Field Day Photos / Video

See the video and photos of the RCARC Field Day at:
http://rcarc.ripleycounty.net

Ham Radio - RCARC Field Day 2010

Saturday June 26 all day and night.
The Ripley County Amateur Radio Club (RCARC) organized just over two years ago has become ready for disaster with a test in the field using portable antenna and operating without power from the electric company. Portable generators and home built makeshift antennas were used for the exercise. Field Day, sponsored by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), is an annual event to keep amateur operators prepared in the event communications are disrupted or overloaded. Please stop by the East shelter at the Milan, Indiana park to see the Field Day in action- everyone welcome.
See the YouTube video of last year's fun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofrtTEjClII

Summer Solstice

The Summer Solstice occurs exactly when the Earth's axial tilt is most inclined towards the sun at its maximum of 23° 26'. Though the Summer Solstice is an instant in time, the term is also colloquially used like Midsummer to refer to the day on which it occurs. Except in the polar regions (where daylight is continuous for half of the year), the day on which the Summer Solstice occurs is the day of the year with the longest period of daylight. Thus the seasonal significance of the Summer Solstice is in the reversal of the gradual shortening of nights and lengthening of days. The summer solstice occurs in June in the Northern Hemisphere, in December in the Southern Hemisphere.
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Executed June 19, 1953

Americans Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed as spies who passed U.S. nuclear weapons secrets to the Soviet Union.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Comcast, What ever happened to Service

After the thunder storm that ripped across Indiana on Tuesday evening I am back on the air. Just a few minutes after the wind severed the coax from the cable TV hardline to my home stopping the signal that provides my internet and TV. A call was made in just a few minutes to Comcast advising that the line was broken and down. The rest of the night and a full day passed with no service. I called and reported it again Wednesday evening and I was told it would be fixed on Thursday. At five PM Thursday I called again. I was told I was number 9 and the crew was just finishing number 8 and the repair crew would be at my home between 5 and 8 PM. You guested it, no one showed. I called at 10 AM Friday and was put on hold for 20 minutes then cut off. I called again and was put on hold for at least 10 minutes again, Then I was told I would get a call back in one hour or less with more information on when service would be restored. No call back at all, never! I have a friend that went to school with a Comcast supervisor, My friend called his friend to tell him I was out of service. The Comcast supervisor said he was working just West of town and would be at my home in 20 minutes. He arrived and 1/2 hour later I had internet service. The supervisor told me he or his crew didn't even know I was out of service and had never been told of the outage. I am thankful that the internet and TV service doesn't fail to often, if it did I'd think about going back to dial-up.......... What happened to good service ???????

Lakeview Gusher

The Lakeview gusher after the flow had partially subsided and the well surrounded by a sandbag berm, 1910.

The Lakeview Gusher Number One is regarded as the largest recorded U.S. oil well gusher. Located about a half-mile east of the Taft-Maricopa Highway (State Route 33), in the Midway-Sunset Oil Field in Kern County, California, the site is marked by a Caltrans guide sign and a bronze plaque. It is also identified as State Historic Landmark #485.

Drilling at Lakeview Number One well was started by the Lakeview Oil Company on January 1, 1909. As the drilling continued and only natural gas was found, the Lakeview company partnered with Union Oil Company which wanted to build storage tanks on Lakeview property.^[1]

While modern well-drilling techniques have advanced safety features such as blowout preventers that reduce the chances of a gusher, early-twentieth-century well-drilling technology could not contain the high pressures encountered at Lakeview. The gusher began on March 14, 1910, as the drill bit found the 2,440-foot level. ^[2]

The well casing is a steel pipe-liner that contains oil as it is pumped from the depths. During drilling, the casing also guides the drill bit and drive shaft in a roughly-straight line. Pressure blew at least part of the well casing out, along with an estimated 9 million barrels (378 million gallons/1.4 million m³) of oil, before the gusher was brought under control 18 months later, (about September 1911). ^[3]

Initial flow from the gusher was 18,800 barrels per day. The peak flow during the gusher was estimated to be 90,000 barrels per day. The large flow created a creek of crude oil running downhill from the well site. Crews rushed to contain the river of crude oil with a system of improvised sand bag dams and dikes. Remarkably, the gusher never caught fire during its 18-month duration.^[4]

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dove Flight, an emergency medical helicopter service

Dove Flight™, an emergency medical helicopter service, provides high-level critical care and rapid transportation. A helicopter can be in flight within minutes of the dispatch call, 24 hours a day, everyday. Dove Flight™ flies within a 150-mile radius of its bases. Stretching from border to border, Dove Flight™ serves the entire state of Indiana as well as many surrounding states.Because of the quick response times, rapid transport, and availability, thousands of lives can be saved by the utilization of air medical services. While trauma and motor vehicle crashes that require helicopter transport capture headlines, a large number of patients are moved from rural hospitals to major medical centers for high-level medical care. Dove Flight™ transports patients between medical centers, regardless of the referring or receiving location. Patients at the scene of a trauma or accident are transported to the nearest Level 1 Trauma Center. About 40 percent of Dove Flight™ transports are trauma patients, 50 percent are cardiac patients, five percent are pediatric, and the rest have various medical conditions.
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Solar radio flux

