| Event
Details |
||
| Event Name | October Sky : Rocket Boys Festival | |
| Event Start Date/Time | 2014-10-02 10:00:00 | |
| Event End Date/Time | 2014-10-05 16:00:00 | |
| Event City | Beckley | |
| Club/Organization Sponsor | Black Diamond Amateur Radio Club | |
| Call Sign | W8R | |
| URL/Email | http://www.qsl.net/wv8bd/Events.html | |
| Event State | WV | |
| Event Zip | 25801 | |
| Event Country | USA | |
| Frequency 1 | 7.280 Mcs. +/- 3 Kcs. | |
| Frequency 2 | 14.280 Mcs +/- 3 Kcs. | |
| Frequency 3 | - |
|
| Frequency 4 | - |
|
| Stations contacted may request | Certificate | |
| QSL Name | John Hymes - W8HY | |
| QSL Address | Black Diamond Amateur Radio Club | |
| QSL Address 2 | Post Office Box 472 | |
| QSL City | Beaver | |
| QSL State | West Virginia | |
| QSL Zip | 25813 | |
| QSL Country | USA | |
| Public contact name | Ed McKinney | |
| Public contact call sign | KB8QEU | |
| Public contact phone | 3042224991 | |
| Public contact email | [email protected] | |
| Date/Time submitted | July 10, 2014, 03:15 pm | |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
  |
  |
   |
  |
  |
 |
||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Hi
Everyone!
I'm Ed - KB8QEU. The Net Manager and Webmaster for the Black Diamond Amateur Radio Club based in Beckley, West Virginia, United States of America. This special event station is held on Saturday, the 4th of October, to honor the "Rocket Boys" for their efforts to further the space exploration. The above frequencies will be used, however, if the frequency is already in use, look up and down about 5 Kilocycles or so. Saturday's time will be from about 1000 ETZ (1400 Zulu) to about 1600 ETZ (2000 Zulu). The antenna will be a Di-Pole and no more than 100 watts. We may have more than one radio there to cover both bands and also, there might be a digital station. That is if we get more help. If you are going to come to the event, the talk-in is on the 145.370 Megacycle repeater, with a minus (-) offset and a 100.0 Cycle PL tone. At the event, we may employ 146.565 Megacycle Simplex. The area is small enough that HTs will be sufficient For you GPSers, here is the Lat / Lon : 37� 47' 4.02"N by 81� 11' 47.23"W at 2342' AMSL. We hope to hear you on the air!!! A little of the Rocket Boys History: Homer "Sonny" Hickam, Jr. lived in a small coal mining town in West Virginia named Coalwood. Sonny, after seeing the Russian satellite Sputnik, decides to join the American team of rocket engineers called the Army Ballistic Missile Agency when he graduates from school. (Note: In the book Rocket Boys, the main character is always called Sonny. In the movie October Sky, he is called Homer.) Sonny's older brother, Jim Hickam, excelled at football and expected to get a college football scholarship. Sonny, however, was terrible at sports and had no special skill that would get him "out of Coalwood". Sonny's mother was afraid that he would have to work in the mines after high school. Sonny's first attempt at rocketry consisted of a flashlight tube and model airplane body as a casing that was fueled by flash powder from old cherry bombs. It exploded violently, thus destroying his mother's fence. After that, Sonny enlisted the help of Quentin Wilson, Roy Lee Cooke, Sherman Siers, Jimmy "O'Dell" Carroll, and Billy Rose to help build rockets while forming the BCMA (Big Creek Missile Agency). Their first real rocket, powered by black powder, was named Auk 1. This an allusion to the Great Auk, which is a flightless sea bird that became extinct in the mid-19th century. Auk 1 flew six feet before the solder melted and the nozzle, a washer, separated from the casement which subsequently gave the name of the group and book. They called themselves "Rocket Boys" and called the place they were launching their rockets from "Cape Coalwood", in honor of Cape Canaveral. The Rocket Boys enjoyed mixed success during their three year rocket launching campaign (1957 to 1960). They employed several fuel mixtures including rocket candy and a mixture called "zincoshine", which was composed of zinc dust and sulfur, along with alcohol made by a local bootlegger as a binder for the mixture. They launched a total of 35 rockets all sequentially numbered Auk I�XXXI. (There were five different Auk XXIIs.) They also won a National Science Fair gold medal for their rockets, for their project titled "A Study of Amateur Rocketry Techniques". A bit about Homer Hickam, Junior:
Homer H. Hickam, Jr. was born on February 19, 1943, the second son of Homer and Elsie Hickam, and was raised in Coalwood, West Virginia. He graduated from Big Creek High School in 1960 and from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech) in 1964 with a BS degree in Industrial Engineering. A U.S. Army veteran, Mr. Hickam served as a First Lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry Division in Vietnam in 1967-1968 where he won the Army Commendation and Bronze Star medals. He served six years on active duty, leaving the service with the rank of Captain. Here is a Tit-Bit of information about Homer Hickam's father:
The rescue cage and system used to bring up the nine trapped miners at the Quecreek mine in Pennsylvania was designed and tested by Homer Hickam Sr. way back in 1951. The design was a two man tube that used predrilled ventilation holes in the mine as escape ways in case of an accident. The Olga Mine (where Homer Sr. eventually became the superintendent) was much deeper than the Pennsylvania Quecreek mine. When Homer Sr. tested his rescue cage, he was lowered down a 700 ft hole (The Quecreek rescue was 240 feet deep). At about 350 feet down, the tube got stuck. Water was dumped into the hole to lubricate it so that it could be raised back up. Rather than quit, Homer Sr. got in it again and successfully went down, got out, and then came back up. No one else wanted to try it! To read about Homer Hickam and Coalwood, go to this site : Hey! Click on me!. More about the festival: As in the past, festival goers will have a chance to meet the Rocket Boys, enjoy music by area performers, and shop craft and food vendors. One of the featured highlights will be a Rocket Launch from New River Park's LaunchPad Beckley. Additionally, the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine will be open to the festival visitors who wish to travel underground to get a first hand look at how coal was mined. Among the events are the "2014 Aiming high Fire Hydrant Painting Contest", Rocket launching, this special event station, and much more! Here is the link to the Rockett Boys October Sky Festival: http://www.rocketboysfestival.com/home
|
||||||||||||||||||||
| Here is an E-Mail I received from
China Chaney at ARRL. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Dear Ed, Your
request for use of the Special Event Call
Sign for the time frame requested has been
reviewed and approved by the ARRL VEC
Special Event Call Sign Coordinator. When
transmitting in conjunction with an event
of special significance, a station may
substitute the Special Event Call Sign for
its assigned call sign. Please
remember that
you must identify your station at least
every ten minutes during a
communication. Additionally, to
comply with FCC regulation [Part 97.119
(d)], you must identify your station (or
stations) at least once per hour
using the control operator's regular
assigned call sign along with the special
event call sign. If you are planning to list
your Special Event in QST or on
the ARRL website, please submit the
request via
http://www.arrl.org/special-events-application or contact Maty
Weinberg, KB1EIB at [email protected]
.
China Chaney VEC Service Representative, Special Event Call Sign Specialist ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio � 225 Main Street Newington, CT 06111-1494 [email protected] (860)594-0322 (860)594-0339 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
web counter
