The ARRL Letter
Published by the American Radio Relay League
********************************************
July 26, 2012
Editor: S. Khrystyne Keane, K1SFA
ARRL Home Page ARRL Letter Archive
Audio News
IN THIS ISSUE
- + ARRL Board Plans for 2014 Centennial Celebration at 2012 Second
Meeting
- + ARRL Board of Directors Names Award Recipients at 2012 Second
Meeting
- + End of an Era: Heathkit Declares Bankruptcy, Closes for Good
(Again)
- On the Air: The Bands Heat Up for the 2012 ARRL August UHF Contest
- + On the Air: Special Event Stations in London and Wales On the Air
for 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games
- + FCC News: Vanity Call Sign Fee to Go Up 80 Cents
- ARRL Recognizes: Vic Poor, W5SMM, Receives ARRL President's Award
- Solar Update
- The 2011 DXCC Yearbook Now Available
- + W1AW: W1AW's EchoLink and IRLP Nodes Back in Service
- This Week in Radiosport
- Upcoming ARRL Section, State and Division Conventions and Events
+ Available on ARRL Audio News .
> + ARRL BOARD PLANS FOR 2014 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT 2012 SECOND
MEETING
When the ARRL Board of Directors met for its 2012 Second Meeting
July 20-21 in Windsor, Connecticut, it did so with a full agenda.
Besides hearing and approving recommendations from its two standing
committees -- the Administration and Finance Committee and the Programs
and Services Committee -- the Board voted to hold the 2014 ARRL
National Convention July 17-20 in Hartford, Connecticut, the birthplace
of the League in 1914. Read more here
.
> + ARRL BOARD OF DIRECTORS NAMES AWARD RECIPIENTS AT 2012 SECOND
MEETING
The ARRL Board of Directors named four ARRL award recipients at
their July 20-21 meeting in Windsor, Connecticut: the 2011 Doug DeMaw,
W1FB, Technical Excellence Award; the 2012 ARRL Technical Innovation
Award; the 2012 Philip J. McGan Memorial Silver Antenna Award, and the
2012 Herb S. Brier Instructor of the Year Award. In addition, the Board
named former ARRL West Gulf Division Director Thomas W. Comstock, N5TC,
as Director Emeritus of the ARRL. Read more here
.
> + END OF AN ERA: HEATHKIT DECLARES BANKRUPTCY, CLOSES FOR GOOD
(AGAIN)
The July 19 edition of The Herald-Palladium -- a newspaper serving
the communities of Benton Harbor and St Joseph, Michigan -- is
reporting that Heathkit Education Company has declared bankruptcy and
has officially closed its doors after defaulting on its lease.
According to the paper, Heathkit employed more than 1800 people in its
heyday after World War II. When it finally closed, its workforce
totaled fewer than six people. This is the second time since 1992 that
Heathkit Educational Services has shuttered its doors. In August 2011,
Heathkit announced it was returning to the kit building business, and
in September, that it would once again be manufacturing Amateur Radio
kits. Read more here
.
> ON THE AIR: THE BANDS HEAT UP FOR THE 2012 ARRL AUGUST UHF CONTEST
VHF/UHF weak-signal operators across North America are making final
tests on their stations in preparation for the ARRL August UHF Contest,
which is coming up over the weekend of August 4-5. According to ARRL
Contest Branch Manager Sean Kutzko, KX9X, this contest will focus on
222 MHz and above. There will be lots of activity, and hopefully lots
of propagation, too! "With much of the nation in the midst of a summer
heat spike, high-pressure zones can begin to form in the atmosphere,"
Kutzko explained. "If they stick around long enough -- and are stable
enough -- enhanced propagation can occur in the troposphere, extending
the normal usable range of UHF+ frequencies from line-of-sight to
several hundred miles. Several cloudless days with very little wind are
signs that enhanced tropospheric enhancement could be coming your
way."Read more here
.
> + ON THE AIR: SPECIAL EVENT STATIONS IN LONDON AND WALES ON THE AIR
FOR 2012 OLYMPIC AND PARALYMPIC GAMES
Two special event call signs were activated on Wednesday, July 25 to
celebrate the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games: 2O12L from
London, England and 2O12W from Barry, Wales. Both stations will be on
the air for the duration of the Games -- July 25-August 12 -- and
continuing through September 9. Organizers hope to make at least 80,000
contacts during the seven weeks that 2O12L and 2O12W are on the air.
Read more here
.
