Friday, July 27, 2012

Amateur Radio Newsline Report 1824 - July 27 2012







Amateur Radio Newsline report number 1824 with a release
date of July 27 2012 to follow in 5-4-3-2-1.

The following is a Q-S-T. The International Amateur Radio
Union to vote on admitting two new members; Solar Cycle 24
heats up with a massive East coast VHF band opening; the
London 2012 Olympics ham radio stations take to the air and
four new ham radio CubeSats go skyward. Find out the
details are on Amateur Radio NewslineT report number 1824
coming your way right now.


(Billboard Cart Here)


**

HAM POLITICS: IARU VOTING ON TWO PROPOSED NEW MEMBERS

The International Amateur Radio Union could have two new
members before years end. Amateur Radio Newsline's Heather
Butera-Howell, KB3TZD, is here with the details:

--

The Federation of Radio Sport of Azerbaijan or FRSA and the
St. Vincent & Grenadine Amateur Radio Club are being
proposed for membership in the International Amateur Radio
Union.

The FRSA based in Baku. It so far has 50 members. The St.
Vincent & Grenadine Amateur Radio Club has 21 members. Both
have made their proposals through IARU Region 2 for
membership.

The International Amateur Radio Union Calendar notes that
the groups have declared that they can satisfy the
requirements of the IARU Constitution and Bylaws. As such,
their proposed membership has been put up to the vote by all
International Amateur Radio Union member societies who have
until November 1st to cast a ballot.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Heather Butera-Howell,
KB3TZD, near Berwick, Pennsylvania.

--

Meantime, Jim Linton, VK3PC reports on two International
Amateur Radio Union member certifications that have been
rescinded. Linton says that despite a request, no proof has
been provided that the former PNGARS of Papua New Guinea and
BARTS in Burma or Myanmar still exist and have been
withdrawn from membership. (VK3PC)

**

VHF DX: BIG VHF OPENING ALONG THE EAST AND SOUTH CENTRAL
USA

They are calling it one of the best VHF band openings since
the late 1950's. This as hams along the Eastern seaboard
and South-Central states report what appears to be both a
tropospheric duct and some double-hop E layer skip that
permitted QSO's from Vermont south to Tennessee and Texas on
bands as high as 220 MHz on Tuesday, July 24th.

One interesting report came to us from Kevin Duplantis,
W4KEV. He says that at about 5:30 pm EST in Knoxville,
Tennessee that he was tuning around the FM broadcast band
when he stopped on WRJK 106.7. That's when he heard a
commercial that seemed out of place so he kept listening.
It turned out that instead of WRJK he was hearing a station
identifying as 106.7 the Wizard, Burlington, Vermont. After
a number of fades happened and the Vermont station came back
so strong that it totally wiping out the local Knoxville
station that was only 15 miles away.

At that point W4KEV reports that he took to the 2 meter band
where he made what he describes as a ton of contacts into
the northeast and southeast and Canada. Some well over 1000
miles distant. He then switched to the 222 MHz band where
he noted a definite E-skip opening that lasted a solid half
hour. During this time he hears Canadian stations make
contact with the lower parts of Alabama and Mississippi.

W4KEV hays that they do not get many tropo openings in his
area so this was a thrill to say the least.

Meantime the dxworld.com Propagation Logger for 2 meters
shows several likely record breaking contacts in sheer
numbers if nothing else. By way of example, Mike Larsen,
KC0CF in Stanhope, Iowa posted that he worked 32 stations
from Florida to Virginia during the opening and his report
was just one of many.

In all, it appears as if July 24th, 2012, is one that will
go down in the VHF and UHF record books and operators world
wide are hoping its only a precursor of what may be still
soon to come in DX in the world above 50 MHz. (ARNewslineT,
2 Meter Prop Logger)

**

RADIOSPORTS: 2O12L AND 2O12W ON THE AIR TO COMMEMORATE THE
LONDON OLYMPICS

The 2012 Summer Olympics are on the ham radio airwaves. On
Wednesday, July 25th, two special event call signs were
activated in the United Kingdom to celebrate the London 2012
Olympic and Paralympic Games.

As previously reported here on Newsline, 2O12L will operate
from London, while 2O12W was to take to the ham bands from
Barry in Wales. Both stations will be on the air through
August 12th for the games themselves and will continue
operations through September 9th.

Updates on both operations will be available on the Twitter
social networking site using the screen names of @2012L and
@GW0ZANA respectively. Organizers hope to make 80,000 or
more contacts during the time that 2O12L and 2O12W are on
the air. (RSGB, Audio bite from YouTube)


**

BANDSHARING: THE AMERICAN UHF WOODPECKER STRIKES AGAIN

Its yakety-yak time on the 70 centimeter band near San
Diego, California. This as a new radio system takes to the
air on a military base. Amateur Radio Newsline's Bruce
Tennent, K6PZW, has the rest of the story:

--

Southern California's Fallbrook Amateur Radio Club reports
that it recently began receiving a random ticking
interference superimposed over weak incoming signals on its
440.600 MHz repeater inputs channel. Club members have
tentatively located the signal as originating at the nearby
Marine Corps Camp Pendleton.

It now appears as if the base has deployed a number of
Enhanced Position Location Reporting System radios, or EPLRS
devices that use the entire 420 to 450 MHz band in a spread
spectrum mode. As hams share the 420 to 450 MHz band with
the U.S. Government, and the government has priority its
likely that the Fallbrook ham community will likely have to
live with the problem until such time as the devices are
turned off, if that ever occurs.

Hams are secondary users in the 420 to 450 MHz band and must
accept any and all interference from those designated as
primary users. Also, the amateur community must not in any
way interfere with the operations of those assigned as
primary users. In this case the United States military.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Bruce Tennant, K6PZW, in
Los Angeles.

--

According to the Southgate News, it's believed that at least
two dozen EPLRS systems are slated for deployment or are
already deployed across the continental United States as
well as in Alaska and on Hawaii. (CGC, Southgate)

**

RADIO REGULATION: VANITY CALL SIGN FEE TO INCREASE BY 80
CENTS

The price of a Vanity ham radio callsign is going up. On
July 20th the FCC announced that the cost of a set of
amateur radio vanity call letters will increase 80 cents to
$15 for a 10 year license term. That works out to 8 cents a
year for anyone applying for or renewing a Vanity ham radio
call. The new fee goes into affect 30 days after notice of
the increase is published in the Federal Register. As we go
to air, that publication is still pending. (FCC)

**

RADIO REGULATION: FCC PROPOSES RE-EVALUATING ITS FEE SYSTEM

The FCC wants to overhaul its entire regulatory fee system
and is asking for public input on that effort through MD
Docket 08-65.

According to the agency, extensive changes have occurred in
the communications marketplace since its current system for
assessing and collecting regulatory fees for all of the
entities it regulates was enacted in 1994. Commissioner
Robert McDowell calls the reform long overdue, adding that
the agency should update its fee structure to ensure that
they are levied not only in a fiscally prudent manner, but
in a nondiscriminatory and competitively neutral way.

Comments to MD Docket 08-65 are due 30 days after
publication in the Federal Register. What impact such a re-
evaluation might have on regulatory fees imposed on radio
amateurs is impossible to assess at this time. (FCC, RW)

**

HAM RADIO IN SPACE: 4 CUBSATS TAKE THEIR FIRST STEPTS
TOWARD ORBIT

Japan's HTV-3 cargo vessel carrying five satellites blasted
off on an H-IIB rocket to the International Space Station in
the early hours of Saturday, July 21st. Onboard were four
amateur radio CubeSats, along with a scientific satellite
known as Raiko. The ham radio birds are the F-1, We-Wish,
FitSat-1 and TechEdSat CubeSats.

By way of background The F-1 CubeSat carries a pair of Yaesu
VX-3R handheld transceivers to provide communications on
145.980 MHz and 437.485 MHz FM using AX.25 packet radio
data.

FITSAT-1 is an optical communications experiment that as
previously reported will attempt to write Morse Code across
the night sky, although only when in range of Japan. It
will also transmit CW on 437.250 MHz, FM AX.25 data on
437.445 MHz and high speed data on 5840.00 MHz.

We-Wish will transmit on 437.505 MHz FM AX.25 data while
TechEdSat will transmit on 437.465 MHz and will also
communicate via the Iridium and Orbcomm satellite phone
networks. This is a first for a CubeSat.

The CubeSats will remain on the International Space Station
until September. Thats when they will be deployed to orbit
by Japan astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, KE5DNI, using the ISS
robot arm. And we will have more ham radio space related
news later on in this week's Amateur Radio Newsline report.
(AMSAT)


**

BREAK 1

From the United States of America, We are the Amateur Radio
Newsline, heard on bulletin stations around the world
including the W9AA Hamfesters Amateur Radio Club Net serving
Bridgeview Illinois.


(5 sec pause here)


**

ENFORCEMENT: ALASKA CB OPERATOR ISSUED PROPOSED $12500 FINE

The FCC has issued a $12,500 Notice of Apparent Liability to
Monetary Forfeiture to Glenn S. Yamada, of Kenai, Alaska.
This based on allegations that he essentially operated his C-
B station in a manner that interfered with international
aviation traffic. Amateur Radio Newsline's Norm Seeley,
KI7UP, has the details:

--

This story goes back to last January. Thats when the FCC
received a complaint regarding interference to an authorized
user on 21.964 MHz in the aeronautical band. According to
the regulatory agency, the problem concerned a male subject
talking and interfering with the control and monitoring of
air traffic over the North Atlantic.

The FCC's High Frequency Direction Finding Center was called
into action. On January 31, its operators observed a
subject matching the details of the compliant transmitting
on 21.965 MHz using the call sign 1600 Alaska. Of even more
interest, the actual operating frequency was 27.025 better
known as CB channel 6. Direction finding techniques placed
the transmissions were coming from Kenai, Alaska.
Subsequently, an agent from the FCC's Enforcement Bureau in
Anchorage used direction finding techniques and found the
source of the interfering signal to be coming from the
residence of one Glenn S. Yamada.

The agent, accompanied by an officer from the Kenai Police
Department, inspected Yamada's station on February 6th. At
that time the agent found a non-certificated CB transmitter
and a linear amplifier as part of Yamada's CB station.
During questioning, Yamada admitted to the agent that the
linear amplifier was capable of generating a power output
level of 200 watts. The agent observed that the transmitter
and the linear amplifier were connected to a transmission
cable and ultimately to the directional antenna in the back
of Yamada's residence. Yamada told the agent that this was
his hobby setup and that he had been operating it for the
last several weeks using the made up call of 1600 Alaska.

Now, in its July 14th finding authorizing the proposed
$12,500 fine, the FCC says that Yamada apparently willfully
and repeatedly violated Section 301 of the Communications
Act of 1934 and Sections
95.409(a) and 95.411(a)(1) and (b) of the FCC Rules. This
by operating his CB radio without requisite Commission
authorization. In simpler terms, it means that his station
equipment was not FCC certified and he was running power in
excess of the maximum allowed on the 11 meter band.

And when it issued the Notice of Apparent Liability, the
regulatory agency also stated that given the public safety
concerns of the violations that it was directed Yamada to
submit a statement signed under penalty of perjury
confirming whether he is still engaged in CB operations. If
so, he is to state whether he is using a certified CB
transmitter. Also, to certify that he has not attached any
linear amplifiers to his CB station." Yamada must submit
this statement to the FCC Office in Anchorage no later than
August 17th. That's the same day when payment of the
$12,500 Notice of Apparent Liability is also due.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Norm Seeley, KI7UP, in
Scottsdale, Arizona.

--

As is usual in these cases, Yamada was given the customary
30 days from issuance of the proposed fine to file an
appeal. (FCC)

**

ENFORCEMENT: FCC PROPOSES A PAIR OF BROADCAST TOWER RELATED
FINES

The FCC levied two unrelated fines for tower violations. In
the first action, the agency says that Equity
Communications, licensee of WCMC AM located in Wildwood, New
Jersey failed to enclose its tower in a locked fence.

In issuing the proposed $17,000 fine, the FCC noted that
during an inspection in 2011, agents with the Philadelphia
Enforcement Bureau determined the tower was in a residential
neighborhood but what it called the remnants of a fence
would not restrict access to it. At a later date when they
re-inspected, the agents found the fence in the same
condition. As such, the FCC has proposed a the to fine for
the ongoing infraction.

The other case involves JMK Communications, which was fined
$7,000 for not having a locked fence around the four-tower
array for WPWC AM in Dumfries, Virginia. The FCC says that
during an inspection in 2011, the Enforcement Bureau agents
found no fencing around the base of one structure and only
partial fencing around the base of the other three. There
was also no perimeter fence around the property, according
to the commission.

In this matter the FCC has proposed a $7,000 fine. It has
also directed the licensee to submit a sworn statement
telling the commission the broadcaster is now in compliance
with the tower regulations.

Both companies were given the customary 30 days from the
date the Notices of Apparent Liability were issued to pay or
file a response. (FCC)

**

ENFORCEMENT: FCC LEVIES $55000 FINES TO UNLICENSED FLORIDA
BROADCASTERS

The FCC issued a total of $55,000 in proposed fines to three
men whom it says operated unlicensed broadcast station in
the state of Florida. Amateur Radio Newsline's Bill
Pasternak, WA6ITF, is here with more:

--

In the first two cases, the regulatory agency alleges that
Michael Downer and Damian Allen operated an unauthorized
station together on the FM broadcast band in the city of
Pompano Beach. According to the FCC, it used direction
finding techniques to trace a signal to an FM transmitting
antenna located atop the storage room of a commercial
property.

