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TUESDAY EDITION: I purchased the 3600 Jackery backup system for my house, $1700. In theory it will power my house heating system and refrigerator for days during an outage.  I still have the gas generator but its getting old starting it up outside in a storm, this is just sitting in the basement safe and sound ready to go..

Self-Repairing Conductive Material from Liquid Metal

PCB circuits are cool, but you know what is cooler? Terminator circuits that’s what! And what if the same material that makes Terminator circuits could also be used for smart heat sinks, flexible circuits, and self-healing material properties? Well, that is exactly what the lab at Virginia Tech’s VT MADE Lab has created, presented by Joel from [3DPrintingNerd].

So what does a Terminator circuit actually entail? Well, just like in Terminator 2, the circuits are made of liquid metal. Specifically, small drops of liquid metal alloy made of gallium and indium. These drops are contained within a matrix of PDMS polymer, which contains the magical liquid for conductivity, thermal and electrical . This makes a flexible and stretchy composite which can even self-repair when punctured or cut by bridging the broken circuit with the liquid alloy. 

Little “bubbles” of liquid alloy form a composite that will pop when applied over a threshold of force or puncture.

Having a polymer matrix allows this self-repairing property but also makes the material insulating by default, only allowing current to flow after selectively “popping” the matrix bubbles.

To create something with the composite material, you’ll find it similar to many other resin-based materials. You can pour, mold, and even 3d print a custom geometry. A short bake later and you get a solidified model made for whatever custom flexible circuitry you have in mind.

While this process requires chemicals, polymerization reactions, and a taste for liquid alloys, that shouldn’t stop you from trying out flexible electronics. For a more hands on method to flexible electronics check out this glove with circuits running throughout!

Another ISS SSTV Event Begins This Week

ARISS has announced an upcoming SSTV event transmitted from the International Space Station (ISS) beginning on October 22nd and continuing through October 25th. This is SSTV Series 34 and will feature images of ARISS hardware.

Dates
October 22 through October 25

Mode
Robot 36

Frequency
437.500 MHz +/- Doppler shift

Received images may be submitted to the ARISS SSTV

 

The pico balloon has not transmitted in a day...oops, is the tx dead, a solar panel malfunction, or did the balloon go down?????

MONDAY EDITION: So many questions and no answers, This morning I am going to show the High School kids how to solder the tx board to the pico board so they can get ready to launch number 2 and 3 balloons.

 HAARP to be Active for INFUSE-II and DUST-III Rocket Sounding Missions

The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) will be conducting a research campaign October 20-24 UTC, with operating times specified in the table below. Operating frequencies will vary, but all HAARP transmissions will be between 2.8 MHz and 10 MHz. Actual transmit days and times are highly variable based on real-time ionospheric and/or geomagnetic conditions. All information is subject to change.

These transmissions are being conducted in support of the INFUSE-II and DUST-III sounding rocket missions launching from Poker Flat Research Range, located north of Fairbanks, AK. INFUSE-II will test a new type of ultraviolet imager for use on future space telescopes, while DUST-III will carry a miniature laboratory into space to study how tiny grains of space dust form and grow.

For more information on both missions, consult the UAF Geophysical Institute’s webpage for the upcoming launches: https://www.gi.alaska.edu/news/stellar-insights. The rocket launches will be livestreamed on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/@pokerflatrr.

Note that due to the need to make real-time schedule adjustments based on ionospheric conditions and to coordinate with the rocket launch teams, no frequencies are specified in the table below. The included transmission notice supplement contains information on the frequencies HAARP is authorized to transmit. HAARP transmissions will only occur on our authorized frequencies. There are no specific data collection requests from funded investigators, but reception reports are appreciated and may be submitted to our online form at https://haarp.gi.alaska.edu/form/reception-reports.

Oct. 20
0530-0930 UTC

Oct. 21
0530-0930 UTC

Oct. 22
0530-0930 UTC

Oct. 23
0530-0930 UTC

Oct. 24
0530-0930 UTC

For updates on ionospheric conditions in Gakona, please consult ionograms from the HAARP Diagnostic Suite: https://haarp.gi.alaska.edu/diagnostic-suite2

WEEKEND EDITION: it's on the final stretch, fingers still crossed....

Florida Hams Provide Communications Support During Hurricane Isaias

Amateur radio operators from Florida’s Santa Rosa, Nassau, Lake, Pinellas, and Leon Counties played an important role in supporting emergency communications efforts during and following Hurricane Isaias, helping ensure that critical communication capabilities remained available throughout the storm.

In Santa Rosa County, volunteer amateur radio operators staffed the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and the evacuation shelter at the Milton Community Center. These volunteers provided a communications link between the shelter and the EOC, relaying situational updates and maintaining readiness to support emergency communications should traditional systems become unavailable.

Amateur radio operators across the state also supported auxiliary communications efforts, providing additional capabilities to maintain contact with the State Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee if conventional communication networks experienced disruptions.

"While traditional communications systems have become significantly more reliable over the years, amateur radio continues to serve as a dependable auxiliary communications resource," said Arc Thames, W4CPD, Santa Rosa County Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) Program Manager. "When disaster strikes, our volunteers are trained, prepared, and ready to step in wherever we're needed. It's another layer of resiliency that helps protect our communities."

Thames also serves as the ARRL Northern Florida Section Emergency Coordinator and the Amateur Radio Liaison to the Florida Division of Emergency Management, supporting the coordination of amateur radio and auxiliary communications resources statewide.

"During tropical weather events impacting Florida, our Auxiliary Communications team provides volunteer operators to monitor amateur radio communications at the State Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee," Thames explained. "This ensures that if someone is unable to reach emergency officials through traditional means, we have another way to receive and relay critical information. We always hope we're not needed, but we're glad to be there just in case when all else fails." — Thanks to ARRL Northern Florida SEC Arc Thames, W4CPD, for the above

Amateur Radio Newsline Report

NEW FCC RULES FOR SALES OF ELECTRONICS ONLINE

SKEETER/ANCHOR: In our top story this week, the sales of wireless devices in the US in any online marketplace will be getting more complicated under a new FCC requirement that the sellers make the FCC IDs of listed items visible to prospective buyers. One such marketplace, eBay, has already sent out notices ahead of the deadlines in 2027 stating that unless the IDs are displayed, those listings will be blocked from being seen by US customers.

This does not apply to amateur radio equipment. An eBay response to a query from the ARRL assured amateur radio operators and vendors that the online sales platform will not require the display of FCC IDs with listings for ham radio equipment, which is capable of operating only on the authorized amateur radio frequencies. eBay told the ARRL, however, that FCC equipment certification would only be needed for any two-way VHF/UHF radios capable of operating outside of amateur bands.

An FCC ID certifies that any device that emits radio waves -- such as a mobile phone, GMRS, FRS and citizens band radio, laptop, router or business radio -- meets government-set standards for safety, compatibility and emission limits.

(ARRL, FCC, eBAY, VALUE-ADDED RESOURCE)

**

CREW-12 RETURNS TO EARTH FROM SPACE STATION

SKEETER/ANCHOR: The members of SpaceX Crew-12 are back home on Earth from the ISS. Travis Lisk N3ILS tells us what's next.

TRAVIS: In the more than 7 months they were on board the International Space Station, the members of NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 conducted scientific research, logged space walks and had a number of amateur radio contacts with students through ARISS.

On Thursday the 8th of October they returned home, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.
NASA's Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway KJ5NIV, along with the European Space Agency's Sophie Adenot KJ5LTN and Roscosmos' Andrey [PRON: On Dree] Fedyaev [PRON: Fidd YEV] had spent 237 days in space. One of the most notable ARISS contacts took place just days before the astronauts' return: Jack Hathaway spoke to students in Chile on the 28th of September during the first direct contact any school in that nation had with the space station.

Their successors - the members of Crew 13 - include Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney KJ5PPT, Josh Kutryk [PRON: Coo Trick] KJ5PFU of the Canadian Space Agency, and Sergey Teteryatnikov [PRON: Tetter Yet Nick Off] of Roscosmos who have been living and working on the space station since Thursday, Oct. 1.

This is Travis Lisk N3ILS.

(NASA.GOV)

**
NASA, ARISS SIGN NEW 4-YEAR AGREEMENT

SKEETER/ANCHOR: ARISS and the US space agency NASA have announced that they have renewed their partnership for another four years, bringing contact with the International Space Station to students worldwide. ARISS has signed a new agreement with NASA that will run through 2030 -- that makes 30 years of the ISS hosting an amateur radio payload encouraging lessons in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. ARISS released a statement on Friday, October 9th, saying: [quote] "Together we'll continue creating opportunities for students and lifelong learners to connect with space exploration and discover the possibilities of STEM." [endquote]

The ISS is scheduled to be decommissioned by the end of 2030.

(ARISS)

**
MARGARET HAMILTON, APOLLO MISSION PROGRAMMER, DIES

SKEETER/ANCHOR: A pioneering software programmer whose work was key to NASA's Apollo missions has died. We hear about her and her work from Kent Peterson KCØDGY.

KENT: The work of software programmer Margaret Hamilton helped navigate the Apollo 11 space mission toward the reality of the lunar surface. She was a mathematician at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when she applied to join the on-campus software team that was working on the Apollo space project.

She was the first woman to join the team as a programmer, assigned first to develop software for Apollo's uncrewed missions. She was soon promoted to director of software.

MIT's Instrumentation Laboratory was responsible for computers - one in the command module and another which accompanied Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in the Eagle landing module which touched down on the surface of the moon in 1969. Her work would eventually contribute to subsequent lunar missions and to Skylab, the first US space station, and the early space shuttle.

It was her effort on the moon lander, however, that many credited with saving the mission. After the computer's processing unit became overloaded during Eagle's descent, her software ensured that only essential, high-priority functions would be permitted to continue - as a result, the module went forward toward a safe landing.

She later received the Presidential Medal of Freedom among her many honors.

Margaret Hamilton died on September 30th in a Cambridge, Massachusetts hospital. She was 90 years old.

This is Kent Peterson KCØDGY.

(NEW YORK TIMES, MIT NEWS)

**

IN W. VIRGINIA, PICO BALLOONS ARE JUST THE BEGINNING

SKEETER/ANCHOR: A lot will be riding on six pico balloons this month when they are released by students in the Hurricane High School Aerospace Engineering class in West Virginia.

JIM DAMRON: A half-dozen lightweight solar-powered pico balloons are being launched in West Virginia, carrying small transmitters to provide location and telemetry for tracking in WSPR mode on 20 meters. For the six student teams and their teacher, however, the classroom-designed and -built balloons are carrying so much more.

Their ascent skyward bears the accomplishments of the newly licensed young hams and their teacher, Adam Osbourne, KF8HLQ, supported by coaching, FCC license testing and technical assistance from Bob Gibson W8RLG and other members of West Virginia Amateur Radio Club, WV8AR.

The club also provided a rig and 20-meter dipole. The balloons will be tracked using WSJTX running on a laptop.

Adam told Newsline that the project is part of the school's four-course aerospace engineering program. Flight operations, power systems, communications systems, testing and verification are also part of the exercise -- but so is amateur radio.

The balloons are also carrying students and their teacher toward more active ham radio involvement. Adam told Newsline he plans to make use of his General class license and hopes the school will become a great home for a student amateur radio club. Students have built a relationship with the hams in the West Virginia club and now understand that ham radio includes public service and emergency communications too.

