Category: News

Northern California DX Club

Special Event 75th Anniversary

On October 10, 2021 the Northern California DX Club will celebrate our 75th year! To mark this milestone we will hold an HF Special Event on the weekend of October 9th and 10th, 2021. Using our call sign W6TI we can be found operating on bands 15, 17, 20, and 40 meters and using SSB, CW and FT8 modes. The festivities begin at 16:00-23:59Z October 9th and continue 16:00-23:59Z Sunday October 10th.

A special QSL card will be available upon request. QSL details at W6TI on QRZ.com.

Since October 10, 1946 the Northern California DX Club has been dedicated to the finest ideals of good DXing, raising the standards of Amateur Radio practice and ethics and interactively sharing knowledge and information to enhance and benefit the Amateur Radio Community.

NCDXC has co-hosted the International DX Convention for over 70 years.

Received from Tony Dowler, K6BV
President NCDXC

Balloon Experiments – 9V1UP-11

Saturday 4 Sep 2021 23:00H / 15:00Z. APRS on 144.390 BEACON only.

Join the fun hunting for the APRS signals after launch. The balloon is estimated to be in the air for a few hours. Signals are likely to be received in the region: Singapore, Johor, and Riau. For the past few months, a team of Singapore hams have worked on a project to launch a weather balloon carrying amateur radio. The flight system consists of a 600g weather balloon filled with Helium (industrial grade) and the payload is assembled from a LightAPRS tracker. Approval of flight involved “no objection” from CAAS, RSAF and IMDA, and Saturday’s flight requires release clearance from RSAF duty controller. For launch, two teams will be deployed in the western side of Singapore. The launch team will attend to the lift off while the remote monitoring team will receive and iGate the APRS signals.

Tracker: https://9v1up.ragulbalaji.com/tracker/

Updates: Ham Radio SG on Facebook

The project team is busy preparing for the launch and may not have time to answer questions that you may have. A presentation will share various aspects of the project at the next SARTS meeting. Come this Saturday, share in comments when you receive 9V1UP-11, stating your QTH and telemetry.

Source: 9V1YP

Membership fees and donations from overseas

If you want to renew/apply for SARTS membership from overseas and you don’t have an SGD bank account, please use the information below.

Transferring of SGD only from overseas:

Beneficiary Bank Information (mandatory)

Bank Name: Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited
Address: 65 Chulia Street, OCBC Centre, Singapore 049513 
SWIFT Code : OCBCSGSG 

Beneficiary Information  (mandatory)

Account Name: SARTS
Account No: 524701182001

Transferring of USD from overseas:

Same as above plus:

Intermediary/Correspondent Bank Information for USD only

Bank Name: JP Morgan Chase Bank
Address: 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza, New York, NY 10015, USA  
SWIFT Code: CHASUS33 

SARTS Membership List

Last updated: 2026-06-07

9V1ADCheuk Yan Au (Chuck)x
9V1AEKarthik Raj Nachiappanx
9V1AIV. Jayaramx
9V1AKMatt Ranostayx
9V1AMJason Ingram
9V1AOAdrian Oon Hup Chyex
9V1ASJeff Yeo
9V1ATAndrew Tanx
9V1AVJames Tan Chun Chieh
9V1AWAaron Wongx
9V1AXKelem Amir
9V1AYMark Barnard
9V1AZGopalan Vedarthamx
9V1BCSolomon Tan Wei Jie
9V1BDHo Jie Feng
9V1BGAchala Darshana Senaranta
9V1BKKenneth Tan Xinrongx
9V1BMSanjeev Gopalx
9V1BOBaino Paulx
9V1BXSamuel (Sam) Laux
9V1BZGabriel Gabex
9V1CBDr Yee Ching TOKx
9V1CEKevin W Rogers (KF7TUU)x
9V1CKClaus J Karthe
9V1CQMaximilian Boetcher
9V1CUSeth Block
9V1CVChoong Sek Yeenx
9V1CWColin J. Paulx
9V1DADiego Abasx
9V1DEDarryl Eex
9V1DIPaul Gallagherx
9V1DJLim Zhan Feng, Zhan Fengx
9V1DKDerrick Ian Ling
9V1DPLai Po Rux
9V1DTSampath Kumar Padmanabhanx
9V1DUMuhammed Anas s/o Tariq, Anasx
9V1DXMartin Tan Guan Yuanx
9V1EHLiu Chang
9V1EKEddy Kok
9V1EOEric Olsonx
9V1EPMasakazu Namajiri
9V1FHThum Fu Hangx
9V1FJBarry Fletcherx
9V1FLFrancis Lim
9V1GHSanjeev Gupta
9V1GZGuenter Zwickl
9V1GWAlex Vossx
9V1HFKoenraad Mouthaan
9V1HHAmos Hoe
9V1HLHerman Laheyx
9V1HPHarish Pillayx
9V1HTTan Hoe Teckx
9V1HXAlvin Siahx
9V1HYHaoyuan Chux
9V1JHAaron Pokx
9V1JMJoey Muncadax
9V1JNJothinathan G. S. Sundramx
9V1JOJohari Osman
9V1JTJose Carlos (JC) Cortez Tupaz
9V1KAAmon Saka Kaneko
9V1KDNick Anskombe
9V1KGKlaus D Goepel
9V1KMKevin Basil Magnus (Mag)x
9V1KTKevin Tan
9V1KVKishore Vejjux
9V1KWLindon Ngx
9V1LBLawbin Ang Wen Lawx
9V1LCChoong Lee Songx
9V1LDLarry Mangilaya Dimaano
9V1LHStephan Grensemannx
9V1LTMohamed Feroz Mohd Omar Morris (Feroz)x
9V1LWChia Lih Weix
9V1LXMike Easterbrook
9V1LYLi Yux
9V1MJMurali S/O Jothinathan
9V1MSMartin
9V1NEJeremy Heng Wen Mingx
9V1NMMantha Nikhil Bhardwajx
9V1NOArvin Taruc, Vinoix
9V1ODTan Lian Huat
9V1OGRene Atienza Ogie
9V1OROshada Rodrigo
9V1PKPeter Khor
9V1PLLai Yong Yeow Philip
9V1PPAndrew Lee
9V1RBRagul Balaji
9V1RCRobert Chen
9V1RFRoss French
9V1RKRobert Kimmel
9V1RTRoland Turnerx
9V1SAHugh Masonx
9V1SBSteven Beaumontx
9V1SHShuichi Hosokaix
9V1SOSri Narayan Shukla
9V1STTan Hoe Teck
9V1SVAzhaga Muthu Sivax
9V1TCDavid Tan Qian Tingx
9V1TGTimothy Gohx
9V1TKT. Kasahara, Kasax
9V1TTAndrew Hodges
9V1VKMichael Slaterx
9V1VVJohn Davies
9V1WPSai Wai Phyox
9V1XBPatrick Tham
9V1XXKazuhiko Kuritax
9V1YCJames Brooksx
9V1YJShigeyoshi Sasakix
9V1YLSally Woonx
9V1YPChew Lip Hengx
9V1YWYingwang Shi
9V1ZHTan Boen-Hian
9V1ZKFred Lee
9V1ZPZiyue Pan
9V1ZVDaniel Wee
9V1ZWMichael Davidson
9V1ZYLoo Zheng Yuan
BG5IMHTao Zhu
OE3OGCSebastian Schiegl, Orion (Assoc.)x
Assoc.Zhu Hongdongx
Assoc.Lim Boon Chuanx
Assoc.Peoter Lapinski, Pete
Assoc.Ong Jun Xi
Assoc.Cynch Guevara (Ms.)
Assoc.Lo Khin Mamx
Assoc.Marco Antonio Gax
SARTS membership list 2026
x = paid 2026

