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It's HamTalk Live episode number 66. The search
for Amelia Earhart with Tom Vinson, NY0V. Recorded
live on Thursday, May 25th, 2017. I'm your host,
Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning into this
episode of HamTalk Live. Tonight we're joined
by Tom Vinson, NY0V, and we'll take your calls.
in just a few minutes. Last week our live show
was from Dayton and thanks to everybody who stopped
in to visit. We had some people that drove over
to Spring Hill Suites and visited the show and
so we're real thankful for those people coming
by. We had a great time and We had one call in
and we talked to a lot of the Newsline crew about
their travels and some Hamvention stories. So
if you enjoy some good stories from Hamvention,
give it a listen over at HamTalkLive .com. And
while we were at this year's Hamvention, we had
a great time. Hammy the Pig, the mascot was a
big hit. We've got several pictures and if you
haven't sent us your pictures yet with Hammy
the Pig, why send them to us. You can tweet those
at HamTalk Live or put them on Facebook or Instagram
and hashtag HamTalk Live or you can send them
to our email if you want. But we'd love to see
those. But we've got quite a collection going
over. over there on Facebook. So you'll have
to check those out. But we had a great time with
that and really enjoyed hanging out with a lot
of the Newsline crew this year. We got most everybody
over there this year and was able to hang out
with them for quite a while. And my usual education
forums, the youth forum and the instructors forum.
I got to go to those and also got to go visit
the Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting once
again and I got to share that experience with
some of my news line colleagues that hadn't been
there before. So that was a lot of fun. And if
you haven't been over to YouTube yet... And I
really hated to miss the the concert but the
spurious emissions band we had them on the show
here a few weeks ago and If you haven't been
over to YouTube to watch and listen to the spurious
emissions band this year Don't cry for Hera arena
is absolutely fabulous. So you got to listen
to that one if you don't listen to anything else.
Becky W1BXY did the vocals on that and she absolutely
nailed it. It was an excellent performance and
the lyrics were just hilarious and so check out
Don't Cry For Hara Arena over on YouTube. from
the spurious emissions man and also a little
biased but I really liked the medley called radio
waves because it had my suggestion in the middle
it was bow fang so you know it was the the whole
wild thing thing so it was it was pretty good
it was pretty cool to hear that and sounds like
the guys had a blast tossing around some lyrics
and trying to figure out the bow fang song so
get over there to youtube and check it out when
you can we had had a great time. Now I want to
mention our winner here. We've got our last DX80
radio waves off center fed dipole giveaway. We
did one every single week leading up to Hamvention
for all of our Hamvention previews and we we
went through all the pictures that were sent
in and our crack staff has picked a winner and
the winner of the final radio waves dx80 off
-center fed dipole that we're giving away is
Patrick Malone of Arvada Colorado KT1 GGR so
congratulations to KT1 GGR you've won the final
dx80 from radio waves and And we'll let Emmett
know about that and get that to you. So congratulations
and thanks for tweeting in your picture of Hammy
from the Hamvention. All right, well, get your...
Questions ready to go here for Tom and after
we talk a little bit you can call us on the old
telephone That's eight one two net ham one eight
one two six three eight four two six one is the
phone number to call into the show and Participate
and you can also Skype us at ham talk live You
can also send in a tweet our Twitter handle is
at ham talk live And so we'll come back, we'll
talk to Tom for a little bit and then I'll invite
you to use one of those methods to chime in and
be a part of the show tonight. So I'll be back
with Tom right after this word from the ham station
right here on HamTalk Live. This episode of HamTalk
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early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse
gets the cheese. You're listening to Ham Talk
Live with Neil Rapp. Welcome back to Ham Talk
Live, the ham station. They've got you covered.
We've got new equipment, used equipment, you
name it, give Dan or Jeff a call, 800 -729 -4373
or go to HamStation .com. Tell them you heard
it on HamTalk Live and we appreciate that. Tell
them Neal sent you. HamTalk Live is on the air
every Thursday night, 9 p .m. Eastern Time, right
here at HamTalkLive .com. If you missed the show
you can listen to the archive. It's on the website
or you can download it from most popular podcasting
sites. And returning as my guest this evening
is Tom Vinson in Y0V. He was on the show before
talking about some scouting over in Myanmar.
