Volume 18, Number 3 (January 15, 1999)

The ARRL Letter Index
ARRL Audio News

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IN THIS EDITION:

+Available on ARRL Audio News

ARRL BOARD MEETS IN HOUSTON

The ARRL Board of Directors gathers Friday and Saturday, January 15-16, in Houston, Texas, for its 1999 annual meeting. Expected to be discussed are issues dealing with the future of Amateur Radio, FCC amateur enforcement, and repeater frequency coordination.

The Board also will elect members to the Executive Committee and directors for The ARRL Foundation. Additionally, Board members will hear reports from committees, HQ management, and individual Board members.

New Radio Amateurs of Canada President Patrick Doherty, VE3PD, also is scheduled to address the ARRL Board.

Details on the ARRL Board meeting will be transmitted in an ARRL bulletin and posted on the ARRL Web page.

FCC OFFICIAL MEETS HAMS ON THEIR OWN TURF

The FCC's Amateur Radio enforcer, Riley Hollingsworth, K4ZDH, turned up in an unexpected place January 13--75 meters! In what could be an unprecedented move, Hollingsworth, legal advisor for amateur enforcement within the FCC's Compliance and Information Bureau, showed up on 3894.5 kHz to discuss enforcement and encourage compliance.

"A couple of them were pretty shocked," he said. "This has never been tried before," Hollingsworth said the next morning. He said he broke in on an argument that was growing increasingly nasty in an effort to settle things down, then stayed to discuss enforcement with the hams on frequency.

Hollingsworth says he thinks one key to compliance is just getting people to listen to what he has to say. "Most people, if you can just get to them on a one-to-one basis, they'll listen," he said, reflecting his overall enforcement approach to attempt to reason violators into voluntary compliance rather than writing them up. During his time on the air, Hollinsgsworth confronted one individual he'd already been in touch with about alleged on-air misbehavior.

Among other things, he told those on hand that noncompliance and inappropriate on-air behavior could even threaten the hobby's HF allocations. Hollingsworth advised hams to be more tolerant and patient and to avoid confrontation or retaliation.

"We all have to realize we're on a mission here--to save Amateur Radio," he said the day after his 75-meter appearance. "There are going to be licenses lost and fines owed." The jammers already are well on their way to "hanging themselves" right now, he said.

Even as he preached better behavior, Hollingsworth says he understood from the others on frequency that someone was attempting to jam his signal. "I hope the monitoring folks were on the frequency too," he said.

Hollingsworth advised the hams on 75 to contact him with enforcement problems, and he gave out his e-mail address and telephone number (rholling@fcc.gov; 717-338-2502). "I don't know what effect it will have," he said of his on-air foray. Hollingsworth says he'll "do what it takes" to improve amateur compliance, and that could include future on-air visits with amateurs.

"I've gotten a lot of feedback this morning by phone and e-mail asking me to do it more often," he said. "We'll be listening more and asking to be allowed in QSOs more."

Hollingsworth, who's based in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, took over the FCC's most recent Amateur Radio enforcement initiative last September (see related story).

FCC WARNS ALLEGED MAJOR AMATEUR OFFENDERS

The FCC has issued strong warnings to two amateurs in Indiana and a third in New York who are on the Commission's top ten list of alleged major amateur offenders. The FCC's amateur enforcement point man, Riley Hollingsworth, K4ZDH, says the warning letters sent earlier this month are the last step before the FCC initiates formal enforcement proceedings. One case primarily involved malicious interference on VHF repeaters, while the other two involved interference to an HF net.

"We have been cutting bait a while, now it's time for us to fish," said Hollingsworth, the legal advisor for enforcement within the FCC's Compliance and Information Bureau.

The FCC did not make the names or call signs public, but Hollingsworth said all those who received the letters were put on the FCC's Alert List with FCC field offices. "The Alert List is the FCC equivalent of an all-points bulletin," Hollingsworth explained. He said Field Office monitors would be making a special effort to listen for further violations by stations on the Alert List.

Since taking over Amateur Radio enforcement within the CIB last fall, Hollingsworth says he's sent out dozens of warning letters of a much milder nature. "Now, we're distilling that activity to the worst offenders," he said of the latest epistles. Hollingsworth indicated that similar actions were imminent in other major cases of alleged amateur rules infractions. He also said he has sent out another three dozen or so routine warning letters "generally based on a collection of complaints received over the holidays."

