Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) Report 1979 October 2 2015

Amateur Radio Newsline report number 1979 with a release date of Friday, 
October 2, 2015 to follow in 5-4-3-2-1.

The following is a QST. Amateur radio mourns the loss of Wes Schum, 
W9DYV, a pioneer in single sideband. ARRL veteran staffer Perry 
Williams, W1UED, becomes a Silent Key. An email scam targets amateurs. 
More delays as the FCC processes license exams. And Pennsylvania 
prepares for its QSO party.  All this and more in Amateur Radio Newsline 
report 1979 coming your way right now.

(Billboard Cart Here and Intro)

WES SCHUM DEATH/TRIBUTE

The man who could be called the father of single sideband on amateur 
radio is a silent key.  Wes Schum, W9DYV passed away last week at the 
age of 94.  Wes Schum founded Central Electronics in 1949, the first 
product that Central Electronics manufactured was a hearing aid device.

But radio was what Wes envisioned for CE.  He had a budding interest in 
single sideband during World War II.  He and colleague Joe Batchelor 
began development of amateur SSB transmitters for use on 75 meters.  The 
Central Electronics 10-A exciter, the company's first amateur product, 
is credited for being amateur radio's first practical SSB transmitter.

Wes's story is best told by those who knew him well.  One of those is 
Nick Tusa, K5EF.  Nick shared with Ham Nation viewers how he and Wes 
Schum met and struck up a decades long friendship.

[TUSA audio - 3:23]

Wes Schum, W9DYV.  The next time you call CQ on single sideband send up 
a little thank you in memory of this unsung amateur radio pioneer.


**

PERRY WILLIAMS, SILENT KEY

Perry Williams, W1UED, a veteran ARRL staffer and the League's former 
Washington Coordinator, became a Silent Key on Sept. 25. Williams' 
tenure with the League included a stint in Washington, D.C., speaking on 
Capitol Hill on behalf of amateur radio, assisting the ARRL's general 
counsel, and communicating with the FCC on behalf of the League.

The Unionville, Connecticut, ham had worked for the ARRL for four 
decades before retiring in 1994, the same year he was named Dayton 
Hamvention's Amateur of the Year. In 2002, he returned as part-time 
archivist, a position he held until 2011.

Remarking on Williams' decades of contributions, ARRL CEO David Sumner, 
K1ZZ said, QUOTE"If Perry didn't know something about ARRL history, it 
wasn't worth knowing."ENDQUOTE  Williams died just weeks before what 
would have been his 87th birthday.


**

PHISHING

If you use an arrl.net email alias and the ARR L email forwarding 
service, be on the lookout for a phishing scam. A number of ARRL members 
have reported to the League that they received an email from "Arrl 
Webmail Admin" with "account upgrade" in the subject line. The email 
requests such personal information as user names and passwords, and 
includes a bogus message telling the recipient that the accounts are 
being removed and upgraded to an enhanced service. The ARRL emphatically 
states this is not an official message and is cautioning recipients of 
these emails.

Andy Shefrin, KB1YHB, the ARRL's IT Infrastructure and Operations 
Manager, says: QUOTE"The ARRL is aware of this phishing scheme and is 
working to block the sender's  email address at our upstream provider. 
As with any emails of unknown origin, do not open or reply."ENDQUOTE

In short, ignore it. If you do develop problem with e-mail forwarding, 
contact the ARRL IT Department. And be careful out there.

**

UPSET OVER THE UPGRADE

Hoping for streamlined service under the FCC's Universal Licensing 
System's electronic batch filing, hams are growing impatient and 
disappointed. The FCC's IT staff has been looking into why, despite the 
website's server switchover in early September, recent VEC license and 
examination files aren't being processed. The ARRL's VEC Manager, Maria 
Somma, AB1FM, said her office has been pressing the FCC to correct the 
situation which she said came as QUOTE"a bit of a surprise."

She said even the license search function was only working sporadically. 
Stay tuned. And continue to stand by.

**
RETIRING AT 88

Gaston Bertels, ON4WF, chairman of the Amateur Radio on the 
International Space Station-Europe (ARISS-EU) has announced that 
Emanuele D'Andria, I0EL, will be his successor. Bertels is retiring 
following a service that began when the ARISS Working Group was formed 
15 years ago. His contributions included the installation of ham radio 
equipment and antennas on the ISS Columbus module and the installation 
and commissioning of Ham TV DATV on the ISS.

ARISS members include AMSAT organizations in Belgium, France, Italy, 
Sweden, and the UK, and the IARU member societies in Italy, Germany, 
Poland, France, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the 
UK. IARU member societies in Malta and Lebanon are associate members.

Bertels told the ARRL it was time to step down. He said "I'm now 88 and 
slowing down a bit.


