Faulkner County Amateur Radio Club (FCARC) -- Minutes September 9, 2008
Meeting called to order by President Frankie Parks at 6:31 p.m.
Treasurer Report: Balance of $1,290.37 in account.
Members Present
Larry Appleby
Kelly Boswell
Perry Carlton
George Carroll
Robert Crites
Tom Desaulniers
David Doty
Phllip Doyle
Taylor Francis
Jim Grinder
Randy Harrington
Gary Hawkins
Wayne Johnston
Brian Kessler
Marlene Kessler
Glenn King
Eric Martin
Dave Moore
Stewart Nelson
Frankie Parks
David Turner
Roger Williamson
Guest Present
Gail Pledger
Cindy Francis
Old Business:
Repeaters. George Carrol reports that the 147.03 repeater is up and working, but not linked. It gets too hot. A GE (Master II?) repeater is coming from Joe Givens down in Bearden, Arkansas, to the FCARC and will be converted. Once it is converted we can link it to the CAUHF groups. The 146.97 repeater has problems linking to the 146.94 machine. George is trying to find out what is happening. Apparently their remote base is getting into our 443.800 machine. There is some mixing of some sort going on in the system. This has now been fixed, the CAREN club has taken down the faulty transmitter.
Repeaters. Glen King reports that the 145.21 repeater is down, but he hopes to get it back up and operational. Glen will write a new program for the machine to unlink the problems encountered with the 146.94 machine signal.
Old Equipment Items stored in Glen King's garage. Several weeks ago members came by and separated out equipment that was of no use to the club or could not be sold. On the last Saturday Glen went through the equipment again to be sure that none of it was of use. As of now, all the old equipment on Jim Grinder's trailer can be taken to the County Fair Grounds on Wednesday morning to be turned in. He needs assistance in the morning to load the trailer (with a heavy tongue weight) and to unload at the Fair Grounds. All the steel, copper and aluminum will be welcomed by the recycling.
New Business:
Faulkner County Fair Parade -- September 16, 2008
Glen King reports that the parade route this year will revert to the one used in years past. All the intersections along the parade route need to be covered. Meet at the Central Fire Station at 2:00 pm. Bring your HT -- will be operating simplex. Also bring your own high visibility orange vest if you have one; if not Glen will have several for participants. Glen will be on Caldwell St. at the start of the parade tagging floats and participants. The FCARC blue gazebo tent and club banner will be on display at a central location on the route
If you cannot get away from work until 5:00 pm, then come at that time-- watch out for any incidents that might need assistance. The parade will last about 1 ½ hrs. In past years a child was run over by a float while trying to get the candy thrown from the float. Another year a lady gave birth at Massey Hardware, and recently a woman went into labor. We have also had heart attacks. When 30,000 people are in town there may be incidents that require supplemental communications and a FCARC member may be the only one with a radio.
The parade theme this year is "Get smart, get green." Weather is expected to be partly cloudy and 74 degrees.
Big Dam Bridge 100 Bike Tour.
Frankie Parks reports that the 100 mile and 75 mile routes will be slightly different than in the past. The 75 mile route will go into Conway on Hwy 365 and out on Military Road. The 100 mile route will split off at Mayflower and go to Fortsen Road, then on the Hwy 107 for a short distance and then back to Hwy 286 into Conway and then around the town on Military Road. In other words, the route of the ride will involve many miles on different roads in Faulkner County -- that is why we need FCARC members to set up stationary locations and help out. We will be operating from static locations rather than trying to operate as trailing vehicles. The trailing vehicles, which were intended to block and hold back traffic, just operated as another obstacle to be passed.
The new route means that the long distance riders should be off of Hwy 89 by late morning. Maps are available on bigdambridge.com showing the various routes and detailed instructions. Last year the last bike riders were out of Mayflower and headed back to Little Rock by 2:00 pm.
An aid station will be located at Hwy 89 and Fortsen Road. Many portions of the route are far from that location if they have first aid needs or mechanical problems.
Communications will be on 146.94. It is a good event to work -- many police and fire involved. It also is a good opportunity for publicity for the FCARC.
Ham Fest - September 20, 2008 at Jacksonville Community Center.
This is the All Arkansas Ham Fest by the CAREN club.
Meet with Glen King on at 0800 am on Saturday, September 13, 2008 to help sort out the FCARC club items that will be included in the sale at the Jacksonville Ham Fest.
Main Program -- Geological Hazards and the New Madrid Seismic Zone presented by Scott M. Ausbrooks
A Registered Professional Geologist, and the Geohazards & Environmental Geology Supervisor, Arkansas Geological Survey. He has recently attending town meetings in northeast Arkansas alerting citizens to the hazards in that part of the state. He is creating an earthquake educational video for ADEM and hazard maps for the USGS. This was an exceptional program and very informative. See www.arkansas.gov/agc/agc/htm Details about this presentation follow these minutes.
Adjournment. The meeting adjourned at 7:58 pm
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Geological Hazards and the New Madrid Seismic Zone by Scott M. Ausbrooks
[The following notes summarize the presentation.]
Types of Faults: Strike Slip Fault -- to side movement; Normal Fault -- movement as the hanging wall moves downward relative to the foot wall; Reverse Fault -- movement as the hanging wall moves upward relative to the foot wall. This is important because all three faults are present in the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ).
