[ ANARTS - Australian National Amateur Radio Teletype Society ]

ANARTS News Bulletin 814 19th June 1994

  3.545 MHz                  0930 UTC     VK2BQS (Jim)
  7.045 MHz -3               0030 UTC     VK2CTD (Col)
 14.070 MHz (amtor/fec)      0030 UTC     VK2DPM (Alan)      
 14.091 MHz                  0030 UTC     VK2BQS (JIM)
146.675 MHz             0030/0930 UTC     VK2JPA (PAT)
144.850 MHz (ax25 bbs)                    VK2JPA AT VK2RWI
                                            (or VK2OP)
146.675 MHz (rtty mmbbs/repeater)          VK2RTY
   

Contest report

Our contest manager Jim VK2BQS says that the contest seemed to 
have plenty of stations working despite the bad conditions due 
to this stage in the solar cycle.

Jim has one hard-luck story,  though.  He was taking  a  rest 
break,  had  turned off the transmitter but left the  receiver 
running to the screen, when -- up came a ZA station calling CQ 
Contest.  Jim could not believe his eyes but was unable to get 
on  air  in time as the ZA station faded into  oblivion  after 
only  a couple of minutes.  He hopes that others  worked  that 
station even though he missed out. Them's the breaks - oh well.

The  first log has come in already. Don't leave yours too long 
if  you  have a slow postal system.  Make sure it  arrives  in 
plenty of time.

           ----------------------------------------

INFORMATION ON NEW ZEALAND AMATEUR LICENCES     11 June 1994

The  Ministry  of  Commerce  supplied  the  following  summary 
figures  of numbers of amateur licences for each  grade.   The 
first  samples are at various times from July 1991 to  October 
1993,  while the second samples are as at the 1st of the month 
from March 1994 onwards:   

Grade            Jul91 Oct91 Apr92 Jul92 Oct92 Apr93 Jul93 Oct93
------------------------------------------------------------------
General          4089  4082  4062  4066  4087  4090  4097  4066
Lim+Nov            67    74    73    76    67    76    75    80
Limited          1966  2059  2034  1981  2109  2129  2111  2197
Novice             37    39    39    42    44    41    41    37
                 ====  ====  ====  ====  ====  ====  ====  ====
     totals      6159  6254  6208  6165  6307  6336  6324  6380

     Grade       Mar94  Apr94  May94  Jun94
     --------------------------------------
     General      4060   4057   4063   4061
     Lim+Nov        81     82     84     86
     Limited      2181   2222   2211   2207
     Novice         39     38     38     40
                  ====   ====   ====   ====
          totals  6361   6399   6396   6394

COMMENTS ON AMATEUR LICENCE INFORMATION:

*  Figures are snapshots in time of licence data, of different
   comings, goings and upgradings.  Additions are mainly
   following March and September examinations, while attrition
   is  somewhat  continuous.   Morse  tests are  available  on 
   demand.

* The real situation of component data changes (by additions,
  amendments and deletions, as can be seen regularly published
  in Break-In) are rather more dynamic than can be found by
  direct inspection of the above summary figures.

*  A study of call sign deletions over the latter part of 1993
   indicated  a  rate of attrition close to 4% per  annum  for 
   each  of  General and Limited grades  (possibly  indicating 
   that     rates  of  loss  of  interest,   incapability   or 
   mortality are    similar throughout the amateur community).

*  If  the  rate  of attrition is  taken  as  4%  p.a.,  then 
   estimated  rates  of addition (to tie in with  the  licence 
   totals) are:

   3% addition per annum for General, so net "growth" is -1%

   8% addition per annum for Limited, so net growth is +4%

   5% addition per annum all licences, so net growth is +1%


Bob ZL2CA 

Editors note -- recently I attempted to obtain similar figures 
from the SMA,  only to be told they were not obtainable and to 
ask the WIA.

Why  cant these figures be extracted from the SMA database  on 
request?  Once  upon a time not that long ago,  these  figures 
were regularly released -- why not now?  They are just licence 
classes and should be retrievable without any trouble.  I  did 
want the figures for use in this broadcast, so the enquiry was 
legitimate. Maybe this procedure can be revised in the future. 