***
DON'T KEEP YOUR OPINION TO YOURSELF

Yes, opinions count. That's why the Radio Society of Great Britain has 
invited all licensed amateurs in the UK to go online and complete a 
questionnaire to help it update the society's strategic goals. The 
survey will be accessible through Dec. 31, and the data will be 
published on the RSGB website with a summary in RadCom during the first 
quarter of 2016. Find the questionnaire at http://www.rsgb.org/ar-survey

The CQ World Wide DX Contest Committee is also conducting a survey, 
mainly to get feedback from participants in the last three years' 
contests. The committee is making the 10-minute survey available in five 
languages and has sent links to it via email to any ham who submitted a 
log in last year's SSB and CW events. Deadline to complete the survey is 
Oct. 10

And finally, here's one questionnaire that really paid off: K3DN, the 
Warminster Amateur Radio Club in Pennsylvania, surveyed its members to 
get to know them better, and recently released results of that 2015 
first-quarter survey. With 81 responses out of 120 requests sent out, 
here's what they learned: Most of the club members have been licensed 
for more than 20 years, and nearly 60 percent of them hold an Extra 
Class license. The majority of club members are older than 50, and 41 
percent are retired. The survey also reported that these longtime 
Warminster hams are decidedly progressive and forward-thinking. The 
results showed that in addition to participating in the newer digital 
modes, members' highest levels of interest were both in homebrew and new 
radio equipment.

**

BREAK 1:

This is Amateur Radio Newsline, heard on bulletin stations around the 
world and brought to you by the volunteer services of the following radi 
amateur:

**

ELMERS FOR ETHIOPIA

[ANCHOR]: Any ham who's ever been an Elmer to another ham knows that, to 
be truly helpful, you sometimes have to be willing to go the distance. 
Amateur Radio Newsline's Stephen Kinford spoke with one ham who did just 
that - going many hundreds of miles, in fact, as part of a team of 
Elmers helping young hams in Ethiopia.

[STEPHEN KINFORD'S REPORT]:

Ken Claerbout, K4ZW, is an electrical engineer and a member of the 
Potomac Valley Radio Club near his home in Stafford, Virginia. But 
sometimes you can catch him on operating out of the ET3AA club station 
in Ethiopia where he has been part of a team that includes Bob Schenck, 
N-2-OH-OH (N2OO), of the Old Barney Amateur Radio Club in XXXX. The 
veteran radio amateurs have been lending moral and technical support to 
the 20 or so students at Addis Ababa University's Institute of 
Technology. Claerbout had already been traveling to Ethiopia on business 
more than two years ago when he first heard that the student hams needed 
a helping hand.

[4:10 - 5:13] "Being a very active ham ...kind of picked up from there."

Basic mentoring, in this case, meant helping the students prepared to 
test for licenses and to fix or replace equipment, even getting donations.

[6:07 "What happened...............replacement radio." [7:12]

The licensing issue remains, for now unresolved. In Ethiopia, where ham 
radio licenses are rare, the government will only issue a license to the 
club, not to the students themselves. Many of them instead have U.S. 
licenses. There are, unfortunately, some things that even the best of 
Elmers can't fix. But Clearbout and his team are working on it. For 
Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Stephen Kinford, N8WB, in Wadsworth, Ohio.

**
DIFFERENT KIND OF CONTEST

Listen up: The European Space Agency needs your ears and they'll make it 
worth your while. The ESA is inviting hams to listen for the AAUSAT-5 
CubeSat that was built by Danish students at the University of Aalborg. 
The International Space Station is expected to release the CubeSat 
sometime during the week of Oct. 5. The CubeSat has been poised for its 
launch since it was sent up to the space station on Aug. 19. Once it's 
deployed, it will begin its transmissions, and the race is on for hams 
to record them and send them on.

The first ham to record the CubeSat's signal and send it, via email, to 
the ESA's Education Office can count on receiving a prize. They include 
a poster of the AAUSAT-5 with the team members' signatures; a scale 1:1 
3-D printed model of the satellite and what the ESA Education Office is 
describing as a "goodie bag." The satellite will transmit on 437.425 MHz 
using CW and GMSK. There will be a 30 WPM beacon every 3 minutes and a 
9600 bps GMSK every 30 seconds.

The ESA will receive entries at cubesats@esa.int.

**
CALIFORNIA HERE WE COME

Speaking of contests, here's an opportunity that's Golden, in more ways 
than one. The California QSO Party is marking its 50th running with a 
new take on the Gold Rush on October 3 and 4. The California 
county-by-county challenge is offering a commemorative coin to 
qualifying hams who work any combination of special event station 
suffixes to spell the words "GOLD RUSH." Those stations would include 
such call signs as N6G, N6O, K6L and N6D, for example. To quality, 
operators must also log at least 150 QSOs; for California hams, at least 
75 of those QSOs should be outside California.

