Amateur Radio Helps Disabled Sailboat to Port

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Amateur Radio Helps Disabled Sailboat to Port

On 7th September 2022, Jeanne (Jan) Socrates, VE0JS/MM / KC2IOV, and her sailboat, the SV Nereida, set sail from Cape Flattery, the northwesternmost point of the contiguous US. She was on her way to visit friends in San Francisco, California, but 2 days of 35 knot winds and storms left her sailboat disabled and her onboard radio equipment marginally operational. Amateur operators in New Mexico, California, and Canada, and members of Group 7.155 heard her requests for assistance.

Gil Gray, N2GG, was able to contact Socrates on 40 meters. "Her power was extremely low, and she was unable to communicate on 14.300 MHz to notify the monitoring group on that frequency," said Gray. "She needed help with wind and sea conditions, and tidal data for San Francisco Bay," he added.

Low-power output on the HF radio made it very difficult to get Q5 copy, which would typically be Q2 or Q3. With the help of several software-defined radio (SDR) operators in Utah, California, and Maui, Hawaii, they were able to glean enough copy to understand her situation and answer questions for her navigation.

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Radio Amateurs are not Afraid of a Blackout

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In the event of a blackout, they will be the only ones able to deliver urgent messages to the authorities or the population.

The Internet has not killed them, the radio amateurs all over the world have not become entangled in the net. In Switzerland there are almost 4000 of them, in Geneva there are about 150 passionate amateur radio operators.

Attention, not to be confused with the CBers, who in the 1980s had a microphone and a large antenna on their car and are not authorized to communicate on the same frequencies. "Unlike CB, radio amateurs have to have a license and take an exam at Ofcom," explains radio amateur Enio Castellan HB9RHI.

A passion that could come in handy in the event of a general power outage.

"We have batteries and solar cells. You can also send emails or compressed photos, but of course not at the same speed as 4G."

Above all, the possibility of communicating with the whole world, since the waves are reflected in the upper layers of the atmosphere.

Enthusiasts demonstrated Sunday in the Bains des Pâquis to test the signals that will be the only means of communication in the event of a blackout. In the event of a power failure, the mobile radio relays no longer work.

Watch the Léman Bleu TV news report - https://www.lemanbleu.ch/fr/Actualites/Geneve/20220916105411-Les-radioamateurs-ne-craignent-pas-le-black-out.html

The Largest Commercial Communications Array ever has just Launched

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On the weekend SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched a giant satellite into space.

Called BlueWalker 3, it’s a prototype by American company AST SpaceMobile, which is to create a space-based mobile broadband network. This is only one of the multiple satellites planned for the SpaceMobile constellation – some even bigger than BlueWalker 3.

“The reason why our satellite is large is that in order to communicate with a low-power, low internal strength phone, you just need a large antenna on one side with a lot of power, and so that’s a critical part of our infrastructure.

We think that’s really important for communicating directly with regular handsets, with no change to the handset, with no extra burdens on the user.”
— AST SpaceMobile Chief Strategy Officer Scott Wisniewski

Although this is potentially exciting for those who need that connectivity, astronomers are concerned about just how big and bright this satellite will be.

A New Scientist report has even suggested that the satellite “could outshine all stars and planets in the night sky”.

This is because the satellite is huge and reflective. Once the satellite unfurls – which it will do in the next few weeks – the antenna will measure 64m2.

As Universe Today notes, that's in the same ballpark as NASA’s Echo-1 sphere launched in 1960. That ‘satelloon’ as it was called, was also reflective and was easy visible to the naked eye over most of Earth.

Media Story - https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/bluewalker-launched-spacex-largest-satellite-astronomers/