Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2125 for July 20, 2018

*** CLOSED CIRCUIT ADVISORY ****

The following is a closed circuit advisory and not for broadcast.

This is a special, extended newscast and will contain 3 segments and 2 
ID breaks to accommodate an expanded report on the World Radiosport Team 
Championship.  Thank you.



**
Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2025 with a release date of Friday, 
July 20, 2018 to follow in 5-4-3-2-1.

The following is a QST. Contest season heats up in Korea. A smartphone 
app provides a gateway to ham radio - and in this special expanded 
edition of Amateur Radio Newsline, we revisit the World Radiosport Team 
Championships.

****

BILLBOARD CART HERE

**
CONTEST SEASON HEATS UP IN KOREA

JIM/ANCHOR: We begin this week's newscast with the good news that if you 
think the championship season is over, think again. With two big summer 
contests behind us, one of the next big competitions will take place in 
Korea. The focus here is on amateur radio direction-finding, or 
foxhunting - as Jason Daniels VK2LAW tells us.

JASON: Just in case you can't get enough of the big contest scene, hams 
are now preparing for the action to shift to Korea where the country's 
natural landscape will share the spotlight with some of the hobby's best 
in foxhunting. The 19th World Amateur Radio Direction Finding 
Championships will be hosted by the Korean Amateur Radio League not far 
from another prominent contest venue - the 2018 Winter Olympics location 
in Pyeong Chang.

The championship search for low-power transmitters will be held 
September 2 through 8th. According to the latest bulletin from the 
Korean radio league, 418 amateurs representing 25 countries have 
committed to participate so far. The panel of jurors consists of hams 
from Belgium, Sweden, Canada, Ukraine and Japan.

The 18th World ARDF championships were held in Bulgaria in 2016.

For Amateur Radio Newsline I'm Jason Daniels VK2LAW.

(KOREAN AMATEUR RADIO LEAGUE)

**

AUSTRALIAN SCHOOL SESSION GOES SKY HIGH

JIM/ANCHOR: Imagine having a guest speaker at your public school who is 
some 250 miles above the Earth. Well, youngsters in Melbourne, Australia 
didn't have to imagine. It really happened - and just as planned. Here 
Robert Broomhead VK3DN with those details.

ROBERT: Just as planned, an astronaut aboard the International Space 
Station kept her appointment with the students at the Essex Heights 
Primary School in Melbourne Australia on the evening of Tuesday, July 
17th. As the ISS approached Australia's southern coast at 27,500 
kilometers per hour, the youngsters had their first conversations that 
took place more than 400 kilometers, or almost 250 miles, above the 
earth. Ham radio made it possible. "This is your little moment in 
history, your opportunity to do something that very few people are able 
to do," moderator Ciaran Morgan M0XTD had told them. From the north, 
Shane Lynd VK4KHZ, put out the call to astronaut Serena Aunon-Chancellor 
KG5TMT and Ciaran set the discussion in motion from his QTH in England. 
The students cheered and then took turns at the microphone with their 
questions: how does the body react to being in space? What foods do you 
miss most? For the children, it was ham radio's finest moment as the 
dialogue went forward courtesy of a telebridge between Shane in 
Queensland and NA1SS, the International Space Station Amateur Radio Club 
outside Washington, D.C. It lasted barely 10 minutes but for those 
twelve children joined by 400 family and friends in the school hall it 
would be a memory forever. The event was featured the following evening 
on Australia's Channel 7 evening TV News service and again the following 
night on Channel 10’s "The Project," a news and current events talk 
show. For the rest of the world, you can watch the YouTube by pickup up 
the link from on the school's website. Visit www dot essexheightsps dot 
vic dot edu dot au (www.essexheightsps.vic.edu.au)

For Amateur Radio Newsline I'm Robert Broomhead VK3DN
**


**
K2BSA SCOUTS ON THE AIR IN CALIFORNIA

JIM/ANCHOR: Scouts in the U.S. are activating K2BSA again this week and 
opening registration for their big on-air happening, Jamboree on the 
Air. Bill Stearns NE4RD has that report.

BILL: This week in Radio Scouting we have 2 activations of the K2BSA 
callsign, one activation from Scout Camps on the Air, and Jamboree on 
the Air registration is open for 2018.

Chris Clark, W6CBC, will be activating K2BSA/6 at Camp Chawanakee in 
Shaver Lake, CA, from July 28 through August 4. Chris will be operating 
a station at the camp in preparation for JOTA.

