[CVRC] The ARRL Letter for July 29, 2010
ARRL Web site
memberlist at www.arrl.org
Thu Jul 29 18:54:25 EDT 2010
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July 29, 2010
Editor: <mailto:k1sfa at arrl.org>S. Khrystyne Keane, K1SFA
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* + ARRL in Action : ARRL Argues that
Oklahoma Town's RFI Ordinance is "Null and Void"
* + John Robert Stratton, KE5ISX, Appointed
West Gulf Division Vice Director
* + The Bands "Heat Up" for the 2010 ARRL UHF Contest
* ARDF Update : Radio Foxhunters Find Their Champions in Ohio
* + Government Agencies Introduce User-Friendly Federal Register
* + FCC Launches Consumer Help Center
* + Solar Update
* This Week on the Radio
+ Available on <http://www.arrl.org/arrl-audio-news>ARRL Audio News
+ ARRL in Action: ARRL Argues that Oklahoma
Town's RFI Ordinance is "Null and Void"
Officials in Midwest City, Oklahoma sent a letter
to a local ham, trying to regulate radio
frequency interference (RFI) issues, something
that only the FCC is allowed to do.
Saying that only the Federal Communications
Commission is empowered to regulate radio
frequency interference (RFI), the ARRL has
notified Midwest City, Oklahoma, that its local
ordinance 27-3(9), seeking to regulate radio
transmissions and RFI, is "null and void."
Midwest City is in the Oklahoma City metropolitan
area. The ordinance reads: "In addition to other
public nuisances declared by other sections of
this Code or law, the following [is] hereby
declared to be [a] public nuisance: Operating or
using any electrical apparatus or machine which
materially and unduly interferes with radio or television reception by others."
On July 21, ARRL General Counsel Chris Imlay,
W3KD, wrote to Midwest City Assistant City
Manager Dave Ballew, City Attorney Katherine
Bolles and Director of Code Enforcement Mike
Stroh, informing them that the ARRL had been
provided with a copy of the ordinance by amateurs
in that community. "We are also aware that a
notice was sent by Mr Stroh on behalf of the City
to one of ARRL's members who resides in Midwest
City asserting that the FCC-licensed radio
amateur to whom the letter was addressed was in
violation of the ordinance as the result of radio
frequency interference appearing in a
neighbor/complainant's home electronic
equipment," the letter read. "The licensed radio
amateur was ordered to remedy the problem in one
day, under penalty of a sanction assessed against
the real property of the radio amateur." Read
more
<http://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-argues-that-oklahoma-town-s-rfi-ordinance-is-null-and-void>here.
+ John Robert Stratton, KE5ISX, Appointed West Gulf Division Vice Director
The ARRL's West Gulf Division consists of the States of Texas and Oklahoma.
After review of eligibility by the ARRL Ethics
and Elections Committee, President Kay Craigie,
N3KN, has appointed John Robert Stratton, KE5ISX,
an attorney in Austin, Texas, to serve as Vice
Director of the ARRL West Gulf Division for the
remainder of the current term that expires
January 1, 2011. Stratton, an attorney, fills the
vacancy created when
<http://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-west-gulf-division-vice-director-john-thomason-wb5syt-resigns-position>John
Thomason, WB5SYT, resigned the position earlier
this month. "John Robert Stratton has the
training, experience, time and motivation to be a
great Vice Director," said ARRL West Gulf
Division Director Dr David Woolweaver, K5RAV.
"His addition to the West Gulf Division's team
will enhance its ability to provide the quality
of service the membership deserves."
A General class licensee, Stratton has been
licensed and an ARRL member since 2006. In
February 2007, Stratton became active in League
affairs after learning about the new cell phone
bills that were introduced in the 2007 Texas
Legislative Session, and he volunteered to help
work against the bills. He was put in touch with
Dr Woolweaver, who was then the West Gulf
Division Vice Director and was leading the West
Gulf legislative efforts. "Initially just a
volunteer, I was selected to lead the West Gulf
legislative team," Stratton said. "We were
successful in defeating the cell phone bills that
would have made mobile Amateur Radio operation
illegal. With the help of some smart and
dedicated hams, we were also successful in
obtaining passage of new laws that protected
those state employees who were hams [so they
could operate] when they deployed in
emergencies." Read more
<http://www.arrl.org/news/john-robert-stratton-ke5isx-appointed-west-gulf-division-vice-director>here<http://www.arrl.org/nladclick.php?n=al&t=i&i=2010-07-29&p=0>.
