Upcoming February 27th — Elmer Night
Our January meeting was well attended. Lots of hot, delicious pizza, and great conversation. It’s always fun to put a face to the friendly voice you’ve talked to on the radio. Many thanks to President Dale Wood who provided a variety of delicious pizza, refreshments, and a Baofeng UV-5R door prize. Although the “optics” were awkward, the winner was extremely surprised and I am enjoying it immensely.
Treasurer Tom Pechnik AC8EH was kept quite busy accepting dues from current and new members. If you haven’t renewed your membership, please do so using the application on this site. You can mail it to the Tom or take care of business at the February meeting.
Our next meeting is February 27th and we hope you’ll join us. We’re calling our meeting “Elmer Night”. In a sense it will be a continuation of last month’s socializing. At this meeting we want to nail down some program topics you’d like us to pursue during the upcoming year. In the process, you’ll learn about the fascinating and varied interests of our assembled group and you’ll also learn who Elmer is.
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Compliments ARRL.ORG
The First Amateur Radio Station on the Moon, JS1YMG, is Now Transmitting
2/02/2024
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) successfully landed their Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) on January 19, 2024. Just before touchdown, SLIM released two small lunar surface probes, LEV-1 and LEV-2.
LEV-2 collects data while moving on the lunar surface, and LEV-1 receives the data.
The JAXA Ham Radio Club (JHRC), JQ1ZVI, secured amateur radio license JS1YMG for LEV-1, which has been transmitting Morse code on 437.41 MHz since January 19. The probe uses a 1 W UHF antenna with circular polarization and is transmitting “matters related to amateur business.”
Radio amateurs have been busy analyzing JS1YMG’s signal, with Daniel Estévez’s, EA4GPZ, blog introducing the method and extraction results for demodulating Morse code from the signal, as well as extracting the code string.
It’s unclear how long signals will be heard. JAXA has said that SLIM was not designed to survive a lunar night, which lasts about 14 days, and is due to return in a few days.
SLIM was launched on September 6, 2023, and landed on January 19, 2024, with the mission of analyzing the composition of rocks to aid research about the origin of the moon. SLIM’s landing made Japan the fifth country to achieve a soft touchdown on the moon. The landing was achieved with exceptional precision — within 180 feet of its targeted touchdown location.
Nets? Why Net?
The net continues to be a wonderful way to meet fellow members and polish radio communication skills. It’s painless and fun. When you’re ready, go another step and take the Net Control chair. It’s easy to do, and experienced NCOs will show you how they do it at a meeting or over the air. Wondering what you’d say on the net? A simple script is available on this site. Or write parmaradioclub@gmail.com and tell them you’re interested.
Our newest NCO is President Dale Wood KE8WZQ. While at this time he’s only had 2 or 3 nets under his belt, he sounds like he’s done it for years.
Tom Southam, W8WLI, brings a tremendous amount of experience to the job and is always ready to help a newcomer take the NCO helm. We all know that it’s more fun than you can imagine.