          -----------------------------------------


Are auroral sounds a real physical effect?      by Colin Keay

It  is  very likely they are produced in a similar way to  the 
rare  examples of instantaneous sounds from very large  meteor 
fireballs,  which were a mystery for more than two  centuries. 
Very  briefly,  the  turbulent  plasma wake  of  the  fireball 
excites  electromagnetic waves in the Earth-Ionosphere cavity. 
The allowed modes lie in the kilohertz region of the spectrum. 
In the case of a fireball as bright or brighter than the Moon, 
megawatts of em energy are produced and the electric vector is 
strong  enough  to  excite  acoustic  vibrations  in  suitable 
objects,  such  as  loose  hair or frozen  pine  needles.  The 
resulting sounds are heard as hissing,  swishing or  crackling 
by anyone in close proximity. 

This  explanation  was developed by me to explain  the  widely 
perceived  sounds  from the huge New South Wales  fireball  in 
1978.  It was published in 1980 in SCIENCE. I was quickly able 
to  prove  in laboratory tests that rapidly  varying  electric 
fields  could  be heard provided there was something near  the 
observer  to  act  as a transducer.  Even wearing  a  pair  of 
glasses  could raise a subjects threshold by 3 or 4  decibels. 
Later  tests  with mundane materials in  an  anechoic  chamber 
verified  that  all sorts of objects could respond to  rapidly 
fluctuating electric fields and produce faint sounds.

Detection  of the ELF/VLF em radiation from a  meteor  firball 
was  a much harder probelm because such events are very  rare. 
The  Japanese succeeded,  publishing proof of the existence of 
such  radiation  in 1988.  This has finally laid to  rest  the 
fallacious  conventional  wisdom that  instantaneous  fireball 
sounds are psychological in origin.

The same is probably true for auroral sounds.  They only occur 
during extremely intense auroral displays,  when, according to 
Olsen  (Pure  and App.  Geophys.  84,  1971)  abnormally  high 
electric fields have been measured. Very rapid fluctuations in 
such  fields excite the audible sounds if suitable  transducer 
materials  are  present.  I  am sure that attempts  to  record 
auroral sounds on a tape recorder,  with a microphone lying on 
the snow,  failed because there was nothing nearby to act as a 
transducer.  If  the microphone had been placed under  a  pine 
tree  instead of out in the open the result may hav been  very 
different.

A  similar process explains the occasional report of a  person 
hearing  a  -vit-  or  -click- at the instant  of  a lightning 
stroke  before  the crash of thunder.  Also explained are  the 
rare  reports  of earthquake sounds just  before  the  seismic 
shock and the alarm of animals at such times.

These findings open up a whole new field of scientific inquiry 
which   I  call  geophysical  electrophonics.   There  are  no 
commercial  applications  in  sight yet,  but  the  scope  for 
interesting research is immense.  


from  IPS Radio and Space Services  Solar-Geophysical  Summary 
May 1994


         ------------------------------------------


                      IPS weekly report
                      -----------------
                      10 June - 16 June 1994
Issue No 24
Date of issue: 17 June 1994

INDICES:
Date     10    11    12    13    14    15    16
10cm     85    86    86    85    85    88    88
A        16    15    26    12    15    09  (05 estimated)
T        36    53    53    42    44    51    47

                     SUMMARY OF ACTIVITY

Solar  activity  was  low on 15th June and very  low  for  the 
remainder of the period.

The  geomagnetic  field  at Learmonth (WA)  was  unsettled  to 
active on 12th,  quiet to unsettled 10th-11th,  and 13th-15th, 
and quiet on 16th. There was one active period on 11th.
 
Ionospheric F2 critical frequencies at Sydney were mostly near 
predicted values,  with slight enhancements on 11th-12th June, 
and up to 20 per cent enhancements on 15th-16th.


          FORECAST FOR THE NEXT WEEK (17 - 23 June)

SOLAR:        Very low to low.

GEOMAGNETIC:  Active 20-21 June, quiet to unsettled otherwise. 

IONOSPHERIC:  Near normal to slightly enhanced. 


       Courtesy of IPS Radio and Space Services, Sydney


For your information

There  have been no M-class solar flares reported  since  27th 
February this year.

           ----------------------------------------

VK2SG RTTY DX Notes for weekending 10 June 1994(BID RTDX0610)

Our  information this week came from:  DJ3IW and the  Central-
Europe  DX  Cluster Node DB0SPC,  I5FLN and the IK5PWJ  Packet 
Cluster,  N2DBI,  W2JGR  and the NJ0M node The Twin-Cities  DX 
Packet  Cluster,  VK2SG  and W5KSI.  Thank you  all  for  your 
assistance. 

