The Radio Club of Tacoma is celebrating National Sasquatch Awareness Day with a series of special event callsigns that will be on the air October 16-21. Callsigns include W7B, W7I, W7G, W7F, W7O, and W7T. QSL cards and certificates will be available.

Radio Club of Tacoma (W7DK) club members will be operating the BIGFOOT callsigns starting on October 16th at 0000 Zulu, and the special event will end on October 21 at 2359 Zulu. Stations will be using CW, phone, FT8/FT4, RTTY and PSK modes, and will be operating on 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meters at various times throughout each day.

Source: Radio Club of Tacoma

We're beginning to see ways in which amateur radio operators are stepping up to help their communities in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Many more stories will follow as traditional news outlets learn of what's happening, but in the meantime, here's a summary of what's been surfaced online and on the air.

Ham Publisher Directly Affected

One of the most high-profile stories comes from Tom (K4SWL), publisher of QRPer and The SWLing Post, two popular websites in the online worlds of ham radio and shortwave listening. Tom has been very transparent with Helene's impact on his family and community, posting updates to the QRPer blog. He and his neighbors are cut off from accessing the local network of roads by car, requiring him to instead rely on bikes to check on the local community and gather supplies such as medicine.

Hams will be very interested in his use of HTs, spread across licensed, and non-licensed family members and neighbors to stay in contact with one another.

I set up a simplex frequency and schedule so we could communicate. I also wrote down instructions in case someone accidentally bumped a button and needed to re-tune to the correct frequency. No, most of these people don’t have licenses, but this is 100% a real emergency. Hams in the region have even been giving volunteers their radios to share wellness checks via our repeater systems and the emergency response network.

Repeaters Serve as Lifeline for Many

The Broadcastify link to the W4HTP repeater livestream has been making the rounds on social media. While this feed normally features the W4HTP repeater out of Dallas, NC, the livestream is currently relaying the Mt. Mitchell repeater (N2GE) at 145.190. Listening in, hams in the area are providing many forms of assistance to the community from helping to conduct welfare checks on isolated residents, to relaying messages related to supplies.

The K4ITL Repeater Facebook Page has become an off-air communications channel to gather information and ask for help. This case is particularly interesting in that it shows how ham radio can provide assistance both through RF and non-RF channels.

HF nets have been active on 7.232 MHz and 3.923 MHz.

In many of these cases, there's no one organization leading the charge, just a group of hams that felt compelled to help.

Traditional Media Report Hams Helping

Traditional media reports are beginning to pop up, highlighting the ability for amateur radio to help during natural disasters.

• WBTV out of Charlotte highlights K2DMG, one of the net control operators passing traffic on the Mt. Mitchell repeater.
• Queen City News has also featured K2DMG.
• WNCT out of Greenville highlights ham radio and KM4TC.

The Larger Ham Orgs

ARRL has been in touch with key volunteers and HamAid kits (PDF) are ready to deploy. Contact an ARRL Section Manager to request deployment.

Hopefully we'll see case studies coming from local ARES groups in the coming weeks and months.

• 11 Alive out of Atlanta features ARES member KQ4KIS.

Source: Amateur Radio Daily

The Chasing Cornwallis Challenge continues October 5-7 and 19-21 with special event stations K4M and K4Y. K4M recognizes the Battle of Kings Mountain, a significant conflict during the American Revolutionary War. K4Y recognizes the Battle of Yorktown. QSL cards for each event will be available.

Source: Chasing Cornwallis Challenge

Pacificon is the ARRL Pacific Division Ham Radio Convention by the Mount Diablo Amateur Radio Club. The convention will include forums, all-day antenna seminar, parachute mobile contacts, license exams, W1AW/6 special event station, and more.

For a full rundown of events, view the event and forum schedules. Online registration is open until October 1st. Tickets will also be available at the door.

Source: Pacificon

RaDAR is Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio conceived by Eddie Leighton ZS6BNE. RaDAR encourages outdoor operating with a unique challenge: make five contacts and redeploy as fast as possible in four hours.

• Registration info
• RaDAR Rally Rules
• Introduction video
• Roster

Source: N4KGL

Radio Club of America (RCA) recognizes leaders and major contributors to the field of wireless communications. This year, several hams received awards.

Dr. James Breakall (WA3FET)

Dr. Ulrich L. Rohde Award for Innovation in Applied Radio Science and Engineering

Dr. Breakall began his career as a graduate student at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, working on antenna analysis and radar probing of the ionosphere. At LLNL, he and his group worked on the development of the Numerical Electromagnetics Code (NEC), the first sophisticated antenna modeling program. Other significant projects that he has worked on were the designs of the HAARP facility in Alaska, both HF facilities at Arecibo, and the Kinstar low profile AM broadcast antenna. Dr. Breakall (electrical) and Tim Duffy (mechanical) designed the very popular Ham Radio Skyhawk Yagi antenna, and Dr. Breakall is the inventor of the Optimized Wideband Antenna (OWA).

