ARRL

Death Valley National Park is in a remote desert in southern California, where mobile phone networks are spotty at best. On Saturday, April 6, a radio amateur and his family were enjoying the park when their vehicle became stuck in mud in a dangerous area. Without access to a cell network, the ham called for help on the 10-meter band.

According to a news release from the Black Swamp Amateur Radi...

Millions of people across the United States got to see a rare solar eclipse on Monday, April 8, 2024.

The path of totality -- the line of darkness where the moon fully occluded the sun -- stretched through the South Pacific, Mexico, central Texas, the Ozarks, the Midwest, the Rust Belt area, and to New England through the Maritimes. In all, 14 ARRL Sections were impacted directly and several mor...

I did not see last Monday's eclipse, except on television. Here in
the Pacific Northwest, we only got a 20% exposure, and skies were
overcast.

As they moved across the country displaying successive totality, I
noticed the prominences on the edge of the disk. There were always
between one and three little red spots at the edge.

Solar activity over the past reporting week, April 4-10, remains
weak.

Avera...

A poster promoting 2024 ARRL Field Day has been released on the Field Day web page, www.arrl.org/field-day. The two-sided informational poster features this year's theme "Be Radio Active". It includes a space for clubs to fill in information about their planned activation so that members of their community can come visit the site.

More resources for promoting 2024 ARRL Field Day are being develo...

ARRL is working to engage the next generation of radio amateurs right in the classroom. Many young people have become active hams because of the ARRL Teachers Institute on Wireless Technology.

This donor-funded effort brings teachers from across the United States together to get them excited about radio through hands-on experiments. The Institute then trains them on how to take that excitement b...

As part of the fun at Dayton Hamvention®, youth attendees are invited to participate in the 2024 ARRL Youth Rally on Saturday, May 18. The day will include a special agenda of activities and presentations intended to engage and inspire young hams and young newcomers to amateur radio.

The Youth Rally is intended for students who are 11 to 21 years of age. While Hamvention offers free tickets for ...

In one of nature's most spectacular visual displays, on April 8, 2024, the sun will align with the moon and the Earth, casting a shadow that will transit much of North America.

Spectacular Display and Gathering

Millions will gather along the path of totality - the section where the sun is fully blocked by the moon - to witness something that happens, on average, once every 375 years for any place...

With the big increase in sunspot numbers and solar flux reported in
last week's Propagation Forecast Bulletin ARLP013, I hoped the trend
would continue, but numbers this week were lower.

Five new sunspot groups emerged, one each day from March 30 through
April 3.

Average daily sunspot numbers went from 147 to 60, and average daily
solar flux declined from 191.9 to 136.9.

Geomagnetic numbers were much ...

 A dramatic increase in solar activity emerged over the past week, and geomagnetic activity reacted as well.

Two new sunspot groups appeared on March 21, then one new group emerged each day over March 22-25.

Average daily solar flux rose from 153.3 to 191.9, and average daily sunspot numbers increased from 94.3 to 147.

The highest sunspot number over last week was 171 on March 22, which was the...

While attending the North Carolina State School for the Blind (now known as Governor Morehead School for the Blind) in Raleigh, Hampton met several sighted friends involved in the amateur radio community and began attending radio club meetings with them. As a result, he became a licensed amateur radio operator at the age of 12, despite the requirement that an operator must be able to read, copy...

World Amateur Radio Day (WARD) is celebrated each year on April 18.

The theme for 2024 is, "A Century of Connections: Celebrating 100 Years of Amateur Radio Innovation, Community, and Advocacy." The global event covers all of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) regions and spans 2 days: Thursday, April 18, 2024, 0000 UTC to Friday, April 19, 2024, 0000 UTC.

On April 18, 1925, the IARU wa...

The ARRL Puerto Rico Section has a new online training course for prospective amateur radio operators. Fifty-three students have enrolled in the course, taught by ARRL Technical Coordinator and Instructor Carlos Roig, WP4AOH, who draws from the ARRL License Manual and the National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators pool of questions for the Spanish Zoom course. The course is open to ...

The National Hurricane Conference was held March 25 - 28, 2024, in Orlando, Florida. Amateur radio was well represented at the event. A series of workshops were held that focused on amateur radio's involvement in hurricane tracking, coverage, and recovery.

Among the presenters was the Assistant Amateur Radio Coordinator of WX4NHC at the National Hurricane Center (NHC) Julio Ripoll, WD4R.   Ripol...

This year, International Marconi Day (IMD) is on April 27. Italian inventor and electrical engineer Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi was born on April 25, 1874, and is credited for inventing the radiotelegraph system, creating Marconi's law, and sending the first wireless transmission over the open sea.

IMD was created to honor Marconi and is hosted annually by the Cornish Radio Amateur Club, GX...

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced an upcoming change to the Commission Registration System (CORES) that licensees use to pay any application or regulatory fees, manage or reset a password on an existing FRN, or request a new FRN. Beginning March 29, 2024, multifactor authentication will be implemented. Users will be prompted to request a six-digit secondary verification ...

A full slate of programming has been committed for the 2024 ARRL National Convention, which will be hosted by Dayton Hamvention®, May 17 - 19, in Xenia, Ohio. Hamvention is the largest annual gathering of radio amateurs in the world. Coupled with the National Convention, this year promises to be a Hamvention not to miss. Building on a yearlong theme to "Be Radio Active," ARRL has planned exhibi...

Over March 14-20, new sunspot groups emerged every day except March
19. March 18 had two, and each of the other days saw one new sunspot
group.

It is now Spring in the Northern Hemisphere which is favorable to HF
conditions, and solar and geomagnetic numbers both show improvement.

Average daily sunspot numbers rose from 82.3 to 94.3, and average
daily solar flux jumped from 130.4 to 153.3.

Geomagnetic...

ARRL is working with its merchant services provider to perform an update involving credit card processing for transactions. At this time, transactions via the ARRL website and phone cannot be completed for such functions as membership (including renewals), subscriptions, and ARRL Store purchases.

This matter does not involve any concern about data security.

This n...

The theme for 2024 ARRL Field Day is "Be Radio Active." The event will run on June 22 - 23, and it will be one-part contest, one-part emergency communications exercise, and one-part open house -- and a great time. The theme encourages radio amateurs to take advantage of the peak of Solar Cycle 25, which we are nearing. Activity this year is likely to be extremely high thanks to favorable solar ...

The upcoming April 8, 2024, solar eclipse has many excited about the opportunity to witness the darkness of totality. Spectators from across the country are traveling to the path of total darkness that will stretch from South Texas to Northeastern Maine.

Some states are anticipating more than a million travelers for the event. In the impacted areas, schools will be letting students out early for...