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Amateur Radio Newsline Report 1553 - May 18, 2007
Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) Report 1553 - May 18, 2007
Amateur Radio Newsline report number 1553 with a release date of Friday, April May 18th, 2007 to follow in 5-4-3-2-1. The following is a Q-S-T. Hamvention 2007 is here and we have a preview. Also, the 500 Kilohertz experiment expands in Europe and a 19 year old radio amateur will head Delaware's newly formed ham radio Communication Corps. Find out the details on Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) report number 1553 coming your way right now. (Billboard Cart Here) ** Hamvention 2007 is here and we are here too. The doors at Dayton Ohio's Hara Arena opened on Friday, May 18th, bringing with them a celebration of the backbone of Amateur Radio: -- Nies: "Our theme this year is "Local Radio Clubs, The Heart Of Ham Radio." We are trying to recognize that an awful lot of what goes on in Amateur Radio happens because of the efforts of the local clubs rather than any national, regional or statewide activity." -- That's Jim Nies, WX8F, who is this year Dayton Hamvention General Chairman. And in a recent interview with the Radio amateur Information Network, he expanded on some of the ways that the role of clubs will be celebrated: -- Nies: "We have a program in the Flea Market to offer discounted spaces to clubs. We have some banners inside recognizing the contribution that local clubs make in terms of getting people involved, Elmering. Just the kind of support that local clubs do that brings members in and keep the whole thing going." -- So what are the major changes this year? Most appear to be in the area of forums: -- Nies: "In terms of anything dramatically new, we have some forums coming in. One of the things with forums we are trying to do is to shorten things up a little bit so we have room for more topics. Software Defined Radio is an up and coming technology and they're getting some attention. They were there last year and will be again this year." -- And will those attending see anything new in the way of radio gear? -- Nies: "We never really know but we do believe that several of the inside manufacturers are going to be showing off some of their new products this year. They never tell us. We always ask but they tend to event to keep it under wraps until the very last minute, but I noticed in the latest QST that a couple of different vendors are touting new equipment that they are going to be showing at Hamvention, and we are kind of excited about that." -- And there was some good news this year about parking. Even with all the construction at one important lot, the parking remained: -- Nies: "We will still have parking at the Salem Mall, which is kind of an interesting situation. The Salem Mall is under construction and all of the stores except for a bank and the Home Depot and Sears have been torn down. The city of Trotwood is marketing it as a new kind of a mall with the renovation. Meanwhile though, the parking spaces are still available to us and we will be bussing to there as we have done for the past years." -- The Dayton Hamvention runs May 18th, 19th and 20th. Its truly a fun event but if you cannot be there in person, you can take part vicariously over the World Wide Web thanks to Tom Medlin, WA5KUB. Tom will be webcasting many of the Hamvention 2007 highlights. Look for the fun at http://wa5kub.com. Meantime we hope to see some of you at the Hara Arena and Hamvention 2007. (ARNewsline(tm) with audio provided by RAIN) ** RADIO EXPERIMENTATION: 500 KHZ EXPERIMENTS EXPAND IN EUROPE In other news, word that the German medium wave radio experiment is expanding. Since the beginning of 2005 the German telecommunication authorities have licensed a propagation study on medium wave bands. The first permit for an experimental station on 440 kHz plus/minus 100 Hz was issued to DJ2LF under the callsign DI2AG. In May 2006, DK8KW got the second license to operate under the callsign DI2BO at his home location in Peine near Hannover. Now comes word that early in 2007 the experimental radio licenses were extended to a second frequency. Besides 440 kHz the frequency of 505.1 kHz plus or minus 100 Hz is also now being used. This frequency falls into the frequency range being used by the United States experimental radio group with the callsign WD2XSH. And this just in. Swedish authorities have issued one license for this frequency range. (GB2RS News) ** RESCUE RADIO: 2 RESCUED AT SEA THANKS TO AMATEUR RADIO A long established ham radio network was instrumental in a recent rescue at sea. It took place South-West of the Galapagos Islands starting on on Friday, May 