The property owner told agents he rented the space to Downer
and Allen. The owner called Downer and handed the phone to
an agent. Shortly thereafter the other renter, Damian
Allen, came and removed the equipment.

Now its tike to pay the piper. While the base fine for
operating an unauthorized station is $10,000 per person, the
FCC proposed a $20,000 fine for Downer and Allen each. This
is because the commission had previously issued several
Notices of Unlicensed Operation to both men for operating
unlicensed stations from other Florida locations. The FCC
says that the fact that they continued operating constitutes
a deliberate disregard for the commission's rules.

In the third case, the commission has proposed a $15,000
fine against McArthur Bussey. This for operating an
unlicensed station on 89.1 MHz in the city of Fort
Lauderdale.

In this matter the agents not only traced the signal to a
residence leased by Bussey but also found a fan page on
Facebook ad for the illegal station and a picture that
matched Bussey's Florida driver's license photo. The domain
name for a website: www.891radio.net, was found to be
registered to Bussey's residence.

Bussey's fine was also over the $10,000 base amount because
the Miami Office of the Enforcement Bureau had previously
issued a Notice of Unlicensed Operation to him for operating
an unlicensed station on the same frequency from a different
Florida location.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF,
in the newsroom in Los Angeles.

--

All three have the customary 30 days from the date the fines
were proposed to pay them or to file appeals. (FCC)

**

HAM HAPPENINGS: PERMANENT AMATEUR STATION AT THE OLD
BETHANY OHIO VOA RELAY STATION

Ohio's West Chester Amateur Radio Club has set up a working
ham radio station at the closed down Voice of America relay
station in Bethany Ohio. A temporary, single position has
been activated in the VOA building. It is connected to a
temporary trailer mounted beam antenna.

The Bethany site is located not far from Dayton Ohio.
According to the club website, more funding is needed to
complete the project. Information about this project can be
found on-line at www.wc8voa.org. The history of the Voice
of America Bethany Relay Station is at www.voamuseum.org.
(KC9VZA)

**

HAM HAPPENINGS: EMCOMM EAST POSTPONED TO 2013

The EmComm East emergency communications conference will not
be held in 2012. According to an announcement from the
Board of Directors for Monroe County ARES which hosts the
event, they have decided to postpone EmComm East until the
fall 2013 due to circumstances beyond their control..

According to their news release the group is running into a
fist-full of scheduling conflicts that are making it
difficult to plan an emergency communications conference
that is of the same quality as the past conferences that
they have hosted in years past. This is because they have
several competing events in the region that will
significantly take away from normal attendance. Also their
call for programs did not have enough responses to fill all
of the slots needed for this year's conference.

Monroe County New York ARES says that it will be announcing
its plans for 2013 early next January. If you have any
questions, do not hesitate to contact them by e-mail to info
(at) emcommeast (dot) org or simply keep an eye on
www.emcommeast.org for updates. (Monroe County ARES Inc.)

**

BREAK 2

This is ham radio news for today's radio amateur. From the
United States of America, We are the Amateur Radio Newsline
with links to the world from our only official website at
www.arnewsline.org and being relayed by the volunteer
services of the following radio amateur:

(5 sec pause here)

**

CHANGING OF THE GUARD: LEGENDARY HAWAII VHF - UHF
EXPERIMENTER LAID TO REST IN CALIFORNIA

Hawaii's legendary VHF/UHF experimenter Paul Lieb, KH6HME,
has been laid to rest following a Catholic Mass on Saturday,
July 21st. The service was attended by Lieb's family,
friends, and several dozen ham radio operators. Many of the
latter were members of California's San Bernardino Microwave
Society of which Lieb was a long time member. A number of
the radio amateurs drove many hours to attend the service.

According to his longtime friend Gordon West, WB6NOA, Lieb's
ham radio activities played a major part in the memorial
service. This included the front cover of a written
remembrance program showing KH6HME at the Mona Loa beacon
site door that was etched with visiting ham radio call
signs. Below his name was his KH6HME call.

At the end of the Mass, each of the 6 candles surrounding
Lieb were extinguished one-by-one. West says that this
signified the end of an era when Paul would head for the
8200 foot site on the Mona Loa Volcano. From there he would
switch from beacon mode to voice and CW , and complete the
2500 mile path on every VHF and UHF band from 6 meters up
through 5 GHz .

KH6HME was buried at the Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Orange,
California. West says that the very last line of the
memorial program read - and we quote: "He will never be
forgotten, and his beacon will continue to delight and amaze
us all. 73 Paul. "

As reported last week, Paul Lieb, KH6HME passed away on
Sunday night July 15th while visiting his sister and other
relatives on the U.S. mainland. (WB6NOA)

**

HAM RADIO IN SPACE: BAOFENG REPEATER TO THE EDGE OF SPACE

Spanish radio hams have used two low cost handheld FM
transceivers to build a cross-band repeater which they then
launched to the edge of space on a high altitude balloon.
The radios used in the experiment were identified as Luther
TL-44 but appear identical to the popular Baofeng UV-3R
available on E-Bay from many online dealers world-wide at a
cost of between $30 to $45 each.

The balloon flight lasted 2 hours 44 minutes during which
179 contacts were made. The furthest was over a distance of
670 km. You can read the entire story in electronically
translated English at tinyurl.com/Baofeng-Repeater (G6UIM)

**

HAM RADIO IN SPACE: KE5DAR TO BE ON-ORBIT DJ AUGUST 3

NASA astronaut Joe Acaba, KE5DAR, will play Disk Jockey in
space on Friday, August 3rd. That's when he will do a live
remote from the International Space Station as a part of a
two-hour music and talk show to be streamed over Internet
station Third Rock Radio.

Third Rock Radio is calling this outing "The Joe Show." It
describes it as a blend of science, technology, engineering
and mathematics and art.

For those not aware, Third Rock Radio is a project of
Houston, Texas radio veterans. It is produced under a NASA
Space Act Agreement with RFC Media.

The "Joe Show" is mainly aimed at younger Americans. It can
be heard as an audio stream at ThirdRockRadio.net with
Acaba's appearance beginning at 4 p.m. Eastern time, as we
said, on Friday, August 3rd. (Third Rock Radio)

**

ON THE AIR: HONEYMOON TRIP TO MARITIUS IN SEPTEMBER

On the air, Alex Landi, IW5ELA, says that he will be on the
air stroke 3B8 from hotel Le Cannonier on Maritius between
September 6th and the 12th. This as a part of an extended
honeymoon trip with his wife Michela that will take them
through Corsica, Mongolia, Finland and Africa. From Maritius
his operation will be on 20, 17, 15 and 12 meters using CW
and SSB. Because of the nature of this trip all operation
is holiday style. QSL via his home callsign either direct
or via the bureau. And less we forget, the couple does have
a web page. You can visit it on-line at honeymoonafrica2012
(dot) jimdo (dot) com. (OPDX)

**

ON THE AIR: WORK PROGRESSES ON NEW TRANS-ATLANTIC 2 METER
BEACON

A new trans-Atlantic 2 meter propagation beacon is well on
its way to becoming a reality. RSGB news reader Jeremy
Boot, G4NJH, has the latest:

--

Brian, WA1ZMS, is making the final preparations to ship the
GB3WGI 144MHz transatlantic beacon transmitter over to
Northern Ireland.

Thanks to the kind donation of antenna parts and clamps from
G4CQM at Powabeam Antennas, beacon keeper Gordon, GI6ATZ, is
in the process of building the antenna system for the
beacon, and installing the emergency shutdown system. It is
hoped to have the beacon up and running before the end of
the year.

Im Jeramy Boot, G4NJH, in Nottingham.

--

Once the beacon is placed into service it will act as a
marker to tell hams in the America's when a 2 meter path is
open to the UK and possibly beyond. (GB2RS)

**

DX

In DX, F4EZG will be active between September 1st and the
3rd from Madagascar as 5R8VE. Operations will only be on 20
and 15 meters. QSL via F4EZG.

EA2BD will be active from Malta as 9H3BD until July 30th.
His operations are low power on 20 meters using CW and SSB.
QSL via his home EA2BD callsign.

WB6OJB is on the air from Botswana as A25JB through the end
of July. He can be heard on 40 through 10 meters using
mostly SSB with some CW. Again, QSL this station also direct
to his WA6JOB home callsign.

JJ2NYT will be active as stroke FK from Grande Terre New
Caladonia between July 29th and August 2nd. His operation
will be on 40 through 10 meters using CW, SSB and RTTY. Like
the last two, QSL this one also via his home callsign.

G3SWH will activate the special callsign M0RSE on CW only
over the weekend of August 18th and 19th. As you might
expect, this is a CW only operation with QSOs to be uploaded
to Logbookof the World immediately after the weekend
operation concludes. Special QSLs will be available via the
bureau or direct with Self Addressed Envelope and adequate
return postage or even via the traditional bureau route.

Lastly, members of the Gemilang Amamteur Radio Club and the
Mediterraneo DX Club will team-up to sponsor a DXpedition to
Brunei. The multi-national team will be on the air as V-84-
S-M-D between November 11th and the 23rd. Operations will
be on 160 through 10 meters, including the 30, 17 and 12
meter bands. Modes to be supported are CW, SSB and RTTY.
QSL via IK2VUC, direct or via the bureau.

Above from various DX news sources

**

THAT FINAL ITEMS: WIND FARMS MAY CONTRIBUTE TO CLIMATE
WARMING

And finally this week, word that's what some call green
power might not be so green after all. Amateur Radio
Newsline's Cheryl Lasek, K9BIK, reprts:

--

Research in the United States has shown that large wind
turbine farms used to generate so-called green power might
have a warming effect on the local climate, and there-by
casting a shadow over the long-term sustainability of wind
power.

Its been long believed that carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels contribute to the
so-called global warming effect. Some scientists believe
this could lead to the melting of glaciers, sea level rise,
crop failure and other devastating effects. So in an effort
to cut such emissions, many nations are moving towards
cleaner energy sources such as wind power.

Now, researchers at the State University of New York at
Albany have analyzed over the period 2003 to 2011 the
satellite data of areas around large wind farms in Texas,
where four of the world's largest farms are located,. The
results, published in the journal Nature Climate Change,
showed a warming trend of up to 0.72 degrees Celsius per
decade in areas over the farms. This as compared with
nearby regions without the farms.

The study attributed this warming primarily to wind farms.
It says that the temperature change could be due to the
effects of the energy expelled by farms and the movement and
turbulence generated by turbine rotors. It concluded that
these changes, if spatially large enough, may have
noticeable impacts on local to regional weather and climate.
That said, the researchers say that more studies are needed
at different locations and for longer periods, before any
firm conclusions could be drawn.

Previous research in 2010 by other U.S. scientists found
wind farms could make the nights warmer and days cooler in
their immediate vicinity, but those effects could be
minimized by changing turbines rotor design or by building
the farms in areas with high natural climatic turbulence.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Cheryl Lasek, K9BIK, in
Zion, Illinois.

--

According to the Global Wind Energy Council in 2011 the
world's wind farms had the capacity to produce 238 gigawatts
of electricity at any one time. That was a 21 percent rise
over 2010 and capacity and is expected to reach nearly 500
gigawatt by the end of 2016 as more, and bigger wind farms
are built. More on this story is on-line at
http://tinyurl.com/wind-farm-warming. (UK Telegraph, CS
Monitor, Forbes, others)

**

NEWSCAST CLOSE

With thanks to Alan Labs, AMSAT, the ARRL, the CGC
Communicator, CQ Magazine, the FCC, the Ohio Penn DX
Bulletin, Radio Netherlands, Rain, the RSGB, the Southgate
News and Australia's W-I-A News, that's all from the Amateur
Radio NewslineT. Our e-mail address is newsline(at)
arnewsline (dot) org. More information is available at
Amateur Radio Newsline'sT only official website located at
www.arnewsline.org. You can also write to us or support us
at Amateur Radio NewslineT, 28197 Robin Avenue, Santa
Clarita California, 91350

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the Amateur Radio Newsline family.

For now, with Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF, at the editors' desk,
I'm Don Wilbanks, AE5DW, in Southern Mississippi saying 73
and we thank you for listening.

Amateur Radio NewslineT is Copyright 2012. All rights
reserved.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Amateur Radio Newsline T Report 1823 - July 20 2012







Amateur Radio Newsline report number 1823 with a release
date of July 20 2012 to follow in 5-4-3-2-1.

The following is a QST. The FCC turns down a request to
extend PRB-1 to overturn deed restrictions, the ARRL says a
White House Executive Order on telecommunications should not
impact ham radio, proposed changes in British laws governing
spacecraft could make microsat launches by UK hams possible
and the FCC continues its crackdown on unlicensed
broadcasters. Find out the details are on Amateur Radio
NewslineT report number 1823 coming your way right now.


(Billboard Cart Here)


**

RADIO LAW: FCC DENIES PETITION TO EXPAND PRB-1 TO COVER
CC&R

Deed restrictions and other land use covenants that limit
the antenna rights of many hams will remain in place for the
time being. So says the FCC in its July 16th denial of a
rule making request filed by Leonard Umina, W7CCE, of
Gilbert, Arizona. One that sought to expand the policy of
limited Federal preemption of state and local regulations
governing amateur towers and antennas. Amateur Radio
Newsline's Don Carlson, KQ6FM, has the latest:

--

In its denial, the FCC told Leonard Umina, W7CCE, that when
it codified PRB-1 as Section 97.15(b) of the Amateur Service
Rules back in 1985, the mandate to state and local
municipalities were that they reasonably accommodate the
antenna needs of ham radio operators. But at the same time
the FCC purposely avoided extending this preemption to cover
CC&Rs and other land use restrictions in deeds and bylaws
that curb the installation of antennas and associated
support structures.

