SCHH ARC “This & That” – May 14 , 2024

Lost Weekend on HF

Amateur radio operators around the world experienced degraded band conditions throughout much of last weekend due to the effects of intense activity on our Sun.

Solar activity similar to this past week’s coronal mass ejections that were directed at Earth.

It can be mind-boggling to think about “our star”. From 93 million miles away, it can blind an Earthling who stares at it…and it can burn you (maybe severely) if you expose yourself to it for several hours without protection on your skin. Although its light takes about 8 minutes to travel to Earth after it leaves the Sun, the “coronal mass ejections” that wreaked havoc on radio communication this weekend traveled at a “modest” 2 million miles an hour. The Sun’s temperature? 27 million degrees F at its core but it is ONLY 10 million degrees or so on its surface. Amazing.

A huge sunspot region on the sun has produced numerous M- and X-class flares last week, the most active period this solar cycle. These flares produced a series of earth bound coronal mass ejections (CME). A few left the sun at or over 1000 km/sec (2 million MPH)! The first CME arrived mid-day Friday (North America) triggering a Kp=7 strong geomagnetic storm. Geomagnetic storms can cause rough band conditions below about 10MHz (40 and 80M) with a storm in progress. This can also produce northern lights in the northern U.S. states.

Above 10MHz (20/15/10M) the bands were very unsettled. Friday’s solar caused periods of very poor propagation that at times bordered on a complete wipe out.

Northern Lights were seen as far south as Arizona over the weekend. A reddish glow in the northern night sky was viewed by Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW after midnight on Saturday. Anyone else see aurora? Anyone get some good contacts on 6 meters?

Chip Miller, KQ4JKI, sent some additional information on what our Earth experienced, which can be found here.

Ham Radio Equipment For Sale? Here is What the SCHH ARC Can Do for You

You probably don’t have as much equipment around as this station does!

If you have equipment for sale and would like the SCHH ARC to get the word out about, here is what you can do:

First, put together a list of the equipment that is for sale along with a description, an assessment of its condition, and your asking price.

Then, send that list to Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW at hnat463@gmail.com. Please include your email address and your phone number.

The ARC will send an email to all club members that includes your list and contact information with instructions to contact you if there is interest in buying your equipment.

Please note that the ARC will send this email to club members once. Members will be reminded once in “This & That” that the email was sent and who has the equipment for sale.

Sellers of equipment need to be open to having members contact them about the equipment and in having members stop by their QTH to look over the equipment.

Note that last week, an email was sent to all members listing equipment for sale by Larry Ross, W4YR.

Also note that the club may accept donations of equipment.

Meeting Room Requests

2025 Club Meeting Room Reservation Requests

FYI, the SCHH ARC will submit a request for rooms for 2025 in early June.

The plan is to ask for rooms on the first Thursday of every month except for July and August. We may need to slide one of our meetings to the first Tuesday of the month due to a SCHH-wide annual event. Our request will be for the Bayside Room at the Lakehouse.

Room requests for chartered clubs such as the ARC can be made after 8 AM on June 3rd. Club president Harve Hnatiuk will make the request to the SCHH CA.

Upcoming Club Events and Meetings

June 6th — Monthly Membership Meeting: 7 PM in the Bayside Room at the Lakehouse. Field Day Planning Meeting preceded by an Elmer presentation on POTA by Jack Frisch, K2ITZ. More details in an upcoming “This &That”.

June 22nd — ARRL Field Day: Lake Somerset. KE4HAM on the air at 2 PM Eastern. Set up begins around Noon. More details at the June 6th Meeting.

August 3rd — Hunting Island POTA Activation and Lighthouses on the Air: More info to follow.

Club Website

Click here to get to the Club’s website: https://www.ke4ham.org.

If you notice any errors or have site-related questions, please email the webmaster; email: webmaster@ke4ham.org.

SCHH ARC Nets: Our Goal is Double-Digit Check-ins!

Thanks to all who participate. Our nets have been getting 10 or more check-ins for many sessions in the past months.

This is very impressive as we have 60 members, many of which who are not on 2 meters much if at all.

There were issues with EchoLink on Sunday night’s net. The issues are being worked on and hopefully we will have EchoLink available soon.

These are our nets. Enjoy them. They are very special and give us the opportunity to connect with each other while testing our equipment’s connectivity capabilities.

Please keep our nets alive and well by checking in when you can.

Weekly SCHH ARC Nets

Sunday’s Net (8 PM) operates on 147.550 MHz simplex and EchoLink node: KE4HAM – L except on the Sunday after our club’s membership meeting. On the Sunday after our club membership meeting, the Sunday Net will be on the KE4HAM repeater (147.135 + with a tone of 91.5 on both the input and the output). The KE4HAM Repeater Net can also be accessed via EchoLink at KE4HAM-R.

Wednesday‘s Net (8 PM) operates from the KK4ONF/Jasper repeater, 147.060+ and EchoLink node: KE4HAM-R

Net Control Stations and EchoLink Coordinator

Thanks to our regular Net Controls: Bob Officer, WA6WAY; Frank Pollino, K2OS; Russ Treadwell, N1ZK; and Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW.

Thanks to Ron Frick, AI4HH, for continually working to keep our SCHH ARC nets on EchoLink.

Net Control Schedule:

— Wednesday, May 15 @ 8 PM ET: Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW (JASPER COUNTY REPEATER)

— Sunday, May 19th @ 8 PM ET: Bob Officer, WA6WAY (Simplex)

If you are interested in being a Net Control, please let Harve know.

SCHH ARC Net Reports:

Thanks to ALL who checked in to our SCHH ARC nets last week.
If you have the time, please check into our club’s nets on a regular basis.

Last week’s check-ins and traffic:

— Wednesday, May 8 : KE4HAM/K2OS, AI4HH, WA2LWO, K2ITZ, AA4KK, WA6WAY, W1ZZ, K4QBS (Jesse from Pooler, GA), KB3FW, KD8VL QNI=10, QTC=0.

— Sunday, May 12: KE4HAM/WA6WAY, AI4HH, K2OS, K2ITZ, W1ZZ, KB3FW, KQ4JKI. QNI=7, QTC=0.

Note: QNI = Number of Check-ins to the net, including Net Control; QTC = Traffic handled (Radiograms).

Other Operating:

Daily — Monitor the new KE4HAM Repeater: 147.135 MHz + with a tone of 91.5. You may get some good DX spots from time to time and other members may be there if you want to connect/chat.

Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FWEdit