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.

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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.

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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.

P 032110Z FEB 10 ZUI ASN-A12034000016
FM COGARD NAVCEN ALEXANDRIA VA
TO CCGDONE BOSTON MA//DPW//
(other addressees deleted)

BT
UNCLAS //N16562//
SUBJ: TERMINATION OF ALL U.S. LORAN-C SIGNALS//A//
BROADCAST AT A, C, F, G, J, N, O, Q, R, V, W
ACTION ADDRESSEES, REQUEST BNM BE FORWARDED TO YOUR SUBORDINATE
UNITS
BNM 117-10
1. IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE 2010 DHS APPROPRIATIONS ACT, THE U.S.
COAST GUARD WILL TERMINATE THE TRANSMISSION OF ALL U.S. LORAN-C
SIGNALS EFFECTIVE 2000Z 08 FEB 2010. AT THAT TIME, THE U.S. LORAN-C
SIGNAL WILL BE UNUSABLE AND PERMANENTLY DISCONTINUED. THIS
TERMINATION DOES NOT AFFECT U.S. PARTICIPATION IN THE
RUSSIAN-AMERICAN OR CANADIAN LORAN-C CHAINS. U.S. PARTICIPATION IN
THESE CHAINS WILL CONTINUE TEMPORARILY IN ACCORDANCE WITH
INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS.

2. ADDRESS INQUIRIES TO THE NAVIGATION CENTER INFORMATION SERVICE
AT (703) 313-5900 OR WWW.NAVCEN.USCG.GOV.

3. FOR DISTRICTS (DPW): REQUEST DISSEMINATION VIA BROADCAST NOTICE
TO MARINERS USING SUBJECT LINE AND PARAGRAPH ONE AND TWO.

4. FOR CAMS: REQUEST ISSUE OF NAVTEX BROADCAST AT AREAS LISTED
ABOVE.

5. CANCEL AT TIME//082001Z FEB 2010//
BT
NNNN

ALCON,

Effective today, a new PACAUXMONSTA has been added to the team for PACAREA. The Owner Operator is Richard Duncan and the station is located at Oxnard, CA. The station has passed a reception test with flying colors. Early next week, specific tasking wrt to broadcasts will be finalized. Please join me in welcoming this new resource to the PACAUXMON team.

v/r,

Bill Scholz, USCGAUX
USCG CAMSPAC, AUX Support Coordinator
COGARDAUX Upland Radio, NF114AG