Amateur Radio Daily

Amateur Radio Daily is an aggregate of notable news happening in the world of Ham Radio.

GNU Radio Conference 2024 Call for Participation

March 26, 2024

GRCon24 is calling for participants to submit projects, presentations, papers, and posters for GNU Radio Conference 2024. This year GRCon24 will take place in Knoxville, Tennessee September 16-20.

GRCon 2024 celebrates and showcases the substantial and remarkable progress of GNU Radio and its usage in a diverse field of applications and industries.

Source: GNU Radio open_in_new

TAPR Hamvention Forum Schedule

March 24, 2024

TAPR has published the topics of their upcoming forum schedule at Hamvention 2024. The following presentations will be made on May 17, 2024:

  • Frequency Control for Next Generation SDRs
    Accurate and stable frequency control is important to the quality of results for radio-based space science experiments. John’s presentation discusses some of those requirements, and low cost frequency references to help meet them.
    By John Ackermann (N8UR)
  • Using ezDV to get on the air with Digital Voice
    How-to guide to using ezDV with a standard transceiver to get on the air with digital voice.
    By Mooneer Salem (K6AQ)
  • Introducing the TAPR/HamSci Magnetometer
    Description and deployment of the TAPR Magnetometer.
    By Dr Hyomin Kim (KD2MCR)

Additional topics may be viewed on the TAPR website.

Source: TAPR open_in_new

Omaha Red Cross Winlink Exercise This Weekend

March 21, 2024

The Omaha Red Cross Station, W0EQU, will be conducting a Winlink exercise on Saturday March 23rd, 2024. Participants are asked to send messages over RF to W0EQU via HF or VHF RMS gateways.

The purpose of the exercise is to develop Winlink traffic handling capabilities and send properly constructed Winlink messages using standard templates.

Additional details may be found on the exercise webpage.

Source: American Red Cross Nebraska/Iowa Region open_in_new

POTA Begins Park Prefix Updates

March 20, 2024

Update 3/25/2024
China is once again participating in the POTA program after resolving a simple misunderstanding due to language barriers.

In an effort to reorganize the Parks on the Air (POTA) database in a way that meets ISO standards, POTA has begun rolling out changes to the way park entities are prefixed. Beginning with the United States and Puerto Rico, parks previously coded with a K prefix will now be listed with a US prefix. For example, the Appalachian National Scenic Trail was previously K-4556 and is now US-4556. Additional prefixes will be updated in the coming days.

While the changes are largely seamless from a systems perspective, activators will be required to use the new prefixes when uploading logs. Logging software supporting POTA will also need to be adjusted.

From a political perspective, the prefix change has resulted in China choosing to no longer participate in the POTA program due to the ISO3166-2 standard recognizing Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan as top-level entities.

The timeline of prefix changes may be viewed here.

Source: Parks on the Air open_in_new

SatNOGS Logs 9 Million Satellite Observations

March 19, 2024

The 9 millionth observation from the satellite monitoring network SatNOGS was logged in February.

SatNOGS is a global network of satellite ground stations capturing millions of observations from varying low-earth orbit satellites since 2014.

Source: SatNOGS open_in_new

AO-73 Back in Eclipse Mode

March 18, 2024

AMSAT reports that FUNCube (AO-73) is once again operating in eclipse mode after spending several weeks in safe mode. The satellite was placed in safe mode in late February to give its batteries a rest.

Source: AMSAT open_in_new

Microwave Activity Day

March 16, 2024

On Saturday, April 6, 2024, between 08:30 – 12:30, the West Carleton Amateur Radio Club (WCARC) will be having a Microwave Activity Day (MAD) on the grounds of the Diefenbunker: Canada’s Cold War Museum. The Diefenbunker is at grid square FN15xi.

MADs are events when amateur radio operator microwave enthusiasts get out into the field and set up their portable stations to test, align, and hopefully establish two-way communications with other microwave aficionados. They offer an opportunity to amateurs who are curious about microwave operations to learn more. All are welcome. We hope to see you there!

Source: West Carleton Amateur Radio Club open_in_new

Halifax Resolves Special Event

March 13, 2024

By Barry Evans (N4WFU)

Amateur radio operators from surrounding areas will assemble at Halifax, North Carolina on April 11-13, 2024, to activate special event station N4C. They will operate several Ham stations, using voice, cw (morse code), and digital modes, to communicate with as many other hams, around the world, as possible. This activity is to commemorate the signing of The Halifax Resolves, which occurred on April 12, 1776.

The Halifax Resolves was the first written instrument, in existence, leading to US independence from England. It was approved unanimously at the Fourth Provincial Congress gathered at Halifax, NC. It authorized the NC delegates, being sent to the Continental Congress, to vote for, and encourage other colony’s delegates to support independence from England. This led to the US's Declaration of Independence being adopted and signed on July 4, 1776.

Hams around the world that make contact with this special event station, can request a QSL card confirming the contact, by sending a self-addressed, stamped envelope to:

Barry Evans, N4WFU
P. O. Box 1533
Roanoke Rapids, NC 27870

A certificate suitable for framing is also available for a donation of 5 US dollars to offset its cost. If possible, please include an address label if requesting the certificate.

