[Letter-List] The ARRL Letter for October 22, 2009

Thu Oct 22 17:56:06 EDT 2009

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            The  ARRL Letter

Published by the American Radio Relay League
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October 22, 2009

Editor: S. Khrystyne Keane, K1SFA <k1sfa at arrl.org>

ARRL Home Page <http://www.arrl.org/>ARRL Letter Archive
<http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter/>Audio News
<http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter/audio/> IN THIS ISSUE

- + Regulatory: FCC Issues Public Notice on Amateur Service
Communication During Government Disaster Drills
- + Regulatory : ARRL General Counsel, Regulatory Information Manager
to Present Webinar
- + Four Radio Amateurs Killed in Plane Crash En Route to CQWW Phone
Contest
- + Advocacy: HR 2160 Gains More Cosponsors
- + International: IARU Administrative Council Adopts Preliminary
WRC-12 Positions
- + International: ARRL HQ Hosts Amateur Radio Course for USTTI
Participants
- Solar Update
- This Week on the Radio
- + Amateur Radio in Space: SumbandilaSat Now OSCAR 67

+ Available on ARRL Audio News <http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter/audio/>

==> + REGULATORY: FCC ISSUES PUBLIC NOTICE ON AMATEUR SERVICE
COMMUNICATION DURING GOVERNMENT DISASTER DRILLS

On October 20, 2009, the FCC released a Public Notice clarifying the
Commission's rules relating to the use of Amateur Radio by licensed
amateurs participating in drills and exercises on behalf of their
employers. Entitled Amateur Service Communications During Government
Disaster Drills, the Public Notice addresses participation by paid
employees of organizations taking part in drills.

The Public Notice -- DA 09-2259
<http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-09-2259A1.pdf> --
affirms that the Commission's rules "specifically prohibit amateur
stations from transmitting communications 'in which the station
licensee or control operator has a pecuniary interest, including
communications on behalf of an employer.'" ARRL Regulatory Information
Manager Dan Henderson, N1ND, said that "This Public Notice is intended
to clarify a difficult issue. A wide range of unofficial -- and frankly
some incorrect -- interpretations have been offered on this topic in
various public forums recently. DA 09-2259 is the official FCC notice
on this issue. Though issued jointly by the Wireless Telecommunications
Bureau (WTB <http://wireless.fcc.gov/>), the Enforcement Bureau (EB
<http://www.fcc.gov/eb/>) and the Public Safety and Homeland Security
Bureau (PSHSB <http://www.fcc.gov/pshs/>) under delegated authority
from the Commission, the Notice makes it clear that WTB is the Bureau
at the FCC with jurisdiction over the Amateur Radio Service rules and
their interpretation."

The Public Notice states that, in order to facilitate participation by
employees who wish to engage in government-sponsored drills and
emergency exercises on behalf of their employers, a waiver can be
requested from the WTB by the government agency sponsoring the drill or
exercise (and not by the individual who wishes to participate in the
drill or exercise). The government entity conducting the drill must
include in its waiver application the following information:

- When and where the drill will take place,
- Identification of the amateur licensees expected to transmit amateur
communications on behalf of their employer,
- Identification of the employer(s) on whose behalf the amateur(s) will
be transmitting, and
- A brief description of the drill.

"It should be noted," Henderson said, "that the waiver request must be
filed and acted upon in advance of the drill. The waiver must be
actually granted by the Commission before the amateurs participate in
the drill. It is not enough to apply -- the waiver must be granted
first."

Henderson added that the Public Notice also emphasizes that in an
actual emergency, the Part 97 rules "provide that an amateur station
may use any means of radiocommunication at its disposal to provide
essential communication needs in connection with the immediate safety
of human life and the immediate protection of property when normal
communications systems are not available." In those specific
circumstances, the rule waiver is not necessary.

Government entities requesting a waiver for their emergency/disaster
drill should submit a written request addressing the factors listed
above to Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, 445 12th St SW,
Washington, DC 20554, Attn: Scot Stone.

