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CQ Newsroom

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$35 FCC License Fee Kicks in April 19 - License Upgrades Excluded

Posted: 07 Apr 2022 01:21 PM PDT http://cqnewsroom.blogspot.com/2022/04/35-fcc-license-fee-kicks-in-april-19.html


The FCC's new $35 filing fee for nearly all amateur radio license
applications takes effect on April 19. The fee was among many adopted in December of 2020 but the effective date was delayed until the Commission's computer systems could be upgraded to handle the changes.

The new fee applies to most license-related applications, including new licenses, renewals and vanity call sign requests. It does not apply to
license upgrades or purely administrative filings, such as a change of name
or address.
The fee is separate from the exam fee collected by most volunteer exam
teams and is paid directly to the FCC via its Universal Licensing System website, <https://tinyurl.com/s799xxaw>. For more details, visit <https://tinyurl.com/44m8dmxt>.

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Dayton Awards Announced - KF8J, VA7OJ/AB4OJ, N6IZW, Highland ARC Honored

Posted: 07 Apr 2022 01:18 PM PDT http://cqnewsroom.blogspot.com/2022/04/dayton-awards-announced-kf8j-va7ojab4oj.html

The Dayton Hamvention® Awards Committee has announce its 2022 honorees. The Dayton awards are considered among the most prestigious in amateur radio.
The Amateur of the Year award goes to the Hamvention's own Jim Simpson,
KF8J. A member of the Hamvention Committee continuously since 1973, Simpson twice served as General Chairman and has held a variety of other posts both within the Hamvention Committee and the parent Dayton Amateur Radio Association. He also founded the Xenia Weather Radio Network after the town that now hosts the Hamvention was devastated by a tornado in 1974, and has
been instrumental in forming and continuing to help with the 4-H Amateur
Radio Club in Xenia.
This year's Technical Achievement award goes to Adam Farson, VA7OJ/AB4OJ,
in recognition of his decades of service in providing independent technical support for various HF radios, particularly ICOMs. He also conducts and
reports on independent measurements of nearly all new radios, and has
produced the only data radio for hobbyists that clearly delineates the performance of software defined radios (SDRs) across the spectrum of band
noise levels. The Hamvention's Special Achievement award this year goes to Kerry Banke, N6IZW. A microwave RF engineer, Banke has been a key
contributor to the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program, designing and building both flight hardware and test equipment to certify the spaceworthiness of ARISS gear. The 2022 Club of the Year is
Ohio's Highland Amateur Radio Association, based in rural Highland County.
The club has nearly 150 members, maintains five repeaters, hosts two weekly nets with average attendance of 28 hams, and holds both monthly and
bi-monthly programs. Members are involved with emergency communications,
Parks on the Air, and volunteer examining. The awards will be presented at
the Dayton Hamvention in May, the first in-person gathering for the event
since 2019.

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Friedrichshafen On, "HamCamp" Off

Posted: 07 Apr 2022 01:13 PM PDT http://cqnewsroom.blogspot.com/2022/04/friedrichshafen-on-hamcamp-off.html



The organizers of Europe's largest hamfest, "Hamradio" in Friedrichshafen, Germany, say the show will return in-person this year, but the co-located
youth "HamCamp" will not be held.

According to the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club (DARC), the available
facilities could not safely house over 100 young hams and adult supervisors
in accordance with Covid protocols. DARC says it hopes to resume HamCamp in 2023..

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SP9FIH, 3DA0RU, Win 2021 Cass Awards

Posted: 07 Apr 2022 01:05 PM PDT http://cqnewsroom.blogspot.com/2022/04/sp9fih-3da0ru-win-2021-cass-awards.html


Janusz Wegrzyn, SP9FIH, has been named the single-op winner of the 2021
Cass Award, presented by ClubLog, DXLab and the Northern California DX Club
to the DXpeditions that work the greatest number of different amateurs.

