National Weather Service Huntsville, AL - 2023 SKYWARN Recognition Day

2023 SKYWARN Recognition Day
Friday, December 1st (6 PM) through Saturday December 2nd (6 PM)

The Huntsville Alabama, National Weather Service Forecast Office will be participating in the 2023 SKYWARN Recognition Day. This event started by the National Weather Service and the American Radio Relay League, celebrates contributions to public safety made by volunteer SKYWARN participants. NWS offices frequently acquire real time information from radio equipped weather spotters – especially during periods of severe or adverse weather. These spotters provide valuable ground truth reports for phenomena such as hail, high winds, tornadoes, flash flooding, and snow fall reports. Those reports are used by our staff to prepare and verify statements and warnings

During this event, SKYWARN operators at NWS offices around the nation make contact with amateur radio operators nationally and around the world. Contact will be attempted with as many participating NWS offices as possible via amateur radio. We will operate under our call sign - WX4HUN.

This event takes place on the first Saturday of December for 24 hours from 0000-2400Z (Universal Coordinated Time). Locally, this will be from 6 PM CST Friday evening (December 1st) through 6 PM CST Saturday evening (December 2nd). A majority of the contacts are normally made via the High Frequency (aka. Short Wave) bands 80-10 meters (~3.500-29.7 MHz). Contacts will also be made via the VHF amateur frequencies on the 6-meter band (~50 MHz) and 2-meter band (~145 MHz), and UHF 70-centimeter (~443 MHz).

Most contacts in this event are made by phone (voice) mode (SSB or FM). In addition, CW, RTTY, Winlink, FT8, FT4, PKS31, VoIP, D-STAR, etc. modes may be used. 

The North Alabama SKYWARN repeater system will be activated during part of this event.

Because of remaining COVID issues, operations for this event could be held any location in the greater NWS Huntsville coverage area. This includes Lincoln, Moore, and Franklin counties in southern middle Tennessee. In northern Alabama – Lauderdale, Colbert, Franklin, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Morgan, Cullman, Jackson, DeKalb, and Marshall counties.

More information on operations protocol can be found at the national SKYWARN Recognition Day site . Unlike the past few years, SRD numbers will not be issued. Your Call Sign will be your number. 

For more information, please contact sr-hun.webmaster@noaa.gov