[450] Fwd: Mystery QRM (2)

Mon May 20 10:43:27 EDT 2013

Excellent points from the list master....I don’t think that anything got out of hand; they were properly upbraided and no-one should be butt-hurt at the rocket club...which we all know is a bunch of uber-geeks anyway. Maybe this will inspire a couple of them to get their licenses?

I see a couple of future-engineers ....perhaps one of them even speaks German?

From: David McKenzie 
Sent: Monday, May 20, 2013 10:29 AM
To: 144.450 Mailing List 
Subject: Re: [450] Fwd: Mystery QRM (2)

sounds like they failed to follow club procedures and that the ham link was unused and secondary anyway. while their experiments are cool and interesting, we have a few people who worked really hard for their licenses and don't like interference! bob did the right thing by emailing them, and they are doing the right thing by inquiring about the use of the club license. There may not have even been a ham on the balloon project so they were potentially breaking federal law with their balloon which is serious and deserves some reprimanding. 

On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 10:20 AM, John Foege <john.foege at gmail.com> wrote:

  And as a clarification, from their own project supervisors....not Bob.

  On May 20, 2013 4:19 PM, "John Foege" <john.foege at gmail.com> wrote:

    Sure but it's a shared medium....as much as we would like to think we own it, we don't. It's proper to check if the channel is not in use. I highly suspect they did in fact do a local check up there and didn't hear anything. It's different when the QTH is at 35,000 ft. Then it's LOS to the entire NE. Either way....the probability of them choosing 450 or 440 AND running into a group of people on VHF is so astronomically low. Moreso that they only do this for 2 hours a year. And even crazier....we tracked it down to the source.....

    All in all pretty low odds of any of this happening!

    Certainly, the tone with which the students responsible were addressed was imho harsh...

    Oh well...

    On May 20, 2013 3:40 PM, "Rich" <t41 at optonline.net> wrote:

      Sorry, but they WERE in the wrong. If you are going to transmit from a 100k foot location, its incumbent upon YOU to make sure the frequency is clear. Also Bobs note was not accusatory or nasty. I think we just leave it where it is.

      From: John Foege 
      Sent: Monday, May 20, 2013 4:47 AM
      To: 144.450 Mailing List 
      Subject: Re: [450] Fwd: Mystery QRM (2)

      Bob,

      I agree with Chris...these people certainly feel like they just got repirmanded for doing absolutely nothing wrong.

      I'd really suggest sending a letter to everyone involved and telling them, that by no means does this represent a problem, and that you are very happy that the students are using HAM radio for backup telemetry data...

      That you were suprised how far they got out...

      etc. etc....

      We don't want to poo poo people just because we managed to hear their +10,000 FT ASL transmitters :P

      On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 5:10 AM, chris <cralt at comcast.net> wrote:

        Hopefully they are not discouraged from using ham radio for this stuff. Maybe just suggest that they try shifting to a different freq so they dont interfere with us and we dont interfere with them. There is plenty of room in that part of the band for everyone. 

        On May 19, 2013, at 7:01 PM, David McKenzie wrote:

          cool, glad it's resolved and that we figured it out

          On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 5:47 PM, Bob <n1ujs at toast.net> wrote:

            The latest:

            ---------- Forwarded message ----------
            From: Kristina A. Lynch <Kristina.A.Lynch at dartmouth.edu>
            Date: Sun, May 19, 2013 at 5:28 PM
            Subject: RE: Mystery QRM (2)
            To: Max Fagin <maxfagin at gmail.com>, "David G. McGaw" <David.G.McGaw at dartmouth.edu>
            Cc: "Eric W. Hansen" <Eric.W.Hansen at dartmouth.edu>, "Yorke J. Brown" <Yorke.J.Brown at dartmouth.edu>, "Maxwell H. Fagin" <Maxwell.H.Fagin at dartmouth.edu>, Bob <n1ujs at toast.net>, "Todd S. Anderson" <Todd.S.Anderson.14 at dartmouth.edu>

            Dave, Eric-
            Please relay my apologies to the group who were disturbed by our transmissions.
            We use the ham radio as our backup telemetry system on our research balloons,
            for about 2 hours once or twice a year;  we have been doing this for 
            approximately five years.  It is possible that Amanda Slagle (who graduated 
            last year) was in the habit of telling Dave McGaw ahead of time?  And this
            protocol got slipped since she left.  We can certainly be sure to let Dave know 
            in the future, if that would be helpful.  Also, now that our DNT system is working,
            we could significantly drop the data rate on the backup ham transmissions if that
            would be helpful.  Please let me know.
            Regards
            Kristina Lynch
            Dartmouth Physics/GreenCube Faculty Mentor
            www.dartmouth.edu/~aurora

