ARRL

After nine days with no sunspots, sunspot group 2729 emerged on December 5. The sunspot number on that date was 16. Average daily solar flux for the week was 68.9, unchanged from last week. On Thursday, December 6 the appearance of 2729 continued, with a sunspot number of 17 and the sunspot area increasing from 30 to 50 millionths of a solar hemisphere.

Average daily planetary A index rose from ...

The ARRL International Grid Chase Certificates page is now live. As IGC competitions are monthly, people can start generating monthly certificates to display. At year’s end, IGC will have the option to generate a certificate based on year-end tallies. For now, participants can select a month, then select up to 16 band/mode certificates they’d like to create. Participants with more than 16 band/...

The Canadian National Parks on the Air event (CNPOTA) will get under way on January 1, 2019, and continue until year’s end. A volunteer group of a half-dozen hams in Nova Scotia, working with a zero budget, came up with the notion of attempting to replicate the success of the National Parks on the Air (NPOTA) event in 2016, first created to mark the centennial of the National Park Service.

Radio...

In observance of the National Day of Mourning for President George H.W. Bush, the FCC will close on Wednesday, December 5.  All paper and electronic filings due on December 5 are now due on Thursday, December 6, the Commission’s next official business day. Additionally, December 5 will not count in computing filing periods shorter than 7 days because it will be a Commission holiday. Due to the ...

[UPDATED: 2018-12-04 @ 1320 UTC] SpaceX has announced that the SSO-A: SmallSat Express mission carrying AMSAT’s Fox-1Cliff CubeSat has been deployed into orbit. A SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle carried Fox-1Cliff and several other satellites into space on December 3 at approximately 1334 UTC from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, following a 1-day launch delay. (See the launch on YouTube.) Acco...

The FCC Enforcement Bureau has called on on marketers of light-emitting diode (LED) signs to ensure that these lights comply with FCC rules. Since March of this year, the agency has entered into 21 settlement agreements with companies that marketed noncompliant LED signs in violation of the Communications Act and FCC rules. The settlements yielded approximately $850,000 in penalties, and commit...

The winner of the 2018 ARRL Hiram Percy Maxim Memorial Award, Ruth Willet, KM4LAO, received the award plaque and allotted $1,500 on November 3 in a festive award ceremony during the Stone Mountain Hamfest in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Hosted by Alford Memorial Radio Club, the Stone Mountain Hamfest was also the 2018 ARRL Georgia Section Convention. ARRL Southeastern Division Director Greg Sarratt,...

Listen to the new episode of ARRL Audio News on your iOS or Android podcast app, or online at http://www.blubrry.com/arrlaudionews/. Audio News is also retransmitted on a number of FM repeaters. Click here and then scroll down to see the list.

At 2335 UTC on November 28 the Australian Space Forecast Centre issued a geomagnetic disturbance warning for December 1. "The effect of a high speed solar wind stream from a large and recurrent coronal hole may raise the geomagnetic activity to minor storm levels on December 1 and 2."

Sunspots appeared on only two days over the past reporting week, the weekend of November 24-25, with sunspot num...

Scouting’s Jamboree on the Air (JOTA) 2018 reports that total Scout participation in the annual fall event jumped by 36% from 2017. Each year more than 1 million Scouts and Guides get together over the airwaves for JOTA, which takes place on the third weekend of October. Since the first JOTA in 1958, millions of Scouts have become acquainted via Amateur Radio, and contacts sometimes result in r...

Satellites with Amateur Radio payloads are set to launch from India on November 29 at approximately 0400 UTC. Among the satellites is the Reaktor Hello World (RHW) CubeSat, OH2RHW, carrying a packet radio digipeater. Following launch, the 437.775 MHz beacon transmitter will start transmitting CW at around 1100 UTC. The RHW CubeSat is aimed at “demonstrating the Hello World platform for future E...

SKYWARN™ Recognition Day (SRD) 2018 takes place on Saturday, December 1, from 0000 until 2400 UTC, and Maxim Memorial Station W1AW will be active as bonus station WX1AW, the call sign of The HQ Doods Recreational Deployment Team. Developed in 1999 by the National Weather Service (NWS) and ARRL, SRD celebrates the contributions that SKYWARN volunteers make to the NWS mission of protecting life a...