Tom's originally from Champaign, Illinois, now
lives near Rochester, Minnesota. He spent most
of his career working for Collins in Cedar Rapids,
Iowa as an engineer and programs manager. And
he's worked over 350 DXCC entities and has an
eight band DXCC award. He's now retired and enjoys
chasing DX and visiting his children and grandchildren
and has been involved for a long time on this
search. for Amelia Earhart that we're going to
talk about tonight. So Tom, thanks for coming
on the show again. Yeah, good to hear you again
there, Neil. Well, the story of Amelia Earhart
is kind of had a resurgence here lately. And
you've kind of re reinvigorated the search again.
So, uh, tell us about the search and, and some
of the history of the, of the search and your
role in it. And then we'll get into some of the
ham radio aspects. Oh, okay. Well, uh, like I
say, we've been involved in it for quite a while.
Uh, there's a team of us from Rockwell Collins.
where we started investigating this on the request
of Nauticus Corporation out of Cape Corpus, Maine.
And we started in 1999 and they asked us to look
at the HF radio aspects of this as she was running
on 3105 and 6210 kilohertz. And our job was to
look at that and analyze the problem. and see
if you could tell if she's getting closer to
Howland Island, her target back there in 1937,
or going further away or what have you. And that
turned into be over 3 ,000 hour project of volunteer
engineering labor on the part of the engineers
and scientists that we pulled together, all of
them hams, all of them from the Rockwell Collins
Amateur Radio Club. But all of them experts in
their field, a couple of them were actually engineers
of the year over time. So our job was to back
calculate the distance between her aircraft,
her Lockheed L -10E Electra and the Coast Guard
Cutter Itasca that was stationed off Howland
Island waiting for her. And that was quite a
project, quite a project. But anyway, after we...
turned in all our information to Nauticos. We
were invited, a couple of us, Rod Bloxham, K0DAS
and myself were invited out to the first expedition
in 2002 where we mapped out a 2 ,000 square mile
area around Howland Island, less than 100 miles
from Howland. And so we went on that expedition
and covered about I'm trying to remember roughly
650 square miles or so at that point. And then
in 2006 we went out again. This is all doing
deep water sonar. And cumulatively at that time
we did 1 ,350 square miles of that 2 ,000. And
then now just this year we finally... Acquired
the funding that we needed to go out again. This
is not cheap going how an island is one of the
most remote islands in the world out there and
It takes over over two million dollars each time
you go out almost three and This time we had
instead of having a towed array system. We had
an autonomous underwater vehicle That was from
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where we
spent seven weeks out takes a week a little well
eight days to get down to The Helen Island search
area and then to begin searching and then to
pull up and then to go get back home so this
this survey was a little bit different with the
autonomous underwater vehicle because you could
Send that vehicle down and it would run depending
on which batteries it was, but up to about 24
hours at any one time under a laid out pattern
with waypoints on the bottom of the ocean at
18 ,000 feet. It would come up, surface, and
we would retrieve it and then take the data off
of the REMIS 6000 and send that up into operations.
where it would be analyzed in about 45 minutes
to an hour by probably two of the best sonar
experts and analysts in the world, Tom Detweiler
and Jeff Morris. And so that was really quite
a process. And so at the end of this survey,
we had covered the original 2000 square miles
that we had come up with as being an 80 to an
85 % probability area. and came up empty -handed.
Now all the data, all the inputs haven't changed.
Her signal was still an S5, which back then was
S9 on her last transmission on 0843 in the morning,
TASCA standard time. So she was very strong.