Meanwhile, they cross their fingers, hoping that at least one balloon may actually circle the globe. They have already seen that even as ham radio helped them take to the sky, it also does much more to help everyone on the planet below.

This is Jim Damron N8TMW.

**
WEST BENGAL HAMS, OFFICIALS SIGN AGREEMENT FOR DISASTER TRAINING

SKEETER/ANCHOR: An agreement between hams and officials in West Bengal, India, will make is easier for more people to receive intense training in disaster communications, as we hear from Jason Daniels VK2LAW.

JASON: Under a memorandum of understanding signed by the West Bengal Disaster Management and Civil Defence Department and radio amateurs, more people living in remote areas of that Indian state will be trained on how to pass emergency traffic during times of crisis.

The president of the West Bengal Radio Club, Subir Datta, VU3ZSD, called the October 9th signing of the agreement "a proud moment," noting that it officially recognises amateur radio operators as lifesavers.

He told the Indo Asian News Service [quote]: "During natural disasters, hams work as an important link between the wireless sets operated by various agencies. This aids in keeping all teams abreast of developments." [endquote]

The club's secretary, Ambarish Nag Biswas VU2JFA said that the club is known for its effective response during cyclones when the hams are called up by government officials. He said that rescue efforts benefit, especially in remote areas, when emergency traffic can get through. In cooperation with the affiliated Indian Academy of Communication and Disaster Management, the hams have already prepared many civil defence employees for their licensing exams and conducted mock-emergency drills.

Although the West Bengal hams were also prepared to deploy recently after flash flooding devastated the region of Nepal near the Tibet border, he said the Nepalese government did not grant them the necessary permission. Club members did provide essential communication links between agencies in Nepal in April of 2015 after an earthquake struck parts of the country.

This is Jason Daniels VK2LAW.

(INDO ASIAN NEWS SERVICE, THE STATESMAN)

**
APPLICATIONS OPEN SOON FOR QCWA SCHOLARSHIPS

SKEETER/ANCHOR: Amateur radio operators who are students at an accredited college, trade school or university anywhere in the world may be eligible for one of 19 scholarships from the Quarter Century Wireless Association. Each scholarship provides $3,000 toward studies at either the undergraduate or graduate level.

Applicants must have an active amateur radio license.

The QCWA will begin accepting applications on the 31st of October. Additional details are available at www dot qcwa dot org (www.qcwa.org)

(TONY PERALES, AI1U)

**
HAMS RECEIVE HONORS FROM RADIO CLUB OF AMERICA

SKEETER/ANCHOR: A number of amateur radio operators are being honored by the Radio Club of America for the different roles they have played in advancing wireless communication. One recipient is a previous winner of Amateur Radio Newsline's Young Ham of the Year award. Sel Embee KB3TZD tells us who they are.

SEL: Audrey McElroy, KM4BUN, Amateur Radio Newsline's Young Ham of the Year for 2022, is being given the Carole Perry Young Professional Award from the Radio Club of America for her ongoing achievements in her career in the wireless field. In 2021, the RCA recognized her with its Young Achiever Award.

She is among several hams who the RCA will honor next month at a banquet in New York City. Ajay Poddar, AC2KG is receiving the Dr. Arno Penzias Award for Contributions to Basic Research in the Radio Sciences, Charles Kirmuss, WØCBK, is being given the Henri Busignies Memorial Award; Anthony Rizi, NR1Z, is receiving the Frank Gunther Award; Jay Adrick,K8CJY, will receive the Ralph Batcher Memorial Award; and Charles Counselman, W1HIS, will be presented with the Dr. Ulrich Rohde Award for Innovation in Applied Radio Science and Engineering.

The RCA is conferring an honorary Centenarian Award to Henry L. Richter, W6VZA. After a lifetime of pioneering efforts supporting space exploration, he became a Silent Key on the 12th of August at the age of 99.

Finally, the Major Edward H. Armstrong Medal is being given to Andrea Goldsmith, who becomes the first woman to receive this award, which carries the name of the radio pioneer who helped make AM and FM radio possible.

Visit the RCA website to see the names of other award recipients. The link appears in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org

[DO NOT READ: https://radioclubofamerica.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=500767&module_id=805355 ]

This is Sel Embee KB3TZD.

(RADIO CLUB OF AMERICA, AMATEUR NEWS DAILY)

**
WORLD OF DX

In the World of DX, Hans-Martin, DK2HM, is on the air as 3D2HM from Nadi, IOTA Number OC-016, Fiji, through to the 22nd of October. He is using SSB and FT8 on the HF bands.

Listen for Morten, LA9GY, using the callsign 3DA0GY from Piggs Peak, Swaziland, through to the 2nd of November. Morten is operating CW and SSB and will be active on 40-10 metres during the Worked All Germany contest on October 17th and 18th and the CQ WW DX SSB contest on October 24th and 25th.

Kazu, MØCFW is using the callsign 3B9/MØCFW from Rodrigues Island, IOTA Number AF-017, on the 20th through to the 28th of October. Listen for him during the CQ WW DX SSB contest, where he will be using the callsign 3B9KW.

In Kathmandu, Nepal, Jan, DL4XT, will be active as 9N7XT from the 23rd through to the 31st of October. He will be on various HF bands using CW, SSB and FT8.

(425 DX BULLETIN)

**
KICKER: FINDING CONNECTION IN A NET OF COMPASSION

SKEETER/ANCHOR: There have almost always been words to thank hams for the kinds of service they provide - emergency communication in a disaster; public safety at community events or Elmering hopeful new radio operators. There are only a few words for the solace one ham can give at a time of tragedy -- and Jim Davis W2JKD shares them now in our final story.

JIM DAVIS: The weekly Four State Net of the Antietam Radio Association went suddenly quiet during check-ins on the night of May 27th. There was no response from Steve Struharik, WA8EIH, the net control station. Repeated calls to him on the radio -- and then directly to his mobile phone -- went unanswered. Finally, another call was made, this time to the sheriff's office near Steve's Myersville, Maryland home, asking that someone visit the house to check on him.

Meanwhile, Peter Nowinski, W3LIX, left his shack in Pennsylvania and made the drive to Maryland. He arrived 45 minutes later and found the sheriff's deputy at the house. The pair informed Steve's wife, Jean, of their concerns, then went downstairs to the radio shack. They discovered Steve lifeless in his chair.

The Struharik family needed a friend that night - and that friend was Peter.

Joe Maguire, WA1ZZQ, the club's activities chairman, told Newsline that a special service award plaque from Jean Struharik and the couple's two sons, John and Mike, was presented to Peter by the Antietam club at a meeting in August, as everyone recalled that difficult night. Joe said Peter's actions [quote] "epitomize the spirit of friendship and duty that makes amateur radio such a wonderful community." [endquote]

Steve, he said, was at the heart of that community and [quote] "we miss him dearly." [endquote]

FRIDAY DAY EDITION: Track the balloon here....I have a carrying handle and feet for Icom 7300/9700 series brand new, will ship for $26.00..

THURSDAY EDITION: Track the balloon here....

 Handheld Scanner is a Radio Multi-tool

These days, it’s possible to cram a whole lot of radio functionality into a very compact device. A great example of that is the LakeShark scanner from [SAMS0N1TE].

The LakeShark is based on the LilyGO T-Display P4—which combines an ESP32-P4 microcontroller with a 4.1 inch AMOLED touchscreen display. It comes with an onboard SX1262 LoRa radio module as well as GPS and a nine-axis Inertial Measurement Unit to boot. [SAMS0N1TE] then set it up to also hook up to an RTL-SDR Blog V3 or V4, providing all kinds of extra software-defined radio functionality.

It can scan everything from P25 Phase 1 trunking transmissions, to ADS-B, POCSAG, and even good old FM broadcast radio. If you want to listen in on what’s on the air, or see a minimap with tracks of the planes flying overhead, you can do it all with this rig. You can even investigate various bands with waterfall displays or try and look for activity from nearby nRF24 devices.

Ultimately, it’s a bit of a Swiss Army knife for radio fun—able to do all kinds of neat things, and it fits right in your pocket. We’ve featured some other great SDR hacks recently, too, like this $50 build with an impressive 20 MHz of bandwidth. If you’re cooking up your own gear for the ham shack and beyond, let us know on the tipsline.

Latest Amateur Radio News Highlights

Today’s amateur radio news features major awards announcements, new tech tools, and global event updates from ARRL, Amateur Radio Daily, and international societies.

Key Stories

  • Radio Club of America 2026 Awards – The RCA has announced its 2026 award recipients and new Fellows, including Dr. Andrea Goldsmith, the first female Armstrong Medal recipient, and Dr. Ajay Poddar for contributions to basic radio research. The awards ceremony will be held Nov 21, 2026 at the Westin Times Square in NYC daily.hamweekly.com.

  • APRS Connect for iOS – A new messaging‑first APRS client is now available for iPhone, expanding mobile amateur radio communication options daily.hamweekly.com.

  • ARRL Hurricane Watch Net – The American Radio Relay League is running the Hurricane Watch Net on 14.325 and 7.268 MHz to support radio amateurs during Hurricane Isaias (Category 3) ARRL.

  • ARRL Online Auction – The 21st ARRL Online Auction opens Oct 16, 2026, with over 200 lots including vintage gear, books, and signed items www.radioamateur.today.

  • Global Society Updates –

How to Follow Daily

Tip: For the most up‑to‑date coverage, check Amateur Radio Daily’s “Recent News” page and ARRL’s “News” section daily, then supplement with Radioamateur.today for international perspectives.

WEDNESDAY EDITION: Good day with the students, they worked on soldering on the GPS and the 20 meter dipole, programmed the pico board and it fired right up transmitting. They started inflating the Mylar balloon with an aquarium pump to test for leaks. It will take all day to inflate the balloon with the kids checking on it during the day. We will leave it inflated with air for a few days to make sure it doesn't leak before deflating and adding the helium...

NEW RULE: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) updated its radio and equipment rules, effective October 13, 2026, enforcing new FCC Identification (ID) requirements and component restrictions for certified equipment models.

Key Details of the New Rule

• Equipment Authorization & Restrictions: Devices can now fail authorization if a component producer is listed on the FCC's covered list.
• No Post-Approval Modifications: Any modification to a device after it receives type acceptance or an FCC ID will automatically disqualify that acceptance.
• Marketplace Compliance Deadlines:
 • March 1, 2027: First FCC ID display compliance date for marketplaces with title or physical access.
 • June 1, 2027: Compliance deadline for third-party marketplace listings.
• Existing Operating Rules: On-air identification rules, call sign intervals, and operating rules for current radio services remain unchanged.

After Decades, NASA May Finally Replace Mars Relays

We’ve yet to find any definitive evidence that there’s biological life on present-day Mars, but to say it’s a dead planet isn’t exactly accurate. Since the first Viking lander touched down in 1976, a revolving cast of humanity’s robotic envoys have worked on and around the Red Planet — and as access to space becomes cheaper and more routine, the mechatronic population of Mars will continue to grow.

Given the number of landers, rovers, and orbiting spacecraft that have been sent to study Mars over the last 50 years, you might be surprised to find that the communications systems in place to transmit all that critical scientific data back to Earth aren’t nearly as robust as you’d think. While it’s understandable that the first craft to arrive at Mars had to operate in isolation, even the flagship Perseverance and Curiosity rovers carry their own high-gain radio systems so they can communicate directly with Earth. Given the incredible premium put on the mass of an interplanetary craft, each mission that needs to bring along its own link back to Earth effectively reduces its payload of much scientific equipment.