When the matter was brought before it again in 2001 the
Commission noted that its decision within the framework of
PRB-1 to exclude CC&Rs from its preemption policy was based
on the fundamental difference between state and local
regulations as opposed to land use restrictions. The latter
are considered as private contractual terms to which the
purchaser of a property voluntarily agrees to. The FCC also
concluded in its PRB-1 decision that there had not to date
been a sufficient showing that CC&Rs prevent Amateur Radio
operators from pursuing the basis and purpose of the Amateur
Service.

Lastly, and perhaps most important, the FCC pointed out to
W7CCE that should Congress see fit to enact a law mandating
the expansion of its limited preemption policy to include
more than state and local regulations, it would do all it
could to expeditiously act to fulfill such an order. It
noted that shortly after Umina filed his request that
Congress enacted a directive regarding an investigation into
the uses and capabilities of Amateur Radio Service
communications in emergencies and disaster relief. This
report will identify impediments to enhanced Amateur Radio
Service communications and provide recommendations regarding
the removal of such impediments. This could conceivably
include unreasonable or unnecessary private land use
restrictions on residential antenna installations.

In closing, the FCC noted its belief that it would be
inappropriate and premature for the regulatory agency to
consider modifying its policy until after Congress has an
opportunity to review the report and decide whether to enact
laws mandating the expansion of PRB-1 to include more than
state and local regulations.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Don Carlson, KQ6FM, in
Reno.

--

The order denying Umina's Rule Making request was signed by
Scot Stone
who is the Deputy Chief of the Mobility Division of the
FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. As we go to air,
its unknown if W7CCE plans to appeal the FCC pronouncement
on his rule making request, or await the outcome of the
current Congressional inquiry. You can read the complete
text of the FCC decision on-line at tinyurl.com/no-ccr-
overide. (FCC)

**

RADIO LAW: ARRL SAYS NEW EXECUTIVE ORDER POSES NO THREAT TO
HAM RADIO

According to the ARRL, an executive order dealing with
telecommunications poses no threat to the amateur radio
service. Amateur Radio Newsline's Norm Seeley, KI7UP,
reports:

--

On Friday, July 6th the White House released an Executive
Order signed by President Obama that addresses the National
Security and Emergency Preparedness communications functions
of the federal government. Contrary to some concerns raised
in a few amateur radio circles, the order does not appear to
contain any threat to the Amateur service or its ability to
continue support communications during times of emergency or
disaster. It also poses no threat to hams for continued
access to their spectrum.

Dan Henderson, N1ND, is the League's Regulatory Information
Manager. He explained that the purpose of the new entity,
which would be created within the Executive Branch by this
Order, appears to be to plan for future National Security
and Emergency Preparedness communications and to insure
survivability, hardness and interoperability. It will also
develop a long-term strategic plan for National Security and
Emergency Preparedness communications.

Henderson noted that based on the Amateur service's ongoing,
positive working relationship with officials at the
Department of Homeland Security's Office of Emergency
Communications, it is hard to envision that any new
management plan would not include Amateur Radio. N1ND says
that nothing in this Order directly affects amateur radio's
daily operations.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Norm Seeley, KI7UP, in
Scottsdale, Arizona.

--

N1ND says that a good summary of the content of the Order
can be found online at tinyurl.com/new-communications-order.
(ARRL)

**

HAM RADIO IN SPACE: PROPOSED LAW CHANGES COULD MAKE SPACE
MORE FRIENDLY FOR UK HAM RADIO

Some good news for ham radio space enthusiasts in the UK.
Proposed changes in laws governing satellites launched any
United Kingdom entity could soon become friendlier. Amateur
Radio Newsline's Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF, reports:

--

A posting on the United Kingdom's Space Agency Web Site has
announced what is called the "Reform of the Outer Space Act
1986 Consultation". These are a pair of proposals that, if
enacted as written, could make United Kingdom CubeSat
launches more ham radio friendly.

The key aspects of the changes are the proposals to waive
the capped liability and insurance requirement for in-orbit
operation of any satellite that meets the criteria of a
CubeSat. Also, to remove the requirement for unlimited
indemnity from satellite operators.

The existing United Kingdom Outer Space Act imposes heavy
additional costs up to �50,000 Pounds or $78,300 US dollars
a year on those wishing to launch small educational
CubeSats. That additional cost has acted as a major
deterrent and to date no such UK CubeSat has been launched.

The United Kingdom Outer Space Act covers all UK satellites
irrespective of size. This, from tiny low cost educational
CubeSats up to large commercial satellites that cost 10's of
millions of dollars to manufacture and launch.

The UK Space Agency says that responses to the Consultations
are due by August 31st.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF,
watching the skies from outside the Newsroom in Los Angeles.

--

By the way, a Consultation in the United Kingdom is very
similar to a Notice of Proposed Rule Making here in the
United States. (G3VZV, AMSAT-UK)

**


HAM RADIO IN SPACE: NEW ASTRO-HAMS ARRIVE AT THE ISS AS
PART OF THE EXPEDITION 32 CREW

Three ham radio space fliers arrived safely at the
International Space Station early Tuesday, July 17th. This,
for a four-month stay while also bringing the orbiting
outpost back to its full crew complement of six. Amateur
Radio Newsline's Bruce Tennantt, K6PZW, reports:

--

The Soyuz space capsule carrying NASA astronaut Sunita
Williams, KD5PLB; Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, RK3DUP
and Japanese space explorer Aki Hoshide, KE5DNI, docked
with the station at 12:51 a.m. Eastern Daulight Time on
Tuesday, July 17th . This following a two-day flight from
Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

At docking time, the Soyuz spacecraft and space station were
at an altitude of 251 miles over North-Eastern Kazakhstan.
The Soyuz parked itself at an Earth facing docking port on
the station's Russian built Rassvet module. After the
hatches were opened between the Soyuz and ISS, Williams,
Malenchenko and Hoshide moved to the ISS and joined their
fellow Expedition 32 crew members Sergei Revin; Gennady
Padalka, RN3DT and Joseph Acaba, KE5DAR.

Padalka, Revin and Acaba have had the space station to
themselves since July 1st. That's when three previous crew
members returned to Earth and brought the station's previous
Expedition 31 to a close.

Padalka, Revin and Acaba return to Earth in mid-September.
When that happens, Sunita Williams, KD5PLB, become the
commander of the I-S-S team. She, Malenchenko and Hoshide
are scheduled to depart the station on November 12th.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'n Bruce Tennant, K6PZW, in
Los Angeles.

--

As an aside, this latest group crew members arrived at the
International Space Station exactly 37 years to the day
after the world's first truly international spacecraft
meeting took place on-orbit. That was the famed docking
between a NASA Apollo spacecraft and a Russian Soviet Soyuz
19 capsule during the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975.
Many believe that's what laid the groundwork that led to the
International Space Station that is on-orbit today.
(Published news reports)

**

BREAK 1

From the United States of America, We are the Amateur Radio
Newsline, heard on bulletin stations around the world
including the W5TXR repeater serving Schertz, Texas.

(5 sec pause here)


**

ENFORCEMENT: ANOTHER ALLEGED UNLICENSED BROADCASTER BUSTED

The FCC has issued a Notice of Apparent Liability in the
amount of $10,000 to Florida resident Michael Gregory. This
for his alleged operating an unlicensed radio station
calling itself "Down South Radio 305" on 92.7 MHz in the
city of Miami.

This saga began to unfold last March, That's when the FCC
received a complaint that lead agents from the Miami office
of the Enforcement Bureau to monitor for the station. They
soon heard a person identify himself as "DJ Miami of 92.7
Heavy FM" and advertise the website www.whvy927.com. Agents
tied Gregory to the site by finding his domain name
registration as well as his photo online.

The agents then went out on a transmitter hunt and traced
the source of the transmission to an antenna on the roof of
a commercial building in Miami. Records showed no one was
authorized to operation a station on 92.7 MHz, nor at that
location.

While waiting in the lobby for the building owner, the
agents actually met Gregory. He took them to his leased
suite, admitted he ran the station, and turned off the
transmitter. Now Gregory has 30 days to pay the proposed
fine or to file an appeal. (FCC)

**

RADIO CRIME: MONTREAL STATION TORCHED AFTER CRITICIZING
FORMER HAITIAN DICTATOR

A Haitian radio station in Montreal, Canada, has been hit by
arsonists. This, after hosts criticized the country's
former dictator.

CPAM 1610 AM was set ablaze following calls by show hosts
for a criminal trial for Jean-Claude Duvalier, who returned
to that nation last year.

CPAM's north-end administrative offices were partially
destroyed and the studio suffered water damage, rendering it
useless. A spokesperson for the Montreal fire department
said the front window of CPAM 1610's studio was smashed and
a fire lit near the broken glass at about 4 a.m. Monday July
2nd. Another fire was started at the back of the second
floor where the station's office is located, he said.

Engineers had the station back on the air about 10 hours
after the attack from an alternate studio location.
According to its management, CPAM is a beacon for the more
than 100,000 Haitian expatriates in Montreal who form the
largest such community in Canada. (Montr�al Gazette, B&C)

**

RADIO HAPPENINGS: ITALY CLOSING NATIONAL SOUND ARCHIVES

Italy is shutting down its famed National Sound Archives.
This as a likely result of the continuing economic downturn
that has hit many European nations.

On July 6th, a simple 12 line document was signed by the
government to shut down the archive of priceless audio
history dating back to the dawn of the machine recording.
According to one source there are close to half a million
recordings housed in the Italian archive.

The big concern now among preservationists is that unless
another such museum such as the United States Library of
Congress takes over the Italian archive, that it could wind
up being sold off on the streets or on an on-line auction
site, piece by piece. More is on-line at
www.artsjournal.com (Arts Journal, Critical Distance
Weblog)


**

HAM STUFF: NEW FREQUENCY CHART AVAILABLE FROM US GOVERNMENT
BOOKSTORE

If you have ever had the yearning to own one of those nifty
United States radio spectrum posters to hang on your wall,
now is your chance to get one. Properly titled the United
States Frequency Allocations: The Radio Spectrum Chart, the
very latest edition is now available from U.S. Government
Printing Office Book Store at a cost of $12. To order
yours, take your web browser to tinyurl.com/big-frequency-
map and follow the directions you will find there. (RW, E-
News, others)

**

HAM HAPPENINGS: UK SPECIAL EVENTS STATIONS FOR THE 2012
OLYMPICS

As part of the celebration of the 2012 London Olympics and
Paralympics, two flagship amateur radio stations will be
active during the games.

The Cray Valley Radio Society will host England's Olympic
celebration from the Royal Borough of Greenwich. This is
home to many of London's events outside the main Olympic
arena. The call-sign used at that location will be Two
Oscar One Two Lima. A similar amateur radio celebration is
happening in Barry, South Wales, where the call-sign will be
Two Oscar One Two Whisky.

Both groups are looking to make as many contacts as possible
worldwide during the Olympics. They will be on the air 24
hours a day, 7 days a week from Wednesday July 25th through
Sunday September 9th. The London station will be open to
the public from 10am to 4pm and the Welsh station from 10am
to 5pm daily. Both are local times.

Commemorative QSLs will be available for both operations.
QSL information is on-line at at www dot Two Oscar one two
Lima dot com and www dot Two Oscar One Two Whisky.com. Both
stations hope to contact you on the air. (Southgate)

**

HAM HAPPENINGS: K4C TO CELEBRATE THE CONSTITUTION OF THE
COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO

Special Event station K4C will be on the air on July 25th to
commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Constitution of the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. According to the Movimiento
Radioaficionados which is sponsoring the operation, the
purpose of the activity is to commemorate this important
date for citizens of Puerto Rico.

Operations will take place on the campus of the National
Park Julio Enrique Monagas of the Municipality of Bayamon
beginning at 1400 UTC. Activities will be on the 40 through
10 meter bands, and locally on the chain of repeaters
operated by the club. QSL via WP4NPC. (KP3CB)

**

HAM HAPPENINGS: RESULTS OF 2012 ARDF YOUTH COMPETITION
ANNOUNCED

The results are in from the 2912 Youth ARDF Championship
event that was held this year near the town of Siauliai,
Lithuania. In all there were 104 contestants representing 9
countries. Medals went to Russia, the Ukraine, the Czech
Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Lithuania. The competition
was organized by LY2CD and a company of volunteer
assistants. The full results are on-line at
www.qrz.LT/eyac. (IARU-R1)

**


NAMES IN THE NEWS: MICULESCU NEW GM OF ROMANIAN
BROADCASTING

Some names in the news. The Romanian parliament recently
confirmed Ovidiu Miculescu as the new general manager of the
Romanian radio broadcasting corporation. With more than 20
years experience in media, Miculescu has held executive
positions at the public broadcaster as well as at private
radio and television stations. Miculescu said that
modernization of public radio and the resolution of issues
regarding coverage throughout Romania were among priorities.
(RW)

**

NAMES IN THE NEWS: VA4AJG APPOINTED RAC MIDWEST REGION
DEPUTY DIRECTOR

Allan Grant, VA4AJG, has been appointed as Deputy Director
for Radio Amateurs of Canada Midwest Region. The Midwest
region includes all the VE4 and VE5 call sign area.