Frederick Donkin, KA7MMM, will be activating K2BSA/9 at the National 
Order of the Arrow Conference in Bloomington, IN, from July 30 through 
August 4. The NOAC is a conference that is held every 3 years and is the 
second biggest national scouting activity.

BSA Troop 20 Amateur Radio Club will be activating their callsign WS5BSA 
at the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Vic Ely, MN, from July 30 through 
August 4. The Canoe Trek will set up at daily campsites and make QSOs 
until 0130 UTC. They will most likely work 40/20 meters due to time of 
day and latitude. They are also hoping that one or two stations will try 
to work a schedule with them every evening. Find their contact 
information on our SCOTA.US site.

Jamboree on the Air and Jamboree on the Internet is just a short 3 
months away now. Registration has been opened and has been greatly 
simplified. You can find the registration page with our shortcut of 
jota2018.k2bsa.net , that's J O T A 2 0 1 8 .k2bsa.net or by searching 
the jotajoti.info site. Stations can register events with Boy Scout or 
Girl Scout units. You can even edit your event information after you 
have registered, so be sure to include a current email address and 
you'll receive a link to your registration for updating.

Another event that is just 12 months away is World Jamboree. This is a 
quadrennial event that is held in locations all over the Scouting World 
every four years. In 2019 it will be hosted in North America at the 
Summit Bechtel Reserve in West Virginia. Our callsign for this event 
will be NA1WJ. You'll be hearing more about this event as it nears. For 
now, check out our landing page for it at na1wj.net.

For more information on JOTA or Radio Scouting, or to signup for our 
JOTA newsletter, please visit our website at k2bsa.net.

For Amateur Radio Newsline and the K2BSA Amateur Radio Association, this 
is Bill Stearns, NE4RD.

**

YOUNG HAMS' INVITATION TO 'BREAKFAST'

JIM/ANCHOR: Another way to hook youngsters on ham radio in the internet 
age is to start with their smartphones! Paul Braun WD9GCO tells us how 
one ham did it.

PAUL: One of the hot topics in ham radio today is how to attract new, 
young hams to the hobby in a world that's full of the internet and cell 
phones. One ham, Denny Johnson KD5DLJ, has found a way to combine all of 
those. His initial plan was to get the school systems in his area to use 
the Skywarn training materials as the curriculum in a science class, and 
then get the students Skywarn certified. Since most of them had 
smartphones, his plan was to create a channel on Zello, a popular app 
that allows mobile phones to behave very much like an HT. He figured it 
would bring them in contact with Skywarn spotters who were also hams, 
and hopefully spark interest. And then he started thinking bigger:

JOHNSON: So I created this Zello channel, and I thought, "You know, we 
need to do something a little broader, outside of Skywarn" so I created 
the Digicomm Cafe which is just a Zello channel open to everybody. We 
had this breakfast club that we started, meets every Saturday morning at 
8:00 Central where we bring in different guests every time. Recently we 
had Don Wilbanks in as a guest and we've been doing this now for the 
last three months.

PAUL: The Digicomm Cafe channel on Zello introduced him to the World 
Wide Amateur Radio Guild who had a similar mission, and they have 
channels of their own on a different service. They liked what Johnson 
was doing, so they offered to bring Digicomm Cafe in as part of the 
Guild. Johnson accepted.

JOHNSON: I have a channel called "DigiCommCafe" without a space between 
"comm" and "cafe." The one with a space is for everyone, the one that's 
all one word is for hams only. It's linked to many RF modes, including 
Echolink, Allstar link, DMR, D-star, Fusion and it's also cross-linked 
to Zello which we only give permission to those whoare licensed hams to 
use, and the IRN on Teamspeak so people could come in from any one of 
those different modes to communicate in the channel.

PAUL: Johnson's idea seems to be working:

JOHNSON: I did a presentation at the local library here in Harrison, 
Arkansas. A young boy, 13 years old, with his father came up from 
Clinton, Arkansas. He's always been passionate about weather but within 
two days he took that test, got certified as a spotter. Two days later 
he got his ham license and now he is running the Little Rock Skywarn 
Zello channel!

PAUL: For more information about The Guild and Digicomm Cafe, please 
visit their website at TheGuildGlobal dot ORG. For Amateur Radio 
Newsline, I'm Paul Braun, WD9GCO.