The letters sent out January 7 and 8 spell out the agency's expectations in no uncertain terms. In the case of the alleged HF offenders, Hollingsworth's letters state that the Commission "has additional evidence that you have been deliberately and maliciously interfering with the operations of other licensed amateurs," primarily a 75-meter net. Both hams--whose cases are related--already had received official Notices of Violation last fall for similar conduct, and the FCC had imposed restricted operating hours on one of them. But the FCC says that the troublesome behavior has continued.

Hollingsworth said the alleged illegal activities not only put the hams' licenses in jeopardy but open them up to possible fines and even put transmitting equipment at risk of seizure. He said he also has cautioned the controllers of the net involved to not engage hecklers or those attempting to harass or interfere, nor to call up the net on a busy frequency. "One thing these nets have to understand is that the nets don't own the frequency," he said.

The case of the alleged VHF offender had a similar pattern. The amateur license of the ham in question already had been suspended at one point, but violations are said to have continued, even during the suspension period. Beyond amateur violations, Hollingsworth said that the FCC's evidence indicated the amateur had threatened FCC employees and others. He told the ARRL that additional warning letters went out to eight other individuals whom he described as "cohorts" to the alleged prime VHF offender.

Hollingsworth requested that all of the amateurs contact him immediately to discuss the allegations. After a lengthy telephone conversation with one of them, Hollingsworth expressed optimism that the situation would be resolved.

In an unrelated case, Hollingsworth recently mailed warning letters to six individuals in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area regarding alleged malicious interference on VHF.

ZL9CI DXPEDITION RACKS UP THE Qs!

The Kermadec DX Association's ZL9CI Campbell Island DXpedition has a good head start on the way to topping the QSO record set a couple of years ago by the Heard Island VK0IR DXpedition. In its first seven days, the crew at ZL9CI racked up some 45,000 contacts to the delight of hams around the world. During two weeks in January 1997, the VK0IR DXpedition set a new world's record by logging more than 80,000 contacts. The ZL9CI DXpedition to Campbell continues through January 24, with activity on all HF bands--CW, SSB, and RTTY.

"Even though the solar flux is around 120, the team is astonished by the massive pileups," a January 9 team news release declared. "The CW members of the team are working over 200 per hour on a regular basis."

Operators at ZL9CI include well-known US CW contester and DXer Trey Garlough, N5KO (ex-WN4KKN). Others are Team Leader Ken Holdom, ZL2HU; Lee Jennings, ZL2AL; Brian Biggings, VE3XA; Declan Craig, EI6FR; Wilbert Knol, ZL2BSJ; Jun Tanaka, JH4RHF; Andrew Williamson, GI0NWG; Jason Christensen, ZL2URN; James Brooks, 9V1YC; and Murray Woodfield, ZL1CN. Four regional "pilot stations"--including two in the US--have been coordinating activities on the outside.

Logs are available on the Internet, so stations can check to see if they are, indeed, "in the log." The team says that one of its objectives is to give "everyone, in every country, that elusive new one.'" The team notes that "100 W trap vertical stations" are being as successful as the big guns and adds, "We try to work everyone on an equal basis."

QSL to Kermadec DX Association, PO Box 56099, Tawa, New Zealand. See the ZL9CI Web site for QSLing details and for ZL9CI logs at http://www.qsl.net/zl9ci/.

ARRL E-MAIL ADDRESSES TO BE AVAILABLE TO MEMBERS

ARRL members soon will be able to announce their ARRL membership through their e-mail addresses! Starting February 1, 1999, a new membership service will be available for those wishing to have an ARRL e-mail address, and you won't have to switch e-mail services to do it. Not only that, but it will be free-of-charge to League members!

The new, personalized League e-mail addresses will consist of the member's call sign @arrl.net. Electronic mail sent to the address automatically will be forwarded to any e-mail account you choose.

As long as you remain an ARRL member, you'll never have to notify people of an address change--even if you change Internet service providers.

As soon as the service becomes available, members will be able to sign up quickly and easily through the ARRL Members Only Web Site. If you are not already registered for the Members Only Web Site, you can do so at http://www.arrl.org/members/.

ARRL ANNOUNCES NEW AWARD FOR PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS

The ARRL has announced a new award to honor the best news story that reflects the enjoyment, importance, and public service value of Amateur Radio.