It’s not that satellites in orbit around the planet aren’t used to relay signals between Martian ground assets and their controllers back on Earth. In fact these relay links are used extensively for bandwidth-intensive tasks such as image transfers. But it’s also true that the craft currently available to act as intermediaries between the two planets aren’t terribly well suited to the task. The current fleet of Mars orbiters were conceived primary as research vehicles, and so every decision regarding their design and positioning around the planet was made with that goal in mind. What relatively limited capability they do have as communication relays is further hindered by the age of their hardware.

But after decades of false starts and shifting budgets, NASA is closer than ever to finally establishing the Mars Telecommunications Network, a dedicated high-bandwidth communication relay that will ensure current and future missions always have a way to phone home.

The Fragile Mars Relay Network

Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently make up what’s known as the Mars Relay Network (MRN). The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft was also part of the MRN, but communication was lost with the vehicle in December of 2025 and as of this summer NASA officially declared the mission over.

The MRN has been absolutely invaluable for many high profile missions, and there’s an excellent chance nearly every picture you’ve ever seen of the Martian surface was at one point routed through it on its way back to Earth. But for the spacecraft that comprise the MRN, shuttling bits across the black is more of a part-time job. Their individual primary missions are scientific in nature, and it shows.

Consider the Mars Express. Launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, it’s primary mission goals included releasing a small rover, analyzing the Martian atmosphere, and studying the planet’s closest moon, Phobos. To accomplish these tasks and to reduce the amount of propellant needed, the ESA put Mars Express into a highly elliptical orbit that sees the spacecraft swoop down to within 300 kilometers (185 miles) of the surface before heading back out to a distance of 10,000 km (6200 miles). Unfortunately, the rotation of Mars in combination with this exaggerated orbit means that rovers on the surface can’t maintain a consistent link to the vehicle, and as such its usefulness as a communications relay is limited to relatively narrow windows.

But in 2026, the real problem with the MRN is how old its constituent members are. MAVEN had already been flying for 12 years when it went offline, but that’s nothing compared to its peers. Mars Express has been on the job for 23 years, while Mars Odyssey has been in orbit for an incredible 25 years. Even the baby of the group, ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, was launched over a decade ago.

Those are very impressive durations for missions of this type, so much so that Mars Express and Mars Odyssey are the two oldest operational spacecraft in orbit around a planet other than Earth. While their continued operation is a testament to the engineering that went into them, the Mars Relay Network has more than earned its retirement.

An Overdue Upgrade

Given their age, it’s not as if there’s any disagreement about whether or not the spacecraft of the MRN are due for a replacement. Similarly, few would deny the operational benefit of a dedicated communications relay in orbit over Mars. Unsurprisingly, discussions on both points have been going on since the early 2000s.

Mars Telecommunications Orbiter, circa 2005.

NASA’s original plan for what they called the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MTO) would have put the spacecraft in orbit around the Red Planet back in 2010. The design concept for the vehicle called for two X-band transmitters and two Ka-band radios, in addition to an experimental laser communication system that could return data to Earth at an unprecedented rate.

Unfortunately, the MTO concept was cancelled just a few years after its inception as NASA needed to allocate the money towards other missions such as the final servicing mission for Hubble and the then in development Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission which would go on to deliver Curiosity to the surface in 2012.

The general idea has been floating around ever since, being reintroduced in budget discussions every few years. Each proposal has failed to gain the necessary support, in part due to the vague nature of the mission. Usually when NASA or the ESA spends hundreds of millions of dollars to send a spacecraft to Mars, it has a long list of science objectives to justify the price tag. But a communications relay that carries few if any secondary science payloads is a harder sell.

Sample Return Consolation Prize

Given all the false starts the project has had over the last two decades, it’s somewhat ironic that the only reason the space agency is able to allocate significant funds for the mission now is because of the collapse of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) initiative. A budget reconciliation package passed by Congress in July of 2025 allocated $700 million to revive the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter program, but stipulated it had to be built by one of the commercial companies that had contributed towards the MSR mission, and that it should be ready to launch by 2028.

In May of this year NASA put out a request for proposals to build what it was now calling the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MTN), and earlier this month they awarded Blue Origin with a fixed-price contract to develop, build, launch, and operate the spacecraft.

As with previous incarnations of the MTO, Blue Origin’s spacecraft will provide a high-bandwidth link back to Earth which can be utilized by multiple current and future Mars missions. The vehicle itself will feature a number of ports which can mount scientific instruments, deployable sub-relays, or potentially even a lander. Technically the contract only requires that the orbiter be capable of carrying a 20 kilogram science payload, but presumably Blue Origin has expanded on that idea so they can offer Martian “rideshare” opportunities for other companies while still achieving NASA’s stated design requirements.

Given how quickly all of this is coming together, there’s still not a lot of public information on Blue Origin’s spacecraft. But  we can glean a few interesting technical details from NASA’s original proposal request, such as the requirement that the relay must offer at least one terabyte of non-volatile store-and-forward capability, and should be able to achieve a 150 Mbps link from Mars to Earth.

Interestingly, despite the impressive demonstration of the Artemis II Optical Communications System (O2O) earlier this year, NASA specifically noted that support for optical communication was not a requirement of the Mars Telecommunications Network contract — though it would consider the feature a bonus should it be included.

Not Everyone is Happy

With the funds guaranteed by federal mandate and a contractor already building hardware, it seems like the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter is now closer to reality than ever before. But of course, nothing is ever truly guaranteed when it comes to space. Production runs into snags, bugs are discovered in software, and occasionally rockets explode on the launchpad. In addition to this general uncertainty, the revived Mars Telecommunications Orbiter will also have to contend with politics.

Since the announcement that Blue Origin was selected for the MTN contract, Rocket Lab filed a formal protest with the Government Accountability Office. They claim that design presented by Blue Origin is “inconsistent with the eligibility criteria mandated by Congress” and that NASA made incorrect assertions about RocketLab’s own proposal.

Because Rocket Lab is protesting the decision, both NASA and Blue Origin must legally stop all work on the MTN project until the Government Accountability Office can review the selection process and make their determination. This process can last up to 100 days, meaning there might not be a ruling until the end of the year.

Under normal circumstances this might simply be a bureaucratic annoyance, but when it comes to a mission that needs to leave Earth during the periodic Mars launch windows that only come around every 26 months, a lengthy delay could ultimately push the project into the next decade.

TUESDAY EDITION: The ballon is sending data again, we are psyched!...The link to watch is here....

World War I Coded Message Appears Cracked, Finally

When you think of wartime cryptography, you probably think of World War II and Enigma, although there were other famous codes used during that war. But in fact, there have been codes used through wars and in peacetime for much longer. Even the Romans used codes. Of course, World War I, or The Great War, as it would have been known, had its share of codes and, as you might expect, most of these have been broken long ago. Most of them. But apparently an AI model, GPT-6 Astra, recently cracked one that was previously undeciphered.

If you aren’t up on century-old cryptography, the ADFGVX cipher appeared in 1918. It began as ADFGX, but after a few months grew an extra letter — and a larger grid. The letters were chosen because their Morse-code patterns were relatively easy to distinguish: A, D, F, G, V, and X.

The original ADFGX version used a 5×5 grid containing the alphabet, usually merging I and J. The later ADFGVX version expanded this to 6×6, making room for all the letters and the digits as well.

Encoding required a 5×5 (or 6×6) grid with the alphabet within. The table’s rows and columns were labeled… you guessed it… ADFGX pr ADFGVX. Each plaintext letter gets replaced by the corresponding row and column such as AF or XG. Finally, the letter pairs would be written under a transposition key.

Concatenating those pairs gives AGXGDDDXXF. Written in five columns under CANDY, the first row is AGXGD and the second is DDXXF.

Next, you sort the letters in the transposition key, taking the columns along with the letters. That would make the transposition key ACDNY, and the first row would now be GAGXD. Then the message is sent by columns. Too much to wrap your head around? Visit dCode and plug in some plain text, squares, and keywords for yourself.

The French broke the code in 1918, but without computers it was tough work. Codebreaker [Georges Painvin] reportedly worked on the cipher until it made him ill, but he did solve it. However, some of the intercepted messages remained a mystery. One in particular was sent on November 27, 1918. Apparently, the message used the codeword TRUPPENVERSCHIEBUNG, a German key believed to have gone into service in December. If this decoding is correct, then this message used it even earlier.

The message was, of course, in German and appears to be a report about a British ship’s movements near Sevastopol. In fact, HMS Canterbury’s position on the dates mentioned matches the message.

Honestly, we were more impressed that people like [Georges Painvin] in 1918 were able to decode these intercepted messages. But it is still an interesting glimpse into the capabilities of Astra.

It seems that as long as there has been writing, there have been ways to send secret messages. The Swiss in The Great War had their own encryption method.

Blog – Hackaday Read More

 

COLUMBUS DAY WEEKEND: When I was in the B&B business in Rockport, this was the last day of operation for us, 18 rooms booked for three days and we were ready for a good rest...The NE Pats were a treat to watch yesterday as were the Celtics, I am not much of a hockey fan...If weather turns good we will launch another balloon Wednesday or Thursday morning at 9AM with the kids.

Students watching test balloon to see which way wind was blowing before the pico balloon was released.

A Super-Accurate Clock Using a Tiny Microcontroller

DCF77 is a German VLF transmitting station that broadcasts a time signal across Europe on 77.5 kHz. Thus a common sight in a European home is a clock emblazoned with the words “Radio controlled”. With the timing broadcast in a simple and low speed digital format it doesn’t require the greatest of hardware to decode, and a small microcontroller can handle the task with ease. And there are few smaller than an ATtiny as used in [kwolf1909]’s decoder. It takes a DCF77 bitstream from a receiver, and shows the time on an I2C display.

The receiver isn’t part of this project, however a single-frequency longwave receiver is not a difficult thing to build. The interface is a push-button, for which a short press cycles between display modes and a long press triggers a DCF77 reset. It also supports an external temperature sensor and real time clock module, if you’re using an ATtiny with enough pins.

We like this project; it’s simple and does one thing well, and it’s a welcome reminder that not every device needs a powerhouse of a processor. If you’re interested enough to build your own, we’ve featured someone doing a deep dive into the signal before.


 

WEEKEND EDITION: Not much news, just mourning the loss of commuication with the lastest balloon launched...I guess we just wait until the next launch...Nightmare flight forced to divert to New York after 6 restrooms fail midair....

FLOCK: In news that will surprise no one, it turns out that police are only too happy to use automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras—the kind made infamous by Flock—to track ordinary citizens, but are considerably less enthusiastic about citizens using the same technology to track them.While ALPR technology is not new, its use has exploded over the last few years, with Flock at the forefront of both widespread adoption and resultant controversies. There has been story after story about misuse of the data collected by such cameras, whether it’s stalking ex-partners, harassing immigrants, or ruining the lives of completely random people. It’s little surprise, then, that police might be leery of having ALPR devices pointed at them: they know only too well how the data gathered by these devices can be, and is, misused.

