Japan remains under its worst threat to an ever rising toll, widespread
destruction, power, fuel and water shortages follow the massive earthquake,
tsunami and failed 40-year old nuclear power stations.

Ken JA1CJP quoting local news sources said, “The situation is getting worse.
On March 15, police announced that 2,414 people have been killed (up from
1,627 24 hours earlier) and 3,118 are reported missing (about double in the
same period).

“Some 55,380 houses/buildings were damaged by the earthquake and 3,000
houses washed away by the tsunami.”Thousands of bodies are reported to have been found on the coast of the tsunami suffered area,” he said. A Miyagi prefecture source says that the death toll will be in the order of ten
thousands in that prefecture alone.

Rescue teams have arrived and started their activities in the affected areas. They came from many nations including Korea, Singapore, New Zealand, China, USA, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, United Kingdom and Russia.

The 8.9 on the Richter scale quake hit off north-eastern Sendai durning the late afternoon on Friday March 11, and triggered a ten-metre tsunami. At the request of Central Emergency Communication Committee, Ken JA1CJP, the IARU Regional 3 Secretary, said the JARL is operating its HQ station JA1RL in Tokyo, and regional HQ stations.

Earlier it was reported that JA1RL was using 7 MHz SSB, 144 MHz SSB/FM and 430 MHz SSB/FM. He said, “Many other radio amateurs are thanked for providing information and exchanging support to the rescue and disaster
relief operations. Those who can operate in the affected areas are providing a lifeline for rescue teams and those at local shelters. Some stations are operating with car batteries and others with engine generators.”

Ken JA1CJP said, “Another problem is the nuclear power plant where the water
supply system failure caused overheating of the nuclear fuel bar. That
causes some radioactive gas release from the plant and people have been
evacuated from the surrounding area.”

Many other stations are active and are using various frequencies including some battery powered and others using small generators to exchange rescue and disaster relief operation information with JA1RL and others.

While 3525, 7030, 7043 and 7075 have been mentioned as in use, it’s wise to keep those and all of the Centre of Emergency (CoA) clear of normal and non-urgent traffic.

I think everyone’s thoughts this week go out to the Japanese Nation.

Images (courtesy of Google) above show before and after shots on Minima Sanriku, one of the worst affected areas.

Conditions still remain good but from one day good to one day bad. 10/12/15 metres have been the bands to watch of late with very good propagation to the Caribbean and also to the Far East. As well as several JA, BY and VK on 15M, I worked my first JA on 12M along with JT, VU, ZS & D2 on 10M.

The Band on 10M was well open by 0900UTC and VK stations were very abundant. After several qso’s with VK4, I managed to work Stuie VK8NSB in Darwin, cracking signal here and made all the more interesting by watching his live internet feed, (watching the qso through the internet whilst at the same time talking on 10m), amazing.

Shortly afterwards I heard Brendon VK8FQRP calling again on 10M, calling from Wanguri in the Northern Territory of Australia. His RST was 59 down to 57 with QSB and in return I received 59. Brendon was running 10 watts into a 3 element Quad (Photo above) as opposed to my 400w into the 2 element SteppIR. Brendon then suggested a qso with 1 Watt, just to see if we could make it and I obliged. I turned my power down as low as possible (FT1000MP around 3-10 watts?, difficult to measure accurately) and Brendon returned with 1 watt. He still had a 4/1 signal into my QTH, quite remarkable, even more so that it happened on 10M SSB!

Well done Brendon, hope to hear you again soon!

All the Qsl Card requests for the Yorkshire Dales Day event (GB1YDD) have now been issued.

If you require a Qsl Card confirmation for this event (WFF- GFF-020) then please email me or apply on-line here and I will drop one in the system for you.

Dxpedition team now Qrv on Sable Island (IOTA NA-063).

Managed to work them on 17m this lunch time with a very good signal.

The contact not only gave me a precious all time new DXCC, but also my 500th IOTA reference!

Many thanks Wayne & good luck with the trip!

Earlier today, International Space Station (ISS) transited the Sun and it was visible over south Florida.

“The ISS paid a visit to the Winter Star Party in the Florida Keys,” says Allan Friedman, a resident of New York.

“A fine transit of the ISS across the sun was scheduled for 2:39 p.m. not far from this annual gathering of astronomers.

I was scheduled to give a talk on astrophotography ending at 1:30 p.m. As soon as it was done, I made a mad dash to set up and record the pass.

We barely made it in time to catch the ISS silhouetted against the limb of the sun.
Total elapsed time of the transit from our location at Knights Key Resort and Marina – one fifth of a second. A blink of an eye and an 1800 mile drive to see it!”

There were two good passes of the ISS in the UK last night. Sadly though, both the Space Shuttle Discovery and the ISS had ‘merged’ by the time it go to us so no viewing of Discovery as a seperate unit :-(. Nevertheless, it was awesome as always (IMHO)!.

A solar wind stream hit Earth’s magnetic field on March 1st, sparking a day-long geomagnetic storm and bright auroras around the Arctic Circle.

NASA space physicist James Spann photographed the display from Poker Flat, Alaska.

Congratulations to the three Operators from the Strictly Contest Group for their          achievements in National Field Day 2010.

They managed to become 160M Band leaders in the Open Section of the Event.

Well done guys!