Aug92021
Congratulate these radio amateurs who passed their exams at the August 7, 2021 VE Session.
| Name | Callsign | Class |
|---|---|---|
| Gerald Goodson | KC1MAU | Extra |
| Richard Kizirian | KZ1RAZ | General |
| Ed Macomber | KC1PVJ | Technician |
Enjoy your new and/or upgraded privileges!
Need help to get on the air?
Email us @ W1AEC [at] semara [dot] org with your questions.
We’ll try to find someone to answer them for you.
Jun72021
Radio Amateurs of Canada Invites Participation in the RAC Canada Day Contest.
Help Canada celebrate its birthday on the air during the RAC Canada Day Contest on Thursday, July 1 — just a few days ahead of Independence Day in the US. Canada Day is the anniversary of Canada’s confederation, when the three colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick united into the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. The RAC Contest Committee is asking all participants in the 2021 Canada Day Contest to follow guidelines provided by the government and by health officials in their respective areas for any multioperator categories.
The Canada Day Contest begins on July 1, 0000 UTC (the evening of Wednesday, June 30, in North American time zones) and continues through 2359 UTC. Bands include 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, 10, 6, and 2 meters, CW and phone (SSB, FM, AM, etc.).
Stations in Canada send signal report plus province or territory. VE0s and stations outside Canada send a signal report and a serial number.
Stations may be worked once on each mode on each of the available bands. Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories serve as multipliers for the event.
Jun62021
Kids Day in June is the Saturday before Fathers Day. It always runs from 2:00pm ET through 7:59pm ET [1800 UTC through 2359 UTC].
Twice a year, in January and June, Kids Day is an ARRL event designed to promote Amateur Radio to our youth. Share your excitement with your kids or grandkids, a Scout troop, a church or the general public!
Kids Day is designed to give on-the-air experience to young people and hopefully foster interest in getting a license of their own. It is also intended to give older hams a chance to share their station and love for Amateur Radio with their children.
Operate as much or as little as you like. If you have no kids at your mike, wait until several “CQ Kids Day” calls go unanswered allowing a generous pause to allow other kids to respond. Then you may answer the CQ. Remember this is a kids event, not a contest. Don’t be too brief, make the kids at the other end feel at ease. Stick to the initial script, that’s what they are working from, so you should too.
Initial script:
1. Call “CQ Kids Day.”
2.Exchange name, age, locale (in the park), town (New Bedford), county (Bristol), state (MA), and favorite color (black, green, red).
3. It’s okay to work the same station again, if an operator has changed on either side of the QSO.
Control operators remember to observe third-party rules when making contacts with stations outside the US.
This is a fabulous way to celebrate the special bond between generations. Kids Day is a great opportunity to open the doors of your station and let the youngsters take the “Big Chair.” Let them find stations they hear or work on a map, color in a map of states worked, or help them to build something.
All participants are encouraged to post stories and photos to the ARRL Kids Day Soapbox page and are eligible to receive a colorful certificate. You can download the free certificate, customized with the youngsters’ names, after filling out the Kids Day Survey found on the same page as the certificate generator.
Alternatively, you can send a 9” x 12” SASE (with your or the kids’) address to:
Kids Day Certificate Request
ARRL
225 Main St.
Newington, CT 06111
Jun52021
Note, the July 3, 2021 VE Session is canceled due to the Fourth of July Holiday
Congratulate these radio amateurs who passed their exams at the June 5, 2021 VE Session.
| Name | Callsign | Class |
|---|---|---|
| Ryan Camara | KC1PLD | Technician |
| James Johns | KC1PLF | Technician |
| Richard Kizirian | KC1PLG | Technician |
| Kenneth Cameron | KC1PLE | General |
Enjoy your new and/or upgraded privileges!
New callsigns issued on June 14, 2021.
Need help to get on the air?
Email us @ W1AEC [at] semara [dot] org with your questions.
We’ll try to find someone to answer them for you.