The yet-to-be named award will succeed the ARRL Media Excellence Award, which last year went to Sam Brown, WA4IUM, for his long-time promotional work for Amateur Radio as a television news anchor.

Unlike the long-running McGan Silver Antenna Award that rewards volunteer publicity efforts, the new award will go to a professional in print, radio, television, video, or multimedia. The winner will receive a plaque and $500. Groups are eligible, and group entries are welcome, but only one prize will be awarded.

The deadline to enter is October 1, 1999. Nominees will be judged by members of the League's Public Relations Committee. Posters announcing the new award are being distributed to newsrooms throughout the country. Entry forms are available upon request from the ARRL Public Relations Department.

For more information, rules for entry, and nomination forms, contact ARRL Public Relations Manager Jennifer Gagne, N1TDY, at 860-594-0328 or jgagne@arrl.org.--Jennifer Gagne, N1TDY

PANSAT PO-34 SATELLITE "OPERATING WELL"

The PANSAT PO-34 satellite "appears to be operating well," according to PANSAT team member Dan Sakoda, KD6DRA, but he expressed some concern about battery life. "Basically, the temperatures are a bit lower than we expected, and some of our thinking as far as battery charging were less than optimistic," he explained. "The concern is that we really need to baby the batteries if we're going to have a long mission life."

PANSAT--the Petite Amateur Navy Satellite--was launched over Australia October 30 from the space shuttle Discovery. The 150-pound Amateur Radio satellite carries a spread-spectrum communication package fabricated by student officers and faculty members at the Naval Postgraduate School here as an educational project and a means of demonstrating spread-spectrum communication. The spacecraft will provide store-and-forward digital packet communication using direct-sequence spread-spectrum modulation. Hams on the ground will be able to utilize PANSAT via a bulletin-board type user interface.

Sakoda said now that ground operations are somewhat under control, "the two main staff engineers here can focus on spread spectrum work and pushing for Amateur Radio user access." He said the project's Amateur Radio goal is to "first provide a spread spectrum beacon of sorts, to download at least PANSAT's call sign or some message" that would at least users to receive a signal, "without derailing the work toward a full spread spectrum BBS service."

Sakoda noted that he has added two-line element sets to the PANSAT home page http://www.sp.nps.navy.mil/pansat. Click on PANSAT TLE. The site also contains new photos showing the deployment of the satellite from the space shuttle. "All of us here on Team PANSAT at NPS are looking forward to the Amateur Radio community's involvement with PANSAT," he said.

YV5AMH ELECTED TO ANDEAN PARLIAMENT

IARU Region II Vice President Reinaldo Leandro, YV5AMH, was recently elected as a member of the Andean Parliament. The regional parliament, comprised of the Andean Pact countries of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador , Bolivia and Peru, meets twice yearly in its official seat of Bogota, Colombia. The Andean Parliament on a smaller scale, is similar to the European Parliament of the European Union countries.

Leandro--a well-known and respected active DXer and contest operator from Caracas--is president of the Radio Club Venezolano. His professional career has been spent as a diplomat in the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry. Most recently he was the Venezuelan ambassador to Argentina.

With these credentials, in his capacity an officer of IARU Region II, Leandro is considered eminently well-qualified to watch closely over emerging telecommunications issues brought up by this group of countries which are also striving to broaden its economic and political union.--IARU Region II News Service

SOLAR UPDATE

Solar swami Tad Cook, K7VVV, Seattle, Washington, reports: Solar activity was down over the past week. Average sunspot numbers were off 26 points, and average solar flux was down nearly 40 points from a week earlier. We are now in the middle of Month 28 of solar cycle 23, and for the rest of this month activity should be up.

Solar flux bottomed out at 110.3 on January 10, but this weekend the predicted solar flux, January 15-17, is 150, 160 and 170. Planetary A index for those three days is predicted to be 12, 9, and 9. Look for solar flux values to stay above 150 almost until the end of this month.

The last two days have had fairly active geomagnetic periods. This was probably due to a disappearing solar filament on January 9.

Scott Craig reports a couple of minor bugs in his solar plotting program. The fix is in version 3.05 on his Web page, http://edge.net/~scraig/sol.htm. One bug involves starting with very small data files; the other is with taking data from these bulletins via Netscape.

ZL3TIC reports lots of activity on 6 meters on January 11 and 12, with many JA and VK calls worked. With the geomagnetic activity the past two days some North American hams reported working many 6-meter stations around the continent via aurora. N0VSB in Colorado worked a long list of Pacific Northwest 6-meter stations on January 7.