Each Director of RAC is authorized to appoint one Deputy
Director from among RAC members residing in their region to
serve at the pleasure of the Director. Grant was appointed
by Canada Midwest Region Director, Derek Hay, VE4HAY. (RAC)

**

NAMES IN THE NEWS: AO-7 DISTANCE RECORD BROKEN AGAIN BY
AC0RA AND OM3BD

July 4th saw AC0RA and OM3BD set yet another world distance
record using ageing AMSAT-OSCAR-7 ham radio bird. This by
breaking their own record set just 48 hours earlier.

The new distance record is 7903.55km comfortably exceeding
the previous contact over a path of 7849km by 54.55
kilometers.

OM3BD was in Grid Square JN88mf. He says that AC0RA once
again woke up early and this time drove 150 miles to grid
EN41ad. They had a 30 second contact at 09:49 UTC to set
their latest distance record.

Recordings, pictures, and further information are on-line at
tinyurl.com/ao7-dx-record. (Southgate)

**

BREAK 2

This is ham radio news for today's radio amateur. From the
United States of America, We are the Amateur Radio Newsline
with links to the world from our only official website at
www.arnewsline.org and being relayed by the volunteer
services of the following radio amateur:

(5 sec pause here)

**

THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD: WRITER H. WALTER MAXWELL - S.K.

Famed writer M. Walter Maxwell, W2DU, passed away on July
3rd at his home in DeLand, Florida.

Known Better as Walt Maxwell. W2DU was best known in the
amateur radio circles for his ground-breaking articles,
"Another Look at Reflections." These were published in
QST Magazine in a seven part series from 1973 to 1976,and
explained in plain English concepts such as line loss, SWR,
baluns and antenna tuners.

The articles were later compiled into a book, titled
Reflections: Transmission Lines and Antennas, that included
additional material on matching networks, antennas and the
Smith Chart. It was first published by the ARRL in 1990 and
went through several editions. Later editions were published
by CQ Communications.

W2DU is survived by his spouse, Jean Binkley Mayhew, three
sons, William W. Maxwell of DeLand, Florida, Richard A.
Maxwell of Marietta, Georgia, and John R. Maxwell of
Gainesville, Florida, and one daughter, Susan M. Glasnapp of
Delray Beach, Florida.

More details of his life and work are available on his
website at www.w2du.com. At the time of his passing, Walt
Maxwell, W2DU, was age 93. (ARRL, others)

**

CHANGING OF THE GUARD: FAMED HAWAII BEACON KEEPER PAUL
LIEB, KH6HME-SK

Hawaii's weak signal legend, Paul Lieb , KH6HME, has also
become a Silent Key. According to Gordon West, WN6NOA, who
spoke to the family, Lieb was visiting his sister and other
relatives on the U.S. mainland. Leib's sister told WB6NOA
that on Sunday night July 15th, KH6HME had dinner with them,
went to bed, and died peacefully in his sleep.

Paul Lieb, KH6HME, maintained four VHF and UHF propagations
beacons atop the Mauna Loa volcano which were regularly
received along the U-S west coast. This usually took place
in July when troposphere conditions permitted. And it was
not unusual for KH6HME to make the 3 hour drive to the 8200
foot site of the beacons to maintain them and get on the air
himself to be a bit of rare VHF and UHF DX. West says that
while they are currently on the air that the long term fate
of beacons is unknown.

As we go to air, funeral arrangements for Paul Lieb, KH6HME,
were pending. (N6CL, WB6NOA)

**

HAM RADIO IN SPACE: FITSAT-1 - A VISUAL MORSE CODE BIRD

Call this one visual Morse code from space. This with word
that the FITSAT-1 ham radio cubesat will carry an optical
communications experiment that aims to write in C-W across
the night sky using super high intensity LED's as a lighting
source.

FITSAT-1 will be carried to the International Space Station
on July 21st from where it will be deployed sometime in
September. For more information see www.uk.amsat.org/2037.
(AMSAT UK)

**

WORLDBEAT: FRANCE WILL NOT PREEMPT DIGITAL RADIO FOR RFE

Digital radio may not come into being in France. According
to the daily newspaper Les Echos, the French government has
decided not to preempt digital radio frequencies for Radio
France exclusive use.

In May, telecommunications regulator CSA received more than
178 applications for the cities of Paris, Marseille and
Nice. It also announced plans to open a call for digital
terrestrial licenses for France's next 20 biggest cities.

It appears as if the public service broadcaster, which has
first right of refusal on frequencies, will thus not go
digital, in line with certain private groups including RTL,
NRJ and NextradioTV.

The French government is expected officially to announce its
final decision on this matter in the coming days. However,
if reports are true, observers say that they doubt the
digital system will be able to move forward in France. (RW)

**

WORLDBEAT: RF EXPERIENCED WITH CONTROL SYSTEM IN WESTERN
SOUTH AFRICA

Interference problems are being experienced by radio
amateurs in the Paarl and Stellenbosch Municipal areas of
South Africa. That's where a load control system is
currently being installed to switch a geyser off during peak
hours.

According to the South African Radio League, this unit
causes disturbances right through the High Frequency
spectrum. Word is that South African telecommunications
regulator ICASA has investigated the complaints and is
currently having discussions with the Municipal officials
and the South African Bureau of Standards regarding a fix.
(SARL)

**

DXCC NEWS: RWANDA AND BANGLADESH APPROVED FOR DXCC CREDIT

Several more operations have been approved for DXCC credit.
According to Bill Moore, NC1L, who is the ARRL Awards Branch
Manager, these are the 9X0PY DXpedition to Rwanda that ran
from December 24, 2011 through January 7, 2012. Also
approved are the S21YD Bangladesh operations for 1994, 1995,
1998, and 1999. If you have had cards for any of these
rejected in the past please contact Bill via e-mail to
bmoore (at) arrl (dot) org to be put on the list for an
update. (ARRL)

**

In DX, word that UA1OEJ will be active stroke P from
Solovetsky Islands from July 22nd to the 31st. Operations
will be on the HF bands using SSB and the Digital modes. QSL
via his home callsign.

JA8COE will once again be active stroke 8 from Yagishiri
Island between July 27th and the 29th. No word on what
bands or modes will be used. QSL via his home callsign,
direct or by the bureau.

A team of Saudi operators will activate Al-Dhahrah Island as
7Z7AB possibly between October 1st and the 15th. More
details and a Web page will be forthcoming. Meantime keep
an eye on their page on QRZ.com.

K9HZ will once again be active as J68HZ from his villa at
Labrelotte Bay, St. Lucia. Listen out for him between
August 1st and the 18th on 80, 40 and 20 meters using CW
and SSB. QSL to KH9Z.

OH1VR and OH3JR will be operational stroke VK9 from Lord
Howe Island between November 17th and the 27th. Activity
will be on 160 through 6 meters using CW, SSB and RTTY. QSL
only direct via their home callsigns with a self addressed
envelope and an International Reply Coupon to cover return
postage.

5B4AIF will be active as E51E from a villa in Tautu Village
on Aitutaki Island between December 10th, 2012 and January
5th, 2013. QSL only via EB7DX.

Lastly, members of Russia's Armed Forces Amateur Radio Union
will be on the air as R100WWS from many areas of that nation
between August 10th and the 18th. This operation is to
celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Military Air Forces
of Russia which were formed on August 12, 1912. Activities
will be on all bands and using all modes. QSL via RV3YR.

(Above from various DX news sources)

**

THAT FINAL ITEM: STOPPING COPPER THEFT IN ITS TRACKS

British Telecom is taking on copper cable thieves. Amateur
Radio Newsline's Jim Damron, N8TMW, has the details:

--

A new tool has been unveiled in the United Kingdom to
literally locate copper wire thefts as they are taking
place.

Called the Rapid Assessment British Telecom Incident Tracker
or RABIT, this computer based program has the ability to
monitor all 120 million kilometers of cable on British
Telecom's phone network.

RABIT is a real-time system based on a neural network that
has been trained to sense the difference between a
telecommunications cable being severed and a cable that has
gradually failed. It does this by undertaking line tests and
bandwidth measurements to home in on a telltale signature of
a cable cut. This event data is then immediately plugged
into an incident monitoring system which gives British
Telecom's security staff a national view of trouble spots on
its networks, including cyber attacks.

I'm Jim Damron, N8TMW, in Chareston, West Virginia,
reporting.

--

The industrial scale theft of copper telecommunications
cables is a massive world-wide problem. In the UK alone,
cable worth �770 million pounds was stolen from overhead and
buried telephone lines and railway signaling systems in
2011. (New Scientist)

**

NEWSCAST CLOSE

With thanks to Alan Labs, AMSAT, the ARRL, the CGC
Communicator, CQ Magazine, the FCC, the Ohio Penn DX
Bulletin, Radio Netherlands, Rain, the RSGB, the Southgate
News, TWiT-TV, and Australia's W-I-A News, that's all from
the Amateur Radio NewslineT. Our e-mail address is
newsline(at) arnewsline (dot) org. More information is
available at Amateur Radio Newsline'sT only official website
located at www.arnewsline.org. You can also write to us or
support us at Amateur Radio NewslineT, 28197 Robin Avenue,
Santa Clarita California, 91350

For now, with Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF, at the editors desk,
I'm Skeeter Nash, N5ASH, at our new QTH in El Campo, Texas,
saying 73 and we thank you for listening.

Amateur Radio NewslineT is Copyright 2012. All rights
reserved.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Amateur Radio Newsline T Report 1822 - July 13 2012






Amateur Radio Newsline report number 1822 with a release
date of July 13, 2012 to follow in 5-4-3-2-1.

The following is a Q-S-T. Hams continue to provide
assistance as wildfires rage in the great American West; the
FCC to investigate telephone failures after the big
windstorm of Friday, June 29th; Illinois hams get PRB One
like protection for towers and antennas and the story of a 9
year old in South Carolina who learns first hand about ham
radio on a television program that he hosts. All this and
more on Amateur Radio NewslineT report number 1822 coming
your way right now.


(Billboard Cart Here)


**


RESCUE RADIO: HAMS CONTINUE WILDFIRE RESPONSE

Wind-fanned wildfires are proving stubborn, but firefighters
are beginning to gain ground in their fight against the
numerous stubborn blazes dotting the United States West.
One of the worst hit is Colorado. Amateur Radio Newsline's
Norm Seeley, KI7UP, who grew up there and knows the area
well has the latest:

--

In Colorado, one of the hardest hit states, the ARRL
reported that since June 9 when the first of the wildfires
began, hams have been assisting with disaster
communications. This, by providing communications support
to the State and to several served agencies.

Shortly after the High Park fire broke out, radio amateurs
in Estes Park and Fort Collins were called upon to help
provide communications support to the American Red Cross.
Hams set up a crossband repeater to provide communications
from Red Cross Headquarters in Estes Park to their
facilities at the fire base, as well as to an evacuation
center at a local high school.

On June 26th, ARRL Colorado Section Manager Jack Ciaccia,
WM0G, and Boulder County Emergency Coordinator Allen Bishop,
K0ARK, were returning from the High Park Fire when they were
notified that Boulder County Office of Emergency Management
had activated ARES for the Flagstaff Fire. A lightning
strike had hit just west of Boulder, caused a 20 acre fire
that due to high winds had become a 230 acre blaze in only
30 minutes. .

According to Ciaccia, the Boulder Office of Emergency
Management wanted ARES positions manned at the Emergency
Operations Center. They also wanted to send additional
operators to video positions and set up packet and voice
communications at a local school that would serve as the
evacuation center. Ciaccia said that within one hour, ATV
equipped hams had a video camera set up, while other hams at
the evacuation center team had set up packet communications,
providing data and video, as well as 2 meter FM voice
communications. Other portable video positions were fully
operational by the end of two hours.

According to Ciaccia, the live video feeds were displayed on
huge video screens at the Emergency Operations Center. This
permitted the entire emergency staff to see heli-tankers and
US Forest Service bomber aircraft making fire retardant
drops. They could also see the fire live from the
backside, which was not otherwise visible without our
portable ATV teams live video feeds.

When the Type I federal fire teams showed up to determine
whether the fire would escalate to their level, they noticed
the live video feeds at the EOC and made special trips to
the ham radio field video sites. Until then there were
apparently unaware that a television resource was available
that could be used for their purposes and were quite pleased
at that capability. The federal officials wanted the A-T-V
to continue operations if the fire escalated to a Type I.
Thankfully, this fire never grew beyond 300 acres and it
remained at a Type II level.

The served agencies in this response included the Boulder
County Sheriff's Office and their Office of Emergency
Management. Both were extremely pleased that the ham radio
community responded so fast and so well.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Norm Seeley, KI7UP, in
Scottsdale, Arizona.

--

Meantime, hams were also active in assisting firefighters at
the Waldo Canyon Fire. Amateur Radio Newslines Bill
Pasternak, WA6ITF, is in the newsroom with that part of the
story:

--
According to Amanda Alden, K1DNN, of Canon City, Colorado,
her group was contacted by the Amateur Radio Emergency
Service and told that the situation for communications due
to the Waldo Canyon blaze was looking grim. Alden, along
with Canon City residents Jeff Carrier, K0JSC and Phil Ott,
WA0NLK along with Pueblo West resident Neal Tew, KD0NBL,
immediately responded. Most of their assignment was the
handling of health and welfare communications for a shelter
at Summit.

