April 25, 2007 by kb3ljm.

ARRL Monitoring System/Intruder Watch Liaison Chuck Skolaut, K0BOG, confirms reports that a clandestine broadcaster and a jamming station again are competing on 18.160 MHz. The 17-meter band is a worldwide exclusive Amateur Radio allocation. Following up on reports, Skolaut says he’s able to hear the “Sound of Hope” broadcast station from Taiwan as well as the so-called “Fire Dragon” jammer, broadcasting music from the Hainan, Peoples’ Republic of China, at ARRL Headquarters station W1HQ. The Sound of Hope transmits news unfavorable to the PRC, while the Hainan music transmissions attempt to block the transmission, pausing for four minutes each hour, apparently to check the frequency. When the same two competing signals showed up on amateur frequencies last year, International Amateur Radio Union Secretary David Sumner, K1ZZ, requested the clandestine broadcaster avoid use of Amateur Radio frequencies. Skolaut has received reports about the clandestine broadcaster and music jammer interference from all over the US as well as Europe, Africa and the UK. IARU Monitoring System Region 1 Coordinator Wolf Hadel, DK2OM, in Germany has documented the intruders on 18.160 MHz (and others) on his Web site.

http://www.arrl.org/?artid=7400

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April 25, 2007 by kb3ljm.

Bruce Clark, K0YW, operating as KH7X from the station of Alex Benton, KH6YY, made the first successful 2.3 GHz EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) contact from Hawaii April 23 (UTC). “This is the first time EME from Hawaii has been worked on this band,” reports Ron Hashiro, AH6RH, who assisted in the effort. Clark made contact with well-known VHF/UHF and moonbounce enthusiast Al Ward, W5LUA, in Texas. Hashiro says the Hawaii operation was set up in a tent pitched next to the 12-foot TV receive-only (TVRO) dish used for the antenna, in order to minimize feed line losses. “The CW signal was just above the noise level and sounded ‘watery,’ as if the speaker were being held underwater,” Hashiro reported. “The warbling tone was much worse than Arctic flutter.” He said Doppler shift was on the order of 3 kHz. CW was sent at about 10 WPM. K0YW made additional contacts with several other stations on 2.3 GHz as well as on 1.2 GHz EME, Hashiro said. News of Clark’s temporary Hawaii moonbounce setup made the April 21 edition of the Honolulu Advertiser. In addition to Benton and Hashiro, others assisting in the moonbounce experiment included KH6ND, KH7U, WH6GS and AH6NF.

http://www.arrl.org/?artid=7398

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