Coming Soon: More ARRL 2010 Field Day Pins
After a higher than expected run on pins for
Field Day this year, the ARRL has ordered more
and expects them to arrive next month. "The pins
were in stock until just before Field Day, but
due to some exceptionally high interest, we were
unable to fulfill a few final orders," said ARRL
Product Marketing Specialist Jackie Ferreira,
KB1PWB. "We have reordered the pins, as many hams
enjoy collecting these annual pins; lots of
ARRL-affiliated radio clubs also like to hand
these out to their members who participate in
Field Day each year." The 2010 Field Day pins may
be ordered from the
<http://www.arrl.org/shop/Field-Day-2010-Pin/>ARRL
online store or by telephoning 888-277-5289 in
the US, Monday-Friday from 8 AM-5 PM Eastern Time
(outside the US, please call 860-594-0355). Pins
will begin shipping in mid-August.
+ The Bands "Heat Up" for the 2010 ARRL UHF Contest
Jon Platt, W0ZQ, of Bloomington, Minnesota,works
the 2009 ARRL August UHF Contest as W0ZQ/R from
grid square EN44bb (outside Norton Township,
Minnesota). [Jon Platt, W0ZQ, Photo]
VHF/UHF weak-signal operators across North
America are making the final tests on their
stations in preparation for the ARRL UHF Contest,
coming up the weekend of August 7-8. Most VHF+
weak-signal operation takes place on the two
lowest-frequency bands of the VHF spectrum -- 6
and 2 meters; however, a lot of activity takes
place above 144 MHz in the UHF portion of the
radio spectrum and beyond. This contest focuses
on 222 MHz and above; there will be lots of
activity, and hopefully lots of propagation, too!
Read more
<http://www.arrl.org/news/the-bands-heat-up-for-the-2010-arrl-uhf-contest>here.<http://www.arrl.org/nladclick.php?n=al&t=i&i=2010-07-29&p=1>
ARDF Update: Radio Foxhunters Find Their Champions in Ohio
By ARRL ARDF Coordinator Joe Moell, K0OV
Organizers of the USA ARDF Championships tested
their equipment on the campus of Miami
University, next to a preschool. Event co-chair
Dick Arnett, WB4SUV, took time to teach the kids
about hidden transmitter hunting and let them try
it for themselves. [Joe Moell, K0OV, photo]
They came from 15 states and four foreign
countries. In their suitcases were radio sets,
antennas, sun block and running shoes, but they
left some room in hopes of taking home a medal or
two. They were the hams and future hams --
ranging from age 12 to older than 70 -- who went
to Southwest Ohio in the third week of May for
the 10th Annual USA Championships of Amateur
Radio Direction Finding (ARDF). ARDF is done on
80 meter CW and 2 meter AM in separate events,
each with five "fox" transmitters. A course is
typically three miles from start to each of the
five transmitters (in optimum order) and then to
the finish. Your mission is to find your assigned
three, four or all five foxes, depending on which
of the 11 age/gender categories you are in. Each
transmitter is on for one minute at a time in a
five-fox cycle that repeats. You must find your
way on foot with just your direction-finding
gear, the map you're given and your compass. GPS
help is not allowed. Read more
<http://www.arrl.org/news/ardf-update-radio-foxhunters-find-their-champions-in-ohio>here.
+ Government Agencies Introduce User-Friendly Federal Register
It's easy to see how many items are available
when searching "ARRL" on the new Federal
Register's Web site. Click
<http://www.arrl.org/images/view/News/ARRL_FederalRegister.JPG>here
for a larger image.
While the Federal Register may be the ultimate
record of the business of the USA's Executive
Branch, it can be difficult to navigate. The
Register publishes approximately 80,000 pages of
documents each year in the form of Notices,
Proposed Rules, Rules and Official Documents;
this is where all new and amended rules to Part
97, the Amateur Radio Service, must be published
before they go into effect. On Monday, July 27 --
in an effort to make things a bit easier on the
thousands of people who access the Federal
Register each day -- the US Government Printing
Office and the National Archives' Office of the
Federal Register launched a new and improved
online Register. Named Federal Register 2.0, it
is an outgrowth of President Obama's first
executive order that mandated greater federal
government transparency. The launch of the new
site coincided with the 75th anniversary of the
Federal Register Act, which became law on July
26, 1935. Read more
<http://www.arrl.org/news/government-agencies-introduce-user-friendly-em-federal-register-em>here.<http://www.arrl.org/nladclick.php?n=al&t=i&i=2010-07-29&p=2>
+ FCC Launches Consumer Help Center
Now users are "just one click away" from finding what they need at the FCC.
