Subj : Newsline Part 1
To : ALL USERS
From : DARYL STOUT
Date : Thu Feb 25 2016 09:22 pm
Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2000, February 26, 2016
Amateur Radio Newsline Report number 2000, with a release date of Friday,
February 26, 2016 to follow in 5-4-3-2-1.
The following is a QST. The FCC seeks input on possible license and band
changes. Texas hams go fox-hunting. A historic transmitter gets a new
home. And, in a special extended newsline segment, we go back to our radio
roots with Robert Sudock, WB6FDF, who was there at the beginning. All this,
and more, in Amateur Radio Newsline's Milestone Report 2000 coming your
way, right now.
(Billboard Cart Here and Intro)
**
FCC SEEKS COMMENTS ON LIFETIME LICENSES, 80/75 METER CHANGES
If you have thoughts on the ARRL's petition for the FCC to make changes to
80 and 75 meters, now is the time to share them. Or if you want to weigh
in a proposal that the FCC issue lifetime amateur radio licenses, take
care of that now too.
On the bands, the ARRL has asked the commission to fix what it calls a
shortfall in available spectrum for RTTY and data, following the bands'
reapportionment by the FCC a decade ago. The ARRL would like to see the
boundary shifted between the 75 meter phone/image subband and the 80 meter
RTTY/data subband - a proposal that the league's Board of Directors
adopted as policy in July of last year. The ARRL would like the
phone/image subband to extend from 3650 kHz to 4000 kHz, and the RTTY/data
subband to extend from 3500 kHz to 3650 kHz. The ARRL would also like 3600
kHz to 3650 kHz made available for General and Advanced Class licensees -
as it had been before 2006.
The FCC is also considering a request made last year for lifetime licenses
to replace the 10-year term. In his petition, Mark F. Krotz, N7MK, of Mesa,
Arizona, pointed out that the General Radiotelephone Operator License sets
a precedent because it is already valid for a lifetime.
Using the FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS), select RM11759
for the 80 and 75 meter issue, and RM11760 for the lifetime license issue.
Let your voice be heard.
(ARRL)
**
FOX-HUNTING, TEXAS-STYLE
DON: At one ranch in Texas, the hunt is on, and it's begun a little earlier
than usual this year. Amateur Radio Newsline's Mike Askins, KE5CXP, rounds
up the details for us:
MIKE: The scene will be the Parrie Haynes C5 Youth Ranch and Equestrian
Center just outside Killeen, Texas, and the competition will be nothing
short of intense. This is, after all, a national championship.
But if you're thinking "Texas Rodeo," guess again. Radio amateurs will be
trying to lasso something a little smaller and more elusive than a calf or
bull during the four days of contesting in April. The Amateur Radio
Direction Finding championships will be getting under way, taking on-foot
foxhunting to a new level.
This year's schedule is different: Customarily, competitors face off in
late summer or early fall, but the shift to a spring event became
necessary, so that the best of the best could be selected for Team USA
members to compete in the World Championships in Bulgaria in September.
The competition will not only accommodate all skill levels, but offer an
optional training day on Wednesday, April 6, on an 80-meter short course
before the event kicks off. The championships will then get underway on
Thursday, April 7, and conclude Sunday, April 10. Opening day will also
have hams facing off on a combination of radio-direction finding on 80
meters and classic orienteering, an activity known as foxoring.
Yes, there will be food: An awards banquet will be held on Saturday night.
Lead organizers are Jennifer Harker, W5JEN and Kenneth Harker, WM5R,
medal-winners who represented the U.S. at the World Championships
previously. The competition is being sponsored by the Austin Orienteering
Club and Texas ARDF. For more details, visit the Texas ARDF site,
www.texasardf.org.
For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Mike Askins, KE5CXP,in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
(TEXAS ARDF)
**
HELP WITH ARES REPORT FORMS
ARES Emergency Coordinators, District Emergency Coordinators, and Section
Emergency Coordinators, are being encouraged by the ARRL to participate
in a free webinar on March 1, offering instruction on how ARES report
forms are filled out, submitted, and how the information is used. The
training webinar begins at 8 PM Eastern Time but will also be recorded,
and made available online. Section, District and Local emergency
coordinators are all advised to take advantage of the opportunity.
According to Mike Corey, KI1U, the ARRL's Emergency Preparedness Manager,
this is the first time this webinar is being offered.
As many as 500 participants can take the online instruction.
Find a live link to the GoToWebinar registration form by visiting the
ARRL website, or contact Mike Corey for more details at
[email protected]
(MIKE COREY, KI1U)
**
MAKING WAVES? NO, DISCOVERING THEM
DON: A recently announced discovery that illuminates Einstein's Theory
of Relativity turned out to be relative, as well, to the work of one
radio amateur in the 1970s. Here's Amateur Radio Newsline's Paul Braun,
WD9GCO, with the details:
PAUL: A worldwide team of physicists could not have been happier earlier
this month when their discovery made global news: they had captured the
sound of the collision of two black holes, a billion light-years away,
in space. The finding of the Ligo Project, reported in the New York
Times and other media, fulfilled Albert Einstein's prediction, a century
earlier, that gravitational waves do indeed exist.
Einstein would not be surprised, of course, and neither would other
scientists who had long pursued this theory of his with their own
imaginations and antennas. One of those scientists from years ago turns
out to be a radio astronomer - and radio amateur - Joseph H. Taylor Jr.,
K1JT. Taylor was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics with colleague,
Russell Hulse, for discovering and interpreting the electromagnetic
radiation emissions from a pulsar, giving new insights into gravitational
waves. Their discovery, made at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
in 1978, was one of many leading to this most recent revelation.
The executive director of the Ligo Project, professor David Reitze, told
the media this month: [QUOTE] "It's the first time the universe has
spoken to us through gravitational waves. Up until now, we've been deaf."
As any ham would add, good copy is everything, even with a black hole:
it's all about the power of antennas and reception, after all.
For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Paul Braun, WD9GCO, in Valparaiso,
Indiana.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES, BBC.COM)
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