News RHG Articles

RF Tornado Detection, 1959

By Bob W9DXR

With the upcoming weather spotting season, this article we recently unearthed is very timely.  My wife recently came across a newspaper clipping from around 1959 that her family had kept.  At that time the use of black and white television was still predominant and I believe the following method of tornado detection worked best with a black and white TV (you do remember those don’t you?) on an outdoor antenna.

This method is outdated and presented for historical reasons. SARC recommends monitoring a weather radio, weather web site or commercial broadcast for weather severe weather information.

I can attest that the Weller method did work for detecting lightning and strong storms.  There is enough energy at 54 Mhz (approximately channel 2) in a lightning storm to trigger a TV screen to turn white and flicker with the energy.  Although it was somewhat crude it worked well.  Fortunately I was never close enough to a tornado to see my screen turn completely white.  Today we have digital TV and cable in place so we are stuck watching the weather channel or a weather app on our smart phone.   Ahh… the good old days.

News

WA9BLP Tower Project

The club recently helped Ray WA9BLP refurbish his tower, antennas and shack. A full write up can be found in the March 2018 RHG. Kevin K9AAB provided this video documenting the process.

RHG Articles

From the President

Some exciting things have happened relating to our new web site. It is proving to be a great tool for communicating our events, and for showing others who may be interested in the club what we do. I urge all of you to help us keep things fresh on the web site. It’s fairly easy. Just send any pictures or notes about any ham related activities that you’re taking part in to myself, or use the Submit an Article link at the bottom of our web site. The more pictures the better, so make sure you take a few when you’re at SARC in the Park or one of the upcoming public service events.

Because of the ease at which we can now  update the web site, we’re also making some changes to the RHG. The role of the RHG will be pared back to cover only club business such as meeting minutes and election notifications as well as a letter from the President. You’ll continue to see it posted on our web site. The articles that used to make up parts of the RHG will now be posted right on the front page of the web site as they are submitted. This helps us keep the content on the web page fresh. Everyone is still invited to submit content for the RHG. You can use the link at the bottom of our web site, or send articles to the RHG editor. If you’re suggesting that we re-publish an article from another site, please secure permission from the author before submitting it. We will also monitor SARC All for interesting discussions as was the case with Battery Size for Portable Operation and RF Tornado Detection, 1959, which both came from SARC All.