Beginning July 28, those who have dealings with
the FCC will have a new tool that the FCC claims
will put them "within one click of all the
information they want" from the Commission: a new
"easy-to-use" Consumer Help Center. "Our new
Consumer Help Center makes it easy for consumers
to learn about our work and take action," said
FCC Chief of the Consumer and Governmental
Affairs Bureau Joel Gurin in a press release.
"Here, in one place, consumers can do a number of
things, such as read about consumer issues, get
practical advice for avoiding problems, file a
complaint, comment on our rulemakings, or read
what our FCC experts are saying in our Consumer
Blog." Read more
<http://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-launches-consumer-help-center>here.
+ Solar Update
The Sun, as seen on Thursday, July 29, 2010 from
<http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/realtime-update.html>NASA's
SOHO Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope. This
<http://soi.stanford.edu/>MDI (Michelson Doppler
Imager) image was taken in the continuum near the
Ni I 6768 Angstrom line. The most prominent
features are the sunspots. This is very much how
the Sun looks in the visible range of the spectrum.
Tad
"<http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/po_case.shtml>Somewhere
in this favored land the Sun is shining bright"
Cook, K7RA, reports: We've seen increasing solar
activity all this week, with average the daily
sunspot numbers rising nearly 14 points to 35.6,
and the average daily solar flux rising nearly 5
points to 85.3. Sunspot group 1089 has grown,
shrunk and is now growing again; as of Wednesday,
it has been visible a total of 10 days. Three
more sunspot groups appeared this week, with the
latest -- group 1092 -- rapidly appearing on
Wednesday with a relative size of 180 millionths
of a solar hemisphere. The relative size of group
1089 for July 19-28 was 130, 150, 310, 240, 200,
160, 140, 100, 70 and 90. The predicted solar
flux (as of Wednesday) for July 29 is 85, 87 for
July 30-August 1 and 85 for August 2-4. The
predicted planetary A index for those days is 15
for July 29, 10 on July 30-31, 8 on August 1-2
and 6 on August 3-4. Along with increased solar
activity, we have seen higher geomagnetic
indicators, all due to a stiff solar wind. Both
the planetary and mid-latitude A indices nearly
doubled for the week. Look for more information
-- including a look at sunspot activity and
predictions, as well as 6 meter activity now
compared to the 2000-2001 sporadic-E seasons --
on the ARRL Web site on Friday, July 30. For more
information concerning radio propagation, visit
the
<http://www.arrl.org/propagation-of-rf-signals>ARRL
Technical Information Service Propagation page.
This week's "Tad Cookism" is brought to you by
Ernest L. Thayer's
<http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/po_case.shtml>Casey at the Bat.
This Week on the Radio
This week:
* July 30 -- NCCC Sprint Ladder
* August 1 -- SARL HF Phone Contest
* August 3 -- ARS Spartan Sprint
* August 4 -- QRP Fox Hunt
Next week:
* August 6 -- NCCC Sprint Ladder
* August 7 -- TARA Grid Dip Shindig
* August 7-8 --
<http://www.arrl.org/august-uhf>ARRL UHF Contest;
North American QSO Party (CW); 10-10 International Summer Contest (SSB)
* August 8 -- SKCC Weekend Sprint
* August 11 -- NAQCC Straight Key/Bug Sprint; QRP Fox Hunt
* August 11-12 -- CWops Mini-CWT Tests
All dates, unless otherwise stated, are UTC. See
the <http://www.arrl.org/contests>ARRL Contest
Branch page, the
<http://www.arrl.org/The-ARRL-Contest-Update>ARRL
Contest Update and the
<http://www.hornucopia.com/contestcal/index.html>WA7BNM
Contest Calendar for more information. Looking
for a Special Event Station? Be sure to check out
the <http://www.arrl.org/special-events>ARRL Special Events Station Web page.
<http://www.arrl.org/nladclick.php?n=al&i=2010-07-29&t=r&p=0>
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