November BVARC BEACON Newsletter 

December 10th Meeting Presentation

“An HF Systems Engineering Approach in the Search for Amelia Earhart’s L10E”

By Tom Vinson, NY0V

On July 2nd, 1937 America’s favorite Aviatrix, Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan went missing over the central Pacific Ocean.

Her last radio signals were copied by the radio operators on the USCG Cutter Itasca. She had to be close, but after an unprecedented 
search by the US Navy, not a single trace of the aircraft was ever found. What happened to Amelia Earhart is one of the last great unsolved mysteries of the 20th century.This presentation will cover how Rockwell Collins engineers utilized an HF Systems engineering approach to arrive at a distance from Earhart’s L10E to Howland Island for each of her HF transmissions.

Note: Due to our NDA’s with Nauticos Corporation, no final results will be shown.

Biography for Tom Vinson

Tom Vinson retired from Rockwell Collins, Cedar Rapids, IA after 33 years in engineering and Program Management. During this time he was responsible for program management of Rockwell Collins’ ARC-190 High Frequency Communications, USAF MILSTAR Satellite System components, and Advanced Network Datalinks.

He provided another 2 years of professional consulting to Rockwell Collins until he and his wife, Karen, moved to Chatfield Minnesota in 2010.

He is on the Board of Directors of the Chosen Valley Community Foundation, as well as SeaWord, Nauticos Corporation’s non-profit educational foundation.

In 1999 Tom formed a team from the Collins Amateur Radio Club members to look at the Amelia Earhart disappearance from an engineering perspective. Under the auspices of Nauticos’ SeaWord STEM initiatives, Rockwell Collins supported Tom in both the 2002 and 2006 deep water SONAR searches for Nauticos’ Earhart Discovery Project. They also supported the STEM education for the 2017 expedition. Since those expeditions Tom has provided dozens of Earhart Search STEM presentations to local schools, civic and professional organizations, and various amateur radio clubs.Tom is still active in his 54th year in amateur radio and enjoys the outdoors through running, biking, hiking, kayaking, XC skiing and fishing.

Greater Houston HamFest 2021 Cancelled:

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