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IN THIS EDITION:
And NOW is the time to prepare for it! Don’t wait until the final weeks and expect that you will be able to get people to act on a moment’s notice.
The 2008 Field Day package is up on the web. While it is hard to write a specific press release months ahead of the event, (we had to stay pretty generic) the package includes the first of what will be several releases and more timely materials made available to PIOs as we get closer to this event. To see all the FD materials already available, go to http://www.arrl.org/contests/announcements/fd/
Logo Info
This year's Field Day logo is going to be very popular. As a result, we're likely to get the usual requests for the rights to place the logos on T-shirts, etc. I asked Bob Inderbitzen, Manager of Marketing, about the rules governing this year's logo. His response . . .
The ARRL Field Day logo may be used on newsletters, flyers (including posters directing people to an ARRL Field Day site), or on club Web sites.
Permission is required for any other use. If it is not clothing related, it usually is given, but you need to ask. Write MWeinberg@arrl.org .
It is a really neat logo and I hope you enjoy it, but it is copyrighted and part of Marketing’s annual campaign. It may not be used for any embroidery, silk screening, or other use on apparel or products.
Getting a proclamation is a good way to pull in the politicians. They LIKE to do it (good PR for them) and we like to get them (good relationships and a door-opener for us).
But often politicians are at a loss of what to write in a proclamation.
Remember – getting a proclamation takes time. Politicians usually move slowly, so plan weeks ahead. Start NOW! People to ask are: Mayors, Governors (go through your SM for that), Emergency Management leaders, city councilmen.
Here’s text with a fill-in-the-blank draft of some text you can use. Modify it for your local situation and don’t be afraid to ask your mayor, manager or other elected official to make it “official.”
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Whereas, Amateur Radio has continued to provide a bridge between peoples, societies and countries by creating friendships and the sharing of ideas; and
Whereas, Amateur Radio Operators have also provided countless hours of community services; and
Whereas, these Amateur Radio’s services are provided wholly uncompensated; and
Whereas, the State also recognizes the services Amateur Radio’s people also provide to our many Emergency Response organizations, including FEMA, DHS, _______add local and gov’t served agencies___________; and
Whereas, these same individuals have further demonstrated their value in public assistance by providing free radio communications for local parades, bike-a-thons, walk-a-thins, fairs and other charitable public events; and
Whereas, the ___state/city_____ of _________ recognizes and appreciates the diligence of these “hams” who also serve as weather spotters in the Skywarn program of the National Weather Service; and
Whereas, Amateur Radio once again proved its undisputed relevance in the modern world by providing emergency communications when other systems failed in the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and Northwest Storms plus many smaller crises; and
Whereas, the ARRL is the leading organization for Amateur Radio in the USA; and
Whereas, the ARRL Amateur Radio Field Day exercise will take place on June 28-29, 2008 and is a 24 hour emergency encampment exercise and demonstration of the Radio Amateurs’ skills and readiness to provide self-supporting communications even in fields without further infrastructure; now
Therefore, I ____name_____, _______title_______ of the ____place_______, do hereby officially recognize and designate June 23-29, 2008 as
Amateur Radio Week
In the ____place______
Signed
Seal
http://www.iaru.org/worldAmRadioDay.html
This year's theme for World Amateur Radio Day is "Amateur Radio: A Foundation of Technical Knowledge."
“Each year on 18 April, radio amateurs celebrate World Amateur Radio Day. On that day in 1925 the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) was founded. “The theme of the celebration this year is: “Amateur Radio: A Foundation for Technical Knowledge”. It is no secret that many professionals in the field of radio, TV, communications, electronics, etc. have started their technical education as young Radio Amateurs. Although Amateur Radio has a different face nowadays – Digital Communications, Voice over Internet Protocol, Satellite up- and downlinks, etc. – it is even of greater value as a foundation for technical knowledge for youngsters. And much more – it is and should be used as a unique attraction for future young Radio Amateurs.” Ole Garpestad, LA2RR |
World Amateur Radio Day April 18
The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU), and its member societies representing over 150 countries around the world, will celebrate World Amateur Radio Day on April 18, 2008. The theme for this year’s celebration is “Amateur Radio: A Foundation for Technical Knowledge”
Despite the Internet and cellular phone, Amateur Radio continues to attract people world-wide by providing free international communications and friendships. Because it does not need pre-established supporting infrastructure, Amateur Radio (often called “Ham Radio”) reaches into every corner of the world – and into space too.
