Update on Lunar Mission

According to the LuxSpace website, the 4M-LXS spacecraft is in the vicinity of the moon.  The spacecraft will be flying away from Earth until about 1200-2200 UTC (7:00 AM – 5:00 PM USA Central Time) on October 27, and will be flying toward the earth starting at about 0100-1000 UTC October 28 (8:00 PM – 5:00 AM the night of October 27-28, USA Central Time).  The verification that the spacecraft has completed the lunar flyby will be a shift in frequency due to Doppler shift, indicating that the spacecraft has stopped flying away from Earth but is now returning.

Currently, I have received only one report that the W0IS.COM message was received, from LU1HKO in Cordoba, Argentina.  Additional reception reports will probably be posted on October 30 at the conclusion of the LuxSpace contest.

As this is posted (0038 UTC, OCt. 28), the spacecraft is approximately 381,000 kilometers from Earth.  According to the LuxSpace tracking data, the distance is slowly decreasing, indicating it has completed the Lunar flyby and is returning to Earth.

Earlier posts regarding 4M-LXS spacecraft.

Soviet Amateur Radio 80 and 50 Years Ago

U3EB

1934 station of U3EB, later reassigned call U1AP, Leningrad.

An Interesting article detailing Amateur Radio in the Soviet Union 80 years ago appeared in the October, 1934, issue of QST. If you’re an ARRL member logged in to your account, you can download the full article.

Even during the height of the Cold War, Amateurs in the Soviet Union communicated freely with Amateurs in the rest of the world, and they had a well-deserved reputation of being excellent operators, often dealing with severe equiipment limitations. An excellent 1965 MIT paper describing Soviet Amateur Radio during the Cold War is also available online.

The 1934 article was written by physicist John D. Kraus, W8JK (1910-2004). Kraus likens the state of Soviet Ham Radio as being roughly equivalent to that in the U.S. about a decade earlier. The typical receiver was either two or three tubes, with one serving as detector and the second as audio amplifier. A third tube as a tuned RF stage was popular. Transmitting tubes of 20-150 watts were available. Crystal control was becoming popular, but simpler designs were still more common. The most popular antenna was a single wire known as the “American type.”

The author noted that very few Russian hams spoke English or German, and that his Russian was also almost non-existent. During his travels, he normally made use of an interpeter, but he could often bypass the interpreter by whistling CW and using standard radio abbreviations.


Lunar Message Received in Argentina

Fernando, LU1HKO, Cordoba, Argentina, just reported that he received the W0IS.COM message from the 4M-LXS spacecraft en route to the moon. The message was in the following packet of data:

000400 5 -21 3.535 35 3* W0IS.COM 1 0 0.0

I’ve asked Fernando to send me some details of his station, and will post them here when available.  I’m not sure of the exact time the message was received, but the spacecraft is currently about 348,000 km from Earth.

Earlier posts regarding 4M-LXS spacecraft.

Private Luther Irl Snapp, 1892-1918

LutherSnapp

During the centennial of World War 1, this page periodically remembers American servicemen who gave their lives in that war.

Private Luther Irl Snapp was born on September 15, 1892, near Marshall Minnesota. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Snapp. He graduated from the Marshall public schools and worked as a carpenter until 1915, when he moved to Baker, Montana. He enlisted in the Montana National Guard Infantry and served on the Mexican border. He was mustered into service in April 1917 and served with the 41st (Sunset) Division, 163rd Infantry, and sailed to France in the fall of 1917.

He was transferred to Company H of the 167th (Alabama) Infantry, 42nd (Rainbow) Division.  He was killed in action in  Chateau-Thierry on July 28, 1918, during the capture of the village of Sergy in the Second Battle of the Marne.

He was buried in the American cemetery near Sergy. His body was later disinterred and returned to the United States. He was buried at Marshall, Minnesota.

An American Legion Post in Marshall was named after Private Snapp in 1919. That Post does not appear to be in existence today.

The photo above is from Soldiers of the Great War, Volume 2, page 104.

References

Fallon County Times, October 24, 1918 and October 1921.

White Earth (Minn.) Tomahawk, Sept. 4, 1919.


Moon Mission Update

According to the LuxSpace blog, the 4M-LXS spacecraft is not about one light-second away from Earth, meaning that it takes one second for the signals to reach earth.  The blog also reports that the messages being sent from the spacecraft are about to cycle, meaning that all messages have been sent once, and will now repeat.

This means that the W0IS.COM URL has been transmitted from space once.  Since the earth stations seem to be collectively copying 100%, it is likely that the signal has been received.  We have not yet received any reception report.   Since LuxSpace is running a contest for stations to report the number of messages received, this information is not yet being published.  We are confident, however, that the message has been transmitted from the spacecraft to Earth, and continue to seek verification.

