Congratulations to Fred Archibald, VE1FA, and Helen Archibald, VA1YL, who were recently recognized by Radio Amateurs of Canada for their years of amateur radio commitment. The husband-and-wife team has been chosen to receive the RAC's Amateur of the Year Award for 2025. Married for more than 50 years, they have been almost equally married to their amateur radio involvement, which has included teaching, mentoring, net control, club leadership and equipment restoration. Read more about them on the RAC website at rac.ca
NEW MEXICO CLUB GAINS FULLTIME USE OF MOBILE TRAILER
An amateur radio club in New Mexico has become the beneficiary of a statewide transition by first responders to a new digital microwave communications system on 700 MHz.
In Socorro County. officials have transferred the use of their older mobile VHF communications trailer to the Socorro Amateur Radio Association. The association had been borrowing the trailer for quite some time for members' use during Field Day at the San Antonio Fire Station as well as for the group's emergency operations. One of the members, Alfred Braun AC5BX, told Newsline in a phone call that the county's action now means that the hams will have fulltime access to the trailer and will be able to use and maintain everything in good working condition for the next four or five years.
Meanwhile, New Mexico's Department of Information Technology continues reducing its reliance on analogue VHF, bringing first responders throughout the state onto what they consider to be a more secure digital trunking network.
ZERO RETRIES DIGITAL CONFERENCE PICKS SITE
Hams and other tech enthusiasts who are coming to San Ramon, California for Pacificon 2026, the ARRL Pacific Division Convention, can look forward to a separate event on their calendar taking place just down the street: The Zero Retries Digital Conference is back for its second year. Organizers have announced that the Roundhouse Conference Center will be hosting the conference on the 15th of October. Attendees who arrive early will also have the opportunity to visit the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
Registration has not yet opened and planning is still a work-in-progress for the Zero Retries event. Organizers stress that if you have plans to attend both events, Pacificon is a separate activity taking place on October 16th, 17th and 18th, and you'll need to register for that at pacificon.org
The Zero Retries Newsletter's inaugural conference was held in September 2025 in Washington State.
SILENT KEY: RSGB'S COLIN THOMAS G3PSM, SPECTRUM ADVOCATE
Colin Thomas G3PSM, who served as president of the Radio Society of Great Britain from 2008 to 2009, was known throughout Region 1 of the IARU as an active advocate for the well-being of the amateur radio spectrum. According to his obituary on the RSGB website, Colin's greatest efforts within the region included the defence of existing allocations and the acquisition of 136kHz and 472 kHz for amateur use. He also pushed for allocations at 5 MHz and for expansion of 7 MHz.
Colin died on Tuesday, 17 February following a short illness.
His involvement with IARU Region 1 included serving as its HF manager from 2005 through to 2008. In 2017, IARU Region 1 presented Colin with the Roy Stevens G2BVN Memorial Award for his service and dedication to international amateur radio.
JOINT BALLOON LAUNCH FOR FLORIDA HAMS, STUDENTS
Accompanied by their parents and some school staffers, 63 students at the Sky Academy in Englewood, Florida watched on the 18th of February as their little Sky Tracker pico balloon soared away from the earth with the help of hams from the Englewood Amateur Radio Society. Equipped to communicate via APRS, the balloon transmits such data as time, date, altitude, ascent, humidity, grid square - and of course its callsign, N4EAR-1.
The launch was a first for the students, who are in the school's STEM program - and it was the first partnership of its kind for the amateur radio society, said its president, Bill Reed, K7WWR. The students have been able to track its international journey on their smart phones and on a big screen in their classroom.
Bill told Newsline that the students aren't the only ones who have been immersed in this project. He said [quote]: "Our club members are very excitedly tracking the balloon. It has generated much excitement as we are wondering how our baby is doing. We are hoping for at least one circumnavigation of the globe." [endquote] At the time that Bill spoke to Newsline, the balloon was nearly over Africa and well on its way. That's a particular point of pride for the club's officers who supported this first-time collaboration with the school. It opens up the world, even as the little balloon soars high above it.
