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Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) Report 1739 - December 10 2010
Amateur Radio Newsline report number 1739 with a release date of Friday, December 10th 2010 to follow in 5-4-3-2-1. The following is a Q-S-T. ARISS celebrates a decade of International Space Station to schoolroom contacts, the National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators releases its new General Class Question Pool, a roadblock catches unlicensed radio operators in Brunei and researchers in Belfast Ireland propose humans as walking cellphone towers. Find out the strange details on this one on Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) report number 1739 coming your way right now. (Billboard Cart Here) ** HAM RADIO IN SPACE: ARISS CELEBRATES ITS 10th ANNIVERSARY Amateur Radio on boards the International Space Station, better known by the acronym ARISS is celebrating the 10th anniversary of student ham radio contacts with crew members on board the orbiting outpost. We have more in this report: -- On December 21st of the year 2000, astronaut William Shepherd turned from his usual activities aboard the newly occupied International Space Station. Floating over to a ham radio station attached to an I-S-S bulkhead, he called the Burbank School in Burbank, Illinois and was soon talking with 14 students earger to know more about life in space. Now in 2010, amateur radio operators world-wide are celebrating the tenth anniversary of this first ARISS school contact. Since that first QSO, the ham operators coming to the Space Station along with their ARISS volunteers on the ground have conducted 565 successful contacts in 40 countries and 5 continents. This has allowed thousands of students to share the excitement of those first 14. Moreover, tens of thousands of students, faculty, and parents have participated in the program by working on the planning phase and attending these events. ARISS contacts have prompted countless students to seriously consider pursuing science, technology, engineering, and math careers, including becoming an astronaut. Educational programs and amateur radio clubs established at participating schools continue to inspire students long after the contact has ended. The value of manned amateur radio on-orbit was so apparent to NASA and the Russian Space Agency that the ham radio from orbit became the first experiment to be activated on board I-S-S. For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Bruce Tennant, K6PZW, in Los Angeles. -- The use of amateur radio in space began in the early 1980's when Astronaut Owen Garriott, W5LFL, became the first ham to operate from orbit on board the Space Shuttle Columbia. His ground breaking ham radio from space operation was chronicled in the ARRL distributed video titled Amateur Radio's Newest Frontier produced and hosted by the late NBC newsman Roy Neal, K6DUE. In all, what became known as the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment or SAREX flew on 28 shuttle missions, proving the educational and crew morale benefits of ham radio. Ham radio also proved popular with the cosmonauts aboard the Russian space station Mir. (N5VHO, W8AAS, ARISS, ARNewsline(tm) Archives) ** AMATEUR RADIO TESTING: NCVEC RELEASES NEW GENERAL CLASS QUESTION POOL If you plan to upgrade your ham ticket, listen up. On Tuesday, December 7th, the Question Pool Committee of the National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators released the new General class question pool also known as the Element 3 exam. This new question pool includes graphics and diagrams It will become effective for all General class examinations administered on or after July 1st of 2011 and will remain valid until June 30th, 2015. The new General pool contains 457 questions, from which 35 are selected for an Element 3 examination. The current General question pool that became effective July 1, 2007 will expire June 30, 2011. And for those interested in the other classes of United States ham radio license testing, the current Technician class question pool that became effective on July 1, 2010 is valid through June 30, 2014. The Amateur Extra class pool that was effective July 1, 2008 is valid until June 30, 2012. (ARRL, FCC) ** BREAKING DX NEWS: SABLE ISLAND DXPEDITION POSTPONED Some breaking news in the world of DX. This with word that the long awaited Sable Island DXpedition has been postponed. According to team spokesman Randy Rowe, N0TG, the group has been advised that the beach at Sable Island will not be suitable for landing at this