Subj : Amateur Radio Newsline (A) To : All From : Daryl Stout Date : Fri Mar 19 2021 00:15:06 Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2264, for Friday, March 19, 2021 Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2264 with a release date of Friday, March 19, 2021, to follow in 5-4-3-2-1. The following is a QST. ARISS is back on the air from the Columbus module. Hams activate during a record storm in Colorado -- and there's optimism for two major radio events later this year. All this and more as Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2264 comes your way right now. *** BILLBOARD CART ** NEIL/ANCHOR: We begin this week's report with good news for U.S. astronauts aboard the International Space Station: their amateur radio came back on the air just in time to keep a date with some youngsters in Australia. Paul Braun, WD9GCO tells us more. PAUL: The return to service of the ARISS Columbus radio was especially good news to school children in Adelaide, Australia who were able to keep their date with astronaut Shannon Walker, KD5DXB, on March 17th. During a spacewalk with Victor Glover, KI5BKC, just a few days earlier, astronaut Mike Hopkins, KF5LJG, restored the cabling outside the ISS to its original configuration. A test of the equipment in Packet Mode, as the ISS passed over the West Coast of the United States, was a success: The signals were almost immediately heard in Idaho, Utah and California – and later in South America and the Middle East. The radio had been out of service since a malfunction was detected in late January just as the ISS attempted a QSO with students in Wyoming. Fortunately, hams were able to conduct subsequent ARISS contacts with schools using the cosmonauts' radio in the Service Module, thanks to Sergey Samburov, RV3DR. Now that the radio's antenna connection is fixed, the grateful students at Goodwood Primary School have become the first phone contacts made with the newly reconnected Columbus module radio. Next up will be students at the Oakwood School in Morgan Hill, California on Monday, March 22nd; and then, two days later, it's back to Down Under with students at the School of Information Technology & Mathematical Sciences, in Mawson Lakes, South Australia. For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Paul Braun, WD9GCO. (FRANK BAUER KA3HDO, DAVID JORDAN AA4KN, ROSALIE WHITE K1STO) ** TIME-KEEPING BROADCAST SYSTEM GETTING UPGRADE NEIL/ANCHOR: Don't worry, time isn't going to stand still anytime soon but it is definitely going to be undergoing an upgrade. Well, maybe not time itself but the time-keeping broadcast system of WWVB, the radio station of the National Institute of Standards and Technology near Fort Collins, Colorado. An announcement on its webpage reports that because of work begun on March 9th, the transmitter may be operating on a single antenna at about 30 kW of radiated power for periods of several days. There may even be occasional outages. The web page notes: [quote] Periods of reduced power operation lasting longer than 30 minutes will be logged on the WWVB Antenna Configuration and Power web page, and any outage longer than five minutes' duration will be recorded on the WWVB Outage web page." [endquote] Don't worry: The upgrade being undertaken is designed to improve the reliability of the signal, so things are bound to get better by March 31st when the upgrade is expected to be finished. (NIST website) ** ARES TEAM DIGS IN DURING COLORADO BLIZZARD NEIL/ANCHOR: A record snowstorm hit Colorado and one local ARES team was able to dig in and help. Here's Amanda Alden, K1DDN, with those details. AMANDA: Members of Arapahoe County ARES were deployed and ready for a snowstorm in Colorado that was declared Denver's fourth largest since 1881 -- and the second-largest ever in March. After spending Saturday, March 13th on standby, 19 hams went into action the next morning, providing reports on weather and road conditions even as the snow continued unabated. Mike Curta, KD0UFO, the severe weather coordinator for the ARES group, said that nearly 28 inches of snow fell in a little more than 24 hours and winds kicked up to 40 miles per hour. By Monday, March 15th, the hams had logged more than 260 hours working in support of the county sheriff's department as well as the city of Aurora. They assisted local agencies as officials got busy handling numerous storm-related crises, including the rescue of as many as 200 people who were left trapped in their cars. For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Amanda Alden, K1DDN. (MIKE CURTA KD0UFO) --- SBBSecho 3.13-Win32 * Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33) .