HAMCLOCK USERS GET FREE BACKEND SERVER
Good news for HamClock users and fans: A free community backend server has become available. The website, hamclock.com, make HamClock's continued functions available for free following a successful reconfiguration of the clock to the new server. The functions include, among other things, weather pressure maps, aurora map generation, ham news headlines, realtime PSK Reporter spot data, VOACAP propagation reports and Kp index from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The functions are made possible through the work of Bruce Edrich, W4BAE, who built the project upon the open-hamclock-back-end. Updating can be done via two simple text changes -- either to the hosts file or to the command that starts HamClock. The project is independent of the feeds from the original site, clearskyinstitute.com.
It is one of several developments as forks of the open HamClock back-end created by Brian Wilkins KO4AQF and Austin Parsons KN4LNB. Brian told Newsline that installation instructions and other information can be found on GitHub. The link is in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org.
REPAIRS DELAY ARTEMIS 2 LAUNCH FOR AT LEAST A MONTH
The Artemis 2 moon rocket is leaving the launch pad at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, but not for its trip in the direction of the moon -- at least not yet. As was expected, the rocket is headed toward the Vehicle Assembly Building on site where NASA can address a helium blockage affecting the rocket's upper stage.
The space agency, which had announced an original launch window beginning March 6 for the test flight's liftoff, has said the repair could delay things for a month or more. This is to be the first crewed moon mission in more than 50 years. Four amateur radio operators are among the 34 volunteer observers around the world chosen recently to passively track radio waves transmitted during the mission.
GET READY FOR THE BOUVET ISLAND 3YØK DXPEDITION
As Newsline went to production, the 3YØK DXpedition was approaching Bouvet Island and keeping an eye on the weather. If you're hoping to get in the log, familiarize yourself with the team's operating procedures which appear on their website 3YØK.com - some of them depart from customary procedures so as to avoid interference from DQRM.
Keep up to date by following the link that appears in the text version of this newscast at arnewsline.org
BUNKERS ON THE AIR PROGRAM EXPANDS TO THE US
The chase is on: US BOTA - that's Bunkers on the Air - is now a part of Worldwide BOTA. The popular awards scheme that began in the UK is now active in 23 countries. The US recently became one of those active nations. Rem O'Donnelley, K6BBQ, the US national coordinator, told Newsline that his POTA activations inspired him to establish a US presence on the BOTA map. He said that many bunkers are inside parks in his part of California -- so activating those bunkers seemed to be the next logical move.
Worldwide BOTA's Jason Dale, 2EØJIV, told Newsline that, as with other nations, US BOTA is closely modeled after the one in the UK. With some bunker sites still considered sensitive areas, BOTA established an activation zone giving plenty of room for permitted activations without having to infringe on the bunker itself. In the UK and the US and several other countries, that's 1,000 meters from the center of the bunker itself.
The worldwide platform hosts each country's available awards and bunker databases as well as lists of new countries - and newly added bunkers. Specific rules and local maps are available on each country's individual site. Best of all, said Jason, some portable loggers, such as Ham2K, have also gotten into the act and have already added BOTA into their software.
To visit both the new US BOTA website and the site for worldwide BOTA, see the links in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org
DIRECT-TO-DEVICE SATELLITE SERVICE BEGINNING IN UK
Customers of Virgin Media's O2 mobile phone service are gaining access to direct-to-device satellite communication on the 25th of February. While some direct-to-device has already been approved in other countries, including the US, this is the first such licence variation approved by Ofcom for UK mobile customers. In hard-to-reach regions where there is no cellular service, direct-to-device will allow customers to stay connected via text, phone calls and internet with signals directly to and from smartphones. Virgin Media O2 is making use of Starlink satellites in low earth orbit.
SCIENCE FESTIVAL SHOWCASES HAM RADIO IN ASSAM
Amateur radio's emerging popularity in the Indian state of Assam was evident recently at the North East Science Fair & Innovation Festival, where visitors watched as two operators from the Assam Amateur Radio Foundation made contacts on HF and 2-metres.
Saquib VU3HZW and Pradyumna VU33SF had QSOs with hams in Bangladesh on HF and contacted hams on 2 metres throughout the Assamese city of Guwahati where VHF is slowly becoming increasingly popular.
The event was held at the National Science Centre in Guwahati from the 11th through to the 14th of February. Many of the visitors who stopped to watch the hams operate from the exhibition floor had been unaware of ham radio's potential for vital communications in emergencies and as a resource for experimentation and learning. Amateur radio took a prominent place among the other exhibits and demonstrations, including AI & Robotics, Rocketry, Skywatching with a Telescope and Meet-the-Scientist sessions.