**

FIRST BREAK HERE: Time for you to identify your station. We are the 
Amateur Radio Newsline, heard on bulletin stations around the world 
including the K2ADA repeater in Ocala Florida on Fridays and Saturdays 
at 7 p.m.

**
OLD RADIOS DIE HARD - OR NOT

JIM/ANCHOR: The actor Bruce Willis might be the last person you'd expect 
to be talking into an HT. But it happened on screen 30 years ago this 
year and his costar, it turns out, was a Kenwood model that's now 
vintage. Here's Neil Rapp WB9VPG.

NEIL: As the blockbuster action-thriller "Die Hard" marks the 30th 
anniversary of its theatrical release in the U.S., there are still 
plenty of people who believe that Bruce Willis was the movie's star. 
Remember him? His portrayal of New York City cop John McClane came into 
sharpest focus during a dramatic hostage rescue scene in Los Angeles.

Everyone recognizes Bruce Willis, of course, a tough guy who takes no 
prisoners even in the face of those who do. But his costar? Trivia buffs 
might offer the name of Bonnie Bedelia who plays his wife, or identify 
Alan Rickman as the evil Hans Gruber but - guess again.

Amateur radio operators know better: In the July 2018 issue of the 
ARRL's magazine QST, it is revealed that a Kenwood HT - the model 
TH-31BT to be exact - was Bruce Willis' real co-star. This was the radio 
that John McClane managed to grab from one of the hostage-takers and 
later used to spy on the captors' conversations. Ultimately the radio 
helped him save the day when he used it to call emergency response to 
the scene and keep him connected to outside support as the drama unfolded.

Well hams aren't surprised at all by this revelation. Why should they 
be? Admiration for radio's potential - like the movie - dies hard.

For Amateur Radio Newsline I'm Neil Rapp WB9VPG.

(QST Magazine)

**
SLOVENIA GETS ALLOCATION ON 60 METER BAND

JIM/ANCHOR: Welcome to the 60 meter band, Slovenia! The Association of 
Radio Amateurs of Slovenia has notified Tom Kamp DF5JL, the Region 1 HF 
Manager of the International Amateur Radio Union, that all Class A 
operators now have access to the 60 meter band on a seconary basis 
between 5351.5 kHz to 5366.5 kHz. The hams are given a maximum EIRP of 
15 watts. According to the IARU, the change took effect on the 14th of 
July.

(SOUTHGATE)

**

CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF NETWORKING REPEATERS IN KANSAS

JIM/ANCHOR: There's nothing like togetherness, whether it is a gathering 
in person for eyeball QSOs or hams getting together on the air. 
Networked repeaters bring another kind of important togetherness. In 
Kansas, hams are noting two decades of that interconnectedness in the 
most appropriate way possible. Lloyd Colston KC5FM has the details.

LLOYD: The nice folks in Kansas are celebrating twenty years of 
statewide networking repeaters with a net on August 18th at 9 p.m. 
Central Time on the K-Link system. Today the system has 20 repeaters 
linked with worldwide connectivity on IRLP NODE 9335 and ALLSTAR NODE 
46304.

Justin NV8Q reports that in 2008, the tenth anniversary net had 54 
check-ins.

Details can be found at WWW.KS0LNK.NET

If you are in Kansas on the 18th, head over to Salina on the 19th for 
the Kansas American Radio Relay League State Convention.

For Amateur Radio Newsline this is Lloyd Colston KC5FM reporting.

**

NEW BALLOTS BEING MAILED FOR AMSAT-NORTH AMERICA ELECTION

JIM/ANCHOR: If you're a member of AMSAT-North America and you voted in 
the election for the Board of Directors, you'll be getting another 
ballot soon. A printing error occurred with the original ballots that 
were mailed to members for the July 15 election and those ballots have 
been declared void. Watch the mail for ballots labeled "CORRECTED BALLOT 
7/20/2018." They are printed on yellow cardstock and replace the 
original beige-colored ballots.

Members are being asked to vote for no more than three of the five 
candidates. Three directors will be chosen along with two alternates.

(SOUTHGATE)

**

THE WORLD OF DX

Meanwhile, in the World of DX, be listening for Geoff ZL3GA who is 
operating on Vanuatu until the 25th of July. He will be using the call 
sign YJ0GA and operating both CW and FT8 as his main modes. Logs will be 
uploaded to Logbook of The World and QSLs go via Club Log OQRS.

