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EHAM QTH QRZ ARRL HRO ICOM KENWOOD YAESU ELBO ROOM COMMENTS WEEKEND EDITION: Too damn cold in NH, I will stick to the coast and be happy....Big game for NE Patriots against the Buffalo Bills, I am afraid it will be a week of reckoning for the young Patriots. Unfortunately, I think the Bills will prevail but I sure hope I am wrong..... Failed 3D Printed Part Brings Down Small PlaneBack in March, a small aircraft in the UK lost engine power while coming in for a landing and crashed. The aircraft was a total loss, but thankfully, the pilot suffered only minor injuries. According to the recently released report by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, we now know a failed 3D printed part is to blame.
The part in question is a plastic air induction elbow — a curved duct that forms part of the engine’s air intake system. The collapsed part you see in the image above had an air filter attached to its front (towards the left in the image), which had detached and fallen off. Heat from the engine caused the part to soften and collapse, which in turn greatly reduced intake airflow, and therefore available power
While the cause of the incident is evident enough, there are still some unknowns regarding the part itself. The fact that it was 3D printed isn’t an issue. Additive manufacturing is used effectively in the aviation industry all the time, and it seems the owner of the aircraft purchased the part at an airshow in the USA with no reason to believe anything was awry. So what happened? The part in question is normally made from laminated fiberglass and epoxy, with a glass transition of 84° C. Glass transition is the temperature at which a material begins to soften, and is usually far below the material’s actual melting point. When a part is heated at or beyond its glass transition, it doesn’t melt but is no longer “solid” in the normal sense, and may not even be able to support its own weight. It’s the reason some folks pack parts in powdered salt to support them before annealing. The printed part the owner purchased and installed was understood to be made from CF-ABS, or ABS with carbon fiber. ABS has a glass transition of around 100° C, which should have been plenty for this application. However, the investigation tested two samples taken from the failed part and measured the glass temperature at 52.8°C and 54.0°C, respectively. That’s a far cry from what was expected, and led to part failure from the heat of the engine. The actual composition of the part in question has not been confirmed, but it sure seems likely that whatever it was made from, it wasn’t ABS. The Light Aircraft Association (LAA) plans to circulate an alert to inspectors regarding 3D printed parts, and the possibility they aren’t made from what they claim to be. SAQ Grimeton to Transmit CW Message Christmas Eve
Transmission Schedule
E-QSL reports may be submitted online. Japan’s Forgotten Analog HDTV Standard Was Well Ahead Of Its TimeWhen we talk about HDTV, we’re typically talking about any one of a number of standards from when television made the paradigm switch from analog to digital transmission. At the dawn of the new millenium, high-definition TV was a step-change for the medium, perhaps the biggest leap forward since color transmissions began in the middle of the 20th century. However, a higher-resolution television format did indeed exist well before the TV world went digital. Over in Japan, television engineers had developed an analog HD format that promised quality far beyond regular old NTSC and PAL transmissions. All this, decades before flat screens and digital TV were ever seen in consumer households! ResolutionJapan’s efforts to develop a better standard of analog television were pursued by the Science and Technical Research Laboratories of NHK, the national public broadcaster. Starting in the 1970s, research and development focused on how to deliver a higher-quality television signal, as well as how to best capture, store, and display it. ARTICLE
Amateur Radio
Newsline Report FRIDAY EDITION: Annual Wellness Check this morning. They will will want to know if I feel safe living with my wife, how many times I have fallen down this year, if I feel suicidal, and try to remember these three words. How Joe Walsh Used a Signature Guitar to Pay Homage to the Man Who “Saved Him” During a Lonely Summer in New York CityGuitarists have been personalizing their instruments since time immemorial, whether with an embossed leather guitar strap, pearly fretboard inlay that spells out the performer’s name, or a guitar with plenty of body and electronic modifications that make the ax completely distinct. But far fewer musicians can boast a personalized guitar that spells out their name in Morse code. Eagles guitarist and prolific solo artist Joe Walsh is one of them, though. In addition to being one of the most well-known guitarists of 20th-century rock ‘n’ roll, Walsh is also a lifelong ham radio operator. Even today, his amateur license with the Federal Communications Commission is active through 2031 under the call sign WB6ACU. The “Rocky Mountain Way” singer’s signature Alliance series with Duesenberg guitars pays tribute to this decades-long passion by spelling out Walsh’s name in Morse code along the fretboard. And although it’s Walsh’s name that appears on his signature guitar, it’s also inadvertently paying homage to a different man named Jim. The Man Who Helped “Save” Joe Walsh One Lonely SummerWhen Joe Walsh was around 11 years old, he experienced something no kid ever wants to experience: his family moved him from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, to the bustling metropolis of New York City, hundreds of miles away from his friends and all that was familiar to him, at the start of summer break. While this might seem like the logical move from an adult perspective, it’s practically torturous for a kid who, without school being in session, has far fewer opportunities to make friends. Unsurprisingly, Walsh spent most of the summer alone. But all that alone time gave him plenty of time to observe his apartment building, which he noticed had a massive antenna on the roof. “Every time I looked up at it, it was pointing a different direction,” Walsh said in a 2014 interview on the This Week in Tech podcast. “So, after a while, I followed the wires down to a window, traced that to a door, and knocked on the door. It was K2IEY. His name was Jim, and he was a ham. He invited me in and sat me down in his little shack, and he had a KWM1 transceiver, and he talked to the world on it. I was amazed. That was my first real friend in New York.” “Jim kind of saved me that summer,” Walsh continued, “and became a lifelong friend.” Thanks to Jim, ham radio also became a lifelong passion Walsh would pursue between, you know, being an internationally renowned rock star. In December 2025, Julien’s Auctions announced they were hosting the first-ever auction from Joe Walsh, which includes the prototype of his signature guitar, complete with Morse code inlays. And while Walsh might be parting with his first ax that harkens back to his ham radio operator roots, he’s certainly not signing off the air. In fact, Walsh has made a point to continue the tradition that Jim taught him all those years ago in New York City. “Every once in a while, somebody comes and knocks at my door and says, ‘What’s that thing on your roof?’” Walsh said in a Julien’s Auctions items preview. “I say, ‘Come on in. Been waiting for you.’ ‘Cause that’s what we do.” FCC Allocates 60-Meter World-Wide Amateur Band Approved at WRC-15; Continues Amateur Use of Four Additional 60-Meter Channels, and Updates 420 MHz Coordination InformationThe Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on December 9, 2025, released a long-awaited Report and Order adopting a new amateur radio spectrum allocation in the 60-meter band that was approved for world-wide use on a secondary basis in the WRC-15 (World Radiocommunication Conference 2015) Final Acts. The Commission also agreed with a petition from ARRL The National Association for Amateur Radio® to continue to allow amateur operations on four existing 60-meter channels outside the international allocation with a full 100 watts. The new rules will go into effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register, when amateurs may then begin using the allocation. Specifically, the Commission allocated 5351.5 - 5366.5 kHz (60 meters) to the amateur service on a secondary basis with a permitted power of 9.15 watts ERP. The Commission also authorized amateurs to continue using four existing channels outside of the 5351.5 - 5366.5 kHz band centered on 5332, 5348, 5373, and 5405 kHz on a secondary basis with a permitted power of 100 watts ERP. There are no antenna restrictions but antenna gain must be used to calculate ERP. The 60-meter allocation is available to amateurs holding a General Class or above license. The maximum