May232021
13 Colonies and 3 Bonus Stations
13 Colonies Event Week
July 1, 9AM to July 7, Midnight, EDT
(1300Z 1 July 2021 to 0400Z 8 July 2020)
Certificate
Only ONE 13 Colonies QSO gets you a certificate.
For a CLEAN SWEEP, you don’t need to work the Bonus Stations: TM13COL, WM3PEN & GB13COL.
[D-STAR is OK for Bonus Stations]
Working a Colony Station
Use DX Summit www.DXSummit.fi to find a 13 Colonies Special Event Station
Spotting: After working a colony station, you are encouraged to spot it on DX Summit: i.e., “K2H 13 Col MA.”
K2H QSL information is posted on QRZ.
Questions?
See KU2US & www.13colonies.us.
May202021
The WX4NHC Annual Station On-the-Air Test will be held on Saturday, May 29, from 9 AM to 5 PM EDT (1300Z-2100Z). This hurricane season, WX4NHC operators plan to be working remotely again. The National Hurricane Center is planning to maintain all CDC pandemic protocols until the end of 2021. The National Hurricane Center is allowing only the main meteorologists and staff to enter the building.
Julio Ripoll, WD4R, Assistant Coordinator of the National Hurricane Center‘s amateur radio station WX4NHC, said the event offers an opportunity for radio amateurs worldwide to exercise the sorts of communications available during severe weather. “We will be making brief contacts on many frequencies and modes, exchanging signal reports and basic weather data (sunny, rain, temperature, etc.) with any station in any location,” Ripoll said.
Operation will take place on HF, VHF, UHF, APRS, and Winlink. WX4NHC will center its activity on the Hurricane Watch Net frequencies of 14.325 MHz and 7.268 MHz, depending on propagation, but will operate elsewhere as conditions dictate. WX4NHC will also operate on the VoIP Hurricane Net from 2000 until 2100 UTC. For the upcoming hurricane season, Ripoll reminded radio amateurs — “Even if you are not directly affected by a hurricane situation, please volunteer to monitor and relay reports; just one report can make a difference and help save a life!”
Apr282021
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Apr282021
Auto-registration in the FCC Commission Registration System (CORES amateur radio exam for candidates using a Social Security number will be discontinued on May 20, 2021. Applicants must use an FCC Registration Number (FRN) for all license transactions with the FCC. Examinees must register in CORES and receive an FRN before exam day. Starting on May 20, electronic batch filed applications that do not include a candidate’s FRN will be rejected. The Social Security/Licensee ID Field will be disabled.
The CORES website can be accessed at: https://apps.fcc.gov/cores/userLogin.do.
An instructional video provides step-by-step instructions on how to establish a CORES account, which is necessary for licensees to make administrative updates and download electronic license authorizations.
The instructional video can be found at: https://www.fcc.gov/rofrn.
After June 29, all filers must provide an email address on all applications. When an email is provided, applicants will receive an official electronic copy of their licenses once granted (allow incoming email from authorizations@fcc.gov). If no email is provided when filing on or after June 29, applications will be rejected. ARRL VEC suggests that those without access to email to use the email address of a family member or friend.
Further information about providing an email address can be found at: http://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-to-require-email-address-on-applications-starting-on-june-29-2021.
Licensees need to log in to the Universal Licensing System (ULS) to download their authorizations. The FCC no longer issues paper copies.
Apr282021
The US Department of Defense will host this year’s Armed Forces Day (AFD) Cross-Band Test, Friday and Saturday, May 7-8, in recognition of Armed Forces Day on May 15. The event is open to all radio amateurs. For more than 50 years, military and amateur stations have taken part in this exercise, designed to include amateur radio and government radio operators alike.
The AFD Cross-Band Test is a unique opportunity to test two-way communications between military and amateur radio stations, as authorized under FCC Part 97 rules. These tests provide opportunities and challenges for radio operators to demonstrate individual technical skills in a tightly controlled exercise in which military stations will transmit on selected military frequencies and will announce the specific amateur radio frequencies being monitored.
