necessary to pick up a Wow! class signal from your own backyard. The University reasons that if they can get a bunch of volunteers to build and operate these radio telescopes, the resulting data could help identify the source of the Wow! Signal — which they believe could be the result of some rare astrophysical event and not the product of Little Green Men.

Ultimately, this isn’t much different from many of the SDR-based homebrew radio telescopes we’ve covered over the years — get a dish, hook your RTL-SDR up to it, add in the appropriate filters and amplifiers, and point it to the sky. Technically, you’re now a radio astronomer. Congratulations. In this case, you don’t even have to figure out how to motorize your dish, as they recommend just pointing the antenna at a fixed position and let the rotation of the Earth to the work — a similar trick to how the legendary Arecibo Observatory itself worked.

The tricky part is collecting and analyzing what’s coming out of the receiver, and that’s where the team at Arecibo hope to make the most headway with their Wow@Home software. It also sounds like that’s where the work still needs to be done. The goal is to have a finished product in Python that can be deployed on the Raspberry Pi, which as an added bonus will “generate a live preview of the data in the style of the original Ohio State SETI project printouts.” Sounds cool to us.

If you’re interested in lending a hand, the team says they’re open to contributions from the community — specifically from those with experience RFI shielding, software GUIs, and general software development. We love seeing citizen science, so hopefully this project finds the assistance and the community it needs to flourish.

Thanks to [Mark Stevens] for the tip.

Blog – Hackaday Read More

 

WEEKEND EDITION: Good weekend so far, the big shot BC tam got their asss kicked on Saturday, now if the NE Patriots can win today I will be in heaven....

The Inside Story of the UK’s Great CB Petrol Scam

OldVersion.com Archive Facing Shutdown Due to Financing Issues

Finding older versions of particular software can be a real chore, all too often only made possible by the sheer grace and benevolence of their creators. At the same time older versions of software can be the only way to dodge undesirable ‘upgrades’, track down regressions, do historical research, set up a retro computer system, and so on. This is where an archive like OldVersion.com (HTTP only so your browser may shout at you) is incredibly useful, offering thousands of installers for software covering a number of platforms.

Unfortunately, as noted on the website, they recently lost their main source of incoming in the form of Google advertising. This means that after launching in 2001, this archive may have to be shut down before long. Confusingly, trying to visit the blog throws a HTTP 503 error, and visiting the forum currently forces a redirect to a random news site unless you can mash that Esc button really fast, perhaps as alternative advertising partners are being trialed, or due to a hack.

Although these days we have sites like Archive.org to do more large scale archiving, OldVersion.com is special for being focused and well-organized, along with a long and rich history that would be a shame to lose. We have referenced the site in the past for old versions as far back as 2008. Hopefully we’ll soon find out more about what is going on with the archive and what its future will be.

Thanks to [Philip Perry] for the tip.

 

FRIDAY EDITION: 34, sunny, and the fire is lit....

Announcing the 6th annual Youth “Dream Rig” Essay Contest.

The Intrepid-DX Group is a California based 501(c)(3) Non-profit organization. Our charter is to promote amateur radio in developing nations. We have conducted amateur radio exhibitions and youth outreach in Iraq, South Sudan, Rotuma, Iran, Ethiopia, Eritrea and North Korea. Six years ago, we began our annual youth “Dream Rig” Essay contest as a further means to reach young people and interest them in our hobby of amateur radio.

This year, we are revising our traditional essay contest and calling it “Amateur Radio for the Greater Good” We greatly appreciate the support and sponsorship of ICOM America and DX Engineering for making this year’s project possible.

We will be seeking written proposals from young amateurs age 25 or younger, describing how they would establish a Club, Contest, Community or Emergency Communication station to be in a school, church, fire station, community center, hospital or other public building. This station must be in the USA and only US licensed amateurs may submit proposals. This year, rather than our past essays, we are seeking well thought-out and clearly communicated project proposals for a public access amateur radio station.