permissible signal bandwidth is 2.8 kHz. Amateurs are cautioned that this allocation is strictly on a secondary basis, and amateurs must avoid interfering with non-amateur stations using this spectrum. This obligation includes the responsibility to monitor for such stations using appropriate receiver bandwidths. The FCC emphasized that “allowing amateur operations in this band while fully protecting incumbent primary Federal operations is our priority, and even intermittent interference in this band could jeopardize important Federal operations.” The Commission left open ARRL’s 2017 Petition for Rulemaking to implement this WRC allocation (RM-11785), stating that “we expect the Commission may address any necessary power adjustments for the new 15 kilohertz international allocation in that proceeding.” ARRL will be observing operations in the new band to evaluate the effect of the 9.15-watt limit and already has been monitoring the regulations and experiences of amateurs in other countries. Finally, in the same Report and Order, the FCC updated 420 - 450 MHz coordination and contact information for geographic areas where the peak envelope power (PEP) of amateur stations operating is generally limited to 50 watts. There was no substantive change to the areas covered by the power limitation. Lithium-Ion Batteries: WHY They Demand RespectThis summer, we saw the WHY (What Hackers Yearn) event happen in Netherlands, of course, with a badge to match. Many badges these days embrace the QWERTY computer aesthetic, which I’m personally genuinely happy about. This one used 18650 batteries for power, in a dual parallel cell configuration… Oh snap, that’s my favourite LiIon cell in my favourite configuration, too! Surely, nothing bad could happen? Whoops. That one almost caught me by surprise, I have to shamefully admit. I just genuinely love 18650 cells, in all glory they bring to hardware hacking, and my excitement must’ve blindsided me. They’re the closest possible entity to a “LiIon battery module”, surprisingly easy to find in most corners of this planet, cheap to acquire in large quantities, easy to interface to your projects, and packing a huge amount of power. It’s a perfect cell for many applications I and many other hackers hold dear. Sadly, the 18650 cells were a bad choice for the WHY badge, for multiple reasons at once. If you’re considering building a 18650-based project, or even a product, let me show you what exactly made these cells a bad fit, and how you might be able to work around those limitations on your own journey. There’s plenty of technical factors, but I will tell you about the social factors, because these create the real dealbreaker here. The main social factor can be boiled down to this – a 18650-powered WHY badge can start a fire through being touched by a 5 cent coin, a keychain, or a metal zipper of someone’s jacket. This is not a dealbreaker for an individual hacker who’s conscious of the risk, though it’s certainly an unwise choice. For three thousand participants? You have no chance. A 18650 cell is like a bigger sister to an AA battery – power at your fingertips, just, you’re playing with heaps more power. You can take a 18650 cell and have it power a small yet nimble robot on wheels, or an ultra powerful flashlight, or a handheld radio packing quite a transmit power punch. You can release its power on accident, too, and that gets nasty quick. Short-circuiting a 18650 cell is a surprisingly straightforward way to melt metal, and by extent, start a small fire. It’s also not that hard to short-circuit a 18650 cell, especially and specifically unprotected ones. This is a big part of why consumer oriented gadgets use AAs instead of 18650s – it’s perhaps less powerful, sure, but it’s also a significantly less dangerous cell. The Instructions, They Do Nothing!WHY sold a little over 3700 tickets. I would not expect 100% attendance, but I’m comfortable saying it must’ve been around three thousand people. Sadly, “three thousand people” is far beyond the point when you can hope to give people handling instructions for something as easy to mishandle as LiIon cells, even for a nominally hacker audience. Of course, you can try and give people instructions. You can talk to each badge recipient individually, release booklets demonstrating what to do and not to do with a 18650 cell, add silkscreen instructions for a just-in-place reminder, or maybe have them sign a release form, though it’s unlikely that kind of trick would be legal in the EU. Sadly, WHY organizers never came close to doing any of these things. It also wouldn’t really matter if they did. These instructions will always, inevitably be outright ignored by a sizeable percentage of users. Handling unprotected batteries requires cautiousness and some helper equipment. You can’t hope to transplant the cautiousness, at most you can try and issue the equipment. Which equipment? A small storage cases for the cells (must have when transporting them!), as well as a case for the badge, at the very least; to my knowledge, the WHY didn’t issue either of these stock. An ESD bag doesn’t qualify if it doesn’t permanently cover the badge’s back, because any temporary protection is nullified by a budding hacker getting tired of carrying two 18650 cells on their neck, and throwing the badge into the tent without looking. Where does it land? Hopefully not onto something metal. You can build a badge or any sort of other device using unprotected 18650s, which expects the end user to handle them, like the WHY badge does, and it will be more or less safe as long as the end user is yourself, with 18650 handling experience that I’m sure is to match. Giving it to a friend, caseless? You can talk to your friend and explain 18650 handling basics to them, sure, but you’re still running some degree of risk. My hunch is, your friend could very well refuse such a gift outright. Giving it to a hundred people? You’re essentially playing with fire at someone else’s house. Just Why Did That Happen?Hackaday has traditionally used AA cells for our badges, which has definitely help us mostly avoid any Lithium-related issues. Most other conferences have been using pouch cells, which traditionally come with short-circuit protection and don’t threaten to ignite stuff from contact with a piece of metal. 18650 cells are not even cheaper at scale – they’re nice, sure, I wrote as much, but those nice things are quickly negated by the whole “firestarter” thing. On the other hand, 18650 cells do work for a hacker or a small team of hackers skilled enough to stay cautious, and it also works well at scale when the cell is permanently encased within the shell, like in most powerbanks and laptops. It fails as soon as you expect people to plug batteries in and out, or carry them separately. Respecting Lithium-Ion batteries means being aware of their shortcomings, and for 18650 cells, that means you should avoid having people manually handle them at scale. Here’s the kicker about the WHY badge situation. I was confused by the WHY badge switching to 18650 cells this year, away from overcurrent-protected pouch cells, which were used by previous iterations of WHY (MCH, SHA) without an issue in sight. So, I’ve asked around, and what I got from multiple sources is – the 18650 usage decision was pushed top-down, with little regard for physical safety. Sadly, this makes sense – it’s how we saw it implemented, too.
THURSDAY EDITION: Special thanks to Dave and the crew at HRO for extending the hospitality to this renegade group of 3928 hams. The store was neat as a pin and well stocked as usual. The lunch was excellent as usual n the restaurant next door. Joe-JEK thanks all who attended....thanks Dave at HRO for the pictures as well as Mike- N1XW
First HamTV Transmission from ISS Since 2018The first HamTV transmission from the International Space Station (ISS) since 2018 occurred on October 18, 2025. As part of an ISS contact with the 1st Radford Semele Scout Group in the United Kingdom, HamTV was utilized in addition to FM voice over onboard amateur radio equipment. ARISS has uploaded a compilation of video feeds received from ground stations in Europe. The HamTV setup on ISS has been out of commission for repairs since 2018 but was just recently brought back online in July. Source: ARISS Amateur Radio Daily – Read More HRO PARTY DAY: The Annual HRO Xmas party today starting at 1030 in the Salem, NH store and lunch next door at the superb Chinese restaurant at noon. A good time will be had by all and some pictures will be posted later today....if you listen on 3928 afternoons, the New England group runs from 4-5pm. Yesterday we listened to the story of Bob who for some reason put a marble in his nose. He explained he was bored, found a marble in his pocket, and decided to see if it would fit in his nose. I am still trying to figure out what that would look like, talking on the air with a guy with a marble in his nose....but now I know where he got the marble!