At that point, Jeff Reynolds and Chaz Carmichael, W4CHZ,
arrived to help at the Cripple Creek shelter. Here the ham
radio operators stayed around the clock, helped make food,
ate with the evacuees and slept on cots while providing
various forms of communications. The hams stayed on site
until evacuations began lifting.

Amanda Alden is best known as a contributor to the Ham
Nation video podcast on TWiT-TV. She was quoted as saying
that the hams are proud of how quickly we came together and
kept the emergency lines open for the real heroes and
victims of the Waldo Canyon Fire.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF,
in Los Angeles.

--

Elsewhere across the West, firefighters are making slow
progress in Utah, Wyoming and Montana. A wildfire that had
burned more than 390 squares miles in southeastern Montana
was reported to now be 90 percent contained. A separate
fire in the same region of the state near Fort Howes, was 65
percent contained after blackening nearly 97 square miles.
We will have more on ham radio involvement in these wildfire
emergencies in future Amateur Radio Newsline reports.
(Denver Post, ARRL, other sources)

**

RESCUE RADIO: FCC TO INVESTIGATE PHONE FAILURES AFTER JUNE
29 STORM

The Federal Communications Commission is looking into the
damage that a massive wind storm caused to wireless and
landline phone networks in the mid-Atlantic U-S-A. Amateur
Radio Newslines Heather Butera-Howell, KB3TZD, is here with
more:

--

The storm took place on Friday, June 29th. It swept from
the Midwest into the Northeast with the mid-Atlantic states
including Virginia and West Virginia taking the worst
pounding.

David Turetsky, is the Chief of the FCC's Public Safety and
Homeland Security Bureau. In an e-mailed statement he said
that his agency plans to meet with a number of carriers in
the coming weeks to explore the cause of service issues to
911 service centers and the overall lessons learned.
Truetsky continued by saying that these and other issues
will be taken under advisement to ensure that the public
receives the best communications service possible and is
able to communicate effectively and in a way that safeguards
public safety in these situations.

FCC spokesperson Lauren Kravetz said the commission is still
investigating the problems with emergency calls, but that
911 operators might have been unable to identify a caller's
number and location. She said it is unclear how many people
were unable to make an emergency call at all.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, Im Heateher Butera-Howell,
KB3TZD, in Berwick, Pennsylvania.

--

According to The Washington Post, many 911 callers in the
region heard silence, busy signals or recorded messages
saying the line was inoperative. Meantime, here in West
Virginia, so far there have not been any reports reaching us
concerning ham radio related severe weather watch or post
storm amateur radio emergency communications efforts. (The
Hill)

**

RESCUE RADIO: ARRL TO HOST HURRICANE RESPONSE WEBINAR

Still with emergency communications matters, word that the
ARRL will host a webinar from 8 9:30 PM Eastern Daylight
Time on Tuesday, July 17th. This, to present information
about the 2012 hurricane season and the Amateur Radio
response.

The program will offer presentations from representatives
from the National Hurricane Center and WX4NHC which is the
Amateur Radio station at the National Hurricane Center.
Also on the agenda are presentations by the VoIP Hurricane
Net, the Hurricane Watch Net and the ARRL.

Webinar registration is open to all, but this informative
web session will be of particular interest to those amateurs
living in hurricane-prone areas.

If you are interested in emergency communications and
hurricane preparedness and response, you are invited to
attend this online presentation. To register for this
webinar, please go to tinyurl.com/ham-hurricane-webinar and
fill out the required registration form. (ARRL)

**

BREAK 1

From the United States of America, We are the Amateur Radio
Newsline, heard on bulletin stations around the world
including the KJ3LR repeater serving Bradenton, Florida.

(5 sec pause here)


**

RADIO LAW: ILLINOIS GOVERNOR SIGNS MEASURE PROTECTING HAM
RADIO ANTENNA RIGHTS

Some good news for hams in Illinois. That state now has its
own PRB One-like law to protect the antenna rights of radio
amateurs. Amateur Radio Newsline's Cheryl Lasek, K9BIK, has
the rest of the story:

--

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has signed Illinois House Bill
1390 into law. This despite unfounded fears on the part of
some of the states radio amateurs as widely posted to the
Internet. Fears that home owners associations and real
estate groups would try to derail the measure. It turned
out that these fears were totally groundless.

With Governor Quinn's signature affixed, the Illinois
Municipal Code was amended by adding Section 11-13-1.5.
Paraphrased, it basically reads as follows:

With regard to Amateur radio communications and antenna
regulations, and not withstanding any provision of law to
the contrary, no ordinance or resolution may be adopted or
enforced by a municipality that affects the placement,
screening, or height of antennas or antenna support
structures that are used for amateur radio communications.
Also, a municipality may not regulate the antennas or
antenna support structures that are used for amateur radio
communications in a manner inconsistent with this Section.

It should be noted that Illinois House Bill 1390 does not
supersede such things as deed restrictions, Covenants,
Conditions Restrictions and homeowners association rules
that forbid the installation of outdoor antennas. These are
considered to be personal and binding business contracts and
therefore not subject to override by the new PRB One-like
law.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Cheryl Lasek, K9BIK, in
Zion, Illinois.

--

According to several knowledgeable sources in Illinois, it
took less than 3 months to gain House approval, 20 days for
Senate approval, and 38 days before Governor Quinn signed
the new measure into law. (Various)

**

COMMUNICATIONS HAPPENING: THE GREAT INTERNET BLACKOUT A
WHIMPER

The over-hyped Great Internet Blackout of 2012 came and went
with little more than a whimper on Monday, July 9th. This,
as the so-called "Doomsday" deadline passed with few reports
of service outages.

At 12:01 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time the FBI shut down
temporary servers it had set up to handle Web traffic for
thousands of computers infected with a virus spread by a
ring of cyber criminals that the bureau busted last year.
Those using the estimated 200,000 computers still infected
with the virus were expected to lose their Internet
connectivity after the servers were taken off line.

But like the Y-2-K fears some 12 years ago, this latest loss
of service simply failed to materialize. According to the
FBI, 41,800 of the 211,000 worldwide computers infected with
the virus were in the United States, but U.S. Internet
providers reported far fewer victims. (Published news
reports)

**

ENFORCEMENT: KJ6CEY ARRESTED FOR ALLEGEDLY POINTING LASER
AT FIRE ENGINE

Thirty-one year old Irene Levy, KJ6CEY, of San Jacinto,
California, is in trouble with the law once again. This
time after allegedly pointing a laser at a firefighter
behind the wheel of a fire engine.

At around 3:45 a.m. on June 30th, officers from the San
Jacinto Police Department responded to a call to assist
CalFire. When officers arrived, the fire personnel claimed
that Levy had shined a laser light at the driver of their
engine while they were driving on East Main Street. Also
that she had shined the laser at their driver several times
earlier in the evening as well.

Levy was taken into custody and booked into the Larry Smith
Correctional Facility charged with pointing a laser at a
moving vehicle and violating the terms of her probation. At
last report she was being held in lieu of $25,000 bail.

You may recall back in May of 2010 when Levy used an amateur
radio station to interfere with an emergency response
dispatcher. In that case Levy was found guilty of jamming
emergency radio frequencies by broadcasting threats. As
part of her probation, she was ordered to complete a mental
health program and stay out of trouble. (Riverside.com)

**

ENFORCEMENT: FCC ISSUES NOTICE OF UNAUTHORIZED OPERATION TO
FALLBROOK CA RESIDENT

The Federal Communications Commission has issued a Notice of
Unlicensed Operation to a Southern California, resident for
operating an unlicensed transmitter on 106.1 MHz.

According to the FCC Notice, the agency received information
that an unlicensed broadcast radio station on 106.1 MHz was
allegedly operating in the city of Fallbrook, just North of
San Diego. On May 22nd, agents from the San Diego FCC
office confirmed by direction finding that the signal on
106.1 MHz was emanating from a residence in Fallbrook's Gird
valley area that reportedly belonged to one Lewis A. Parks.

Bob Gonsett, W6VR, is involved with the Fallbrook Amateur
Radio Club and works in the broadcast engineering field. He
was quoted in the Fallbrook Village News that the station in
question was relatively low powered, yet still strong enough
that it could be heard for about a mile radius. The
unlicensed transmission was picked up by a listener who
ordinarily receives KPLM on 106.1 MHz. FCC records show
that no license is issued for operation of a broadcast
station at this location on 106.1 MHz in Fallbrook.

In the Notice of Unlicensed Operation, Parks was warned that
operation of radio transmitting equipment without a valid
radio station authorization constitutes a violation of the
federal laws. As such it could subject the operator of such
a transmitter could be subject to severe penalties. These
include but are not limited to substantial monetary
forfeitures, seizure of the offending radio equipment, along
with criminal sanctions including imprisonment. More on
this story is on-line at tinyurl.com/unlicensed-fallbrook-
station. (W6VR, Fallbrook Village News)


**

ENFORCEMENT: YET ANOTHER UNLICENSED FLORIDA BROADCASTER
FACES A PROPOSED $15000 FINE

The FCC proposed a $15,000 fine against Luis Ernesto Rivas
Jr. for operating an unlicensed station in Miami. Earlier
this year agents from the Miami office of the Enforcement
Bureau traced the source of RF transmissions on 89.1 MHz to
an antenna on a roof in Miami. While monitoring the
station, they heard a reference to "The Streets FM."

According to the commission's account of the incident, the
agents went to the building roof with the building owner and
saw radio transmission gear, including an FM transmitter
connected to a transmitting antenna and a laptop computer.
The computers screen displayed a Facebook webpage stating
'Underground Station In Miami @ USTREAM: Go To Our Website
www.thestreetsfm.com ...On 89.1 Miami #1 Underground
Station."

The agents found a Web page for the station at
www.thestreetsfm.com and matched a photo of Rivas from the
site with one from the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles.

Now, in issuing the Notice of Apparent Liability, the FCC
says that all of the facts point to Rivas as being
responsible for operating the illegal station. It also
noted that it had Rivas operated another illegal station in
Florida in 2007. That garnered him an extra $5,000 penalty,
making the total fine $15,000.

Rivas has the customary 30 days from the date that he was
notified of the proposed fine to pay it or to file an
appeal. (FCC, RW)

**
NAMES IN THE NEWS: NEW VIDEO FROM MCLEAN FAHNESTOCK SHOWS
ALL SHUTTLE LAUNCHES

Some names in the news. First up is McLean Fahnestock who
has produced a High Definition video showing all 135 space
shuttle launches. The engrossing video runs just under 4
minutes and can be viewed on-line at
www.mcleanfahnestock.com/images.html (Southgate)

**

NAMES IN THE NEWS: LASER LIGHT DEMO VIDEO BY DH5YM

An interesting albeit short laser light communications video
has been made available for on-line viewing by Mario
Roessler, DH5YM. In it, you can see the green Laser of
DK5WMA and hear the demodulated telegraphy signal. The
fading by humid air is clearly visible and audible. The
distance was about 48km. The video is on-line at
tinyurl.com/green-laser-light (Southgate)

**

NAMES IN THE NEWS: INFORMATION ON EARLY 1900'S RADIO EVENTS
NEEDED

Leland Francois, KI6AWN, of Oakland, California says that he
is looking for what he terms as senior radio operators who
could possibly help share some insight on two events. First
is the Congressional Radio Communications Act of 1934 while
the other is in regard to the historic signing of the United
Nations Charter that took place in San Francisco during the
summer of 1945. This latter event involved may amateur
radio operators and was coordinated by the early Oakland
Radio Club under the call sign W6OT. If you have any
information on either of these two events please contact
Leland Francois by e-mail to ki6awn (at) aol (dot) com.
(KI6AWN)

**

BREAK 2

This is ham radio news for today's radio amateur. From the
United States of America, We are the Amateur Radio Newsline
with links to the world from our only official website at
www.arnewsline.org and being relayed by the volunteer
services of the following radio amateur:

(5 sec pause here)

**

CHANGING OF THE GUARD: INVENTOR LEONARD KAHN EX- WB2SSP -
S.K.

Communications inventor Leonard R. Kahn, the former WB2SSP,
passed away on June 3rd in Florida.

Kahn is likely best remembered for his development of the
Kahn-Hazeltine AM Stereo system that used independently
modulated upper and lower sidebands. He was also the
inventor of the CAM-D AM digital system. Kahn's AM stereo
design was later revamped for monaural use and used in the
Power-Side system, in which a decreased signal in one
sideband is used to improve coverage and loudness. Power-
Side became the basis for CAM-D, Compatible AM Digital, a
digital system that is still used on several AM stations.

Leonard Kahn worked for RCA Labs for many years and turned
out over 80 domestic and 100 foreign patents. As such, he
is considered one of the five "fathers of the wireless
industry." (Published reports)

**

THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD: VHF PIONEER LARRY HOGUE, W6OMF-
SK

And sadly we also bid farewell to Larry Hogue, W6OMF, who
passed away undergoing open heart surgery on June 29th.

W6OMF was the long time Net Control Operator for the
Northern California Sidewinders On Two Sunday night net and
was one of the leading spokesmen for VHF DX on the West
Coast. He was considered by many as being the driving force
behind Sidewinders on Two's presence on the West Coast and
the Sunday night net had check-ins from Oregon in the North
to Los Angeles in the South. (WB6AEA)

**


HAM RADIO IN SPACE: HAM IN SPACE SESSION IN KANSAS CITY

This note for amateur radio operators near Kansas City,
Missouri. On July 20th, the Hams in Space Team will be
presenting a satellite lecture at the University of
Missouri, Kansas City's Communiversity. The Communiversity
is the University's Community Education Program available to
anyone from the area who wishes to attend.