At one point, the chief radio operator, Leo Belertz,
in an interview said that she was so loud that
he looked outside the shack, if you will, the
radio room, of the Itasca, expecting her to fly
through the rigging. So that's pretty loud. Especially
when you're on 3105 with a 50 watt AM transmitter,
transmitting into an 11 foot piece of wire two
and a half hours after sunrise. So if you put
all that together, she was close so we just didn't
run across it we had high expectations that we
were going to find her but didn't on this one
and so we go back to our decision tree matrix
and look at the analysis that we have and look
at the next highest probabilities and go on from
there very very interesting so let's get into
a little bit of how the ham radio ties into this
and, and I also want to get into a little bit
about, um, what you're getting out of this. Uh,
I know, I know you're getting a lot out of this
besides just, you know, the raw information,
but it's, it's, um, uh, good information to,
um, use for educational purposes and that kind
of thing. But, but first let's, let's get into,
to how the, the ham radio ties into this search?
Okay, well I've already mentioned the history
of that and all being radio amateurs and this
time along we also had Brian, K -E -0 -Y -S -Q
and with the expertise there with Brian and some
of the other engineers from Rockwell Collins
and Cedar Rapids we put together a NAS system.
And a lot of the IT work was all built in, if
you will, the ability to send and receive emails
off the ship with our own domain and what have
you. But also, the primary thing that we have
always been keen on is STEM education. That's
the science, technology, engineering, and math
to bring young people into the sciences. And
we are keen on that. And Rockwell Collins actually
has been sponsoring us through CWORD. That's
a non -profit organization, a 501C3 arm of Nauticos
Corporation. And it's the educational arm of
Nauticos. And so CWORD has been receiving grant
money from Rockwell Collins. And we this time
set up an expedition web portal where we're able
to upload videos. and have students actually
see those videos and interact with those. We
also had an educator from NASA, Goddard, developing
curriculum materials. And then we used amateur
radio to actually conduct live classes, just
like HamTalk Live, but we had live classes where
the students on the other end would be, we would
conduct interviews. Via amateur radio and so
we actually got on 20 meters in the morning.
I had a good s9 signal into Hawaii and I would
be on HF talking to Gary KH6 GMP. He's out in
Kona and he has echo link and he echo linked
into Antietam Elementary School in Woodbridge,
Virginia. And the teacher there, Kathy, she is
KM4TAY. Now she had gone through the ARRL teacher
education program and she had a group of fifth
grade TAG students that's talented and gifted.
And what we did is we conducted a Q &A session
live during the expedition. And so I would speak
and go over 1 ,600 miles up to Hawaii. Then Gary
would tap us into the echo link. uh, switch us
in on audio and it would travel another, what,
4 ,000 miles out to Virginia to the classroom
where she had EchoLink on her, uh, smartphone.
And then the kids could ask a question and it
would go back the other way over EchoLink and
HF and we conducted Q &A that way with the students.
So it was very cool. And it worked very well
because there wasn't any other propagation except
to Hawaii, that north -south path in the early
mornings on 20 meters. And, of course, that would
be the afternoon in Virginia. So that was a lot
of fun to do the STEM education in that way.
And we also then contacted Kenneth Ransom in
5BHO down at Johnson Space Center. and we got
some orbital paths of the ISS, the International
Space Station, where Commander Shane Kimbrough
and others, Peggy Whitson, she's been up there
now for quite a while, broke a lot of records,
but they were on the ISS and we had some potential
orbits that we might be able to meet. They kind
of stood us up for the first six, but on the
seventh one they came through and we were able
to put different crewmen. on to the microphone
with the space station and then Sally Smith from
NASA Goddard asked them what would be their message
to students as far as pursuing STEM education
and especially young women who might shy away
from something like that. So that was very cool.
We made two separate ISS contacts via two meters
of course. And up there you have horizon to horizon,
so we'd have about nine minutes full good audio,
full good strength on FM, two meter FM, where
we had to hand point the antenna. One of us would
stand outside and aim the antenna and time it,
and the other rod would be on the inside on the
mic or vice versa. And that worked out really
well. In fact, when I was outside on the second
one, I had a handy talkie on my waist and I could
hear the space station fine on the handy talkie.
Of course, they're only about 220 miles away
when they pass. But it worked great. It was great.
Only. Only. But I mean, it was 220 miles. I could
hear him playing his day. So it was very nice
on that little bitty handy talkie with a rubber
ducky. I was aiming a 3L McYaggy at them. And
inside we had an amplifier, so we're running
about 150 watts. So they heard us really well.