An earthquake is the release of strain energy stored up along the fault plane. Energy builds up within the Earth's crust and is released during an earthquake. Seismic waves are generated by the quake.
These waves take three forms: P Waves -- are compression waves like in a slinky; Sheer Waves â -- down motion; Surface Waves -- is where the damage occurs because of the range of motion. Structures in the epicenter area are affected by the waves. But, structures much farther off are also adversely affected by the longer waves
Most earthquakes are found along the edges of the plates of the Earth. But the NMSZ is in the middle of a plate -- was formed when the North American plate did not break in half but instead is buried under thousands of feet of unstable fill. The New Madrid fault is really three separate deeply buried faults -- strike/slip faults and one vertical fault. The vertical fault in the central part of the zone in the boot heel of Missouri was very important in the 1811- 1812 quakes.
The Enola swarm of quakes in Faulkner County involved 50,000 quakes (!!!) over a period of about three years. The strongest was 4.5 in magnitude.
The key quakes in the NMSZ were in 1811 -1812. But there have been 20 damaging quakes in the area since then. Quakes just as large as the 1812 event happened in the NMSZ in 900 AD and 1450 AD. In other words, ever 500 years there is a major quake on the NMSZ.
It is important to note that there are two scales that may be confused in looking at earthquakes.
1. The Modified Mercali Scale is an intensity scale -- i.e. What is perceived and damage inflicted; how much shaking did you feel and how much damage was done. 1- not felt, to 10 - built structures are destroyed.
2. The Magnitude Scale (this used to be called the Richter Scale or Moment of Movement) on the other hand is an amplitude measurement of how much energy is being released. Each increase in magnitude is actually an increase that is 32 times as powerful! Consequently, a small 3.0 quake is not capable of easing the stored energy that would be released in a 7.2 quake. Only a huge quake is capable of releasing the stored energy of the NMSZ.
Remember that quakes in the NMSZ will affect a far greater area than quakes along the fault zones in California. A 5.0 quake in California might not inflict any damage if it does not strike an urban area. But in the NMSZ a similar sized quake would affect a huge area -- both rural and urban.
Recent quakes in the NMSZ.
1976 -- 5.0 in Poinsette County. Broke windows in Paragould; knocked down phone lines and caused a power blackout in Jonesboro; caused room damage in Decatur; and, was felt in Mississippi and Tennessee.
1895 -- 6.6 in Charleston, MO. Lots of damage then that would be far greater today. Land subsided during that quake forming lakes.
1811 -- 1812 quakes in the NMSZ are the ones that have people worried. The centennial "celebration" of those events will raise public awareness because even a 6.0 quake would cause extensive property damage and injuries today.
Dec 16, 1811 2:15 am. 7.4 to 7.8 magnitude quake. Centered from Marked Tree, AR and northward to the state line of Missouri. Land subsided and the Mississippi River was disrupted. The strike/slipe fault on the souther end of the NMSZ was involved. Out in California the quakes are characterized by a big quake and then smaller aftershocks. But NMSZ was different with three sequential and major earthquakes -- responders would have a hard time dealing with larger quakes.
Jan 28, 1812 7.4 to 7.8.
Feb 7, 1812 7.8 to 8.0 quake -- the largest of the three. This quake was caused by the vertical movement of the normal fault in the center of the NMSZ that crosses the Mississippi. The vertical movement caused the land to subside and created Reelfoot Lake. The Mississippi River ran backwards during the quake. The Mississippi River levees in that area are built to the height of the scarp created by the quakes. The amount of movement is significant, because the fault is buried 2,000 ft deep.
These series of quakes were felt in Detroit and Canada In Washington D.C it moved furniture. It was felt in South Carolina and New Orleans.
There were a total of nine events with magnitude greater than 7.0. Beyond these quakes, there were twenty more that were greater than 6.0. All of these lesser quakes would cause significant damage today.
These quakes caused liquification of soil (this will result in buildings falling over or roads and bridges crumbling as their footings fail through a loss of bearing strength), fissuring (sand extruded into large areas), sand blows (when sand is pushed to the surface through the cracks in the ground -- resulting in poor farm land), and land subsidence (Reelfoot Lake, Saint Francis, Big Lake); sunken forests; uplifted lowlands; rapids and waterfalls on the Mississippi River. These hazards and their potential devastating
impact can be seen through aerial photos of the NMSZ area. What will happen to the roads, bridges, dams, levees, dikes, pipelines, buildings, etc in the area?
What will happen if the Mississippi is in flood stage during a NMSZ event? Prior to the taming of the Mississippi by the Corps of Engineers, the annual spring floods extended as far westward as Crowleys Ridge.
A 6.0 magnitude quake unleashes the same amount of energy as a tornado, but the damage extends over a much greater area. There is a 25% to 40% chance of a 6.0 quake in the NMSZ over the next five years. We are overdue for a quake of this size in the immediate future.
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During the Q&A session following the presentation, Mr. Ausbrooks noted that a new fault zone has been discovered in the area from Helena to the northwest. This was a 7.2 quake that happened 5,000 years ago.
Unreinforced brick or concrete buildings are at the greatest threat from quakes. Without reinforcing steel rebar, these structures will suffer great damage.
Bridges and buildings in the NMSZ have not been tested (or subsequently improved) by repeated quakes like those in California.
Strapping our hot water heaters could mitigate damage to our homes. Remember that quakes are no notice events.