With the US election results and the change of power coming in January, the FCC will be changing leadership as well in 2025, potentially affecting amateur radio. While there have been some concerning and shocking nominations for agency leadership positions, like an accused sex-trafficker nominated to lead the Department of Justice, and a TV personality with extremist nationalist ideologies and a settled sexual assault case potentially leading the Pentagon, the choice for FCC leadership is less controversial and scandal-ridden, though equally disruptive.  Current FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has been nominated as FCC Chairman. Carr has been a proponent of new technology like 5G and has often been critical of funding programs. He has frequently been outspoken in his official FCC statements, and unusually vocal for an FCC Commissioner, often with politically-charged and partisan language criticizing current FCC and federal government administration policies and positions.

Carr is a contributor to Project 2025, the 900+ page document often touted as the blueprint for the incoming administration’s overhauling of the federal government, authoring a section on the FCC. Carr opposes Net Neutrality, condemned the FCC’s recent revocation of Elon Musk’s Starlink’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund subsidy, and wants the FCC to get involved in moderation practices at social media companies due to perceived biases against right wing interests. He is very supportive of efforts to auction more spectrum off to wireless carriers.  Carr has also been vocal on topics outside of telecommunications like the World Health Organization, the Department of Homeland Security, and elections, and even accused the House Intelligence Committee chair of overseeing a “secret and partisan surveillance machine”.

What might a Carr FCC administration look like for amateur radio? I found no public record of Carr making specific statements about amateur radio and no mention of amateur radio in Project 2025. As with previous recent FCC Chairmen, I expect that amateur radio will “fly under the radar”. Carr will undoubtedly be apt to make major departmental changes and staffing reductions at the FCC in an effort to gain more fiscal efficiency, possibly affecting amateur radio enforcement and administrative functions. Carr is clearly on the side of wireless carriers when it comes to spectrum, and amateur radio will likely be unsuccessful in opposition to reallocation of amateur frequencies to commercial use, though this is likely with any FCC leadership due to the well-funded and politically connected commercial interests at play today.  Technical and engineering decisions will likely be viewed through fiscal and political lenses rather than scientific.  This isn’t new at the FCC, but slash-and-burn and unabashedly disruptive and politically-charged leadership is.  The best approach for amateur radio will be to continue to stay under the radar at the FCC, lest it be seen as a wireless service that is an historical enigma, benefitting a small subset of citizens with essentially free wireless spectrum.

With the US election results and the change of power coming in January, the FCC will be changing leadership as well in 2025, potentially affecting amateur radio. While there have been some concerning and shocking nominations for agency leadership positions, like an accused sex-trafficker nominated to lead the Department of Justice, and a TV personality with extremist nationalist ideologies and a settled sexual assault case potentially leading the Pentagon, the choice for FCC leadership is less controversial and scandal-ridden, though equally disruptive.  Current FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has been nominated as FCC Chairman. Carr has been a proponent of new technology like 5G and has often been critical of funding programs. He has frequently been outspoken in his official FCC statements, and unusually vocal for an FCC Commissioner, often with politically-charged and partisan language criticizing current FCC and federal government administration policies and positions.

Carr is a contributor to Project 2025, the 900+ page document often touted as the blueprint for the incoming administration’s overhauling of the federal government, authoring a section on the FCC. Carr opposes Net Neutrality, condemned the FCC’s recent revocation of Elon Musk’s Starlink’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund subsidy, and wants the FCC to get involved in moderation practices at social media companies due to perceived biases against right wing interests. He is very supportive of efforts to auction more spectrum off to wireless carriers.  Carr has also been vocal on topics outside of telecommunications like the World Health Organization, the Department of Homeland Security, and elections, and even accused the House Intelligence Committee chair of overseeing a “secret and partisan surveillance machine”.

What might a Carr FCC administration look like for amateur radio? I found no public record of Carr making specific statements about amateur radio and no mention of amateur radio in Project 2025. As with previous recent FCC Chairmen, I expect that amateur radio will “fly under the radar”. Carr will undoubtedly be apt to make major departmental changes and staffing reductions at the FCC in an effort to gain more fiscal efficiency, possibly affecting amateur radio enforcement and administrative functions. Carr is clearly on the side of wireless carriers when it comes to spectrum, and amateur radio will likely be unsuccessful in opposition to reallocation of amateur frequencies to commercial use, though this is likely with any FCC leadership due to the well-funded and politically connected commercial interests at play today.  Technical and engineering decisions will likely be viewed through fiscal and political lenses rather than scientific.  This isn’t new at the FCC, but slash-and-burn and unabashedly disruptive and politically-charged leadership is.  The best approach for amateur radio will be to continue to stay under the radar at the FCC, lest it be seen as a wireless service that is an historical enigma, benefitting a small subset of citizens with essentially free wireless spectrum.