Why Sodium-Ion Batteries are Terrible for Solar StorageThese days just about any battery storage solution connected to PV solar or similar uses LiFePO4 (LFP) batteries. The reason for this is obvious: they got a very practical charge and discharge curve that chargers and inverters love, along with a great round trip efficiency. Meanwhile some are claiming that sodium-ion (Na+) batteries would be even better, but this is not borne out by the evidence, with [Will Prowse] testing and tearing down an Na+ battery to prove the point. The Hysincere brand battery that [Will] has on the test bench claims a nominal voltage of 12 V and a 100 Ah capacity, which all appears to be in place based on the cells found inside. The lower nominal voltage compared to LFP’s 12.8 V is only part of the picture, as can be seen in the OCV curve. Virtually all of LFP’s useful capacity is found in a very narrow voltage band, with only significant excursions when reaching around >98% or <10% of state of charge. What this means is that with existing chargers and inverters, there is a whole chunk of the Na+ discharge curve that’s impossible to use, and chargers will refuse to charge Na+ batteries that are technically still healthy due to the low cell voltage. In numbers, this means that [Will] got a capacity of 82 Ah out of this particular 100 Ah battery, despite the battery costing twice that of a comparable LFP one. Yet even after correcting for that, the internal resistance of these Na+ batteries appears to be significantly higher, giving a round trip efficiency of 60 – 92%, which is a far cry from the 95% to 99% of LFP. Until things change here, [Will] doesn’t see much of a future for Na+ beyond perhaps grid-level storage and as a starter battery for very cold climates. Blog – Hackaday Read More TUESDAY EDITION: 16 today but sunny..... Ham radio operators make radio contact with North Pole
The Harrison County Amateur Radio Club was fortunate to have a strong signal from the North Pole on Saturday. The ham radio operators had arranged with Santa Claus to make radio contact with them in the lobby of the Rohs Opera House so that children could talk to the jolly old elf on the mic. Each participant was given a commemorative card for making a long range North Pole contact via ham radio. This was not just any old card; this was a QSL card. QSL cards are postcards exchanged by ham radio operators not just around the country but around the globe. They confirm two-way radio contact has been made and contain details such as the operator's callsign, time/date of the call and frequency. Club member Keith Clifford said his collection includes cards he exchanged with ham radio operators in all 50 states and several countries, including Ukraine. He recently made contact with operators in Paraguay and Brazil. At Saturday's event, Clifford was in charge of registering Santa's young callers and handing out the QSL cards featuring a colorful cartoon image of Santa and Mrs. Claus on a two-way set and the caption: K4HSN, Ham Shack on the North Pole. (K4HSN is the club's own callsign.) Several families took advantage of the opportunity for their children to talk to Santa via radio. Sitting across from Rick Mattox, club president, kids listened to Santa and talked into the mic, sharing their Christmas wishes. From the smiles on most of their faces, their first encounter with ham radio was a positive one. Ham radio is far more than just an old and fascinating hobby; it is an invaluable in emergencies. When internet, cell service or landlines go down, airwaves will always be available, and ham radio operators can act on a moment's notice. Club member C. J. Clifford experienced the value of his own radio set last December when he was involved in a collision. His door was jammed; his phone had gone flying somewhere in the cab of his truck and he was unable to locate it. But his radio was handy. He picked up the mic and made a call for help. Mattox responded to Clifford's call and contacted emergency services. Don't let the word "amateur" in the club's name fool you; ham radio is serious business. All amateur radio operators must be licensed by the FCC and act professionally. There are three levels of licensing classes, each more difficult than the previous. he club is not limited to Harrison Countians. Clifford said there are also members from five other counties: Nicholas, Scott, Bourbon, Clark and Pendleton. The Harrison County Amateur Radio Club meets the third Friday of every month in the Lair Methodist Church fellowship hall at 6 p.m. Anyone is welcome to attend to learn how to get started in this fascinating hobby. For further information k4han@outlook.com Review For: Yaesu FTX-1 Field (6W-10W) optima (100 Watts)
I've owned the FTX-1
Optima for about a
month now and whilst
it's an excellent
idea, there are some
niggles. Perhaps
some these can be
ironed out via
firmare but one in
particular would
require a hardware
modification. Crystal Radio Workshop and Marconi Reenactment (Newfoundland)On Friday, December 12, between 10:45am and 1:30pm, the Marconi Radio Club of Newfoundland (MRCN) and its sister club, the Poldhu Amateur Radio Club (PARC) in England will be commemorating Marconi’s first transatlantic wireless experiment in collaboration with the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineering (IEEE) and hosted by the Memorial University’s Johnson Geo Centre. This year is the 124th anniversary of Marconi’s first transatlantic wireless experiment and, to mark this, a 2-way radio station will be installed at the Johnson Geo Centre a few hundred metres from the site where Marconi conducted his famous 1901 experiment on Signal Hill. At 10:45am, we will be presenting on Marconi and radio art and science. This will be followed by a workshop whereby participants will be constructing crystal radios. Between 12:00 and 12:25pm, we will exchange greetings with colleagues in Villa Griffone, Cape Cod, and Glace Bay via Amateur Radio. At 12:25pm, we will attempt to establish a direct 2-way High Frequency radio contact with our colleagues in Poldhu to receive the letter ’S’ and send radio telegrams from officials of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Memorial University, and the NL section of the IEE Identifying Fake Small-Signal TransistorsIt’s rather amazing how many electronic components you can buy right now are not quite the genuine parts that they are sold as. Outside of dedicated platforms like Mouser, Digikey and LCSC you pretty much enter a Wild West of unverifiable claims and questionable authenticity. When it comes to sites like eBay and AliExpress, [hjf] would go so far as to state that any of the power transistors available for sale on these sites are 100% fake. But even small-signal transistors are subject to fakes, as proven in a comparison. Found within the comparison are a Mouser-sourced BC546C, as well as a BC547C, SN3904 and PN2222A. These latter three all sourced from ‘auction sites’. As a base level test all transistors are put in a generic component tester, which identifies all of them correctly as NPN transistors, but the ‘BC547C’ and ‘PN2222A’ fail the test for having a much too low hFE. According to the generic tester at least, but it’s one red flag, along with the pin-out for the ‘BC547C’ showing up as being inverted from the genuine part. Next is a pass through the HP4145B curve tracer, which confirms the fake BC547C findings, including the abysmal hFE. For the PN2222A the hFE is within spec according to the curve tracer, defying the component tester’s failing grade. What these results make clear is that these cheap component testers are not a realistic ‘fake’ tester. It also shows that some of the fake transistors you find on $auction_site are clearly fake, while others are much harder to pin down. The PN2222A and 2N3904 used here almost pass the sniff test, but have that distinct off-genuine feeling, while the fake BC547C didn’t even bother to get its pinout right. As always, caveat emptor. These cheapo transistors can be a nice source for some tinkering, just be aware of possibly wasting hours debugging an issue caused by an off-nominal parameter in a fake part. MONDAY EDITION: 23 to start the morning out, but KC Chiefs lost last night which in my mind is a good thing....This Wednesday is the annual Christmas Party at the HRO super store in Salem, NH organized by Joe- K1JEK, all are welcome! Radio Signals and Heartbeat Jets From 3I/ATLAS Suggest a Coordinated, Non-Random Pattern EmergingOn November 14, 2025, we reported something no natural comet has ever demonstrated: a narrow-band absorption signature emitted by 3I/ATLAS at precisely 1665 and 1667 MHz—two frequencies associated with the 18-centimeter OH microwave transition long considered by SETI researchers as a prime channel for interstellar communication. Not broad-spectrum noise, not chaotic emissions from solar heating, but a clean, narrow signature at two frequencies that nature rarely produces under these conditions. Today, November 30, 2025, we reported on something equally strange, but entirely different in origin: one of the clearest images yet of 3I/ATLAS revealing what looks like a pulsing jet structure—brightening and dimming in a periodic rhythm. In his analysis, Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb compared this behavior to a “heartbeat,” noting that the jets appear to pump mass outward every 16.16 hours, a pattern the light-curve analysts initially misinterpreted as rotational variability from the nucleus. But the nucleus is far too dim to produce that degree of variation. The jet is the source. And it is pulsing. Read more – USA Herald: https://bit.ly/4py3FEE Why DigiKey made huge investment in northwestern Minnesota, despite slowing economy
DigiKey seven
years ago made a
huge bet on
staying in Thief
River Falls. It
built the
state’s largest
building,
adopted new
processes and
sees no limits
to its
opportunities.
