Here are a trio of recent announcements from the ARRL:
LOTW back online
On July 1, the ARRL returned Logbook of The World (LoTW) to service! They noted that during a brief LOTW opening 6600 logs were uploaded, but not processed until they were sure that the system was functioning properly.
They also ask that you not call ARRL Headquarters to report issues you are having with LoTW. Instead, contact support at LoTW-help@arrl.org.
They conclude the announcement with, “We appreciate your patience as we worked through the challenges keeping LoTW from returning to service. We know the importance of LoTW to our members, and to the tens of thousands of LoTW users who are not ARRL members.”
Personally, I think that they did a pretty good job with getting LOTW back online. It was definitely a difficult task.
ARRL Foundation Club Grant Program July 25
The ARRL Foundation Club Grant Program—funded by Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC)—is an opportunity for clubs to apply for grants up to $25,000 to fund projects in areas that will motivate and develop active radio amateurs, with an emphasis given to projects that are of a “transformational” nature.
The application period is NOW OPEN and runs through Friday July 26, 2024 at 4:00PM Eastern Time. Clubs across the country are encouraged to apply, even if your club is not an ARRL Affiliated Club or not a 501(c)(3) organization—all are welcome to apply. Grant recipients will be required to share progress reports and updates with ARRL.
It seems like the ARRL should have made this announcement a lot sooner to give clubs a better shot at meeting the deadline, but perhaps those clubs who have been working on big projects have been working on their proposals all along. We’ll see.
ARRL developing performance analysis program for NTS
The National Traffic System (NTS) will soon be evaluated with new tools to help improve system performance. The ARRL is developing a web-based Performance Analysis Tool (PAT) to ultimately improve speed and accuracy of the traffic system. Additional training materials will also be developed to improve NTS performance. Once the new tools are complete, the ARRL will hold a test exercise to measure their effectiveness.
From the ARRL: “Effective 12:00pm ET / 16:00 UTC we will be returning Logbook of The World® (LoTW®) to service.” That is fantastic news!
Current Queue Status for LotW
I uploaded the logs that I had waiting since things went down in early May. When I logged into my account today, this is what I saw:
When I synchronized DXKeeper and LotW, the most recent LotW confirmation was from May 9. So we are a couple of months behind. I was surprised there were only 47K logs in the queue (a 16 Hour delay), but I expect very few people know it is back on line. Hopefully those May and June confirmations will eventually get uploaded.
EDIT – Seems LoTW was only briefly up. Might have been a test or an inadvertent public access moment prior to reconstruction being fully completed. Or it broke right away again. Comments are open for any reports of new information! I won’t upload anything until after the weekend, but reports are that LoTW came […]
EDIT – Seems LoTW was only briefly up. Might have been a test or an inadvertent public access moment prior to reconstruction being fully completed. Or it broke right away again. Comments are open for any reports of new information! I won’t upload anything until after the weekend, but reports are that LoTW came… Continue reading LoTW – It’s Alive (Again)!
LoTW remains down as the ARRL addresses the damages done to them by a cyber attack. Interestingly some hams a literally making up tales of “LoTW doom & gloom.” Must be boredom, as by definition by their being hams they come from a smarter cut of cloth than the average joe. https://groups.arrl.org/g/ARRL-LoTW/topic/lotw_will_be_back/106612676 Jon Bloom, ex-KE3Z […]
LoTW remains down as the ARRL addresses the damages done to them by a cyber attack. Interestingly some hams a literally making up tales of “LoTW doom & gloom.” Must be boredom, as by definition by their being hams they come from a smarter cut of cloth than the average joe. https://groups.arrl.org/g/ARRL-LoTW/topic/lotw_will_be_back/106612676 Jon Bloom, ex-KE3Z… Continue reading LoTW – It has Been 30 days (and the Data is Still Said Safe)
A couple of days ago, it occurred to me that I hadn’t backed up my computer log or uploaded to Logbook of the World (LOTW) for a while. The backup went well, but when I tried to upload my latest contacts to LOTW, I got an error message. It puzzled me for a bit, but then I remembered that the ARRL had been hacked about a month ago, and that LOTW probably was still down.