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

            From: Max Fagin [maxfagin at gmail.com]
            Sent: Sunday, May 19, 2013 3:02 PM
            To: David G. McGaw
            Cc: Eric W. Hansen; Yorke J. Brown; Maxwell H. Fagin; Bob; Todd S. Anderson; Kristina A. Lynch 

            Subject: Re: Mystery QRM (2)

            The interfering transmission on 144.440 MHz was coming from the GreenCube 6 balloon payload which was in the air over Mt. Washington from 10:30-12:30 this morning.  The flight is over, and there will be no more transmissions on that frequency today. Todd and Kristina (cc'ed) are the lead investigators on the payload, and should be contacted with questions about the transmissions.

            -Max

            On May 19, 2013, at 2:21 PM, "David G. McGaw" <david.g.mcgaw at dartmouth.edu> wrote:

              Hi Eric,

              It is possible that Yorke and Max have a packet transmitter on their research balloons.  If so, they need to check frequencies beforehand AND have to contact you as the trustee of W1ET or me as the officer of record before using the callsign.

              Yorke, Max?

              David N1HAC

              On 5/19/13 1:32 PM, Eric W. Hansen wrote:

                Interesting hypothesis.  Any ideas?

                Eric

                From: Bob <n1ujs at toast.net>
                Date: Sunday, May 19, 2013 1:18 PM
                To: Eric Hansen <eric.w.hansen at dartmouth.edu>
                Subject: Re: Packet transmissions

                Some have suggested it might be a weather balloon?  In any case, it ceased transmitting about an hour ago.

                Thanks for looking into it.

                Bob N1UJS

                On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 1:08 PM, Eric W. Hansen <Eric.W.Hansen at dartmouth.edu> wrote:

                  That is really strange.  Our repeater operates on 444.950, and that's the only source of transmission I am aware of.  We haven't operated packet for years.  I will forward your message to some other people who can help track this down and get back to you if I find anything out.

                  Thanks for the heads up.

                  Best,
                  Eric Hansen

                  From: Bob <n1ujs at toast.net>
                  Date: Sunday, May 19, 2013 11:25 AM
                  To: Eric Hansen <eric.w.hansen at dartmouth.edu>, ham radio club <ham.radio.club at dartmouth.edu>
                  Cc: 450 <450 at lists.vhfwiki.com>
                  Subject: Packet transmissions

                  To whomever it may concern,

                  There are strong packet transmissions being sent on 144.440 that are identified by the W1ET call sign.  They are causing a bit of a disturbance to a large group of operators on 144.450.  I imagine this is unintended, as the last time something like this happened it turned out the transmissions were intended for a frequency 600 khz higher, but the operator had inadvertently pushed the "shift button".

                  Could you please check your station and see if it is responsible?

                  Here is a copy of the transmission:

                  W1ET*>WIDE1-1>WIDE2-1>APOT21 <UI>:/150425h4403.66N/07114.84WO-19C Good fix 5 Seconds
                  W1ET*>WIDE1-1>WIDE2-1>APOT21 <UI>:/150430h4403.55N/07114.74WO/A=041788-20C Good fix 5 Seconds
                  W1ET*>WIDE1-1>WIDE2-1>APOT21 <UI>:/150436h4403.44N/07114.66WO/A=041928-20C Good fix 5 Seconds
                  W1ET*>WIDE1-1>WIDE2-1>APOT21 <UI>:/150448h4403.20N/07114.47WO/A=042230-20C Good fix 5 Seconds
                  W1ET*>WIDE1-1>WIDE2-1>APOT21 <UI>:/150454h4403.08N/07114.40WO/A=042363-20C Good fix 5 Seconds
                  W1ET*>WIDE1-1>WIDE2-1>APOT21 <UI>:/150500h4402.96N/07114.34WO/A=042468-20C Good fix 5 Seconds
                  W1ET*>WIDE1-1>WIDE2-1>APOT21 <UI>:/150506h4402.84N/07114.28WO-20C Good fix 5 Seconds
                  W1ET*>WIDE1-1>WIDE2-1>APOT21 <UI>:/150512h4402.76N/07114.22WO-20C Good fix 5 Seconds

                  It has been suggested that the actual transmission bothering us may be a "retransmission" of your signal by an "unknown station", however the only call sign in the transmission is yours.

                  The signal I am receiving is quite strong (40-60 over s-9 to a phased pair of 10 elements) in the direction of roughly 20 degrees from my location in Newtown, CT, and appears to be horizontally polarized.

                  Thank you for any assistance you can provide us in this matter.

                  Bob N1UJS

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