Don't forget the IOTA contest of the Radio Society of Great Britain 
which is a good source for contacts. The dates are July 28th and 29th. 
Here are some of the contacts you can make:

Be listening for Taka, JA8COE, who will be active from Hokkaido Island. 
Send QSLs via JA8COE.

A number of operators on the Island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides 
will be operating as GM7V. Send QSLs via Steve, N3SL.

Listen for Ian, G3WVG, operating as MX5A from St. Mary's on the Isles of 
Scilly. QSL via LoTW and ClubLog.

Branislav, OM2FY will be operating as SV8/OM2FY from Kefalonia Island. 
QSL via OM2FY.

Andreas, DL1KZA and a number of friends will be using the call sign DK3R 
from Ruegen Island. QSL via DL1KZA.

(OHIO PENN DX)

**
KICKER: WHEN HAM RADIO REALLY DELIVERS - TO THE MAILBOX

JIM/ANCHOR: Most hams know that when you've got an amateur's call sign, 
that's really all you need to confirm the contact with a QSL card. In 
most cases a QRZ listing or a quick email inquiry can get you an address 
or postal code. But what happens when you have neither? Well, then, you 
need a postal carrier with a sharp eye and just maybe an affinity for 
ham radio. Here's Jeremy Boot G4NJH.

JEREMY: How do you deliver a piece of mail that has little else but the 
recipient's name and their amateur radio call sign? Someone out there - 
an anonymous postie in Derry - managed to get the job done with little 
else but that. The QSL card was sent to "Monsieur Stevie Gillespie" from 
Pierre Miet F4HXW the amateur in France with whom Stevie had made 
contact on HF only four days earlier. Stevie MI0GTA of course was 
delighted. He had eagerly awaited this confirmation of his QSO between 
his Waterside home and the South of France. But wait - the mail 
contained no postal address and Stevie, a ham since 2002, got to 
wondering. How could the postie have known? Could the card's destination 
been sorted out by someone who is a ham himself?

Well, it's not really known how it all unfolded but Stevie, appreciative 
of the mystery mail delivery, made sure the Royal Mail got a note of 
appreciation from him nonetheless. As for Pierre, he got something too - 
a return QSL card from Stevie, a fan of the Derry City Football Club, 
featuring a picture of the late defender Ryan McBride.

For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Jeremy Boot G4NJH.

(THE DERRY JOURNAL)

**

SECOND BREAK HERE: Time for you to identify your station. We are the 
Amateur Radio Newsline, heard on bulletin stations around the world 
including the KA6TSA repeater on Wednesday evenings at 8 in Palos 
Verdes, California.

**
SPECIAL REPORT FROM WRTC

JIM/ANCHOR: The World Radiosport Team Championship is now history and 
reporter Ed Durrant DD5LP was there for this global contest that put the 
best of the best on a level playing field in Germany. Here is his 
special report in this expanded segment of Amateur Radio Newsline:

ED: Think of an event organized by a small group of Hams that is a WORLD 
CHAMPIONSHIP with 124 contestants, 300+ volunteers and a small 
management team, that costs half a million Euros to put on needs 4 years 
work and negotiations with 3 regional governments, and you have the 
World Radiosport team championships or the Olympics of Radio Contesters 
as some know it.
I was very happy to offer my support as a volunteer and was allocated to 
the Media team, in the heart of the organisation. What I saw in my 
position was an amazingly well organized, highly skilled and effective 
organisation of which any large company in the world would be happy to 
have and these are all unpaid workers doing it for the love of the hobby.
Contestants, referees and the majority of the volunteers arrived on the 
Wednesday and there were various meetings and events arranged over the 
next couple of days until on Friday the contestants saw their sites for 
the first time before returning on Saturday for the contest itself. The 
WRTC championship coincides with the IARU HF contest and apart from 160 
metres takes place on the same bands but with only 100W output to 
completely identical antenna systems on identical locations as far as 
ground geography is concerned around the Wittenberg-Jessen area in the 
eastern part of Germany. The organisers had another surprise up their 
sleeves to make sure there would be enough stations calling the 
championship stations – they got a very special range of call signs 
allocated from BNetZa – the national licencing authority and they were 
call signs starting with Y8 – call sign letters that belonged to the old 
East Germany and were stopped 28 years ago. While the BNetZa has this 
range available, they issued the required 63 short callsigns but ONLY to 
be used for the 24 hours of the contest. That adds a special reason for 
amateurs from around the world to call the WRTC stations as it is quite 
possible that these callsign prefixes will never be used again.

