eHam.net News

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Propagation Forecast Bulletin #29 de K7RA:

Posted: 15 Jul 2016 06:49 AM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37181


As this solar cycle declines, we will occasionally see periods such
as the past week when activity perks up and it seems that happy days
are back. Enjoy them when you can, while they last. Any recovery
is unpredictable and temporary.


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Soaring Above Midland County: Clubs Launch Weather Balloons:

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 05:21 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37180


Alarms rang in many middle and high school students' houses on Friday, June
17, the first day of summer vacation. Why would these students want to get
up early and congregate at Midland High School on their first day of summer
bliss? The students were from Northeast Middle School's Science Club and
Midland High School's Electronics and Wireless Communications Club and were
excited to launch their culminating STEM projects, weather balloons, high
over the skies of Midland. The clubs at both schools were supervised by Dr.
Dennis Klipa, this year's recipient of the local chapter of the American
Chemical Society's Education Volunteer of the Year. Klipa, along with
fellow amateur radio enthusiast, Will Halphen, and other members of the
Midland Amateur Radio Club, devoted many hours each week to the enhancement
of physical science for students who wanted to apply technical knowledge
beyond what was available to them in the classrooms. Students had prepared
for this launch by exploring the related electronics and wireless
communication needed to track and retrieve weather balloons by soldering
circuit boards for flashlights and alarms, as well as building antennas and
attenuators which were used in fox hunts to find hidden "fox" transmitters.
They also learned about resistors, transistors, cathodes, diodes,
generators and electromagnets, and explored different forms of energy
transfer prior to beginning their weather balloon projects. In addition to
celebrating the close of the year with a pizza party, these 30 young
scientists applied their new understanding of electronics and wireless
technology through a project that further enhanced their knowledge of the
Earth's atmosphere. The weather balloons, equipped with experimental
electronic payloads that included amateur radio tracking equipment, as well
as GoPro camera and cell phone technology, were built to sustain projected
altitudes nearing 100,000 feet above the earth before bursting due to
changes in atmospheric pressure.


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It's Been Three Years Since the Last Telegram was Sent in India:

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 05:20 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37179


The Telegram service, which remained in India for 163 years, is no more in
use. Here's a look at some interesting facts about the service which was
last used on July 14, 2013. It's been two years since the last telegram was
used in India. Technology gets obsolete all the time, especially since the
advent of smartphones, the life-cycle on any new technology has reduced
remarkably. Considering this time-scale, Telegram has served the humans for
a much-much longer time. This technology was introduced by the British but
remained in use till July 14, 2013.


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New at DX Engineering: Geochron Ham Map:

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 05:19 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37178


DX Engineering now carries the Geochron Ham Map. Based on feedback from the
Ham Radio community, the Ham Map was designed with help from the DX
Engineering team and incorporates all of the original Geochron features,
plus CQ zones and country prefixes. The Geochron is unique among maps in
that it displays geography, plus local time (12 and 24 hour formats),
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), sunrise/sunset, all legal time zones, sun
movement, daylight duration, and latitude/longitude. That wealth of
information made the Geochron map a favorite of Amateur Radio operators.
Sleek and elegant, Geochron maps are printed in full color on a belt that
is driven continuously in synchronous movement with the Earth. The
night/day boundaries are shown by backlit or shaded areas. The track of the
sun is represented by a moving dot and the current time is displayed along
the top of the map. The overall design allows anyone to quickly determine
the local time at any location on the planet.


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Slow Appearance of Sunspots Challenges Theory:

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 05:18 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37177


Solar active regions consist of strongly magnetic sunspots and surrounding
regions of more diffuse magnetic field. These regions are the origin of
solar activity which controls space weather and causes beautiful phenomena
such as aurora but in some cases also damage to satellites or power grids.
Solar active regions are thought to be the result of magnetic flux
concentrations -- bundles of magnetic field lines -- rising from deep in
the solar interior and penetrating the surface. A team consisting of
researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS),
The University of Göttingen, NorthWest Research Associates, and the High
Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research has
now shown that these magnetic flux concentrations move upward through the
solar interior at speeds of not more than about 150 m/s. This is much
slower than predicted by the prevailing current model. For their study,
which is published today in the journal Science Advances, they compared
satellite observations and computer simulations. A clear sign of a magnetic
flux concentration penetrating the surface of the Sun are regions with
magnetic fields of opposite polarity. These polarities are clearly visible
on magnetic maps provided by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI)
instrument onboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The researchers
used these images to identify active regions and to determine the moment of
their emergence. Since its launch in 2010, SDO has provided an almost
uninterrupted stream of data. "For our research we needed observations of a
statistically significant number of active regions," explains lead author
Aaron Birch from the MPS. "HMI is ideal for our purpose as it provides
high-resolution images of the complete solar disc with essentially
continuous coverage in time," he adds. Because of the Sun's activity
minimum in 2010, during which active regions occur much less often than
usual, the team had to collect observations for several years.


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DX News -- ARRL DX Bulletin #29:

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 01:08 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37176


This week's bulletin was made possible with information provided by
QRZ DX, the OPDX Bulletin, 425 DX News, The Daily DX, DXNL, Contest
Corral from QST and the ARRL Contest Calendar and WA7BNM web sites.
Thanks to all.