A waiver is needed only for those licensees transmitting messages on
behalf of their employer during the State and local government public
safety agency's "occasionally conducted emergency preparedness or
disaster drills test or drill." This may, after analysis, turn out to
be very few licenses or, by rearranging functions of participants, a
waiver may not be needed. The Commission has also emphasized that only
governmental agencies may apply for a waiver.

In September, the ARRL released guidelines
<http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/09/25/11094/?nc=1> that address
numerous aspects of the issue of business communications in the Amateur
Service.

==> + REGULATORY : ARRL GENERAL COUNSEL, REGULATORY INFORMATION MANAGER
TO PRESENT WEBINAR

 <https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/326759760>   ARRL General
Counsel Chris Imlay, W3KD, and ARRL Regulatory Information Manager Dan
Henderson N1ND, will present a webinar beginning at 9 PM EDT on
Wednesday, October 28. This session will discuss the issues behind, and
the reasoning for, the ARRL's recent report, The Commercialization of
Amateur Radio: The Rules, The Risks, The Issues
<http://www.arrl.org/news/files/ARRL_AppropriateUseGuidelines.pdf>.
<http://www.arrl.org/news/files/ARRL_AppropriateUseGuidelines.pdf>According
to webinar sponsor and host ARRL Atlantic Division Director Bill Edgar,
N3LLR, all amateurs need to be aware of these issues. The webinar,
available at no cost, is open to all amateurs. Please click here
<https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/326759760> to register for this
informative interactive Internet meeting.

==> + FOUR RADIO AMATEURS KILLED IN PLANE CRASH EN ROUTE TO CQWW PHONE
CONTEST

   Just after take-off -- around 6:30 AM on Wednesday, October 21 -- a
twin-engine plane carrying four Amateur Radio operators crashed into
the woods, only 250 yards off the end of the runway in Jedburg, South
Carolina, about 20 miles northwest of Charleston. The plane -- piloted
and owned by Peter Radding, W2GJ -- carried Ed Steeble, K3IXD, Dallas
Carter, W3PP, and Randy Hargenrader, K4QO. The four men were on their
way to the Bahamas to operate in this weekend's CQ World Wide Phone
Contest as C6APR, competing in the Multi/2 category. Radding, of North
Charleston, South Carolina, was 69; Steeble, of Summerville, South
Carolina was 68; Carter, of Laurel, Delaware, was 67 and Hargenrader,
also of Summerville, was 55. All were ARRL members; Radding and Steeble
were Life Members. Click here
<http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/10/21/11157/?nc=1> for more
information.

Robert Biss, W8ZA, of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, accompanied
Steeble, Carter, Radding and Hargenrader to the Bahamas for the 2008
running of the CQWW SSB Contest. Click here
<http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2009/10/22/11158/?nc=1> for Biss'
remembrances of his four friends.

==> + ADVOCACY: HR 2160 GAINS MORE COSPONSORS

As of October 14, five more Congressional Representatives -- Tom Latham
(R-IA-4), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA-46), Scott Garrett (R-NJ-5), Candice
Miller (R-MI-10) and John Olver (D-MA-1) -- pledged their support for
HR 2160
<http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h2160ih.txt.pdf>,
The Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Enhancement Act of 2009,
bringing the total number of cosponsors to 30, including original
sponsor Sheila Jackson-Lee
<http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/04/30/10792/?nc=1> (D-TX-18). HR
2160 is also sponsored by W. Todd Akin (R-MO-2), Michael Arcuri
(D-NY-24), Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD-6), John Boozman (R-AR-3), Madeleine
Bordallo (D-Guam), Geoff Davis (R-KY-4), Bob Filner (D-CA-51), Bart
Gordon (D-TN-6), Brett Guthrie (R-KY-02), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY-22),
Michael Honda (D-CA-15), Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH-15), Zoe Lofgren
(D-CA-16), Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO-9), Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI-11),
Charlie Melancon (D-LA-3), Dennis Moore (D-KS-3), Bill Posey (R-FL-15),
Bennie Thompson (D-MS-2), Michael Turner (R-OH-3), Peter Welch (D-VT),
David Wu (D-OR-1) and Don Young (R-AK). Click here
<http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/05/12/10818> for information on
how to encourage your Congressional representative to sponsor HR 2160.

