The Voice of Baja Weather
Tom,  AA6TP

Anyone who has ever cruised to Baja California and the Gulf of California has heard the booming signal of Tom,  "Alpha Alpha Six Tango Papa" (AA6TP), giving the ham net weather reports.    He can be heard daily at 0730 Pacific Time on the Chubasco Net (7.294 MHz) and additionally on weekends at 0815 Pacific Time on the Baja-California Maritime Net .    He has been providing information about the weather south of California for over ten years.    Many have heard him but few have had the opportunity to see him operate from his "shack", ham lingo for a radio station.    So it was with great anticipation that I sent him an email asking if I could visit him.    He replied with an invitation and we set up a weekend date for my visit.

Tom lives in Laguna Beach just off the Pacific Coast Highway.    His "shack" is located in his basement.   But to get a better signal to the tip of Baja California and beyond, he delivers his weather report from a hill not too far from his house through a mobile "shack" in his car.

His routine starts at 0630 when he has his first cup of coffee and scans the various weather sites on the internet.  His computer is next to a ham radio in his basement "shack" .    He first looks at the recent satellite pictures to give him an overview of existing weather conditions.  While scanning the "satpics"  he writes down his preliminary observations and comments for the different areas along the Baja Peninsula and the Mexican mainland coast.  He then scans the weather reports sent by NOAA in text form to see their predictions and collect additional information to include in his report.  Then he compares the NOAA reports with predictive model information supplied by the University of Hawaii and other institutions. 

 


Tom looking up the internet weather
in his ham "shack"

 

 

Tom setting up the antenna

Finally he completes his summary of the weather that might be expected.   Based on his many trips to Baja California he is able to temper the information from others with his own experiences.

By 0700, it is time for Tom to get in his car and drive a few hundred yards up the hill to his usual net transmission site. It is located above the housing line so that he has an unobstructed signal path to the south.  There he raises the vertical antenna attached by a rotating joint to his car's rooftop rack . Several nylon guy lines are connected to the rack with clips to keep the antenna in position. 

Tom then turns on his little Kenwood ham transceiver located between the front seats of his van.   A 600 watt linear amplifier is hidden behind the front seat to boost the signal towards Baja and the Mexican mainland.    The Kenwood is powered from his car batteries and Tom keeps his car's engine running during the transmission.   The linear amplifier has separate batteries located in the rear of the van.   These are recharged from a 120 V AC outlet when Tom gets home.

Tom transmitting from his car

I have heard Tom below Mazatlan when I couldn't hear stations much closer to me.    His signal strength is certainly due to his amplifier, but I suspect Tom has some additional help from his location.    Not only is it a hundred feet above sea level but it is well above any rooftops.    There also do not appear to be any significant sources of radio noise, such as high voltage power lines, nearby.    I could not help but notice that Tom parked his car next to a long chain-link fence.    That provides a good groundplane to help "kick-off" the signal from the antenna. 

Tom's antenna is a coil-loaded vertical which has a low radiation angle for good skip.   Many hams prefer a horizontal dipole for added gain compared to a short vertical antenna.  The vertical antenna, however, has a radiation pattern that allows the signal to radiate in a 360 degree horizontal plane rather than sending some of it vertically skyward.   So while the overall gain of a vertical antenna may be less, the majority of the signal goes in the horizontal direction, where there are listeners, and is not lost vertically into space.

Around 0730, Chubasco Net control calls for Tom to start his weather analysis.   In a crisp, modulated tone, Tom reads the information he prepared on his yellow pad.    He then asks for any questions or relays to distant stations that might not have been able to pick him up.   Once the Net is satisfied with his weather report, it turns to other ham traffic.   It has taken Tom less than ten minutes of airtime to present important information that took him many times longer to gather.    As the saying goes, a short presentation takes long preparation.

On weekends, Tom stays at his mobile transmission site to give the weather to the Baja-California Maritime Net about an hour later.   During the week, however, he rushes to rotate his antenna into the stowed, horizontal position and drives off to work.

What does Tom do for a living?    He graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in Geology.  He has worked for  Deft, a stain and varnish manufacturer, for over 28 years, and is their Vice-President, Marketing.    

He has been a frequent visitor to Baja California and owns a trailer home between Cabo and La Paz that he frequently visits.   On the walls of his ham "shack" are many pictures of fish he has caught in Baja.   When the previous weatherman for the Chubasco Net retired many years ago, he was asked by Net control to take over the position on a temporary basis.    That temporary position has turned into a permanent voice for valuable weather information.

Tom prefaces each of his reports with the following warning.   His effort is an amateur effort and he does make mistakes.   Any decisions made from his information are the sole responsibility of the listener.   I agree wholeheartedly that each person is solely responsible for his/her decisions and actions.   However,  I also believe that any mariner cruising south of San Diego along Baja California or the Mexican mainland is missing out on a lot of valuable information if he or she is not listening to Tom's weather report .

Thanks to Ed, KF6NXY, of the vessel Heather K,  for sharing this article.

Check out his web page at:  www.heatherk.com

 

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