This point was demonstrated recently by Canadian software engineer and YouTuber Anthony Sistilli, of Brampton, Ontario, a city that recently spent 2 million Canadian dollars on “high-resolution cameras, along with automated licence plate recognition technology.” A month or so ago, Sistilli built his own ALPR camera and set it up to track the movement of police cars. He posted several videos on TikTok about the camera, explaining how he built it and how it works, describing it as “a personal Flock surveillance camera to Flock the Flockers.”  FULL ARTICLE

EMAIL:

Jon,

Kevin (ham radio QRP) has really outdone himself.  🤣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnuzWiPJNDk

73,

Hollywood 

Amateur Radio Newsline Report

A MILESTONE FOR ARISS IN A CHILE HIGH SCHOOL

NEIL/ANCHOR: It was a milestone for public education in Chile and it lasted exactly 10 minutes: the first direct amateur radio contact between the International Space Station and a public school in that nation. John Williams VK4JJW has the details.

JOHN: It will be a long time before students at the Mary Graham Bicentennial High School forget the lessons delivered to them from space by NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway KJ5NIV, who was using the callsign NA1SS. As the space station passed into visible orbit over Chile, the teenagers read the questions they had prepared to ask on space exploration, technology and microgravity.

The ARISS contact on the 28th of September was a first for a direct contact by a Chilean public school. An ARISS contact made five years ago with two schools in Chile was accomplished with the help of a telebridge with a ground radio station in Belgium.

This recent contact came about with the help of the Los Molinos Radio Club CE2CQ, which had first approached the high school about it in 2025. To prepare for the moment, antennas were installed with automatic tracking rotators for 145.800 MHz. Students attended workshops to learn about the space station and the science behind their hoped-for contact.

Even though the ARISS contact was over quickly, as the ISS moved along in its orbit, one contact was made that is certain to last. Club president Lorenzo Passalacqua CE2LTA said that hams in the Los Molinos club hope to continue working in cooperation with the school to promote the continued study of science and satellites.

This is John Williams VK4JJW.

(QRZ.COM FORUMS, ARISS)

**
AMATEUR HONORED AS 'FRIEND OF BROADCASTERS'

NEIL/ANCHOR: Vermont broadcasters are getting ready to honor one longtime radio operator who's had one foot in professional radio and another in amateur radio for much of his life. Jack Parker W8ISH tells us about him.

JACK: Congratulations to Bob Shotwell, WA1KUZ, who is receiving the "Friend of Broadcasters" award from the Vermont Association of Broadcasters. Bob undertook a number of roles in his long career as a broadcast engineer, including with Spectrum Investigative Services in New England, the company he retired from in 2023.

Spectrum investigated RFI issues with the goal of resolving them and under Bob's direction, advocated for broadcasters to engage in a voluntary inspection process ensuring FCC compliance. According to a report on the Radio World website, he was instrumental in the eventual establishment of the Alternative Broadcast Inspection Program, a voluntary technical review supported by broadcast associations in many states. According to his page on QRZ.com, he inspected more than 2500 radio and television stations for legal and technical compliance before retiring.

Bob will be among those honored in November 14th at a ceremony in Burlington, Vermont, where the association will also induct three new Hall of Fame members.

Bob has been a licensed ham since 1969 and has retained his original callsign.

This is Jack Parker W8ISH.

(RADIO WORLD, QRZ.COM)

**
HISTORIC TRANSMITTER SENDS MESSAGE OF PEACE

NEIL/ANCHOR: Now here's a message you don't want to miss. Its words will be sent via a transmitter that is more than a century old and the sentiment they convey is timeless. Dave Lee M9TLB explains what's happening.

DAVE: When United Nations Day is marked on the 24th of October, a radio message will go out to the world via a VLF frequency from Sweden. Inside the Grimeton Radio Station, the historic Alexanderson alternator will be tuned to 17.2 kHz where, using the callsign SAQ, it will transmit, in CW, words promoting "peace, unity and global partnerships."

Visitors to the radio station will experience the moment in person; others around the world can watch it live on the YouTube channel of the Alexander SAQ Grimeton Friendship Association. The time will be 12:20 UTC on the 24th of October. You can also visit the channel to see and hear last year's transmission. Find the link in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org

The radio station operates the world's only transatlantic transmitter from the pre-electronic age. It was classified as a World Heritage Site in 2004 by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

This is Dave Lee M9TLB.

[DO NOT READ: youtube.com/channel/UC-83S-l9JKD1iuhsXx3XQ3g ]

(ALEXANDER SAQ GRIMETON FRIENDSHIP ASSOCIATION, YOUTUBE)

**
ARGENTINIAN HAMS ORGANIZE TRIBUTE TO SILENT KEY

NEIL/ANCHOR: Friends and fellow club members in Argentina will be calling CQ to honor the memory of one of their own, who became a Silent Key this year. We have the details from Jim Meachen ZL2BHF.

JIM: The well-known radio amateur, Carlos Almirón, LU7DSY, was a founding member of the Radio Club Grupo DX Bahia Blanca, where he is fondly remembered. The international community outside the ham radio world knew him as a high-profile TV and radio journalist in Argentina and a correspondent who had filed reports during the Falklands war.

The DXer and DXpeditioner became a Silent Key last March at the age of 79 but the legacy he leaves continues to inspire his friends.

The Bahia Blanca group, LU3DXG, has organized a tribute award in his name from the 20th of October through to the 3rd of November. In a press release, the club states that the event's purpose is to encourage stations throughout the Americas and Europe to remember [quote] "his career, his commitment to amateur radio and the bonds he built with fellow radio amateurs from different countries." [endquote]

Hams are still registering to participate and there will be special call signs used during the event. Awards will be given in the Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze levels.

To contact the club about the awards or participation, see the link in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org

This is Jim Meachen ZL2BHF.

[DO NOT READ: https://www.grupodxbb.com.ar/contagrupo.html ]

(QRZ.COM)

**
CHICAGO ATTORNEY, EARLY PROPONENT OF GMRS, DIES

NEIL/ANCHOR: An influential and well-respected advocate for the growth of General Mobile Radio Service, or GMRS, has died. We learn about his life and his contributions from Jen DeSalvo, W9TXJ.

JEN: It's likely that the North Shore Emergency Association, a Chicago area GMRS public service group, would not have taken shape in the way it did had it not been for Randy Knowles. A practicing attorney, Randy was also an enthusiastic proponent of GMRS and is said to have held the country's oldest GMRS callsign KAA8142. As a pro-active member of the radio community, he was among those who founded the emergency association in Chicago's north suburbs, where he also established one of the first GMRS repeater systems.

Randy died on the 21st of August as a result of complications from diabetes.

His influence was felt far beyond his home city, however. His name was well-known in Washington, D.C., where he often made pleadings to the US Federal Communications Commission, arguing that the operation of GMRS be allowed to thrive for use by families and communities, despite rising pressures by business interests seeking to establish their own operations on that part of the UHF spectrum. He also fought successfully to keep GMRS licenses affordable.

Randy helped shape the future of GMRS from 1976-78, when he served as a task chairman of the congressionally chartered Personal Use Radio Advisory Committee to FCC. His commitment to radio also extended to his past volunteer service as a police and fire dispatcher and a former radio communications chairman of the North Region Mid America Red Cross Disaster Service.

Randy was 79.

This is Jen DeSalvo W9TXJ.

**
FINAL EVENTS IN 'CHASING CORNWALLIS' CHALLENGE

NEIL/ANCHOR: The activations are winding down in the 2026 Chasing Cornwallis Challenge, a series of six special events that retell America's battle for independence. Travis Lisk N3ILS gives us a quick history lesson.

TRAVIS: In the US, the war for independence isn't over just yet, at least not on the air, so there's still time to experience a little bit of what the battles were like. This time, you can do it with QSOs and QSL cards. Special event station K4M, marking the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780, is currently on the air but goes QRT on Saturday, the 10th of October. Activators will then start preparing for the finale in the fight for independence. Using the callsign K4Y, they will be back on the air for the Battle of Yorktown Special Event on the 18th through to the 20th of October. That final battle marks the surrender of British Army General Charles Cornwallis.

If you've been logging contacts with the Chasing Cornwallis Challenge, you know that working five of the six events, which began in July, earns you a certificate of achievement. Everyone, however, gets a history lesson and you can read more about that on the webpage history dot radio (history.radio). You'll also find a display of activators on the air in real-time, along with their frequencies and modes.

All of that should help you win your own battle, logging as many contacts as you can.

This is Travis Lisk N3ILS.

(HISTORY.RADIO, QRZ.COM)

**
GENERAL ADMISSION EXTENDED FOR ZERO RETRIES CONFERENCE

NEIL/ANCHOR: The Zero Retries Digital Conference takes place on Friday the 16th of October at the Roundhouse Conference Center in San Ramon, California. Organizers are making the general admission ticket price of $125 available until the 12th of October; registration will remain open after that but the late registration ticket price will be $140 and will not include breakfast.

As always, the conference highlights the latest technological advances in ham radio, many of which have been extensively covered in the Zero Retries newsletter.

For more details or to view other options for attending, including via Zoom, see the link in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org. The link includes optional activities that are available for attendees who are arriving one day earlier.

**
HAM RADIO IRELAND ENJOYING QSOS WITH READERSHIP

NEIL/ANCHOR: Did you know that there's more than one way to enjoy the digital magazine, Ham Radio Ireland? You can actually have a QSO with it - as we learn from Jeremy Boot G4NJH.

JEREMY: It's been a good year for Ham Radio Ireland, the free downloadable magazine from Collective Communications. Following its relaunch on the 24th of January 2025 after a period of absence, the magazine has extended its reach well beyond western Ireland, from where it had originally drawn its readership.

To recognise the welcome it has since received across Ireland and globally, Collective Communications has been on the air with the magazine's callsign EI3HRI and will continue to call CQ right through to the end of the year. You can not only read Ham Radio Ireland - you can log it!

In an online message, editorial team members Steve EI5DD and John EI3HQB urged hams everywhere to listen for them. "Do give us a call if you hear us on the airwaves," they wrote.

This is Jeremy Boot G4NJH.

(HAM RADIO IRELAND)

**
WORLD OF DX

In the World of DX, Aki, JK1JXZ is on the air as YJ1JXZ from Port Vila, Vanuatu, IOTA Number OC-035, from the 11th through to the 16th of October. Listen for him on 80 through 6 metres after 1700 local time during the week, and throughout the day during the weekend.

John, AE5X, is operating holiday style as ZA/AE5X from various locations throughout Albania until the 30th of October. He is hoping to be active from a number of parks as well as the grounds of the old Radio Tirana shortwave transmitter site. He will be using CW with 10 watts of power on 20 through 10 metres.

Jacek, SP9FIH, is on Wallis Island, IOTA Number OC-054, using the callsign FW1P through to the 17th of October. He is operating mainly FT8, on 80, 20, 15 and 10 metres. Between the 12th and 16th of October, you may also hear him on 60 metres.

Listen for Tak, JR1LZK/6. and Mitsu, JE1HXZ/6 operating from Iriomote Island, IOTA Number AS-024, through to the 14th of October. They are using CW, SSB, RTTY and FT8 on 160-6 metres.

For QSL and operating information, see the pages on QRZ.com for each of these stations.

(425DXNEWS)

**
KICKER: THREE VETERANS RECEIVE A SKY-HIGH WELCOME

NEIL/ANCHOR: For our final story, we go to our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., where three friends - ham radio operators - are among a number of military veterans preparing to receive a long-overdue tribute. Jim Davis, W2JKD, tells us about their journey.