==> + INTERNATIONAL: IARU ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL ADOPTS PRELIMINARY
WRC-12 POSITIONS

The Administrative Council (AC) of the International Amateur Radio
Union (IARU <http://www.iaru.org/>) held its annual meeting on October
17-18, 2009 in Christchurch, New Zealand and took 16 actions. Attending
the Christchurch meeting were IARU President Tim Ellam, VE6SH/G4HUA;
Vice President Ole Garpestad, LA2RR; Secretary Rod Stafford, W6ROD;
regional representatives Hans Blondeel Timmerman, PB2T; Dennis Green,
ZS4BS; Ramon Santoyo, XE1KK; Daniel Lamoureux, VE2KA; Michael Owen,
VK3KI; Shizuo Endo, JE1MUI; Peter Lake, ZL2AZ, and recording secretary
David Sumner, K1ZZ. The next scheduled in-person meeting of the AC will
be held in the vicinity of San Salvador, El Salvador in conjunction
with the Region 2 Conference in October 2010. The officers will
investigate holding a Web-based "virtual meeting" early in 2010. Click
here <http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/10/20/11149/?nc=1> for more
information.

==> DID YOU KNOW? WWV AND WWVH

Today, most amateurs know that radio stations WWV and WWVH broadcast
time and frequency information 24 hours a day, seven days a week to
millions of listeners worldwide. Administered by the National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST), WWV is located in Fort Collins,
Colorado, about 60 miles north of Denver; WWVH is located on the Island
of Kauai, Hawaii on a 30 acre site near Kekaha at Kokole Point. Both
stations broadcast information that includes time announcements,
standard time intervals, standard frequencies, UT1 time corrections, a
BCD time code, geophysical alerts, marine storm warnings and Global
Positioning System (GPS) status reports. Most hams today think of WWV
and WWVH as "time stations." According to QST Editor Steve Ford,
WB8IMY, that's only half-true: they are really time and frequency
stations. "The time signals that you hear are regulated by an atomic
clock that uses the oscillations of Cesium atoms as its standard --
9,162,361,770 oscillations equal 1 second," wrote Ford in the June 1994
issue of QST. Click here
<http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/10/21/11155/?nc=1> to discover
this part of Amateur Radio history.

==>  INTERNATIONAL : IARU OFFICIALS ATTEND REGION 3 CONFERENCE IN NEW
ZEALAND

Hosted by the New Zealand Association of Radio Transmitters (NZART),
officials from the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) attended
the IARU Region 3 14th Triennial Conference on October12-16, in
Christchurch, New Zealand. Joel Harrison, W5ZN, ARRL President,
represented the ARRL and ARRL Chief Executive Officer and former IARU
Secretary David Sumner, K1ZZ, was also in attendance. Click here
<http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/10/18/11147/?nc=1> for more
information

==> + INTERNATIONAL: ARRL HQ HOSTS AMATEUR RADIO COURSE FOR USTTI
PARTICIPANTS

 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ImJ7LTUeg0>	Students from Ghana,
Mauritius, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Zambia attended the United
States Telecommunications Training Institute (USTTI) Amateur Radio
Administration Course (ARAC) at ARRL Headquarters October 12-16. ARRL
Technical Relations Manager Brennan Price, N4QX, coordinated the
session and led the course. "The curriculum covered a wide variety of
Amateur Radio topics and concerns, including licensing, spectrum
requirements, disaster communications and antenna requirements," Price
said. The curriculum also covered the ITU and its regulations, as well
as the process leading to the next World Radiocommunication Conference
2012 (WRC-12). Click here
<http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/10/22/11154/?nc=1> for more
information.

==> + HISTORICAL: UNIVERSITY RESEARCHERS NEED YOUR HELP AS THEY STUDY
EARLY AMATEUR STATION LOGS

   Researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Miami University of
Ohio are seeking copies of amateur station logs from 1913-1927 in hopes
they may offer insights into the relationship between individuals' work
and leisure activities, technology, and their social networks. "Early
hams laid the foundation for today's use of technology for
communications and entertainment," said Director of Engineering and
Operations for Wisconsin Public Radio Steve Johnston, WD8DAS. "Many
operators did not work in a technical field, but pursued Amateur Radio
as a hobby for its own sake. This is a true success story about how a
pastime can develop into an entirely new commercial and social
phenomenon." Click here
<http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/10/21/11153/?nc=1> for more
information on how you can help out with this study.

