[HCARC] Communications between here and Austin

[SARA SANDSTROM]

Guys, 

I think our approach is all wrong.  The way to do this is not to pick a frequency and time and see if it works between a couple stations.  We should be doing the opposite.  We should be trying to work Austin stations on all bands and at all times to see what wo rks.  There is absolutely no substitute for actually being on the air and trying to work people and keeping records of what works and what doesn't.  We don't seem to be having much luck with picking a frequency and trying it. 


Now lets take a look at NVIS.  I have a lot of recent experience with NVIS and can say with some confidence that 40 m is too high for NVIS at night.  On a winters night with low sunspot numbers, even 80 m is too high for NVIS at night.  NVIS is primarily a daytime mode and right now 40 m is a reasonable daytime NVIS frequency.  It also is apparrent to me that 100 W and a low dipole is probably the entry level for NVIS.  From what I've seen, NVIS is not that reliable with 100 W on SSB.  It is probably more than adequate for CW and/or PSK but not SSB.  SSB will work sometimes but is very dependent on the atmospheric noise level.  High antennas and verticals will not work.   

I know Bill thinks VHF/UHF is the way to go.  There are a couple problems with it however.  If we are having heavy rain between here and Austin, higher VHF and UHF will have problems.  I would think that during heavy rains is one of the times when we would need to communicate with the NWS in A ustin.  Repeater networks are not always the answer.  I don't think a lot of repeaters are truly all weather with emergency power backup.  The may work well during good weather, but that is probably not the time when we need them the most.  I can't imagine sending images (X-rays) between here and Austin.  Perhaps we need to get the Re d Cross and the NWS to give us a better idea of just what kind of traffic we need to be able to handle.  Is it the type of traffic we can handle via CW or PSK?  The prime advantage of HF is we don't need multiple links, it should be possible with just one hop.  By the way, KLRN used to exchange material with KLRU.  They used a microwave link between Austin and San Antonio.  Many is the time when there would be heavy rain in the hill country between Austin and San Antonio and the San Antonio PBS outlet would lose its signal.  That is the problem with UHF and up. 

Is there another alternative such as working into a more distant NWS station and getting the traffic into the NWS system that way.  Perhaps it would be easier to communicate with NWS in Dallas or Houston on HF rather than New Braunfells.  We saw once again this week what happens when we only have commercial infrastructure to handle comm. 

Anyway, these are my thoughts.  Its not an easy problem.  The only way I see of getting to a solution is to actually get on the air and keep records and compare results. 

Kerry