DEADLINE APPROACHES FOR AMATEUR RADIO SOFTWARE AWARD
The Amateur Radio Software Award is a global award encouraging innovative problem-solving that leads to sharing within the ham radio community. To qualify for the award, the software must be available for free download and use. It must also be free of malicious hidden codes and capable of being improved in collaboration with others.
Last year, the award committee chose Sebastian Delmont, KI2D [KAY EYE TWO DEE], author of the popular Ham2K Portable Logger that is widely used by POTA activators. A monetary award accompanies the honor.
Nominations are being accepted through to the 28th of February. You can find an online nomination form by following the link in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org
TECHCON 2026 HIGHLIGHTS NEXT-GEN DIGITAL NARROWBAND
JACK; Techcon 2026 is a one-day conference sponsored by the ARRL West Central Florida Section on February 28th. The forums will cover a variety of amateur radio technologies including NXDN, or next-generation digital narrowband. This is the newest digital mode for amateur radio and its use is gaining momentum within SKYWARN.
Paul Toth, NB9X, one of the keynote speakers, told Newsline that NXDN, created jointly by Icom and Kenwood, is used for short text, GPS and amateur digital communication.
PAUL TOTH: [sound clip]: Its primary purpose was to create a technology for ultra-narrow banding for Part 90, Land Mobile Radio.”
JACK: Toth says this use of bandwidth is a perfect fit for digital amateur radio technology, using 6.24K per channel, a 4800 baud data rate and FDMA modulation. He said it provides audio that is cleaner and more distortion free.
PAUL TOTH: [sound clip] "You don’t have any snap, crackle” because you're decoding zeroes and ones."
JACK: Most Florida West Coast counties are using NXDN for SKYWARN activities. They have a weekly net and SKYWARN reports go directly to the National Weather Service as needed during severe weather. Other areas developing NXDN are Connecticut, Massachusetts and parts of Canada.
The conference is being held at the Hillsborough County Public Service Operations Center. For details, follow the link in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org
CREW 12 ARRIVES AT SPACE STATION
The ISS is back to its customary occupancy of seven people, following the arrival on Saturday, February 14th, of Crew 12. They are NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway, KJ5NIV and Jessica Meir, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot KJ5LTN, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.
In addition to the expected schedule of ARISS contacts, Crew-12 will be kept busy with a variety of studies, including how physical characteristics have an impact on blood flow during spaceflight -- as well as a look at on-demand intravenous fluid generation for space missions to follow.
PRESENTERS NEEDED FOR VHF SOCIETY CONFERENCE
Hams with a strong interest and some expertise in weak-signal operating on VHF, UHF and microwave are being invited to submit papers and propose presentations for the Southeastern VHF Society's next conference. Any subjects are welcome relative to RF power amplifiers, beacons, SDR, satellites, transverters, transmitters and construction projects - and that's just for starters. In general, the conference is not interested in presentations related to non-weak signal topics unless there is also some relevance to amateurs using weak signals.
Presentations can be submitted in Microsoft Word format to the email address listed in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org. [DO NOT READ: SVHFS@downeastmicrowave.com ]
The conference is taking place from the 17th through to the 19th in Macon, Georgia. Deadline for presenters' submissions is the 2nd of March. Presentations and papers are being handled by Don Woodward KD4APP.
ROBUST TEAM OF RACES HAMS ACTIVATE IN HAWAII
Hawaii's recent statewide call for hams to get more involved in RACES could not have been better timed:
RACES hams were activated on February 8th and 9th, as severe weather brought high winds, heavy rainfall, flash flooding, power outages, and hazardous surf conditions across Honolulu and the State of Hawaii. Both Governor Josh Green and Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi issued emergency proclamations to mobilize resources and protect public safety.
According to Michael Miller, KH6ML, deputy director of RACES and Assistant Section Manager, Pacific Section for the ARRL, RACES amateur radio operators were activated inside the Emergency Operations Center in support of the Department of Emergency Management, City and County of Honolulu. Additional amateur radio activity also took place through ARES and CERT activations in the field.