time. That puts the DXers into the holiday period. As such they have no choice but to return home, re-group and come up with a new re-schedule. Rowe adds that they will assess the situation over the next couple of weeks and layout our new plan at that time. Newsline will bring you another update on this long awaited operation as soon as more information is released. (Sable Island DX Team) ** RADIO IN SPACE: SUN DEVELOPS MEGA FILAMENT A spectacular filament is reportedly snaking around the sun's southeastern limb. Spaceweather reports that from end to end, this filament stretches more than 700,000 km. That's a full solar radius or almost twice the distance from Earth to the Moon. We have more in nthis report: -- According to scientists at the Solar Dynamics Observatory the flare stretches nearly twice the distance between the Earth and moon. The flare, described by astronomers as a filament, is an elongated cloud of cooler gases suspended above the Sun by magnetic forces. NASA scientists say the solar storm is confined to the Sun and poses no threat to satellites in space or the power grid here on Earth. Last month we reported that a Purdue University professor had researched the lack of solar activity in recent years. His published report indicated that we have not had a sun spot in over 800 days. Records show that this is the longest solar spot dry spell in 300 years. Observers are watching to see if we can expect increased sun spot activity. Those operating high frequency amateur radio bands surely hope this is just the beginning of a bright solar future. Reporting for Amateur Radio Newsline, this is Jack Parker, W8ISH -- The massive build up is an easy target for backyard telescopes as long as optical safety precautions to insure no damage to the astronomers eyes. Solar observers say that the filament holds the potential for an impressive eruption if it happens to collapse in the days ahead. Spaceweater.com is carrying a series of ongoing photos as well as technical updates. (W8ISH, Spaceweather) ** BREAK 1 From the United States of America, We are the Amateur Radio Newsline, heard on bulletin stations around the world including the WA3AOP repeater serving Philadelphia Pennsylvania. (5 sec pause here) ** ENFORCEMENT: STATION ISSUED NAL FOR FAILING TO REDUCE NIGHTTIME POWER TO 15 WATTS The FCC has issued a $6000 Notice of Apparent Liability to Donald Coss, owner of KCKX in Stayton, Oregon. This for not operating in accordance with the authorized 15 watt nighttime power specified on his license. According to the FCC, its Portland office monitored the signal of KCKX before and after local sunset. Field strength was found to remain constant both before and after sunset on consecutive days last April. The agent also captured KCKX-AM's relative signal strengths for its daytime and nighttime operations. At that time he determined that there was no reduction in signal strength for nighttime operation. A few days later the FCC agent inspected the station at its control point in Woodburn. The commission said that during an interview with the Portland agent, the owner said he was aware of the requirement to reduce operating power at night from 1000 watts down to 15 watts. But the owner said that it was just too costly to maintain the necessary time-keeping devices, power switching devices and other equipment to accomplish this. Now, in its latest correspondence with the station, the FCC noted that in 2000 it's Enforcement Bureau had issued a Notice of Violation to Coss also for failing to reduce the nighttime power of KCKX AM. It then issued the $6000 Notice of Apparent Liability and instructed Coss to send a sworn statement about how he'll fix the problem. It also cautioned Cross that future violations of its rules may subject him to more severe enforcement penalties. Cross was given the customary time to reply as well as to pay the $6000 Notice of Apparent Liability or to file an appeal. (FCC) ** ENFORCEMENT: BRUNAI HOLDS ROADBLOCK TO CATCH UNLICENSED OPS Unlicensed mobile radio operators in Brunai, some of whom are hams with expired licenses but still on the air have felt the sting of that nations government enforcement. This, when several of them were caught in a good old fashioned roadblock on December 6th. The roadblock was a joint operation conducted by the Authority for Information Communications Technology and the Sengkurong (SEN CURE ONG) Police Station. In only two hour time, all vehicles with an outside antenna mounted to it were stopped and inspected. Several were found to contain radio gear capable of operation between 137 to 174 