Wegrzyn was honored for contacting 9684 unique stations during his two-week one-man DXpedition to Sint Maarten, where he operated as PJ7P. This is his fifth consecutive Cass Single-Op award. The 2021 Unlimited Cass Award,
which goes to DXpedition groups, was awarded to 3DA0ARU for its October operation from Eswatini. The group of eight Russian, Czech and Polish hams
made contact with 24,985 separate stations during the operation, a new
record for this award category. Complete rules are available at <www.cassaward.com>.

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Radio Fallout from Ukraine Invasion Expands

Posted: 07 Apr 2022 12:59 PM PDT http://cqnewsroom.blogspot.com/2022/04/radio-fallout-from-ukraine-invasion.html


Newsline reports that Russia and Belarus have been indefinitely suspended
from the CEPT, the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations, in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. This affects
amateur radio operation in Europe, as CEPT members accept amateur licenses
from other member countries.

This action suspends the automatic authority of hams from Russia and
Belarus to operate in other parts of Europe, and of hams from other CEPT signatories (including the U.S.) to operate in Russia and Belarus.

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Spratlys Get Even More Dangerous for Hams

Posted: 07 Apr 2022 12:57 PM PDT http://cqnewsroom.blogspot.com/2022/04/spratlys-get-even-more-dangerous-for.html

The Spratly Islands
(Map courtesy CIA World Factbook)
The Spratly Islands in the South China Sea have long been on ham radio
DXers' most-wanted lists, and getting there to operate has always been dangerous because of competing claims to the islands by various countries.
Now, the Associated Press reports that China has "fully militarized" at
least three of the islands in the region, quoting a top U.S. military
commander as saying the islands have been equipped with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems, fighter jets and laser and jamming
equipment. According to U.S. Indo-Pacific Commander Adm. John C. Aquilino,
this is part of what he describes as China's largest military buildup since World War II. DXpeditions to the area are strongly discouraged…

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There's Gotta Be a Ham on This Team!

Posted: 07 Apr 2022 12:44 PM PDT http://cqnewsroom.blogspot.com/2022/04/theres-gotta-be-ham-on-this-team.html

SEAQUE will be hosted on the International Space
Station by the Nanoracks Bishop airlock. The blue-and-
gold brackets attached to the side of the airlock are for
external payloads. The technology demonstration will
be installed at one of those sites. (NASA photo)NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is coordinating a project involving scientists from three universities and two commercial companies to test a device that JPL says
could set the stage for a future global quantum network …and we're pretty sure there's at least one ham on the team that's developing it. The milk-carton-sized technology demonstration experiment, scheduled for launch
to the International Space Station later this year, is named the Space Entanglement and Annealing Quantum Experiment, abbreviated by the acronym SEAQUE (say it out loud and you'll understand the connection!). Quantum computers have the potential of operating millions of times faster than conventional computers, according to JPL, and SEAQUE will test two new communication technologies to create quantum networks in the space
environment. Building such a network would require the use of space-based
nodes – essentially quantum repeaters – to securely receive and transmit quantum data from and to the ground using free-space optical
communications. This experiment would test a technique for producing and detecting pairs of entangled photons which would carry the quantum data.
The photon source on SEAQUE would split individual photons into
entangled "daughter photons," according to JPL, and measuring one of them immediately results in changes in the measurement of the other, even if
they are widely separated from each other. The photon source would use a waveguide – familiar to microwave-active hams – to split and transmit the entangled photons. The second experiment would involve the use of an
internal laser to repair damage caused by high-energy radiation in the
space environment. It will use a process known as annealing to "bubble
away" radiation-caused defects and reduce unwanted noise in the detector.
The SEAQUE module will be attached to the outside of the ISS, mounted on brackets already installed on the Bishop airlock, which is owned and
operated by Nanoracks, a commercial participant in this experiment. The earliest possible launch date for SEAQUE is this coming August. For more information, see <https://tinyurl.com/yek9smtk>.