For a more thorough explanation of the rules, visit the contest website 
at cqp.org/

**

BREAK 2:

Time for you to identify your station. We are the Amateur Radio 
Newsline, heard on bulletin stations around the world, including the 
linked repeater system of the Barstow Amateur Radio Club, WA6TST, in 
Barstow, California on most Tuesday evenings at 7.

** **

PA QSO PARTY

ANCHOR: The Pennsylvania QSO Party - called the "Friendly Party" by its 
organizers - arrives on the amateur bands next weekend. Amateur Radio 
Newsline's Mark Abramowicz, NT3V has the preview....

[MARK'S REPORT]: The Nittany Amateur Radio Club in State College, 
Pennsylvania, is sponsor of this event which traces its roots back to 1957.

Michael Coslo, N3LI, is chairman of this year's PA Party.

"The goal is to operate as many counties as possible and as 
many sections as possible and as many individual contacts as possible if 
you're from Pennsylvania," Coslo explains. "If you are outside of 
Pennsylvania, you want to get as many contacts as possible and as many 
counties as possible. The big goal in the party is to get all 67 counties."

And, there is also a bonus station running multi-multi (that's multiple 
operators, multiple stations) in Wyoming County in northeastern 
Pennsylvania. Coslo says it's worth a bunch of points each time you work 
it...

"Our bonus station this year is KQX group," Coslo says. 
"They're using the call sign W3C. We had KQX group do it a few years ago 
and they did a good job and so we're happy to have them doing it again."

Coslo says one of the issues coming up in the online forums and the PA 
QSO Party Reflector is the the appropriateness of spotting stations...

"We not only allow spotting, we encourage it," Coslo says. "We're about 
people getting out there and getting QSOs. And, that ends up being kind 
of important for the mobiles. And, they get more contacts, people get 
more counties and overall it's a lot more fun."

Coslo says last year he saw an increase in the number of logs and with 
good propogation, he's expecting an increase this year, too.

To find out more about the party, go to our website, www.arnewsline.org 
and click on the script link and scroll down for the PA QSO Party web 
address.....

http://www.nittany-arc.net/PAQSO.html

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Mark Abramowicz, NT3V, in Philadelphia.

PIG REVISITED

The Pig has landed. That's the report from Andrew Garratt M-ZERO-N-R-D 
(M0NRD) who, as Amateur Radio Newline reported last week, launched Pinky 
Pig, a payload tracker, on a high-altitude balloon at the National 
Hamfest in the UK. He reports that the porker's flight, and the flight 
of its backup tracker, Piglet, were both successful, even after being 
scrapped for 24 hours due to a wind delay. He writes on the website, 
amateurradio.com:

QUOTE "Both payload trackers worked flawlessly, PINKY the high speed 
RTTY successfully sent SSDV as well as telemetry and the backup tracker 
PIGLET sent the slow speed RTTY telemetry." Not only did trackers from 
all over the UK as well as France, Holland and Poland successfully 
connect, but Pinky and Piglet caused quite a sensation at the Hamfest. 
Garratt and his family were triumphant later as they recovered both 
payloads, safely back on earth, still attached to parachutes.

Garratt reports QUOTE"The payloads had no damage, other than the antenna 
being bent by the landing." And there was no damage to anyone's 
reputation, either. Strong signals and a good return to earth made it 
clear these pigs would not be subjected to gentle teasing and would even 
be spared some ribs.

(SOUTHGATE AMATEUR RADIO NEWS)

** **
HE DIDN'T NEED ANY JUMPER WIRES

Mark Meltzer, AF6IM, may have felt a kinship with Pinky and Piglet on 
September 20: Meltzer was in freefall 13,500 feet above Byron, 
California after launching himself from a King Air 90 jumpship. He then 
activated two important pieces of equipment: he deployed a 
210-square-foot rectangular ram air canopy, and turned on his 
chest-mounted Yaesu FT-817 - and probably in that order of priority. 
With the help of a trailing wire end fed dipole antenna, Meltzer began 
calling on 28.425, on upper side band. He made a total of 12 contacts 
while enroute back to earth, but not before switching to 2 meters on FM 
and grabbing a few more QSOs enroute to the dropzone.

His jump was, however, just preparation. On Oct, 17, he'll participate 
in Parachute Mobile Mission 22 that will take place in conjunction with 
the ARRL Pacifcon event in San Ramon CA.