4th. That's when Wes Mullenix, KI0A, the Texas-based net controller on Intercon intercepted a distress call from a damaged 35 foot pleasure craft called the Sail About. As KI0A did not have good a truly readable signal from the emergency request, he handed the communications over to Fletcher Henderson, KA4BPR, in Dolthan, Alabama. It was KA4BPR obtained the pertinent information through a series of relays. He learned that there were two people on board, that they were named Gunner and Gretta, that they were from Norway, that the boats bow was damaged and began taking on water. With this information in hand, KA4BPR then called the United States Coast Guard to report the situation. Soon several vessels had set an intercept course to rendezvous with the Sail About which was slowly headed toward that point under motor power. During that time, members of the Intercon net kept in contact with Gunner and Gretta to assure them that help was on its way. It took several hours, but finally the Sail About was spotted by the rescue ship S V Damarri. Soon other vessels arrived. Gunnar and Greta were rescued, transferred to M V Belnor and the Sail About was, sadly, abandoned at sea. (W4QVA) ** MORSE: NEW SUPPORT FOR A POPULAR OLD MODE Morse may no longer be a licensing requirement in most nations, but the mode is very much alive and well. In fact its gaining favor with more and more hams as witnessed by the large number of clubs that are springing to life dedicated to preserving that very basic mode. The latest of these is the Pro C-W Club based in Romania. The Pro C-W Club is the brain child of Vasile Giurgiu, YO6EX. The organization is dedicated to the preservation and encouragement of the art of CW communications. There are two classes of membership and hams the world over are welcome to join. No website yet but more information and the dues structure is available from Vasile Giurgiu, YO6EX, SIBIU-1, RO-550450, Romania. (YO6EX) ** Break 1 From the United States of America, We are the Amateur Radio Newsline, heard on bulletin stations around the world including the Hamvention repeater, W8BI, serving Dayton, Ohio. (5 sec pause here) ** PUBLIC SERVICE: HAM RADIO AND THE MINI MARATHON May in Indianapolis is always a busy time for Central Indiana amateur radio operators. As drivers prepared for the 91st running of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, local runners and amateur radio operators took to the streets of Indianapolis to set the pace during the annual Mini-Marathon. Jack Parker W8ISH was at the finish line and filed this report -- -- Nat Sound: :N9NIC net control for the Mini-Marathon." -- Central Indiana hams hit the ground running for the 32nd annual 500 Festival Mini-Marathon. This year over 100 hams provided health and welfare communications around the 13 point one mile marathon. And, that's no easy task. Thirty-five thousand runners and walkers crossed the downtown starting line on their trek out to, and around the famed two and one half mile oval at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. After a slow trip around the track they headed to the finish line back downtown. -- Nat Sound: "I need a medical transport at mile marker nine for a diabetic." -- That much foot traffic kept the amateur radio operators on their toes during the seven hour event. Warm morning temperatures and high humidity took its toll on the runners. According Net coordinator Mike Palmer, N9FEB, hams posted the yellow warning flag midway through the event as runners began to fall by the wayside. Thirty participants were taken to the hospital for treatment. Amateur radio operators tracked each patient and all other runners that failed to make it to the finish line. Reporting from Indianapolis, this is Jack Parker, W8ISH for Amateur Radio Newsline. -- The Amateur radio net had six controllers utilizing local repeaters and several simplex frequencies to handle all the health and welfare traffic. As usual the ham radio operators finished in first place for a job well done. (W8ISH) ** RESCUE RADIO: TEEN HAM HEADS UP DELAWARE COMMUNICATIONS CORPS Delaware's new Communication Corps coordinator is a 19-year-old college student and ham radio operator. He also has more experience in emergency communications than many radio amateurs twice or three times his age. The Delaware Emergency Management Agency has chosen Justin Kates, KB3JUV, to head its newly formed Communication Corps. Managers say that Kates, who is a University of Delaware freshman,, will coordinate Amateur Radio operators across the state in the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other emergency. Kates is believed to be the youngest person in the nation to hold this level of