JIM DAVIS: For six decades, three Ohio men have shared much of life: Service in the US military; playing in a US Army Reserve band; and sharing their musical talents as part of a Masonic band known as the Aladdin Shriners. Dan Merrill, KE8KJX, Steve Robeano, WD8JKX, and John Ross, KD8IDJ, also share the fellowship of amateur radio.

Now they are travelers together on a chartered flight to Washington, D.C., a journey designed to honor them and 75 other military veterans. They will all be passengers on Honor Flight Mission 156 departing from Columbus, Ohio, on Wednesday the 14th of October. The trip has been arranged at no cost to the veterans by the nonprofit group, Honor Flight Columbus, which is part of the nationwide Honor Flight Network organization.

As with all such Honor Flights, it celebrates veterans for their service to the country by providing a day of appreciation and a chance to visit military monuments.

When Dan, Steve and John ended their active time in the military, they joined the 338th Army Band, part of the US Army Reserves. On this trip, they will again be with these fellow musicians: a number of the other passengers are their fellow bandmates. John, who is a trumpet player, will serve as the flight's official bugler.

Beth Johnson, executive director of Honor Flight Columbus, told Newsline that the day is all about gratitude for their service - something she said was long denied to many returning veterans.

As veterans and as hams, Dan, Steve and John have known it is an honor to serve the community. Now it is their turn to receive appreciation.

This is Jim Davis W2JKD.

(WIA, HONOR FLIGHT COLUMBUS)

FRIDAY EDITION: The balloon woke up finally this morning and made it to the UK. We believe it lost an antenna leg as it is not transmitting correctly, it is "amateur radio"...Kids in class busy building the next one which is all student built and designed..The link to watch is here....

Lightsaber-like plasma antenna uses laser-ionized air to transmit radio waves

Researchers have demonstrated a technique that uses a laser to produce a plasma beam antenna capable of transmitting radio waves. The article, "Laser-Induced-Plasma-Filament Antenna Transmitting 30 MHz VHF," is published in the IEEE Journal of Microwaves.

"The plasma beam antenna looks like a lightsaber and is tunable, meaning we should be able to transmit across a broad range of frequencies," says Prya Darshni, corresponding author and a Ph.D. student at North Carolina State University. "And while we have not demonstrated its ability to serve as an antenna that can receive radio signals, there's no reason to believe it wouldn't also work as a receiver."

"This is an exciting new concept that enables one to be able to have a customized antenna without complex mechanical deployment mechanisms," says Paul Franzon, co-author of the paper and the Cirrus Logic distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State.

Adjusting antenna length with lasers

The length of an antenna is important because it controls the frequencies at which radio waves can be transmitted and received. But manipulating the length of antennas to sweep a desired range of frequencies can be challenging in some applications—such as space exploration technologies.

"One of the questions we wanted to explore with this work was whether it would be possible to create plasma antennas using lasers, which would allow us to generate antennas at whatever length was needed," says Darshni. "And we have now shown that it is possible."

By firing a laser beam of a specific power and diameter, the researchers are able to ionize a thin beam of air, creating a defined shaft of plasma called a plasma filament.

A contactless connection for radio signals

But to make the plasma antenna a practical tool, the researchers also needed to develop a way to connect the antenna to radio technology to transmit a radio signal.

To solve that problem, the researchers also created and demonstrated a contactless antenna feed, which consists of a metal ring that serves as a capacitor. The laser passes through the ring, creating a plasma filament that is surrounded by the capacitor. By generating an electromagnetic field with the capacitor, the researchers are able to interact with the plasma beam without touching it.

Altogether, the process works like this: A radio-frequency generator feeds a signal into the capacitor, generating the appropriate electromagnetic field, which then causes the plasma filament antenna to transmit radio waves at the appropriate frequency.

Steering signals and scanning frequencies

"By controlling the parameters of the laser, you can control the characteristics of the plasma filament—including its length," says Darshni. "This is valuable for applications where you need an antenna that can sweep all frequencies. But there's another benefit as well.

"There are also applications where it is important to be able to control the angle of the antenna, in order to target the direction of radar sweeps or to improve the strength of a signal you want to pick up," says Darshni. "The technique we've demonstrated here would allow users to control the angle of the plasma filament antenna via beam steering—simply shifting the direction of the laser."

Potential uses in low Earth orbit

In the long term, the technology holds promise for use in a variety of applications. Satellites and space exploration technologies are one potential area of interest, because payload and the ability to scan across a wide range of frequencies are both important considerations.

"In low Earth orbit, there is sufficient air to form a plasma," says Franzon.

"This is the first step, but it is a big step—it is the first time anyone has ever demonstrated that plasma-filament antennas can work," says Darshni. "Now that we've shown it is possible, we can begin improving its performance."

The paper was co-authored by Arthur Dogariu of Texas A&M University and Princeton University, who helped with measurements.

Call sign grace period: A hard lesson learned

The FCC’s two-year grace period is a safety net if we forget to put a reminder in our calendar app. One operator relied on it when he applied for a renewal in April, five months before the end of his grace period. But it requires more than just signing in. He needed to confirm the payment actually occurred.

This brings us to the sad tale of KE6MIT.

He attempted to renew it twice. His first application on April 9 placed his call sign in a temporary status that shielded him from losing it. His application was dismissed 19 days later, probably over a failure to pay. He did not petition the dismissal; the period for reconsideration closed; and his call sign returned to its normal grace period on June 9.

Did he not get the FCC emails? Did they go into his junk folder?

A second application on July 23 again placed his call sign in a temporary status, and the FCC again waited 19 days. Detailed records suggest the ULS checked the CORES database each workday to see if he paid $35. August 11 arrived and the FCC again dismissed his application.

KE6MIT reached the end of its grace period on September 14 — yet the window stayed open to petition the second dismissal for reconsideration… had he done so… which he didn’t.

That window shut on September 22 when the FCC closed the period for reconsideration and the ULS set KE6MIT to “expired.”

KE6MIT’s circumstances led me to analyze the ULS data to learn how many call signs expire for lack of payment. Over the last two years, roughly 20% failed to apply for renewal, while another 5% failed to pay their fee after applying:

Roughly 1 out of 16 operators who apply for renewal fail to pay for it. Did they not get the FCC emails? Did they go into a junk folder?

(The chart can only go back 24 months because the FCC apparently flushes payment data to control database bloat.)

All operators should consider doing four things: (1) put a note in your calendar app to update your email address before you pay a renewal fee; (2) update your FRN with a valid email address if needed; (3) submit a payment application; and (4) make sure the payment goes through.

Don’t learn this lesson the hard way. Your grace period offers zero protection if you fail to pay.

Source: Rob Rosenberger (K4HST)

THURSDAY EDITION: Day two of the balloon flight progress. The link to watch is here....

APRS Connect is Now on iPhone

APRS Connect, the messaging-first APRS client that launched on Android in August, is now on the App Store for iPhone (iOS 16.4 or later). It is free to install and use over APRS-IS. Connecting a radio and several advanced features are part of APRS Connect Pro, a subscription with a 7-day free trial.

APRS OTA, the on-the-air activity that runs entirely over APRS, has its own screens in the app, so you tap buttons instead of typing bot commands. Hosts go on the air in one tap. Each chaser’s call arrives with their message, where they are and a Confirm button. A bar across the top shows QSOs, points and time left, with buttons to stay longer or message every chaser at once. A live map shows you and your chasers and adds up how far your contacts have reached. Chasers get the list of hosts on the air, tap one to call, and watch each step through to the host’s QSL. Every op is saved with its map and scores and can be shared as a picture. Chasing works over APRS-IS, free. Hosting needs a radio, as APRS OTA’s rules require.

The other services on APRS get the same treatment, a guided screen instead of a command to memorize: weather, the repeater finder, WHO-IS, the SMS, email and Winlink gateways, and APSPOT and APRS2SOTA self-spotting. #APRSThursday and other ANSRVR groups open as a single net room.

On iPhone the app connects to KISS TNCs over Bluetooth LE or TCP. It can also work through a radio’s speaker and mic, using the built-in AFSK 1200 audio modem with VOX keying. Radios with a Bluetooth LE KISS TNC built in, such as the BTECH UV-Pro, connect directly.

Several things have been added since the app was first covered here:

  • The phone can be an IGate. It passes what your radio hears to APRS-IS and, if you choose, sends messages from the internet back out on the air for stations nearby. It can also be a digipeater that stays quiet when another digipeater has already repeated the packet.
  • A coverage map shows the places your beacons were picked up by a digipeater.
  • Pinned stations, a grid square screen, and the ISS on the map.
  • A setting chooses how messages go out: radio first, APRS-IS first, one link only, or every channel at once.
  • An optional account keeps messages, pinned stations and settings the same on every device. When two devices share a callsign and SSID, only one of them beacons, acks and digipeats at a time.
  • A “Rest of the world” map layer shows stations heard anywhere on APRS-IS, not only the ones your device heard.
  • The app is more accessible for operators who use VoiceOver and TalkBack. Every button has a spoken name, and an open conversation reads new messages aloud.

The newest of these are on iPhone now and reach Android with its next Play release.

More at https://aprsconnect.com, and on APRS OTA in the app at https://aprsconnect.com/ota. Download the App: https://aprsconnect.com/get/89x5bv.

Source: APRS Connect

WEDNESDAY EDITION: It hasn't transmitted yet but should start sometime this morning, The link to watch is here...perfect weather to launch, no clouds or wind....

The balloon launched today at 8am on the sports field, I am the shadow taking the photo. Kids were excited

Australian Amateur Radio Innovation Takes Digital Voice in a New Direction

An amateur radio digital voice project with strong Australian roots is pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved with machine learning, digital signal processing and HF radio.

The FreeDV Project develops a suite of completely open-source digital voice modes for amateur radio. Its flagship technology is now RADE, the Radio Autoencoder, a radically different approach to transmitting speech over difficult HF channels. FreeDV says RADE combines machine learning with classical DSP to deliver high-quality speech at signal-to-noise ratios as low as -2 dB.

At the heart of the project is Australian radio amateur and engineer David Rowe VK5DGR, well known internationally for his work on Codec 2 and FreeDV. The RADE concept emerged from discussions between David and codec developer Jean-Marc Valin in late 2023. Valin produced an initial proof of concept, and during 2024 David developed the idea into a practical waveform capable of carrying speech over real HF radio channels.

Machine Learning Meets HF Radio

What makes RADE particularly interesting is that machine learning isn't merely being bolted onto a conventional digital voice system. It is being used as part of the communications system itself.
RADE V1 carries speech with an 8 kHz audio bandwidth in just 1500 Hz of RF bandwidth. FreeDV reports a peak-to-average power ratio of around 4 dB through a typical SSB radio filter, allowing efficient use of an amateur transmitter's power amplifier. Controlled testing and two years of real-world operation have shown impressive speech quality under both high and low SNR HF conditions.

Better still for experimenters, you don't need a specialised proprietary radio to try it. FreeDV can use an ordinary SSB transceiver connected to a Windows, Linux or macOS computer, with RADE integrated into FreeDV-GUI. A typical PC or Raspberry Pi 4 or better has sufficient resources for RADE V1.

From an Australian Project to an International Team
While David VK5DGR continues to lead the project's signal-processing work, FreeDV has grown into a genuinely international amateur radio development effort.