There are too many patches of woods around this northwestern Minnesota townof 8,800 people to seea dramatic vista of one of the largest buildings in Minnesota. But that’s OK. The real dramaof DigiKey’s 2.2 million-square-footproduct distribution center — twice the size of the Amazon fulfillment center in Shakopee — is that it’s there at all. DigiKey confronted Minnesota’s biggest economic challenge — the low rates of population and workforce growth — before other companies and political leaders clued in on them. A decade ago its leaders, including company founder and Thief River Falls native Ron Stordahl, felt the company was getting too large for the town and seriously considered moving. They examined Des Moines, Omaha and Sioux Falls and other Midwest cities with convenient shipping logistics and more people in the hiring pool. “It was pretty much a given that it wouldn’t be here,” Dave Doherty, DigiKey’s president, told me as he recalled that time. Then, in the biggest gamble of its 53-year history, leaders of the privately held company decided in 2018 to stay in Thief River Falls, construct the giant building and create a new way to sort millions of electronic parts for customers all around the globe. Three years since that building opened, the bet has paid off. DigiKey continues to grow its sales, and its workforce of nearly 3,400 is more productive than ever. Even office workers train in “second skill” tasks to help out in the mega-warehouse. Read more – Star-Tribune: https://bit.ly/44fIv5L
WEEKEND EDITION: Next Wednesday the annual Christmas Party at the HRO super store in Salem, NH organized by Joe- K1JEK, all are welcome!....ARRL membership is still on the decline, I am not sure they can get themselves out of this mess with the currrent leadership. I don't think they are in touch with reality. We need the ARRL to represent us but they need some outside the box discussions.... Highlights of ARRL Executive Committee MeetingThe following are summaries and excerpts from the minutes of the November 2025 ARRL Executive Committee Meeting. The purpose of this post is to highlight in-progress items that ARRL might not normally promote through marketing channels, but hams might be interested in learning more about. Readers are encouraged to view the entire document for additional context. Pass the Bill Membership
Products & Outreach
IARU
Restructuring
The previous proposal would have eliminated ARRL’s power to nominate the IARU President and Vice President, leaving the task to the individual member societies. ARRL is expected to retain nomination authority, but consult with a new nomination committee made up of regional society members.
Additional Topics
Amateur Radio
Newsline Report FRIDAY EDITION: Coldest morning of the year, 8 degrees, but its not all that bad....Regarding the solar panel article below, we have three of those panels donated to us. They all work great, we just haven't connected them up yet to a system that the club could use.... Winners of the 2026 HamCation Awards AnnouncedFor 2026, there are three award categories: the Gordon West Ham Ambassador of the Year, the Carole Perry Educator of the Year, and a new category, the Amateur Radio Hero of the Year. The quality of candidates nominated for these awards was outstanding, and the Hamcation team is very excited to announce the winners. The 2026 Gordon West Ham Ambassador of the Year Award goes to Tony Milluzzi, KD8RTT, located in Lenexa, KS. The award recognizes his focused, long-term support and promotion of the Collegiate Amateur Radio Program (CARP). The 2026 Carole Perry Educator of the Year Award goes to Dr. Nathaniel Frissel, W2NAF, located in Spring Brook, PA. The award recognizes his outstanding work with the HamSCI education program he created, grew, and continues to expand. The Amateur Radio Hero Award goes to Ambarish Nag Biswas, VU2JFA, located in West Bengal, India. The award recognizes his outstanding support of local and national emergency operations and law enforcement during life-threatening events where lives were saved by his actions. Each of these nominees has demonstrated outstanding dedication to promoting Amateur Radio by using radio to share knowledge, educate, and provide vital communications. The HamCation team congratulates each of them for their award and the contribution they have personally made to Amateur Radio. Links to each award category with details of their criteria can be found at https://www.hamcation.com/award. HamCation 2026 will be held on February 13th, 14th & 15th, 2026. Source: HamCation After Trucking Them Home, Old Solar Panels Keep On Trucking
The fact that there exist in our world flat rocks that make lightning when you point them at the sun is one of the most unappreciated bits of wizardry in this modern age. As hackers, we love all this of techno-wizardry–but some of us abhor paying full price for it. Like cars, one way to get a great discount is to buy used. [Backyard Solar Project] helped a friend analyze some 14-year-old panels to see just how they’d held up over the years, and it was actually better than we might have expected. The big polycrystalline panels were rated at 235 W when new, and they got 6 of them for the low, low price of “get this junk off my property”. Big panels are a bit of a pain to move, but that’s still a great deal. Especially considering that after cleaning they averaged 180 W, a capacity factor of 77%. Before cleaning 14 years worth of accumulated grime cost about eight watts, on average, an argument for cleaning your panels. Under the same lighting conditions, the modern panel (rated to 200 W) was giving 82% of rated output. That implies that after 14 years, the panels are still at about 94% of their original factory output, assuming the factory wasn’t being overoptimistic about the numbers to begin with. Still, assuming you can trust the marketing, a half a percent power drop per year isn’t too bad. It’s also believable, since the US National Renewably Energy Laboratory (yes, they have one) has done tests that put that better than the average of 0.75 %/yr. Of course the average American solar panel lives in a hotter climate than [Backyard Solar Project], which helps explain the slower degradation. Now, we’re not your Dad or your accountant, so we’re not going to tell you if used solar panels are worth the effort. On the one hand, they still work, but on the other hand, the density is quite a bit lower. Just look at that sleek, modern 200 W panel next to the old 235 W unit. If you’re area-limited, you might want to spring for new, or at least the more energy-dense monocrystalline panels that have become standard the last 5 years or so, which aren’t likely to be given away just yet. On the gripping hand, free is free, and most of us are much more constrained by budget than by area. If nothing else, you might have a fence to stick old panels against; the vertical orientation is surprisingly effective at higher latitudes.
THURSDAY EDITION: I tested the Yasesu FL7000 yesterday, it put out 700 watts with 50 watts in on 20 meters. A beautiful amplifier for HF, we are thinking about $775 for a mint unit. The unit is wired for 110 and we had a ft1000 hooked up to it on the same 20 amp circuit no problems.....
All Handheld Antennas Are Not Born The Same
If you own a handheld transceiver of any type then the chances are it will come with a “rubber duck” style antenna. These flexible rubber-coated antennas are a compromise in performance, being significantly smaller than a wavelength at their frequency of operation. [OM40ET] has an interesting video in which he investigates this by tearing down a cheap rubber duck antenna and an even cheaper fake. These antennas usually have a flexible upper section and a bulge at the bottom over the connector. The fake one has nothing in the bulge except the antenna wire and thus has a very high SWR, while the “real” one has a loading coil. This coil is an interesting design, because it’s designed such that the antenna has two resonant points at the 2 metre and 70 centimetre amateur bands. On paper it’s a tapped coil fed at the tap through a capacitor for matching, but a more detailed appraisal will tell you that the two halves of the coil are designed to return those two resonances. It’s still a not-very-good antenna, but the fact that it works at all is something. If you want something better at VHF and haven’t got much space, all is not lost. We recently featured a VHF magnetic loop.