We will award one complete station: HF rig, VHF/UHF rig, power supply, coax and antennas to be used by the awardee to establish a station in a public space to be used for amateur radio training, mentoring, club use, contesting and emergency communications. In addition, the awardee will be provided with an additional HF radio for their own use and ownership.

The equipment provided will include:

1. ICOM IC-7300 HF Transceiver
2. ICOM ID-5100AD VHF/UHF transceiver
3. Power supply 13.8V
4. Two 100’ lengths of DXE 400MAX Coax
5. Comet GP15 VHF/UHF antenna
6. Suitable HF Vertical or Dipole Antenna.

Project Proposals may be submitted between November 10th and December 10th, 2025.

We will announce the awardee of the complete station on December 15th, 2025.

This is a departure from our conventional essay contest. We are looking for proposals that would place the station in a secure and common area where it could be enjoyed by other licensed amateurs.

Once the winning proposal is selected, the proposal author will have sixty days to secure written permission from the owner or guardian of the facility. The written permission must indicate approval for the station and antenna to be installed. The proposal author may be the trustee of the station.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Submissions may be submitted via email to intrepiddxgroup@gmail.com or via US Mail to

The Intrepid-DX Group
3052 Wetmore Dr
San Jose, CA 95148
USA

ISS SSTV Event to Celebrate 25 Years of the International Space Station

THURSDAY EDITION: Bright and breezy....

Audio Sound Capture Project Needs Help

When you are capturing audio from a speaker, you are rarely capturing the actual direct output of such a system. There are reflections and artifacts caused by anything and everything in the environment that make it to whatever detector you might be using. With the modern computation age, you would think there would be a way to compensate for such artifacts, and this is what [d.fapinov] set out to do.

[d.fapinov] has put together a code base for simulating and reversing environmental audio artifacts made to rival systems, entirely orders of magnitude higher in cost. The system relies on similar principles used in radio wave antenna transmission to calculate the audio output map, called spherical harmonic expansion. Once this map is calculated and separated from outside influence, you can truly measure the output of an audio device.

The only problem is that the project needs to be tested in the real world. [d.fapinov] has gotten this far but is unable to continue with the project. A way to measure audio from precise locations around the output is required, as well as the appropriate control for such a device.

Audio enthusiasts go deep into this tech, and if you want to become one of them, check out this article on audio compression and distortion.

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ROC-HAM Radio Network Celebrates Hedy Lamarr Day

The following is a message from ROC-HAM Radio Network:

ROC-HAM Radio Network celebrates Hedy Lamarr Day 2025 with a special event station N9H

For the 10th straight year in a row the ROC-HAM Radio Network is proud to put on this special event station to celebrate her 111th Birthday.

Check out QRZ page N9H for more info.

This special event net will take place on November 9th at 9am est, (14:00 UTC)

As we celebrate her technological advancements in Ham Radio and of course her silver screen roles in many movies she did throughout her career.

Join us and have fun and check in:

• Eecholink on the ROC-HAM Conference Server Node 531091
• AllStar Nodes 2585, 47620, 47918
• DMR TGIF Talk Group 2585
• DMR Extended Freedom Network Talk Group 2585
• Extended Freedom Network SIP Portal 2585

Come join us and help celebrate 10 years of this event, and of course wish Hedy Lamarr a Happy Birthday!

The net which will run for 4 hours or longer depending on the number of stations checking in.

We will be doing an HF side for this net. If you have access to HF you can join me on 20M OR 40M to celebrate Hedy Lamarr Day. Stop by and check in and get a QSL Card. We will be using Netlogger for this event so look for Hedy Lamarr Day 2025

We will have 25 amazing facts that you probably never knew about Hedy Lamarr.

See you there.

Speaking of checking in, a SPECIAL event QSL Card will be available upon request. Just tell the net controller and they will put you down for one and of course to obtain your special event QSL Card.

