ARRL-National Weather Service SKYWARN recognition day is December 4

The sixth annual ARRL-National Weather Service SKYWARN Recognition Day (SRD) event takes place Saturday, December 4.

SKYWARN Recognition Day pays tribute to Amateur Radio SKYWARN volunteers for the vital services they provide during weather-related emergencies.

During the 24-hour activity, radio amateurs set up stations at National Weather Service (NWS) offices and work as a team to contact other hams around the world.

"Ham radio operators are a tremendous resource for the National Weather Service," says Scott Mentzer, N0QE, the event's organizer and the meteorologist-in-charge at the NWS office in Goodland, Kansas. "The dedication these amateurs have shown is inspirational, and their assistance during the year is invaluable."

The 2004 activity gets under way December 4 at 0000 UTC (Friday, December 3, in US time zones) and continues until 2400 UTC. The object is for amateur stations to exchange QSO information with as many National Weather Service stations as possible on 80, 40, 20, 15, 10, 6 and 2 meters, and 70 cm. Contacts via repeaters and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) modes also are permitted. Operators will exchange call sign, signal report, QTH, and a one or two word description of their weather, such as "sunny,"
"partly cloudy," "windy," etc. Participants in the 2003 SRD logged nearly 19,000 QSOs.

A number of NWS stations will utilize EchoLink and the Internet Radio Linking Project to make contacts during SRD 2004. IRLP reflector node 9219 will be utilized for QSOs with NWS stations and also will be bridged to the EchoLink WX-TALK conference room so that IRLP stations can talk to
EchoLink stations using a common point of contact.

WX4NHC at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, will utilize IRLP reflector 9219 from 1700 UTC through 2100 UTC during SRD 2004. Net control operators will develop a list of stations to talk to WX4NHC using an online form, similar to the process used during hurricane season.

Danny Musten, KD4RAA, kd4raa@voipwx.net has more information about SRD VoIP activities.

Source: ARRL Letter - courtesy of The American Radio Relay League

Other recent stories..