WEDNESDAY EDITION: No snow here to report but we got 50+mph gusts last night, 32 this morning.... Extra carbon in the atmosphere may disrupt radio communicationsHigher levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere could harm radio communications by enhancing a disruptive effect in the ionosphere. According to researchers at Kyushu University, Japan, who modelled the effect numerically for the first time, this little-known consequence of climate change could have significant impacts on shortwave radio systems such as those employed in broadcasting, air traffic control and navigation. “While increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere warm the Earth’s surface, they actually cool the ionosphere,” explains study leader Huixin Liu of Kyushu’s Faculty of Science. “This cooling doesn’t mean it is all good: it decreases the air density in the ionosphere and accelerates wind circulation. These changes affect the orbits and lifespan of satellites and space debris and also disrupt radio communications through localized small-scale plasma irregularities.” The sporadic E-layerOne such irregularity is a dense but transient layer of metal ions that forms between 90‒120 km above the Earth’s surface. This sporadic E-layer (Es), as it is known, is roughly 1‒5 km thick and can stretch from tens to hundreds of kilometres in the horizontal direction. Its density is highest during the day, and it peaks around the time of the summer solstice. The formation of the Es is hard to predict, and the mechanisms behind it are not fully understood. However, the prevailing “wind shear” theory suggests that vertical shears in horizontal winds, combined with the Earth’s magnetic field, cause metallic ions such as Fe+, Na+, and Ca+ to converge in the ionospheric dynamo region and form thin layers of enhanced ionization. The ions themselves largely come from metals in meteoroids that enter the Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrate at altitudes between around 80‒100 km. Effects of increasing CO2 concentrationsWhile previous research has shown that increases in CO2 trigger atmospheric changes on a global scale, relatively little is known about how these increases affect smaller-scale ionospheric phenomena like the Es. In the new work, which is published in Geophysical Research Letters, Liu and colleagues used a whole-atmosphere model to simulate the upper atmosphere at two different CO2 concentrations: 315 ppm and 667 ppm. “The 315 ppm represents the CO2 concentration in 1958, the year in which recordings started at the Mauna Loa observatory, Hawaii,” Liu explains. “The 667 ppm represents the projected CO2 concentration for the year 2100, based on a conservative assumption that the increase in CO2 is constant at a rate of around 2.5 ppm/year since 1958.” The researchers then evaluated how these different CO2 levels influence a phenomenon known as vertical ion convergence (VIC) which, according to the wind shear theory, drives the Es. The simulations revealed that the higher the atmospheric CO2 levels, the greater the VIC at altitudes of 100-120 km. “What is more, this increase is accompanied by the VIC hotspots shifting downwards by approximately 5 km,” says Liu. “The VIC patterns also change dramatically during the day and these diurnal variability patterns continue into the night.” According to the researchers, the physical mechanism underlying these changes depends on two factors. The first is reduced collisions between metallic ions and the neutral atmosphere as a direct result of cooling in the ionosphere. The second is changes in the zonal wind shear, which are likely caused by long-term trends in atmosphere tides. “These results are exciting because they show that the impacts of CO2 increase can extend all the way from Earth’s surface to altitudes at which HF and VHF radio waves propagate and communications satellites orbit,” Liu tells Physics World. “This may be good news for ham radio amateurs, as you will likely receive more signals from faraway countries more often. For radio communications, however, especially at HF and VHF frequencies employed for aviation, ships and rescue operations, it means more noise and frequent disruption in communication and hence safety. The telecommunications industry might therefore need to adjust their frequencies or facility design in the future.” “Space Sailors” Seeking Download Help from Ham Radio OperatorsA group of students at Cornell University is seeking participation from radio amateurs who are equipped with satellite stations for help in listening for signals from a retroreflective laser sail that is scheduled to be deployed later this week. The sail is currently attached to a 1U CubeSat that was launched early Tuesday, December 2, 2025, from the International Space Station, but will separate and become its own free-flying spacecraft equipped with four tiny “ChipSat” flight computers that will transmit telemetry data back to Earth. This is the first flight of their ChipSats, and it is this data that the students seek help detecting, according to Ph.D. candidate Joshua Umansky-Castro, who has an amateur radio license; call sign KD2WTQ. The light sail’s ChipSats will be transmitting data using the LoRa® digital protocol on 437.400 MHz. The sail, stowed within the CubeSat, is expected be released a couple of days after deployment — tentatively this Thursday, December 4 — and will likely function independently for no more than 48 hours due to the drag created by the sail. Additional information, including LoRa parameters and links to a list of compatible receivers and the decoder file, may be found at alphacubesat.cornell.edu in the ChipSat Ground Station Guide (docx). It is hoped that the ChipSat and light sail will become the trailblazer for future missions around the solar system, and one day to our closest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri.
TUESDAY EDITION: The talking heads on TV he tried to make the snow storm today a major calamity in the game of life. It's New England, it snows, we plow, and life goes on- stop with the drama on TV and all the dope that run to the market to buy food like there is no tomorrow. ....I got a complaint from a neighbor about my trapping squirrels, I had 4 traps filled and left them behind my truck for delivery off the island later in the day. Their kids saw them and were horrified and asked if I would not leave them so the kids can see them. I wonder if these worldly kids know how beef and turkeys are slaughtered, they will probably be checking in with the school shrink today....the horror of it all! EvoHam Provides Resources for Digital Voice OperatorsEvoHam.com recently launched as a resource for amateur radio operators interested in digital voice modes. The new site focuses on DMR, D-STAR, Yaesu Fusion, P25, NXDN, M17, and FreeDV with how-to guides, reviews, and tutorials.
Example articles include M17 for Beginners: A Step-by-Step Guide for New Hams and FreeDV for Beginners: Get Started with Digital Voice on HF. Source: EvoHam.com futureGeo Resource Page Now LiveAmateur Radio Daily has compiled a futureGEO resources page to further promote the geostationary satellite project. The centralized resource is designed to make it easy for interested hams to learn more about the project. Currently, the resource page provides links to presentations, proposals, articles, and other relevant content. Additional information will be linked as it becomes available. futureGEO is a proposed geostationary amateur radio satellite that is projected to provide coverage across significant portions of Europe and North America. The project is being spearheaded by the European Space Agency and AMSAT Germany. The initial proposals mimic payloads similar to that of QO-100 but may include additional technology such as SDR and laser based communication experiments. Source: Amateur Radio Daily open_in_new futureGEO Special Event Celebrates Father of Wireless Communication, Jagadish Chandra BoseSpecial event station AU2JCB will be paying homage to the Indian scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose November 28 through December 15 2025. Considered the "Father of Wireless Communication," Bose was a pioneer in microwave optics, and demonstrated wireless communication as early as 1895. The special event will operate on the following modes and frequencies (kHz):
MONDAY EDITION: I downloaded FREEDV but still haven't got it configured right on my laptop, back to square one later today....I don't want to ee another turkey based meal for a long time, I have eaten it more ways than Forest Gump prepared shrimp.... Max Headroom signal hijackingThe Max Headroom signal hijacking (also known as the Max Headroom incident) was a hijacking of the television signals of two stations in Chicago, Illinois, on November 22, 1987, that briefly sent a pirate broadcast of an unidentified person wearing a Max Headroom mask and costume to thousands of home viewers.[1][2][3][4] The first incident took place during the sports segment of independent TV station WGN-TV's 9:00 p.m. newscast and featured a person wearing a mask swaying erratically in front of a semi-swiveling corrugated metal panel, apparently meant to resemble Max Headroom's animated geometric background. Unlike the later intrusion, the only sound was a loud buzz. In total, the interruption went on for almost 30 seconds before engineers at WGN were able to regain control of their broadcast tower. The second incident occurred about two hours later during PBS member station WTTW's broadcast of the Doctor Who serial Horror of Fang Rock. With nobody on duty at the affected tower, this signal takeover was more sustained and included distorted but audible speech. The masked figure made reference to the real Max Headroom's advertisements for New Coke, the animated TV series Clutch Cargo, WGN sportscaster Chuck Swirsky, "Greatest World Newspaper nerds", and other seemingly unrelated topics. The video concluded with the masked figure presenting his bare buttocks to a woman with a flyswatter while yelling "They're coming to get me!", with the woman responding "Bend over, bitch!" and lightly spanking him with it as the figure was crying and screaming. At that point, the hijackers ended the pirate transmission, and normal programming resumed after a total interruption of about 90 seconds.[5] A criminal investigation conducted by the Federal Communications Commission in the immediate aftermath of the intrusion could not find the people responsible; further, despite many unofficial inquiries and much speculation over the ensuing decades, the culprits have yet to be positively identified.