> + FCC NEWS: VANITY CALL SIGN FEE TO GO UP 80 CENTS
On July 20, the FCC announced that the cost of an Amateur Radio
vanity call sign will increase 80 cents, from $14.20 to $15. The fee
will increase 30 days after notice of the increase is published in the
Federal Register; no date has yet been set for publication. Earlier
this year, the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Order,
seeking to raise the fee for Amateur Radio vanity call signs. The
vanity call sign fee has fluctuated over the 14 years of the current
program -- from a low of $11.70 in 2007 to a high of $70 (as first
proposed in the FCC's 1994 Report and Order). In FY 2012, the FCC
expects to grant 14,300 vanity call signs, bringing in $214,500 from
the vanity call sign program, and looks to recover a total of
$339,844,000 in fees from all the Services that it regulates. Read more
here .
> ARRL RECOGNIZES: VIC POOR, W5SMM, RECEIVES ARRL PRESIDENT'S AWARD
On July 9, Victor (Vic) Poor, W5SMM, of Melbourne, Florida, was awarded
the ARRL President's Award at the Platinum Coast Amateur Radio
Society's (PCARS) monthly meeting that was attended by nearly 100 hams
and non-hams, many from out of town. There have been only a handful of
recipients of this prestigious award.
Poor -- an ARRL member -- developed an active interest in ham radio
while still in high school and became W6JSO in 1951. He has also held
the calls AH6AXV and K3NIO. He quickly developed an affinity for RTTY
and later other digital modes of interest in Amateur Radio.
Poor has been instrumental in the development of many hardware and
software innovations that are at the heart of modern day computing and
communications technology, used both in Amateur Radio and in industry.
His early RTTY work focused on improving the designs of modulators,
demodulators, and filters to improve the error rates achievable with
RTTY in those days. This work continued into the development for
schemes for simple message networking for amateur traffic before the
availability of affordable PCs.
During the '70s and '80s, new digital technologies, including packet,
AMTOR and lower-cost computers became available. These advances
motivated Poor to further improve digital transmission networking
techniques. This included APLINK, a robust automatic global
store-and-forward system that led the ARRL to include the system for
use in their National Traffic System (NTS).
With the advent of widely available Internet service and continued
improvements in signal processing using PCs and dedicated signal
processing chips, including PACTOR and WINMOR, in 1999 Poor organized a
volunteer amateur development team to replace APLINK with a much more
advanced amateur message forwarding system that integrates with the
Internet and other mail systems, handles multiple destination
addresses, and accepts data files of any format. The system is named
Winlink 2000 (WL2K) and is maintained and managed by the Winlink
Development Team (WDT). Poor remains the principal architect of the
system. This system has blossomed today to a major amateur-supported
emergency communications network used by ARES and many government
agencies including MARS, federal, state, county and city agencies, and
NGOs.
In his professional career Poor has been instrumental in the
development of many products that we take for granted today. He credits
his interest in ham radio as the driving force behind his success in
the commercial arena.
The ARRL Board of Directors voted to create the President's Award in
2003. It is awarded to an ARRL member or members who "have shown
long-term dedication to the goals and objectives of ARRL and Amateur
Radio" and who have gone the extra mile to support individual League
programs and goals. Nominations for the award come from ARRL directors
and are approved by the ARRL President and the Executive Committee.
President Kay Craigie's accompanying letter stated, in part: "It is my
pleasure and honor to confer upon you the ARRL President's
Award....Your contributions to the development of digital
communications systems in the Amateur Radio Service have significantly
enhanced the ability of our radio service to provide assistance during
disasters. Many other amateurs active in emergency communications
attribute their own accomplishments to your mentoring....
"As a result of your long, distinguished career in Amateur Radio and
communications technology, you have more than earned the appreciation
that is represented by this award from the American Radio Relay
League."
Steve Waterman, K4CJX, Assistant Director of the ARRL's Delta Division,
summed up Poor's humility: "I could have added many more
accomplishments to that list," said Steve. "The only thing Poor really
wants to know about is if something doesn't work." -- Dan Fisher, AI4GK
> SOLAR UPDATE
Tad "Lazing on a sunny afternoon
" Cook, K7RA, reports: We
currently seeing sunspot groups coming over our Sun's eastern horizon,
but this week has been a quiet one, both in terms of sunspot and
geomagnetic activity. The average daily sunspot numbers declined by 50
percent -- from 104.7 to 52.1 -- while the average daily solar flux was
down nearly 45 points to 97.2. The latest solar flux forecast from
NOAA/USAF has flux values at 110 for July 26, 115 for July 27-28, then
120, 125 and 130 on July 29-31, 135 on August 1-2, 120 on August 3, 130
on August 4-6, 125 on August 7-8, down to 115 on August 9-11, and then
bottoming out around 90 on August 17. The predicted planetary A index
is 5 on July 26-27, then 15, 18, 15 and 10 on July 28-31, 5 on August
1-2, 10 on August 3-4, and 5 on August 5-18. There is the chance for
possible geomagnetic activity on August 19-20, raising the A index
values to 15 and 12, and then to 18 on August 24-25. Astronomy Magazine
has an article
about a July 11 experiment in which a telescope was lifted by a
sounding rocket to take high definition photos of the Sun's corona at
extreme ultra-violet wavelengths. Look for more on the ARRL website on
Friday, July 27. For more information concerning radio propagation,
visit the ARRL Technical Information Service Propagation page
. This week's "Tad
Cookism" is brought to you by The Kinks's Sunny Afternoon
.
