Subj : Amateur Radio Newsline (A) To : All From : Daryl Stout Date : Fri Dec 29 2017 09:48 am Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2096, for Friday, December 29, 2017 Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2096, with a release date of Friday, December 29, 2017, to follow in 5-4-3-2-1. The following is a QST. Short wave service returns to part of Australia. A West Virginia school ham club has a special role -- and get ready for Contest University! All this and more, as Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2096 comes your way right now. ** BILLBOARD CART ** NEW 60 METER SHORT WAVE LAUNCHES in AUSTRALIA PAUL/ANCHOR: We begin this week's report with word that 60 meter short wave service is now operating in a part of Australia that have been without short wave for almost a year. This is welcome news to listeners, as we hear from John Williams, VK4JJW. JOHN'S REPORT: At last, short wave radio station 4KZ is on the air at 5055 kHz from Queensland, Australia. Signal reports are coming in from New Zealand, and parts of North America. Al Kirton, VK4FFKZ general manager of NQ Radio, reports that transmissions, started on the 20th of December, and currently will be at half-power, or 500 watts, until repairs can be made of one of the RF boards. The station will then operate regularly at its 1 kW of power, using an inverted V antenna at a site in Tropical North Queensland. Although the 60 meter transmissions are intended for the listening audience in the northern outback and the Cape York area, signal reports have come in from as far away as New South Wales, Victoria, New Zealand, Canada's province of Alberta, and even Monterey, California in the U.S. Australian Broadcasting Corporation ended its short wave transmissions to the northern outback in January. If you're interested in listening for the signal, and want to receive a 4KZ shortwave QSL card, be listening from 0500 to 2300 hours UTC, and send your report to Al Kirton by writing to Al at nqradio dot com dot au (al@nqradio.com.au) or to Radio 4KZ, P.O. Box 19, Innisfail, Queensland 4860 Australia. For Amateur Radio Newsline I'm John Williams, VK4JJW. (WIA) ** IRISH HAMS' TRIBUTE TO A DOOMED FLIGHT PAUL/ANCHOR: In Ireland, a special event station is getting ready to mark a particularly somber event. It was the biggest tragedy in the country's aviation history, as we hear from Jeremy Boot, G4NJH. JEREMY: Mystery still surrounds the deadly crash in 1968 of Aer Lingus Flight 712, an event that came to be known as the Tuskar Rock tragedy. The 61 people on board the Vickers Viscount 803 aircraft perished when it crashed into the Irish Sea, making it the worst air disaster in Irish civil aviation history. Starting on the 22nd of January, and continuing through the 24th of March - the fiftieth anniversary of the crash, Special Event Station EI50AOM, will remember that flight from Cork, which was bound for London's Heathrow Airport, when tragedy struck. The amateur radio operators are devoting each day to a different victim. The passengers and crew were from Sweden, the Netherlands, the U.S., Switzerland, Britain, Belgium, and Ireland. According to various news reports, only 14 bodies were ever found. For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Jeremy Boot, G4NJH. (IRTS, QRZ) ** NEW SCHOOL HAM CLUB IS ANYTHING BUT ACADEMIC PAUL/ANCHOR: Amateur radio is all about communications, but as one group of students in West Virginia is learning, it can mean so much more. Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, explains. NEIL: It's always exciting to hear about a new high school ham radio club getting on the air. But this one had a little twist. In fact, it took me a while to get in touch with this group, that has introduced ham radio to Pocahontas County High School in Dunmore, West Virginia because they have no cellular telephone service. It's not necessarily by choice. The entire county is inside the United States National Quiet Zone, near the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. So when students had the chance to talk to the rest of the world on something other than a cable, they were more than interested. I had a chance to speak with Rudy Marrujo, KD8WPG, about the visit to the school from the Eight Rivers Ham Club. RUDY: We want to show these kids, hey; Pocahontas County is not the only place in the world. It's a big world. And, you know, when a child talks to someone in London or Australia, imagine looking at the smile between their ears. It's ear to ear! NEIL: When the Eight Rivers Ham Club members visit the school, they are teaching not only how to communicate with the outside world, but also how to build the antennas and equipment to do so. And, they have a limited amount of time available. RUDY: [We have] two times a month that we can do it for an hour, each class. We have to summarize everything that we can give to a student. So, we make a major impact in one hour. NEIL: An HF rig and some handhelds are already in a classroom at the school, and all the students who pass the license exam will be given a free handheld radio. Best of luck to yet another school, sharing the love of ham radio with students, and in this case sharing an entire world that otherwise might not be well-known. Reporting for Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. PAUL/ANCHOR: Meanwhile, in the New York suburb of West Islip, Long Island, another high school group will soon know the same excitement they're feeling in West Virginia. Students at West Islip High School have just been assigned a call sign, and are awaiting approval of their requested vanity call, WI2HS. Ben Piecora, KD2NOU, and teacher Brian Buonomo, KD2FKP, the club trustee, are working together to help move things forward. The weeks ahead will be spent setting up logbooks, and other details, in anticipation of getting the new call sign, and, of course, antennas, and radios. There's never been a ham club in the school, said Ben, who has promised to keep Newsline updated. We can't wait to hear what comes next in the new year for this new school club. --- SBBSecho 3.03-Win32 * Origin: RdoWxNet: The Thunderbolt BBS - wx1der.dyndns.org (802:2/3) þ Synchronet þ Temple of Doom BBS - tod.eothnet.com .