Dr. Breakall is also a member of HamSCI.

Stan Reubenstein

Edgar F. Johnson Pioneer Citation

[Mr. Reubenstein] is a member of APCO, ARRL Life Member (receiving the 1971 Public Service Award), Antique Wireless Association, Denver Area Council BSA (Silver Beaver Recipient 2011), QCWA (Life Member). He is a Fellow, Life Member, director, and previous officer of the Radio Club of America, serving as vice president, executive vice president and president. He received RCA’s Special Service Award and the Barry Goldwater Award.

Dr Nathan "Chip" Cohen (W1YW)

Dr. Arno A. Penzias Award for Contributions to Basic Research in the Radio Sciences

Dr. Cohen is perhaps most noted for his contributions to the field of electromagnetics and has authored over 120 technical papers, three books, and was awarded 94 issued U.S. patents. He is the inventor of fractal antennas and resonators, fractal metamaterials, and the invisibility cloak, conducting basic and applied research on same, and holds the source patents in these fields.

Rene Albert Steigler (posthumous)

Barry Goldwater Award

René Stiegler was an electrical engineer, prominent radio amateur, radio personality, broadcast engineer and pioneer in the fields of land mobile radio and marine communications. When he was ten years old he was recognized by the ARRL as the youngest ham to ever receive the general class license. Amateur radio then became his lifelong passion.

Alan Spindel (AG4WK)

RCA Special Recognition Award

Alan Spindel is the Senior Electrical Engineer for Ten-Tec/Alpha RF Systems in Dayton, Ohio. He develops hardware and firmware for digital HF radio data modems. He is active in volunteer emergency communications and has served as the Rutherford County, Tennessee, ARES Net Manager for nearly two decades.

Tucker Dunham (KD2JPM)

Carole Perry Young Professional Award

Tucker Dunham earned his amateur radio license in 2015. He presented in Carole Perry’s Youth Forum at the Dayton Hamvention in 2018 and again at the RCA Technical Symposium in 2018.

2024 Fellows

Hams that are RCA members recently elevated to Fellow status:

• Michael Kalter (W8CI), Hamvention Awards Committee Co-Chair
• Howard Rosen (VE2AED), Inventor and Entrepreneur

For a full list of award recipients with additional details, see the RCA 2024 award recipients page.

Source: RCA

By Brian (WX4BK)

The West Georgia Amateur Radio Society will hold its second annual Villa Rica Gold Rush special event September 21st-22nd, 2024 using the W4G Call Sign on 15, 20, 40, and 80 meters in CW, Phone, and Digital modes. Operation on all modes and bands, including the 10 meter bonus band, will occur on September 21^st from 12:30Z until 19:30Z from the original Pine Mountain Gold Mine Operations Building at the Pine Mountain Gold Museum in Villa Rica, GA. W4G will operate outside those hours using bands and modes chosen by our individual operators. The event runs in conjunction with the Villa Rica Gold Rush Festival, celebrating Villa Rica's status as the home of the first U.S. Gold Rush.

Certificates for making a single contact, all bands, all modes, and bonus band contacts will be made available. When the event begins we'll put up a status page which will include the operators and bands they are operating on, as well as recent contacts. Please note that some operators will manually log their contacts and may not immediately appear on our status page. Certificates are normally available within moments of making contact, however it may take up to 24 hours for digital and manually logged contacts.

Source: West Georgia Amateur Radio Society

The Reading Radio Club will operate two special event stations on Saturday September 21st to recognize the 100th anniversary of the incorporation of Reading Railroad.

All licensed amateurs are invited to join the celebration and make contact with W3BN and W3CCH on 10, 15, 20, 40 or 80 meters SSB to qualify for a personalized, color certificate commemorating the contact. Reading Radio Club operators will be staffing four HF stations – two in the Reading, PA area and two aboard stationary rail cars parked along tracks outside the Reading Railroad Heritage Museum in Hamburg, PA for a 12-hour period. Look for spots on your favorite DX cluster to find and work one of the stations.

Source: Reading Radio Club

Icom IC-V82 handheld transceivers designed for amateur radio use have been identified as the latest device to deliver deadly explosions targeting members of Hezbollah. The identification of Icom radios follows an initial attack on members of Hezbollah in which pager devices were used to deliver deadly explosions.

Icom is investigating the reports of its radios being used in these attacks while Icom sales reps believe the radios identified are knock-offs. Icom is expected to release its findings on its website. The IC-V82 was discontinued in 2014.

