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Thu Mar 8 06:28:51 EST 2007

orbit around the planet Jupiter that has no magnetic field.  Roy Neal, 
K6DUE, has more:

--
There are many mysteries in deep space.  Men and their machines are hard 
at work trying to resolve them.  At the heart of  unmanned space flight, 
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Southern California is home to the 
huge antennnas that control the space ships  that go out in the attempt 
to unlock the secrets.  It also is home to amateur radio station W6VIO 
and many of the hams who run the station take part in the deep space 
endeavours.

The latest report says they have found that IO, a volcanic moon circling 
the planet Jupiter, transmits charged particles_easily detectable as 
power and noise.  But the moon apparently has no magnetic field.  These 
data were gathered by NASA's Galileo spacecraft as it orbited Jupiter 
for the last 6 years.

The discovery took on importance last Fall.  The researchers were trying 
to determine whether the moon created its own magnetic field inside the 
massive one generated by Jupiter, the largest of all our solar planets.  
When Galileo crossed the path of a magnetic field connection between IO 
and Jupiter, suddenly the density of the charged particles through which 
it was passing increased_but no magnetic field was 

detected. Leaving the researchers, in their earthly control room, yet 
anther puzzle of the universe to solve.

For the amateur radio newsline, Roy Neal,  K6DUE
--

More on this fascinating finding is available in cyberspace at 
www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/Io  (NASA-JPL)

**

INTERNATIONAL - CANADA:  VO1MX APPOINTED ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

On the international wire word that Dan Goodwin, VO1MX, of Gander 
Newfoundland has been appointed as an Assistant Director for the Radio 
Amateurs of Canada Atlantic Region in Central Newfoundland.  Goodwin 
fills a vacancy that existed in the central region of Newfoundland 
serving the major centers of Gander and Grand Falls-Windsor.  (RAC)

**

INTERNATIONAL - ARGENTINA:  HAMS TO GET 136 KHZ ALLOCATION

Hams in Argentina are getting access to the 136 kHz band.  Roberto 
Beviglia, LU4BR, who is the President of the Argentinean national 
amateur radio society says that his group made the rules change request 
to the Argentine radio regulatory department.  The government agreed.  
As a result, 135.7 to 135.8 kHz has been initially allocated to that 
nations amateur service on a secondary basis. (GB2RS)

**

DX

In DX, word that Laurence Howell, GM4DMA, is active as portable 9M6 on 
the High Frequency bands and 6 meters from Sabah now until the 30th of 
September.  He is there to teach communications theory and to set up a 
new country headquarters  communications base for the youth development 
charity Raleigh International.  (GB2RS)

And the ARRL DXCC desk has announced a new 30 meter DXCC Single Band 
award.  Applications for this award will be accepted beginning on 
October 1st.  The new 30 meter DXCC certificates will be dated, but not 
numbered.  (ARRL)

**

THAT FINAL ITEM:  FLYING THE FLAG

And finally this week a look back to the way ham radio  commemorated 9-
11.  This week its the story of two Florida hams who took to the air to 
fly the flag.  In their case it was not by radio but rather in a Cessna 
172 aircraft carrying several U-S flags as a part of an event called 
Flight Across America.  The pilot at the controls was veteran aviator 
Steven Crow, K4CPX:

--
K4CPX: "What they did was to assign somebody from every state to carry 
their state flag into New York City to be there originally on 911.  But 
they locked down New York City again for 911 so they had to do it a few 
days early.  

Those airplanes that could not come to New York or wouldn't because 
there were only fifty airplanes carrying state flags -- they wanted to 
have an airplane at each airport fly aloft for this commemoration which 
we did.

Then I came up with the idea of carrying flags for individuals.  For 
people who wanted their flag commemorated with a flight on Flight Across 
America.  So we did and we carried five flags aloft and we put a seal on 
them and signed them and gave them back to the people after we got back 
on the ground."
--

Accompanying K4CPX was Wendall Peterson K0REQ as co-pilot and Julius 
Ehland as the bearer of the flags.  And on the morning of 9/11 the three 
made their way to Punta Gorda's Charlotte County Airport only to find it 
not to be a great day to venture into the sky:

--
K4CPX:  "We went out to the airport anyway and stood around watching the 
rain sweep through.  It is a pretty large airport with 6000' runways and 
I think we were the only pilots and the only flight that was even there 
that day."
--

Finally a slight break in the weather:

--
K4CPX: "We hung around and hung around another couple of hours -- all 
the time watching -- and looking at the RADAR -- and check it and see 
this stuff coming through.  And we found a bit of a hole and decided -- 
lets jump in and take a quick look from the end of the runway and maybe 
aloft and maybe we can get the flight in."
--

And that's exactly what they did:

--
K4CPX:  "We took off; climbed up to 1000 feet, turned sharply ahead of 
some heavy weather coming in and came right around the airport and 
landed on another runway and we were on the ground.  We were probably in 
the air a total of maybe 12 or 13 minutes."
--

The important thing is that the flags were flown and returned to their 
owners.  And while Steve and Wendall did have some 2 meter ham gear on 
board the Cessna they never bothered to turn it on.  This was 9/11 and 
commemorating the day was what the flight by these two radio amateurs 
and their friend had really been all about.  (ARNewsline)

**

NEWSCAST CLOSE

With thanks to Alan Labs, Amateur News Weekly, AMSAT, the ARRL, the CGC 
Communicator, CQ Magazine, the FCC, the Ohio Penn DX Bulletin, Radio 
Netherlands, Rain, the RSGB and Australia's Q-News, that's all from the 
Amateur Radio Newsline(tm).  Our e-mail address is newsline 
@arnewsline.org.  More information is available at Amateur Radio 
Newsline's(tm) only official website located at www.arnewsline.org.  You 
can also write to us or support us at Amateur Radio Newsline(tm), P.O. 
Box 660937, Arcadia, California 91066. 

A reminder that our survey how ham radio is being used by home schoolers 
is still taking place.  If you are a home schooling parent or a student 
being home schooled, please send your thoughts on the subject by e-mail 
to newsline at arnewsline.org.  So far the responses we have received are 
very interesting to read.