As trained, licensed, amateur radio volunteers, RACES hams are involved in a government-activated amateur radio service used during official emergencies, operating under local, state, or federal emergency management authorities. In Hawaii, RACES operators are a part of the state’s Emergency Management Reserve Corps, helping to keep information moving between the Emergency Operations Center and field sites.
CHILEAN HAMS RESPOND TO AN ANDES MOUNTAIN TRAGEDY
Riding horseback across the mountains each year recalls a defining moment of independence for South American nations. This year's 209th anniversary ride of the Crossing of the Andes under Jose de San Martin and the Army of the Andes, led to an emergency evacuation of one rider in early February. As the mounted expedition began its return trip home through Chile in early evening, the woman suffered a serious fall from her horse.
Writing in the Forums section of QRZ.com, Carlos Almirón, LU7DSY, said that the San Felipe Provincial Radio Club, CE2REU, sent out a call for emergency assistance through the Chilean ham radio network. The Los Molinos Radio Club of Villa Alemana, CE2CQ, provided GPS coordinates for the mountains' La Vega section. As ground resources and a helicopter were dispatched, the Los Molinos hams continued their coordination with the expeditioners through a link with the San Felipe Provincial Radio Club. The rescue teams arrived, performed CPR followed by an evacuation. It was later reported that the rider had died from her injuries while being treated at the hospital.
TINY BIRDS TRANSMIT THE SECRET OF THEIR SURVIVAL
As anyone who has ever worked a satellite - or does so regularly - working these birds, as they are known, has its rewards. A group of researchers in Australia has also been working the birds, a species known as a white-backed swallow, using temperature-sensing radio transmitters. They’ve received some great results, as we hear from John Williams VK4JJW.
JOHN: No matter which hemisphere you live in, no doubt this year has already shaped up to be a time of weather extremes. Wherever you are, you have a lot in common with the white-backed swallow, a prevalent species here in Australia with the very uncommon ability to survive despite freezing temperatures to blasting heat. We’re talking about as much as 50 degrees Celsius - that’s 122 degrees Fahrenheit - and we Australians especially can relate!
To learn how the birds survive, researchers in central Australia’s Sturt National Park outfitted some of them with tiny transmitters. This was not an avian Parks on the Air; this was a research project to monitor the birds’ physiological responses through biologging - a way to record and transmit their body temperatures’ changes as the birds slept in their burrows at night.
The result? A highly successful Worked All States of Bird Physiology. The collected data confirmed the scientists’ theory that a deep torpor - an essential near-shutdown of metabolism, heart rate and breathing - was essential for these birds, just as for some other bird species, such as the tiny hummingbirds in some regions of the world.
The results were recently published in the journal Current Biology. The scientists called the transmitters key to their findings because data could be gathered in the wild instead of an artificial setting, such as a laboratory. Hams, of course, would not be surprised at radio’s reliability. After all, the researchers HAD created a Reverse Beak Network.
CONSTRUCTION COMPETITION IN UK EYES MAKER COMMUNITY
As in previous years, the RSGB’s Construction Competition has six categories which emphasize the hands-on building and designing of projects - activities that are rooted deeply in ham radio. Organisers have introduced a new category this year - Reimagination - which still draws its challenges from radio but produces projects with an appeal to non-amateurs, such as individuals in the Maker community. The society hopes that these innovative entries will shine even more of a spotlight on what ham radio is all about.
This is an international competition. Entries can be from anywhere in the world but competitors must belong to the RSGB.
The deadline for entries is the 1st of March. For details on how to enter and for a list of the other six categories, visit rsgb.org and search for “construction competition.”
US ADVANCED CLASS OPERATORS HOST POPULAR NET
The A13 Advanced Class Preservation Society is more than a gathering of friends - it is a circle of amateur radio operators who celebrate their status as the last holders of a class of license the Federal Communications Commission stopped granting nearly 26 years ago. The holders of these licenses, which are still renewable indefinitely, created the society in 2020 as a welcoming place. It became the home of a ragchew net that operates on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on 14.213 MHz at 1700 UTC, with Scott Endsley, W5HVO, as primary net control.
Although 445 hams hold numbered certificates of membership in this group, they extend a welcome to any Advanced and Extra Class operators, as well as DX hams who would like to check in.
The elimination of the Advanced Class license was undertaken as a streamlining move - an action that created a three-license system that also removed the entry-level Novice Class.