With the help of Amateur Radio clubs and ham radio operators, space shuttle astronauts and crewmembers of the International Space Station have been speaking to youth around the world over the ham airwaves while in orbit. They are talking directly with schools, showing teachers, students, parents and communities how Amateur Radio energizes youngsters about science, technology, and learning. The program is called ARISS, Amateur Radio on the International Space Station, and is an opportunity for students to experience the excitement of Amateur Radio by talking directly about science, technology, and learning. Speaking to the ISS crewmembers is a unique educational experience. Hundreds of Amateur Radio operators, including those from NASA Amateur Radio clubs at Johnson Space Center, Goddard Space Flight Center, and Marshall Space Flight Center, work behind the scenes to make these educational experiences possible. Recently, a Wisconsin teacher tuned to the ISS frequency. His students were excited to hear Astronaut Suni Williams, KD5PLB, talking to another school. One comment about traveling “over 17,000 mph” in the ISS really got the kids. The teacher reported, “The class made a collective ‘Ohhhhh’ sound... That’s interested students!”
Similar youth programs are available through Scouting as each year more than many thousands of Scouts “get together" over the airwaves for their Jamboree-on-the-Air (JOTA). Modern radio technology offers Scouts the exciting opportunity to make friends in other countries without leaving home.
JOTA is an annual event in which Boy and Girl Scouts and Guides from all over the world speak to each other by means of Amateur Radio. Scouting experiences are exchanged and ideas are shared via radio waves. Since 1958 when the first Jamboree-on-the-Air was held, millions of Scouts have met each other through this event. Many contacts made during JOTA have resulted in pen pals and links between Scout troops that have lasted many years. The radio stations are operated by licensed ham radio operators. Many Scouts and leaders hold licenses and have their own stations, but the majority participates in JOTA through volunteering stations operated by local radio clubs and individual radio amateurs.
Calling “CQ” on the Amateur shortwave bands can result in a contact with other Amateurs across town or far across the oceans. While Hams have repeatedly been in the news for their life-saving communications services in disasters, a large part of their activities remains the excitement and joy of contacting distant and remote areas of the world, learning directly about each others’ regions and lives and trying different ways to make radio contacts around the world. It is through this enjoyable radio hobby activity that the Hams learn the skills which, in other situations, have earned them world praise for their responses in emergencies. In addition, leading electrical engineers are able to draw from their practical, hands-on experiences gained as Amateur Radio Operators while they develop the inventions that are today’s necessities.
Since 1925, the IARU has been instrumental in coordinating and representing Amateur Radio to the world. For information about the International Amateur Radio Union please see: www.IARU.org
From the ARRL website:
Each year on the anniversary of its founding, April 18, the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) marks World Amateur Radio Day. On this, the 83rd anniversary of its inaugural meeting in Paris, the IARU dedicates World Amateur Radio Day to the radio amateurs, educators and administrators who use Amateur Radio to support technology education in the classroom.
While the actual date of World Amateur Radio Day is not until next month, ARRL staffers will be activating W1AW in the CQ WPX SSB Contest this weekend (March 29-30) using the IARU club call sign NU1AW. By celebrating the event, staffers hope to provide an opportunity for hams worldwide to put NU1AW in their logs, chase the WPX award and learn about HF propagation as the world turns through day and night not once, but twice! Springtime propagation near the equinox is enhanced on the HF bands, even during the Solar Cycle minimum, so it's worth taking a listen even if the HF bands have been quiet lately.
