Chile Earthquake

Chile Earthquake Frequencies

There are confirmed reports that the following frequencies are currently being used for emergency communications in Chile - 7095 and 7050.

The Intercontinental Traffic Net on 14.300 is also active

IRESC, the International Radio Emergency Support Coalition is on monitoring watch at level 3 for both Chile and the expected arrival of Tsunami wave at Hawaii where an IRESC member on the island reports preparations are being made

Need a new handheld antenna?

This site nay be of interest - never used them and dont know about postage costs; let us know if you buy from them!

http://www.smileyantenna.com/

Update on transmitter destroyed by OFCOM

A few days ago we reported Ofcom action on the Island to remove a transmitter interfering on the Carnane repeater output.
Further information is now available and we can report that the transmitter was designed to take the output from an IPod and other MP3 players and transmit on 107 Mhz so that the music could be received on an FM radio and fed through a HI FI system or car radio.
The device recovered was of poor construction, without any adequate filtering and it's fourth harmonic was on 430.825. This harmonic could be heard a significant distance away from the transmitter.
The device was purchased from Ebay and sent to the Island from mainland China; Ofcom are now looking to have the sale of this item removed from Ebay.

Latest RSGB News (March 2010)

http://homepages.manx.net/butler/RSGB_News002.pdf

See page 14 for IOMARS news.

RAYNET Isle of Man (incorporated in the IOMARS)

RAYNET EXERCISE 07/02/2010
On Sunday 2nd of February, an exercise was held to assess the contribution a mobile/portable repeater would make in the event of communications failure.
At 13.00hrs Matty, MD0MAN set up a portable repeater station at a location known as the Sheep Pens, on the mountain. The frequencies to be used were the Isle of Man Raynet frequencies of 144.6125 MHz and 433.700 MHz. All available stations signed in on the GB3IM repeater network.
The stations signing in were as follows:
GD3TNS, MD0HEB, GD0NFN, MD3YLX, GD0HYM, GD0MWL, GD7DUZ and GD4RAG.
Each station was asked to transmit first on the 2m frequency, with the audio quality being monitored by MD0MAN at the repeater site, and also at the QTH of GD0OUD.
The exercise was then repeated using the 70cm frequency, and the following results were logged:
Station------- 2m Trans. Audio Quality------- 70cm Trans. Audio Quality
GD3TNS -----Good--------------------------- Nothing Heard
MD0HEB ----Nothing Heard------------------ Good
GD0NFN ----Good---------------------------- Poor
MD3YLX (north) Fair------------------------- Good
GD0HYM (port.) Nothing Heard -------------- Nothing Heard
GD0MWL------- Broken, v.poor---------------Nothing Heard
GD7DUZ -------- Good------------------------ Good
GD4RAG-------- Nothing Heard--------------- Nothing Heard
The exercise was completed at 13.50hrs.

GD4EIP added that 70cm reception was very poor in Foxdale, 2m was not heard, although the stations of GD0OUD and GD7DUZ could be heard clearly.
The following report was received from MD0MAN at the repeater site:
“X-band between 2m, 70cms, active from 13:08 to 13:48
X-band between 6m and 2m, 13:50, 14:00
Was an interesting exercise - 70cms didn't seem to be as good as 2m for strength, it would be good to try a couple of other sites (and using the Raynet kit) to see what can be done to cover areas that aren't served well by the repeaters (valleys etc).
The sheep pens don't seem so good for propagation towards NFN's QTH, and not so good for Port Erin / Port St Mary, although there's excellent coverage to the Castletown area.
Steve was coming in well on 6m, but I wasn't getting out so well, I'm thinking this is due to the antenna just being put up on a mag mount (Diamond CR-8900 quad band) - it really needs a 'proper' earth for 6 and 10m use.”

Thank you to all stations who took part, your patience is appreciated in what can be a long and drawn out exercise.
Please bring your suggestions, criticisms and questions to the next Raynet meeting.
Stuart, GD0OUD Raynet IOM Call out Officer.

EMC Report

Over the last few months a large carrier has been noted in the Douglas area operating on and around the Carnane repeater output frequency; following local investigations, the matter was referred to Ofcom for further investigation.
Ofcom have now visited the Island and report that a transmitter which was not legal to operate in the European area has been discovered and destroyed. The large carrier is no longer present.
Thanks are offered to the Society members and the statutory services that assisted in resolving this issue.

Bring and Buy

Next month’s Society meeting at Tromode (9th March) will be a “Bring and Buy”
Members will be able to display and sell unwanted items on the basis of donating 10% of the sales to the Society.
Members may also wish to sign in a guest and boost the numbers of potential buyers.

RNLI SOS Day

The Society would like to thank everyone for their support at the RNLI SOS day.
So far we have raised £65 for the local RNLI, and there may be a few more donations to come in via QSL cards and also directly to RNLI following contacts that we made.

We had approaching 150 contacts in ten and a bit hours - suffering lots of QRM.