NVIS Day 2017 Information

Saturday - We hope to see everyone at station 720 

• 7am  Breakfast at Frich's
• 8ish am - arrive at Station 720 to work on antenna setup
• 10am NVIS day acitivities start

Below is a compilation of NVIS day activities from the ohio section ares site and OHDEN (Ohio Digital Emergency Net)

Here is  the NVIS Day information from http://arrl-ohio.org/SEC/default.html

Here are the details of our operation this Saturday, April22. Are you ready? 

Email your station logs to nvis@k8es.org

Operation is from 10 – 4 EDT.   Take a lunch break, enjoy each other’s company.  Transmit power should stay at 100 watts for accurate signal comparison. You may operate anywhere, home, club, portable.

We are segmenting the bands during the day to increase the probability of contacts and make it easier for antenna experiments:

10 – 12Noon - 80 meters:   Centered around 3.920

12Noon – 2 - 40 meters: Centered around 7.240

 2 – 4 - 160 / 60 meters:  Any part of the phone band on 160. 

Try to stay on Channel 3-5 on 60. Be careful of tuning. 

(Note the OHDEN frequency on 60, might be a place to start!)

Anchors:

W8EOC will be operating from Medina County EOC

W8SGT will be operating from the Ohio EOC

N8BHL will be operating from Delaware

W8ERD will operate from Ostrander (west of Delaware)

Digital:  OHDEN will be in operation for NVIS day. 

Operator are urged to try digital modes on 40, 60, and 80 meters!

Frequencies: 80 meters:  3.585  (voice coordination if necessary: 3605)

60 meters:  Channel 5403.5  40 meters: 7.046

Plan to send and receive messages:

THE PRIMARY MODE WILL BE OLIVIA 8-500 BUT WE WILL ACCEPT CHECK INS ON PSK31 AS WELL. WE WILL START ON 40 METERS AND MOVE TO 60 OR 80 IF SKIP DICTATES. I WILL NEED A COUPLE OF STATIONS AS VOLUNTEER NCS SCHEDULED DURING THE DAY.

I WILL EMAIL ONE OF THREE TEST MESSAGES TO EACH COUNTY CONTROL STATION PARTICIPANT. THE OBJECTIVE WILL BE TO SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO AS MANY COUNTIES AS YOU CAN AND RECEIVE ALL THREE. WHEN YOUR STATION CHECKS INTO THE NET YOU WILL LIST YOUR MESSAGE NUMBER AND THOSE THAT YOU NEED YET TO RECEIVE. THE MESSAGES WILL BE SHORT AND ONLY STRUCTURED TO GIVE PRACTICE IN EXTABLISHING CONTACT AND PASSING THEM.

AT END OF EVENT, PLEASE INCLUDE COPIES WITH YOUR CONTACT LOG EMAIL (ABOVE) AND EMAIL COPIES OF ALL MESSAGES RECEIVED TO W5UHQ@ARRL.NET

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Ohio’s NVIS antenna day is scheduled for April 22. In addition to 40 and 80 meters, we want to add 160 and 60 meters (a good 160 antenna should also operate on 60). With the band conditions in the trash, we need to work up alternative bands and plans to maintain communications across the state!  These new bands should make for some interesting antenna construction projects, so get your teams busy!! 

Want more information on how to make a NVIS Antenna? 

Here’s a link.. http://arrl-ohio.org/SEC/nvis.html

2017 NVIS Day Scoresheet - MS Word

2017 NVIS Day Scoresheet - Adobe Acrobat

This is the NVIS Day OHDEN information

https://www.theohden.org/nvis-day/

NVIS Day April 22, 2017   ( 10 AM to 4 PM  Eastern Local Time)

OHDEN plans to participate in the 2017 NVIS Day.  We will monitor the OHDEN frequencies on 40,60,80, and 160 meters for check ins from NVIS experimental stations, County EOCs, CERT units, home station participants, and any of the Anchor Stations. We will also accept over the border checkins for neighboring states to exercise that mode of backup communications with PA, IN, WV, and KY.

Our objective is to test the NVIS communication technique by sending simulated messages ( using FLMSG)  and receiving responses from the State EOC liason station ( W8SGT) to each participant as if we were in a ham radio only messaging situation.