Send a S.A.S.E. (self addressed stamped envelope) to W2JLD, my address is good on QRZ.

Ham Radio Operators to Support Indian Ocean Tsunami Exercise

WEDNESDAY EDITION: Seasonally cold....raw....

Radio Apocalypse: Clearing the Air with SCATANA

For the most part, the Radio Apocalypse series has focused on the radio systems developed during the early days of the atomic age to ensure that Armageddon would be as orderly an affair as possible. From systems that provided backup methods to ensure that launch orders would reach the bombers and missiles, to providing hardened communications systems to allow survivors to coordinate relief and start rebuilding civilization from the ashes, a lot of effort went into getting messages sent.

Strangely, though, the architects of the end of the world put just as much thought into making sure messages didn’t get sent. The electronic village of mid-century America was abuzz with signals, any of which could be abused by enemy forces. CONELRAD, which aimed to prevent enemy bombers from using civilian broadcast signals as navigation aids, is a perfect example of this. But the growth of civil aviation through the period presented a unique challenge, particularly with the radio navigation system built specifically to make air travel as safe and reliable as possible.

Balancing the needs of civil aviation against the possibility that the very infrastructure making it possible could be used as a weapon against the U.S. homeland is the purpose of a plan called Security Control of Air Traffic and Air Navigation Aids, or SCATANA. It’s a plan that cuts across jurisdictions, bringing military, aviation, and communications authorities into the loop for decisions regarding when and how to shut down the entire air traffic system, to sort friend from foe, to give the military room to work, and, perhaps most importantly, to keep enemy aircraft as blind as possible.

Highways in the Sky

As its name suggests, SCATANA has two primary objectives: to restrict the availability of radio navigation aids during emergencies and to clear the airspace over the United States of unauthorized traffic. For safety’s sake, the latter naturally follows the former. By the time the SCATANA rules were promulgated, commercial aviation had become almost entirely dependent on a complex array of beacons and other radio navigation aids. While shutting those aids down to deny their use to enemy bombers was obviously the priority, safety demanded that all the planes currently using those aids had to be grounded as quickly as possible.

Understanding the logic behind SCATANA requires at least a basic insight into these radio navigation aids. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has jurisdiction over these aids, listing “VOR/DME, ILS, MLS, LF and HF non-directional beacons” as subject to shutdown in times of emergency. That’s quite a list, and while the technical details of the others are interesting, particularly the Adcock LF beacon system used by pilots to maneuver onto a course until alternating “A” and “N” Morse characters merged into a single tone, but for practical purposes, the one with the most impact on wartime security is the VOR system.

VOR, which stands for “VHF omnidirectional range,” is a global system of short-range beacons used by aircraft to determine their direction of travel. The system dates back to the late 1940s and was extensively built out during the post-war boom in commercial aviation. VOR stations define the “highways in the air” that criss-cross the country; if you’ve ever wondered why the contrails of jet airliners all follow similar paths and why the planes make turns at more or less the same seemingly random point in the sky, it’s because they’re using VOR beacons as waypoints.

In its simplest form, a VOR station consists of an omnidirectional antenna transmitting at an assigned frequency between 108 MHz and 117.95 MHz, hence the “VHF” designation. The frequency of each VOR station is noted on the sectional charts pilots use for navigation, along with the three-letter station identifier, which is transmitted by the station in Morse so pilots can verify which station their cockpit VOR equipment is tuned to.

Each VOR station encodes azimuth information by the phase difference between two synchronized 30 Hz signals modulated onto the carrier, a reference signal and a variable signal. In conventional VOR, the amplitude-modulated variable signal is generated by a rotating directional antenna transmitting a signal in-phase with the reference signal. By aligning the reference signal with magnetic north, the phase angle between the FM reference and AM variable signals corresponds to the compass angle of the aircraft relative to the VOR station.