BANDPASS

Friday 3
1701-14073  5R8KH  PACTOR
2044-14087  SV5/DL6RAI
2125-14087  4X6UO
2145-14084  EA2CNT

Saturday 4
1522-14073  A41KB  PACTOR
1620-14081  TY1PS
1654-14088  DU1BJD
2038-14086  4X6UO
2217-14087  LU5QAD

Sunday 5
0703-14090  ZA1AJ QSL OK2PSZ
0711-14083  SV5AZP
0734-14085  ZA1MH
1044-14085  4L1BR
1138-14084  SV1ADG
1139-14081  ZA1AJ
1304-14082  ZA1AJ
1550-14081  HI3AB
1701-14084  9N1AA
1714-14085  BV7WB
1721-21085  Z21HD
1723-14085  GU/DL9YAJ
1724-14087  4X6YO
1752-14087  4L1BR
1752-14085  DU1BJD
1753-14090  ZC4ZZ
1846-14083  BV7WB
1914-14085  SV5/DL6RAI
2013-14083  VP9MZ
2036- 7037  GU/DL9YAJ
2042-14086  4X6UT
2057-14088  ZA1AJ

Monday 6
1817-14089  VQ9JB
1817-14087  Z21HD
2112-14086  PJ2MI

Tuesday 7
1150-14086  EE0TT QSL EA1EVE
2248-14088  IS0LSD
2251-14085  FG5GI

Wednesday 8
1200-14088  C56/DK2OC
1246-14082  ER1PE MOLDAVIA QSL I8YGZ
1714-14086  VP5JM
1716-14086  4X6UO
1720-14085  UX0KA
2024-14087  5B4VX
2027-14085  GU/DL9YAJ
2042-14086  4X6UO
2047-14089  HC6CR
2115- 7035  GU/DL9YAJ
2123-14086  Z21HD
2123-14084  7X2DS
2124-14089  A41AD

Thursday 9
0006-14986  ER1PE
0225-14089  VE2MJ
1643-14087  A45XC
1646-14089  UA3BX
1709-14087  4L1BR
1744-14087  SV1ADG
1748-14088  HC6FQ
1807-14088  5B4VX
1807-14087  4L1BR
1813-14084  SV1ADG
1814-14085  EM5U
2106-14088  7X2DS

Notes of Interest.

GRENADA,  J3.  Doug,  KF4KL,  reports that he will be going to 
Grenada 16-23 June and will be operating all digital modes.

SAINT  PAUL ISLAND,  CY9.  A group of operators will be active 
from Saint Paul from 10-19 June.  Will be running two stations 
around the clock.  QSL via K0SN.

MICRONESIA, V6. A group from OKDXA and some operators from the 
South  Pacific,  will  be  on from now  until  17  June.  Four 
stations  will be on the air,  all bands including  RTTY.  QSL 
OKDXA, P.O. BOX 88, WELLSTON, OK 74881.
 
For  next  week's bulletin,  send your Bandpass and  Notes  of 
Interest to Jules, W2JGR at W5KSI.#NOLA.LA.USA.NA

Remember, DX DON'T SLEEP.
GL de BOB, WB2CJL at W5KSI.#NOLA.LA.USA.NA

           -------------------------------------

For disposal
------------
1 model 15 keyboard printer and reperforator complete.
5 Terminet keyboard printers,  ASCII, serial rs232 output plus 
manual. As new.

Contact  Greg  VK2KGH (046) 282255,  or write to  28  Harcourt 
Place, Eaglevale NSW 2558.
           ----------------------------------------

Society information

The Society may be contacted at :  PO Box 860, Crows Nest 2065 
Australia,   for   such  matters  as  membership  and  general 
enquiries.  Enquiries  can  also  be made  by  packet  to  the 
President  (Col)  VK2CTD, or the  Secretary  (Pat) VK2JPA at 
VK2RWI.

News  items  may  be  sent to  Broadcast  Officer  PO  Box  60 
Blacktown  2148 Australia,  or by packet to VK2JPA at  VK2RWI. 
Email addresses for the Broadcast Officer are : 

patl(at)pitt.conmusic.su.oz.au  

The  Society welcomes news items on any digital subjects  from 
anywhere in the broadcast coverage area.  We know we reach New 
Zealand and many South Pacific islands,  and we were  reaching 
as  far  north  as Japan when conditions were  right.  We  are 
looking forward to news from your areas to let other  amateurs 
know what you are doing in the hobby. Hope to hear from you.

73s de Pat VK2JPA Broadcast Officer 