megahertz which with the exception of 144 to 148 megahertz are supposed to be blocked from use. The operation was part of an awareness campaign to urge operators to obtain ham radio licenses and confine their operation to within the confines of the amateur radio bands. Also, to avoid the possibility of a fine of up to $10,000 and /or three years in jail. The ventire story is on-line at tinyurl.com/brunai (Borneo Bulletin) ** WORLDBEAT: FRENCH ATV'ERS CONCERNED OVER NEW SAT NAVAGATION IN 1.2 GHZ BAND French amateur television enthusiasts have voiced their concerns over the future of the 1.2 GHz band. At a recent meeting, the trepidations of the French A-T-V Association were raised regarding the use of the Amateur Radio 23cm band by the Galileo and Glosnass satellite navigation systems. Heres why. The European Union's Galileo system will use 1260 to 1300 MHz while the Russian Federation Glosnass system will be on 1240 to 1260 MHz. Both systems are expected to be operational by 2015 and there is fear among some hams I FDrance that Amateur Television operations could be impacted. Complete proceedings of the November 27, gathering in Google English is on line at tinyurl.com/38c4vhw. (Southgate) ** RADIO SCIENCE: RESEARCHERS IN IRELAND PROPOSE HUMAN ANTENNAS Turning to an interesting story out of Ireland, scientists are proposing to increase broadband nework availability by making people into walking cell phone towers. Jim Linton, VK3PC, of the WIA News is here with the rather strange details: -- Researchers at Queen's University Belfast are looking to improve the reliability of modern wireless systems. They believe that humans could be turned into wireless towers to create what they call body-to-body networks. A five year research project is investigating how small sensors carried by people could communicate with each other to create a ubiquitous wireless networking paradigm. This would provide enhanced bandwidth needed when too many people use their phone in the same cell area, help the service to penetrate weak signal areas or black holes and counteract drop outs that result from interference. In a rapidly developing science of body centric communications, new sensors carried by everyone with a mobile phone would interact with each other and wireless devices embedded in local surroundings to transmit data, providing anytime, anywhere mobile network connectivity. The technology also promises to open up the use of wireless communications in a wider range of activities including law enforcement and first responder teams, sports applications through to medical monitoring of patients in their own homes. For the Amateur Radio Newsline, Im Jim Linton, VK3PC. -- While an interesting idea, its likely to be another of those scientific advances that prove to have little practical application. At least not until scientists first prove conclusively the effect that radiation from cellphones have no adverse affect on the human body. And that may not be proven either way for decades. (WIA News) ** HAM RADIO ON THE NET: NEW FREE SPANISH LANGUAGE HAM RADIO MAGAZINE A new Spanish language amateur radio magazine is now available free on the Internet. Called Radio Noticias, the publication includes information on transceivers, receivers, antennas tests and much more. Also included is news from the worlds of DX, contest operation, shortwave, propagation and much more. And its picture filled website has photos of radio gear some of which is not available in the United States including a very simple to operate 2 meter mobile rig. You can download the current issue and see it for yourself at www.radionoticias.com. (Southgate) ** HAM RADIO EVENTS: JANUARY 2 2011 IS KIDS DAY If you are free on Sunday, January 2nd, consider using the hours of 1800 bto 2400 UTC to help introduce youngsters to amateur radio on Kids Day. The Kids Day operating event is sponsored by Oregon's Boring Amateur Radio Club in association with the ARRL. It was created to expose young minds to the magical world of ham radio by putting them on the air under the supervision of a licensed radio amateur so that they can experience making a contact first hand. And as a Kids Day volunteer station you get rewarded by knowing that you have done your part in passing the hobby on to the next generation. More information about Kids Day can be found on the ARRL website. That's in cyberspace at . (ARRL) ** MILITARY HAM RADIO: TWO STORIES IN MULLIGAN LIFESTYLES Amateur Radio Military Appreciation is featured in a story in the winter 2010 edition of Mulligan Lifestyles Magazine. Mulligan Lifestyles is a publication