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Welcome to the Montgomery Amateur Radio Club's Web Site!
Montgomery Amateur Radio Club
P.O. Box 3141
Montgomery, AL 36109-0141
W4AP@ARRL.net
http://www.w4ap.org |
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 | News: September Alabama ARES Update - Simulated Emergency Test Edition |
 Mike Watkins has published the September issue of the Alabama ARES Update. This issue also includes information about the Simulated Emergency Test.
Click here for the PDF version.
Click here for the DOC version.
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Posted by KE5GDK on Monday, September 22 @ 13:07:05 EDT (35 reads)
(comments? | News | Score: 0)
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| W4AP 6m Repeater On the Air! |
 Thanks to Reuben (AD4R), Wiely (KE4LTT), and Bobby (N4AU), the W4AP 6m repeater is back on the air at its new home in Titus. The antenna is located at 446' MSL (46' AGL). The input freq is 52.350 MHz (100Hz tone) and the output is 53.350 MHz. There's still some tweaking to be done, but it's fully usable at this point. Please give it a try and let us know what you think.
See you on 6m!
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Posted by wb5nmz on Sunday, September 21 @ 16:48:45 EDT (36 reads)
(comments? | Score: 0)
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| SOB V celebration / SOB VI planning meeting |
 w4spa writes "We're having a SOB V celebration / SOB VI planning meeting
When: Thursday, September 18, 2008 at 7:00PM
Where: Red Cross Classroom A (same place we have our MARC meetings)
Why:
to celebrate the successful flight of SOB V (come tell us the story from your point of view)
to discuss plans for SOB VI (we're planning a flight in October... with some exciting new features)
to look at and discuss the photos taken by SOB V
to raise a few bucks for the project (we're having a bake-sale)
to show off the SOB V hardware (come see the camera that flew to 69,000 ft)
to demonstrate how to set up an APRS tracking station (without spending a lot of $$)
to have an evening of fun and fellowship
Who:
anyone that helped out with SOB V (we'd like to take some group photos)
anyone that wants to help out with SOB VI (we're going to discuss upgrades and refine chase plans)
anyone that is interested in the project
anyone that's hungry! (we'll have baked goods for sale)
This is a perfect follow-on meeting to Monday's MARC meeting where Bobby, N4AU, taught us all about APRS. If you can attend both meetings, you'll be prepared to start tracking future SOB flights! But, even if you missed Monday's meeting, don't miss this one!
On behalf of the entire SOB project team, thanks for your continued support and I hope to see you all Thursday evening.
73,
--Scott, W4SPA
"
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Posted by KE5GDK on Tuesday, September 16 @ 09:21:52 EDT (45 reads)
(Read More... | 1629 bytes more | comments? | Score: 0)
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| SOB V Launch a Big Success! |
 w4spa writes "The launch and recovery of SOB V was a hugh success! Many thanks to everyone that helped out in any way. We couldn't have done it without all the assistance. Launch occured at 7:05 AM local time from KV4AC's QTH. The balloon rose slowly and silently into the morning sky. About 2 minutes after launch Tom, WB8COX, called on the radio to confirm he had the balloon icon on his laptop screen. This meant he was receiving and decoding the APRS signal from the balloon while in his truck in Tallassee. At that point, I felt like there was a real chance we were going to be successful... but only if the electronics on-board kept working. Around 7:30 AM Lamar, KC4LZO, called to report the predicted landing site. He had taken data from the NWS and run it through a software program that models balloon flights to arrive at a likely landing site. The prediction was for a landing near Tallassee... GREAT, I thought, we've already got chase teams in that area. For the next hour or so, we continued to watch the balloon icon on the computer screen move slowly East-north-eastward across 231, across I-85 all the time getting higher and higher... through 30,000 ft... 50,000 ft finally reaching 68,684 ft at burst. At this point it began falling and falling rapidly. At over 3,000 ft per minute my precious little box was plumetting back toward the Earth. Throughout the entire flight Bobby, N4AU, and Rik, KU4PY called out current location and ground track data to the chase teams. The 84 repeater was buzzing with activity as the chase teams coordinated their locations and directions of travel with one another. At this point, I could do nothing but wait and watch the telemetry numbers as they streamed across my computer screen. Where was it going to land was the big question.. and how hard was it going to hit the ground! Had the parachute gotten tangled and not opened? As the balloon got lower and into denser air, the parachute started to slow it's descent, what a releif! The chase teams began to close in on the likely landing site somewhere near Friendship. I could hear El, K4DJL, Mike, KB0OLA, Tom, WB8COX and Daniel, KE5GDK, Rodney, KJ4FPZ, and Dave, K5STL all talking about which turn to take to head toward the landing site. As the balloon made it's final descent to moved slightly more toward Rt 229 in Tallassee and finally came to rest in a small pine tree about 100 yards North of Ben Atkinson Motors... thank goodness it didn't hit a brand new car! All the flight hardware was completely intact and everything was still working. What a great flight! If you'd like to see the pictures taken from the payload, follow this link:
SOB-V Images
Thanks again to all that helped or listened. Stay tuned for details about SOB VI!"
