The New DXer's Handbook K7UA

 Bryce, K7UA presents the second edition DXer's Handbook

Versions in other languages second edition:

http://www.k7ua.com/

DOWNLOAD  YOUR FREE COPY HERE

ALSO AVAILABLE IN KINDLE FORMAT ON AMAZON.COM 

'73 de IK1XPK, Claudio.

Night of nights, 2015

Every year, the Maritime Radio Historical Society celebrates the closing of the last commercial Morse code radio station, which happened at 0001 UTC, July 13, 1999.  They do this by re-manning the watch for a few hours in honor of all those who so diligently listened for distress signals on 500 KHz and other frequencies continuously for over 90 years.  Your humble author was one of those, who in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s strained to hear, through the static crashes and OTHR, the simple, yet effective combination of SOS sent in Morse code.
Fortunately, after the closure of KPH, the National Parks Service took over the land and preserved the buildings and antenna fields intact.  Today, a dedicated group of volunteers maintain these facilities as a working museum.  This is the earliest history of radio technology and from this, sprang Amateur Radio, then Broadcast Radio services.
So, if you have the opportunity on July 12 (Sunday, starting at 8 pm, EDT), tune around to some of the frequencies listed below and see how ship to shore communications was handled:

KPH	KFS	KSM	WLO	KLB	NMC	NMW	Ship transmit
426		426		488	472	448	425, 454, 468,480,512
500		500		500	500	500	500
			2055.5
4247			4343				4184
6477.5					6383		6276
8642		8438.3	8658	8582.5	8574		8368
12808.5	12695.5	12993	12992				12552
17016.8	17026	16914	16968.5		17220.5		16736
22477							22280.5

These are duplex frequencies, meaning; the ship transmits on one frequency and listens on to the shore station on another and vice versa.

Those medium frequencies do not carry that far during daylight, however the high frequencies should be heard across the world.

http://www.engineeringradio.us/blog/2015/07/night-of-nights-2015/

http://www.nps.gov/pore/planyourvisit/events_nightofnights.htm
http://www.arrl.org/news/mrhs-night-of-nights-2015-set-for-july-12
http://w6sg.net/site/?p=1263
http://www.radiomarine.org/
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs149/1109843077277/archive/1121472370098.html

'73 Claudio IK1XPK.

Moon-Bound Ham Radio Payload Will Transmit Your Message from Space — But Hurry!

http://www.arrl.org/news/moon-bound-ham-radio-payload-will-transmit-your-message-from-space-but-hurry

The Amateur Radio payload on the lunar-orbiting 4M-LXS spacecraft will carry up to 2500, 13-character digital messages into space for retransmission via JT65B mode on 145.990 MHz. But wannabes will have to act fast. The message collection site will close Wednesday, September 17 at 12:00 Central European Time (1100 UTC) the 4M website announced today. China recently announced plans to launch the orbiter carrying the 14 kg battery-powered payload, developed by LUXspace in Luxembourg. The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) is a partner in the experiment. Getting a message into space requires registering and uploading one via the 4M website. A “73 de W1AW” message already has been uploaded.

“Give us your 13 characters long message, and we will send it ‘from the moon,’” an announcement on the 4M Manfred Memorial Moon Mission website invites. Signals from the Amateur Radio payload can be decoded using the free WJST software by Joe Taylor, K1JT. The Manfred Memorial Moon Mission memorializes Manfred Fuchs, the late founder and chairman of LUXspace parent company OHB of Bremen. He died in April. The 4M mission is expected to launch after 1800 UTC on October 23.

According to LUXspace, the 4M spacecraft will transmit continuously on 145.980 MHz (± 2.9 kHz) at 1.5 W into a simple quarter-wave monopole antenna. “This will give S/N comparable to EME signals at Earth’s surface,” LUXspace said. “The transmission is based on a 1-minute sequence and a 5-minute cycle. The transmission will start 4670 seconds (77.8 minutes) after launch.”

The 4M mission was detailed during a presentation the EME 2014 conference held recently in France. A paper, “4M Mission: A Lunar Flyby Experiment” also is available. During the lunar flyby, the spacecraft will be about nearly 248,000 miles from Earth and between 7440 and 14,480 miles from the Moon. The spacecraft will be part of the last stage of the lunar mission. The planned trajectory calls for a lunar flyby and return to Earth, with a 90 percent chance that the spacecraft will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. LUXspace has provided a tracking tool on its website.

The mission is scheduled to run slightly longer than 8 days, with lunar flyby occurring about halfway through the mission. The distance to the moon will be between 7440 and 14,480 miles, depending on the final orbital injection vector, LUXspace said.