Source: Washington Post

Beginning January 1st, Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) will no longer offer paper based amateur radio licensing exams except for special educational needs. Already, 97% of all amateur license exams are conducted online remotely or within a club space. Additional costs and effort around paper based exams were cited as reasons to move to an all digital format. Key dates:

• Paper exams continue until December 13
• November 29 is the last day to book a paper exam
• Paper exams will no longer be available beginning January 1

Source: RSGB

The 23rd ARRL and 12th IARU Region 2 Radio Orienteering Championship event takes place October 5-13 in Chelsea, Michigan. This event combines navigation racing and radio direction finding to form a competition among its contestants. Participants will move through the woods hunting transmitters utilizing a receiver and a map.

This year, 54 individuals will compete with the Paul Bunyan Trophy at stake.

Source: Radio Orienteering Champs

The Unicom Radio Club (URC) is hosting its inaugural URC DX RTTY Contest to be held on October 4th. Operators are encouraged to establish as many RTTY contacts as possible during the contest period running 00:00:01 UTC to 23:59:59 UTC. Band, category, scoring, and award information is available on the URC website.

Source: Unicom Radio Club

TAPR is seeking nominations to fill three director roles on their board. Nominations will be accepted until September 21. An online election will be held October 6-19.

To place a person in nomination, please remember that he or she must be a member of TAPR. Also, confirm that the individual is willing to have his or her name placed in nomination. By September 21, 2024, send that person’s name (or your own if you wish to nominate yourself ), call sign, mailing address, e-mail address, phone number(s), and a biographical sketch (250 words maximum) via contact@tapr.org or via snail mail to TAPR, 1 Glen Ave., Wolcott, CT 06716-1442.

Source: TAPR

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), the communications and media regulator of Australia, has enacted new licensing related fees as of September 1st. The new fees will be required when reconfirming or reassigning a special event or contest callsign. These special callsigns may be held up to 12 months before being renewed. Individual operator callsigns do no require a renewal fee.

The new fee structure includes:

• Reassigning a special event call sign: $34.00
• Reassigning a VK0 and VK9 call sign: $34.00
• Reassigning a contest call sign: $15.00
• Transferring a call sign to another amateur operator: $15.00

Source: WIA

Amateur radio operators may now support the APRS Foundation through a $20 per year membership option. Becoming a member helps secure the future of APRS and assists with the foundation's operating costs.

The APRS Foundation was formed in 2022 after the passing the Bob Bruninga (WB4APR), the original steward of APRS. The foundation's goal is to preserve and advance APRS moving forward.

Editor's note: For an in-depth review of the details involving the formation of the APRS Foundation and its future plans, see issue 0167 of Zero Retries. N8GNJ outlines the foundation's immediate plans to create documentation as well as the transfer of various assets such as aprs.org to the foundation.

Source: APRS Foundation

The National Traffic System (NTS) is celebrating 75 years of service this October. As NTS 2.0 emerges to modernize the radiogram system, ARRL takes a look back at the origin of NTS which began in 1949.

The start-up of NTS® in October of 1949 could not have come at a worse time: HF conditions from then through at least the fall of 1952 were "the pits"! Two years in a row, EAN Manager George Sleeper, W2CLL, who replaced W2BYF in December of '49, wrote to W1NJM that he could not remember conditions ever being as bad in his entire ham career! Sunspot Cycle 18 was approaching its nadir and Cycle 19 — the strongest and best of all the sunspot cycles we older hams have had the privilege of enjoying — had not yet begun to ramp up.

Source: ARRL

The Ohio State Parks On The Air (OSPOTA) contest will be held on Saturday September 7, 2024. The contest is designed to promote amateur radio, Ohio parks, and the diverse Ohio ecology. 75 Ohio state parks are open for 2024. More info.

Source: OSPOTA

The 2024 Route 66 On The Air special event will be active September 7-15. This year, 23 clubs located across the route will be operating special 1x1 callsigns. QSL cards and certificates will be available.

This year marks the 25th year of this great radio event. Originally started by the Northern Arizona DX Association, it was a way to allow amateur radio operators a fun way to "Relive the Ride." They also can relive their own memories of Route 66, and get to celebrate the highway’s rich history in making the U.S. what it is today.

Source: Route 66 On The Air

By John (VE7TI)

The September - October SARC Communicator

We're back with another big issue to start the fall season. The September-October 2024 Communicator, digital periodical of Surrey Amateur Radio Communications is now available for viewing or download. Some great projects and articles in this issue including a CW decoder, an HF amplifier and a web server for HamClock using an inexpensive Raspberry Pi Zero. Also a full report on our July Surrey Summer High School RF Communications course that resulted in 20 new hams aged 14-17.

Read in over 150 countries, we bring you 125+ pages of Amateur Radio content from the Southwest corner of Canada and elsewhere. With less fluff and ads than other Amateur Radio publications, you will find Amateur Radio related articles, projects, profiles, news, tips and how-to's for all levels of the hobby.

• You can view or download it as a PDF file or read it on-line like a magazine here.
• Find Previous Communicator issues
• Search for past Communicator issues and a full index is here.

Source: SARC