responsibility in an emergency response organization. The Delaware Communication Corps program is funded by a Department of Homeland Security grant. More about Justin Kates, KB3JUV, and the role he is playing in Delaware's emergency preparedness is on-line at http://kb3juv.blogspot.com/2007/05/nineteen.html (eHam, others) ** RESCUE RADIO: CALIFORNIA CITY GETS HAM RADIO EMCOMM GRANT San Rafael, California has received a $23,000 grant for ham radio operations to help coordinate an emergency response during times of disaster. San Rafael received the grant to establish an amateur radio network that will swing into action if phone and radio communications fail. The Marin Independent Journal reports that three other Bay Area organizations received funds from California Volunteers as well. This is a state-run organization meant to get civilians trained in emergency response. The organizations director is Karen Baker. She says that these grants will help assist local communities and nonprofit organizations to better prepare Californians for the next disaster. A total of $1 million was handed out across the state. No specific radio clubs or groups were named in the California Volunteers press release. (Marin Independent Journal On-Line) ** RESCUE RADIO: ON-STAR ADVANCED SAFETY General Motors has announced that its OnStar remote vehicle monitoring technology will be partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This, to use data from vehicle crashes to tell paramedics and doctors how badly passengers might be hurt. On the vehicle, the OnStar sensors will measure the severity of a crash, where the vehicle was struck, if airbags deployed and whether the vehicle has rolled over. Experts will then review the crash data radioed back from OnStar's Advanced Automatic Crash Notification technology and notify first response authorities. Researchers say that this data could help to save lives by helping first responders get to people who are more seriously injured than they seem and then send them to the nearest trauma center. The partnership between OnStar and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is funded by a $250,000 grant from OnStar and the General Motors Foundation. (GM, CDC) ** ENFORCEMENT: STATION DINGED $15000 FOR PHONE REBROADCAST A licensed broadcaster has been dinged for $15000 by the FCC. WMGO Broadcasting Corp., Inc. which operates WMGO A-M radio in Canton, Mississippi received the fine for recording a telephone conversation and later broadcasting it without first informing the party on the phone of its intention to do so. Amateur Radio Newsline's Bruce Tennant, K6PZW, reports: -- According to the FCC, Luke Gordon filed a complaint alleging that on January 6, 2005, the station recorded a telephone conversation between him and newsman Jerry Lousteau without notifying him of Lousteaus' intention to do so. Gordon further charged that the WMGO later broadcast excerpts of the recorded telephone conversation on January 7th, 10th, and 11th, 2005. In its defense, the station responded that Lousteau initiated a phone call to the Gordon to interview him. WMGO claims that Lousteau was unsuccessful in contacting the Gordon so there was no need and no opportunity to inform him, in person, of the station's intentions to record and/or broadcast the conversation. Shortly after the Commission received the stations response, Gordon provided the agency with a recording that contained a portion of the telephone conversation that was aired by WMGO. In light of this development, the FCC issued a follow-up letter to the radio station. It directed WMGO to confirm the authenticity of the content of the recording, and to identify the persons whose voices are heard on the tape. The FCC also instructed the WMGO to review its initial response and make any revisions that it believed were necessary. In responding, WMGO confirmed the authenticity of the audio recording and identified the two speakers as Lousteau and Gordon. WMGO did not affirmatively respond to the Commission's question as to whether the station had informed the Gordon of its intention to record and/or broadcast the telephone conversation. Instead WMGO stated that because Gordon had participated in previous telephone interviews that were recorded and subsequently broadcast by the station. Therefore it could only surmise that Gordon has always been aware of the taping for broadcast. But the FCC says that's not good enough. It says that the purpose of Section 73.1206 of its rules is to protect the legitimate expectation of privacy in connection with the broadcast use of telephone conversations. It says that when Gordon returned the phone call to WMGO that same day that the station had a legal obligation