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This Week In Radiosport:

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 01:08 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37175


This Week In Radiosport:


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Ham Radio Parity Act Receives Favorable House Energy and Commerce Report:

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 01:07 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37174


An amended version of the Amateur Radio Parity Act, H.R. 1301, received a
unanimous favorable report on July 13 from members of the US
House Energy and Commerce Committee. The bill now will go to the full
House for consideration.


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FCC Finds a Fix for Amateur Radio Application Batch Processing Problem:

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 01:06 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37173


It's taken a couple of weeks, but the FCC has resolved a computer
programming problem that had affected its ability to accept and process
batch-filed Amateur Radio applications, resulting in a backlog for the
Volunteer Examiner Coordinator (VEC) and others taking advantage
of automated processing. The FCC information technology staff had been
attempting to fix the glitch that had affected the Universal Licensing
System (ULS) Electronic Batch Filing (EBF) system since it first cropped up
on June
28. At first the problem had affected the processing of all Amateur
Radio and commercial license applications, said ARRL VEC Manager Maria
Somma, AB1FM, who alerted the FCC IT Department.


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Ham Radio Outlet to Acquire Some AES Employees, Re-Opens Milwaukee Location

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 01:05 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37172


Ham Radio Outlet (HRO) has announced plans
to hire an unspecified number of Amateur Electronic Supply (AES) employees
when AES shuts down its four
locations in late July. In addition, the current AES Headquarters store
in Milwaukee will become HRO's newest location later this summer,
following renovation. On July 1, AES announced that it was going out of
business and ending retail operations at its Milwaukee, Las Vegas,
Cleveland, and Orlando locations. With the approval of AES management,
HRO senior managers visited each AES location to interview staffers in
hopes of "acquiring some of the Amateur Radio retail employee talent in
each of the current AES locations," an HRO news release said.


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ARRL CEO, Emergency Preparedness Manager Visit FEMA Headquarters:

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 01:04 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37171


ARRL CEO Tom Gallagher, NY2RF, and Emergency Preparedness Manager Mike
Corey, KI1U, recently visited Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
headquarters in Washington, DC, to further
explore areas of cooperation and partnership, in line with the
Memorandum of Agreement that ARRL and FEMA signed in 2014.


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ARRL Board Of Directors to Meet in Connecticut:

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 01:04 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37170


The ARRL Board of Directors will meet July 15-16 in Windsor,
Connecticut, for its second meeting of 2016. The session will mark
the first Board meeting for ARRL's new CEO Tom Gallagher, NY2RF, who
joined the Headquarters staff on February 29 and became CEO on April 18
upon the retirement of David Sumner, K1ZZ. Gallagher also serves as
secretary to the Board.


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The Doctor Will See You Now!

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 01:02 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37169


"Propagation" is the topic of the latest (July 14) episode of the "ARRL
The Doctor is In" podcast. Listen...and
learn!


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National Parks on the Air Update:

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 01:00 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37168


July represents the halfway mark for the ARRL National Parks on the Air
(NPOTA) program. With just under 6 months to
go, slightly more than 490,000 contacts have been made from 431 of the
485 eligible NPS units, in 8250 separate activations.


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Attendance at Dayton Hamvention Tops 25,000 for Second Year in a Row:

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 01:03 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37167


Given the level of enthusiasm at the 2016 running of Dayton Hamvention in
mid-May, attendance may have seemed up,
but for all intents and purposes, it held steady at 25,364 visitors.
That figure was down only slightly from the 25,621 attendees reported
for 2015, but above the 25,000 mark for the second year in a row. For
those keeping track, in 2014 the official count was 24,873 visitors,
and attendance in 2013 was 24,542.


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ARRL Training Webinar, 'Contesting as Training for Public Service,' Set:

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 01:03 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37166


A free ARRL Training Webinar, "Contesting as Training for Public Service,"
hosted by Ward Silver,
N0AX, will take place on Sunday, July 24, 8 until 10 PM EDT (0000-0200
UTC on July 25). All are invited to join the audio-slide presentation
online or via telephone.


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International Tribunal Rules Against China on South China Sea Reefs:

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 01:02 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37165


An international tribunal ruling discounting China's claims with
respect to Scarborough Reef and the Spratlys could complicate efforts
to mount another DXpedition to the rare and remote South China Sea DXCC
entities. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled this
week in favor of the Philippines in a dispute with China over
Scarborough Reef -- also known as Scarborough Shoal. The last
DXpedition to Scarborough was the 2007 BS7H operation. A 2016
DXpedition has been reported to be in the works.


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New ISS Crew Increment with Two Radio Amateurs Arrives on Station:

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 01:00 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37164


NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, KG5FYJ, astronaut Takuya Onishi, KF5LKS, of
the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and cosmonaut Anatoly
Ivanishin of Roscosmos officially joined their Expedition 48
International Space Station (ISS) crew members on July 9, when the
hatches opened between their Soyuz MS-01 and the space station. Four
radio amateurs now are on board the ISS.


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CQ Contest Hall of Famer, WRTC Competitor, Walter Skudlarek, DJ6QT, (SK):

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 12:59 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37163


Well-known contester and World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC)
competitor, official, and supporter Walter Skudlarek, DJ6QT, of
Hirzenhain, Germany, died on July 5. He was 77 and had been a radio
amateur since 1958.


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In Brief...

Posted: 14 Jul 2016 12:59 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/37162


Solar Car Challenge W1N Traveling Special Event Operation Set: Special
event station W1N will travel from the Texas Motor Speedway to
Minneapolis between July 15 and July 24 to highlight the 2016 Solar Car
Challenge.