Mooneer Salem K6AQ maintains and extends the FreeDV GUI and has handled RADE integration. Peter Marks VK3TPM introduced the use of agentic AI to accelerate the conversion of RADE's reference Python implementation into C. The FreeDV Project Leadership Team also includes Walter Holmes K5WH, Mel Whitten K0PFX and Brian Morrison G8SEZ, alongside David, Mooneer and Peter. Many other amateurs around the world contribute development, testing and technical feedback.

That's significant. FreeDV is deliberately working to ensure the project isn't dependent upon one developer. In 2026, project resources and code have increasingly been moved from individually owned accounts into project-wide infrastructure, helping establish FreeDV as a sustainable international open-source project.

RADE V2 Is Coming

Development hasn't stopped with V1. Work on RADE V2 has been underway, with the objective of improving performance while simplifying parts of the waveform.
Testing reported by the FreeDV project during 2026 indicates approximately a 3 dB performance improvement for V2 over RADE V1 in its experimental results. V2 also removes the pilot symbols used by V1, with machine-learning techniques being developed for functions including frame synchronisation and fine timing.

The project has now reached another important milestone. On 24 September 2026, FreeDV announced that it was ready to begin a RADE V2 over-the-air test campaign, using a beta version of FreeDV-GUI 3.0 for real-time push-to-talk testing. FreeDV
RADE V2 remains experimental, so this is development work rather than a finished production mode. That, frankly, makes it even more recognisably amateur radio.

Open Source Means We Can Experiment

Perhaps the most important part of FreeDV is its philosophy.

The project is built around open-source software and open speech codecs, allowing radio amateurs to understand, modify and experiment with the technology rather than being locked into a proprietary digital voice system. The FreeDV GUI and legacy modes are released under the GNU LGPL 2.1, while RADE uses the two-clause BSD licence. Current development has been supported through an Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) grant, with the Software Freedom Conservancy acting as financial sponsor.

For amateur radio, RADE demonstrates something rather exciting. AI and machine learning aren't just things for amateurs to talk about. We can use them to redesign the radio communications system itself.
An idea that began with Australian amateur radio innovation is now being developed, tested and improved by amateurs around the world.
And because it is open source, the next person to improve it could be sitting in an amateur radio shack somewhere right now.

FreeDV Project - Link

RADE: Radio Autoencoder technical overview - Link

TUESDAY EDITION: If wx permits,we will be launching a balloon with the students tomorrow morning, stay tuned....

Rosy Retrocomputing

Most of us are guilty of romanticizing the past. Do you long to be the captain of a tall ship? Just as long as you don’t mind weevils in your food, vitamin deficiencies, and death from an infection when there were no antibiotics. Want to be a medieval knight? Even worse. But surely, retrocomputing is as fun as we remember, right? Turn your computer on, and it comes up with BASIC! Ready for you to write your own programs. None of this GUI foolishness. Of course, this is just another example of rosy retrospection.

Even if you like BASIC or a similar language today, things have changed. You have a nice text editor, a fast computer, debugging tools, along with things like named functions, no line numbers, and modern control structures. None of those things were very common in the 1980s. At least, not on a hobby-grade computer.

Why am I thinking about this? Well, the Hackaday Retrocomputing Challenge is on, and it occurred to me that I wanted to work with some young students in glorious MBASIC on a CP/M machine I built and modified from a Hackaday project. Perfect, right? Many of us started that way, so why shouldn’t they?

But it quickly got old. Even a simple program gets bogged down with GOTOs and GOSUBs to mysterious line numbers. It made me remember the time back in the early 1980s, or maybe even the late 1970s, that I wrote a BASIC preprocessor to scan BASIC with no line numbers and produce proper source, converting labels to line numbers in two passes.

Of course, that code is long gone or, at least, on a floppy I haven’t tried to read in a few decades. I decided to take another crack at it six years ago, but I still didn’t make it much more robust. For example:

PRINT: X=X+10

Is that two statements? Or a label? Hard to tell. My 2020 version used awk. Awk is great for this kind of thing because of the regular expressions and the input loop. But it still has some issues with things like comments and strings. Consider the code below.

PRINT "HELLO: IS IT ME YOU'RE LOOKING FOR?"

This would probably have made my awk preprocessor chew the string up and create a bogus label named HELLO.

History of Preprocessors

Preprocessing one language to another is nothing new. RATFOR and RATFIV by Brian Kernighan converted modern constructs to conventional FORTRAN IV. Even C++ started out as a program that emitted C code.

So the idea is good, but there are dozens of corner cases. As I anticipated having another go at the idea for BASIC, I realized my earlier versions had some design choices that made it harder than it should have been. So I started from scratch.

BASIC as it was (courtesy of Cool-Retro-Terminal)

First, I gave up the idea of just having labels as you might in other languages. Instead, they’d be part of a comment and hard to mistake. This makes for easier parsing and also allows you to keep them around for reference. I also gave up on having labels magically expand. You need a way to make them unique, too. Here’s what I settled on:

':TOPLABEL

GOTO @TOPLABEL

The plan was to go through the source once to assign line numbers. When a label occurs, it adds to the symbol table. Then a second pass actually writes output, replacing @TOPLABEL with the value from the symbol table. Of course, you still want this line to not trigger a label expansion:

PRINT "Send messages to @JTKIRK"

I decided to keep going in awk, but my eventual goal was to rewrite the whole thing in BASIC using the same syntax. Then you could convert the translator itself using the awk version once and then run it on an old computer using BASIC, even if you wanted to retranslate the translator itself. Perverse, huh? But that allows you to keep that authentic development experience. You don’t have to jump over to a PC to process your code, unless you just want to.

Awk as in Awkward

So I decided to do a better job on the awk part with this new scheme. At some point, though, you lose some of the advantages. Then feature creep set in.

I suppose I was subconsciously remembering RATFOR. I decided to add a small number of modern control structures. Again, I wanted something easy to pick out of the source file, so I went with this:

IF X=0 THEN!
PRINT “There is no X!”
X=10
ENDIF!

There’s also WHILE!, DO!, EXIT!, and CONTINUE!

Of course, it didn’t end there. I decided to add a way to include or exclude parts of the source (sort of like #if in C but simpler), along with source code inclusion and a few other neat options such as numeric constants, conditional source blocks, compile-time errors, and even a small numeric stack with PUSH! and POP!.

The source code inclusion can be made to work with awk, but it is ugly. I decided it was better to proceed with another language, but since I didn’t feel like starting over, I just had an LLM convert my awk to Python, which it did with no trouble at all. I then did a little more feature development in Python, but I made sure not to use those new features in the translator itself so the awk version could still process an input file.

So while the original plan was to develop and test in awk and then implement similar code in MBASIC, I now had three versions: a frozen awk script, a Python version, and an MBASIC version.

This was getting a bit much to test. I had the LLM cook up some documentation, additional comments, and tests. It was especially nice to verify that all three versions — awk, Python, and BASIC — did the same things for their common features. The LLM was good at running tests and finding corner cases. It would even run tests in a RunCPM session on the MBASIC version.

BASIC

As you might expect, the BASIC version is a little more convoluted. However, the use of labels and control structures makes it much easier to write, read, and maintain.

Writing the translator in MBASIC imposed some very old-fashioned constraints. There are no dictionaries or dynamic lists, so labels and block state live in fixed-size arrays. Included files require an explicitly managed stack, and parsing strings and comments has to be done character by character. It is not as compact as the Python version, but it is ordinary MBASIC and can run on the target CP/M machine. The limitations also influenced some features that would have been feasible in Python but are nearly impossible in an MBASIC program.

Better yet, lblbasic.bal stays within the subset the original awk translator understood. That provides a bootstrap path: awk produces the first lblbas.bas, after which the MBASIC translator can process its own BAL source.

A Few Samples

One project I had in mind was to drive an LED display module. I wrote a library and then wrote the test program below. It doesn’t matter, but I used .bal as a file extension.

REM TM1637 TEST – PORT 3, BIT 2=DIO, BIT 3=CLK
REM Uses the TM1637.BAL library with LBLBASIC

STACK! 8 ‘ Required by the library

‘ Confirm that the library preserves I while initializing its data table.
I=3141
gosub @init
print “I is now:”;I
PRINT “Starting number: “;
INPUT CT
PRINT “1-Up, 0-Down: “;
INPUT UD
OFFSET=-1
IF UD<>0 THEN OFFSET=1
‘:CDLOOP
WHILE! CT>=0 and CT<=9999
NUM=CT
GOSUB @sendnum4
CT=CT+OFFSET
WEND!
CT=0
IF OFFSET=-1 THEN CT=9999
GOTO @CDLOOP
END

‘ Include the library after the main program.
‘INCLUDE! TM1637.BAL

The BASIC code, including a few lines of the library, is much harder to read:

10 DIM LBLBSTACK#(8):LBLBSP=0
20 I=3141
30 gosub 230
40 print “I is now:”;I
50 PRINT “Starting number: “;
60 INPUT CT
70 PRINT “1-Up, 0-Down: “;
80 INPUT UD
90 OFFSET=-1
100 IF UD<>0 THEN OFFSET=1
110 ‘:CDLOOP
120 IF CT>=0 and CT<=9999 THEN 140
130 GOTO 180
140 NUM=CT
150 GOSUB 330
160 CT=CT+OFFSET
170 GOTO 120
180 CT=0
190 IF OFFSET=-1 THEN CT=9999
200 GOTO 120
210 END
220 ‘:init
230 IF LBLBSP+1>64 THEN PRINT “BAL stack overflow”:STOP
240 LBLBSTACK#(LBLBSP+1)=I:LBLBSP=LBLBSP+1
250 DIM D(9)
260 FOR I=0 to 9: READ D(I): NEXT I
270 DATA 63,6,91,79,102,109,125,7,127,111
280 X=12:OUT 3,X
290 IF LBLBSP<1 THEN PRINT “BAL stack underflow”:STOP
300 I=LBLBSTACK#(LBLBSP):LBLBSP=LBLBSP-1
310 return
320 ‘:sendnum4
330 GOSUB 500
340 B=64:GOSUB 610

One of the HILO games running.

If you haven’t used the TM1637 before, it uses a serial protocol with a clock and data line and is very forgiving of timing. The display update speed is quite slow, partly because MBASIC isn’t that speedy and partly because the Z80 chip communicates to the outside world via another microcontroller talking over an I2C bus. But non-BAL code would be just as slow on the same computer. You’ll notice, though, that I took all the delays out and the code and it still works fine.

The bigger sample, though, is HILO.BAL. This lets you set a few compile-time constants that let you select what parts of the program get built. It also makes good use of the control loops. Of course, if you really want to dig in, lblbasic.bal uses quite a bit of the awk-compatible syntax and is a substantial program: around 1300 source lines of BAL which generate nearly 900 lines of regular BASIC due to comment and white-space stripping.

Conclusion

Does this turn MBASIC into a modern language? Of course not. The generated program still has line numbers, the machine is still tiny, and the implementation makes compromises that would horrify anyone writing a real compiler. But it removes enough friction that programming the old machine becomes enjoyable again, especially with WordStar as an editor.

More importantly, the translator can live on the machine it targets. The awk prototype can translate lblbasic.bal once, producing ordinary MBASIC. From then on, the CP/M machine can translate BAL programs — including the translator itself — without help from Python or a modern computer.

So perhaps the lesson isn’t that retrocomputing was better than we remember. It’s that, with a little strategic cheating, it can be almost as much fun as we remember.

 

MONDAY EDITION: People watching at a hamfest is fascinating...

Sweet baby Jesus, Little Bo-Peep lost her sheep and ended up at Nearfest Saturday...