Linked to the championships there were regular daily video reports as 
well as text & picture press releases. The opening and closing 
ceremonies were live streamed to the Internet and during the 
competition, the biggest hot item for the spectators was the online, 
real time scoreboard, where on a minute by minute basis everyone APART 
FROM the contesters (as they are allowed no Internet access), could 
watch how each of the teams were doing.
As well as the materials and Internet broadcasts produced by the WRTC 
media team, RADIO-DARC a group linked to the national radio society put 
out two special radio shows on Short Wave AM using a pair of 300kW 
transmitters from the ORS company near Vienna, Austria. One in English 
on the Saturday covering Europe and North America and one for Europe in 
German on the Sunday. However everything almost didn’t go to plan. The 
20dB curtain antenna used with one of the two 300 KW transmitters to put 
30MW of EIRP into the US was damaged in the week coming up to the WRTC. 
The professional teams worked long hours to try to repair the damage and 
the transmitter site manager (who just happens to be a Ham) called in 
two local Hams to help out and…. On Friday evening the antenna was fixed 
and working. A case of both ORS and the Vienna amateur community putting 
in extra effort to make sure everything went without problems with the 
WRTC.
Back in the organisations centre problems were logged in the ticket 
system and efficiently resolved. Such interesting calls came in as one 
(obviously rather large) operator kept breaking chairs and had to have 
them replaced, in the end with a heavy duty one. On one site the 
Port-a-loo was blown over and was unable to be righted, so a backup was 
sent. A couple of antennas were damaged prior to the start of the 
contest and replaced from the spares.
Overall for such a large and complex event everything ran very well.
So you’re all waiting to hear WHO WON ?
At the time of recording – the Monday following the contest, the result 
is not official and will only be announced at the closing ceremony 
however it’s unlikely that the record-breaking score set by the 
Lithuanian team of Gedas, LY9A, and Mindis, LY4L will be beaten.
Your reporter was lucky enough to be outside the tent of the winning 
team right after completion of the 24 hour, no-break, competition. So 
what did the LY’s say was the secret of their success? It seems, 
practice, practice, practice is the answer. They also mention their 
respect for the organisation and especially the volunteers at WRTC2018 
in the following short audio clip.

<<<  Insert Audio Clip here >>>>>

So it only now remains for me to wish those planning to compete in WRTC 
2022 all the best and remember – PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE and of 
course I congratulate ALL teams that took part in WRTC 2018 !
Thanks to the organisers for letting me be a small part of this great 
event!

For Amateur Radio Newsline, this is Ed Durrant DD5LP

JIM/ANCHOR: Our thanks to Ed DD5LP for his thorough coverage throughout 
the championship. At the closing ceremonies it was announced that the 
2022 contest is to be held in Bologna, Italy, the birthplace of 
Guglielmo Marconi in 1874. So, as Ed advises, practice, practice, practice!

**

NEWSCAST CLOSE: With thanks to Alan Labs; Amateur News Weekly; ARISS: 
the ARRL; CQ Magazine; the Derry Journal; Hap Holly and the Rain Report; 
Irish Radio Transmitters Society; Korean Amateur Radio League; K2BSA; 
Ohio-Penn DX Bulletin; QST Magazine; Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio; 
Southgate Amateur Radio News; Ted Randall's QSO Radio Show; South 
African Radio League; Wireless Institute of Australia; WTWW Shortwave; 
and you our listeners, that's all from the Amateur Radio Newsline. 
Please send emails to our address at newsline@arnewsline.org. More 
information is available at Amateur Radio Newsline's only official 
website at www.arnewsline.org.

For now, with Caryn Eve Murray, KD2GUT, at the news desk in New York, 
and our news team worldwide, I'm Jim Damron N8TMW in Charleston West 
Virginis saying 73 and as always we thank you for listening.

Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) is Copyright 2018. All rights reserved.


-- 



73
James-KB7TBT
www.arnewsline.org
www.ylsystem.org




-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group.

View/Reply Online (#1039): https://groups.io/g/ARNewsline/message/1039
Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/23754175/929223
Group Owner: ARNewsline+owner@groups.io
Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/ARNewsline/leave/2103143/... 
[arnewsline@ftn.wpusa.dynip.com]
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


***

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)


 * Origin: (1:3634/12)