[KL7AA] LEO Newsletter number 3, by KL7QZ

[Dan O'Barr]

THE LEO amateur radio scientific society of ALASKA
Date: 3-15-05   Newsletter number: 3

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No officers, no business meetings, no dues, no politics, no titles or rank, 
 just the science of Amateur Radio

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Welcome!  The LEOarssAK or LEOs was started on Friday, September 15, 2000, at
the Thai Kitchen on Tudor Rd. in Anchorage.  Our bonding interest at that time
focused on the Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) Amateur Radio satellites; therefore the
name LEOs.  .  Our founders included AL7KK/Rob, KL1HG/Doris, KL7AR/Mike,
KL7JS/Deb, KL7DR/Dan, KL7GO/Gretchen, KL0QQ/TOM, KL0YO/Pat, KL7QZ/John and
others.  Our special guest was Jerry Schmitt, KK5YY(SK) inventor of the famous
Arrow Antenna.  John/QZ presented the first paper on LEO antennas specifically
on how to build an "eggbeater".  Since then we have had papers on many topics
including SETI, Grounding, Moon Bounce, How to Use The Leos, SWR, digital modes
and many other topics.  Besides the presentation of papers we enjoy a good
lunch and conversation.  We meet at a restaurant in Anchorage, Eagle River or
Wasilla.  We start at 11:30 with lunch, our first paper is presented at 12 Noon
followed with questions and a break at 12:50 PM; our second paper is presented
at 1 PM.  We end at 2 PM.  For information contact John/QZ at jbury at gci.net,
Mike/AR at xtiger747 at ak.net or Dan/DR at dan at obarr.net .

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MEETING ANNOUNCEMENTS

Our next meeting will be on
Saturday, April 9th

Dale-KL7XJ, Dan-KL7DR, and ED-AL7EB
on
"Everything you need to know about the  LEO satellites"

With AO-51, SO-50, FO-29, AO-27 and ISS and more to come we are really in LEO
heaven.  All hams regardless of license or sophistication of equipment can get
on the LEO satellites.  Dale, Dan and Ed are our top-notch LEO Elmer's-experts,
and they will tell you everything you ever needed to know about getting on
these great little birds. 

This meeting will be held at the Szechuan Restaurant, 11751 Business Blvd.,
Eagle River.  694-9168.  This is our regular restaurant and it is located just
around the corner from the Eagle River Post Office.  Please come at 11:30 so
that you can start eating before the speakers start.  Our restaurant wants to
do the lunch a little bit differently.  We will serve ourselves buffet style
and there will be a fixed price of $12 for an entrée, soup, rice, ice cream and
drink of coffee, tea or pop.  This includes the gratuity.  This averages out to
what we have been paying and it makes it a lot easier on the restaurant staff.
These folks open especially for us and provide us with great food and service. 
This new way of serving us will allow for us to have our programs
un-interrupted.  

Special note: If you would like help on setting up the LEO split frequencies on
your handheld, Dan/KL7DR will be there at 11 AM that morning to assist you. 
Please bring your respective handheld operators book with you.  If Dan can't
get to everyone by 11:30 he will stay after the programs finish around 2 PM to
help. 

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LEO Antenna Symposium - June 18th

Our next meeting that is firmed up will be a special symposium of workshops to
be held on Saturday, June 18th at Immanuel Presbyterian Church at 2311Pembroke
St., set back from the NE corner of 24th Ave. and Boniface just North off of
Northern Lights and Boniface.  We will have 4, 1 1/2 hour workshops starting at
9 AM and finishing at 4 PM.  Lunch will be served on site. 

Our Speaker for all 4 workshops will be:

The ARRL antenna editor:
Dean Straw - N6BV
Speaking on:
4 topics on 
Amateur Radio Antenna's 
Which will be:

9-10:30	    Communication System Design: An overview for HF, VHF and UHF
11-12. 	    Antennas and Transmission Lines: In theory and practice.
12-12:45 ***Catered Lunch***
12:45-2     The Effects of Local Terrain: How to take into account the
             terrain around your tower and antennas.
2:30-3:30.  Propagation Details, and Exotica.

