The ARRL reports that HAARP’s WSPR research campaign has yielded hundreds of reports of reception on the 40 and 80 meter amateur radio bands:

The ARRL story says:

Just-completed research at the High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) transmitters in Gakona, Alaska, successfully took advantage of the WSPR digital protocol and the Weak Signal Propagation Reporter Network (WSPRnet) on July 30 through August 1.

University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Space Physics Group researcher and HAARP Chief Scientist Chris Fallen, KL3WX, told ARRL that the research — HAARP’s fourth research campaign under management of the University of Alaska Fairbanks — went well.

“My ‘citizen science’ experiments were funded by the National Science Foundation and were conducted for approximately 30 minutes at the end of each campaign day,” Fallen told ARRL. “They consisted of 2-minute transmissions using the WSPR digital mode in the 40- and 80-meter bands, with a 2-minute off period between transmissions.”

He said HAARP transmitted in full-carrier, double-sideband AM because it does not have SSB capability. HAARP operated under its Part 5 Experimental license, WI2XFX, with Special Temporary Authority (STA) from the FCC to transmit on amateur bands.

“I systematically varied the HAARP transmission parameters, such as gain, net power, beam direction, and polarization, to see how they affected the reception reports collected in the WSPRnet.org database,” Fallen said. “During the 3 days, we gathered more than 300 confirmed reports of signal strength and location from nearly 100 unique participants throughout Canada and the US.”

Further news about HAARP comes from Webcenter11.com, which reports:

There’s a bit of lingering controversy surrounding HAARP that researchers are looking to put to rest. People have made science fiction-like assertions that the equipment at this site can control minds, alter weather, and even make a caribou walk backwards. Dozens of publications, and even a book, have been written about the conspiracies believed to be involved with HAARP, but officials at the university say these are false accusations.
The university acquired this facility from the military a few years ago to continue studying the highest level of the atmosphere where the auroras live. A strong aurora storm has the potential to interfere with radio communications, cell phones, TV broadcasts, and even electrical grids. Studying the upper atmosphere can help UAF understand how those aurora interactions work, and how they can prevent the interference.

HAARP can study the skies with an array of delicately tuned radio antennas that broadcast straight up in the air. The facility is located about five hours south of Fairbanks off the Richardson highway. It’s not usually open to the public, but on August 25, they’re allowing people to tour the site and learn more about what they really do out there.

“It’s an exquisite facility. It’s the best of its kind in the world, cost about $290 million to build and the university received it for free so we’re now trying using it to do basic research into the ionosphere,” said public relations manager, Sue Mitchell.

I’m sure this is the kind of Citizen Science Hans van de Groenendal ZS6AKV was writing about last week in the EngineerIT periodical. Let’s hope we can get this kind of research going in South Africa soon, too.

From the Hickory Record.com comes this interesting piece:

“(You may) have heard about the Navaho code talker soldiers that served during World War II in the Pacific arena of the war, but many people are unfamiliar with code talkers from numerous other Native American tribes that served in World War I and greatly aided Allied military efforts in the area of military communications.

“On Aug. 21, 1918, British forces were attacking German positions along the Western Front in northern France in an assault that was part of the Somme Offensive. Cherokee soldiers from western North Carolina were in the 119th and 120th Infantry regiments attached to the British forces. During this conflict, the Allies discovered that the Germans were intercepting Allied telephone and radio communications and using information gleaned from those calls to locate and attack Allied forces.

“On the spur of the moment, the Signal Corps decided to use Cherokee troops to pass coded information via telephone and radio since they rightly deduced that the Germans would not be able to translate the Cherokee language. This particular battle in the Somme Offensive was the first known modern use of Native American troops for code-related linguistic purposes. Code-talking troops from other Native American tribes were also utilized in other World War I battle locations and served in such capacity for the remainder of the war.

“Prior to the British using the Cherokee code talkers, the Germans had broken every Allied code type used and regularly intercepted the more physical means of information distribution as well. Codes transmitted by Native American code talkers were never broken and caused much confusion for German decoders who did not realize they were hearing an indigenous American language.

“The success of Cherokee, Choctaw and other tribal code talkers in World War I inspired the U.S. military forces to use Navaho and other Native American tribes as code talkers during World War II.”

That battle, during which Cherokee code talkers were first used, took place one hundred years ago this coming Tuesday the 21st of August.

And, yes, it would appear that your teenage children are not the only ones capable of talking an indecipherable language!

It has been a long time since I commented on the dam situation in the Western Cape. The winter rains have been average so far, after that one short but very sharp rainy week or two, but storage in our major dams has risen to an average of 53% this week, up by 2 percentage points on last week, and almost double the 29% at the same time last year. However, in comparison to the last 10 years or so, only last year’s rain harvesting was worse than our current one, so we are not out of trouble down here yet. However, I must point out that many areas in the Eastern and Southern Cape are now in a worse position than we are, and help in the form of basic foods and animal feeds are urgently being transported to these areas. Please keep current with the drought and famine situation in our land, and offer assistance if you can?

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.