According to Randy Schulze, KD0HKD, the group is preparing a
seminar to be enjoyed not only by licensed radio amateurs
but also to members of the general public. This as a means
of providing information about one of the fun and amazing
things that can be done within the hobby.

If you plan to attend, please register early. All necessary
information is on-line at www.umkc.edu/commu. (ANS)

**

WORLDBEAT: WARRINGTON ARC GRANTED GB2012MV FOR OLYMPIC
GAMES

The United Kingdom's Warrington Amateur Radio Club have been
granted a license to cover both the 2012 Olympic and
Paralympic games. In a collaborative effort with West
Manchester Radio Club and South Manchester Radio and
Computing Club, the Warrington group has been assigned the
special call sign GB2012MV for the event at Old Trafford,
home of Manchester United soccer team. This is one of the
venues for the Olympic football tournament. The decision by
telecommunications regulator Ofcom means that GB2012MV will
be one of only four stations nationwide to be permitted to
officially commemorate the Olympic games. The club will
begin transmissions on Wednesday, July 25, the start of the
Olympic football tournament and end on September 9, which
will be the closing ceremony of the Paralympics.
(Southgate)

**

WORLDBEAT: GB2VET FROM JULY 27 TO 29

Also, U-K special event station GB2VET, celebrating the
army, navy and air force reunion's 10 anniversary will be
operational July 27th to the 29th from East Park in the
city of Hull. Plans are to operate all available bands
using both World War 2 and modern gear. Modes will include
D-Star on VHF and UHF. There will also be a display of
vintage equipment as well. (2E0BRQ)

**

ON THE AIR: CELEBRATING THE APOLLO MOON MISSIONS

The Italian Radio Association known as the ARI have
announced sponsorship of a special award to commemorate the
Apollo Space Program. This specific for contacts made
before July 31st this month. To qualify for the award you
need to have confirmed contacts with the ARI Headquarters
Station IQ1TW and three other stations. More information is
on-line at aritortona.xoom.it. (Press release)

**

ON THE AIR: EIFFEL TOWER ON THE HAM BANDS

F5SKW and several other French radio amateurs will be on the
air 24 hours a day through July 15th
as TM70TRS or TM70TE from the 3rd floor of the Eiffel Tower,
in Paris. This activity is to commemorate the 70th
anniversary of the French Army Signal Corps. The operation
will use CW, SSB and RTTY, and on the HF and VHF bands. A
special QSL card will be available. QSL via the F6KHX
Amateur Radio Club or F5OGL, direct or by the REF QSL
Bureau.

This operation also brings to mind a question we frequently
get asked by listeners here in the United States. That
being, are there any ham radio repeaters operating from the
Eiffel Tower? If you know the answer, please drop us an e-
mail with repeater call signs and operating frequencies to
newsline (at) arnewsline (dot) org. (OPDX)

**

DXCC: SIX OPERATIONS APPROVED FOR DXCC CREDIT

Bill Moore, NC1L, the ARRL Awards Branch Manager, reports
that several operations have been approved for DXCC credit.
These include the 2012 operations as 3C0E operation from
Annobon; 3C6A from Equatorial Guinea, 5X1RO from Uganda and
XW4XR from Laos. Also approved are the 2011 J25DXA and
2010 J28RO operations from Djibouti. If you've had any of
these operations rejected in a recent DXCC submission please
send an E-mail to bmoore (at) arrl (dot) org to be put on
the list for an update. (ARRL DXCC)

**

DX

In DX, word that the long awaited St. Paul Island CY9M
operation will take to the airwaves from July 26th to August
1st. This as an international team will put this rare
island, located approximately 14 miles northeast of the
northern tip of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada, on
the air. No word yet on bands or modes. QSL via M0URX.

The Hellenic Amateur Radio of Association of Australia is
organizing a DXpedition to Campbell Island from November
28th through December 9th. Campbell Island whose prefix is
Zed-L-9 is number 15 on the current DXCC most wanted list.
You can follow the planning for this one at www.zl9hr.com.

A group of operators from Switzerland known as the Radio 7
Team will be active from Rodrigues Island as 3B9SP from
between October 16th and the 23rd. Most operation will be
on CW and SSB with some RTTY and PSK 31. Bands mentioned
are all of the HF frequencies plus 6 meters. Logs will be
uploaded to Logbook of the World within 6 months after the
operation concludes. QSL via HB9ACA.

The World-Wide DX Group will be on Conway Reef from
September 24th to October 5th. Their announced goal is to
provide as many DXers as possible with this rare DXCC
entity. The group says that it will target European
contacts during those periods when propagation is possible
and we will ask Japan and North America to stand buy during
those brief periods when the bands are open to Europe. The
World-Wide DX Group is the same group which brought you the
3D2C Rotuma Island Dxpedition in September, 2011.

Lastly, the Araucaria DX Group, in conjunction with the TX3A
Team, will sponsor a DXpedition to St. Peter and St. Paul
Rocks, in the late November to mid December time frame. The
actual dates will depend on weather conditions. The
operation will have a strong low band focus. There will be a
dedicated 160 meter station operating from sunset to
sunrise. A second station will be on 80 and 40 meters at
night as well. During the day we will operate two stations
on the higher bands including 6 meters based on conditions.
RTTY will also be supported. More on this planned operation
is on-line at www.pt0s.com.

(Above from various DX news sources)

**

THAT FINAL ITEM: MEET COLBY AND VISIT HIS CORNER

And finally this week the story of an inquisitive pre-teen
who has his first experience with ham radio with a
television camera watching and recording the event. The
young mans name is Colby, he's 9 years old, and he is the
star of a new children's television series called Colby's
Corner that recently began airing on Christian Television
Network station WLCN in Summerville, South Carolina. .

The theme of the show is very simple. Its Colby learning
about various aspects of life by experience as would any
other youngster. Only Colby is sharing his encounters with
the kids who watch on WLCN. And one of his recent trips
took him to a ham radio station operated by Vince Lombardo,
K4AOC.

For those of you who are out of the coverage of WLCN but
would like to watch Colby learn about ham radio from a real
pro, that episode and all of the others can be seen on line
on YouTube. A direct link to the one we have been
describing is tinyurl.com/colbys-ham-radio. The show also
has a website at www.colbyscornertv.com. (NN4F, QRZ.com)

**

NEWSCAST CLOSE

With thanks to Alan Labs, AMSAT, the ARRL, the CGC
Communicator, CQ Magazine, the FCC, the Ohio Penn DX
Bulletin, Radio Netherlands, Rain, the RSGB, the Southgate
News Twit-TV, and Australia's W-I-A News, that's all from
the Amateur Radio NewslineT. Our e-mail address is
newsline(at) arnewsline (dot) org. More information is
available at Amateur Radio Newsline'sT only official website
located at www.arnewsline.org. You can also write to us or
support us at Amateur Radio NewslineT, 28197 Robin Avenue,
Santa Clarita California, 91350

For now, with Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF, at the editors desk,
I'm Jim Damron, N8TMW, saying 73 and we thank you for
listening.

Amateur Radio NewslineT is Copyright 2012. All rights
reserved.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Amateur Radio Newsline T Report 1821 - July 6 2012






Please note that this is an extended Amateur Radio Newsline
bulletin and contains three breaks. Newscast begins
following the tone.

(Single beep here)

Amateur Radio Newsline report number 1821 with a release
date of July 6, 2012 to follow in 5-4-3-2-1.

The following is a Q-S-T. Ham radio responds as a severe
weather outbreak hits the Mid-West and Mid-Atlantic U-S; a
new D-X record is set using the ageing Amsat Oscar 7
satellite; a big tower victory in Nevada and Erin King,
AK4JG is named the 2012 Amateur Radio Newsline Young Ham of
the Year. Find out the details are on Amateur Radio
NewslineT report number 1821 coming your way right now.


(Billboard Cart Here)


**

RESCUE RADIO: HAM RADIO RESPONDS AS WINDSTORM HITS MID WEST
AND MID ATLANTIC STATES

The governors of several states have declared emergencies as
temperatures rose in the aftermath of powerful storms that
swept through the mid-Atlantic region Friday night, July
29th. The storm did damage from Indiana to New Jersey,
although the bulk of its destruction was felt in West
Virginia, Washington and suburban Virginia and Maryland.
Amateur Radio Newsline's Fred Vobbe, W8HDU, begins our
coverage of this severe weather outbreak and whats known
about the ham radio response thus far:

--

A "super derecho" of violent thunderstorms left a more than
700-mile trail of destruction across the Midwest and mid-
Atlantic on Friday, cutting power to millions and killing
thirteen people.

A derecho is defined as a widespread and long-lived wind
storm that accompanies rapidly moving showers or
thunderstorms. The most severe derechos are given the
adjective "super."

Winds gusted to 91 mph, equal to that of a category 1
hurricane, at the Fort Wayne International Airport, Ind., on
Friday afternoon. Winds gusts were recorded at 72 mph at
the repeater site KT8APR, which is located at WLIO
Television on Lima Ohio's west side.

According to WLIO's Chief Meteorologist, Kyle Adams, on
Sunday, July 1st , "Thousands here in West Central Ohio are
still w/o power. According to the AEP website over 600,000
people in Ohio have no power. They are comparing the
magnitude of the event to the remnants of Hurricane Ike that
came through in September of 2008. They are saying power
that all power is expected to be restored in 5-7 days."

As the storm moved to the east-southeast lightning and high
winds of more than 80 mile per hour, knocked down
transmission structures, poles, power lines and trees across
AEP Ohio's service territory. The central Ohio counties of
Franklin, Delaware and Licking were the hardest hit, with
approximately 345,000 customers affected.

Statistically, on Sunday, July 1st, 112,760 were without
power in Indiana. 140,461 were without power in Kentucky.
In Ohio and West Virginia the number climbed to more than
600,000. As the storm strengthened Virginia had over 2.5
million people out of power, and Maryland has more than 1.3
million out of power.

Hams performed multifaceted roles from local discussion
between each other, some relaying storm information to the
National Weather Service, and others using advanced ham
technology to relay data on the storm, and reports of damage
to authorities. Hams in counties where storms raged called
repeaters to the east, warning them of what they would be
experiencing, allowing them to mobilize before the storm
hit.

President Obama declared an emergency exists in the State of
Ohio Saturday and ordered federal aid to assist state and
local efforts due to the emergency conditions from severe
storms. Now a second serious situation is unfolded from
Indiana to the mid-Atlantic where millions remain without
power and temperatures are once again soaring. Temperatures
in the south are expected to hit 110 degrees or more.

Fred Vobbe, W8HDU, in Lima Ohio

**

Meantime in Indiana:

**

Indiana's heat wave broke for a short time when strong
storms raced across the north central part of the state
causing wide spread damage. The train of severe storm cells
brought hail and high winds that toppled trees and snapped
power lines leaving thousands of Hoosiers in the dark and
without power.

Fort Wayne, Indiana was one of the hardest hit areas.
Strong winds up rooted large trees and cracked power poles
isolating neighborhoods with downed power lines and tree
branches.
Allen County hams responded with emergency communications as
Ft Wayne police and fire frequencies became jammed with news
of wide spread damage. Many reported dozens of traffic
lights without power throwing traffic into a city wide grid
lock. Now one week after the storm officials report nearly
ten thousand people still without power as daytime
temperatures hover in the 98 degree range. Power crews from
as far away as Oklahoma have arrived to help with the
electrical problems.

Dozens of Red Cross blood drives have been cancelled in the
wake of the storms, resulting in a shortfall of more than
1,000 potential blood donations leading into the 4th of July
holiday. The Allen County Red Cross opened shelters for
those without power.

In Hamilton and Tipton counties, just Southwest of ft Wayne
amateur radio operators quickly scrambled to deal with the
pop up storms. There were reports of wide spread wind
damage across the two counties. Skywarn operators in
Hamilton county relayed one report about a tree that had
fallen on a car in Tipton county. Other counties in central
and eastern Indiana reported only Skywarn activity as the
rapidly building storms raced eastward into the Buckeye
state.

Reporting from Indianapolis, this is Jack Parker , W8ISH.
--

More on this story as information becomes available.
(W8HDU, W8ISH, ARNewslineT)

**

HAM RADIO AND THE INTERNET: QRZ.COM GOES OFF LINE DUE TO
AMAZON CLOUD FAILURE

The same storm that wrought havoc across the mid-West and
Mid-Atlantic States also took its toll on the Internet
including one very popular ham radio website. According to
Fred Lloyd, AA7BQ, who owns QRZ.com, the severe weather lead
to an outage of what is known as Amazon's Elastic Compute
Cloud center in North Virginia. The result was that
services such as Netflix, Pinterest, Instagram, and other
popular sites including QRZ became unavailable just after
midnight Eastern time on Saturday June 30th.

According to a posting on QRZ by AA7BQ after service was
restored, Amazon's service health dashboard indicated that
there were power issues in its North Virginia data center.
He said that the outage did not affect his servers but did
cause a complete database failure. After waiting all night
for Amazon to restore the QRZ.com data, he restored
information from an automated backup.

