On the Web : September 2005

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

The 2006 Field Day Rules
The SJRA Field Day Site entrance is on Lower Main Street, Marlton, opposite the Indian Springs Golf Course.
GPS (Global Positioning System) coordinates are N 39° 53.162', W 74° 53.486', or use these maps.
Mapquest is almost a 'net standard, but the newer beta Google map looks very good.

Katrina

Louisiana and Mississippi took the brunt of the storm's wrath in the second landfall in the United State overnight on the 28th and the daylight hours of the 29th of August. Wind gusts hit speeds of approaching 200 mph But it was not just the wind that did damage. The city, below sea level, flooded when levees were breeched and Lake Poncentrain filled the city to depths of 7 or 10 feet and more. CNN and FOX television news networks have been filling the prime-time evening hours with never-ending coverage. As usual, it seems to this writer that the stories are repetitive, shallow and could be significantly more interesting and useful. I like to go to the source. Here's what we found.

• The Hurricane Watch Net operates whenever a storm approaches the North American continent. Weather data is collected and passed to the NWS Hurricane Center in Florida; emergency traffic is handled; and the net operates during all hours that the Florida NWS office is operational, or at least so long as the MUF supports propagation. The frequency is 14325 USB. But thanks to Bob Reed, N6HGG, of the Pacific Seafarers (PacSea) Maritime Net at pacsea.org, the HWN audio was repeated onto the 'net on a Shoutcast server at 68.6.31.23:8000. The coverage continues for a bunch a days and it may be continuing as you read this now.
• Health and welfare - not emergency - traffic is not handled on the HWN. Rather, Reed and other net controls referred H&W traffic to nets such as these: (1) 14.265 Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Net (Satern) and (2) 7.285-day/3.873-night West Gulf Emergency Net. Reed, N6HGG, switched his receiver over to the Satern net on Tuesday, after Katrina, a low pressure center, had moved up to Ohio on Tuesday.
• There are two major lists of hurricane frequencies published for those interested in monitoring anything and everything related to hurricanes. There are overlaps in the lists and and I can't really advise you as which is the better list. My advice? Use both of them: (1) Bill Snyder AA6KC's Hurricane Frequencies at hurricanefrequencies.com and (2) Hugh Stegman NV6H Hurricane Frequencies at www.ominous-valve.com/hurricne.txt.
• "Hurricanes : Monitoring" prepared and updated by Mike Agner, KA3JJZ, is a mainstay reference document on our TRS Consultants' Web site at trsc.com/ref_hurricanes.html. Topics include military and aeronautical monitoring, a bit on HF Fax signals, and there are more than 15 links to a variety of information sources.
• WWL on 870 kHz is a clear channel station running 50 kw out of New Orleans. WWL is heard in 40 states at night, but daytime coverage is limited to a few hundred miles on ground wave. That is no longer the case, as WWL is streaming on the Web at www.wwl.com and is being rebroadcast on shortwave by World Harvest Radio's WHRI 250KW transmitter in Indiana. The signal is usually fair, but not as good as those from WWCR from Nashville. On WWL's Web site, WHRI's schedule is given in Central Daylight Time; don't get fooled by the hour difference. Listening to WWL gives you a close-up view of what's going in New Orleans and the surrounding area. In my opinion, it is a more factual "picture" of what's going on in the region.
  Listening to WWL on the morning of the 8th, one listener was promoting a Web site called "Louisiana-way" and said it would be a "meeting place" -- let's see what happens as it seems a bit light now.
• WWL-TV, in this time of difficulty, is broadcasting video on the Web. I was surprised to find this service available. It's slow-speed, so perhaps even a good 56 Kbps connection may work. Certainly anyone with with a slower DSL connection or faster connection will not have a problem viewing the picture. There are a number of slide shows on line as well. Dial up wwltv.com and have a look.
• Clear Channel owns WWL and many other stations. Clear Channel has put up a separate Web site called StormAid.com that covers a wider area of news reporting. I haven't explored the site in depth, but it looks interesting.
• Lousiana audio on the Web is plentiful. After listening to WWL, I dug around and found at least 6 other AM and FM stations streaming on the net. Perhaps the most interesting one is WJNO in Baton Rouge with all news, counterbalancing WWL. No doubt I'll be adding more, and searching through Mississippi; bookmark trsc.com/audiovisual.html and scan down the page through the states. At press time a friend of Ontario sent a note more than a half-dozen Louisiana public service scanner audio links but didn't label them. Nevertheless, have a listen. The scanner audio section is at the very bottom of the audiovisual.html page. Again, check back periodically as we untangle the lists and add more direct audio feeds to this one-stop page.
• The Times-Picayune is the largest New Orleans newspaper, so far as I can tell, and the newspaper is publishing. If you have an Adobe PDF Reader you can additionally see the actual newspaper. It is interesting reading, and archived stories on Katrina go back to the day before the storm. You can get to the newspaper through a Web site that covers New Orleans. Dial up nola.com and look for the link to the newspaper itself. I have picked up the current day's paper anytime between 6 a.m. and 1 a.m. the next morning.
• Monitoring Times is a premiere communications-hobbyist-listening magazine -- I have mentioned the magazine before -- but did you know there is a chat board? On the home page -- monitoringtimes.com -- click on the second link at the upper right. There are 9 topical areas on the board, one of which is titled "Frequency Exchange". It's recommended reading for breaking news and frequencies, or perhaps you can help another with an answer to a question about a frequency or other subject. Take a look; you do not have to be a subscriber to use the chat board.
• Satellite pictures of the area affected by Katrina are showing up on the Web. One of the interesting comparisons can be seen at maps.google.com which normally shows a map and a satellite view, plus a merge of the two. If you look at New Orleans and the areas affected by Katrina, you'll see an additional red Katrina button. That shows a post-Katrina satellite picture that makes for an interesting comparison with the pre-Katrina picture. The resolution of the two images are sufficient to study all but the smallest detail.
• NOAA's National Geodetic Survey has started to publish some uncorrected pictures of the areas damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Unlike Google and similar sites, these satellite pictures are high resolution: The approximate ground sample distance (GSD) for each pixel is 37 cm (1.2 feet), but be warned. The image file size is 2 to 3 MB. The Web site is ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/.

Quickies

Would you like to write a letter and "throw rocks" at a politician? Do you need an address or telephone number? I found a wonderful, complete resource titled State and Local Government on the Net that covers all levels. The site claims the pages are updated daily. For New Jersey, the address is www.statelocalgov.net/state-nj.cfm -- for a different state, just change the two-letter state abbreviation.

For a number of years I've been hearing rumors that Verizon would be taking on Comcast cable television. Now it looks like it may come to pass for residents of Medford and Marlton. The article -- www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/business/11094781.htm -- suggests that these municipalities have the personal income and population density to support such an effort.

WKXW-101.5 Trenton touts itself as the most popular of all the New Jersey's most popular radio station. While the midday talk programs are a bit stupifying, I like Jim Gearhart weekday mornings, 6 to 10 am. The political commentary evokes an interesting response from the call-in audience. Dial up nj1015fm.com and have a listen.

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Revised 12 September 2005

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