I am the US Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla Staff Officer Communications for Flotilla 73 located in Channel Islands Harbor, California.
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To: ALAUX
From: CHDIRAUX
Subj: AUXILIARY NATIONAL STAFF REORGANIZATION -020/11
1. FYI:
1. ALCOAST 373/11 was recently issued to summarize key changes to the Auxiliary’s national staff organization, as follows:
R 051542Z AUG 11
ALCOAST 373/11
COMDTNOTE 16790
SUBJ: AUXILIARY NATIONAL STAFF REORGANIZATION
The tsunami was triggered by the most powerful earthquake to hit Japan since records began. The tremor, measured at 8.9 by the US Geological Survey, hit at 1446 local time (0546 GMT) at a depth of about 24km.
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2011 07:14:18 -0800 (PST)
Southern California under Tsunami Advisory
SAN PEDRO, Calif. — The National Weather Service has issued a Tsunami Advisory for the west coast of the United States with specific applicablity to the Southern California coastline.
The Tsunami Advisory, issued this morning, is a result of an 8.9 magnitude earthquake that hit Japan early this morning. Tsunami Advisories are issued to inform the public that a tsunami capable of producing strong currents or waves dangerous to persons in or very near the water is imminent or expected.
The Coast Guard urges boaters to not get underway and check with their local harbor masters to ensure a marina evacuation has not been ordered. Vessel owners are also urged to double-up all mooring lines.
Significant widespread innundation is not expected for areas under advisory. Currents may be hazardous to swimmers, boats, and coastal structures and may continue for several hours after the arrival of the initial wave.
Individuals located in Tsunami Advisory areas should move out of the water, off the beach, and out of harbors and marinas.
The Coast Guard strongly encourages waterfront users to take extra precautions in preparation for the possiblity of a surge.
K6AUX is a club call obtained by the Channel Islands Auxiliary Radio Club formed by WD5B, KD6HJR, AF6NJ and KG6UPT. Its primary purpose is for fellowship and special event operations like the ILLW Pt Hueneme Lighthouse weekend. K6AUX plans to operate during the ILLW weekend of Saturday the 21st and Sunday the 22nd from 0900 – 1500 local while the lighthouse is open to the public. We are encouraging local hams to come by to visit, learn about the Auxiliary and guest operate the station. I understand that an invitation to the power squadron has been extended. We have not been contacted by anyone at this time.
This weekend coincides with the Pt. Hueneme festival so we are expecting a good crowd to come through. We are manned at those times but could use some extra people and are working on that. In addition, setup of the antenna will be on Friday the 20th of August. This also gives us a chance to promote the USCG Auxiliary.
We will run on emergency power Friday night and will get commercial power from the lighthouse after it opens Saturday morning through Sunday afternoon.
I am planning on operating some the evening of the 20th after setup. Am still looking for operators that evening. In addition, I want to operate the evening of the 21st from 1500 until ???. That all depends on bands and weather conditions. I expect the other lighthouses suffer the same from climate conditions but it can be pretty brutal up here and we will be working in a canopy with tarp sides.
We will have three stations operating anticipating one on 40 meters, one on 17 meters and one on 20-15-10 meters. A 40 meter dipole, 17 meter Buddipole and a HyGain TH3JRS for 20, 15 and 10 meters at approximately 20 feet. Initial published frequencies plus or minus QRM are 7180, 14294, 18145, 21290 and 28495 kHz. A VHF station will be setup and hopefully be able to access not only Yankee Romeo, but other Auxiliary and amateur repeaters in the area.
K6AUX will offer an award to any station that works all three lighthouse being manned by District 11SR Coast Guard Auxiliary which includes K6AUX, K6A, and W6A during the special event period. Certificates require a 9 x 12 or larger SASE or for stations within the US a QSL with $1. The certificate is available for printing so K6A and W6A can offer the same or use whatever requirements they desire. This, of course requires sharing logs which I hope is no problem with all stations.
KD6HJR, AF6NJ, Norm Bundek and myself were at the Pt. Hueneme lighthouse today. We setup the HyGain TH3JRS tri-band beam and raised it up about 20 feet with an aluminum flag pole. Everything checked out. 15 meters was a little off tuning but not bad. 20 meters and 10 meters was good. We believe we are now better prepared to setup and operate the station K6AUX on International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend, August 21 – 22, 2010.
April 13, 2010 Alert 02-10
Washington, DC
DANGERS ASSOCIATED WITH AUTOMATIC CHANNEL SWITCHING
ON DIGITAL SELECTIVE CALLING (DSC) EQUIPPED VHF MARINE RADIOS
It has come to the Coast Guard’s attention that an automatic channel switching feature found on certain models of Digital Selective Calling (DSC) equipped VHF marine radios may create an unintended hazard by automatically switching from a working channel that might be in use at the time to Channel 16 when the VHF marine radio receives a DSC distress alert, distress alert acknowledgment or other DSC call where a VHF channel number has been designated. This could happen without a vessel/radio operator’s immediate knowledge and could initiate an unsafe condition by which the vessel/radio operators would believe they were communicating on a working channel such as Channel 13 when, in fact, they were actually on Channel 16. Imagine a towboat operator on the lower Mississippi River making passing agreements on VHF channel 67 and then suddenly, without warning, not being able to quickly reestablish communications with those vessels because his/her radio automatically switched to Channel 16 instead.
Charlie Geiger, SO-CM for Division 7, hosted a BBQ today for the communications people in Division 7. It was an anjoyable evening with a lot of great people.
The division 7 station, Channel Islands One, has a new home and is now located at Station Channel Islands just outside their comms room This will make the system even more valuable for future operations.
There was little damage in the Channel Islands / Ventura harbor areas. A few docks were broken in Ventura Keys. The wave reached about 2 feet in height and about a half a foot negative. Channel Islands Harbor was not affected that I know of.
This shows my computer screen for monitoring the Coast Guard marine broadcast. The left side is WEFAX, upper left is NAVTEX and SITOR. The lower right corner monitors marine VHF channel 70 for emergency digital selective calling broadcast.