that honors our troops, veterans, active duty military, and their families. The story can be found on page 58. The same issue also contains a story about Amateur Radio on page 42 submitted by Nick Shyshuk. You can read both on line at tinyurl.com/29v7jv8 (ARMAD) ** NAMES IN THE NEWS: ZL2BHF CELEBRATES 25 YEARS PRODUCING NZART NEWSCAST And a word of congratulations to Newsline's own Jim Meachen, ZL2BHF. This as he celebrates a quarter of a century producing and usually voicing the monthly NZART Official Broadcast to New Zealand's national ham radio community. The big celebration of this milestone for ZL2BHF takes place on December 19th. For the event Jim has has compiled some memorial broadcasts from presenters that are not with us. Also, the November to December bi-monthly issue of the NZART magazine Break-In will carry a story on his quarter-century of work on this New Zealand national ham radio broadcast project. (Break-In / NZART) ** 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) ** HAM RADIO IN SPACE: ARISSAT ONE ENROUTE TO MOSCOW ARISSat One is on its way to its launch site. Late word from AMSAT that the ARISSat One flight hardware and the backup unit are in Germany and are scheduled to be delivered to Moscow on Saturday, December 11th. Meantime, Lou McFadin, W5DID, and Mark Steiner, K3MS, will be heading to Moscow on the 10th of December to assist with integration and testing of the Kursk experiment and battery. The schedule still has ARISSat going to the ISS via a Progress vehicle in late January 2011 and release from the ISS in late February 2011. (ANS) ** HAM RADIO NEAR SPACE: HABEX TO LAUNCH ON DECEMBER 18TH South Africa's HABEX team will be launching its third high altitude balloon on December 18th. The balloon will be carrying various payloads in preparation for a future 2011 launch to serve the educational needs of students 8 schools. The payload is made up of 4 separate modular units. The primary function is the on-board controller board that contains an APRS unit. This will provide real time the balloon location during the mission. Also, a store and forward or parrot repeater on 438.500 MHz which includes a backup APRS unit is also onboard. During the flight, if the repeater is not in use, the APRS unit will transmit data. The Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in conjunction with the Gauteng Department of Education initiated this project. Its purpose is to support the Electrical Technology Curriculum and provide expanded opportunities to students in this field. More is on-line at www.habex.za.net. (SARL) ** HAM RADIO IN SPACE: DISCOVEREY'S LAUNCH DELAYED NASA has announced that the 39th planned final flight of the space shuttle Discovery is being pushed back to early February of 2011. This in order to give engineers more time to determine the root cause of cracks in the shuttle's external fuel tank covering . NASA had been targeting launch for a short window that opens December 17th and closes December 20th. But Shuttle Program Managers have determined that tests and analyses intended to determine the cause of the cracks would not be complete in time to launch during that last 2010 opportunity because engineers have not yet determined the cause of the cracks. The space agency' concern is that such a fracture could cause foam insulation to break loose during launch and damage the shuttle's heat-shield components needed for a safe reentry to the Earth's atmosphere. (NASA) ** WORLDBEAT: HCJB REACHES RADIO DISTRIBUTION GOAL International religious broadcaster HCJB's recent campaign in cooperation with Moody Radio to raise funds to deliver pre-tuned radios to listeners in under-developed regions of the world appears to have succeeded. According to a press release, enough funding was raised to send 7,000 radios to Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone and Ghana. That's or 2,000 above the initial goal. The radios were designed by HCJB's Global Technology Center in Elkhart, Indiana in the United States. Their simple operation is designed to permit listeners to tune in three HCJB partner stations in the target audience region. (RW) ** THE DXCC PROGRAM: NUMEROUS OPERATIONS APPROVED Bill Moore NC1L, the ARRL DXCC Branch Manager advises that a number of operations are now approved for DXCC credit. They are the 2010 operations as 3COC from Annobon, the 3C9B out of Equatorial Guinea along with the 3V9A, 3VOA, TS7TI and the TS8P from Tunisia. Going back in time, also approved was the 2009 approved is the TS9A also fromTunisia and the 9Q stroke DK3MO from 2007 out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. If