SJRA : On The Web : April 2004

On the Web : April 2004

If you enjoy reading 'On
the Web', your ham radio
club can publish this
column on an exchange
basis with SJRA. Contact
Ted, , for the
exchange details.

Our contributions to the South Jersey Radio Association club bulletin "Harmonics" includes lengthy Web addresses. As the URL's can be difficult or a nuisance to type into your Web browser, the postings here should make it easier to get to the Web sites SJRA members are interested in. Look for the posting at w2xq.com at the time "Harmonics" is scheduled for delivery in the south Jersey area. Questions, suggestions or contributions are always welcome.

Solar X-rays
Geomagnetic Field

N
3
K
L

June 8 and Venus

“Put a big red circle around June 8 on your calendar. On that day, you may have a chance to see a celestial event not witnessed by human eyes in 122 years when Venus crosses in front of the Sun.”

The planet Venus will make a transit in front of the sun as it passes from the evening to the morning sky. These are rare. The last one occurred in December 1882. If you miss this one, you will have to wait until 2012. After that, you’ll have to wait more than a century.

“The beginning will be visible from northern and western portions of Alaska, all of Asia, Indonesia and Australia, the eastern half of Africa and northern and eastern Europe, as well as the northernmost parts of Greenland. The end will be visible over central and western Asia, all of Africa, Europe and Greenland as well as northernmost and eastern sections of North America and northern and eastern parts of South America.”

This information appeared in our subscription news alert service with Avant Go coupled to the Palm T3 PDA, and immediately attracted our attention. Space.com was the originator of the story, and we can only hope that the June 8th weather will be clear no matter where you will be.

Read the February 6th full story at Space.com and look for the follow-up stories that undoubtedly will be written. It is almost a certainty that some observatories or sun-monitoring instruments will have the event fed onto the Web, live, for the approximately six-hour transit. I would also expect pre- and post explanations of the event to air.

Let's travel

Some SJRA members drive out of the coverage area of the K2AA 145.29 MHz repeater while interesting conversations or tall tales about the one that got away are being told.

Multi-band transceivers for 70 cm and 2 m and other linked repeater systems based in NJ and PA provide interesting opportunities to continue conversations for hundreds of miles.

Earlier in March, for example, Stan KC2HCR was on a 70 cm repeater in Vineland, another fellow was on an HT in Easton, MD, using a 70 cm repeater near Dover, DE, and N2EAC, exiting the Lincoln Tunnel on 42nd St in Manhattan and I, on a HT inside the NJ Central RR Terminal Building in Jersey City, were both operating on a 70 cm repeater in Green Brook, west of New Brunswick, NJ. That's a latitude range from, roughly, 38 to 40.5 degrees latitude.

So how do we do this "magic?" The BEARS' Bensalem repeater on 444.2 is home plate, but Green Brook (444.5) covers north, Elkton (447.325) can hear mobiles in and around Washington, DC, and Dover (449.725) reaches a long way toward Virginia Beach. All these use 131.8 PL; there are a total of 15 repeaters, and even more auxiliary receivers, all maintained by WA3BXW. See the BEARS Web site for details.

The W2NJR system started as a coastal system but has started to spread throughout southern NJ. Manahawkin (445.075/PL 141.3) and Vineland (448.525/PL 156.7) cover south of us, but Murray Hill (449.975/PL 141.3) dominates the NJTP coverage from Exit 7A north to NYC and all around the town. Bordentown (445.275/PL 141.3) repeats the linked signals but does not seem to be functioning properly. There are 12 repeaters in all, 4 of them on 2 m. If you do not have 70 cm, you can use 146.49 (+1 MHz/PL 141.3) in Brick to get onto the network; the other 2 m repeaters are probably out of range of most home installations. See the W2NJR Web site for details.

The University of Pennsylvania system has been quiet for a number of months, and rumours abound as to reasons why. John, K2UBG, tells us that the real story is a hardware failure, and a controller is being replaced. When that happens, the N3KZ repeaters are mostly in PA, but three are in NJ: Princeton (442.85), Greenwich (443.7), and Cape May (448.425). What makes N3KZ really interesting is a repeater that reaches into eastern parts of WV: Chambersburg, PA (443.7). All PLs are 131.8; there are 16 repeaters, all on 70 cm. See the N3KZ pages for an update.

These linked systems are also included in the repeater download list available at W2XQ.com.

Quickies

Do you code web page for your own Web site or someone else? I found our own Web sites and a client's site embedded inside frames at the DX Zone and that's a "no-no" in our book especially when DX Zone is advertising on our work. Here is a JavaScript codebreaker. Put these lines between the <head></head> tags atop the page:

Your page(s) will pop right out into the their own window.

KF6CC has a page on the 'net that attracted our attention and it may be of interest to some readers. It has a number of links that I have not seen elsewhere, including satellite and news, Winston Cup (now Nextel) Racing, weather and much more. It strike me as the kind of page that would be enjoyable to pick through on a quiet evening when television is boring, the family is out and the bands are flat.

Are you studying for an amateur radio license and do not want carry a manual around? Look for EggsHam, a PalmOS application for people in the USA studying for a license. The Palm program generates practice amateur radio licensing exams. Depending upon the class of license you are studying for, there may be up to 5 files to install. You can get a copy of the program from SourceForge.net but it appears that it may not be maintained. It's interesting just to play around with; there is no charge for the software.

TRS Consultants - Keep up to date with breaking news during the month! Newsfeed help.

---
Revised 13 April 2004

Read the previous month's column or the next month's column.