Thursday, November 21, 2013

Major Leadership Change coming to FCC Leadership


FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has announced a major change in leadership at the commission. Wheeler intends to name Rear Admiral David Simpson as Chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, which oversees emergency alerting.
According to the FCC, Admiral Simpson has more than 20 years of information and communications technology experience supporting the Department of Defense. He has also worked closely with other agencies to provide secure communication services and improve cyber defense readiness. Most recently he served as the vice director of the Defense Information Systems Agency. He was also a senior delegate to the 2012 World Radio Telecommunications Conference. From 2009 through 2010 Admiral Simpson was the Director for Communications and Information Services for U.S. Forces Iraq in Baghdad. There he synchronized strategic and operational-level communications for U.S. forces and helped the Iraq government build capacity for the information and communications technology sector.

David Turetsky, who had been leading the bureau, will now take on a new role as coordinator of the agency’s informal task force on the FCC response to international disasters such as Typhoon Haiyan. In this new capacity he will be drawing from his experience handling domestic United States disaster response.

ISS Celebrated its 15th Birthday

The International Space Station celebrated its 15th birthday on Wednesday, November 20th. This marking the day in 1998 when a rocket lifted to orbit the first piece of what is now the largest man made structure ever built in space.
The International Space Station began construction with the arrival on-orbit of the Russian built Zarya Module. This lead to the ongoing international mission to build the orbital outpost one piece at a time.

Today, the ISS is about the size of a football field with roughly the same amount of livable space as a six-bedroom house. Amateur Radio became a part of the Space Station two weeks after the first two licensed ham radio operators took up residence in it on Expedition One. Since then hams have taken part in all 38 expeditions to this point.

Five different space agencies representing fifteen countries have contributed to construction of the $100 billion orbital outpost.

My Stamp Collecting Blog

Counter Added January 1, 2011

free counters

HOW TO READ PROPAGATION NUMBERS

The A index [ LOW is GOOD ]

  • 1 to 6 is BEST
  • 7 to 9 is OK
  • 11 or more is BAD

Represents the overall geomagnetic condition of the ionosphere ("Ap" if averaged from the Kp-Index) (an average of the eight 3-hour K-Indices) ('A' referring to amplitude) over a given 24 hour period, ranging (linearly) typically from 1-100 but theoretically up to 400.

A lower A-Index generally suggests better propagation on the 10, 12, 15, 17, & 20 Meter Bands; a low & steady Ap-Index generally suggest good propagation on the 30, 40, 60, 80, & 160 Meter Bands.

SFI index [ HIGH is GOOD ]

  • 70 NOT GOOD
  • 80 GOOD
  • 90 BETTER
  • 100+ BEST

The measure of total radio emissions from the sun at 10.7cm (2800 MHz), on a scale of 60 (no sunspots) to 300, generally corresponding to the sunspot level, but being too low in energy to cause ionization, not related to the ionization level of the Ionosphere.

Higher Solar Flux generally suggests better propagation on the 10, 12, 15, 17, & 20 Meter Bands; Solar Flux rarely affects the 30, 40, 60, 80, & 160 Meter Bands.

K index [ LOW is GOOD ]

  • 0 or 1 is BEST
  • 2 is OK
  • 3 or more is BAD
  • 5 is VERY VERY BAD

The overall geomagnetic condition of the ionosphere ("Kp" if averaged over the planet) over the past 3 hours, measured by 13 magnetometers between 46 & 63 degrees of latitude, and ranging quasi-logarithmically from 0-9. Designed to detect solar particle radiation by its magnetic effect. A higher K-index generally means worse HF conditions.

A lower K-Index generally suggests better propagation on the 10, 12, 15, 17, & 20 Meter Bands; a low & steady Kp-Index generally suggest good propagation on the 30, 40, 60, 80, & 160 Meter Bands.

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