to inform him that it intended to record and rebroadcast the conversation but failed to do so. And that says the FCC warrants the imposition of a $15,000 fine which WMGO Broadcasting has been ordered to pay. For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Bruce Tennant, K6PZW, in Los Angeles. -- WMGO Broadcasting was given the usual time to pay the fine or to fine an appeal. (FCC) ** RADIO LAW: CONGRESS MAY ACT TO SAVE INTERNET BROADCASTING A bill introduced in Congress ton Friday, April 27th, could be the savior for so-called Internet radio station. Called the Internet Radio Equality Act, the measure would nullify the new rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board which advocates say would put webcasters out of business. The bi-partisan Internet Radio Equality Act legislation was introduced by Washington Democrat Jay Inslee and Republican representative Don Manzullo of Illinois. Its purpose is to curtail the imposition of a highly controversial March 2 decision which forces royalty payments of a .08 cents per song per listener, retroactively from 2006 Web radio advocates have condemned the Copyright Royalty Board ruling. They say that it could raise rates between 300 to 1200 per cent for webcasters and effectively ending the transmission of musical entertainment over the World-Wide-Web. The Copyright Royalty Board defends its decision stating that artists are entitled to a fair share of the profits from the music that they have created. If passed, Internet Radio Equality Act would set new rates at 7.5 per cent of the webcaster's revenue. That's the same rate paid by satellite radio broadcasters. Alternatively, webcasters could decide to pay 33 cents per hour of sound recordings transmitted to a single user. The bill would also reset royalty rules for non-profit radio such as National Public Radio. Such government funded radio operations would be required present a report to Congress on how it should determine rates for their internet streaming media. (Published reports) ** HAM HERITAGE: KEYS 2007 - WORKS OF ART Keys 2007 - Amateur Radio Works of Art is the first in a multi-part series depicting some very unique Morse keys appearing in the May issue of CQ Magazine. In it, author Dave Ingram, K4TWJ, brings you some of the most beautiful C-W generating devices ever created by the mind of man. Included is an incredible Roto-Bug that uses a motor generator system to produce dots and a paddle key crafted from an old Astatic D-104 microphone. Its true ham radio creativity at its best and it all begins on page 44 of the May C-Q that's on newsstands right now. (CQ) ** NAMES IN THE NEWS: CONGRATS TO LARRY KING - 50 YEARS ON THE AIR CNN personality Larry King is not a ham, but he has been on the air a lot longer than most radio amateurs have been licensed. And this year the master interviewer celebrates his 50th anniversary as a broadcaster. The Brooklyn, New York born King began his broadcasting career in 1957 after changing from his surname from Zeiger. His first job was as a disc jockey at Miami's WAHR-AM. The next year, he began a show originating live from a local restaurant, where he interviewed whatever folks as they happened by. Now age 73, King joined CNN back in 1985 and has been interviewing the famous and not so famous ever since. As an aside, King and our producer Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF, have two things in common. Not only are they both from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Both also attended Lafayette High School though King had graduated a few years before Bill arrived. Kings career has already spanned half a century. We at Amateur Radio Newsline wish him many more years of success yet to come. (Published reports) ** BREAK 2 This is ham radio news for today's radio amateur. From the United States of America, We are the Amateur Radio Newsline with links to the world from our only official website at www.arnewsline.org and being relayed by the volunteer services of the following radio amateur: (5 sec pause here) ** CHANGING OF THE GUARD: WRITER DAVE ROSENTHAL, N6TST, - S.K. The changing of the guard in Amateur Radio continues with word of the passing of longtime Radio Netherland U-S reporter Dave Rosenthal, N6TST. A longtime resident of Ridgecrest, California, the 58 year old Rosenthal passed away on March 16th after battling a protracted illness. We at Newsline first met Dave through the former Radio Netherlands Media Network program producer Jonathan Marks, G8WGN. And over the years, Dave was a contributor to a few of our newscasts as well. In more recent days, N6TST, became a very prolific writer. His articles in QST Magazine drew much interest and acclaim including the