The schedule of military/government stations taking part in the Armed Forces Day Cross-Band Test and information on the AFD message is available on the MARS website at, http://www.dodmars.org/home/armed-forces-day-2021.
Complete the request form to obtain a QSL card at, http://www.usarmymars.org/events.
Apr152021
“In the RF Report and Order, the Commission anticipated that few parties would have to conduct reevaluations under the new rules and that such evaluations will be relatively straightforward,” the FCC said in an April 2 Public Notice. “It nevertheless adopted a 2-year period for parties to verify and ensure compliance under the new rules.”
The FCC has announced that rule changes detailed in a lengthy 2019 Report and Order (R&O) governing RF exposure standards go into effect on May 3, 2021. The new rules do not change existing RF exposure (RFE) limits but do require that stations in all services, including amateur radio, be evaluated against existing limits, unless they are exempted. For stations already in place, that evaluation must be completed by May 3, 2023. After May 3 of this year, any new station, or any existing station modified in a way that’s likely to change its RFE profile — such as different antennas or placement, or greater power — will need to conduct an evaluation by the date of activation or change.
The Amateur Service is no longer categorically excluded from certain aspects of the rules, as amended, and licensees can no longer avoid performing an exposure assessment simply because they are transmitting below a given power level.
“For most amateurs, the major difference is the removal of the categorical exclusion for amateur radio, which means that ham station owners must determine if they either qualify for an exemption or must perform a routine environmental evaluation,” said Greg Lapin, N9GL, Chair of the ARRL RF Safety Committee and a member of the FCC Technological Advisory Council (TAC).
“Ham stations previously excluded from performing environmental evaluations will have until May 3, 2023, to perform these. After May 3, 2021, any new stations or those modified in a way that affects RF exposure must comply before being put into service,” Lapin said.
The December 2019 RF R&O changes the methods that many radio services use to determine and achieve compliance with FCC limits on human exposure to RF electromagnetic fields. The FCC also modified the process for determining whether a particular device or deployment is exempt from a more thorough analysis by replacing a service-specific list of transmitters, facilities, and operations for which evaluation is required with new streamlined formula-based criteria. The R&O also addressed how to perform evaluations where the exemption does not apply, and how to mitigate exposure.
Amateur radio licensees will have to determine whether any existing facilities previously excluded under the old rules now qualify for an exemption under the new rules. Most will, but some may not.
“For amateurs, the major difference is the removal of the categorical exclusion,” Lapin said, “which means that every ham will be required to perform some sort of calculation, either to determine if they qualify for an exemption or must perform a full-fledged exposure assessment. For hams who previously performed exposure assessments on their stations, there is nothing more to do.”
The ARRL Lab staff is available to help amateurs to make these determinations and, if needed, perform the necessary calculations to ensure their stations comply. ARRL Laboratory Manager Ed Hare, W1RFI, who helped prepare ARRL’s RF Exposure and You book, explained it this way. “The FCC did not change any of the underlying rules applicable to amateur station evaluations,” he said. “The sections of the book on how to perform routine station evaluations are still valid and usable, especially the many charts of common antennas at different heights.” Hare said ARRL Lab staff also would be available to help amateurs understand the rules and evaluate their stations.
RF Exposure and You is available for free download from ARRL. ARRL also has an RF Safety page on its website.
The ARRL RF Safety Committee is working with the FCC to update the FCC’s aids for following human exposure rules — OET Bulletin 65 and OET Bulletin 65 Supplement B for Radio Amateurs. In addition, ARRL is developing tools that all hams can use to perform exposure assessments.
The April 27, 2021 RF Exposure Rules Zoom Discussion by Eastern MA Technical Coordinator Dan Brown, W1DAN, has been posted to the Eastern MA ARRL website at: <https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_qIGZhHyMrha-axJt87Dcu0UZuJO0t8F>.
EMA.ARRL.ORG