Yeah, very good. Well, that's some cool stuff
and inspires kids to study that kind of thing
and get into it. Really a great way to... to
promote the science, technology, engineering,
and math in schools. So that's just one of the
big takeaways that you were able to get. And
I'm sure there were some kind of more pure scientific
kinds of things that you get out of that trip
as well, even though you came up empty handed.
Well, that's right. The things that we were seeing
down there, there were a couple of man -made
objects, but the geology down there, no human
eyes had ever seen. And so that data is now available
for a geologist to be able to study that. We
saw some pretty incredible Well, we saw one big
landslide that was probably a thousand meters
wide big landslide off the Seamount You know
Howland Island is basically a top of an 18 ,000
foot mountain and So a lot of interesting things
down there and of course some calderas and things
like that ridges that are very New to everyone
that was on board to just see that was very very
interesting the One of the cool things too is
Sally Smith at Goddard came up with six modules
that teachers can use to help use the Amelia
Earhart mystery for science, technology, engineering,
and math, STEM education, and those were all
put up also on the Expedition web portal. People
can go to nauticoast .com. That's N -A -U -T
-I -C -O -S. and there's a launch button for
the expedition portal and in there there's an
education button that there's videos but there's
six modules for instance one would be how do
you tell a geological feature from a man -made
feature in sonar and you have Jeff Morris explaining
that in a video and then give you they give a
couple of shots some sonar pictures if you will
Yeah, images is a better word and the student
can look and determine if it's man -made or if
it's geology. Things like that all the way down
the line and so that's all now up there that
was developed while we were all out on the expedition.
Actually interviewing these experts and then
developing curriculum around that. So we're pretty
excited about it. Our vision for that website
for the next expedition would be to make it interactive.
It's not yet interactive. And so, again, hopefully
continue to get good funding from different investors
and people who are interested in STEM education
and getting young people excited in the sciences
and, you know, hopefully amateur radio and use
that vehicle to Uh, get them all encouraged to
get into, uh, maybe engineering school when they
get into college. So we'll see. Yeah, that sounds
great. Um, now you did mention, you know, that
you've got your, uh, your solution decision,
the solution tree or that's a place here in town,
but yeah, but your, uh, your, your, your decision
-making matrix, you know, Kind of go back and
see What you're gonna do next time so what's
next time looking like do you know yet? Yeah,
that's pretty early. We've just basically gotten
back and then then I went to Dayton Yeah, and
you discovered all kinds of things mud traffic
But a lot of good food and a lot of good people
and a lot of good stuff Yeah, it was great, great.
But yeah, we have different tools. We have a
Monte Carlo simulation because we can now take,
we know where she isn't, for instance, and that's
good information. And we can now take our Monte
Carlo simulation and add in that to know those
endpoints are no longer valid, those flight paths.
So we have that, we have a statistical mapping
that we use where we use multiple variables from
the problem, radio signal analysis, the line
of position, accuracy, navigation, and things
like that, and come up with the hot areas, if
you will. And then we have a decision tree matrix
that looks like a tree. It's a decision tree.
And we had groups of pilots and navigators go
through that and determine if she had to make
it at each node, at each decision point, which
is the most likely case in that scenario, what
decision would they make? And then we would follow
that down. All endpoints on the decision tree,
of course, ends up in a crash. So now you just
follow the, you break off the branches that don't
work, because you know the way in points and
you go to the next ones. And you know, you have
different things that come into play too, like
pilot fatigue. She's in the air and that egg
beater of an aircraft for those engines on either
side of her for 20 hours and 43 minutes. And
the effects of fatigue have been studied by the
Air Force quite at large. And your rationality
or decision making is hampered. Your visual acuity
drops. And so where she had gray eyes, where
she might have had 25 mile visual acuity, it's
maybe down to 15 now. Your strength drops. You
don't have as much strength, you know, to pull
back on the yoke if you're out of gas and you
got to trim out the aircraft and try to stall
that aircraft out above the water. Things like
that. So we'll be studying all that putting it
back together again Analyzing our assumptions
that went into it and see if they're still valid
or not valid and then come with a new search
area and then of course raising the funds you
know fundraising is tough our Expedition lead
and and the investor that really promoted helped
us get out there. It was Alan Eustace and Alan
not only was he at Google but he is the guy that
was hauled up in a spacesuit to 136 ,000 feet
about a year and a half ago and then released
and as he fell back free fell he broke the sound
barrier with his body at 826 miles an hour and
then and then you know the parachute opened and
he landed safely in the desert in Arizona but
anyway He was our prime sponsor and so we need
to find, again, more multiple investors, I would
hope, and get back out there and get the job
done. And the sea does not give its secrets up
easily. At 18 ,000 feet, that is a very tough
job. Very tough job. sounds like it but sounds
like some interesting work and you're able to
do a lot with it so sounds great well we're going
to take a break and we're going to give you a
chance the listener to ask some questions here
with Tom and find out more about the search for
Amelia Earhart and It's ties to ham radio, but
first we're going to hear this word from tower
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Hammy the Pig, the HamTalk Live mascot. Hey,
they're taking a week off to recover from Dayton.