According to Lloyd, the outage underscores the
vulnerabilities of depending on the public cloud versus
having your own data center. For those who have never heard
the term Cloud computing, it is the delivery of computation
and storage capacity as a service to a community of end
recipients. As such, Cloud computing entrusts services with
a user's data, software and computation over a network. The
name comes from the use of a cloud-shaped symbol to signify
the service. (QRZ.com, Wikipedia)
**
HAM RADIO IN SPACE: A NEW RECORD FOR THE AGEING AO-7
SATELLITE

A new DX record has been achieved on the ageing OSCAR-7 ham
radio satellite. This between Wyatt Dirks, AC0RA, in Cedar
Rapids, Iowa and Bill Dzurilla, OM3BD, in the Slovak
Republic.

Their GPS-measured 7849 kilometer QSO between grid squares
EN31vx and JN88mf surpassed the prior 7843 kilometer record
set by Luciano Fabricio, PY5LF, and Joe Spandler, K3SZH, by
6 kilometers back in 2010. Take a listen to what a record
breaking weak signal satellite contact sounds like after a
bit of digital audio magic on our part:

--

Contact audio: Please download this weeks MP3 newscast at
www.arnewsline.org to hear part of the contact.

--

To make this record happen Wyatt had to wake up at 3 a.m.,
drive to a hill an hour away from his home, set up his
station, and work OM3BD before sunrise at 09:55 UTC on July
2nd. To make the path, OM3BD was running a Yaesu FT847 with
SP2000 preamp fed by a pair of 10 element yagis on 2 meters,
and an 8 element yagi for 70 cm. On this side of the
Atlantic AC0RA also used a Yaesu FT-847 transceiver with a 7
element yagi on 2 meters and a 12 element yagi on 70cm.

It appears that an even longer distance is attainable.
Wyatt says that he is looking for a suitable place from
which they can try before Bill leaves Slovakia in mid July.
We'll keep you posted.

More is on-line at tinyurl.com/ao7-dx-record. (Southgate)

**

BREAK 1

Celebrating 35 years of uninterrupted service to the world-
wide ham radio community, we are the Amateur Radio Newsline,
heard on bulletin stations around the world including the
WA4TEN repeater serving Bremerton, Washington.

(5 sec pause here)


**

YHOTY 2012: ERIN KING, AK4JG, NAMED AMATEUR RADIO NEWSLINE
2012 YOUNG HAM OF THE YEAR

Erin King, AK4JG, a 17-year-old from Columbus, Georgia, who
re-founded her high school's radio club and then lofted a
ham radio-carrying balloon to over 90,000 feet, recovered
the flight data and used it to produce a truly striking
video of that flight, has been named as recipient of the
2012 Amateur Radio Newsline Young Ham of the Year Award.
Mark Abramowicz, NT3V, is here with the details:

--

Whoa, thank you. That's awesome! Ahhh...that's really cool!
Thank you so much, I'm very excited!"

And that the reaction from Amateur Radio Newsline's Young
Ham of the Year winner Erin King upon learning in a
telephone call that she had been selected as this year's
winner of the prestigious award.

Erin, who is the daughter of Paul, K4ETY, and Patricia King,
of Columbus, has been a ham since only 2009 and holds an
Extra Class license.

Erin says, ironically, she was in attendance at last year's
Huntsville Hamfest where the Young Ham of the Year Award is
presented, and never dreamed she'd be the one nominated and
chosen to receive the next one...

"I went to Huntsville and saw the young ham last year and I
was like 'that is so awesome,' " You know I feel so happy
for her and everything and I'm just flabbergasted.
"I thought that I would not be eligible anymore and I'd like
forgotten about it and now that this just came out of
nowhere and I'm super excited. Thank you so much."

Erin just graduated from Columbus High School and got
involved in her freshman year in a program that would turn
her focus to technology...

"When I went there, I got involved in robotics and I got
interested in computer science and electrical engineering,"
Erin recalls. "I joined a program called the space program,
which eventually led to how I started to get involved with
ham radio.

"But then, after that, I got more involved in computer
science as well, computer science classes and applied to MIT
and that's where I'll be going to college next year. I was
accepted 'early action' MIT and I'll be studying computer
science and electrical engineering there and I'm also going
to be joining the ham radio club that they have there."

Erin says ham radio came naturally...

"My teacher was a ham and he was my robotics coach as well
and I went on a couple of balloon launches with him after I
got my tech license I continued doing balloon stuff and that
was really how I got involved with it," Erin explains. "It
was like the cool thing that really exposed me to it to
begin with.

"And then after that I joined two local radio clubs and I
upgraded my license to General the next year and then Extra
last year and I've had some fun outside of ballooning.

"Since then I've done some Field Day, a little bit of
contesting, the school club roundup is something that I've
done a couple of years.

"And I started a club at my school with the call sign W4CHS,
for Columbus High School."
Erin really got some attention when she got her acceptance
to MIT in a mailing tube. The school suggested the students
"hack their tubes," meaning do something cool with them."

Erin did just that using her ballooning and ham radio skills
to send her tube to the edge of space equipped with a
camera, GPS units and a radio for APRS tracking and a
parachute for the fall to earth.

She produced a video that's posted on You Tube. You can find
the link at our
website, arnewsline.org.

Erin says right now, amateur radio is something she shares
with her dad, but there is a link in her mom's family to the
hobby.

"My dad actually kind of inherited my great-grandfather's
call sign - K4ETY is my mom's grandfather's call sign that
he had," Erin says. "And I never met him, but there's just
kind of an interesting fun family fact."

Erin says she's hoping to get her sister, Rachel, who's 15,
interested in amateur radio. She says her 16-year-old
brother, Brandon, really doesn't demonstrate desire to jump
in just yet.
Erin says she's a well-rounded person, who not only enjoys
space, but, the undersea world as well.

"Scuba diving is something that I started a couple of years
ago with my mom and my sister and my brother just got
certified last year," Erin says. "And, it's really fun and
that's kind of something that not a lot of people know about
me is that I'm a certified scuba diver as well as a ham
radio operator."

So congratulations to Erin King, AK4JG, Amateur Radio
Newsline's latest Young Ham of the Year!

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Mark Abramowicz, NT3V,
in Philadelphia.

--

The 2012 Amateur Radio NewslineT "Young Ham of the Year
Award" will be presented to Erin King, AK4JG, on Saturday,
August 18th at the Huntsville Hamfest in Huntsville,
Alabama. We hope to see many of you there. (ARNewslineT,
YHOTY Judging Committee)

**

PROPAGATION: LARGE SUNSPOT ERUPTS ON THE SOLAR DISK

Space Weather reports that a strong solar flare has erupted
on the face of the Sun.

According to the solar forecast reporting service a large,
active sunspot named AR1515 is growing on the Earth looking
side of the solar disk. On the morning of July 2nd it
erupted, producing an M5.6-class solar flare that ionized
Earth's upper atmosphere with a brief but intense pulse of X-
rays and extreme ultraviolet radiation.

SpaceWeather says that more eruptions are in the offing as
the sunspot turns more toward Earth. These will likely
affect radio wave propagation on most of the frequencies
used by radio amateurs and other radio based communicators.

For more information, including a video, and updates check
spaceweather.com (SpaceWeather)

**

RADIO LAW: NEVADA HAM WINS LIMITED TOWER VICTORY

A happy ending to a long court battle involving the right of
a Nevada ham radio operator to install towers and antennas
on his own property.

You may remember back about four years ago when Tom
Taromina, K5RC, and the W7RN Comstock Memorial Station crew
were in the midst of a big antenna project on Tom's 10-acre
homestead outside of Virginia City. Taromina had obtained a
building permit for two rotating monopoles. The bases had
been installed, and there were other existing antenna
structures on the property.

Suddenly, the County issued a Stop Work Order on grounds
that were never clear. The US District Court would later
write: "The court is sympathetic to Plaintiff's frustration
with the county's inconsistent interpretation of its zoning
ordinances."

Now, after two trips to the U.S. District Court, the case is
closed and K5RC may erect eight towers. Four of these will
be less than 45' tall, and the other four greater than 45
feet. You can read the full text of this big win on-line at
tinyurl.com/nevada-antenna-victory. (K7VY)

**

PUBLIC SERVICE: NYC HAMS ASSIST AT HAWAIIAN AIRLINES
LIBERTY CHALLENGE

Members of the New York City Amateur Radio Emergency
Communications Service provided maritime communication
support of the recent Hawaiian Airlines Liberty Challenge.

The race took place on June 23rd on the rivers of New York
Harbor between the Port of New York and New Jersey. The
mission of the ham radio volunteers was to be an additional
set of eyes and ears on the rescue and safety boats. Also
to ensure that reliable communications was available in case
an emergency condition arose on the water.

Team members utilized UHF and VHF repeaters, simplex, and
VHF Marine radios to communicate with each other, to pass
messages in regard to race setup, operations and to other
safety boats. They also were in communications with boats
in transit in the harbor, to operators of the Staten Island
Ferry and the US Coast Guard Auxiliary.

The radio operators were at this event for 12 hours from
6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Eastern time. They were stationed on
rescue and safety boats, as well as on shore with race
officials. (Via e-mail)

**

BREAK 2

This is ham radio news for today's radio amateur. From the
United States of America, We are the Amateur Radio Newsline
with links to the world from our only official website at
www.arnewsline.org and being relayed by the volunteer
services of the following radio amateur:

(5 sec pause here)

**

ENFORCEMENT: NORCAL HAM ISSUED $17000 NAL FOR UNLICENSED
OPERATION AND FAILURE TO PERMIT STATION INSPECTION

A Northern California amateur radio operator has been issued
a $17,000 Notice of Apparent Liability or N-A-L. This,
after the FCC accuses him of operating an unlicensed
transmitter on 104.9 MHz and refusing to permit an
inspection of his station. Amateur Radio Newslines Don
Carlson, KQ6FM, has more:

--

In its July 2nd Notice of Apparent Liability, the FCC
accuses Brian R. Ragan, KF6EGI, of Suisun City, California,
of apparently willfully and repeatedly violating the
Communications Act of 1934 as Amended. This by operating an
unlicensed radio transmitter and failing to allow an
inspection of his station by FCC personnel.

According to the FCC order, last February an FCC agent T-
hunted a signal on 104.9 MHz to Ragan's residence. About
two weeks later, agents repeated the exercise to locate the
source of a signal on the same frequency after hearing the
unlicensed station identifying itself over the air using the
call letters KBRS. Again the chase took them to where Brian
R. Ragan, KF6EGI, lived.

The agents were able to determine that the signal on 104.9
MHz exceeded the limits for operation under Part 15 for
unlicensed devices. A search of the FCC database showed no
authorization issued to Ragan or to anyone else for
operation of a broadcast station on 104.9 MHz in Suisun
City.

The NAL says that the FCC agents heard the station operating
in the garage and attempted to inspect the station, but did
not get any response when they knocked on the residence
door. At this point the agents posted a Notice of
Unlicensed Operation on the front door and departed.

About 48 hours after the Notice was left, a person who
identified himself as Brian R. Ragan contacted the FCC
concerning the matter. According to the FCC, during the
conversation Ragan admitted to operating a broadcast station
on frequency 104.9 MHz for six months. He also told the
Commission that he was present when the agents were knocking
at his door, but was afraid to answer because he heard the
agents say that they were with the FCC.

Now in issuing the proposed fine, the FCC says that Brian R.
Ragan by his own admission, consciously operated the station
and did so on more than one day. This says the regulatory
agency makes the apparent violations of the Communications
Act both willful and repeated.

As to the penalties the FCC has not only ordered the
monetary $17,000 monetary forfeiture, but has also ordered
that Ragan must also submit a written statement pursuant to
Section 1.16 of the FCC Rules. This statement must be
signed under penalty of perjury and state that he is in full
compliance with Section 301 of the Communications Act and is
no longer engaged in the unauthorized operation on 104.9 MHz
or any other frequency for which he has no license. Also
that he will make his authorized amateur station available
for inspection as required by the FCC Rules.

While Ragan may request a reduction or cancellation of the
$17,000 forfeiture, he must still provide the written
statement on or before July 31st. That's also the last date
on which he can file an appeal.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Don Carlson, KQ6FM, in
Reno.

--

In the text of the Notice of Apparent Liability the
Commission said that Ragan, as a licensed Amateur Radio
operator for at least six years, should gave known that any
radio equipment at his station must be made available for
inspection at any time when requested by the FCC. Also he
should be aware of the proper operation of his amateur
station in accordance with the FCC's Rules. (FCC)

**

ENFORCEMENT: TWO IN BOSTON FINED $15000 EACH FOR UNLICENSED
RADIO BROADCASTING

Two unlicensed broadcasters in Massachusetts will have to
pay fines of $15,000 each. This after the FCC turns down
both of their appeals. Amateur Radio Newsline's Bruce
Tennant, K6PZW, is here with the details:

--

The FCC has dismissed as late a pair of petitions for
reconsideration from Lloyd Morris and Robert Brown whom the
FCC alleges operated an unlicensed radio station in Boston,
Massachusetts.

In 2010 the agency had fined each man $15,000 for allegedly
operating a station called "Datz Hits Radio" on 99.7 MHz.
In their appeals, both Morris and Brown told the FCC they
didn't respond to the original notice nor pay the fine
because they couldn't get advice on actions to take and how
to file a response.

But in its order denying the appeals, the FCC noted that
Morris and Brown broke the law by operating an unauthorized
station despite repeated warnings and letters from the
Commission ordering them to stop, actions which the FCC
found particularly egregious.

The FCC also noted that once a public notice of action is
released, petitions for reconsideration must be filed within
30 days. Morris and Brown filed a day late, and the FCC
dismissed their petitions as untimely.

In the end, the agency upheld the fine for both men, saying
in its decision their explanation was not sufficient to
excuse a late response to the original notice.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Bruce Tennant, K6PZW, in
Los Angeles.