In this episode, we join Martin Butler (M1MRb, Chris Howard (M0TCH), Martin Rothwelll (M0SGL) and Leslie Butteresfields (G0CIB) to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio News. Colin Butler (M6BOY) rounds up the news in brief and this episodes feature is Multimeters Revisited.

We would like to thank Steve Anness (KJ5T), Brad Councilman (W1BCC) and our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate

- Rare California Island to be Activated for Armed Forces Day, First Time in 53 Years - Turn Your Android Phone into a Ham Radio with this Open-Source Project - ISS SSTV Event Celebrates Amateur Radio in Human Spaceflight - ARRL Members Raise $47,000 for STEM Education in Online Auction - HAMSCI Receives Grant - 2024 ARRL Field Day Results Published - RSGB launches its 2025 Construction Competition - Special Event Station - AU2JCB

AmateurLogic.TV Episode 199 is now available for download.

Tommy prepares for Parks on The Air activation. Mike visits the Communications and Electronics Museum. George creates Random Intelligence (or not) while exploring the recent Arduino Uno Rev4 WiFi board. Emile displays his mad slacking skills.

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Hello and welcome to the 561st episode of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts discuss the HamClock application. Topics include how to access, download and build the application. Then it's on to initial configuration, features, operational logic and more, including some hard to find and esoteric features that make HamClock an invaluable resource in the shack. Thanks for listening and have a great week.

73 de The LHS Crew

I have been doing some RFI investigating, which has sparked my interest because I have been having some RFI issues of my own.  In my travels, I have read of something called Pin 1 problem. I went to a few websites about this and had a glance here and there but never looked at it closely. This past week I did a bit more of a deep dive regarding the Pin 1 problem. The name came from Neil Muncy in 1994 he wrote a paper entitled Noise Susceptibility in Analog and Digital Signal Processing Systems. In it, he describes how he found the common  XLR connectors used in the audio industry pin 1 was always connected to the cable shield connection. The audio gear would connect equipment pin 1 to the equipment metal enclosure, over time Neil noticed that this practice stopped and pin 1 shield ground was being connected to the circuit board common trace and somewhere on the circuit board the common trace had a jumper wire to the chassis ground. This allowed the RFI  that was picked up on the shield of the audio cables to travel. As Jim  Brown K9YC puts it:

"If the shield goes to the shielding enclosure,  current stays outside the box. If the shield goes to the circuit board then the current gets inside the box!" 

In the ham radio world, we use computers, external sound cards, USB hubs and ham rigs. All these could have a Pin 1 problem that may be our thorn in the flesh. Now when I say  "pin 1" problem with our gear there may not be a pin 1 used for shield grounding like the XLR audio connector the issue is the shielding or ground pin on the connector does not go to the case ground but to the circuit ground and then to case ground. The label of  Pin 1 came from as said earlier the audio XLR connectors pin 1 with was always the shield connection pin. When dealing with radio gear it's not Pin 1 per say but the connector ground connection does it go to the chassis but to the circuit board to possibly cause issues. 

If you find your radio gear has a Pin 1 issue such as your headphone plug metal housing does not go directly to the chassis ground but to the circuit board most times you don't want to get the soldering iron out to fix it. If stray RF is let's say getting into your USB cable from your rig to PC for rig control and you find you are having issues. I would suggest you first look at the grounding a bonding of your gear, it is a quality USB cable as all are not made alike. Finally, try a quality ferrite on the USB cable if it is stray RF is going places it should not. I mention ground and bonding of your gear because if your gear has proper chassis grounding but you either do not have it grounded or it done incorrectly you could be compounding your RFI issue. 

I did look at my Icom 7610 shop repair manual and most if not all critical RF potential grounding is chassis grounding. On the other hand, in my personal PC, well many items are routed to the circuit board ground and then a jumper to the chassis ground. As  K9YC put it regarding my PC "current is getting inside the box". 
So the Pin 1 problem is something for us to be aware of and to consider when going after RFI. Now when I say RFI I am including both reception issues and equipment acting up. 

Below are some great reads regarding the Pin 1 problem. 

Pro-sound website 

K9YC 

N4XL