Emission from the Sun at centimetric (radio) wavelength is due primarily to coronal plasma trapped in the magnetic fields overlying active regions.^[15] The F10.7 index is a measure of the solar radio flux per unit frequency at a wavelength of 10.7 cm, near the peak of the observed solar radio emission. It represents a measure of diffuse, nonradiative heating of the coronal plasma trapped by magnetic fields over active regions, and is an excellent indicator of overall solar activity levels. The solar F10.7 cm record extends back to 1947, and is the longest direct record of solar activity available, other than sunspot-related quantities. Sunspot activity has a major effect on long distance radio communications particularly on the shortwave bands although medium wave and low VHF frequencies are also affected. High levels of sunspot activity lead to improved signal propagation on higher frequency bands, although they also increase the levels of solar noise and ionospheric disturbances. These effects are caused by impact of the increased level of solar radiation on the ionosphere. It has been proposed that 10.7 cm solar flux can interfere with point-to-point terrestrial communications.^[16]

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invasion of Normandy - 6 June 1944

This is a remembered day as my brother Jim fell on this day..... Jack

The invasion of Normandy was the invasion and establishment of Allied forces in Normandy, France, during Operation Overlord in World War II. The invasion was the largest amphibious operation in history. This article covers from the initial landings on 6 June 1944, until the time of the Allied breakout in late July.

Allied land forces that saw combat in Normandy on 6 June came from Canada, the Free French Forces, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In the weeks following the invasion, Polish forces also participated, as well as contingents from Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, and the Netherlands.^[5] Most of the above countries also provided air and naval support, as did the Royal Australian Air Force,^[1] the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and the Royal Norwegian Navy.^[2]

The Normandy invasion began with overnight parachute and glider landings, massive air attacks, naval bombardments, early morning amphibious landings on five beaches codenamed Juno, Gold, Omaha, Utah, and Sword and during the evening the remaining elements of the parachute divisions landed. The "D-Day" forces deployed from bases along the south coast of England, the most important of these being Portsmouth
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Tiananmen Square protests - 6/5/1989

The incident took place near Tiananmen on Chang'an Avenue, which runs east-west along the south end of the Forbidden City, Beijing, on June 5, 1989, one day after the Chinese government's violent crackdown on the Tiananmen protests. The man placed himself alone in the middle of the street as the tanks approached, directly in the path of the armored vehicles. He held two shopping bags, one in each hand.^[1] As the tanks came to a stop, the man gestured towards the tanks with his bags. In response, the lead tank attempted to drive around the man, but the man repeatedly stepped into the path of the tank in a show of nonviolent action.^[2] After repeatedly attempting to go around rather than crush the man, the lead tank stopped its engines, and the armored vehicles behind it seemed to follow suit. There was a pause for a short period of time with the man and the tanks having reached a quiet, still impasse.
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Battle of Midway - Between 4 and 7 June 1942

The Battle of Midway is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II.^[4][5][6] Between 4 and 7 June 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea and six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy decisively defeated an Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) attack against Midway Atoll, inflicting irreparable damage on the Japanese.^[7]

The Japanese operation, like the earlier attack on Pearl Harbor, aimed to eliminate the United States as a strategic power in the Pacific, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese hoped that another demoralizing defeat would force the U.S. to capitulate in the Pacific War.^[8]

The Japanese plan was to lure the United States' few remaining aircraft carriers into a trap.^[9] The Japanese also intended to occupy Midway Atoll as part of an overall plan to extend their defensive perimeter in response to the Doolittle Raid. This operation was considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji and Samoa.

The plan was handicapped by faulty Japanese assumptions of American reaction and poor initial dispositions.^[10] Most significantly, American codebreakers were able to determine the date and location of the attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to set up an ambush of its own. Four Japanese aircraft carriers and a heavy cruiser were sunk in exchange for one American aircraft carrier and a destroyer. The heavy losses in carriers and aircrews permanently weakened the Imperial Japanese Navy.^[11] Japan's shipbuilding and pilot training programs were unable to keep pace in replacing their losses, while the U.S. steadily increased output in both areas.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

OLD " 666" This crew were real heroes

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O'Grady shot down 6/2/95

1995 – United States Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady (pictured) was shot down by a Bosnian Serb Army SA-6 surface-to-air missile while patrolling the NATO no-fly zone over Bosnia in an F-16, but he was able to eject safely and was then rescued six days later.
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