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Posted by KE5GDK on Tuesday, September 09 @ 11:01:35 EDT (61 reads)
(comments? | Score: 0)
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| SOB V Balloon Launch - Saturday, Sept 6 - 7:00AM |
 w4spa writes "What the heck is SOB V? It's a large, heluim filled, weather balloon carrying an amateur radio payload up to 100,000 ft while taking picutres. It has a parachute to bring it back down gently. We will need help tracking and locating it after if lands. Sound interesting? read on...
Here's the flight details:
Mission designator: SOB V (so-bee five)
Launch date: Saturday, September 6, 2008
Launch time: 7:00 AM (CDT) plus or minus a few minutes depending on how long inflation takes
Launch location: Home QHT of KV4AC
Mission profile: free flight to burst altitude (approx 100,000 ft) return to Earth on parachute
Typical flight profile: ascent rate approx 1,000 ft/min - 90 - 100 minutes up, 30 or so minutes down
Payload details: (primary payload) styrofoam box containing 16V Li-Ion battery pack, motorola GPS, Mim module (TNC), and Yaesu VX-R1 radio (VHF)
Payload details: (backup beacon) styrofoam box containing 9V lithium battery, Mim module (CW encoder), and Alinco credit card radio (UHF)
Frequencies: (VHF APRS) 146.475 Mhz - APRS packet every 30 seconds, Telemetery packet with battery voltage data every 60 seconds.
Frequencies: (UHF CW Beacon) 446.375 Mhz - CW ID - "W4SPA BEACON" - every 60 seconds - there may also be a simplex repeater operating on this frequency - I'd like to request exclusive use for communications between the launch team and the down-range tracking teams. If time permits, I may ask for general check-in's here during the flight.
Frequencies: (HF Comm) 3.965 Mhz - LSB plus or minus depending on traffic
What we need: trackers, trackers, trackers... fixed, mobile, portable, whatever. The more ears we have listening for it, the better chance we'll have of finding it after it lands. The ideal mobile tracker setup would be able to track APRS and have mobile HF capability but I don't want to discourage anyone... everyone's welcome to assist. We will run some flight path prediction software that will predict the flight path and the landing location based on national weather service winds aloft data on Friday evening, Sep 5. I will forward this information to you Friday evening and hopefully you'll be able to dissemenate it to the interested folks in your group. Based on this data, we'll determine the best locations for the down-range tracking teams (this information will also be included in the Friday evening e-mail. Hopefully, we'll get a fairly accurate GPS/APRS fix on the payload as it descends but if not, we may need to resort to radio direction finding using either the 2 meter APRS packets or the 70cm CW beacon signal.
On behalf of the entire SOB team, our sincere thanks for anyone who wants to help out.
Want to help? Contact Scott at: W4SPA at ARRL dot net
73,
Scott Poole, W4SPA
Montgomery, AL"
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Posted by KE5GDK on Tuesday, September 02 @ 11:54:16 EDT (74 reads)
(comments? | Score: 0)
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