Your Custom Text Here
Registration has opened for the Zero Retries Digital Conference in San Ramon, California, where
technology enthusiasts, experimenters, engineers and ham radio operators will explore emerging technologies and digital communications. The conference will be held on Friday the 16th of October at the Roundhouse Conference Center. This is its second year.
For programming details or to register, visit the link in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org
The Amateur Radio Society of Bangladesh hopes to add the voices of satellite enthusiasts around the globe to their own call for an amateur radio transponder aboard the nation's second satellite.
While the Bangladesh Satellite-2 is still in the planning stages, the radio society has applied to the Bangladesh Satellite Company Limited for the dedicated amateur radio payload. A petition is currently being circulated, asking for others to stress the importance of getting it approved. The transponder could be used for ham radio communication, emergency and disaster communication and technical education and experimentation.
The satellite is intended to be an Earth observation satellite and it would be the nation's second satellite to be launched. The radio society believes that a petition, adding the voices of the international ham radio community, would underscore the need for the transponder.
To see the petition, visit the link in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org
[DO NOT READ: https://s21arsb.com/international-petiton-support
Calling it "unacceptable" and "overbearing," local councillors have denied a Kirkcaldy homeowner's proposal for a ham radio mast standing 11-meters, or 36 feet, tall.
Krzysztof Swierczynski MMØIMU had applied for authorisation several months ago, telling the Council that he would only raise the mast to its full height when he needed to use it. He said in a statement: [quote] “Amateur radio is a nationally and internationally recognised technical hobby which promotes engineering skills, experimentation and international communication, and can provide valuable emergency communications when required.” [endquote]
Councillors rejected the mast as unsuitable for a residential area, saying its impact on neighbouring homes and rear gardens would be "overbearing" and beyond the character of the area.
The ham defended his application, saying it supports lawful ham radio activity. The website, Fife Today, quoted him as saying: [quote] "These roles are acknowledged in the Scottish Government’s national planning guidance which supports reasonable development by licensed radio amateurs." [endquote]
An investigation by South Africa's communications regulator has identified a business that authorities believe disrupted a number of amateur radio repeaters throughout the province of Gauteng. According to media reports, the illegal interference on the band between 430 MHz and 440 MHz was determined to have come from commercial radio equipment.
The nation's regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, said it has traced the interference to a business in the city of Germiston in the East Rand region of Gauteng.
News reports said that the regulator received help from volunteers of the South African Radio League's HAMNET Gauteng division. According to various reports, the HAMNET operators began tracking the transmissions in response to reports from amateurs trying to use the repeaters in the East Rand.
The regulator has not released the name of the company publicly due to legal proceedings under way.
This school project isn't one for the books. It's one for the radios! As students prepare for the start of the academic year, plans are moving forward to expand the amateur radio program at Harbor Creek High School near the city of Erie. The student ham radio club, KC3SGV, has received a grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications to outfit a new radio center that will be the gathering spot for the after-school club. During the day, the center will serve as a laboratory for wireless technology classes where students can experiment with digital modes, test antennas and engage in ham radio contests. The station is designed to operate on-site as well as remotely.
This is only the latest project for this active ham radio group. In December of 2023, the students had a direct QSO with astronaut Andreas Mogensen KG5GCZ aboard the International Space Station using antennas and radio systems that they developed, built, and installed themselves.
Club members and leaders are hoping to spread the excitement about the radio lab by documenting everything they do, while establishing this new resource so other schools in the area can see how to set up or expand their own amateur radio programs.
The Federal Communications Commission has given a Texas satellite communications company until the 12th of September to complete its trial use of the 800 MHz spectrum for direct-to-device cellular broadband service. AST SpaceMobile has been operating under a 30-day permit for delivery to mobile phones in Lanham [LANNUM], Maryland and near its own Midland, Texas headquarters. The direct-to-device trial is being run with consumers' everyday phones.