ARRL Cover Plaque Award for his article, "Polar Bear Portable." Dave Rosenthal, N6TST, is survived by his wife Donna, KF6ZVE. In lieu of flowers memorial donations in Dave's name should be sent to the Wiseman Cancer Research Foundation, 201 S Alvarado St, Suite 321, Los Angeles, California, 90057. (ARRL) ** EMERGING TECHNOLOGY: ERROR RATES HIGHER WITH FEMALES USING VOICE RECOGNITION SOFTWARE Science Daily reports that there is a significantly higher rate of transcription error in women compared to men when using commercial voice recognition applications. According to a recent study ten radiology residents, five male and five female, were each trained on a commercial speech recognition application. Each was then asked to dictate a standardized set of ten radiology reports containing a total of 2,123 words. The generated reports were then compared with the original reports and error rates were calculated. The error rate was defined as the sum of the number of word insertions and deletions divided by the total word count for a given report. The results showed error rates in the male population ranged from 0.025 to 0.139 while the error rates in the females ranged from 0.015 to 0.206. (Science Daily) ** EMERGING TECHNOLOGY: MICROSOFT SUPPORTS ROBOT DESIGNERS Microsoft has previewed a set of new software tools that aims to give developers a simpler way to design robots and to create and test programs that operate a wide range of machines The group's first product is called Microsoft Robotics Studio. It is designed for hobbyists, students or commercial developers, who have had to reinvent the wheel each time they use different hardware to build a robot. While the fragmented robotics market is now in its infancy, Microsoft says that forecasts call for the industry to grow into a multibillion-dollar market in the next five to 10 years. (Technology Report) ** WORLDBEAT - SOUTH AFRICA: CALLBOOK BY APRS The South African Radio League reports that Dick Stratford, ZS6RO, has set-up a server on APRS which can be used to obtain callbook information from anywhere in the APRS international network. It works this way. When querying a local South African callsign, the South African Radio League database is used. When a D-X callsign is queried via APRS, the QRZ.COM database is used in real-time. The same databases are used when querying from the packet radio network. APRS, the acronym for Automatic Position Reporting System, was developed by Bob Bruninga, WB4APR. The system uses amateur radio to transmit position reports, weather reports, and messages between users. (SARL) ** HAM RADIO IN SPACE: PAPERS SOUGHT FOR AMSAT SPACE SYMPOSIUM AMSAT has put out a call for papers to be presented at its 2007 AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual Meeting slated for October 25th to the 28th in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Proposals for papers, symposium presentations, and poster presentations are invited on any topic of interest to the amateur satellite program. Emphasis for this year is an educational outreach to middle and high School students with emphasis on papers dealing with several targeted topics. These include but are not limited to Students & Education, Amateur Radio on the International Space Station, satellites AO-51, Phase 3 E and Eagle along with other satellite-related topics. A one-page abstract is required by June 1st. Camera ready copy on paper or in electronic form will be due by September 1st for inclusion in the printed symposium proceedings. Papers received after this date will not be included in the printed proceedings. Abstracts and papers should be sent to Daniel Schultz N8FGV by e-mail to: . (AMSAT) ** WORLDBEAT - UK: TV SHOWS THE EARLY DAYS OF UK EMCOMMS A television show about the early days of Amateur Radio emergency communications in England was recently broadcast on the U-K TV station Channel 4 . This, as a part of the stations ongoing '3 Minute Wonder' series. The program was called "Preparing for the Worst" was hosted by Pat Gowen G3IOR. It discussed one of the first ever mobile emergency communications operations ever in the U-K. Also in the show is Terry Owen, G4PSH and references are made to Rafars & Raynet of the city of Norfolk. Preparing for the Worst can be seen on the YouTube video service. Just take your web browser to www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLfsr-Q3m0o (Southgate) ** WORLDBEAT - UK: NEW UK HAM RADIO WEBSITE A new British website at www.RadioDXer.co.uk, has been launched. This to create an online community for United Kingdom based amateurs and other radio enthusiasts where they can participate in discussion on anything to do with radio as a hobby. Graeme Stoker, M0EUK, the