AmateurRadio.com

I saw this on Southgate this morning and figured I would simply repost the whole article as it’s got all the info and is to the point. If you work on 60 Meters at all, you may want to make sure you have this info handy. From Southgate ARC’s website here is the info:

By Bonnie Crystal, KQ6XA (used with permission) –

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission released a ‘Report and Order’ on November 18, 2011, with new 5 MHz rules for the Amateur Radio Service.

The effective date is 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.

Some of the FCC changes are to now allow Phone (Upper Sideband), RTTY, Data, and CW; with specific limitations on the use of these modes, as well as the maximum allowed power level is now 100 watts PEP (ERP) effective radiated power referenced to a dipole.

The FCC has deleted a channel and added a channel. The new 60 meter channel list (for General, Advanced, or Amateur Extra Class license only) is as follows (Suppressed Carrier):

VFO Dial frequency
——————
5330.5 kHz USB (center of channel = 5332.0)
5346.5 kHz USB (center of channel = 5348.0)
5357.0 kHz USB (center of channel = 5358.5) New!
5371.5 kHz USB (center of channel = 5373.0)
5403.5 kHz USB (center of channel = 5405.0)

PLEASE NOTE: The FCC deleted the channel 5366.5 USB (center=5368.0)
and “replaced it” with channel 5357.0 kHz USB (center=5358.5).

For the complete FCC ‘Report and Order’ release, see:
http://www.fcc.gov/document/amateur-radio-service-5-mhz

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, Albany’s #1 Rock Station website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday on AmiZed Studios and hosts a podcast called The Kim & Rich Show with his fiance’ Kim Dunne.

I’ve posted stuff from Randy before, and it’s usually him talking about Ham Radio related stuff, and not necessarily about himself. This video turns that around as he is interviewed during his visit to the TWiT Studios when they first opened.I thought I had posted this before, but when I checked, I hadn’t, so I figured I would do that now. So here is George Thomas W5JDX, interviewing Randy Hall, K7AGE. Enjoy.

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, Albany’s #1 Rock Station website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday on AmiZed Studios and hosts a podcast called The Kim & Rich Show with his fiance’ Kim Dunne.

Yeah I know, I was dying to throw out a Star Trek reference all last week and couldn’t. Now I got one. But it looks like there are a couple of intruding signals on 24 and 28 MHz as a video on YouTube from New Zealand shows. Aliens? Covert Government experiments designed to make us more docile to the idea of one world order? Um, I’m thinking no.But they are a bit of a nuisance. Here are the videos so you can see for yourself.

28 MHz

24 MHz

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, Albany’s #1 Rock Station website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday on AmiZed Studios and hosts a podcast called The Kim & Rich Show with his fiance’ Kim Dunne.

Last estimation of the number of Amateur Operators in the US was 700,000. Now we can add another 62 to that number, as those 96 freshmen, out of 114 who took the test, passed and are now licensed Ham Operators.

Photo Courtesy of CPAC Website

The test session also set a new record for the school for how many signed up to take the test. The Electrical Engineering students from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, gathered on November 4th for one of the largest exam sessions in the school’s history, sponsored by the college Amateur Radio club, Cal Poly Amateur Radio Club. The previous record of 62 students who passed their Tech license, was set in October of this year.

Cal Poly Electrical Engineering Department Chair Dr Dennis Derickson, AC0P, came up with the idea for the licensing initiative to offer the 180+ students in his class the chance to get their licenses. It took 11 VEs almost an hour to administer the test. A little extra incentive was making this test part of their mid-terms. As of Monday, November 7th, the new hams had their call signs in hand.

You can read more on this at the ARRL website. Congrats to the new Hams, and welcome to the fun!

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, Albany’s #1 Rock Station website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday on AmiZed Studios and hosts a podcast called The Kim & Rich Show with his fiance’ Kim Dunne

An awesome story over on Southgate’s website shares that Ham Radio operators in Thailand, have helped to save almost 1,000 lives during the course of the floods that have been going on in this unusually heavy monsoon season. RAST, which is Thailand’s Amateur Radio society, held a gathering making this announcement.

Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia/Navy Visual News Service/Petty Officer 1st Class Jennifer Villalovos

RAST Secretary Wacharaphol, HS4DDQ, and his team working with the Public Health Ministry, setup station HS0AC and helped to coordinate rescue communications for medical emergencies. This action made it possible to save those lives. Like here in the US, many of the government agencies have been able to take advantage of the services Amateur Radio operators can offer when their communications networks failed either to overload or from interference from other agencies also trying to help during the emergency.

From the Southgate Story:

The NBTC (National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission) has praised the role that radio amateurs have been playing to help people cope with the disaster by providing communications support and this have been especially helpful in flooded areas where several mobile phone cell sites have failed.

During the meeting, Pranee Netrattana, E21DKD, who is a CQWW VHF Contest winner, was praised for her efforts in the disaster, as a net control operator. This is just another example of how Amateur Radio is still relevant in the 21st century. Even in the information age, there is still room for century old technology.

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, Albany’s #1 Rock Station website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday on AmiZed Studios and hosts a podcast called The Kim & Rich Show with his fiance’ Kim Dunne

This looked kind of cool, so I thought it was post worthy. Of course, there is a lot that is post worthy, but I only have so many fingers to type. It’s a chart of Cubesat UHF downlink frequiences. This could be very useful up on the wall or bulletin board in the shack.I found it over on Southgate’s website doing my morning surfing. As you’ll notice from the PDF, it’s in French. But there is a link to a “Google English” version. I’m guessing that’s almost the same as regular English. Those Google guys are always tweaking things. Here’s the chart for you. You can download the french PDF version from Cubesat.

Courtesy of http://cubesat.free.fr

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, Albany’s #1 Rock Station website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday on AmiZed Studios and hosts a podcast called The Kim & Rich Show with his fiance’ Kim Dunne

According t a post on Southgate’s website, Tomas, CE9VPM, will be active from the Chilean Gab Gonzales Videla base from November 2011 until March 2012 and wants to work stations mainly on 20 meters. No word on specific ranges of frequencies on 20 meters has been released. But if you look, on the bands, I don’t think you could miss the pile up. 

Map Courtesy of Wikipedia/Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica team

Tomas also has a nice slideshow up on the French Polar Team’s website, showing a map with the location as well as some pictures of the base as well. From the website:

Gabriel Gonzales Videla Station, on the Antarctic mainland’s Paradise Bay (Danco Coast), is named after Chilean President Gabriel González Videla, who in the 1940s became the first chief of state of any nation to visit Antarctica. The station was active from 1951-1958, and was reopened briefly in the early 1980s. It is now an “inactive” station, with fuel and supplies in storage in the buildings for emergency use, or in case the station were to be reactivated in the future. Occasional summer visits are made by Chilean parties and tourists. On the north edge of the station there is a sign identifying Waterboat Point as an official historic site under the Antarctic Treaty. This was the place where the smallest ever wintering-over party (two men) spent a year and a day in 1921-1922.

The article at Southgate also says that Tomas was regularly active as CE9/CE3VPM from the Eduardo Frei Montalva base (South Shetlands) in 2008/2009.

Looking on the site, I saw there was a mailing list for Ham Radio in Antarctica, hosted on Yahoo! I haven’t checked this out, but I’m betting if you wanted to work the continent, that would be a good resource to find out more of who is working on what station and the best time to listen for them.

Has anyone reading worked any of the stations down there? I would love to hear about it.

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, Albany’s #1 Rock Station website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday on AmiZed Studios and hosts a podcast called The Kim & Rich Show with his fiance’ Kim Dunne