you had any of these operations rejected in recent applications send a note to dxcc at arrl dot org to have your record updated. Once updated, this will be reflected in your Logbook of the World account or in the live, daily DXCC Standings at www.arrl.org/dxcc. ** DX In DX, G7BXU, will be spending the Christmas and New Year holidays in Sierra Leone operating portable 9L. He will be there from December 19th through January 7th likely using the callsign 9L1BXU. QSL via his home callsign after his return. PY2ZX will be active portable PT7 from the PW7T contest station through December 13th. His operation will be limited to 6 and 2 meters looking mainly for Carribean stations operating weak signal modes and using horizontal polarization. He will also be checking 70 MHz for openings to Europe. NA3J tells Newsline that hew will be operating through December 20th as J3 stroke NA3J Maritime Mobile aboard the 50 foot yacht the Yaba Jaba. His operation will be using SSB and CW on all bands and he will make use of the WARC bands when they're open. He says that he might get as far north as J8 but there's no real itinerary. QSL as directed on the air. N1DG was expected to arrive in the United Arab Emirates on December 5th. He was anticipated to operate from the A61AD station possibly on 12 and 17 meters using CW, SSB and RTTY. Logs will be uploaded to LoTW on his return. BX5AA, will be active from Taiwan during the ARRL DX SSB Contest slated for March 5th and 6th. He says that BX5 is a rare prefix for Taiwan. QSL via BX5AA. N2RFA will be on the air as C6ABB from Nassau in the Bahamas between February 7th and the 17th. Activity will be on 80/40/20/17 meters. He plans to operate on some of the Digital modes including PSK31, RTTY and possibly SSTV. QSL via N2RFA Lastly, WJ2O, will be active as stroke 6W from Senegal during the ARRL DX CW Contest on February 19th and 20th as a Single-Operator, All-Band, High-Power entry. Dave told the Ohio Penn DX Newsletter that he will arrive in Senegal on February 17th and will be leaving on the 23rd. Activity outside of the contest will be 100% on CW and mostly on the 30, 17 and12 meter bands. Logs will be available in almost real-time at wj2o.com. QSL via WJ2O. (Above from various DX news sources) ** THAT FINAL ITEM: RADIO CAN LOWER BLOOD PRESSURE And finally this week, word from down under of a remarkable new experimental medical procedure. One that holds the promise of lowering peoples blood pressure through the use of radio waves. Graham Kemp. VK4BB, of the W-I-A News has the details of this new way of dealing with what for many is a life threatening medical problem: -- No not BP as in Broadband over powerlines but BP as in Blood Pressure. A new procedure which takes just 45 minutes involves a doctor inserting a catheter into an artery in the upper thigh, then threading it into an artery next to the kidney. There, they use low-power radio waves to heat up and effectively turn off specific nerves which are known to play a role in high blood pressure. Professor Markus Schlaich from the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne was a principal investigator in an international trial which involved 106 patients across 24 separate sites in Europe and Australia. After the first ten patients or so were treated, they really were quite confident that this is a fantastic new technology that allows lots of people out there who have trouble with their blood pressure. How long will it be before this treatment is available to people in Australia? They are quite hopeful that certainly within the next year, this radio wave treatment for High Blood Pressure should be available for clinical use. For the vAmateur Radio Newsline, I'm Graham Kemp, VK4BB, of the WIA News in Australia. -- As to when this new procedure might become available in nthe United States? As we go to air, that too, is unknown. (WIA News) ** 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 Newsline(tm). Our e-mail address is Newsline (at)arnewsline (dot) org. More information is available at Amateur Radio Newsline's(tm) only official website located at www.arnewsline.org. You can also write to us or support us at Amateur Radio Newsline(tm), 28197 Robin Avenue, Santa Clarita California, 91350 For now, with Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF, at the editors desk, I'm Don Carlson, KQ6FM, in Reno, Nevada, saying 73 and we thank you for listening. Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) is Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. |
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