Boy, I wish I had a full week to recover from
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but boy was I tired. But June 4th they're going
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And then July 8th at Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Or
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Give them a call. 920 -435 -2973. So it's time
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So give us a call 812 -638 -4261 and ask your
questions about this search for Amelia Earhart.
And Tommy said you were able to do some HF while
you were out there. Yeah, that's right. We had
two ICOM 7000 stations. One of them had an Alpha
91, which was loaned to us, 91 Bravo, by Kimo,
KH7U. So good kudos and thanks to Kimo on that.
And so I had brought my step IR vertical out,
the big IR, and we mounted that horizontally
off the starboard side of the ship. about 70
feet off the water. And that thing worked out
like gangbusters. So I got on, usually our sunset
was the best if I wasn't working Gary up in the
mornings on 20 meters. But get on our sunset
and I was really working the world. About that
time of night, it's gray line over in Eastern
Europe. So I was able to work into Eastern Europe.
So I worked like 50 DXCC countries. and over
500 and some people. So I've got a special QSL
card for those who worked us and from the expedition
and got those printed now and just arrived. So
I'll be good. I've got my work cut out for me
there. I've got more work to do. Yeah, more work
to do. But some of the best contacts, XX9 in
Macau, nine in seven Nepal. And our antipode
was over by the 9G5X guys over there in the Atlantic,
ZD7V5, pretty close to the antipode when you're
over just north of the equator and east of the
dateline. So that was a lot of fun. I worked
KH9, Wake Island, and there was a gentleman there.
I think it was WW6RS portable RG portable KH9.
He was running five watts of sideband. So I don't
know how many he worked out there, but I don't
think there were a lot. So that was pretty cool.
Yeah, that's a good time to do that. And the
stepper out there, that's fabulous. So that's
a good deal. Yeah, we mounted horizontally because
the ship has a GM DSS HF system and on the port
side they have a porcupine set of verticals there
sticking up off what we call the monkey deck
and my station was up on the port side of the
bridge up 70 feet in the air and so we mounted
the vertical horizontally and it worked fine
out there really good. The only problem was as
the ship inclines back and forth there were some
times that we rocked when we're up at the end
of the pendulum 70 feet up it would go over 20
25 degrees and of course then the distance from
the HF antenna off the surface of the water varied
from 70 feet to 50 feet to 90 feet the tips of
it you know so the SWR would vary and we had
put some radials on it for 40 meters to get it
to resonate better, and those radials would go
away from the ship when it was leaning to the
starboard, and then it would come in on the port
side, leaning port, and it would come in, and
we had arcs going against the railings of the
ship from the radial. From the high impedance
points, they would just arc right over. So anyway,
had a lot of fun. Fun with it. Ran quite a bit
of CW. I like CW and so I would get on it when
the Terminator, the Great Alliance coming across
the states, which would be like one o 'clock
in the morning, which wasn't always fun to get
up and do that, but it was fun working the guys
back in the states and running 40 CW. And I would
usually be up around 7027. You wouldn't believe
all the junk that's below 7025 out there. And
so really, the clearest frequency was up above.
