This is a reminder to any candidates studying for the Technician Class Exam: A new pool of questions takes effect on the 1st of July. The question pool is to be used for any Technician exams being given after that date. The ARRL and the National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators reports that all major study materials have been updated to reflect the content of the new questions, which were released earlier this year.
UNLICENSED RADIO OPERATOR GETS NEWEST WARNING FROM FCC
cting on several interference complaints from amateur radio operators in California, the US Federal Communications Commission has issued a warning to a radio operator who has a long history of unlicensed, disruptive and illegal transmissions on a local repeater.
The FCC sent a notice of unlicensed operation in late May to Jack Gerritsen of Bell, California, saying that in March, agents with direction-finding equipment had verified reports of his 2-meter transmissions on a local repeater. The FCC said that agents heard him make statements over the air, using the phrase "Jack is back," identifying himself.
Over the past two decades, Gerritsen's encounters with the the legal system and FCC have landed in him court -- and prison. He received a one-year sentence in 2000 following his conviction in state court of interfering with the highway patrol's radio system. Upon his release, he took and passed his Technician level exam, receiving the amateur radio callsign, KG6IRO. The FCC revoked the license grant days later, in November 2001, after realizing Gerritsen had been convicted of public safety interference and that the license was granted mistakenly. According to various reports, he remained an on-air presence despite that. FCC records show he was later sent a forfeiture order of $21,000 for interfering with Coast Guard Auxiliary Communications with a sailing vessel in distress.
He was convicted in September of 2006, at the age of 70, for malicious interference with radio and unlicensed transmissions. He was fined and sentenced to seven years in prison.
The latest notice from the FCC, dated the 28th of May, gives him 10 days to respond and orders him to immediately halt all transmissions.
NEW CREW BOARDS CHINA'S SPACE STATION
Astronauts from China's Shenzhou-21 mission have returned to earth just days after the three-member Shenzhou 23 crew's arrival at the Tiangong Space Station. The Shenzhou-23 mission feature a first for any Chinese astronaut: one of the crew members is scheduled for an extended stay on board - remaining there for a year. In six months, the Tiangong station crew will also welcome an astronaut from Pakistan with the launch of the Shenzhou-24 mission. The Beijing-trained crew member will be the first international astronaut to visit the Chinese space station.
Tiangong is considered an important steppingstone in China's goal to land astronauts on the moon by 2030. The US space program is in a race with China's in the hopes of returning astronauts to the lunar surface in 2028.
Meanwhile, amateur radio is already there: In 2024, Japan's ham radio station, JS1YMG, became the world's first licensed ham radio station on the lunar surface.
HAMSCI ASKS CANADA TO RECONSIDER SHORTWAVE SHUTDOWN
The citizen science investigation organization HamSCI has asked Canadian officials to halt their planned shutdown later this month of its shortwave time-signal station CHU, saying it has unique and irreplaceable value to researchers and the international scientific community.
A statement on HamSCI's website praises CHU for its longstanding role as a resource in auroral research. Its unprecedented citizen-science study of the 2024 solar eclipse over North America also relied heavily on CHU's capabilities.
The statement says, in part: [quote] "The use of time standard beacons as ionospheric signals of opportunity dates back more than a century to the earliest days of radio science. Today, this time-tested approach is supercharged by inexpensive single-board computers, software defined radios, and the participation of the global amateur radio and shortwave listener community, who have built a growing meta-instrument that spans the continent of North America and points beyond." [endquote]
HamSCI’s flagship project, the Personal Space Weather Station Network, is also closely intertwined with CHU and its remote-sensing capabilities.
There was no statement released in response by the recipient, Dr. Marina Gertsvoff of the NRC.
THINK THIS IS FOR THE BIRDS? BINGO!
OK, bird-watchers, it's time to wing it. There is no real competition here, no sponsors or rules and no entry fees. You just need an antenna and a bingo card. Yes, a bingo card.
Thanks to Sean Borgerson, KK7OVF, creator of Bird Chaser Bingo, hams began their sky-high pursuit in May and expect to continue through to the 31st of August. Each participant registers and receives a bingo card filled with squares that they need to complete by fulfilling their summer-themed operating tasks and satellite-related objectives. There are opportunities to score big at this game in different ways and--by the way--it's not cheating if you use social media to help other players find activity.
Complete your bingo card and submit it no later than the 15th of September.
The website for cards and all information is borgersons.com - spelled "b o r g e r s o n s dot com"
Now, every operator who submits a completed card will get a certificate and will be acknowledged for different levels of bingo achievements.
So if you think birding is only for wildlife enthusiasts, think again -- but if you think this is the season for bird-chasing........Bingo!!
ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD FESTIVAL SEEKS PRESENTERS
The Electromagnetic Field festival is sold out. The nonprofit community camping event will turn a field in Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Herefordshire, into a true field day between the 16th and the 19th of July. Already the scientists, engineers, blacksmiths and crafters have been making their plans.
So too have the amateur radio operators in the field and on the air throughout the event as special event station GB26EMF based in the AMSAT-UK/British Amateur Television Club Village. Among the 4,000 on site, any licensed hams will be welcome to get on the air.
Despite the sold-out tickets, organisers still have room for adventurous presenters wanting to provide entertainment by singing, showing films or providing music on their own homemade instruments. Clever installations are also welcome. Previous years have featured a robotic spider, a radioactive xylophone and an upside-down campfire. If your proposals for entertainment, workshops or installations are accepted, you are welcome to enjoy the rest of the festival. See the links in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org to submit a proposal or to get more information about the AMSAT Village.
HAMVENTION CELEBRATES ATTENDANCE BY 38,000 GUESTS
The official count: 37,924 visitors to Hamvention and more than 600 volunteers. That's what made the weekend the success it was, along with the exhibitors and the flea market vendors, according to Brian Markland, general chairman, who made the announcement just days after closing day on May 17th. He said in a statement: [quote] "I could not be more proud of what we accomplished together." [endquote]
Get ready for Hamvention 2027. Opening day is May 21st and that's less than a year away!
LICW CLUB OFFERS FREE CW TRAINING FOR FIELD DAY
Field Day will bring the single largest on-air event for ham radio operators in the US and Canada on the weekend of June 27th and 28th. It is a weekend for training, preparedness and practice for all hams - and for some CW operators it can be a little bit daunting. Free Field Day CW prep classes are being offered throughout the month by the Long Island CW Club, which hopes the sessions will put more confident CW operators into the mix.
The free sessions are open to all CW operators at all levels of proficiency, not just members of the LICW club. The sessions will explain ways to listen and send, common abbreviations used, the Field Day exchange itself and - perhaps just as importantly - how to operate with confidence.
The instructor-led sessions begin on the 1st of June and will be held live in the club's public Zoom meeting room.
To see the schedule of classes and read more details about the instruction, visit the link in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org
HALL OF FAME INDUCTS NEWSLINE'S JIM DAMRON N8TMW
We here at Amateur Radio Newsline would like to share a proud moment - truly an honor for one of our own. Anchor and correspondent Jim Damron N8TMW, is one of seven broadcast professionals being inducted into the West Virginia Broadcasting Hall of Fame. Jim, who has also been a stage and movie actor, has served in a variety of roles in broadcast radio, including DJ, program director and station manager. He is also known for his voice-over work. The induction ceremony will be in October. Jim, congratulations from all of your teammates here at Amateur Radio Newsline who know how deserving you are.
13 COLONIES EVENT RETURNS WITH CHANGES
Ahead of its 18th year of operation, the 13 Colonies Event organizers will change distribution methods for certificates for making contacts with stations in the original colonies, as well as England, France, and Philadelphia.
Bob Josuweit WA3PZO, is managing director of the newly formed 501c3 charitable organization, 13 Colonies Amateur Radio Association
He says the group has decided to simplify and speed-up the process: the certificates can now be downloaded, once ordered on the 13 Colonies website or sent by traditional mail to a US Post Office box.
You'll still have to prove you made the contacts. Josuweit says a database will be available on the website to help you to verify those contacts. If you prefer, you can continue to fill out a paper log or print out your individual log from your computer and mail it.
Bob told Newsline that this year’s QSL cards will pay tribute to the 250th anniversary of America’s birth and the Declaration of Independence.
BOB: “This year we’re featuring on most cards a theme of where the Declaration of Independence was first read in their particular state.”
MARK: He says Philadelphia played a huge role as the birthplace of American liberty, and that city's WM3PEN station QSL card will honor that history.
BOB: “Since the Declaration was created here, we’re actually showing a picture of the assembly room in Independence Hall where the Declaration was written and voted upon.”
MARK: There is more for stations contacting WM3PEN in Philadelphia. He says the city is among major US cities hosting a series of World Cup soccer tournament matches through July and there will be on-the-air recognition of that event as well.
BOB WA3PZO: “Those stations working WM3PEN in Philadelphia will be able to get two QSL cards – one for the soccer event and one for 13 Colonies. So, two cards for the price of one contact.”
Check out all the latest developments at the 13 Colonies website available in the text version of this story on our website, A-R Newsline-dot-O-R-G.
