CQ magazine is calling on FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Kris Monteith to move swiftly to name a successor to Riley
Hollingsworth, K4ZDH, as Special Counsel for Amateur Radio, and to bring FCC enforcement back to the ham bands.

LANCASTER - Antennas stood eight feet into the air off of many car roofs in the parking lot of the Lancaster and Fairfield County Amateur Radio Club on Thursday night. The club has been in existence in Fairfield County since its first charter meeting in 1960, and the members have been volunteering their communication skills with many organizations in the county during the years. The radio operators offer communications assistance to the Fairfield County Emergency Management Agency, the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office and the Fairfield County chapter of the American Red Cross - just to name a few. They [...] Continue Reading…

New Online (French and English) Ham Magazine!

Webster City Police Chief Mike McConnell has done something few people can lay claim to: talking to a person on the International Space Station (ISS). McConnell accomplished the feat in October when he made radio contact with space tourist Richard Garriott while he was aboard the ISS. McConnell was interested in contacting Garriott because both he and Garriott operate amateur radios (also known as “ham radios”). “Within the ham radio community it was big news that ham radio operator Richard Garriott was up on the international space station and we were aware that one of his main goals was [...] Continue Reading…

KN4LF Propagation Forecast #2008-33:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — An Anchorage pediatrician died after a snowmobile slammed into his dog sled during a mushing excursion in northwest Alaska. Alaska State Troopers said 53-year-old Roger Gollub was killed in the crash Wednesday night a few miles from the town of Kotzebue. A local woman riding in the sled, Tracy Schaeffer, was severely injured and was in critical condition Thursday after she was flown to a hospital in Anchorage. Her husband, Chuck Schaeffer, said she broke all the ribs on one side and had to undergo heart surgery and removal of her spleen. Gollub, a native [...] Continue Reading…

Here’s your chance to say “thank you” to the reporter who released the
best stories about Amateur Radio between December 3, 2007 and December
8, 2008 — nominate them for the Leonard Award! This annual ARRL award
honors a professional journalist whose outstanding coverage in TV,
radio, print or multimedia best reflects the enjoyment, importance and
public service value of Amateur Radio.

Thomas C. Jednacz, W7QF, of Dunnellon,
Florida, passed away November 17 from complications from lupus. He was
68. An ARRL member and an avid DXer and contester, Jednacz founded the
Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society (ARLS) with Jim Weidner, K2JXW, in 2000.

On November 10,
Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) announced that Industry Canada, which
regulates Amateur Radio in that country, has accepted an RAC proposal
for selected Canadian radio amateurs to operate in the vicinity of 500
kHz. The proposal states that RAC would recommend amateurs who would be
licensed to operate in the 504-509 kHz band with a maximum power of 20 W
ERP and bandwidth up to 1 kHz. Stations operating in this band would be
technically operating under Special Developmental Licenses, although
they would all be radio amateurs.

The Global ALE High Frequency Network (HFN) — an
international Amateur Radio Service organization of ham operators
dedicated to emergency/relief radio communications — has become the
first network to operate continuously for more than 500 days on all
international Amateur Radio shortwave bands simultaneously.

On November 15, Amateur Radio operators who serve the National Weather
Service in Taunton, Massachusetts received an award from the NWS weather
forecasters citing excellence in service and “tireless service” to the
NWS and to the people of Southern New England. Presented at a SKYWARN
coordinators meeting, the award was accepted by Rob Macedo, KD1CY, on
behalf of the more than 24 hams present. Macedo is the ARES SKYWARN
Coordinator for the NWS’s Taunton office and is the ARRL Eastern
Massachusetts Section Emergency Coordinator.

For the second time this year, a group of residents has asked the Penn Township Zoning Hearing Board to rescind a permit that allows one of their neighbors to have a ham radio tower and antenna on his property. Last Thursday, the board heard testimony from amateur radio operator Charles Mills and neighbors who are contesting the township’s decision to grant him a permit for his tower. In July, the board ruled that the township improperly issued a permit Mills to build an amateur radio tower in his Regola Drive back yard after the neighbors appealed it. According to [...] Continue Reading…

The communications outage on Wednesday, Nov. 12, prevented people from calling outside the North Fork Valley. Local phone service within Paonia, Hotchkiss, Crawford and Somerset was still available, but most cellular service was down as were pagers, the Internet and most importantly, 911 dispatch. With the outage, local law enforcement, fire departments and town staff mobilized to handle the situation. Most people who failed to reach 911 did call their town hall or local police to report their emergency. It was then radioed to Delta County dispatch. The outage was caused by a fiber optic cable cut near Payne [...] Continue Reading…

An out of this world school activity has seen 21 students from a small Wairarapa school become the first Kiwis ever to make contact with the International Space Station via amateur radio. An American astronaut on board the space station, Mike Fincke, got a call on Thursday night from some Featherston children. “We’re on the International Space Station, we’re about 360 kilometres above the earth, travelling about 26,000 kilometres an hour, which is very fast by the way,” Fincke said. The 21 lucky pupils from St Teresa’s school have become the first New Zealanders to ever reach out and [...] Continue Reading…

The Director General of the NSW Department of Lands has written to the WIA upholding the Departments decision to impose a $367 fee (CPI indexed and subject to 5 yearly review) for each amateur radio facility located on NSW Crown Land. The WIA wrote to the Director General in August arguing for special consideration for communications facilities maintained by small amateur radio clubs, and highlighting the strategic community resource that amateur radio communications facilities provide during emergencies. In the Departments reply, (below), the Director General advises that the site rental fees are prescribed under NSW State legislation, and cannot [...] Continue Reading…

The following is a Q-S-T. Hams respond to the Southern California firestorms, C-Q calls on the FCC to appoint a replacement for rules enforcer Riley Hollingsworth, more tower problems for hams in the U-S and the case of the booby-trapped repeater jammer in the UK. Find out the details on Amateur Radio Newsline report number 1632 coming your way right now.

Although they would prefer no regulation, members of a local amateur radio relay organization told Ruidoso planning and zoning commissioners they agree with proposed wording changes to an ordinance governing antennae design. Commissioners took no action, asking that drawings be submitted to help them understand the size of the antennae to be allowed in comparison to houses and trees. Wayne Greaves, president of Sierra Blanca Amateur Radio Club, told commissioners at their meeting earlier this month the existing ordinance regulations for residential areas are overly and unnecessarily restrictive. “I have not seen one ordinance more stringent than Ruidoso’s. As [...] Continue Reading…

The man who wrote “Scratchi” for CQ magazine is a Silent Key. George H. Floyd, Jr., WA4DGA (ex-W2RYT), of Lynchburg, Virginia, entertained thousands of
his fellow hams for more than two decades — between 1947 and 1971 — writing as a politically-incorrect (by today’s standards) Japanese-American ham with
fractured English and contorted spelling. He wrote from “Feenix, Ariz.,” began each column with “Deer Hon. Ed.,” and regularly skewered the pomposity and poor
operating practices he encountered on the air. He passed away November 22 at the age of 91.

Former ARRL President George Wilson, W4OYI, became a Silent Key today,
according to family.

Featherston’s Caitlin Austin has had the rare privilege of speaking to a Nasa astronaut as he floated hundreds of kilometres above the Earth. Caitlin, 12, was one of 21 pupils involved in a question and answer session with Nasa astronaut Mike Fincke, sent from their classroom at Featherston’s St Theresa School to the International Space Station over ham radio yesterday. It took the school two years to organise the 10-minute session - which is how long the space station stays above Australia and New Zealand - and they had not studied outer space since last year.