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GB2RS News Sunday, the 3rd of May 2026 The news headlines: Ticket sales for the RSGB 2026 Convention are now open! RSGB appoints a new volunteer Accessibility Champion FCC authorises commercial satellite constellation use in the 70cm band You can now buy tickets for the RSGB 2026 Convention in Milton Keynes. The event takes place between the 9th and 11th of October and is a must for any radio amateur looking to learn, connect and be inspired. Several lecturers have already been confirmed, and include Nobby Styles, G0VJG, talking about the South Georgia DXpedition in March 2027, as well as recent Wortley-Talbot Trophy winner Gwyn Griffiths, G3ZIL, on HF propagation studies from the Baldock space weather station. Ticket sales for workshops taking place over the weekend are also open. These are sold on a first-come, first-served basis and with only 20 spaces available for each, secure your place now to ensure you don't miss out. Go to rsgb.org/convention  to read the latest Convention news and purchase your tickets. RSGB Board Director Nathan Nuttall, MM9OCC, has announced that Jane Joyce, M8WVJ, has been appointed as the new RSGB Accessibility Champion. Jane brings a wealth of experience in the areas of disability and accessibility, making her ideally suited to this important role. As Accessibility Champion, she will share real stories from members that highlight both the challenges and successes within the hobby, helping to raise awareness and improve understanding of accessibility issues. Jane will also be available to help direct individuals to the support they need, which will help to improve accessibility across amateur radio as a whole, and she will advise the RSGB on meaningful improvements. Jane can be contacted via the email address access.champion@rsgb.org.uk In the USA the FCC has authorised AST-SpaceMobile to launch its full constellation of 248 large satellites that includes 430-440MHz for emergency telemetry and control when not over the United States. This is despite there being no such frequency allocation. However, the FCC permitted the use of the frequencies using Article 4.4 of the ITU Radio Regulations. This follows an initial filing and review last year, and extensive amateur concerns that resulted in over 2,500 comments being submitted. The IARU has released a statement on the matter, which you can read via tinyurl.com/IARU-AST  The RSGB has more background and earlier responses on its Spectrum Forum web page at tinyurl.com/RSGB-AST RSGB club insurance, and beacon and repeater insurance, have now been renewed for the year from the 30th of April 2026 to April 2027. Club insurance certificates can be downloaded via rsgb.org/repeaterinsurance. You will need to log in to obtain your certificate. Beacon and repeater insurance certificates are available for an admin fee of £15 from the RSGB shop. Please allow a couple of days after renewal for your certificate to be dispatched. The Society would like to remind RSGB members with G7 callsigns who collect QSL cards that they should now send their stamped addressed envelopes to Mr Anthony Holles, G4AAV. You can find his details in the sub-manager list of the RSGB QSL Bureau web section at rsgb.org/qsl  Volunteers at the RSGB National Radio Centre will be operating the GB2BP special event station on Friday, the 8th and Saturday, the 9th of May, to commemorate the anniversary of VE Day. Put the date in your diary and make sure you add this callsign to your logbook. RSGB members, don't forget you can receive free entry to Bletchley Park, which includes the NRC, by downloading and printing your personalised voucher at rsgb.org/bpvoucher The annual Mills on the Air event is taking place on Saturday, the 9th and Sunday, the 10th of May. Operators will be on the air from a variety of historic locations. If you hear them, make sure to give them a call. Don't forget to listen out for the stations that are taking part in this year's Pubs and Clubs on the Air event from the 8th to the 10th of May. For more information about the event, email Chris via g1puv@yahoo.co.uk Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk. The deadline for submissions is 10 am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week.  And now for details of rallies and events Today, the 3rd, the Broadcast Engineering Museum has an open day from 11 am. The museum is located at 41 Capper Avenue, Hemswell Cliff, near Gainsborough, Lincolnshire DN21 5XS and is home to one of the largest collections of historic broadcasting equipment in the world. For more information, visit becg.org.uk/events Thorpe Camp Hamfest is also taking place today, the 3rd, at Thorpe Camp Visitor Centre, Tattershall Thorpe, LN4 4PL. Traders can arrive from 7 am, and visitors are welcome from 9 am. The entry fee is £5 per person. For more information, visit thorpecamp.org Tomorrow, the 4th, Dartmoor Spring Radio Rally will take place at Yelverton War Memorial Hall, Meavy Lane, Yelverton, Devon, PL20 6AL. There will be the usual bring and buy, trader stands, refreshments and free parking available. The doors will be open from 10 am to 1 pm, and admission costs £3. More details are available at dartmoorradioclub.uk On Saturday, the 9th of May 2026, Barry Amateur Radio Society Rally will be held at Sully Sports and Social Club, South Road, Sully, CF64 5SP. The doors open at 9 am, for traders and visitors are welcome from 10 am. A large free car park is available, and admission costs £3. Now the Special Event news On Saturday, the 9th, and Sunday, the 10th of May, Harlow and District Amateur Radio Society will be taking part in Mills on the Air from John Webb's Windmill in Thaxted, Essex. The station will use special event callsign GB0TWM and operate between 8.30 am and 4 pm. Amateurs, shortwave listeners and