(PARACHUTEMOBILE.ORG)
**

RUSSIAN DIGITAL CHALLENGE

Operators using RTTY and BPSK63 can expect to be kept busy on Oct. 3 and 
Oct. 4, as the Russian Digital Radio Club World Wide Digital Contest 
gets under way. QSOs on QRP should not exceed 5 watts. According to the 
club's website, one of the contest's main goals is to increase the 
popularity of digital modes for amateur operators in Russia and to help 
Russian amateurs compete in these modes at the global level. Contest 
participants will be working on 160 meters, 80 meters, 40 meters, 20 
meters, 15 meters and 10 meters.

(RUSSIAN DIGITAL RADIO CLUB)


**
THE WORLD OF DX

Be listening for Andrey, RK7A, who wil be active from Morocco beginning 
Oct. 20 through the 27th, operating as CN2BGB. He will be on single 
sideband between 160 meters and 10 meters. Send QSL cards via UA6GG.

PY70FEB will operate in Brazil throughout October with a twofold 
purpose: celebrating 70 years since the end of World War II, and in 
tribute to the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in Italy. Modes will be CW, 
digital and single side band. Please send direct QSLs to PS7AB with $2, 
or by bureau, eQSL and Logbook of the World.

There are also a couple of good DX opportunities during the upcoming the 
CQ WorldWide DX Contest on single sideband on Oct. 24 and 25:

9K, KUWAIT
The callsign 9K2HN will be active in Kuwait during the contest, with a 
number of operators working the bands. You can send QSL cards via 9K2HN, 
by the Bureau, direct or Logbook of the World.

C3, ANDORRA
During that same contest, listen for the members of the "Andorran 
Amateur Radio Union (URA)," who will be active once again as C37NL. They 
are working as a Multi-Multi entry. QSLs can be sent via C37URA or by 
the Bureau.

(OHIO PENN DX NEWSLETTER)


KICKER: YOU THINK YOU HAD A BAD DAY?

As radio amateurs, many of us all understand all too well the challenges 
of putting up and maintaining a tower. But some listeners to a 
professional radio station in Oklahoma got a rude reception on Sept. 23 
when the tower of radio station KGUY, 91.3 FM, took a tumble.

Not on its own, thankfully - but at the hands of a tower crew from 
American Tower Corporation, which took the broadcaster's tower down 
without first notifying the station it had arrived to do the work.

Dale Bolton, the public radio station's director of programming and 
operations, said a crew had been hired because the 418-foot tower had 
been standing at an odd angle and was in need of repairs for safety 
reasons. But, Bolton adds, the timing came as a total surprise. He said 
QUOTE"it would have been nice if we were able to give our listeners 
notice."ENDQUOTE

Instead, the tower came down, crashing into the satellite dish and 
brushing the station building before landing in an open field -- right 
in the middle of a classical music program. It knocked the station off 
the air, sending anxious listeners to the phones.

Perhaps, though, the listeners should not have been so shocked. 
According to an online account from Wireless Estimator, music fans might 
have been tipped off by the playlist, saying the tower's dismantling was 
QUOTE"perhaps timed perfectly by the tower techs for it to pancake upon 
the earth a t the end of Siegfried's funeral march blasting from their 
crew cab."ENDQUOTE


(WIRELESS ESTIMATOR)

** **

NEWSCAST CLOSE
With thanks to Alan Labs, the ARRL, AMSAT News Service; CQ Magazine; the 
FCC; Hap Holly and the Rain Report; The Irish Radio Transmitter Society; 
the Ohio-Penn DX Newsletter; ParachuteMobile.Org; Southgate Amateur 
Radio News, TWiT TV, the Russian Digital Radio Club; Wireless Estimator; 
and you our listeners, that's all from the Amateur Radio Newsline. Our 
email address is newsline@arnewsline.org.

More information is available at Amateur Radio Newsline's only official 
website located at www.arnewsline.org. You can also write to us or 
support us at Amateur Radio Newsline, 28197 Robin Avenue, Santa Clarita, 
CA 91350.

For now, with Caryn Eve Murray, KD2GUT, at the news desk in New York, 
and our news team worldwide, I'm Don Wilbanks AE5DW in New Orleans, 
saying 73 and as always we thank you for listening.

Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) is Copyright 2015. All rights reserved.


***

As a Service to the HAM Radio Community and HAM Operators all over the world,
this Amateur Radio Newline(tm) message has been gated from the internet and
posted to you by Waldo's Place USA, fidonet node 1:3634/12. We hope you
enjoyed it!

Please address all comments and questions to the ARNewsletter editor as
described in this posting. If you have any specific questions related to the
actual posting of this message, you may address them to
hamfdn(at)wpusa.dynip.com.

Thank you and good day!

-73- ARNTE-0.1.0-OS2 build 42
(text/plain utf-8 quoted-printable)