TX Factor Visits National Hamfest

The following is a message from TX Factor:

The latest episode from TX Factor is now on the air!

In late September 2026 TX Factor visited the annual National Hamfest at Newark, Nottinghamshire, UK. Hamfest is the UK’s premier amateur radio rally and we’re able to bring you as much of the action from the two-day event as possible.

In this initial show Bob McCreadie G0FGX chats with Dominic M0BLF from the ubiquitous Camb-Hams whilst operating QO-100. Bob discovers more about the proposed new rig release from Icom and updates us on a future repeater upgrade from Yaesu.

Bob meets key personnel from the RSGB to learn more about the Society's membership strategies and some changes in the way the Society meets and greets folk at major shows and conventions such as Hamfest and Dayton. There will be much more coverage and news from Hamfest in future episodes of TX Factor following soon.

TX Factor is sponsored by The Radio Society of Great Britain.

Visit the website at txfactor.co.uk where you’ll be able to view all the episodes of TX Factor dating back to February 2014 and links to the TX Factor Youtube channel.

APRS Connect is Now on iPhone

The following is a message from APRS Connect:

APRS Connect, the messaging-first APRS client that launched on Android in August, is now on the App Store for iPhone (iOS 16.4 or later). It is free to install and use over APRS-IS. Connecting a radio and several advanced features are part of APRS Connect Pro, a subscription with a 7-day free trial.

APRS OTA, the on-the-air activity that runs entirely over APRS, has its own screens in the app, so you tap buttons instead of typing bot commands. Hosts go on the air in one tap. Each chaser's call arrives with their message, where they are and a Confirm button. A bar across the top shows QSOs, points and time left, with buttons to stay longer or message every chaser at once. A live map shows you and your chasers and adds up how far your contacts have reached. Chasers get the list of hosts on the air, tap one to call, and watch each step through to the host's QSL. Every op is saved with its map and scores and can be shared as a picture. Chasing works over APRS-IS, free. Hosting needs a radio, as APRS OTA's rules require.

The other services on APRS get the same treatment, a guided screen instead of a command to memorize: weather, the repeater finder, WHO-IS, the SMS, email and Winlink gateways, and APSPOT and APRS2SOTA self-spotting. #APRSThursday and other ANSRVR groups open as a single net room.

On iPhone the app connects to KISS TNCs over Bluetooth LE or TCP. It can also work through a radio's speaker and mic, using the built-in AFSK 1200 audio modem with VOX keying. Radios with a Bluetooth LE KISS TNC built in, such as the BTECH UV-Pro, connect directly.

Several things have been added since the app was first covered here:

  • The phone can be an IGate. It passes what your radio hears to APRS-IS and, if you choose, sends messages from the internet back out on the air for stations nearby. It can also be a digipeater that stays quiet when another digipeater has already repeated the packet.
  • A coverage map shows the places your beacons were picked up by a digipeater.
  • Pinned stations, a grid square screen, and the ISS on the map.
  • A setting chooses how messages go out: radio first, APRS-IS first, one link only, or every channel at once.
  • An optional account keeps messages, pinned stations and settings the same on every device. When two devices share a callsign and SSID, only one of them beacons, acks and digipeats at a time.
  • A "Rest of the world" map layer shows stations heard anywhere on APRS-IS, not only the ones your device heard.
  • The app is more accessible for operators who use VoiceOver and TalkBack. Every button has a spoken name, and an open conversation reads new messages aloud.

The newest of these are on iPhone now and reach Android with its next Play release.

 Re-creating NASA’s Heat Shield Problem

After the Orion capsule of the Artemis I lunar mission returned to Earth, it was found that massive chunks of its heatshield had been ripped off, posing a serious risk to any future missions. In a recent video in which [polymatt] takes a break from repairing old laptop shells and the like, he tries to recreate the Orion’s heatshield using a variety of methods and materials.

For this test a number of samples were created, each using the same kind of segmented structure as the larger Orion heatshield. The filler was created from the published materials for the heat shield by NASA, requiring just serious mixing.

The resulting samples were then cured with thermocouples inserted, before they got blasted with the heat from a propane torch, trying to simulate the various re-entry patterns.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the results matched the findings by NASA for why the Orion’s heat shield had failed, being the build-up of gases due to the sustained pyrolysis processes that eventually fractured the material. Despite some experimental flaws that injected residual heat from the copper structure, this still seems to be a pretty good setup to test ablative heat shields in DIY lab conditions.

 

WEEKEND NEARFEST EDITION: Weather should be fine again today for the big hamfest in New Hampshire....

Hams jamming at Nearfest at night...

Amateur Radio Newsline Report

BILLBOARD CART

**
UN AGENCIES MAKE PLEA FOR STRONGER RFI SAFEGUARDS

JIM/ANCHOR: Our top story this week comes from Geneva, where two United Nations agencies have made a plea for governments to protect public safety through tougher protections against radio spectrum interference. Dave Lee M9TLB tells us what they said.

DAVE: The ability to monitor climate, forecast weather and deliver early warning messages faces critical disruption because the same radio frequencies these systems use are increasingly occupied by some satellites and wireless systems, according to two United Nations agencies.

At a meeting held in Geneva on the 28th of September, the International Telecommunications Union and the World Meteorological Organisation said that such spectrum interference increasingly imperils the study of and the public response to environmental dangers. The frequencies are used to monitor and collect data from the ocean, the atmosphere and the land.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin, secretary-general of the ITU, told the meeting that [quote] "Preventing harmful radio interference is a matter of public safety and can save lives." [endquote] The agencies said that the accuracy of measurements and other data and the ability to prepare for dangers could be seriously compromised.

The appeal by the UN agencies was made just as the two released their handbook offering guidance on the best ways to use and protect radio frequencies. The handbook is called "The Use of Radio Spectrum for Meteorology: Weather, Climate, Water and Related Environmental Applications."

This is Dave Lee M9TLB.

(EURONEWS)

**

EXPERIMENTAL SATELLITE PUTS AI DATA CENTER IN SPACE

JIM/ANCHOR: Solar-powered amateur radio satellites are welcoming a newcomer into their low-earth orbit -- but this satellite isn't for radio - it's an AI experiment, as we hear from Kent Peterson KCØDGY.

KENT: The satellite is known as MVP and its launch will allow Google to test whether its objective - to run an AI data center from space - can become reality. Operating with only 1 kilowatt of power, the solar-powered satellite is offering a trial run of Google's TPUs, or tensor processing units, to determine whether they can survive the harsh conditions of space temperatures and radiation. Their high energy consumption means that the TPUs will only be operating for 15 minutes at a time.

This experimental space-based data center marks the dawn of Project Suncatcher, which Google ultimately sees as a space-based network of AI satellites flying in close proximity, communicating with one another over laser links much like those used by the Starlink network from SpaceX.

Google hopes to have two such satellites launched sometime in 2027.

This is Kent Peterson KCØDGY.

(NYTIMES, INTERESTING ENGINEERING, ARS TECHNICA)

**
RESEARCHERS DETECT RADIO SIGNALS FROM ANOTHER WORLD

JIM/ANCHOR: In a first for astronomers, radio signals have been detected from another world, a giant planet outside our solar system, sixty-four light-years from earth. Travis Lisk N3ILS tells us about this discovery.

TRAVIS: South Africa's MeerKAT radio telescope has detected repeated bursts of radio signals coming from the Beta Pictoris planetary system and have traced it to a strong magnetic field surrounding the giant planet. Researchers say that these are the first auroral radio emissions in history to ever be detected from an exoplanet.

The significance of the discovery, which the researchers published two weeks ago, means that researchers have found a way to measure the magnetic field of a young planet which, until now, was only theoretical.

This is Travis Lisk N3ILS.

(WIRED, PHYS.ORG, NEW YORK TIMES)

**

NEW AZORES-BASED NETWORK UNITES SCHOOL RADIO CLUBS

JIM/ANCHOR: School ham clubs in Portugal and the Azores have a new resource to draw upon - one another! Jeremy Boot G4NJH explains.

JEREMY: It's already a busy year for school amateur radio clubs in Portugal and especially in the Azores which recently began coordinating joint activities and sharing their knowledge through a newly formed group with the acronym RERA.The organisation stands for Rede Escolar de Radioamadorismo dos Açores, or Azores School Amateur Radio Network. It was established last June at a meeting coordinated by Ana Braga CU2YK, a teacher at Capelas Integrated Basic School in the Azores. In addition to its educational goals, RERA is also raising the profile of amateur radio as a public service resource and aims to assist other schools in the region to establish their own student amateur radio clubs.

RERA plans to hold its first regional meeting at the end of the school year in 2027 so that teachers, students and cooperating ham radio operators can present their projects and share the experiences they had during their first year of working together.

This is Jeremy Boot G4NJH.

(QRZ.COM FORUMS)

**

2 US AGENCIES SEEK COMMENTS ON RF EXPOSURE

JIM/ANCHOR: RF exposure standards in the US are taking center stage as two public comment periods remain open at two federal agencies. Sel Embee KB3TZD tells us what this means.

SEL: Two US agencies have opened windows for public comment on RF exposure standards. Neither of these concurrent public comment periods are in response to any proposed changes to exposure rules; they represent additional fact-finding on behalf of the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Health and Human Services Department is interested in hearing input on the health effects of electromagnetic fields, RF exposure, and wireless technology. Those comments are due no later than the 21st of October.

The FCC welcomes comments until the 22nd of October on its existing RF exposure limits. The agency's action comes in response to an order from a federal appeals court asking the FCC to further explain its RF exposure standards, which were upheld earlier by a federal court. The order from the appeals court is not looking to overturn those standards but is revisiting the issue. In response, the FCC seeks input from scientific standards professionals as well as health and safety agencies.

This is Sel Embee KB3TZD.

(FCC, HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES)

**
SILENT KEY: YACHT CO-FOUNDER EDWARD ENGLEMAN, KG8CX

JIM/ANCHOR: A ham whose years of volunteer activities included special efforts to train the next generation of amateurs has become a Silent Key. We hear about him from Andy Morrison K9AWM.

ANDY: Mention the word YACHT - an acronym for Young Amateurs Communication Ham Team - and you can't help but think of Edward Engleman, KG8CX. He had been an elementary school teacher by profession, but even in retirement, he answered the call to be a mentor.

Ed died on the 24th of September, in his home state of Michigan.

He was a cofounder of the youngsters' radio group known as YACHT which fired the imaginations and ambitions of many young radio operators through its youth net, informal chats and other activities. The group has since grown to include hundreds of members worldwide.

Always proud of the young radio operators who expanded their knowledge and their experience, Ed himself was not without high levels of achievement. He received the Hamvention Ham of the Year award in 2024 and one year later became the recipient of the Yasme Excellence Award. At both awards presentations, he credited the youngsters to whom he devoted so much of his time and caring.

Ed was 87.

**
NOAA WEATHER RADIOS A PRIORITY IN CALIFORNIA COUNTY

JIM/ANCHOR: Volunteers and professionals involved in emergency communications can expect added help next spring when an extra tool in public awareness responds to crisis conditions in one California county. Ralph Squillace KK6ITB explains.

RALPH: Broadcast radios tuned to the VHF public service band are being viewed as a mainstay of public safety in Santa Barbara County, California. These are NOAA Weather Radios, tuned to the National Weather Service, and they are a high priority for the county's Office of Emergency Management. The broadcast receivers provide emergency information -- such as evacuation notices or orders to shelter in place -- when other forms of alerts cannot get through.