R. Dean Straw, N6BV
Dean has been a Senior Assistant Technical Editor for ARRL since 1993,
specializing in antennas, transmission lines and HF propagation.  He is the
editor of the last four editions of The ARRL Antenna Book and the last four
volumes of The ARRL Antenna Compendium series, not to mention a two-year stint
as editor of The ARRL Handbook.

First licensed as WH6DKD in 1959 at age 12, he has been active since then
mainly on HF-and mainly in contests, both phone and CW.  Experience in ham
radio led him to a degree in electronics engineering at Yale in 1967, where he
was active at the W1YU club station, operating mainly in contests.  Dean worked
in the marine electronics industry for more than 25 years before joining ARRL
staff.

Since returning to the west coast in 1998 from New Hampshire, Dean has become
ARRL's longest-distance full-time "telecommuter."  He operates regularly at the
N6RO contest super station in the East Bay or from DX-exotic locations around
the world.  Dean resides with his wife, Rayma, in San Francisco.  He has two
sons and four grandchildren.

Some of Dean's many publications:
 (He has over 19 pages of "GOOGLE" listings of his publications, speeches,
awards, etc.  See GOOGLE "Dean Straw - N6BV")

"Top band: TOP HAT",  ON4UN's Low-Band Dxing. ARRL (Review. 73 Magazine)
"2 Meter Hentenna". Ham Universe
"The ARRL Antenna Book".  (R. Dean Straw, Editor).  ARRL
"The Well-behaved antenna".  AntennaEx
"One Stealthy Delta". SGCWorld
"The ARRL Handbook". (R. Dean Straw, Editor) ARRL
(Many-many more at GOOGLE)

There will be an advance charge of $19 for all four workshops plus a catered
lunch.  An "at the door" charge will be $24 for all four workshops plus lunch. 
See snail mail registration form at the end of this newsletter.  Last day to
receive advance registration will be June 13. The workshop fee will be used
exclusively for Dean's air-travel to Alaska.  All other expenses will be paid
for by Dean.

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During May or later this summer:

Internationally respected and honored expert of
 
NANO TECHNOLOGY

LAFE SPIETZ OF YALE UNIVERSITY
(Recently published in Science Magazine and many other top notch scientific
journals and other publications)
 
Some of the many articles authored and/or co-authored by Lafe:
"Primary Electronic Thermometry Using the Shot Noise of a Tunnel..."  Science
"Thermoter Uses Quantum Mechanics..." Yale Daily News
"Noise Performance of the Radio-Frequency Single Electron..."  JAPIAU
...many more on GOOGLE.
(A full bio will be included as soon as we have his travel plans confirmed)
and Following Lafe that afternoon will be our own antenna master

KL7AR - MIKE
On
SWR: Fact, fiction or mythology

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The LEO Weather and Road Report Net.  M-F,  9 AM+.  147.27/87 w 103.5 tone.
In the event that this repeater is down, try 147.27 simplex or the 146.97/37
repeater w 103.5 tone.

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Reports from The Frontiers of Bibliomania.  By B. Worm.  Professor Worm,
KL2LID, is a defrocked minister and former professor who did the impossible in
having tenure and being fired. As one of 7 liberals in Alaska he sits around
hamming, reading, eating, and  enjoying the fact that his wife supports him.

There is no doubt in my mind, as simple as it may be, that The ARRL produces
some outstanding publications particularly in the technical areas of Ham Radio.
 The Antenna Book by his eminence and our guest speaker Dean Straw/N6BV, The
ARRL Handbook, some editions also by Dean, which has been for many more than my
63 years the holy scripture of Ham Radio and many other titles that are
absolutely first class are examples of fine writing.  However, an example of
ARRL perhaps unwisely sojourneying in the history of radio communications and
specifically Ham Radio comes up short of the mark: "YASME: The Danny Weil and
Colvin Radio Expeditions" By James D. Cain, $25 plus shipping from ARRL, treats
some of our most historical DXpedition all stars in the 40's - 60's, and I feel
it is worth the cost but it could be a much better read.  The story is about
DXpeditions on some old sailing tubs, called the Yasme I, II, etc., sailed by
its skipper of questionable nautical skills, Danny Weil, VK9TW, etc., who
certainly wasn't short of nerve, and Lloyd Colvin, W6KG, and his wife Ruth
W6QL, Danny's friends and fellow DX superstars who were the "ying" to Danny's
"yang" on the other side of this bipolar story.  Danny was not an accident
waiting to happen he was continually an accident always happening and how he
died in bed and not at the bottom of the ocean is a miracle.  Weil was
unorganized, unprepared, reckless, and just one crazy guy as he circled the
world providing DX thrills for thousands of Hams as he sank his boats and his
used more than 9 lives.  Now, the Colvin's, also world wide DXpeditioners were
always well prepared, well financed and anal retentive professional Ham
travelers compared to Danny's sailing and hamming perpetual disasters.  This is
truly a Ham Radio adventure story.  I was so surprised on page 28 when I read
of Danny and one of our LEO founders, Rob Wilson, AL7KK, running into each
other in an uninhabited spot on Barbuda Isl.  Weil describes Rob in 1954 as a
"soldier of fortune" involved in "secret military projects...".  So what's the
problem?  The book is just too darn long, repetitive and redundant, but
fortunately it did not make this wonderful story of our DX icons boring.  And,
there are too many pictures.  How many sinking Yasmes do we have to see?  