DOUBLE THE CELEBRATION FOR AMATEURS IN GIBRALTAR
The ZB2 prefix made its appearance with the first amateur radio licence issued in 1946 by officials in Gibraltar. Ham radio was born. Thirty years later, an organisation took shape for the growing community of hams there: The Gibraltar Amateur Radio Society.
The society is marking its 50th anniversary by hosting an exhibit, "Echoes from the Rock," at a local cultural center, John MacKintosh Hall. The exhibit tells of ham radio's awakening in the post-war years on the rocky Iberian peninsula. What had begun with tinkering and experimentation in those early radio years became a blessing to families in Gibraltar cut off from their relatives on the other side of the border in Spain during the years when the border, and conventional communication, was closed. During this era, in 1976, the Gibraltar Amateur Radio Society, ZB2BU, was founded after two smaller clubs merged to create a larger, more powerful group. The newly formed society gave Gibraltar a voice as a member of the International Amateur Radio Union.
The history exhibit will showcase old and modern-day radio in Gibraltar, celebrating 50 years of the club with a special event station, ZB2FTY operating from the exhibit itself and from club headquarters. The exhibit closes on the 29th of May.
BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR SABLE ISLAND QSL CARDS
If you are one of the 103,145 contacts made by the CYØS team in March from Canada's Sable Island and you're waiting for your QSL card, your wait is almost over.
Team member Murray WA4DAN announced on the DX World website that printing is about to begin on the elaborate double-fold, six-panel cards. Mailings are expected to begin sometime in early June.
Contacts were made with 169 DXCC entities from the Sable Island station, which was 100 percent solar-powered. The team went QRT on the 31st of March.
CANADA TAKES TIME-KEEPING SHORTWAVE STATION OFF THE AIR
Canadian shortwave station CHU is scheduled to go off the air on the 22nd of June. The station delivers the nation's official time from a transmitter site southwest of Ottawa, broadcasting on 3.33, 7.85 and 14.67 MHz, allowing listeners in Canada and around the world to synchronize their clocks on Coordinated Universal Time. The service is run by the National Research Council and transmits the time via digital voice in English and French.
The time-signal radio station makes use of atomic clocks on the premises, which are checked against atomic clocks based at the council headquarters.
Canada first began transmitting the time under the CHU callsign in 1938. The station began its transmissions earlier in the decade as VE9OB. Its announcements are in Coordinated Universal Time, a change made in 1990 after decades of transmitting in Eastern Standard Time.
In making the announcement of the station's shutdown, the NRC said that official time-keeping will be delivered instead by three more modern methods - via its telephone talking clock and, using the Internet via its Network Time Protocol and its web clock.
COLORADO STUDENT CLUB FINDS ITS VOICE ON THE AIR
The ARRL School Club Roundup was a way of life for Chris WRØTE when he was teaching high school chemistry in Vermont. For half of his 40 years at the school, he also worked with students who belonged to the school's amateur radio club, K1BBS. The effort paid off big in February of 2014 when K1BBS became the top-scorer in the senior high school category.
Now retired, Chris lives in Colorado where he is the education director for the Estes Valley Amateur Radio Club. He is also one of the control operators for WØEPS, a student club that got its start at the Estes Park Middle School a few years ago. One of the teachers had asked the hams to get the kids involved in radio.
"Involved" doesn't even begin to describe it. The young teenagers now have several ARRL School Club Roundups to their credit but as Chris told Newsline, they don't really need an excuse to get on the air. In one recent week, he said, a total of 58 students in 6th- through 8th-grade logged 113 contacts in 29 states and 2 Canadian provinces. You can find them most of the time on 10 metres, if it's open; otherwise try contacting them on the 20-metre band.
Chris told Newsline [quote] "The secret to getting students on the air is exactly that ... get the kids on the air. Ham Radio is not a 'demonstration' activity ... it's a participation activity. Sit them down ... put a mic in their hands ... have them call CQ ... and see what happens." [endquote]
What happens is deceptively simple: The kids find their way in radio and they also find their voice. In Estes Park, they're not waiting around for another School Club Roundup to make things happen - but when it does arrive, they'll be ready. Whenever they key the mic, these kids already feel like champions.
STUDENT JOINS SOUTH GEORGIA ISLAND DXPEDITION TEAM
Even before they set foot on South Georgia island, the VPØSG DXpedition team has already fulfilled one of its objectives. They have added Megan EI5LA, a 19-year-old engineering student from University College Cork, as the third and final young operator.
Megan joins Violetta KN2P and Leon DL3ON for next year's trip. There are now 16 operators from North America and Europe who hope to get on the air from this coveted DX next year.
Megan, who has been a ham since 2021, is involved in the EI7M contest team and has a particular focus on high-level multi-operator events and CW contesting. She is active in Youngsters on the Air in Region 1.