More modern Doppler VORs, or DVORs, use a ring of antennas to electronically create the reference and variable signals, rather than mechanically rotating the antenna. VOR stations are often colocated with other radio navigation aids, such as distance measuring equipment (DME), which measures the propagation delay between the ground station and the aircraft to determine the distance between them, or TACAN, a tactical air navigation system first developed by the military to provide bearing and distance information. When a VOR and TACAN stations are colocated, the station is referred to as a VORTAC.

Shutting It All Down

At its peak, the VOR network around the United States numbered almost 1,000 stations. That number is on the decrease now, thanks to the FAA’s Minimum Operational Network plan, which seeks to retire all but 580 VOR stations in favor of cockpit GPS receivers. But any number of stations sweeping out fully analog, unencrypted signals on well-known frequencies would be a bonanza of navigational information to enemy airplanes, which is why the SCATANA plan provides specific procedures to be followed to shut the whole thing down.

SCATANA is designed to address two types of emergencies. The first is a Defense Emergency, which is an outright attack on the United States homeland, overseas forces, or allied forces. The second is an Air Defense Emergency, which is an aircraft or missile attack on the continental U.S., Canada, Alaska, or U.S. military installations in Greenland — sorry, Hawaii. In either case, the attack can be in progress, imminent, or even just probable, as determined by high-ranking military commanders.

In both of those situations, military commanders will pass the SCATANA order to the FAA’s network of 22 Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC), the facilities that handle traffic on the routes defined by VOR stations. The SCATANA order can apply to all of the ARTCCs or to just a subset, depending on the scale of the emergency. Each of the concerned centers will then initiate physical control of their airspace, ordering all aircraft to land at the nearest available appropriate airport. Simultaneously, if ordered by military authority, the navigational aids within each ARTCC’s region will be shut down. Sufficient time is obviously needed to get planes safely to the ground; SCATANA plans allow for this, of course, but the goal is to shut down navaids as quickly as possible, to deny enemy aircraft or missiles any benefit from them.

As for the specific instructions for shutting down navigational aids, the SCATANA plan is understandable mute on this subject. It would not be advisable to have such instructions readily available, but there are a few crumbs of information available in the form of manuals and publicly accessible documents. Like most pieces of critical infrastructure these days, navaid ground stations tend to be equipped with remote control and monitoring equipment. This allows maintenance technicians quick and easy access without the need to travel. Techs can perform simple tasks, such as switching over from a defective primary transmitter to a backup, to maintain continuity of service while arrangements are made for a site visit. Given these facts, along with the obvious time-critical nature of an enemy attack, SCATANA-madated navaid shutdowns are probably as simple as a tech logging into the ground station remotely and issuing a few console commands.

A Day to Remember

For as long as SCATANA has been in effect — the earliest reference I could find to the plan under that name dates to 1968, but the essential elements of the plan seem to date back at least another 20 years — it has only been used in anger once, and even then only partially. That was on that fateful Tuesday, September 11, 2001, when a perfect crystal-blue sky was transformed into a battlefield over America.

By 9:25 AM Eastern, the Twin Towers had both been attacked, American Airlines Flight 77 had already been hijacked and was on its way to the Pentagon, and the battle for United Flight 93 was unfolding above Ohio. Aware of the scope of the disaster, staff at the FAA command center in Herndon, Virginia, asked FAA headquarters if they wanted to issue a “nationwide ground stop” order. While FAA brass discussed the matter, Ben Sliney, who had just started his first day on the job as operations manager at the FAA command center, made the fateful decision to implement the ground stop part of the SCATANA plan, without ordering the shutdown of navaids.

The “ground stop” orders went out to the 22 ARTCCs, which began the process of getting about 4,200 in-flight aircraft onto the ground as quickly and safely as possible. The ground stop was achieved within about two hours without any further incidents. The skies above the country would remain empty of civilian planes for the next two days, creating an eerie silence that emphasized just how much aviation contributes to the background noise of modern life.