man behind the new cyberspace global village. He believes that there are a number of similar American-based forums, but until now nothing really with a U-K focus. (Southgate) ** DX DL6LAU has informed the OPDX newsletter that DL8OBQ, DJ8NK and himself will now be active as PJ2/homecall from the island of Curacao (July 9-16th. They plan to participate in the IARU HF Contest (July 14-15th) as PJ2HQ, and as a Multi-Multi entry. QSL via their home callsigns. QSL PJ2HQ via N9AG or LoTW. IW2NEF, will be active as portable HI7 from Bayahibe, in the Dominican Republic from June 3-9th. Activity will be limited to no more than 1 or 2 hours a day on HF, on 40-10 meters and VHF 6 meters E-skip. He will use a Yaesu FT-857D w/100 watts max power into a vertical "9M WIRE" for HF and a J pole for the 6M band. QSL via IW2NEF. (From various DX news sources) ** THAR FINAL ITEM: THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF PROTEINS And finally this week, word that biologists have converted protein sequences into another form of communications. Classical music. This they say is an attempt to help vision-impaired scientists and boost the popularity of genomic biology. New research published in the open access journal Genome Biology describes how researchers have found a way to present human proteins as musical notes. Doctors Rie Takahashi and Jeffrey H. Miller from the University of California, Los Angeles, USA, have so far transcribed segments of two human proteins into music. But to make their melodies more pleasing on the ear, they had first to overcome a few problems -- how to incorporate rhythm, and how to cram the 20 standard amino acids into just 13 notes. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. The two researchers focused on codons which are sets of three adjacent bases that code for particular amino acids. They decided to include four different note durations with codons that appear more frequently transcribed into longer notes than those which appear less often. Individual amino acids are expressed as chords, in which similar amino acids are paired. For example, the amino acids tyrosine and phenylalanine are both assigned a G major chord, but they can be distinguished because the notes in the chord are arranged differently. This means the resulting music has a 20 note range spanning over 2 octaves, but with just 13 base notes. The team find their music more melodic and less 'jumpy' than previous attempts, which have focused on DNA sequences and protein folding, and hence closer to the musical depth of popular compositions. They are currently piloting a computer program, written by a collaborator Frank Pettit, which uses their translation rules to convert amino acids into music and hope it will speed up the translation of large segments of genomes. (BioMed Central via Science OnLine) ** NEWSCAST CLOSE With thanks to Alan Labs, AMSAT, the ARRL, the CGC Communicator, CQ Magazine, the FCC, the Ohio Penn DX Bulletin, Radio Netherlands, Rain, the RSGB, the Southgate News and Australia's W-I-A News, that's all from the Amateur Radio Newsline(tm). Our e-mail address is . More information is available at Amateur Radio Newsline's(tm) only official website located at www.arnewsline.org. You can also write to us or support us at Amateur Radio Newsline(tm), P.O. Box 660937, Arcadia, California 91066. Two reminders before we go. First we have a new poll for the month of May. This one asks the question now that the Morse exam is part of ham radio history, do you plan to upgrade or remain the license class you are right now. Of coarse this is unfair to Extra class licensees because they cannot go any higher so this poll kind of leaves them out in the cold. To compensate, we added a third possible answer, but you will have to go to our website at www.arnewsline.org to see what it is. Also, the nominating season for this years Amateur Radio Newsline Young Ham of the Year Award closes on May 30th. That's less than 2 weeks away. Any nominations received after that date will not qualify for this years award program. The Young Ham of the Year Award is open to any radio amateur age 18 or younger residing in all 50 United States, plus Puerto Rico and all 13 Canadian Provinces can qualify. Full details and nominating forms are on our special website at www,yhoty.org. Also see the Vertex-Standard sponsored ad on page 8 of the March issue of QST Magazine. For now, with Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF, at the editors desk, I'm Don Wilbanks, AE5DW, saying 73 and we thank you for listening. Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) is Copyright 2007. All rights reserved. |
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