I tried just now to log in to LOTW via the ARRL website. There was no notice on the LOTW home page, but when I clicked on the login link, nothing happens, and the attempt just times out. I think it would be a courtesy to note that LOTW is still down and that you can’t log in just yet, but it’s not that big a deal.
Lots of dahs
I recently worked Miloš, OM0MM. If you’re a CW operator, you know that’s a lot of dahs (14, to be exact). I actually had to listen to it a couple of times before I copied the call correctly.
Being a Slovak-American, whenever I work an OM station, I like to send them an email. I asked Milos if this was a vanity call sign. He replied:
Ahoj Dan,
Thank you for nice QSO and for an email. Sorry for my bad English.
About my call, yes I requested for this call sign and I lucikly get it My father (OM0EE) recommended it to me because I am only a CW operator, and I liked the idea of “all dashes.”
So you have a Slovak roots? Very nice to hear that. You are the first Slovak ham in USA I have met.
Miloš
OM0MM
Of course, Miloš’ English is a lot better than my Slovak, so no worries there. In making this off-air contact, I feel that I’m doing my part to “enhance international goodwill” as describe in Part §97.1(e).
Pro tip
While it is sad that more Americans don’t know more than one language, it would be difficult for U.S. hams to master all the languages out there. Having said that, when I want to gauge how well a ham that I’ve contacted is comfortable with English, I look at their QRZ.Com page. If it’s written in English, then I reach out to them in English, as I did with Miloš.
I have also tried doing a Google translate to send an email, but my results have been mixed. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m sending a Google translation (I always note that I used Google to translate the message) or what, but I get fewer replies with a translated email.
(The ARRL is slowly bringing its systems back online, confirmed this was a major attack and they brought the FBI in to help – check their website for the latest) I find it curious and somewhat telling how we all seem to “fill-in” the empty spaces in the minimal communications from the ARRL to members. […]
(The ARRL is slowly bringing its systems back online, confirmed this was a major attack and they brought the FBI in to help – check their website for the latest) I find it curious and somewhat telling how we all seem to “fill-in” the empty spaces in the minimal communications from the ARRL to members.… Continue reading More on the Ham Community Howling over the LoTW Outage
This appeared on Facebook regarding the IT situation over at the ARRL:
This was reported by Chris NW6V
Mike Ritz, W7VO, ARRL 2nd Vice President, was at the WVDXC club meeting last night, having just attended an ARRL board meeting to discuss the outage. Mike reported those meetings are a weekly event until the matter is resolved.
Everything that was running on INTERNAL servers is down until further notice. That includes their VoIP phone system, their .org email addresses, and front ends for things like LOTW. Everything running on external servers - cloud servers etc. - including LOTW data, is believed unaffected. But, such data will not be available until the internal matters are resolved. Thus, "joe@arrl.org" doesn't work - because that was on their internal mail server. But "joe@arrl.net" does - because the relays didn't run internally. I checked, and NW6V@ARRL.NETworks.
Efforts to restore the internal systems is proceeding full-time. No time-line can be given. The nature of the problem cannot be discussed.
I believe Mike said - with air asterisks around his words - "We have been advised to say nothing." He responded similarly when asked if "the Feds" were investigating this.
Being that the ARRL is connected to Homeland Security through its disaster response functions, and that personal data (no credit cards) for many relatively important persons are stored in the systems (business, military, science, etc.) such an investigation could very well involve the FBI and Homeland Security.