The regulator granted the approval in April for AST to use frequencies between 817MHz and 824MHz for uplink and between 862MHz and 869MHz for downlink. AST SpaceMobile has strategic partnerships with cellular providers Verizon and AT&T.
The Texas startup company is a rival of SpaceX, which operates the StarLink satellite constellation, which is also involved in direct-to-device operations. AST SpaceMobile stirred controversy earlier this year after the FCC granted it limited use of part of the secondary amateur band between 430 and 440 MHz for emergency telemetry, tracking and control of its satellites. The FCC has said in the past that interference with ham radio was “unlikely.”
The heroes will be celebrated while the victims will be mourned and remembered as members of the Alabama Contest Group return with special event station K4A and the message, "9/11, We Do Remember."
The group has organized this year’s event, as it has every year, since those are memories meant to be shared as a community. From the 9th through the 13th of September, volunteer operators will be calling CQ and will be listening for stories and memories of that day, the heroism and the heartbreak.
There will be a commemorative QSL card and a full-color certificate at the end of the event. The Smoke Signals newsletter will also be publishing many of the stories that operators hear during their contacts as K4A operators.
Operators will be on all bands using SSB, CW, RTTY, and FT8.
If this date has a special meaning for you, consider joining the team of activators. You can send an email to Bob WA1FCN at wa1fcn@charter.net
For other details, visit the K4A page on QRZ.com
April 21, 2023 was a proud day for Margie Anderson and David Boynton of Phoenix, Arizona. Mother and son received their ham radio licenses that day after studying together and testing successfully together. Now they were no longer just a family; they were an amateur radio team. Togetherness prevailed once more a short time later as they studied and upgraded from Technician Class to General.
Then, Margie, KK7MGK, and David, KK7MGJ, discovered DXing the same way they discovered amateur radio - together. That's when things changed - and the race was on. Her HF rig and a flagpole antenna was putting her on the map of the world, news she shared with her son who, is working hard to keep up with his mom's DX record."
While many mothers like to promise their sons and daughters the world, it soon became apparent that David was going to have to work hard to get his own piece of the planet.
For now, however, David can take comfort in one thing. Their FCC licenses put him in front of mom in one respect. His callsign ends in "J." Mom's ends in "K." So he will always be one letter ahead.
AMSAT-Canada has begun offering memberships to help promote amateur radio in space. The organisation recently celebrated the designation of MARMOTSat, a university-built CubeSat, as Canada's first official OSCAR designated satellite.
AMSAT-Canada hopes to continue its development and promotion of satellites and amateur radio and is preparing for a major role in the futureGEO project. The European Space Agency initiative is intended to provide digital and multi-mode satellite coverage for amateur radio in Europe and parts of North America.
Full membership and affiliate membership are both available on an annual basis. For membership benefit details and other information, visit the link in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org
Some of the newest licensed hams in West Bengal, India, got to put their privileges to the test recently during a disaster management communication drill in Kolkata.
Although this was a mock disaster, the exercise placed the same demands on the radio operators that they would face during a real crisis. They had to quickly set up 10 temporary stations and establish communication with one another.
Ambarish Nag Biswas, VU2JFA, secretary of the West Bengal Radio Club. said that classes had been held before the drill so that the hams could be confident in knowing every procedure necessary - from checking the radios, cables and antennas, to measuring and ensuring an acceptable SWR.
The August 9th drill was was attended by officers from the National Disaster Response Force of the Indian government; the Disaster Management Officers from the state of West Bengal; Civil Defence volunteers; and the local municipality - all of whom, no doubt, may one day need the skills of these new hams if disaster strikes.
Astronauts Anil Menon and Sophie Adenot KJ5LTN teamed up outside the ISS for some lengthy and delicate antenna work early on Tuesday the 18th of August. Their spacewalk focused on swapping out a space-to-ground antenna, a task that was covered live on NASA's website and the European Space Agency's YouTube channel.