Ionospheric Scintillation

Radio signals passing through the ionosphere can be affected by small irregularities of the ionospheric plasma. This phenomenon is called radio scintillation and can strongly disturb or disrupt the signal transmission. As a result it can prevent a GPS receiver from locking on to the signal and can make it impossible to calculate a position. Less severe scintillation conditions can reduce the accuracy and the confidence of positioning results.

Transionospheric radio scintillation is statistically characterized by two parameters, amplitude and phase fluctuations indices, denoted respectively by S4 and σφ .

S4 is defined as the ratio of the standard deviation of signal intensity and the average signal intensity. Amplitude scintillations are prominent near the geomagnetic equator. They almost appear regularly in the evening hours.

σφ is defined as the standard deviation of a linearly detrended phase data segment. Phase scintillations are prominent in high latitudes, and their occurrence rate increases with geomagnetic activity.

SARTS received a request for statistics or help in acquiring statistics of ionospheric scintillation in the VHF range. VHF is not a common frequency range used in space infrastructure and there seems to be a lack of statistics in the area between tropics, where the ionosphere is bubbling quite frequently.

For interest or feedback, please comment below or contact the webmaster (9V1KG).

Sources:

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/ionospheric-scintillation
https://swe.ssa.esa.int/tio_sci
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cindi/scintillation.html

FCC Amateur Radio Licensing Guide for Singapore HAMs

by 9V1DT, April 2021

A short guide by Sampath how to prepare for and get the FCC license. The US FCC license is well recognized world wide and sometimes can be helpful to get a visitor’s ham radio license abroad.

FCC-Amateur-licensing_v3_20210402Download

One page guide as pdf (9V1YP):

Guide-to-get-FCC-ham-radio-licenceDownload

Applying the Concept of Earth-Moon-Earth (EME)

by Philip Lai, 9V1PL

This article was motivated by my fellow HAMs from the satellite group. Based on my success with the application of the concept of EME on 2 m to our SARTS Repeater without line of sight, I hope this write up can help those in the hobby with similar challenges to explore the concept of EME.

Earth-Moon-Earth communication (EME), also known as moon bounce, is a radio communications technique, which relies on the propagation of radio waves from an earth-based transmitter directed via reflection from the surface of the moon back to an earth-based receiver.

The challenge of my location (QTH)

I am located at the South Eastern Coast of Singapore, an apartment dweller with low elevation of 25 m facing south west. The distance to the Singapore VHF repeater is approximately 12 km. The small balcony with an opening of just slightly over 100 degrees is surrounded by tall buildings and makes it difficult for me to reach the repeater located at Dover.

For many months, when I first started as a new HAM, all I could hear was noise from my handheld (HT).

Each time I pushed the PTT, I couldn’t trigger the repeater, but even when I could trigger the repeater, I couldn’t hold it transmitting. It was frustrating, I fully understand, if you are facing similar challenges.

Continue reading Applying the Concept of Earth-Moon-Earth (EME)