I (Chris NW6V) was an IT Director in mental healthcare for many years, so security was a big part of my responsibility. As a professional looking at it from the outside, this has all the earmarks of a hack - of sufficient severity that it needed to be reported as a CRIME. At which point, IT is required to lock everything down - every computer and device involved becomes EVIDENCE - until a full investigation by forensics experts - da cops - is conducted. Getting everything back up is NOT job 1. Once the "crime scene" is clear (yellow tape down), THEN the job of recovery can begin. If some kind of hack had wormed into the ARRL system, recovery of local system by restoring backups becomes problematic - it may be difficult to verify that backups contain no trace of the hack. In which case, recovery and restoration of services would be slow and very painful.
This fits what we know about the situation to a "T."
73 Chris NW6V
Interesting. If the ARRL was hacked by someone with some kind of revenge motive in mind, they may have bitten off way more than they could chew. I never thought of the possibility of Federal Government involvement in this due to ties and MOEs with Homeland Security. If this was a hack, and it is determined to be a crime, the perpetrators could be facing some very serious Federal prison time if caught and prosecuted.
I hope this gets cleared up soon. The LOTW situation doesn't bother me so much, but any disruption to the VE process does. My Team's next session is a week from this coming Saturday - June 8th. I'd hate to have to tell my candidates that I have no idea as to when their results will be processed. And no sooner did I write this, than I discovered this bit of good news:
ARRL VEC Services Update During Systems Disruption
05/29/2024
ARRL previously reported that we are responding to a serious incident involving access to our network and headquarters-based systems. Several services have been affected, including those administered by the ARRL Volunteer Examiner Coordinator (ARRL VEC).
Exam Registrations and Materials. ARRL Volunteer Examiners (VEs) should continue to submit exam registrations and material requests. While we are unable to post new or revised exam session dates and details to the website, we can ship out exam materials. Please remember that most exam materials are available on our website (www.arrl.org/resources-for-ves).
Processing Applications to the FCC. We have resumed the processing of Amateur Radio License applications with the FCC. This includes applications for new and upgrade licenses, individual applications, and club license applications. Exam sessions will be submitted to the FCC in chronological order, from earliest test dates to the latest. Please allow additional time for our processing as the exam session backlog is cleared.
International Radio Permit and License Class Certificates. We are currently unable to create International Amateur Radio Permits, License Class Certificates, and Volunteer Examiner (VE) badges, certificates, and stickers. New ARRL VE applications and renewals are unable to be processed at this time.
ARRL Youth Licensing Grant Program | FCC Application Fee Reimbursement Information. ARRL is continuing to accept reimbursement forms to cover the one-time $35 application fee for new license candidates younger than 18-years of age for tests administered under the auspices of the ARRL VEC. Reimbursement checks may take longer than normal to be processed at this time.
ARRL VEC cannot be reached by telephone at this time. We appreciate your patience as ARRL continues to work on restoring access to affected systems and services.
EDIT 30MAY24 – ARRL has an update of sorts at: https://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-systems-service-disruption The Status Monitor for LoTW remains a Hard Down of all services. The last update from the ARRL was about a week ago, and it offered scant information. You can follow the down at: https://status.lotw.arrl.org/ The prolonged and left-mysterious outage has been noticed by the […]
EDIT 30MAY24 – ARRL has an update of sorts at: https://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-systems-service-disruption The Status Monitor for LoTW remains a Hard Down of all services. The last update from the ARRL was about a week ago, and it offered scant information. You can follow the down at: https://status.lotw.arrl.org/ The prolonged and left-mysterious outage has been noticed by the… Continue reading LoTW (Logbook of the World) remains Hard Down – Does it Matter?
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KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog
On July 1, the ARRL returned Logbook of The World (LoTW) to service! They noted that during a brief LOTW opening 6600 logs were uploaded, but not processed until they were sure that the system was functioning properly.
The ARRL Foundation Club Grant Program—funded by Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC)—is an opportunity for clubs to apply for grants up to $25,000 to fund projects in areas that will motivate and develop active radio amateurs, with an emphasis given to projects that are of a “transformational” nature.
Amateur Radio Daily reports that:
With Varying Frequency – Amateur Radio Ponderings
