ARRL News

A new WSJT-X “release candidate,” version 2.0.0-rc4, now is available, and the version 2.0 Quick Start Guide has been revised and extended. The developers urge anyone upgrading to the new version to read the release notes thoroughly, since the upgrade requires users to change operator settings, so the software may not work “out of the box” when upgrading from previous versions.

The latest versi...

Ocean County, New Jersey, Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES®) volunteers recently assisted search groups looking for a man with dementia who was reported missing on November 2 from a nursing home in Stafford Township. Searches concentrating on neighborhoods around the nursing home had been unsuccessful. The missing man’s family organized a search for November 10, and Ocean County ARES was i...

Well-known contester and AR-Cluster developer Terry Gerdes, AB5K (ex-KX6OI), formerly of Texas, died on November 13 in Belize, where he had recently relocated and married. He was 69. An Arkansas native who was initially licensed as WB5SFA, Gerdes held a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Arkansas. In the 1980s, he operated from the Marshall Islands as KX6OI while tracking m...

Amateur Radio operators associated with the Maritime Mobile Service Network (MMSN) played a significant part in summoning medical assistance on November 9 for a crew member suffering chest pains on board the 48-foot sailing vessel Marie Elena, some 300 miles east of Bermuda.

“The assistance we received from the ham radio operator[s] was crucial in helping us communicate with the vessel’s crew,” ...

As part of the run up to World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 (WRC-19), three International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) Study Group 5 (SG 5) Working Groups have been meeting this week in Geneva. ITU-R Study Groups develop the technical bases for decisions taken at WRCs and develop global standards, reports, and handbooks on radiocommunication matters. Working G...

Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) reports its Corporate Secretary Sukwan Widajat, VA3WID/YB0SWI/AB1XM, has died while in Indonesia, a post he had held since 2015. RAC President Glen MacDonell, VA3XRA, said he always appreciated Widajat’s enthusiasm, eagerness, and helpful recommendations. “We are all volunteers and know that people have other responsibilities, and he was an example of balancing th...

According to AMSAT-Germany (AMSAT-DL), Es’hail-2, the world’s first geostationary satellite carrying Amateur Radio transponders, will go into space from Cape Canaveral in a few days. Space news outlet Spaceflight Now says that the SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher is set to launch on Thursday, November 15, between 2049 and 2229 UTC. Positioned at 25.5° E, the satellite will carry an Amateur Radio S-band...

At its October 20 meeting, the ARRL Executive Committee voted to recommend to the full Board of Directors an addition to Article 1 of the Articles of Association of the ARRL, per requirements of the Connecticut Secretary of the State. The minor addition is necessary to bring the Articles into alignment with Connecticut state statutes.

The requirement would add the sentence, “The Corporation is n...

The Blue Hill Observatory and Science Center has awarded Eastern Massachusetts ARES SKYWARN Coordinator and Section Emergency Coordinator Rob Macedo, KD1CY, with its Outstanding Service Award. Macedo received the award on November 9 during a Blue Hills Observatory fundraising event. Doing the honors were meteorologist and Weather Channel personality Jim Cantore and former Weather Channel meteor...

ARRL Teachers Institute on Wireless Technology alumnus Mariusz Zielinski, KB1MDS, invited ARRL Lifelong Learning Manager Kris Bickell, K1BIC, Lifelong Learning Administrator Ally Riedel, KM3ALF, and ARRL Communications Content Producer Michelle Patnode, W3MVP, to witness an exciting November 2 Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact with students at Pathfinder Regional ...

Listen to the new episode of ARRL Audio News on your iOS or Android podcast app, or online at http://www.blubrry.com/arrlaudionews/. Audio News is also retransmitted on a number of FM repeaters. Click here and then scroll down to see the list.

AMSAT is counting down to the launch of the next Fox-1 satellite, Fox-1Cliff. According to Spaceflight Now, the launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base of Spaceflight’s SSO-A SmallSat Express mission, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle, is currently scheduled for November 19 at 1832 UTC.

Fox-1Cliff carries the Fox-1 U/v FM repeater, AMSAT’s L-Band Downshifter, the flight spare of the AO-85 Vanderbilt Un...

December is Youngsters on the Air Month (YOTA Month). Listen for stations on the air with YOTA as the call sign suffix.

“The idea for this is to show the Amateur Radio hobby to young people and to encourage youngsters to be active on the amateur bands,” said Tomi Varro, HA9T. “This is a great moment to show Amateur Radio to the world and to invite newcomers.”

YOTA is primarily an International Am...

To better understand the needs of enthusiasts in Amateur Radio Direction Finding (ARDF), International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) Region 2 (IARU-R2) ARDF Coordinator Ken Harker, WM5R, is undertaking an online ARDF survey.

“This is the first IARU Region 2 ARDF Community Survey, and I hope that this is something we can do once a year,” Harker said in an introductory statement on the survey websit...

At 2244 UTC on November 7 the Australian Space Forecast Centre issued a geomagnetic disturbance warning due to a co-rotating interaction region ahead of a coronal hole high speed solar wind stream on November 9-10. Active geomagnetic conditions are predicted for November 9 and unsettled to active conditions on November 10.

We saw another week with no sunspots, and the average daily solar flux so...