We want to emphasize establishing message quality paths that are good enough to provide error free NBEMS messaging to and from each county in Ohio. If you know of a neighboring county that has no digital presence on OHDEN, it would be a great opportunity to help them out with a portable operation in their county.

Stations are requested to standby for an outgoing message from the SEC at the beginning ( 5- 15 minutes after the hour  ) of each band's time slot.  They then should originate a Priority response routed back to SEC in the format shown on sample messages in the file section of this website.  This message will have the unique message originating Key number for that band  as well as a unique return identifier you get from your DEC/EC.   These key serial numbers together with the times will establish a metric for judging both the speed and accuracy of the message exchange. Both of these messages will be EXERCISE PRIORITY precedence on the net.

Stations are also encouraged to send their After Action Scoresheets ( Word Text) Summary via OHDEN ROUTINE PRECEDENCE for practice on the weekly net.  These routine messages should be kept until after the drill and  in the content format that the NVIS day sponsors want it but wrapped for FLMSG compatibility.  OHDEN really needs to practice sending more messages and this after action  activity can spread out for several weekly nets if required.

Stations are asked to enable checksums on their Priority Message replies.  If you can not establish a checksum OK transfer, revert to a non checksum attempt and note it in the reply.  Each message reply or relay must receive a QSL / RR from the receiving station.   This is an important step in a real mission reply so we must test that quality during these kind of drills from now on.  Details on checksums can be found in the FLMSG Users manual. Yes they may be prevent one missing character from a NAK, but this is very important serving our agencies.

Schedule:

80 meters   ( 10A -12 Noon local)   3885.000 KHz USB Data carrier at 1000 Hz .  Olivia 8-500 mode.  We will also monitor for PSK31 at a waterfall frequency of 2100-2500 Hz during this period for stations without Olivia capability. Stations having difficulty may also call in on 3605.000 USB for voice liason with the net.  Traffic will not be passed on that frequency but it may be used for coordination of digital contacts.

40 meters   ( 1 -4 PM local )   4046.000 USB Data carrier at 1000 Hz .  Olivia 8-500 mode.  We will also monitor for PSK31 at a waterfall frequency of 2100-2500 Hz during this period for stations without Olivia capability. There will be no voice coordination frequency on 40 meters.

60 meters   (10 A -4 PM local )   5403.500 USB Data Voice Coordinartion.  PSK31 RF carrier tone frequency 1500Hz  +/- 250 Hz on USB waterfall.  NOTE:  Latest ARRL band plan limits us to PSK31 or AMTOR operation on 60 meters to preserve Joint Use Agreements with Government Users.  Be careful to put out a clean waterfall signal. This is a new ARRL policy but let's follow it for now and argue for Olivia and other medium bandwidth modes approval later. See

http://www.arrl.org/60m-channel-allocation

We do not as of now have a NCS scheduled for 60 meters.  Contact NJ8BB ( see OHDEN leadership page) for precoordinating a test on that band.

160 meters   ( 4P  - 9P  local)   1.805. 000 KHz USB Data carrier at 1000 Hz .  Olivia 8-500 mode.  We will also monitor for PSK31 at a waterfall frequency of 2100-2800 Hz during this period for stations without Olivia capability. Voice is permitted anywhere on 160 meters so calling in on USB on this dial VFO frequency is OK.  Note: this band does not open up until around 4 PM this time of year, so any operations are outside the regular drill time window.  OHDEN however will maintain a watch on this frequency until 9P for any stations wanting to check in from home QTH.  Barring severe QRN,  this band has been recently shown to be a good night time solution to the long skip we have been seeing on 80 meters this year and checking it out with a variety of stations would be very much appreciated.  160 meter propogation is more of a ground wave / NVIS mix mode is more well behaved during grey line hours than 80 meters.

Suggested FLMSG and text file templates are loaded on the Files tab of this site. Use of the standard format forms is highly encouraged to improve handling efficiency and speed.

Use of PSK31 with checksums is sort of an oxymoron, but give it a try as last resort.  OHDEN uses Olivia 8-500 since this is the only mode that seems to chug through when "All else fails"  Diehard PSK31  fans are urged to try it this year!!