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LEO BYTES and WEB SITES of interest to LEO's.  By KL7XJ - Dale.  If you have an
interesting web site for Dale to use, please send it to daleh at alaska.net 

Keplerian Elements:  If you are using a tracking program for the satellites and
download your TLE from the internet, check where it downloads from. They have
to come from Space-Track.com.  Celestrak does have a down loader program that
you can use, however, all users need to log on to the space-track website and
register with a username.  They will email you a temp password and you will
need to log on again and change the password.  I use NOVA and they upgraded the
software so that you can enter your user name and password for the download
from Space-track.  One inconvenience is that the downloaded Keps are in the
original satellite names.  SO50 is Saudisat-1C, FO29 is JAS-2 and AO51 is ECHO.
 In NOVA in the download set up there is a box you can check that will preserve
sat names.  I am not familiar with other tracking programs. Just be aware that
by the end of March they all will be downloaded through Space-Track and you
have to be registered with them. 
Here is the link to Space-Track:
http://www.space-track.org/perl/login.pl

FO29: has a larger footprint than AO51 and other LEO's due to its higher orbit.
 It is in a polar orbit but at a higher altitude. The Satellite is over 600
miles up compared to the others at 400+ miles.  This gives it a wider coverage
area.  It operates in V/U  SSB and CW modes. The linear transponder is 100Khz
wide that permits multiple QSO's at the same time unlike the FM repeaters which
only have one at a time.  

Previously mentioned web sites: 

http://gahleos.obarr.net  - Great LEO site by KL7DR-Dan with updated LEO orbits
and valuable WEB links.

http://www.ocarc.ca/coax.htm - COAX line loss calculations

http://issfanclub.com  -  For ISS Ham communications.

http://www.seti.org  -  Looking for our relatives way out there.

http://www.csgnetwork.com/antennaecalc.html - EIRP calculations and more.
Other space, astronomy, satellite and Ham satellite sites:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/tracking/index.html       

http://www.ac6v.com/software.html#SAT 

http://www.qsl.net/kd2bd/predict.html      

http://www.onsat.com/links/

http://vkradio.com/sat.html        

http://www.astrosurf.com/avl/UK_index.html

http://www.amsat.org.ar/ 

and... http://511.alaska.gov/  -  Important for winter traveling with live
cameras on Alaskan highways.
             
Please send me any WEB SITES that you think LEO's would be interested in.  Tx
and 73.  Dale/XJ

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ANTENNAS.  By Mike-KL7AR.   xtiger747 at ak.net   
There is nothing new under the sun or so they say. Well maybe not, but for hams
like us  we sometimes do not realize all there is to know about "Old Sol" when
it comes to how it effects our communications. I will try to point out a few
facts that might be of interest to you.

The sun is one of the major reasons that we have long distance HF
communications.  On the sun lit side of the earth the sun's UV radiation strips
oxygen and nitrogen molecules of their electrons. This is what we call
'ionization". The area that this occurs is in what we call the "ionosphere". 
It ranges in altitude from 60 Km/32 miles to 300 Km/200miles. The lower reaches
are identified as the D region, the middle area is the E region and the upper
area is the F region. 