Like its predecessor, the new high-speed data and communications antenna was to provide a vital connection between the ISS and NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston. However, the pair ran out of time: Removing the failed antenna took longer than expected. Fortunately, the ISS has two of these antennas so communication can proceed normally even though the replacement is not in place. Another spacewalk is on the schedule for Tuesday, August 25th but it's not clear whether the new antenna will be installed then.
The VK9XY Youth DXpedition to Christmas Island in November has gained support from the Northern California DX Foundation. The foundation announced in early August that it was giving a grant for the 18-day activation, which is being planned, led and operated by young operators. Eight of the DXpeditioners will be on the island and another 30 or 40 will operate remotely from around the world using two radio-in-a-box stations paid for by the foundation.
The team expects to be calling CW around the 16th of November.
The action behind the scenes is already very intense for the 20 DXpeditioners from Brazil, Ecuador, Japan, the United States and Bosnia & Herzegovina. They plan to activate Koh Rong Island, off the Cambodian coast, operating all the major modes around the clock for 10 days in November of 2027.
Providing a preview on the YouTube channel of the Sao Paulo chapter of the Liga de Amadores Brasileiros de Rádio Emissão, the DXpedition's leadership confirmed said that things are moving forward. They learned in June from the Cambodian telecommunications regulator that their licence would be granted soon. Although they have found the bureaucracy challenging, access to the site itself is expected to be simple: They will navigate to the island by water taxi. The team's HF antennas will benefit from being near the salt water.
Expectations are high. Both Mario PY2DV and Alex, PY2WAS, said they expected to surpass the QSO count of 50,000 from last year's Galapagos HD8G activation,
The interview, in Portuguese, can be found on the YouTube channel of LABRE-SP.
Few things are more powerful than the combined presence of two fellowships. Next week, many in the worldwide amateur radio community are going to church. They are calling CQ on the second Saturday of September, just as they first did in 2013. The popular event, Churches and Chapels on the Air, has its roots with the Huddersfield South Methodist Radio Club, G3LQK. It was there that the Rev. Arthur W. Shepherd, G3NGF, created an organisation that later came to be known as the World Association of Christian Amateurs and Listeners, an ecumenical group with the callsign M1CRA.
So many years later, the tradition continues. Outside the same venue in communities where congregants often bring their faith and their prayers, hams will be setting up portable stations on the 12th of September, from 10 am to 4 pm local time.
Event organisers are encouraging amateurs radio operators to talk to their vicars, ministers and church elders and request permission to activate there for the day. In some years, churches have even permitted antennas to be installed temporarily on their towers. Stations are encouraged to register for the one-day event. An email address for registration - and the event website - can be found in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org
How do you activate all 61 POTA-designated parks in the state of Rhode Island? You plan a POTA "activation-a-thon" - which is what Rhode Island Parks on the Air is calling the three-day event next month. This is a formal, organized challenge by the community-based group, which has its own website and schedule of activations, encouraging all US and DX stations to work as many of the parks as possible. The activity will be focused on September 11th, 12th and 13th but some operators will be on the air as early as the 10th.
Those watching the action will be able to monitor a realtime dashboard of who is on the air and see what parks will be activated next.
Visit the website r i p o t a.org for details or, if you happen to be in Rhode Island that weekend, be sure to register.
In a statement that has been stirring global controversy, the POTA board has said that it has begun a review of thousands of French ZNIEFF-recognised parks which, according to board members, may not be qualified to continue under POTA's rules. The statement explained that the board is looking at the "legal and administrative authority behind the designation," which is the core argument behind the review. ZNIEFF, which stands for Zone Naturelle 'Intérêt Écologique, Faunistique et Floristique, is a national designation given to ecologically important sites featuring biodiversity.