==> SOLAR UPDATE

Tad "Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth
<http://englishhistory.net/keats/poetry/odetoanightingale.html>" Cook,
K7RA, this week reports: Sunspot group 1028 emerged for only a few
hours on Tuesday. This is another one of those phantom spots that
briefly appears, only to vanish, teasing us with hints of an increase
in activity that never seems to come. Along with the quiet Sun, we are
still seeing extremely quiet geomagnetic indices, a nice upside to the
lack of solar activity. Solar flux until the end of this month is
expected to be around 72. The average solar flux for this week was
70.6, up 0.7 points from 69.9 the week before. Look for more
information in the Solar Update, available on the ARRL Web site on
Friday, October 23. For more information concerning radio propagation,
visit the ARRL Technical Information Service Propagation page
<http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/propagation.html>. This week's "Tad
Cookism" brought to you by John Keats' Ode to a Nightingale
<http://englishhistory.net/keats/poetry/odetoanightingale.html>.

==> THIS WEEK ON THE RADIO

 <http://www.arrl.org/contests/>   This week, look for an NCCC Sprint
on October 23. The CQ Worldwide DX Contest (SSB), the CW and Digital
runnings of the 10-10 International Fall Contest and the 50 MHz Fall
Sprint are October 24-25. The SKCC Sprint is October 28. Next week,
look for more runnings of the NCCC Sprint on October 30 and November 5.
The High Speed Club CW Contest is November 1 and the ARS Spartan Sprint
is November 3. All dates, unless otherwise stated, are UTC. See the
ARRL Contest Branch page <http://www.arrl.org/contests/>, the ARRL
Contest Update <http://www.arrl.org/contests/update/> and the WA7BNM
Contest Calendar <http://www.hornucopia.com/contestcal/index.html> for
more info. Looking for a Special Event station? Be sure to check out
the ARRL Special Event Station Web page
<http://www.arrl.org/contests/spev.html>.

==> + AMATEUR RADIO IN SPACE: SUMBANDILASAT NOW OSCAR 67

The South African Amateur Radio satellite SumbandilaSat
<http://www.arrl.org/?artid=9183> has been officially designated
SumbandilaSat-OSCAR 67, or simply OSCAR 67. Last weekend, the satellite
was successfully activated and tested with a number of contacts made
through its transponder, but it is not yet open for routine use. The
satellite was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome
<http://www.russianspaceweb.com/baikonur.html> in Kazakhstan on
September 17. The main payload is a multi-spectral imager, but the
satellite also carries an Amateur Radio component consisting of a 2
meter/70 cm FM repeater. After SumbandilaSat is fully commissioned, the
repeater will be activated with an uplink at 145.880 MHz and a downlink
at 435.350 MHz; there will also be a voice beacon at 435.300 MHz. The
transponder mode will be controlled by a CTCSS tone on the uplink
frequency. SumbandilaSat was sponsored by the Department of Science and
Technology and was built at SunSpace <http://www.sunspace.co.za/> in
cooperation with the Stellenbosch University <http://www.sun.ac.za/>.
In addition to the SA-AMSAT amateur module, the satellite carries
Stellenbosch University' s radiation experiment and software defined
radio (SDR) project, an experiment from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan
University and a VLF radio module from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

==> ARRL CONTINUING EDUCATION COURSE REGISTRATION

Registration remains open through Sunday, October 25, 2009, for these
online course sessions beginning on Friday, November 6, 2009: Amateur
Radio Emergency Communications Level 1; Antenna Modeling; Radio
Frequency Interference; Antenna Design and Construction; Ham Radio
(Technician) License Course; Propagation; Analog Electronics, and
Digital Electronics. To learn more, visit the CEP Course Listing page
<http://www.arrl.org/cep/student> or contact the Continuing Education
Program Coordinator <cce at arrl.org>.

The ARRL Letter is published Thursdays, 50 times each year. ARRL
members may subscribe at no cost or unsubscribe by editing their Member
Data Page as described at http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter/.

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