In addition to carrying weather information, the radios automatically sound an alarm tone when an emergency alert goes out, even if the radio is powered off. County officials believe that disabled people, low-income residents and residents in rural communities with poor cellular reception are among those who would benefit most from these radios. The office of emergency management expects to announce a project to get these radios distributed to residents in vulnerable communities, a project funded by a grant from the California governor's Office of Emergency Services and its Next Generation Warning System grant program.

The radios and assistive devices geared toward persons with disabilities are expected to be available by spring.

This is Ralph Squillace KK6ITB.

(THE INDEPENDENT.COM)

**
PA QSO PARTY INTRODUCES TEAM COMPETITION

JIM/ANCHOR: A popular fall HF operating event is celebrating its 70th anniversary. This year, there are new incentives to promote even more radio action, as we hear from Mark Abramowicz (Abram-oh-vich) NT3V.

MARK: The Pennsylvania QSO Party has aged well and has been growing in recent years to become a leader among state QSO parties around the country. This year, it's offering an innovative new enticement to increase activity - team competition.

Anthony “Goody” Good, K3NG, vice president of the PA QSO Party Association, says this latest enhancement was the result of thinking outside the box.

GOOD: “Two-to-four single operators can get together and call themselves a team – you have to register on the website: paqso.org – and we’re offering awards and certificates for the team competition. There’s four categories – stations in Pennsylvania, United States outside of Pennsylvania, Canada and DX.”

MARK: “Team members don’t have to operate from the same location. They can get their team score by combining scores from their individual locations. Good says this idea follows last year’s push to get PA stations to spend more time on the high bands – 10, 15 and 20 meters – to draw more out-of-PA competitors.”

GOOD: “One of the biggest pieces of feedback we got from stations outside of Pennsylvania over the years, especially West Coast folks, was ‘Hey, we want to work more stations in the party. But, we can’t hear them on 40 and 80 and, you know, we’d work the party more if you had more high band activity.’ “

MARK: Last year, awards were introduced for PA stations spending more time on the high bands and that produced a 55 percent increase there along with more out-of-state participation. Good is optimistic that figure could grow this year.

For more about the PA QSO Party, check out the link to the group’s website in the text version of this story at arnewsline.org.

I’m Mark Abramowicz, NT3V.

[DO NOT READ: PAQSO.ORG]

**
ARISS SSTV EVENT CELEBRATES EDUCATION

JIM/ANCHOR: The crew for ISS Expedition 75 are hosting their first Slow Scan TV event and true to the mission of Amateur Radio on the International Space Station, the focus is on images of students and education. Transmissions will be on UHF starting from the 2nd of October at 0900 UTC, through to the 6th of October. The team will be transmitting on 437.500 MHz plus or minus Doppler shift and using Robot 36 mode.
**

WORLD OF DX

In the World of DX, listen for members of the Calabria DX Team using the callsign 9H6C from Malta, IOTA number EU-023, on the 10th through to the 12th of October. The team will be using CW, SSB and FT8/FT4 on 80-10 metres.

Listen for Gunter, DK2WH, operating as V51WH on SSB and FT8 from Namibia until the 10th of October. He is on 160-6 metres, including 60 metres.

Kazu MØCFW will be on Rodrigues Island using the callsign 3B9/MØCFW between the 20th and 28th of October. Listen for him calling as 3B9KW on the 24th and 25th of October in the CQ WW SSB contest.

John VK1AX is on the air from Deal Island, IOTA Number OC-195, through to late November. He is operating on 80-10 metres. He is using mainly FT8 but some SSB.

For QSL and operating details on any of these stations, visit QRZ.com

(SARL, 425 DX BULLETIN, DXWORLD)

**
KICKER: A TOP DX ENTITY, BY ANY OTHER NAME....

JIM/ANCHOR: Our final story takes us to a newly named DX entity that's been a coveted DX entity for quite some time - just by a different name. Graham Kemp VK4BB takes us to this tiny island now.

GRAHAM: Licensed as C21DA for more than a decade, Darren VK4MAP has been busy since the 23rd of September activating a tiny island country in the Central Pacific - an atoll that was recently declared the nation of Naoero. The landscape is hardly new to Darren, however; he's operated there before. Of course the island was known then as Nauro.

Its name change was formally announced in August as a tribute to the original name it received from its earliest settlers. Darren will be there until the 5th of October, operating 100 watts SSB holiday style. The island still carries the IOTA designation of OC-031.

Whatever you call it - and you really should honor its official name - once you log this Queensland ham, you should be able to call it a very good contact indeed.

This is Graham Kemp VK4BB.

(QRZ.COM, YOUTUBE)

The following is from an email received from SAQ Grimeton Radio Station:

UN-Day 2026 transmission
On October 24th 2026, SAQ is scheduled to air a message to the World, promoting Peace, Unity, and Global Partnerships.

The unique Alexanderson alternator is scheduled for one transmission over the antenna on VLF 17.2 kHz CW.

The Grimeton Radio Station welcomes all visitors to attend the transmission. To attend one of the transmissions in the transmitter hall, a ticket will be required. Please see grimeton.org for complete visitor's information.

SAQ transmission schedule

  • 14:20 CEST (12:20 UTC) Live YouTube broadcast begins.
  • 14:30 CEST (12:30 UTC) Start-up of the Alternator.
  • 14:45 CEST (12:45 UTC) SAQ on the air “VVV VVV VVV de SAQ SAQ SAQ”
  • 15:00 CEST (13:00 UTC) Transmission of peace message

Live Video from World Heritage Grimeton Radio Station
The transmission event can be seen live on our YouTube Channel.

 

THURSDAY EDITION: NEARFEST has arrived for campers this afternoon and the big show starts tomoorow. It is a place to put a face with a callsign, a social event, a great place to pickup connectors, wire, gadgets, and unexpected bargains, or maybe just enjoy the food!

 The Different Ways To Look at Negative Resistance

[lcamtuf] has an in-depth look at the concept of negative resistance that goes somewhat further than one might expect. Normally, as voltage across a resistance increases so too does the current. Negative resistance is the concept of current decreasing as voltage increases. But beyond the raw concept, there are a few other ways to look at this idea.

The usual way to think about it is negative differential resistance (NDR). Not everything has a linear relationship between voltage and current, and for a device to exhibit NDR means that in certain ranges the I–V curve actually slopes downward; increasing one of voltage or current decreases the other. This kind of thing occurs in neon lamps. Once they are glowing, increasing current can result in decreasing voltage.

True negative resistance, that of a literal -100 Ω resistor, does not exist. Not in the sense of a passive component, anyway. Such a device would supply power into a circuit rather than dissipating it, and would therefore require an external power source to do so. If that’s not a deal breaker, then it’s actually fairly simple to build one. [lcamtuf] provides a design for a device that uses an op-amp to exhibit ideal constant negative resistance. Naturally it only does so within its operating range; going beyond risks letting out the magic smoke.

Is making a literal negative resistor of practical use? Perhaps only in very specialized situations. But it is worth having a basic understanding if for no other reason than it rears its head in unusual places: the strange tunnel diode comes to mind.


HAMS YOU MIGHT KNOW- ALIVE AND SK

 K1TP- Jon....Editor of As The World Turns....
WB1ABC- Ari..Bought an amp and now we can here him on 75 meters, worships his wife, obsessed with Id'ing
N1BOW-Phil...Retired broadcast engineer, confused and gullible, cheap, only uses singl ply toilet paper
KB1OWO- Larry...Handsome Fellow ,only cuts lawn in August, plows snow the rest in Jackman, Maine
W1GEK- Big Mike....Nearfest Cook, big motor home, electronics software engineer ...
AA1SB- Neil...Living large traveling the country with his girlfriend...loves CW
N1YX- Igor....peddles quality Russian keys, software engineer
K1BGH...Art.....Restores cars and radio gear, nice fella...
N1XW.....Mike-easy going, Harley riding kind of guy!
K1JEK-Joe...Easy going, can be found at most ham flea market ...Cobra Antenna builder..
KA1GJU- Kriss- Tower climbing pilot who cooks on the side at Hosstrader's...
W1GWU-Bob....one of the Hosstrader's original organizers, 75 meter regular, Tech Wizard!!!
K1PV- Roger....75 meter regular, easy going guy...
W1XER...Scott....easy going guy, loves to split cordwood and hunt...
KB1VX- Barry- the picture says it all, he loves food!
KC1BBU- Bob....the Mud Duck from the Cape Cod Canal, making a lot of noise.
W1STS- Scott...philosopher, hat connoisseur,
KB1JXU- Matthew...75 meter regular...our token liberal Democrat out of Florida
K1PEK-Steve..Founder of Davis-RF....my best friend from high school 
K9AEN-John...Easy going ham found at all the ham fests
K1BQT.....Rick....very talented ham, loves his politics, has designed gear for MFJ...
W1KQ- Jim-  Retired Air Force Controller...told quite a few pilots where to go!
N1OOL-Jeff- The 3936 master plumber and ragchewer...
K1BRS-Bruce- Computer Tech of 3936...multi talented kidney stone passing ham...
K1BGH- Arthur, Cape Cod, construction company/ice cream shop, hard working man....
W1VAK- Ed, Cape Cod, lots of experience in all areas, once was a Jacques Cousteus body guard....
W1HHO- Cal...3941 group
K1MPM- Pete...3941 group
WA1JFX- Russell...3941

SILENT KEYS

Silent Key: N1UC- Chuck- Was the former manager of HRO in Salem, NH
Silent Key: K1BNH- Bill- Used to work for a bottled gas company
Silent Key KA1BXB-Don...Regular on 3900 mornings....just don't mention politics to him, please!
Silent Key N1IOM- 3910 colorful regular
Silent Key WS1D- Warren- "Windy" - Bullnet
Silent Key KMIG-Rick....75 Meter Regular....teaches the future of mankind, it's scary!
Silent Key Neil -K1YPM .....a true gentleman
Silent Key K1BXI- John.........Dr. Linux....fine amateur radio op ....wealth of experience...
Silent KeyVA2GJB- Graham...one of the good 14313 guys back in the day.
Silent Key K1BHV- David...PITA
Silent Key W1JSH- Mort...Air Force man
Silent Key K1MAN--Glen....PITA
Silent KeyKB1CJG-"Cobby"- Low key gent can be found on many of the 75 meter nets.........
Silent KeyWB1AAZ- Mike, Antrim, NH, auto parts truck driver-retired
Silent KeyWB1DVD- Gil....Gilly..Gilmore.....easy going, computer parts selling, New England Ham..
Silent Key W1OKQ- Jack....3936 Wheeling and Dealing......keeping the boys on there toes....
Silent Key W1TCS- Terry....75 meter regular, wealth of electronic knowledge...
Silent Key WIPNR- Mack....DXCC Master, worked them all!.. 3864 regular for many years...
Silent Key WILIM- Hu....SK at 92... 3864 regular for many years...
Silent Key N1SIE- Dave....Loves to fly
Silent Key:N1WBD- Big Bob- Tallest ham, at 6'10", of the 3864 group
Silent Key: W1FSK-Steve....Navy Pilot, HRO Salesman, has owned every radio ever built!
Silent Key: W4NTI-Vietnam Dan....far from easy going cw and ssb op on 14275/313
Silent Key:K1FUB-Bill- Loved ham radio....