CROSSBAND MILITARY/
AMATEUR RADIO COMMUNICATIONS TEST (10 MAY 2008)
The Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard are
co-sponsoring the annual military/amateur radio communications tests in
celebration of the 58th Anniversary of Armed Forces Day (AFD). Although
the actual Armed Forces Day is celebrated on Saturday, May 17, 2008, the
AFD Military/Amateur Crossband Communications Test will be conducted 10
May 2008 to prevent conflict with the Dayton HamVention (16-18 May
2008), which is the same weekend as the actual Armed Forces Day.
The annual celebration features traditional military to amateur cross
band communications SSB voice tests and copying the Secretary of Defense
message via digital modes. These tests give Amateur Radio operators and
Short Wave Listeners (SWL) an opportunity to demonstrate their
individual technical skills, and to receive recognition from the
Secretary of Defense and/or the appropriate military radio station for
their proven expertise. QSL cards will be provided to those stations
making contact with the military stations. Special commemorative
certificates will be awarded to anyone who receives and copies the
digital Armed Forces Day message from the Secretary of Defense.
Schedules and frequencies of participating military stations will be
published in May on the Army MARS web site,
www.netcom.army.mil/MARS.
Nominating Period Open For 2008 Amateur Radio Newsline
Los Angeles, CA. (March 1, 2008) - If you know a young radio amateur age 18 or younger who has done something very special in the Amateur Radio hobby, this is the time to consider nominating him or her for the 2008 Amateur Radio Newsline Young Ham of the Year Award.
HOW THE YHOTY AWARD WORKS
The "Young Ham of the Year Award" is presented annually to a licensed Radio Amateur (Ham) who is 18 years of age or younger, is a resident of the 50 United States, Canada provinces or Puerto Rico, and who has provided outstanding service to the nation, the community or the betterment of the state of the art in communications through the Amateur Radio hobby/service.
All nominations must be received by May 30 of any given calendar year on an official application and accompanied by verification materials. Applications forms are available for a self addressed stamped envelope mailed to the Young Ham of the Year Award c/o Newsline, 28197 Robin Avenue Santa Clarita California 91350. These nominating applications are also available for electronic download or on-line submission from our special award website at http://www.yhoty.org
For more information please contact:
Bill Pasternak (ARNewsline) at 661-296-7180 or via e-mail to newsline@arnewsline.org
____________________________________
Jeff Burns, NI5Q, posted this video on YouTube. The music is by NWS’ John Fausett. If ever there was a great short video for Severe Weather Week that fits most of the country, this is it! (I lived in mid-Kansas for long enough to remember it well!) They have graciously allowed the ARRL to have and use the video in promoting Skywarn, preparedness and Amateur Radio. Please do NOT edit it…leave their credits in! They deserve a major thank you for this work.
See it for yourself at : http://tiny.cc/CId6u
File download at www.hello-radio.org/video/tornado-coming.wmv
Jeff writes:
Actually, Clint Perkins should get the credit for posting it on YouTube. If you need a “Ham” in the credits I guess you can say I produced it, but without John’s song I wouldn’t have been inspired to put it together. And without Clint’s contributions in front of the camera it just wouldn’t have been near the video it is. He actually appears several times in the video…reading the StormReady handout, hiding under the bridge with his daughter, and seeking shelter in the culvert. He also supplied the tornado footage from his personal collection. He is also the current secretary for our local AMS/NWA Chapter. In fact, Clint is currently studying for his Ham ticket.
Since I was behind the camera for most of the time, you briefly see me under the bridge approaching the truck and telling the driver to move on.
Thank You so much Allen for getting this out where hopefully people not only discover John’s music and Clint’s wonderful webpage, but more importantly paying attention to the weather and where to go in a storm.
We have many audio PSA mp3 recordings available on www.arrl.org/pio .
Most are serious, but Amateur Radio also has its humorous side too.
This new PSA has been well received and playing on many stations already. Give it a listen….