According to the statement, if a park loses its designation, activations that have already taken place will remain credited for both hunters and chasers. The POTA board said, however, it has no intention of continuing to maintain former status for any parks that do not meet POTA's eligibility. The statement said: [quote] "Historical operating credit can be preserved without requiring an ineligible reference to remain active indefinitely." [endquote]
POTA said that France is not being singled out, as some public statements have suggested. Although different nations have different government frameworks and manage their parks differently, other countries' parks could likewise come under the same scrutiny. The board said that [quote] "the challenge is making sure that growth occurs within a framework that can be applied fairly and sustainably around the world." [endquote]
The upload wasn't simple: The update had to travel 13 billion miles through deep space. When it reached its destination at NASA's Voyager 2, it went to work, deactivating some of the probe's higher-powered scientific instruments and substituting methods that consume less power. NASA said in a statement that conserving power means Voyager 2's instruments can continue operating for another year, if not longer. The probe has been on the job since its launch in 1977. NASA estimates that Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, now have about two-thirds of their original reserves of power which is drawn from radioisotope thermoelectric generators.
The software update mission, which NASA calls "Big Bang," isn't quite over yet. Voyager 1 is up next, and it's even farther away from Earth. In fact, in November it will have traveled the distance of one light-day. That means the update will need to travel 16 billion miles, or 26 billion kilometres, and hopefully won't need on-site tech support.
Emergency response and emergency preparedness go hand-in-hand when it comes to public events, and facing a busy calendar of sports matches, celebrations and public events throughout the region, Red Cross Southeastern Pennsylvania disaster operators reached out to even more local hams than ever. Members of the Philadelphia Amateur Radio Emergency Service were, of course, there as always, serving as partners in communication, but the Red Cross extended its call for assistance to other ARES groups. According to a recent blog on the American Red Cross website, the call for help cast an even wider net and hams from the nearby counties of Delaware, Chester, Montgomery and Bucks answered that call. The Red Cross and the ARES teams gained additional support from the many amateurs who belong to the Red Cross Disaster Services Technology team, led by Cliff Hotchkiss KC3PGT.
This was especially critical on the 22nd of June when the FIFA World Cup came to the Philadelphia Stadium - and it was true for the five matches that followed in that host city. Cliff said that there were concerns that the size of the crowd at the stadium could overload and interrupt cellular communication.
As the Red Cross noted in its blog: [quote]: "Their mission was simple but important: ensure reliable communications remained available if emergency responders and Red Cross teams needed them." [endquote]
Many hams who have wanted to get more out of their antennas - or simply learn more about them - no doubt turned to the words and writings of John Portune, W6NBC. The retired KNBC TV broadcast engineer, an experimenter and an innovator, was always generous with his time and wisdom on the subject.
John became a Silent Key on the 6th of July. Born in 1938, he had been a ham since 1965.
The Los Angeles, California native was a frequent presence - either via Zoom or in person - at club meetings and ham expos needing his expertise on everything from mag loop antennas to stealth antennas that went undetected by homeowner associations.
He was a prolific writer, with bylines in QST and On the Air magazine to his credit. He was also the author of a number of books, including "Slot Antennas for Ham Radio: the Forgotten Antenna." Many hams turned to John for his advice on how to get on the air from homes in communities governed by home owner associations' antenna restrictions. He was also known for hosting informal Monday morning chats on Zoom, open sessions where friends gathered to compare notes and, of course, ask questions. Or, as John wrote on his website: "Just fun."
John was 88.
MARMOTSat, a CubeSat built by students and researchers at the University of Victoria's Centre for Aerospace Research in British Columbia, was launched in early July. It is now known as Canada OSCAR 128. OSCAR is an acronym for Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio. Its mission is to study the ionosphere to gain deeper knowledge of how people's actions affect climate change. It will take measurements using transionospheric sounding.
The OSCAR designation is a significant one. It comes as AMSAT Canada takes its place as an AMSAT affiliate and begins inviting members to help grow the organisation. AMSAT Canada was incorporated as a nonprofit in late 2023 and is the 28th affiliate of the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. More details can be found on its official website. Find a link in the text version of this week's newscast script at arnewsline.org