Nazi Conscription Comes to America, But Without Much Luck

GermanDraft

This AP article appeared in a number of American newspapers on June 28, 1939. It is shown here as it appeared in the Borger (Texas) Daily Herald.  It can also be found in the Milwaukee Journal along with some additional detail.

The German consulate in Cleveland (and probably other consulates) had issued a  proclamation” ordering 19-year-old “Reich citizens” in the United States to register with the consulate for compulsory military and labor service under the Reich on or before July 15, 1939.

Apparently, a copy of the proclamation had been forwarded to the German-American Turner Society in Detroit in order to communicate  it to the men required to register. The society objected, and stated that it resented “the assumption on the part of Reich officials that we will take any part in helping them carry on their work.”

It is unlikely that very many “Reich citizens” residing in the United States complied with the proclamation.



Herbert Hoover and the Belgian Humanitarian Crisis

Today marks the 100th Anniversary of Herbert Hoover’s great humanitarian work in the First World War. His great granddaughter, Margaret Hoover, shared this poster today on her facebook page.

Starting a hundred years ago, President Hoover spent the last half century of his life serving his country, as Commerce Secretary, President, and Humanitarian. Fifty years ago today, the State of Iowa was preparing for the late President’s State Funeral. You can read more at the Cedar Rapids Gazette. You can also read more posts about President Hoover on my blog.

References

Herbert Hoover at Wikipedia 

Herbert Hoover National Historic Site

Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum

Hoover Institution at Stanford University

Read More at Amazon:


Seizure of the S.S. City of Flint, 1939

SSCityOfFlint

The United States didn’t join the war until attacked by Japan in 1941. After Pearl Harbor, Germany quickly declared war on the United States. Even though public opinion ovrwhelmingly favored a declaration of war against both Germany and Japan after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt didn’t ask Congress for war against Germany. A few days later, Germany obliged by declaring war.

But there was little doubt that the U.S. would be at war with Germany. The Germans had been menacing American shipping, and there soon would have been cause for war with Germany. The first incident in this de facto war took place 75 years ago, as reported here in the October 24, 1939, edition of the Milwaukee Journal.

The SS City of Flint became the first U.S. vessel to be seized by the Germans. It was en route to Britain with a cargo of tractors, grain, and fruit. The Germans declared the cargo to be contraband and seized the vessel. The German crew set sail for neutral Norway, but was refused entry. It then sailed for the Soviet Union, then a German ally, which eventually sent it away. The ship eventually wound up in Norway a second time, where it was eventually boarded by the Norwegians and returned to the Americans. The ship unloaded its cargo in Norway and returned to the U.S. The ship remained in service until 1943, when it was sunk by a German U-boat.



Update on Lunar Mission: Successful Launch

The 4M-LXS Spacecraft was successfully launched from China today, at or near the scheduled launch time of Thursday, October 23, at 12:59 PM U.S. Central Time.

The spacecraft was successfully activated, and it signals have been received in Brazil.  The official announcement can be found at the LuxSpace blog.

An article about the mission, the first ever privately funded Lunar mission, can be found at the Air & Space magazine website.  During its Lunar orbit, the spacecraft will transmit the URL of our parent website, w0is.com.  More information can be found in my earlier posts.

WW2 Prisoner of War Broadcasts

PrisonerBroadcasts

Seventy years ago today, October 23, 1944, the Milwaukee Journal carried this item regarding the prisoner broadcasts that were being carried by the German and Japanese shortwave stations. The stations broadcast the names of, and sometimes personal messages from, Allied prisoners of war. Often, these broadcasts preceded any official notification.

The paper cautioned American families “not to accept” such messages, and certainly not to pay for them. The paper did note that the government monitored these broadcasts and would make official notification if warranted. But the paper did concede that these broadcasts were generally accurate, and that “well meaning persons and some well meaning busybodies have taken it upon themselves to notify friend and stranger alike when the name and address of a captured American serviceman pops up on the Berlin or Tokyo radio.”

This phemomenon was discussed in more detail in the book World War II Radio Heroes: Letters of Compassion by Lisa Spahr. As the title suggests, letters from listeners to the families were generally well received, and often represented the family’s first notification that the serviceman was captured and still alive.  The author of that book wrote it after discovering 70 letters written to her great grandmother from shortwave listeners around the United States reporting that her son had been captured but was in good health.  She was able to track down some of them, forming personal friendships with some of these “busybodies.”

Even though the article cautions families “not to be victimized by persons attempting to sell similar information,” I have never found reference to even a single case of anyone attempting to profit from notifying families, although one apparently asked for a postage stamp so that he could continue providing the service.  The government did all it could to discourage the practice, even accusing one listener in Nebraska of being a Gerrman spy.

References

Book Review of Letters of Compassion

Book Website

Author’s Blog

Facebook Group