When we transmit our radio wave, it enters these regions and one of three
things happens. The wave is absorbed, or it is refracted and bent back towards
the earth, or it passes through the layers and goes out into space. Absorption
occurs because in the lower reaches of the atmosphere where the D region is
located, there is an abundance of oxygen and nitrogen molecules.  Ionized
electrons created by UV radiation  quickly recombine with those positive ions. 
In the upper regions of the atmosphere where the F layer is there are far fewer
oxygen and nitrogen molecules, therefore the recombining process is far slower
thus resulting in nighttime F layer propagation.  Absorption in the D region
during daylight hours is why communications on the 40 and 80 meter bands are
mostly limited to ground wave..  During the night time hours the D region
disappears thus allowing our radio wave to reach the E or F layers to be
refracted and bent.

Notice I said refracted. Most of us think of the ionosphere as an area where
our signal is reflected but that is not correct, the wave is refracted much
like putting a stick into a swimming pool and noting that it looks bent.
Because the light waves are passing through two different medians their speed 
changes and therefore the stick appears to be bent. It is the same for radio
waves as they pass into the ionosphere; they are refracted and bent back to
earth.

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LEO ELMERS: GO TO GUYS and GIRLS: Please send yours in.

SATELLITES: KL7DR/Dan at dan at obarr.net
AL7EB/Ed at al7eb at amsat.net and 
KL7XJ/Dale at  daleh at alaska.net
HF ANTENNAS: KL7AR/Mike at xtiger747 at ak.net 
DAYTON-HAMVENTION KL7QZ/John jbury at gci.net.

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PLEASE

Howaboutit--think about sending in a technical article for this newsletter
and/or present a paper at one of our LEO get-togethers.  What's this
"presenting a paper"?  Some years ago this editor was at the FDIM or Four Days
In May annual QRP meeting adjunct to the Dayton Hamvention and was impressed
with the requirement that when you are a speaker, you put your remarks in
writing to be sent out ahead of time, and then the speaker can present the
paper in a more casual or specific way allowing for attendees to prepare some
questions.  This FDIM model is really just an offshoot of how technical and
scholarly presentations have been made for the last 100 years.  We do it a bit
more casually.  When you come to speak, have prepared a handout of your remarks
written formally, or in short outline form or with just data, tables, diagrams
and Web citations or all of the above. Ideally a presentation should last no
longer than 40 minutes leaving 10 minutes for questions. Our only proviso is
that presentations or newsletter articles contain NO political comments whether
it be about CW, BPL, "W" or Ralph Nader. Tx.

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If you wish to be on our email list please send your address to KL7QZ at
jbury at gci.net.

73's and 88's to all Hams on our planet, in our solar system-galaxy -universe.

Keep listening for the "WOW".  

Editor: John Bury - KL7QZ
jbury at gci.net
907/349-8754
5142 Shorecrest Dr.
Anchorage, Alaska 99502

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Advanced registration Form for June 18 antenna symposium follows:

Must be received by Monday, June 13.
Name_____________________ Call______________  Email Address _______________

Phone Number ______________  Address ____________________________ Zip _____
 
for the Dean Straw - N6BV Antenna Symposium: Please reserve a seat for me

All 4 workshops 9 AM - 4PM and lunch at $19.00

For lunch I want a:
	__ Meat sandwich (Example: turkey croissant)
	__ Vegetarian (Example: Caesar salad)
	__ Beverages: (Choose one for lunch)
		__ Coke/Pepsi
		__ Diet Coke/Diet Pepsi
		__ 7UP/Diet 7UP
		__ Root Beer/Diet Root Beer
 		Any or all of the below:
			__ Coffee - available all day
			__ DeCaf Coffee - available all day
			__ Tea - available all day
			__ Decaf Tea - available all day

REFUND POLICY: A full refund will be given up to 9 PM Thursday, June 16, 2005. 
For cancellation notification from Thursday at 9 PM to 9 AM Saturday, 
June 18th the full symposium fee less $7.50 for lunch will be refunded.  
No refund after 9 AM, Saturday, June 18th.

Please snail mail to John Bury, 5142 Shorecrest Dr., Anchorage, AK   99502		
Check only please.   Make out to John Bury

MUST BE RECEIVED NO LATER THAN MONDAY, JUNE 13.

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