Ham Radio Operators to Support Indian Ocean Tsunami Exercise

TUESDAY EDITION: Not much news to report, cold as hell and windy here this morning...

Emporia State Faculty ‘Over the moon’ regarding rare opportunity for local students to make contact with International Space Station

Students in Emporia and Lyon County will have an out-of-this-world opportunity, quite literally, very soon, thanks to Emporia State University.

ESU announced this past Tuesday that, thanks to a partnership with the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program, it will be one of four schools selected for an opportunity for students to speak in real time with astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Proposing the opportunity were ESU associate professor in the School of Science and Mathematics Erika Martin, STEM Outreach Coordinator Daphne Mayes, and Peterson Planetarium Director, Mark Brown and outreach and engagement coordinator for the Prophet Aquatic Research and Outreach Center, Alexandra Hayes.

Brown, Martin and Mayes recently joined KVOE’s Morning Show to discuss the recent announcement, with Brown explaining exactly how the opportunity came about.Martin says it is not uncommon to have a chance to learn about space exploration from those who have experienced it firsthand, but to be able to do so as they are actually in the middle of a mission is something that doesn’t happen every day.

The exact date for when the university will make contact with the ISS has yet to be determined; however, leading up to that moment, the university will be working closely with local schools, venues and businesses to provide several educational seminars and activities. Mayes says she is very excited for the partnerships that have already developed and those that will over the course of the next several weeks.

MONDAYEDITION: An enjoyable weekend of fooball. BC got their assses kicked again, NE Patriots squeaked out a win, and KC got run over by the Bills. You can't ask for more other than having the bands open...

Forgotten Internet: The Story of Email

It is a common occurrence in old movies: Our hero checks in at a hotel in some exotic locale, and the desk clerk says, “Ah, Mr. Barker, there’s a letter for you.” Or maybe a telegram. Either way, since humans learned to write, they’ve been obsessed with getting their writing in the hands of someone else. Back when we were wondering what people would do if they had a computer in their homes, most of us never guessed it would be: write to each other. Yet that turned out to be the killer app, or, at least, one of them.

What’s interesting about the hotel mail was that you had to plan ahead and know when your recipient would be there. Otherwise, you had to send your note to their home address, and it would have to wait. Telegrams were a little better because they were fast, but you still had to know where to send the message.

In addition to visiting a telegraph office, or post office, to send a note somewhere, commercial users started wanting something better at the early part of the twentieth century. This led to dedicated teletype lines. By 1933, though, a network of Teletype machines — Telex — arose. Before the Internet, it was very common for a company to advertise its Telex number — or TWX number, a competing network from the phone company and, later, Western Union — if they dealt with business accounts.

Fax machines came later, and the hardware was cheap enough that the average person was slightly more likely to have a fax machine or the use of one than a Telex.

Computers

It is hard to remember, but through much of this time, you were probably more likely to have access to a fax machine than a computer that was connected to anyone outside of your immediate office. In 1962, MIT’s Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) had a way for users to share files, and, of course, they did. By 1962, the IBM 1440 could send messages from terminal to terminal. Not really email, but it was a start.

People sharing files on CTSS led to a MAIL command by 1965. Each user had a local file called, in a fit of originality, MAIL BOX. Anyone could append messages to the file, but only the owner could read or edit it. Other early systems got the idea quickly.

By 1971, ARPANET — the granddaddy of the Internet — got SNDMSG to handle mail between networked computers. It could also transfer files. Each address had a local part and a remote hostname. In between? The “@” sign. The first message went between two PDP-10 machines that were in sight of each other. The developer, Ray Tomlinson, is often credited with inventing modern email. He would continue to drive mail innovation as part of the International Network Working Group.

Tomlinson’s program caused an explosion of similar mail programs. Unix had one. IBM was developing what would eventually become its office suite for mainframe computers. The University of Illinois had PLATO IV, which offered, among other things, mail.