[6][7][8][9] WTTWThat same night, at about 11:20 p.m., the signal of local PBS station WTTW was interrupted during an airing of the first part of the Doctor Who serial Horror of Fang Rock. The culprit was apparently the same Max Headroom impersonator, this time audible through distorted audio.[8][11] The masked figure spent the next minute or so making a quick series of brief and seemingly unrelated comments and cultural references interspersed with excited noises and exclamations. He was first heard to make a comment about "nerds", then called WGN sportscaster Chuck Swirsky a "frickin' liberal", held up a can of Pepsi while referencing the "Catch the wave" slogan from a recent ad campaign for Coca-Cola featuring the real Max Headroom[1][8], and held a middle finger near the camera inside what appeared to be a hollowed-out dildo.[15] After some random moaning, the masked figure sang the phrase "Your love is fading"; hummed part of the theme song to the 1959 animated series Clutch Cargo, and said, "I still see the X!" (a reference to the last episode of that show, which is sometimes misheard as "I stole CBS.") He also feigned defecation (complaining of his piles), claiming that he had "made a giant masterpiece for all the Greatest World Newspaper nerds" (WGN's call letters stand for "World's Greatest Newspaper"), and put a knitted glove on one hand while commenting that it was dirty and his brother "had the other one".[1][11][8] After a crude jump cut, the main figure appeared mostly offscreen to the left with his partially exposed buttocks visible from the side, with a female figure wearing a French maid costume and what appears to be a mask appearing on the right edge of the frame. The (unworn) Max Headroom mask was briefly held in view while the voice cried out, "Oh no, they're coming to get me! Ah, make it stop!" and the female figure began spanking "Max" with a flyswatter.[8] The image faded briefly into static, and then viewers were returned to the Doctor Who broadcast after a total interruption of about 90 seconds.[8][11] Technicians at WTTW's studios could not counteract the signal takeover because there were no engineers on duty at that hour at the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower), where the station's broadcast tower was located. According to station spokesman Anders Yocom, technicians monitoring the transmission from WTTW headquarters "attempted to take corrective measures, but couldn't".[16] Air director Paul Rizzo recalled that "as the content got weirder we got increasingly stressed out about our inability to do anything about it".[6] The pirate broadcast ended when the hijackers unilaterally ended their transmission. "By the time our people began looking into what was going on, it was over," said Yocom.[12] WTTW received numerous phone calls from viewers who wondered what had occurred.[17] MethodsThe broadcast intrusion was achieved by sending a more powerful microwave transmission to the stations' broadcast towers than the stations were sending themselves, triggering a capture effect. Experts have said that the stunt required extensive technical expertise and a significant amount of transmitting power, and that the pirate broadcast likely originated from somewhere in the line of sight of both stations' broadcast towers, which were atop two tall buildings in downtown Chicago.[12] While the prank was difficult to accomplish in 1987, it became almost impossible to replicate after American television stations switched from analog to digital signals in 2009.[9] InvestigationsNo one has ever claimed responsibility for the stunt. Speculation about the identities of "Max" and his co-conspirators has centered on the theories that the prank was either an inside job by a disgruntled employee (or former employee) of WGN or was carried out by members of Chicago's underground hacker community. However, despite an official law enforcement investigation in the immediate aftermath of the incident and many unofficial investigations, inquiries, and online speculation in the ensuing decades, the identities and motives of the hijackers remain a mystery.[6][7][8][9][18][excessive citations] Soon after the intrusion, an FCC official was quoted in news reporting that the perpetrators faced a maximum fine of $100,000 and up to a year in prison.[1][12] However, the five-year statute of limitations was surpassed in 1992; as such, the people responsible for the intrusion would no longer face criminal punishment should their identities be revealed.[1] Cultural impactThough the incident only briefly caught the attention of the general public, it has been overtly or subtly referenced in a variety of media over the ensuing decades, with Motherboard claiming that it has been an influential "cyberpunk hacking trope".[9] The first reference came soon after the initial events when WMAQ-TV, another Chicago TV station, humorously inserted clips of the hijacking into a newscast during Mark Giangreco's sports highlights. "A lot of people thought it was real – the pirate cutting into our broadcast. We got all kinds of calls about it," said Giangreco.[19] In the season 3 episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast titled Freakshow, a broadcast intruder, who goes by the name of Commander Andy (played by Andy Merrill), constantly interrupts the feed while Space Ghost (voiced by George Lowe) tries to conduct his interview. The episode itself pokes fun of pirate hijackings on television, and while Moltar (voiced by C. Martin Croker) is trying to cancel the intrusion to get the show back to normal, a brief clip of the Max Headroom Incident is shown on his monitor. YOTA Month: Listen out for GB25YOTOYoungsters on the Air (YOTA) Month officially begins on Monday, 1 December 2025. Listen out for special event station GB25YOTA throughout the month as young radio amateurs get on the amateur bands. Sandringham School and the 2nd Marlborough Scout Group start the event on Wednesday, 3 December 2025. On Friday, 5 December 2025, Bracknell Amateur Radio Club will host GB25YOTA, as well as Jon, M0NOJ who will be operating later in the afternoon. Cambridge University Wireless Society will be hosting the call sign on both Friday and Saturday. Also on Saturday, 6 December 2025, you’ll be able to work South Durham Radio Club who are active using the GB25YOTA. Looking forward to Sunday, 7 December 2025, listen out for the 2nd Marlborough Scouts and Cray Valley Radio Society. Details of operating times, bands and modes can be found on the YOTA Month web page. Take the time to encourage a young radio amateur by having a QSO with them. LIVE YouTube Telethon to Support ARRL Teachers Institute on Wireless TechnologyDon’t miss it! The annual YouTube telethon to raise money for the ARRL Teachers Institute on Wireless Technology will be held on Saturday, November 29, 2025, beginning at 3 PM EST / 12 PM PST, on the Ham Radio Crash Course YouTube channel, hosted by Josh Nass, KI6NAZ. Join Nass and several other amateur radio contributors for a fun and entertaining livestream. They’ll cover a variety of amateur radio topics and technology. ARRL Director of Education and Learning Steve Goodgame, K5ATA, will discuss the impact of the Teachers Institute on the educators who have attended the professional development sessions, and how they carry the experience back to their schools to inspire students every day. Use the following link to visit the YouTube page and set a reminder for Saturday’s livestream: www.arrl.org/telethon. The ARRL Teachers Institute on Wireless Technology is a donor-funded program designed to help classroom teachers elevate their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) programs through the use of wireless technology. Last year’s telethon raised over $41,000 for Teachers Institute. There were 14 sessions held throughout 2025, with even more planned for 2026.
WEEKEND EDITION: I am going to download and install FREEDV, and give it a whirl today on 20 meters. A new digital voice mode, I tried it at the club the other day and was impressed. FreeDV is a suite of digital voice modes for HF radio. Our flagship mode is the Radio Autoencoder (RADE). You can run RADE using a free GUI application for Windows, Linux and macOS that allows any SSB radio to be used for high quality digital voice. Why FreeDV?Amateur Radio is transitioning from analog to digital, much as it transitioned from AM to SSB in the 1950s and 1960s. How would you feel if one or two companies owned the patents for SSB, then forced you to use their technology, made it illegal to experiment with or even understand the technology, and insisted you stay locked to it for the next 100 years? That’s exactly what was happening with digital voice. But now, hams are in control of their technology again! FreeDV is unique as it uses 100% Open Source Software, including the speech codec. No secrets, nothing proprietary! FreeDV represents a path for 21st-century Amateur Radio where Hams are free to experiment and innovate rather than a future locked into a single manufacturer’s closed technology. I see a few decent deals at Black Friday HRO in Salem, NH Assistive Radio Tells You What You Can’t SeeWe think of radios as audio devices, but for people who are visually impaired, it can be difficult to tell which channel you are listening to at any given time. [Sncarter] has a family member with vision impairment and built a radio to help her. Unfortunately, it was difficult to replicate, so he decided to try again. The result is an FM radio that provides audible status notifications about power and frequency. Check it out in the video below. This isn’t just some hacked-up commercial radio, but a ground-up design that uses a TEA5767 with an ATMega328 for control. There is an LCD for when someone else might use the radio and an audio amplifier. He built the prototype on a breadboard, but moved the finished product to a PCB. It isn’t just the electronics and the sound that are assistive. The case has raised bosses to help the user find things like the switch and rotary encoder. The Arduino can speak frequency announcements, although the quality of the voice is something he wants to tackle in the next revision. Read more – Hackaday: https://bit.ly/3M4YYU1 THANKSGIVNG DAY EDITION: I am glad I wasn't born an American Indian, they got the shit end of the stick....I remember hunting up in Colebrook, NH forty years ago and stayed at a motel with a bar attached, I will never forget the Indian who came in for a hard drink. The bartender knew him and yelled at him 3.2 beer only for Indians, I thought he was shitting around. He meant it!....