And so I'd get up there and then work back into
stateside. And some signals really just booming
in, 10 over 9, 20 over 9 on some mornings on
that gray line path. So that was great. And then,
of course, the gray line at night going up into
Europe and going north up over the poles. It's
almost straight over the poles, so it's a very
difficult path. They're working into Eastern
Europe Western Europe was already in daylight
too far. So I didn't hear any of the French or
English Stations, you know the UK or any of those
that for our West or their West It looks like
East to me on the map. It's that far over the
Sun was Already too high in the sky to work those
guys at our sunset 812 net ham one is the phone
number eight one two six three eight four two
six one if you have something to contribute give
us a call and Tom we knew this was gonna happen
our good friend dr. Scott right k0md has been
tweeting tonight we're gonna have to get him
to get him to call but he's saying these things
like That the whole secret to it was was that
it was an icon that you were using And he also
says here that he worked to you during on CW
during a pretty big solar eruption and and said
He's like three three nine No, no five nine for
that. I give you a five nine for that had me
Well, the first time on the mornings it was really
strong and we did have a solar event, CME, but
Scott has a nice station over there. He's running
a kilowatt and two elements up like 120 feet
or 110 feet or something, but it's up there.
He gave me a five zero nine and I've never had
a five zero nine in my life You know where you
can you can hear but there's no signal strength
whatsoever You know, you're not moving the meter
so yeah We wait that icon I was using that I
borrowed the icon 7 ,000 from Scott. So that's
why you say He's got the big ones at home. He's
got the 7 ,800 and 7 ,851 I think. Anyway, so
we worked each other a couple of times out there
and it was good to be able to hear him. The first
time he was blasting in and then the next time
it was like, whoa, where'd he go? Just because
of CME. The solar conditions have been pretty
poor. Anybody that's been on HF lately knows
how poor the conditions have been. They have
been that. I can tell you they have been. So
if you can get through there and get a five zero
nine, I think I'll take it. Yeah. Theoretically,
that means you're not hearing them. So theoretically,
right? If you go by the list. Yeah, there was
some awesome signals out of the states and I
was on 17 meters one day where it was popcorn
propagation where one minute it might be Maine
and the next minute it'd be Texas and the next
minute it'd be North Dakota and, you know, propagation
was just bouncing all over the states and the
cluster was showing that, you know, hey, there's
an opening on 17 meters. Well, yeah, but it was
only a spot propagation day. who knows where
it was going to go at any one time was anybody's
guess. So very interesting, especially out when
you're out in the middle of nowhere like that.
But that salt water really helps. I'm sure it
helped my signal and of course the amplifier
that I had. So being over that high conductivity
salt water was the way, really nice way to go.
Yeah and Scott also mentions the The number one
thing, and we talked about this at contest university
last week. The number one thing was, uh, that
you're a really good CW ops. So that always makes
a difference too. Well, I love CW. It's a lot
of fun and it's a great skill to, uh, for everybody
to have, I think. But, uh, anyway, it's fun to
use it out there and, uh, it's fun to be on the
expedition. I look forward to the expedition
for. It's still the greatest unsolved mystery
of the 20th century and Hopefully will be out
again to get this thing done and get it solved
We just get the you asked what what do you get
out of it? Well, it's a quest. It's a quest and
to help solve one of the greatest mysteries of
the 20th century That's that's fine with me.
That's fine with me And that's where we're going
to leave it tonight. Tom, thanks for coming on
the show. And that is a wrap for this week's
edition of HamTalk Live. So thanks to Tom Vinson,
NYZeroV and everyone out there listening and
calling in and tweeting and invite you back next
Thursday night, 9 p .m. Eastern time. Jerry Rosilius
WB9Z is going to be on the show to talk about
his recent induction into the CQDX Hall of Fame.
Also coming up soon, Michael Coulter is going
to be back from Dara to kind of recap Hamvention
and talk a little bit about what changes they
are thinking about making for next year. So that'll
be coming up soon. And also Bryant, a 13 year
old CW op. is going to be on. We're going to
tell you his story, so make sure you tune in
at HamTalkLive .com. But for now, this is Neil
Rapp, WB9VPG, saying 7375, and may the good DX
be yours.