The team announced her addition, reaffirming its commitment to helping mentor the next generation of operators and encourage a robust future for DXpeditions.
HAMS REMEMBER VICTIMS OF HISTORIC PENNSYLVANIA FLOOD
The communities surrounding Johnstown, Pennsylvania do not forget the lives that were swept away by floodwaters unleashed after the collapse of a nearby dam. The numbers speak for themselves: A rush of twenty million tons of water. Fatalities numbering two thousand two hundred and nine -- among them, ninety-nine whole families.
Remembering that catastrophe on the 31st of May, one-hundred thirty-seven years ago, the Cambria Radio Club WA3WGN will be on the air again this year with the special event callsign N3N from the 30th of May through to the 5th of June.
For hams in this flood-prone river valley, it is a very personal special-event activation and a sad chapter in regional history. There have been other floods since - notably in 1936 and 1977- but neither compared to this deadly moment, one that is marked now by a national memorial in the heart of the city and a special-event station by amateur radio operators who know the landscape well.
HELPING GIRL GUIDES EARN LICENSES IN THE CARIBBEAN
When the summer holidays arrive in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, many members of the Girl Guides in Georgetown will change from classroom students to amateur radio students. The Youlou Amateur Radio Association has a training session planned, enabling Girl Guides and other students to prepare to take their ham radio licence exam.
For many of the Girl Guides, this will be their second encounter with amateur radio. In early May, 32 Girl Guides got their introduction to radio science and the radio experience with the help of association president James Codrington J88JC and past president Don De Riggs J88CD. The girls learned how two-way radios work and participated in a simulated disaster drill using hand-held radios within the school compound.
The radio session in Georgetown was the latest the ham association has conducted for Girl Guides. Education is a big part of the mission behind the Youlou amateur group, which also provides vital services in emergency communication.
NETS OF NOTE: NEW NET AT THE AWA COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY MUSEUM
As part of our occasional series, "Nets of Note," we look at a newly created net based at the AWA Communications Technology Museum in upstate New York. You'd expect a group like the Antique Wireless Association W2AN to recommend using only vintage equipment but that's not the case: Steve Sykes KD2OM told Newsline that the SSB net even allows modern equipment as well. The net takes place on Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Eastern Daylight time on 14.265 MHz, plus or minus 5 kHz.
Everyone is welcome - and encouraged to check in - and topics for discussion are open.
INNOVATIVE TRAILER MAKES DEBUT AT HAMVENTION
The Porter County Amateur Radio Club in Valparaiso, Indiana, received grant funding last year from Amateur Radio Digital Communications to build a coordinated communications system with its sister club, the neighboring Ogden Dunes Fire Department Amateur Radio Club. Part of that plan involved building a communications trailer. The project also involved connecting the HF radios to an Internet-based youth network as part of the outreach program.
Club president Mike Lambertino W9ML described the original concept for the project. He told Newsline: [quote] “The driving force behind the trailer is youth, STEM, and community outreach, getting the trailer out in the community and helping where we can. We do have interoperability and the alliance with the neighboring fire department to help expand our communications abilities to assist where needed.” [endquote]
Volunteers designed and built out the trailer using significant donations and discounts on equipment and supplies since the trailer's delivery last September.
Mike said that the trailer received between 250 and 400 visitors - among them were members of the ARDC committee. He said the trailer drew a lot of very positive comments, especially from members of the ARDC who said they were happy to see the results, calling it a model on which to base other trailer builds.
Learn more about the club at www.K9PC.club. For Amateur Radio Newsline.
SILENT KEY: MARATHON VOLUNTEER, LIMARC OFFICER, JERRY ABRAMS, WB2ZEX
Jerry Abrams, WB2ZEX, was as devoted to public service as he was to his fellow amateurs during his long and active involvement with ham radio.
Jerry became a Silent Key following a heart attack on the 28th of March.
Jerry made his half-century membership with the Long Island Mobile Amateur Radio Club an active and devoted membership. His different roles included treasurer, membership chairman and, for a time, newsletter editor. He also assisted families of Silent Keys with clearing the contents of the shacks those hams left behind. According to the club, over the years his efforts led families to receive more than $100,000 from equipment being rehomed. The Ham Radio University organizing committee also knew him to be a reliable and capable member.
Jerry took public service seriously, first as a member of an ambulance corps in Brooklyn and later providing communications support for a number of ARES groups throughout New York City and on Long Island. He also provided radio support for the annual New York City Marathon. The New York Road Runners, the group behind the race, inducted him into their Volunteer Hall of Fame in 2022 for his years of service.
Jerry was 78.