W2PH Radio . . . Offering the best in Classic Rock from the Space Coast in FloridaWe are a premier internet radio station featuring Classic Rock/Oldies 24/7 streaming in 192k HD Stereo along with scheduled programs on Amateur Radio To listen to W2PH Radio, click on the right triangle in the music player below. LIVE YouTube Telethon to Support ARRL Teachers Institute on Wireless TechnologyDon’t miss it! The annual YouTube telethon to raise money for the ARRL Teachers Institute on Wireless Technology will be held on Saturday, November 29, 2025, beginning at 3 PM EST / 12 PM PST, on the Ham Radio Crash Course YouTube channel, hosted by Josh Nass, KI6NAZ. Join Nass and several other amateur radio contributors for a fun and entertaining livestream. They’ll cover a variety of amateur radio topics and technology. ARRL Director of Education and Learning Steve Goodgame, K5ATA, will discuss the impact of the Teachers Institute on the educators who have attended the professional development sessions, and how they carry the experience back to their schools to inspire students every day. Use the following link to visit the YouTube page and set a reminder for Saturday’s livestream: www.arrl.org/telethon. The ARRL Teachers Institute on Wireless Technology is a donor-funded program designed to help classroom teachers elevate their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) programs through the use of wireless technology. Last year’s telethon raised over $41,000 for Teachers Institute. There were 14 sessions held throughout 2025, with even more planned for 2026. WEDNESDAY EDITION: My favorite holiday of the year tomorrow, family, friends and a great meal. Both of my sons live within a few miles of us which makes it even nicer, no travel time!...Going over the club this morning and will try to get to the Yaesu FL7000 amplifier, I wouldn't mind having a no tune solid state amp that runs on 110 myself, hmmmmm..... Inside a Germanium Transistor
The first transistors were point contact devices, not far from the cats-whiskers of early radio receivers. They were fragile and expensive, and their performance was not very high. The transistor which brought the devices to a mass audience through the 1950s and 1960s was the one which followed, the alloy diffusion type. [Play With Junk] has a failed OC71 PNP alloy diffusion transistor, first introduced in 1957, and has cracked it open for a closer look. Inside the glass tube is a small wafer of germanium crystal, surrounded by silicone grease. It forms the N-type base of the device, with the collector and emitter being small indium beads fused into the germanium. The junctions were formed by the resulting region of germanium/indium alloy. The outside of the tube is pained black because the device is light-sensitive, indeed a version of this transistor without the paint was sold as the OCP71 phototransistor. These devices were leaky and noisy, with a low maximum frequency and low gain. But they were reliable and eventually affordable, so some of us even cut our electronic teeth on them. Meshtastic: A Tale of Two Cities
If I’m honest with myself, I don’t really need access to an off-grid, fault-tolerant, mesh network like Meshtastic. The weather here in New Jersey isn’t quite so dynamic that there’s any great chance the local infrastructure will be knocked offline, and while I do value my privacy as much as any other self-respecting hacker, there’s nothing in my chats that’s sensitive enough that it needs to be done off the Internet. But damn it, do I want it. The idea that everyday citizens of all walks of life are organizing and building out their own communications network with DIY hardware and open source software is incredibly exciting to me. It’s like the best parts of a cyberpunk novel, without all the cybernetic implants, pollution, and over-reaching megacorps. Well, we’ve got those last two, but you know what I mean. Even though I found the Meshtastic concept appealing, my seemingly infinite backlog of projects kept me from getting involved until relatively recently. It wasn’t until I got my hands on the Hacker Pager that my passing interest turned into a full blown obsession. But it’s perhaps not for the reason you might think. Traveling around to different East Coast events with the device in my bag, it would happily chirp away when within range of Philadelphia or New York, but then fall silent again once I got home. While I’d get the occasional notification of a nearby node, my area had nothing like the robust and active mesh networks found in those cities. Well, they say you should be the change you want to see in the world, so I decided to do something about it. Obviously I wouldn’t be able to build up an entire network by myself, but I figured that if I started standing up some nodes, others might notice and follow suit. It was around this time that Seeed Studio introduced the SenseCAP Solar node, which looked like a good way to get started. So I bought two of them with the idea of putting one on my house and the other on my parent’s place down the shore. The results weren’t quite what I expected, but it’s certainly been an interesting experience so far, and today I’m even more eager to build up the mesh than I was in the beginning. Starting on Easy ModeI didn’t make a conscious decision to start my experiment at my parent’s house. Indeed, located some 60 miles (96 km) from where I live, any progress in building out a mesh network over there wouldn’t benefit me back home. But it was the beginning of summer, they have a pool, and my daughters love to swim. As such, we spent nearly every weekend there which gave me plenty of time to tinker. For those unfamiliar with New Jersey’s Southern Shore area, the coastline itself is dotted with vacation spots such as Wildwood, Atlantic City, and Long Beach Island. This is where the tourists go to enjoy the beaches, boardwalks, cotton candy, and expensive rental homes. But move slightly inland, and you’ll find a marshland permeated with a vast network of bays, creeks, and tributaries. For each body of water large enough to get a boat through, you’ll find a small town or even an unincorporated community that in the early 1900s would have been bustling with oyster houses and hunting shacks, but today might only be notable for having their own Wawa. My parents are in one of those towns that doesn’t have a Wawa. Its very quiet, the skies are dark, and there’s not much more than marsh and water all around. So when I ran the SenseCAP Solar up their 20 foot (6 m) flagpole, which in a former life was actually the mast from a sailing catamaran, the results were extremely impressive. I hadn’t had the radio up for more than a few hours before my phone pinged with a message. We chatted back and forth a bit, and I found that my new mesh friend was an amateur radio operator living on Long Beach Island, and that he too had just recently started experimenting with Meshtastic. He was also, incidentally, a fan of Hackaday. (Hi, Leon!) He mentioned that his setup was no more advanced than an ESP32 dev board sitting in his window, and yet we were reliably communicating at a range of approximately 6 miles (9 km). Encouraged, I decided to leave the radio online all night. In the morning, I was shocked to find it had picked up more than a dozen new nodes. Incredibly, it was even able to sniff out a few nodes that I recognized from Philadelphia, 50 miles (80 km) to the west. I started to wonder if it was possible that I might actually be able to reach my own home, potentially establishing a link clear across the state. Later that day, somebody on an airplane fired off a few messages on the way out of Philadelphia International Airport. Seeing the messages was exciting enough, but through the magic of mesh networking, it allowed my node to temporarily see networks at an even greater distance. I picked up one node that was more than 100 miles (160 km) away in Aberdeen, Maryland. I was exhilarated by these results, and eager to get back home and install the second SenseCAP Solar node installed. If these were the kind of results I was getting in the middle of nowhere, surely I’d make even more contacts in a dense urban area. Reality Comes Crashing HomeYou see, at this point I had convinced myself that the reason I wasn’t getting any results back at home was the relatively meager antenna built into the Hacker Pager. Now that I had a proper node with an antenna bigger than my pinkie finger, I was sure I’d get better results. Especially since I’d be placing the radio even higher this time — with a military surplus fiberglass mast clamped into the old TV antenna mount on my three story house, the node would be around 40 feet (12 m) above the ground. But when I opened the Meshtastic app the day after getting my home node installed, I was greeted with….nothing. Not a single node was detected in a 24 hour period. This seemed very odd given my experience down the shore, but I brushed it off. After all, Meshtastic nodes only occasionally announce their presence when they aren’t actively transmitting. Undaunted, I made plans with a nearby friend to install a node at his place. His home is just 1.2 miles (1.9 km) from mine, and given the 6 mile (9 km) contact I had made down the shore, it seemed like this would be an easy first leg of our fledgling network. Yet when we stood up a temporary node in his front yard, messages between it and my house were only occasionally making it through. Worse, the signal strength displayed in the application was abysmal. It was clear that, even at such a short range, an intermediary node would be necessary to get our homes reliably connected. At this point, I was feeling pretty dejected. The incredible results I got when using Meshtastic in the sticks had clearly given me a false sense of what the technology was capable of in an urban environment. To make matters even worse, some further investigation found that my house was about the worst possible place to try and mount a node. For one thing, until I bothered to look it up, I never realized my house was located in a small valley. According to online line-of-sight tools, I’m essentially at the bottom of a bowl. