Subj : Amateur Radio Newsline (A) To : All From : Daryl Stout Date : Thu May 18 2023 19:01:48 Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2377, for Friday, May 19th, 2023 Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2377, with a release date of Friday, May 19th, 2023, to follow in 5-4-3-2-1. The following is a QST. US hams prep for hurricane season. Getting a stubborn folding antenna to unfold - in space! And an early net marks 24,000 mornings of check-ins. All this and more, as Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2377, comes your way right now. ** BILLBOARD CART ** HAMVENTION IS HAPPENING IN XENIA, OHIO DON/ANCHOR: As Newsline went to production, hams from all over the world were converging on a busy fairground in the US state of Ohio for Hamvention. Be sure to listen to our newscast next Friday, May 26th, for a Hamvention wrap up. ** IT'S ONLY A TEST (FOR NOW) AT THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER DON/ANCHOR: We begin this week with - what else? - the weather. It's storm season in many parts of the world and here in parts of the United States, amateurs are checking their hurricane season preparedness. We hear more about that from Randy Sly, W4XJ. RANDY: It's that time of year again, when amateurs check out their equipment, and get ready for a new season of storms and storm-related activity. This is especially important for such stations as WX4NHC at the National Hurricane Center in Florida. Their annual on-the-air communications test will take place on Saturday, May 27 from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Assistant Amateur Radio Coordinator Julio Ripoll, WD4R, says that the purpose of the event is to test the station’s equipment and antennas as well as operators' home equipment prior to the 2023 Hurricane Season which runs from June 1st through November 30th. The station will be operating on HF, VHF and UHF, including 2 and 30- meter APRS and Winlink. Bobby Graves, KB5HAV, net manager of the Hurricane Watch Net, told AR Newsline that they will be active during that time, on or near their standard frequencies of 14.325 and 7.268 MHz, depending on propagation. The VoIP Hurricane Net will activate that day too from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Look for WX4NHC on the air or posted on DX Cluster. For more information, you can visit wx4nhc.org. This is Randy Sly, W4XJ. ** SILENT KEY: PETER STUART, PA3EPX, FORMER VERON BOARD MEMBER DON/ANCHOR: A ham who helped build enthusiasm for homebrew and other amateur radio practices in The Netherlands has become a Silent Key. We hear more details about him from Jeremy Boot, G4NJH. JEREMY: Peter Stuart, PA3EPX, was well-known for his enthusiasm and creative spirit within the leadership and membership of VERON, the Dutch amateur radio society. Peter, who first became active in VERON at the end of the 1970s, became a Silent Key on the 16th of April. He was remembered by colleagues as an advocate for teaching fox hunting and for his service on the VERON board as its secretary. An avid do-it- yourselfer, he was also a proponent of homebrew equipment and he encouraged others to build a variety of projects including an ATV transmitter. Peter was 71. This is Jeremy Boot, G4NJH. (VERON) ** JUPITER SPACECRAFT RESOLVES ANTENNA ISSUES DON/ANCHOR: There's antenna work..........and then there's antenna work. If your antenna is a folding antenna that won't unfold - and it's out in space - you're gonna need to do a little more than just climb up the tower to fix it. Graham Kemp, VK4BB, tells us what happened. GRAHAM: With the launch last month of the European Space Agency's JUICE mission - short for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer - hopes were high for its antenna, which had been folded up inside the spacecraft ready for its eventual full deployment. The 16-metre-long antenna, known as RIME - for Radar for Icy Moons Exploration - was to completely unfold in its first week after the launch date and it did - that is, all but one final part. According to various media accounts, a variety of remedies were tried without success until the flight control team finally freed the remaining part by delivering a shock that moved a tiny stuck pin that had left the antenna section jammed in its folded position. The shock came via a device known as a nonexplosive actuator that was located inside the bracket. What happened was disruptive enough to shake things up. May 12th brought freedom as the stuck part became unstuck. Now the antenna should be ready for an even bigger challenge - the moons around the giant planet Jupiter. The mission will use the antenna to study those icy moons as far down as 9 km, analysing both the surface and subsurface. What unfolds there may possibly deliver some shocks of its own. This is Graham Kemp, VK4BB. (EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY, DIGITAL TRENDS) --- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32 * Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - Little Rock, Arkansas (954:895/7) .