visitors are welcome to join in with the fun. For more information, visit QRZ.com To celebrate his 50th anniversary in amateur radio, Nick, US8AR, is active throughout 2026 using the special callsign EM50AR. Look out for activity on the HF and VHF bands using all modes. Electronic QSL cards can be downloaded from em50ar.pp.ua Now the DX news TJ, PE1OJR is active as PJ4TB from Bonaire, SA-006, until tomorrow, Monday the 4th of May. He operates FT4, FT8 and SSB on the 40 to 6m bands. QSL via Logbook of the World. Paul, MM0ZBH, is active as 5Z4/MM0ZBH from Kenya until the 15th of June. He operates using CW, SSB and FT8. QSL via Logbook of the World and OQRS. Now the contest news Today, Sunday the 3rd of May, the UK Microwave Group Low Band Contest runs from 0900 to 1400UTC. Using all modes on 1.3 to 3.4GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The ARI International DX Contest started at 1200UTC yesterday, Saturday the 2nd, and ends at 1159UTC today, Sunday the 3rd of May. Using CW, RTTY and SSB on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Italian stations also give their province code. The RSGB 432MHz to 245GHz Contest started at 1400UTC yesterday, Saturday the 2nd and ends at 1400UTC today, Sunday the 3rd of May. Using all modes on 432MHz to 245GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The Worked All Britain 7MHz Contest takes place today, Sunday the 3rd of May, from 1000 to 1400UTC. Entries need to be with the contest manager by Wednesday, the 13th of May 2026. Please note that SSB is only used in all Worked All Britain contests. Full details of the rules can be found on the Worked All Britain website. On Tuesday, the 5th of May, the RSGB 144MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1800 to 1855UTC. Using FM on the 2m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also on Tuesday, the 5th of May, the RSGB 144MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130UTC. Using all modes on the 2m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday the 6th, the RSGB 144MHz FT8 Activity four-hour Contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 2m band, the exchange is report and a four-character locator. Also on Wednesday the 6th, the RSGB 144MHz FT8 Activity two-hour Contest runs from 1900 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 2m band, the exchange is report and a four-character locator. Stations entering the four-hour contest may also enter the two-hour contest. On Sunday, the 10th of May, the RSGB 70MHz CW Contest runs from 0900 to 1200UTC. Using CW on the 4m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. UK stations also send their postcode. Also on Sunday, the 10th of May, the UK Microwave Group Millimetre Wave Contest runs from 0800 to 1700UTC. Using all modes on 24, 47 and 76GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 30th of April Last week was about as good as it gets at this point in the solar cycle. We had a solar flux index in the 140s and a Kp index that was pretty flat, often below 2. That's good news for HF as it means the ionosphere had a chance to settle and, although not record-breaking, a solar flux index of 140 to 150 is very usable. There were numerous C and M-class solar flares, but these were relatively minor, and the latest forecasts show a 70% chance for additional M-flares and a 20% chance for an isolated strong X-flare. This all came together to give a maximum usable frequency over a 3,000km path of around 21 to 24MHz, often just peaking around 28MHz. This gave the odd 10m band opening, but these were sparse and not very strong. DXpeditions to be worked this week, according to DXWorld.net, include E51TLM in the South Cook Islands; T31TTT from Kanton Island; FO/F6BCW in French Polynesia; XT2AW from Burkina Faso and 3G0Z on Robinson Crusoe Island. So, which bands should you be looking at? The 20, 17 and 15m bands will probably give the best results, but don't completely rule out the two higher bands that may show occasional surprises. We are now starting the Sporadic-E season, so look out for short-lived but strong openings around Europe on the 12 and 10m bands. Next week, NOAA predicts a solar flux index of between 130 and 140, with a Kp index of 2 or 3. Unsettled conditions are forecast for the 7th and 8th of May with a potential Kp index of 5. As always, keep an eye on solarham.com  for almost real-time reports of solar activity. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The excellent tropo conditions for some parts of the country recently are likely to be slightly subdued over this weekend, but there are signs that another period of high-pressure weather will return as we move through the coming week. Unlike the recent dry weather, there are likely to be a few showery spells with a chance of rain scatter on the GHz bands. Meteor scatter is probably enhanced next week by the Eta Aquarids, which peak on Wednesday, the 6th of May, and are associated with Comet Halley. The aurora prospects are probably moving away from their spring activity period, but check the Kp index as usual for high values above 5. The Sporadic-E season is slowly limbering up, and it's well worth checking for activity, initially on the 10 and 6m bands. Check for SSB and CW activity as well as digital modes. Work continues on the propquest.co.uk  website. There are still some missing elements, but it is hoped that these will be back soon. EME now. The Moon is moving towards minimum declination today, Sunday, the 3rd of May, so there will be short Moon windows and low peak elevation. Path losses are still increasing until apogee on Monday, the 4th of May, when the Moon is at its furthest from Earth at 405,840km. 144MHz sky temperature reaches a maximum of more than 2,800 Kelvin on Wednesday, the 6th of May. And that's all from the propagation team this week.  