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I noted that the Meshtastic application was showing an inordinate number of bad packets. After consulting with those more experienced with the project, I now know this to be an indicator of a noisy RF environment. Which may also explain the exceptionally poor reception I get when trying to fly my FPV drone around the neighborhood, but that’s a story for another day. A More Pragmatic ApproachWhile I was disappointed that I couldn’t replicate my seaside Meshtastic successes at home, I’m not discouraged. I’ve learned a great deal about the technology, especially its limitations. Besides, the solution is simple enough — we need more nodes, and so the campaign to get nearby friends and family interested in the project has begun. We’ve already found another person in a geographically strategic position who’s willing to host a node on their roof, and as I write this a third Seeed SenseCAP Solar sits ready for installation. At the same time, the performance of Meshtastic in a more rural setting has inspired me to push further in that region. I’m in the process of designing a custom node specifically tailored for the harsh marine environment, and have identified several potential locations where I can deploy them in the Spring. With just a handful of well-placed nodes, I believe it should be possible to cover literally hundreds of square miles. I’m now fighting a battle on two fronts, but thankfully, I’m not alone. In the months since I’ve started this project, I’ve noticed a steady uptick in the number of detected nodes. Even here at home, I’ve finally started to pick up some chatter from nearby nodes. There’s no denying it, the mesh is growing everyday. My advice to anyone looking to get into Meshtastic is simple. Whether you’re in the boonies, or stuck in the middle of a metropolis, pick up some compatible hardware, mount it as high as you can manage, and wait. It might not happen overnight, but eventually your device is going to ping with that first message — and that’s when the real obsession starts.
TUESDAY EDITION: The 121 best Amazon Black Friday tech and gadget deals (updated)..... In 2019, Rodolfo Novak sent a Bitcoin transaction from Toronto to Michigan without internet or satellite. He used a ham radio, the 40-meter band, and the ionosphere as his relay. Nick Szabo called it "Bitcoin sent over national border without internet or satellite, just nature's ionosphere." The transaction was tiny, the setup finicky, and the use case borderline absurd. Yet, it proved something: the protocol doesn't care what carries its packets. Tor represents the middle ground between the regular internet and exotic radio. Since Bitcoin Core 0.12, nodes automatically start a hidden service if a local Tor daemon is running, accepting connections via .onion addresses even when ISPs block known Bitcoin ports. Ham radio sits at the far end of the spectrum. Beyond Novak's ionosphere experiment, operators have relayed Lightning payments via amateur radio frequencies. These tests involve manually encoding transactions, transmitting them over HF bands using protocols like JS8Call, then decoding and rebroadcasting on the other side. LINK FUNcube-1 Celebrates 12th Birthday
On November 21, 2013 FUNcube-1 (AO-73) was launched from the Yasny launch base located in the Orenburg Region, Russia on a Dnepr Launch Vehicle into a 600 km, 97.8º inclination sun-synchronous orbit. The satellite is a 1U cubesat featuring an SDR receiver, transponder, and telemetry system all of which continue to function for amateur operators today. Hams can interact with AO-73 on the following frequencies:
Source: AMSAT Amateur Radio Daily – Read More MONDAY EDITION: Whew, the Patriots just squaled by on Sunday. it shows how fragile the team is in depth and experience. The goal line offense needs a lot of work!.....BC lost, now 1-10 record...... Earhart Search Records DeclassifiedIt has been 88 years since Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan disappeared over the South Pacific. But until now the records of the search have remained classified. In September, President Donald Trump ordered the details of the 1937 disappearance declassified, making them available from the National Archives. The files consist of photostats and copies of photostats of records relating to plans for the around-the-world flight, including a letter written by Earhart to President Franklin Roosevelt, where she outlines her proposed route and notes she will need to refuel over the Pacific. Earhart was friends with the Roosevelts, in particular Eleanor, the first lady. On one occasion, the pair ducked out of a state dinner to go flying—both dressed in evening gowns. In the letter dated November 10, 1936, Earhart describes the airplane she has obtained through Purdue University. The purpose of the letter was to ask the president to use his influence to gain the cooperation of the U.S. Navy during her flight. …the last “authentic” transmission for Earhart, according to the report, came at 0855: “Heading north and south.” In the days that followed, there were reports of ham radio operators on the West Coast and as far inland as Montana picking up radio transmissions allegedly from the Lockheed Electra. Some were more credible than others—one received by the HMS Achilles 225 miles north-northwest of Howland was reported as “Putnam __ fly kite,” which was encouraging because part of the safety equipment aboard the Lockheed was a bright orange box kit with a special antenna to boost radio signals. The radio calls were scrutinized and if found credible, search crews were sent to the area. The Lockheed company was skeptical of the reports that stated the airplane was in the water, as although the aircraft was designed to float with empty fuel tanks, provided they were not compromised, the aircraft’s normal radio power supply would not work if the airplane was in the water. Read more – Flying Magazine: https://bit.ly/4ifDhwF Space mystery: Amateur radio sleuth detects secret signals from SpaceX military satellitesWhen space enthusiasts set up antennas in their back gardens, they usually expect to pick up signals from known weather satellites or maybe track the International Space Station as it sweeps across the night sky. What they don’t expect is to stumble upon radio messages from a classified U.S. government fleet quietly circling Earth. But that’s exactly what has happened – and the discovery has begun causing a stir across the scientific community. Unexpected transmissions spotted – and no one is explaining whyScott Tilley, a Canadian amateur known for rediscovering a NASA satellite once thought lost, was scanning frequencies recently when he noticed something strange – a radio signal where there simply shouldn’t have been one. A quiet patch of spectrum, normally reserved for Earth-to-satellite communication, was suddenly alive with traffic coming the other way — from orbit down to us. “I was surprised
to hear anything at
all,” he told fellow
observers. The signals traced back to Starshield, a covert branch of SpaceX’s satellite empire designed exclusively for U.S. governmental and military use – a cousin to the much larger, civilian Starlink network. Over 170 satellites appear to be transmitting in this off-limits band. Even more worryingly, they’ve been doing it routinely, not by accident or during testing. Why are these satellites talking on forbidden frequencies?International rules are strict when it comes to satellite radio use. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) – a United Nations agency – assigns each frequency for a specific purpose. Starshield’s activity doesn’t match the permissions on record. Experts say that’s not a trivial oversight. Radio astronomer Benjamin Winkel, speaking to Live Science, confirmed the transmissions are not authorised for this direction of communication — a potential violation that raises both regulatory and technical concerns. So why use this band?
Kevin Gifford of the University of Colorado noted that, so far, no harmful interference has been publicly recorded. But if such a large constellation keeps transmitting this way, the risk will grow: thousands of devices in orbit are already jostling for clean signal space. HAMS YOU MIGHT KNOW- ALIVE AND SK K1TP-
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