Source: N4WFU open_in_new

HamCation Sets Attendance Record

March 11, 2024

From HamCation PR:

From February 9 to 11, 2024, the Orlando Amateur Radio Club hosted the 77th annual Orlando HamCation at the Central Florida Fairgrounds and Expo Park in Orlando—an 87-acre lakefront fairground. HamCation enjoyed splendid weather throughout the weekend, with temperatures hovering around the mid-seventies and no rainfall. This year's attendance reached a record high of 25,321, making 2024 the largest attendance in HamCation history.

We would like to express our gratitude to all the visitors and vendors for their participation in this fantastic show.

Source: HamCation open_in_new

Hamvention Announces 2024 Award Winners

March 8, 2024

By Michael Kalter (W8CI)
2024 Hamvention® Awards Nomination Awards Chair

Special Achievement Award – Anthony Luscre K8ZT

Anthony Luscre, K8ZT, is from near Akron, OH and was first licensed in 1981. He has been a QRP operator, contester, and teacher throughout his career in amateur radio. He updated to Amateur Extra in 2000. Anthony is active on HF and VHF/UHF, using CW, phone, and digital. His QRP contacts now top 115,000. He has consistently finished in the top ten of various major contests and finished first in the World and US in both CQ Worldwide Phone and CW QRP categories multiple times. As a bonus, his QRP DXCC total recently topped the 328 mark, and he has completed 11-band WAS.

Between licensing classes, club programs, webinars, hamfests, conferences, youth & school radio demonstrations and other in-person and online talks, Anthony has presented over 500 sessions since the beginning of COVID-19. He has presented multiple times for Contest University, QSO Today Expo, and at Dayton Hamvention. He does a weekly class, “The Joy of Operating,” for the Long Island CW Club. Anthony serves as ARRL Ohio Section Youth Coordinator and is an officer in his local radio club. He enjoys writing as well as speaking and has prepared articles for a variety of publications, including CQ Magazine (column “Ham Radio Explorer”), DX Engineering blog “On All Bands” and developing an online course “Introduction to Contesting” for the ARRL Learning Network.

Technical Achievement Award – Ward Silver N0AX

For the past 15 years Ward has been the Lead Editor of the ARRL Handbook and the ARRL Antenna Book, and a primary author of all three ARRL License Manuals and study guides from 2004 until his retirement in 2023. He wrote the well-received “Grounding and Bonding for the Radio Amateur” (now in its 2nd edition) and “Ham Radio for Dummies” (now in its 4th edition). His monthly QST column, “Hands-On Radio” ran for 180 issues and has now been published in book format. The recent ARRL book, “Here to There: Radio Wave Propagation” includes his contributions including being its editor. He gives many online and in-person presentations and is a two-time recipient of the Bill Orr Technical Writing Award, as well.

An electrical engineer, he designed microprocessor-based products and medical devices for twenty years before beginning a second career as a teacher and writer. Licensed since 1972, he is a co-founder of the World Radiosport Team Championships, and was inducted into the CQ Contest Hall of Fame in 2015, with numerous top scores and records. He is President of the Yasme Foundation (yasme.org) and is also a board member of the HamSCI collaborative research group (hamsci.org). Ward’s primary interests in amateur radio include radiosport, antenna design, and supporting his local emergency response team.

Club of the Year – The Young Ladies’ Radio League (YLRL)

The Young Ladies’ Radio League, Inc (YLRL) is proud to be celebrating its 85th Anniversary this year. With members from all over the world, the organization has been involved in everything from contests to emergency events to helping new hams get licensed and, on the air, as well as everything in between. Established in 1939, YLRL has been found at Hamfests and Conventions all over the world and has been proud to have had a booth at Hamvention® since the 1950’s and a YL Forum since the 1960’s.

Women helping women in Amateur Radio is a mission statement for this organization, but there are also contest and award opportunities for the OMs who support their YLs. YLRL has the motto QRV-I AM READY and they are ready to assist in the radio community.

Amateur of The Year Award – Edward Engleman KG8CX

Edward Engleman, KG8CX, is from Menominee, Michigan. He is the co-founder of the Young Amateurs Communications Ham Team (YACHT). Ed was first licensed in 1991 and reached Amateur Extra class in 2000. He has been a member of the ARRL since 1991. He serves his home club, the Marinette & Menominee Amateur Radio Club, as a VE. Ed’s background as an elementary educator and principal for 33 years was instrumental in developing the talents he now uses in his work with young amateurs. His major objective is to help create and develop enjoyment and skill in communications/technology via ham radio activity through its many modes, and to encourage friendships with other youth hams. Membership in YACHT, callsign K8KDZ, has grown steadily. There were 47 new members in 2023 alone.

Many of the YACHT youth have given presentations at past Hamvention® and Hamcation youth forums conducted by Carole Perry. A number of the youth members have been awarded national recognition for their ham radio activity and accomplishments. Besides the development of youth presenters, YACHT has echo link sessions 6 evenings a week and club activity encourage participation in all modes of amateur radio. Ed is proud to be part of the future of amateur radio by paying forward his interest in amateur radio by developing the next generation of hams.

Source: Hamvention open_in_new

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