You can download by RIGHT clicking and then choosing “save target as…” I hope you will download them and take them to your local broadcasters.
Not Your Granddaddy's Radio Anymore (MP3)
-Thanks to Don Carlson, KQ6FM
When preparing a letter, email message or other text document, the following formats are preferred:
ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio
or
ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio
or
ARRL
The national association for Amateur Radio
Note that national and association are NOT capitalized!
April
18 World Amateur Radio Day
26 ARRL VEC Amateur Exam Day
May
watch for Hurricane Awareness Week
16 Dayton Hamvention® days
23 Deadline for McGan Award entries
June
1 Hurricane Season Begins
14 ARRL June VHF QSO Party
21 Kid’s Day
21 Amateur Radio Week Begins
28 ARRL Field Day
Long-Delayed Radio Echoes Resolved!
By Ailean Mac an Daroch
Contributing Editor
April 1, 2008
Modern “String Theory” provides resolution to decades old questions
Mystical delayed radio signals received on long-delayed echoes.
Long-delayed echoes (LDEs) have puzzled radio operators since the very beginnings of radio itself. For a history of this, see the work of Bill Continelli, W2XOY, in installment #31 of “The History of Amateur Radio” on www.ham-shack.com. Everything from tropospheric ducting for a dozen or more times around the earth to little green men from another star system has been postulated. LDE’s have been popularized in Frank Edwards’ Stranger Than… books and in Ripley’s Believe It or Not. More recently Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, wrote about them in his “Surfing” columns.
Sverre Holm, of the Centre for Imaging, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, has studied LDEs and wrote his findings in Oslo. Rather than commit to any one theory, he presented a fistful of ideas, each of which might just happen at a given time, for a specific frequency, and if conditions are just right in the cosmos. But he too added the little green men concept to the mix.
Until early in the 21st Century, the physics simply was not there to explain the phenomenon. However emerging results from the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), secretly built in the late 1980’s in Ellis County, Texas, under the direction Roy Schwitters, a physicist at the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard University, showed that the elusive “Higgs’ boson,” a particle predicted by the Standard Model, could actually be created.
While bosons exist in our world for only microseconds before reverting back into energy, their transdimensional effect on surrounding electromagnetic waves has been studied and documented.
Modern “String Theory” initially postulated that the most basic form of matter was a “string” which is right on the borderline between matter and energy. The characteristics of the particulate matter depend only on the frequency by which the string vibrates. Mathematically this model works out well and resolved many physics problems. It was a major step forward in understanding the Grand Unified Theory (GUT), but in doing so it was found to first require 7 and later 11 dimensions. (Human experience is limited to only four -3 directional axes plus 1 of time.) However, despite our own sensory limitations, these extra three or seven dimensions also resolved the “sponge-like” properties of the boson by which it captures and later releases surrounding electromagnetic energies.
“It’s actually more like a spleen than a sponge,” claims Dr. Juan O’Callaghan of Hamilton University. “Sponges just soak up things until squeezed. The boson takes electromagnetic energy, transfers it into a different dimension plane where it resides until brought back to its original state. Since there is no consistency to time in these different dimensions, the delay perceived on our side of the dimensional divide can be microseconds or months. Maybe eons. Examples of this are the unexpected re-appearance and reception of the 1937 television signals clearly showing Goebbel’s meeting with Hopalong Cassidy.”
Indeed, it was only after the recognition that the actions of bosons and the multi-dimensional properties of strings were interrelated with the magnetic monopoles predicted by GUT, that the mystery of the Long Delayed Echoes of radio finally was resolved and formulated as
(Some say this equation can be reduced further to eIeIΏ)
Future research is focused on humanitarian efforts by increasing the longevity of the boson particle effect but Riley of the FCC cautioned that, “There is a real problem with a radio transmission whose station callsign may only be heard once every few millennia.” Other possibilities include the return and reassignment of many past DX and contest awards whose contact information has yet to return and also the home use of boson particles to delay the receipt of bad news or chore lists until after the weekend.
April fool! :-)