Sunspot numbers for January 7-13 were 125, 99, 70, 62, 46, 66, and 77, with a mean of 77.9. The 10.7-cm flux was 115.1, 115.5, 114.8, 110.3, 111.9, 112.8, and 118.6, with a mean of 114.1. The estimated planetary A indices were 6, 14, 8, 4, 4, 6, and 28, with a mean of 10.

FLORIDA SKIP FOUNDER ANDY CLARK, W4IYT, SK

Andy Clark, W4IYT, a veteran Amateur Radio editor and public service leader in South Florida, died December 31, 1998, after a long battle with cancer. He was 75 and a Life Member of the ARRL. Clark was first licensed in 1939. In 1957 he founded and edited Florida Skip, a monthly newspaper dedicated to ham radio activities in Florida that he published out of his Miami Springs home. At its peak, Florida Skip reached approximately 5000 subscribers. Following a stroke in 1992, Clark sold the publication, now CyberSKIP Digest, to Gerry Wentz, KC4EHT.

Clark was a leader in emergency communications. He was SEC of the former East Florida section of the ARRL, and EC of Dade County for 25 years before retiring from that job after Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida. He created emergency stations for the Red Cross, the National Hurricane Center, and the City of Miami Springs. He was trustee of W4EHW at the National Hurricane Center and of the Miami Springs Radio Club, K4OSQ. Along with George Thurston, W4MLE, he authored several books on emergency preparedness and traffic handling.

The City of Miami Springs designated December 14, 1998, as Andy Clark Day, in recognition of his nearly 50 years of service to his community and his hobby. Clark is survived by his wife Betty, W4GGQ, a son Andy Lee, KA4MHL, five daughters, and three grandchildren.--thanks to Sandy Donahue, W4RU, for this information.

In Brief:

This weekend on the radio: The North American QSO Party (SSB) is January 15-17. See January 1999 QST, page 84, for details. Just ahead: The ARRL January VHF Sweepstakes is January 22-24. See December 1998 QST, page 96, for details.

Vanity update: The FCC in Gettysburg has very nearly worked its way through the last of the 1998 vanity applications. The vanity program continues to be very popular. During December, the FCC reports it got 1468 vanity applications, all but 248 of them filed electronically. The FCC reported January 13 that it had processed applications received through December 29. In the latest processing run, it granted 213 applications and shunted another 255 into the work-in-process or WIPs stack.

Marconi special event: On January 18, 1200-2000 UTC, the Marconi Radio Club will celebrate the 96th Anniversary of Marconi's first radio communication between the United States and Europe by operating from the original 1903 Marconi Station site at South Wellfleet, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. The Club will operate two stations on 20, 17, 15, 12, and 10 meters, SSB and CW, using the call sign W1AA/CC. "CC" was the call sign Marconi used in his historic 1903 transmission--well before the existence of the FCC. DX stations should QSL via the bureau; stateside, include an SASE to W1AA at the database address.--Whitey Doherty, K1VV/W1AA

QSLing up: Ham radio numbers may be off, but DX QSLs are up, probably due to improved propagation. The ARRL QSL Service reports it handled 1,596,740 QSLs during 1998, including cards to incoming US bureaus. This is a 15% increase (218,500 cards) from the 1997 total.

FCC chairman, commissioners, relocate: The offices of FCC Chairman William Kennard and of Commissioners Susan Ness, Harold Furchtgott-Roth, Michael Powell, and Gloria Tristani have relocated to the Commission's new headquarters at The Portals, 445 12th St SW, Washington, DC 20554. The chairman and commissioners will be on the eighth floor of the building. Telephone, fax, and e-mail addresses remain the same.--FCC Public Notice

Waiting for K2: Elecraft has announced that it will start taking orders for its K2 HF transceiver kit starting January 25. The K2 debuted at the 1998 Dayton Hamvention to the delight of many in the QRP community. Elecraft says it will post an order form on its Web page (http://www.elecraft.com) that buyers can either mail or fax. "Customers on our Priority List will receive product first, followed by new orders," Elecraft said. Two factory-assembled "beta" units have been circulating among hams to smooth out any wrinkles. Another 100 K2 kits were to go out to field testers late last year. The Elecraft K2 transceiver is expected to sell for $549 for the basic CW unit. Adding SSB capability will cost another $79.