The Rest of the World

In 1978, CompuServe started offering mail, primarily aimed at commercial customers. In the next year, they’d launch MicroNET, allowing people to dial into a computer to, among other things, send and receive mail.

By 1981, Compuserve rebranded its mail service as EMAIL, although it probably wasn’t the first to coin that term. That same year, IBM rolled out its internal system to the rest of the world. PROFS was widely used in the business world, and it wasn’t uncommon to hear people say they “sent you a PROFS.”

The biggest differentiator, of course, was if you could send mail to other people using your (presumably big) computer, other people on your network, or anywhere. There were plenty of schemes to get local mail off the local machine, like UUCP, for example.

The 1980s saw an explosion of LANs that had their own servers, and these usually offered, at least, local mail services. Of course, you could also buy software from Microsoft, Lotus, or others to provide mail.

The Internet

Back then, normal people didn’t have access to the Internet. That’s how companies like CompuServe, and their main competitor The Source, managed to entice people to sign up for services. They would often have gateways to other mail systems and, eventually, the Internet, too. But 1985 would see the formation of Quantum Link. Never heard of them? Maybe you’ll remember in 1989 when they changed their name to America Online and, later, AOL.

For whatever reason, AOL took over that market. By 1995, AOL had around three million active users, and its signature “You’ve got mail!” audio clip, voiced by the late Elwood Edwards, was a cultural icon. In addition to email, it pioneered instant messaging and flooded the market with free trial disks.

Of course, people started getting access to the actual Internet, so all the specialized mail providers suffered.

Milestones

The first head of state to send an email? Queen Elizabeth II, back in 1976. Jimmy Carter was the first known presidential candidate to use email in 1976. Astronauts on the Space Shuttle (STS-43 in 1991) were the first to send email from space. It was pretty complicated, as Scott Manley discusses in the video below.

Less inspiring, Gary Thuerk sent the first spam message over ARPANET in 1978. The topic? A new product for DEC.

Modern Mail

Modern mail primarily relies on SMTP, IMAP, and, sometimes POP. Surprisingly, these protocols date back to the early 1980s, but were mostly part of the ARPANET until the Internet opened up.

Of course, the protocols have changed with time. E-mail needed to adapt to TCP/IP and DNS. Today, the protocols have provisions for validating senders to help stop spam, as well as to encrypt messages. But at the core, the technology that moves mail around the Internet is mostly unchanged. The nice thing: you can send to someone without knowing where they’ll be and when they’ll be there. Mr. Barker doesn’t have to get a packet from the front desk anymore.

ROC-HAM Radio Network Concludes 200th Anniversary of Erie Canal Special Event

ROC-HAM Radio network concludes the 200th anniversary of the ERIE CANAL special event station W2R

We recorded 2600 contacts, 29 activation’s of US-6532 Erie Canalway Corridor National Heritage Area.

We gave away a certificate for the 1st 1000th contact – W8BDS and a certificate for the 2nd 2000th contact – W2VDZ. Thank you for your support.

The special event station ran from Sept 1st – Oct 26, which incidentally is the official finish date of the ERIE CANAL.

While W2JLD endured the in climate weather in Rochester, NY, he did manage to achieve a record for the most contacts in one single day, he clocked in more than 100 hours of radio time.

It was a great pleasure to promote that special event and to inform people of the historic relevance of that Canal system and the importance of it in the date of time.

It shaped communities and the way we transported goods and services, people struggled during its building. Lives were shaped by its construction. It was a huge endeavor of its kind, and thanks to the vision of the then governor Clinton, he took a risk and knew it would be a huge benefit to the towns and cities along the way.

Here in upstate New York we cherish the history and significance of it.

Again Thank you to all that supported this special event and be sure to check out the qrz page:W2R and grab a qsl card to boldly display it in your ham shack.

On behalf of the ROC-HAM Radio network THANK YOU