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Milestones: JH1AJT, W2RS, Silent Keys

Posted: 07 Apr 2022 12:37 PM PDT http://cqnewsroom.blogspot.com/2022/04/milestones-jh1ajt-w2rs-silent-keys.html

CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame member "Zorro" Miyazawa, JH1AJT, became a
Silent Key in late March, according to DXNews.com. In addition to his DXing activities around the world, which included bringing along groups of other operators to be on the air while he conducted business in various
locations, Zorro was the founder of the Foundation for Global Children, an international humanitarian organization focused on helping provide basic supplies and educational opportunities for children around the world. Also leaving us in March was amateur satellite pioneer Ray Soifer, W2RS. In
1960, he was on one end of the first known amateur radio contact via
satellite ionization trail reflection, according to the AMSAT News Service.
In addition, Ray was at one end of the first-ever intersatellite relay communication between two earth stations – using OSCARs 6 and 7 – in any radio service. Soifer held many positions in the AMSAT organization,
including Executive Vice President and acting President. He also served as chair of the IARU (International Amateur Radio Union) satellite forum and
the IARU Region 2 VHF/UHF Committee.

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EmComm Exercise on QO-100

Posted: 07 Apr 2022 12:36 PM PDT http://cqnewsroom.blogspot.com/2022/04/emcomm-exercise-on-qo-100.html


Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE
AR-SA
Amateur
radio emergency communications exercises don't typically include
satellites, but QO-100 isn't your typical amateur satellire. It is geostationary, appearing to remain in the same spot overhead at all times, meaning that access from all stations within its "footprint" is continuous. That footprint covers much of Europe, all of Africa and parts of Asia and
South America. In late February, according to the AMSAT News Service, 22 amateurs from 14 countries in IARU Region 1 (Europe, Africa and the Middle East) took part in a short-notice EmComm exercise using the QO-100
satellite. The coverage area extended from South Africa to the United
Kingdom, providing an avenue for communication in a wide-ranging disaster situation without dependence on either the internet or the ionosphere. A follow-up exercise is planned for this fall.


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MARS and RRI to Conduct Monthlong Drill

Posted: 07 Apr 2022 12:29 PM PDT http://cqnewsroom.blogspot.com/2022/04/mars-and-rri-to-conduct-monthlong-drill.html

Radio Relay International (RRI), in cooperation with U.S. Army MARS Region
2, will be conducting a joint interoperability exercise from April 15 to
May 15, 2022. According to RRI Director of Emergency Management Jim Wades, WB8SIW, the exercise will consist of two phases, starting with a limited infrastructure test and training phase, followed by a test utilizing
RRI/NTS (ARRL National Traffic System) assets through the last mile in
selected states. Messages addressed to various emergency service
organizations will originate within the Army MARS Region 2 network from
which they will be transferred to the RRI Digital Traffic Network for
routing to their destinations. Replies will return via a similar path.
RRI operates an international infrastructure of layered communications networks including both manual mode systems and a hybrid mesh network
utilizing high frequency resources. More information regarding the exercise
and the organization may be found at the RRI website, <www.radio-relay.org>.

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AMSAT Receives Major Grant for Spaceframe Development

Posted: 07 Apr 2022 12:24 PM PDT http://cqnewsroom.blogspot.com/2022/04/amsat-receives-major-grant-for.html


The AMSAT News Service reports that the amateur satellite group has been awarded a grant of close to $100,000 by ARDC (Amateur Radio Digital Communications) for development of a "3U" spaceframe with deployable solar panels. This structure – the size of three standard cubesats – will serve as the mechanical platform for AMSAT's GOLF series of high-altitude
satellites and a new generation of low-orbit FM satellites, according to
ANS.
The GOLF satellites are intended for higher elliptical orbits, providing
longer access times and greater coverage areas for hams here on the planet. AMSAT stressed, though, that as generous as the ARDC grant is, another
$231,000 is needed to cover additional hardware development and launch preparation costs for just one GOLF satellite.

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