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The Board of Directors of the  Yasme Foundation has also announced that it
has made a grant to support a portion of RM Noise operating costs. The RM
Noise project uses AI with the goal of removing noise from SSB voice or CW.

ournetplace.com/rm-noise/

Recognizing industry growth and student demand, a university in northern
Washington State in the US has developed a full Electrical and Computer

Engineering Department on its campus - and it's being chaired by an amateur
radio operator, KG 7 WFT.


The Zero Retries Newsletter, which reports the development in its latest
edition, said that Janelle Leger, dean of the College of Science and
Engineering, credited student and industry demand as the primary reasons for
creation of a new department. She said the move is being made with support
from the state to create the degree programs. Majors will select from four
programs, which include wireless networking and signal processing focus, as
well as AI, electronics and energy.


The professor chairing the new department is Andy Klein. On the university
website, the professor writes that having a standalone department will pave
the way to creating partnerships and internships with companies and generate
more internships for students. Andy Klein is an amateur radio operator who
received the callsign KG7WFT in July.

SOUTH AFRICA

All successful candidates from the October Radio Amateur Examination who
submitted their documents have had their licence applications filed with
ICASA. This has been confirmed by the SARL RAE Manager.


ICASA has committed to issuing the licences as soon as possible. Once the
SARL receives them, they will be e-mailed to candidates. Candidates are
reminded that the SARL agreement with ICASA allows new operators to go on the
air as soon as they receive their exam results and call signs, even before
the licence document arrives.


It's congratulations to the team at the Radio Society of Great Britain's
National Radio Centre, NRC.

They were selected for the 2025 Sir Arthur Clarke Education and Outreach Team
Award for their work advancing knowledge into amateur radio satellite
communications. The British Interplanetary Society conferred the award which
was accepted by RSGB General Manager Steve Thomas, M1ACB; NRC Coordinator
Martyn Baker, G0GMB; and NRC Volunteer Brian Hardy, G4BIP.


The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is taking steps to ban a
China-based telecom company from providing international and domestic telecom
services to and within the U.S.


The FCCs Order to Show Cause begins the process of revoking the authority of
HKT (International) Limited and its subsidiaries. The FCC says that HKT is
affiliated with a CCP-controlled entitynamely, China Unicom, which the FCC
says is on its Covered List due to national security concerns.


The Commission says that its action against HKT is consistent with previous
bipartisan efforts to deny or revoke authorizations to Chinese state-owned
enterprises seeking to provide telecommunication services in the U.S.


If your plans next year include attending Ham Radio Friedrichshafen in
Germany, you may want to set aside a day to consider some sky-gazing that has
long been a companion to amateur radio.


Astro, an astronomy trade fair is making its premiere next year. The
exhibition centre that will be home to the large ham radio trade fair from
June 26th through to the 28th will also be welcoming amateur astronomers and
technology hobbyists on June 27th. Space is being set aside in Hall B1 for
the trade fair focusing on astronomy, astrophotography and related
activities, giving hams and others many more worlds to explore.

WEIRD AND WONDERFUL

THIS, will be music to your ears, or maybe not. Jim Davis W2JKD explains.

"When the musician-composer duo of Brian Eno and Beatie Wolfe launched their
new album, "Liminal," on the 10th of October, they really launched it, in
every sense of the word. On Facebook, Brian Eno described the pair's musical
partnership as [quote] "exploring an intimate and unfamiliar new sonic world"
[endquote]. So what better venue for it than some far-away sonic world? The
pair beamed the album into space via microwave transmission five days after
its release. At the helm of Liminal's lift-off was Nobel Prize-winning
physicist Robert Wilson operating the Holmdel Horn Antenna in New Jersey
which had played a role in helping prove the Big Bang Theory.


The microwave horn antenna, as it turns out, is a well-tuned instrument of
music as well as science. For Beatie Wolfe, this was actually its encore
performance. Robert Wilson helped broadcast a previous album of hers in 2017,
a work known as "Raw Space."


Music, the universal language, is now the universe's language. Even NASA has
got into the act. In 2008 the space agency marked its 50th anniversary by
sending a recording of the Beatles' "Across the Universe" into deep space.
Last year its Deep Space Station 13 radio dish antenna in California beamed
the first hip-hop song into space, Missy Elliott's "The Rain (Supa Dupa
Fly)."


This past May, the European Space Agency broadcast a Vienna Symphony
Orchestra performance of Johann Strauss' "Blue Danube Waltz" from its radio
antenna in Spain at the speed of light in the direction of the Voyager 1
probe.


This is the never-ending journey of music. It is now surrounded by
constellations and CubeSats, dancing with the stars.


This is Jim Davis, W2JKD".

-------------------------------------------------------------------

OPERATIONAL NEWS - A FELIX VK4FUQ PRESENTATION
--------------

YOTA Contests December

The Fishers Ghost Amateur Radio Club are hosting the inaugural
VK YOTA CONTEST, the entire month of December.
yota.fgarc.org.au/

Then just 3 days from the end of what we call the VK YOTA CONTEST comes
ROUND 3 of the YOTA contest organized by the IARU R1 Youth Working Group
in cooperation with the Hungarian Amateur Radio Society.

DECEMBER 29.

A great way to gain extra contacts for the VK Contest organised by
Fishers Ghost AR Club.

yotacontest.mrasz.org

--------------
--------------
NOW CONTEST WISE:- 2026
--------------
---------------

1st January 2026  NZART Centenary 100 QSO Challenge

You are invited to kick off the NZART Centenary year in style with a fun,
on-air event. Can you make 100 contacts in 24 hours?

1101 31 December 2025 UTC, i.e.  0001 NZDT 1st January 2026 to
1059  1 January  2026 UTC,     2359 NZDT 1   January 2026.
Object:
To celebrate the start of the 2026 NZART Centenary Year by making 100 QSOs
with amateur radio stations in 24 hours.


All bands including WARC as this is NOT a contest.
All modes are permitted.

Special categories include

Most Portable stations:Most DXCC Entities:
The fastest to work 100 QSOs as judged by the time of their hundredth QSO.
Most Modes: For the person who uses the most different modes in makingtheir
100 QSOs.


Full details on the new NZART site which Bruce will tell us about in a
moment, but the link is in the text edition of this weeks WIA NATIONAL NEWS


sites.google.com/view/zl-amateur-radio-hsistory?usp=sharing
(NZART)

MARCH - Jock White Memorial Field Day

This annual contest is named to honour Jock White ZL2GX, NZART Contest
and Awards Manager for over 40 years, for the service that he gave to
NZART during that time.

Feb 28, Saturday, 1500-2400 NZDT and Sunday March one 0600-1500 NZDT.


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