--

Morris and Brown were given the customary 30 days to pay the
outstanding fines. (FCC)

**

RADIO LAW: SUPREME COURT RULES AGAINST THE FCC IN WARDROBE
MALFUNCTION CASE

The so-called Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" indecency
case which led to increased profanity delay equipment
installations for both TV and radio stations has come to the
end of the legal road. This after the United States Supreme
Court says that it will not review a lower court's ruling
that overturned the FCC's $550,000 fine against CBS
Corporation for televising a fleeting view of Janet
Jackson's breast during the live 2004 Super Bowl half time
show.

A federal appeals court had ruled the fine was arbitrary and
capricious because it was much larger than indecency fines
had been previously, before the commission began issuing
large fines for so-called fleeting indecent utterances.

Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with the other justices
not to hear the FCC's appeal. In a concurring opinion, he
noted the FCC had changed its indecency policy to include
fleeting utterances, supporting the arbitrary and
capricious arguments, but he also warned that any future
wardrobe malfunctions will not be protected going forward.

The Supreme Court last month tossed out FCC indecency fines
against Fox and ABC on narrow procedural grounds. At that
time it told the regulatory agency that it is free to update
its broadcast indecency guidelines. For their part
broadcasters have insisted for years that the FCC's
indecency guidelines are vague and chill free speech. (RW,
Others)

**

NAMES IN THE NEWS: W7EQI SAYS THE MEDIA NEEDS A LEVEL
PLAYING FIELD

A ham radio operator who serves in Congress says that its
time to make the overall media landscape more of a level
playing ground. Amateur Radio Newsline's Cheryl Lasek,
K9BIK, has the details:

--

House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology Chairman
Greg Walden, W7EQI, of Oregon says the way that the FCC
regulates traditional video providers is based on a bygone
era.

According to Walden, broadcast stations are going mobile and
wireless carriers are streaming video at the same time that
programmers and pay-TV providers are filling smartphone and
tablet screens with their content. Meantime new entities
are coming to market like Hulu, Netflix, YouTube and Roku
and the Communications Act does not apply to these emerging
services.

Walden is not suggesting that lawmakers expand video
distribution regulation. Quite the opposite. He says that
could harm competition from emerging Internet video
providers just as existing cable, satellite and broadcast
providers and programmers are experimenting with Internet
distribution.

However if lawmakers don't intend to apply the old rules to
new participants, then he says that Congress must recognize
the inequity of continuing to apply those same old rules to
traditional players such as TV stations, cable and satellite
providers.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Cheryl Lasek, K9BIK, in
Zion, Illinois.

--

Representative Walden made these remarks during his
subcommittee's hearing on the future of video. (published
news reports)

**

NAMES IN THE NEWS: W4ZDP HONORED FOR DEDICATION TO
THOMASVILLE ARC

Billy Joe Lewis, W4ZDP, has been honored by Thomasville
Amateur Radio Club for founding the club in 1953, and for
his dedication to the club for many years.

Lewis became an amateur radio operator prior to the second
World War. He served on the Burma Road during World War II,
worked many years with his brother, Logan Lewis, at Lewis
Enterprises, and spent decades serving as Thomas County Fire
Chief.

Along with being a respected business man and dedicated
public servant, Lewis founded the club in 1953 and served as
Treasurer for 48 years. His dedication to Thomasville
Amateur Radio Club, over many decades, has resulted in a
strong and vibrant organization dedicated to the radio arts
and to the public

The award was presented to W4ZDP at the annual ARRL Field
Day event held at the Thomas County Ambulance Service in
Thomasville, Georgia on June 23rd. (Via e-mail)
**

NAMES IN THE NEWS: G3PSM AWARDED THE DARC GOLDEN BADGE OF
HONOR

UK radio amateur Colin Thomas, G3PSM, has been awarded
Germany's Deutscher Amateur Radio Club Golden Badge of
Honor. This, for his work in achieving an amateur radio
allocation at 472 kHz.

According to the German national amateur radio society,
G3PSM was involved in the European Conference of Postal and
Telecommunications Administrations or CEPT preparatory
process meetings and at the WRC-12 conference itself. As a
result of his skillful lobbying at many meetings, the CEPT
proposal for an amateur radio allocation near 600 meters was
fully supported and eventually granted.

G3SPM received his award from the DARC Chairman Steffen
Schoppe, DL7ATE, at a recent society hosted dinner. (DARC)

**

CLUB NEWS: WESTSIDE ARC CELEBRATES 60 YEARS

While we're handing out roses, we say congratulations to the
Westside Amateur Radio Club on their 60th birthday.
Headquartered just across the Mississippi River from New
Orleans, Louisiana, the Westside Club, founded July 1st,
1952, is the oldest continuously operating amateur radio
club in the New Orleans area. A special event station is in
the planning stages and we'll have full details just as soon
as we know them. (ARNewslineT)

**

BREAK 3

Serving the news needs of the world's ham radio community 52
weeks a year since mid 1976, we are the Amateur Radio
Newsline with links to the world from our only official
website at www.arnewsline.org and being relayed by the
volunteer services of the following radio amateur:

(5 sec pause here)

**

WORLDBEAT: TASMANIA WELCOMES SOUTHERNMOST D-STAR REPEATER
IN THE WORLD

Tasmania's first D-Star repeater is on the air. VK7RRR is
the southernmost D-Star repeater in the world, and the first
and only such public digital voice repeater in Tasmania.
The system operates in the 70cm band listening on 432.725
MHz and transmitting on 438.125 MHz at 50 watts power out.
Prior to the establishment of VK7RRR, Tasmania was the only
Australian State or Territory that didn't have at least one
D-Star repeater. (WIA)

**

HAM RADIO IN SPACE: STUDENTS DESIGN SUPERCAPICITOR BATTERY
FOR ARISSAT

Students at Penn State university have designed and built a
state-of-the-art super-capacitor type battery for the next
amateur radio ARISSat satellite.

The battery was built to handle 16 charge cycles in a given
24-hour period. That will power the satellite in dark
orbits, when the solar panels are not in sunlight.

Dakshina Murthy Bellur, is an assistant professor of
electrical and computer engineering at Penn State.
According to Bellhur, the unit is a simple design. They
flip a switch, and they throw it out into space.

Bellhur supervised the battery work, which counted as the
students' senior project. More can be found in cyberspace
at live.psu.edu/story/60125 (Pennsylvania State
University)

**

WORLDBEAT: US BBG CRITICIZES CAMBODIA OVER PROGRAMMING BAN

The United States Broadcasting Board of Governors has
criticized the Cambodian Ministry of Information. This for
a decision forbidding FM stations in Cambodia to air Khmer-
language election programming from Radio Free Asia and the
Voice of America during last week's elections.

According to a release the ban involved five stations. The
Broadcasting Board of Governors said that Radio Free Asia
and the Voice of America play a critical role in informing
the Cambodian electorate on fundamental election issues.
They also provide a platform for the full spectrum of
political opinions in the country.

Presiding Governor Michael Lynton stated that news and
information programs help shape a well-educated citizenry
and should be encouraged, not denied. These attempts to
silence Radio Free Asia and the Voice of America are
counterproductive to the goals of building a democratic
society in Cambodia. (RW)

**

HAM AWARD HAPPENINGS: LOTW SUPPORT FOR WPX GOES LIVE

Participants in CQ magazine's WPX award program may now use
the American Radio Relay League's Logbook of the World or
LoTW system to apply for the WPX award and its endorsements.
Amateurs will be able to use LoTW logs to generate lists of
confirmed contacts to be submitted for WPX credit. Standard
Logbook of the World credit fees and CQ award fees will
apply. Logbook of the World support for the WPX award
program went live on July 2nd. (CQ)

**

ON THE AIR: CELEBRATING THE KING OF MOROCCO 13TH
ANNIVERSARY

On the air, keep an ear open for Moroccan amateur radio
operators to use the special prefix 5C13 through July 27th.
This is in celebration of the 13th anniversary of the
crowning of Mohammed VI as King of Morocco. Stations heard
as of airtime 5C13IG, 5C13KD, 5C13NK, 5C13SG and 5C13YZ.
QSL as directed by each operator. (OPDX)

**

ON THE AIR: PC100NOM CELEBRATES THE NETHERLANDS OPEN AIR
MUSEUM

Also be on the lookout for Netherlands special event station
PC-100-NOM to be active through July 29th. This operation
is to commemorate then 100th anniversary of The Netherlands
Open Air Museum in the city of Arnhem. The operator is
PA0FAW who is using CW, SSB and PSK on the various High
Frequency bands. QSL via PA0FAW, either direct, via the
bureau or electronically using eQSL. SWL reports are also
welcome. (OPDX)

**

DX

In DX, N6NB and W6TAI will be active as E51YNB and E51TAI
from Rarotonga for the IARU High Frequency World
Championship on July 14th and 15th. Their operation is
expected to start a few days before the contest and last
several days after the competition concludes. They will be
on 40 through 15 meters using SSB only. QSL both callsigns
via N6NB.

Members of the Trinidad And Tobago Amateur Radio Society
will be active as 9Y4HQ during the same IARU HF World
Champion ships on July 14 and 15th. Operations will be on
all of the High Frequency bands using CW and SSB. QSL only
via DF2RG, either direct or via the bureau.

ZS1WY is currently active from Mozambique as C-91-I-W and is
expected to be there for the next year. However he is there
working and operations may be limted. Recent Q-S-N reports
show he was on 160 meters. QSL via ZS1WY.

A group of hams from the Quito Radio Club will be on the air
as HD081QRC (Hotel Delta Zero Eighty One) between July 14th
and the 22nd to commemorate the founding of that
organization 81 years ago. Activity will be on all bands
using CW and SSB. Equipment will include both modern and
some beautifully restored vintage radios courtesy of HC1BG.
QSL HC1JQ direct or via the bureau.

Lastly, W5JON tells Amateur Radio Newsline that he will once
again be operating as V47JA from his vacation home
overlooking Calypso Bay, on St. Kitts. Listen out for John
from July 12th through August 2nd on 80 through 6 meters
using SSB. He also plans to take part in the RSGB sponsored
Islands On The Air Contest. QSL's to W5JON either direct or
via Loogbook of the World.

(Various DX news sources)

**

THAT FINAL ITEM: NEW BROADCAST CENTER PROPOSED FOR ONE
WORLD TRADE CENTER

And finally this week, the new spire built to replace the
fallen twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York
City will also become an antenna site. Amateur Radio
Newsline's Jim Davis, W2JKD, has the details on this
emerging story:

--

The Durst Organization that controls New York City's One
World Trade Center in a partnership with The Port Authority
of New York and New Jersey plans to add an installation for
FM radio and television transmission antennas in the
building's 408-foot spire. One that will ultimately bring
the new building's height to 1,776 feet and make it the
tallest building in North America.

The Empire State Building, 1,250 feet tall with its 204 foot
antenna tower is currently the home to 19 FM stations and
most of the city's digital television transmitters. Many
radio and television broadcasters migrated to the Empire
site after terrorist attacks of 911 caused the collapse of
the World Trade Center's twin towers in lower Manhattan.

Yet to be determined is whether any of the city's FM
broadcasters will leave their current primary sites at
Empire State Building for the new location at One World
Trade Center or if they will treat the new building spire
primarily as a backup site.

I'm Jim Davis, W2JKD.

--

One thing that's pretty obvious is that at the prices being
quoted for site rental income by Durst, it's unlikely that
any ham radio repeaters will find a home at the new
broadcast antenna site. Then again, once should never doubt
the resourcefulness of New York City area hams. (B&C, RW,
others)

**

NEWSCAST CLOSE

With thanks to Alan Labs, AMSAT, the ARRL, the CGC
Communicator, CQ Magazine, the FCC, the Ohio Penn DX
Bulletin, Radio Netherlands, Rain, the RSGB, the Southgate
News and Australia's WIA News, that's all from the Amateur
Radio NewslineT. Our e-mail address is newsline(at)
arnewsline (dot) org. More information is available at
Amateur Radio Newsline'sT only official website located at
www.arnewsline.org. You can also write to us or support us
at Amateur Radio NewslineT, 28197 Robin Avenue, Santa
Clarita California, 91350

Before we go, this newscast marks the beginning of our 35th
year of service to the world's amateur radio community. We
find it hard to believe that so many years have gone by
since Jim Hendershot, WA6VQP with some help from Bill
Pasternak, WA6ITF, produced the very 1st Westlink Radio
Network newscast, which eventually became the Amateur Radio
Newsline.

That was some 1820 weeks ago. This is week 1,281 and,
believe it or not, in all this time we have never missed a
newscast release date.

With that in mind, we want to take this opportunity to say
thank you all of those who have come forward over the years
as members of our all volunteer team of writers, producers,
reporters and news anchors. It's their selfless devotion
that has made all of this possible.

And to all of you in our vast world-wide audience who have
so graciously supported our efforts these many years. To
you we make the promise to continue to bring you the news of
amateur radio and personal communications as we have the
past 1281 weeks. Also, to do our very best to keep
improving our air product as we proceed into the weeks,
months and years ahead.

Let me end this week by simply saying thanks to all of you
for being a part of the Amateur Radio Newsline
family. Without your encouragement and ongoing support we
would have no reason to exist. It is you who make it all
worthwhile.

For now, with Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF, at the editor's desk,
I'm Don Wilbanks, AE5DW, saying 73 for the 1281st time, and,
as always, we thank you for listening.

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reserved.