> THE 2011 DXCC YEARBOOK NOW AVAILABLE
The 2011 ARRL DXCC Yearbook is now available to all ARRL members as a
supplement to the August digital edition of QST
.
A printed copy of the Yearbook is also available for purchase in the
ARRL Online Store .
Contents include:
- The Year in Review by Carl Smith, N4AA
- PJ2/W5MPC, October 10-15, 2010 by Mike Corey, KI1U
- ST0R Story by Antonio Gonzalez, EA5RM/ST0R
- Clinton B. DeSoto Challenge standings
- 2011 DXCC Annual List
> + W1AW: W1AW'S ECHOLINK AND IRLP NODES BACK IN SERVICE
With the recent upgrades
to the ARRL's Internet system completed, the W1AW EchoLink Conference
Server W1AWBDCT and W1AW's IRLP Node 4292
are now back in service. Amateurs
are able to once again listen to code practice transmissions and
digital bulletins via the W1AW EchoLink Conference Server.
> THIS WEEK IN RADIOSPORT
This week:
- July 27 -- NCCC Sprint
- July 28-29 -- New Jersey QSO Party; RSGB IOTA Contest
- July 29 -- ARS Flight of the Bumblebees
Next week:
- August 3 -- NCCC Sprint Ladder
- August 4 -- TARA Grid Dip Shindig; European HF Championship
- August 4-5 -- ARRL UHF Contest
;
North American QSO Party (CW); 10-10 International Summer Contest (SSB)
- August 5 -- RSGB RoPoCo CW; SARL HF Phone Contest
- August 7 -- ARS Spartan Sprint
- August 8 -- NAQCC-EU Monthly Sprint
- August 8-9 -- CWops Mini-CWT Test
All dates, unless otherwise stated, are UTC. See the ARRL Contest
Branch page , the ARRL Contest Update
and the WA7BNM Contest
Calendar for more
information. Looking for a Special Event station? Be sure to check out
the ARRL Special Event Stations web page
.
> UPCOMING ARRL SECTION, STATE AND DIVISION CONVENTIONS AND EVENTS
- July 26-28 -- Central States VHF Society Conference
,
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
- July 27-28 -- ARRL Oklahoma Section Convention
,
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- July 27-29 -- ARRL Rocky Mountain Division Convention
,
Bryce Canyon, Utah
- August 3-4 -- ARRL Texas State Convention
,
Austin, Texas
- August 3-5 -- Pacific Northwest DX Convention
,
Portland, Oregon
- August 10-12 -- RAC National Convention 2012
, Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada
- August 11 -- ARRL Ohio State Convention
, Columbus, Ohio
- August 18 -- ARRL West Virginia State Convention
,
Weston, West Virginia
- August 18-19 -- ARRL Southeastern Division Convention
,
Huntsville, Alabama
- August 19 -- ARRL Kansas State Convention
, Salina,
Kansas
- August 24-26 -- ARRL New England Division Convention
,
Boxboro, Massachusetts
- August 26 -- ARRL Western Pennsylvania Section Convention
,
New Kensington, Pennsylvania
- September 14-15 -- W9DXCC Convention
, Elk Grove Village,
Illinois
- September 15 -- ARRL Virginia Section Convention
,
Virginia Beach, Virginia
- September 22 -- ARRL Washington State Convention
,
Spokane Valley, Washington
- September 22-23 -- ARRL Illinois State Convention
,
Peoria, Illinois
- September 28-29 -- SEDCO/W4DXCC VIII Convention
, Pigeon
Forge, Tennessee
- October 12-14 -- ARRL National Convention
,
Santa Clara, California
- October 13 -- ARRL Iowa State Convention
,
Sergeant Bluff, Iowa
- October 13-14 -- ARRL Florida State Convention
,
Melbourne, Florida
To find a convention or hamfest near you, click here
.
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