LUXspace’s motive in encouraging radio amateurs to upload messages is to guarantee a built-in team of listeners who will monitor the transmissions and report back to LUXspace. “There will be a number of experiments and contests with prizes to the winners in each experiment and category,” LUXspace said.

The orbiter is one of the test models for Beijing’s new lunar probe Chang’e-5, which will land on the moon, collect samples, and return to Earth. The launch is aimed at testing technologies vital to that spacecraft’s success. The orbiter will be launched into Lunar Transfer Orbit and then perform a lunar flyby before re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.

The orbiter, which arrived by air in Xichang, Sichuan, on August 10, has been transported to the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. — 

Thanks to LUXspace, AMSAT-UK

'73 de IK1XPK, Claudio

Contest IARU HF 2014 - II0HQ

II0HQ ATTESTATO A.R.I. DI PARTECIPAZIONE.

Per tutti i Soci ARI che avessero partecipato allo IARU Championship 2014 è disponibile sul sito

www.ari.it il certificato in pdf scaricabile al seguente indirizzo:

 

http://ari.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2826%3Aattestati-2014&catid=247%3Acontest-iaru&Itemid=266&lang=it

'73 de IK1XPK, Claudio.

W1AW Code Practice MP3 Files

Impariamo il CW con l'ARRL. Sul sito Web della più grande Associazione mondiale di Radioamatori troviamo alcune parte dedicare all'apprendimento del codice morse (CW) utile anche a chi si diletta di solo ascolto.

Tralasciando la possibilità di partecipare a contest che precedano questo tipo di emissione il quali possono essere difficoltosi per un novice apprendere il CW è senza dubbio utile per l'ascolto delle stazioni utility che operano in telegrafia o per identificare i beacon.

Avevo già parlato della stazione militare francese FAV22 che organizza corsi di telegrafia in collaborazione con la REF in un precedente post http://laradioa360gradi.blogspot.it/2014/03/fav22-impariamo-il-morse.html ora vediamo il servizio on-line offerto dalla ARRL.

La pagina di riferimento è la seguente http://www.arrl.org/code-practice-files; nella pagina viene presentato il programma e si ha la possibilità di scaricare file MP3, magari per riascoltarsi con un telefonino di ultima generazione nei momenti di pausa, con relatico testo per confrontare la propria abilità nel ricevere con quanto ascoltato. I testi non sono i solito gruppi di cinque lettere o numeri ma veri e propri testi.

e' possibile approcciarsi all'ascolto con velocità diverse che variano da 5 WPM a 40 WPM. sul sito ritroviamo anche l'archivio dei file MP3 dal 2013.

W1AW Code Practice MP3 Files

Listed here are W1AW code practice transmissions for the dates and speeds indicated. The files are in MP3 format, playable using Windows Media Player, RealPlayer or your favorite MP3 player.
The files are updated every other week.
The first link is used for streaming audio -- click on the link to have the player play the code practice as it receives it. It may also be used to download the code-practice file to disk for later playback. (In Windows, right-click on the link to the file you want to save to get a menu of options.) Not all MP3 players will treat the link the same, and some players may not work on the link type.
The second link is the actual text of the code practice file.  Please note that the text file may contain control characters.  You will hear these characters as regular Morse code prosigns or abbreviations.

Files

Text Source for W1AW Web Code Practice Files for June 24 and 25, 2014:
Text for the 5 to 15 WPM runs comes from November 2013 QST, page 85.

Text for the 20 to 40 WPM runs comes from December 2013 QST, page 90.

The various archive files are available from the following links.  Access to each other archive is also available from any of these various pages:

5 WPM files	20 WPM files
7.5 WPM files	25 WPM files
10 WPM Files	30 WPM files
13 WPM Files	35 WPM files
15 WPM Files	40 WPM files
18 WPM files

The 18 WPM is a "transition" file to help bridge the gap from 15 to
20 WPM.  The file contains word and letter groups sent at 18 WPM
with an 18 WPM character speed.

This particular file is actually part of the W1AW CW bulletin from
previous weeks.  This allows for a different transition file with
each update.

The 40 WPM file is composed of texts taken from the lower speed
files.

The various TEXT files contain the actual code practice text used in
each run.  Please note the embedded "control characters" (used to
generate the CW prosigns) are included in the text.

Please note the tone frequency is 750 Hz.

Questions or comments about these files may be directed to:

Joe Carcia, NJ1Q   -  nj1q@arrl.org

http://www.arrl.org/code-practice-files
http://www.arrl.org/5-wpm-code-archive


'73 de IK1XPK, Claudio