GB2RS News Sunday, the 26th of April 2026 The news headlines: The RSGB Board holds its first post-AGM meeting RSGB 2026 Convention announcement Celebrate World Morse Day with the RSGB Following the RSGB 2026 AGM on Saturday, the 18th of April, the new Board met and co-opted Dr Stewart Bryant, G3YSX, onto the Board under Article 37. The Board then elected Dr Bryant as Board Chair. The purpose of these decisions is to allow newly elected Directors to learn more about the Society and the Board, with the intention that a new Board Chair will be elected from within the new Board in due course. The RSGB Board would like to record its thanks to Stewart for being willing to extend his role in this way. Board Directors also appointed Will Richardson, 2E0WYA, to the volunteer role of Executive Director of Strategic Oversight to help drive forward work on Board effectiveness. As announced previously, Stephen Purser, GW4SHF and Stephen Ramsden, M0CCA, swapped roles after the AGM, so Stephen Ramsden is now Company Secretary and Stephen Purser is Deputy Company Secretary. The Board congratulated John Moss, G0KTW and Ben Lloyd, GW4BML, on their election as Directors and Patrick Wood, 2E0IFB and Graham Smith, G4NMD, on their endorsement as Nominated Directors. The Board Liaison roles are being discussed and will be announced in due course. If you were unable to join the event live, you can catch up with all the AGM proceedings at rsgb.org/agm  Tickets for the RSGB 2026 Convention go on sale on Friday, the 1st of May, and ahead of this, the Society has made some exciting announcements. Not only has it released the first round of speakers, including one on a highly anticipated DXpedition, but it has also shared details of two new workshops that will be taking place. Will you choose NanoVNA Essentials or AI – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly? For those looking to extend the weekend's activities, the RSGB has confirmed that it has partnered with The National Museum of Computing to offer Convention attendees the opportunity to visit on Friday, the 9th of October. The RSGB is delighted that this fantastic annual event is being sponsored by Martin Lynch & Sons and that AMSAT-UK will once again be holding its Colloquium during the Convention this year. The RSGB 2026 Convention is taking place between the 9th and 11th of October at Kents Hill Conference Centre in Milton Keynes. Find out more by going to rsgb.org/convention Tomorrow, Monday the 27th, is World Morse Day. The day honours the birthday of the inventor of Morse code, Samuel Morse, who was born on this day in 1791. The RSGB is continuing its annual celebrations of this day by releasing a video with a question in Morse code for you to answer, which this year is sent by the RSGB CW Champion, Laura Robertson, MM7BFL. Once you have used your Morse skills to decipher the question, get involved by leaving your answer in the comments section under the post. You could even share a video of you sending your answer in Morse! You can view the video tomorrow on the RSGB YouTube channel, or via the RSGB's Facebook, Instagram or X pages.  RSGB members, if you are planning a trip this spring, why not include a visit to one of the Society's partner museums? Whether you're heading to West Wales, Cornwall, Suffolk, Dorset, West Sussex or Milton Keynes, you will be able to save between 20% and 50% on standard admission prices. Visit rsgb.org/partner-museums for your personalised discount voucher. RSGB members also receive free entry to Bletchley Park, which includes the RSGB National Radio Centre. Time is running out to apply and be part of the RSGB team that will be going to Austria for this year's Youngsters on the Air summer camp. This fantastic opportunity is for radio amateurs aged between 16 and 30. The programme will include activities such as experimenting with underground propagation, Summits on the Air, Caves on the Air, as well as having the chance to ascend a 2,000m summit in a cable car and make a long-distance VHF/UHF QSO with your handheld. All in the incredible surroundings of the Austrian Alps. The deadline to apply for this exciting opportunity is Friday, the 1st of May. Get involved by going to rsgb.org/yota-camp and selecting ‘YOTA Austria 2026' from the right-hand menu. UKBOTA's Historic Counties event will be running throughout May for both activators and hunters. Stations will be on the air to celebrate the unique historic structure of the UK. More details can be found at ukbota.net/HC26 Did you know that the weekly RSGB News can be viewed on air and via the web as a television stream? Join Alison, G8ROG, each Sunday at 9 am UK time for a live broadcast of the GB2RS News. Kindly hosted by the British Amateur Television Club, go to batc.org.uk/live/gb2rs to watch the show. Alongside Alison's live presentation, you can view additional text and pictures relating to each news item. The transmission is also relayed via GB3HV in Hampshire using Digital ATV. If you enjoy watching GB2RS as well as listening, there is a live Digital ATV broadcast from Clive, G3GJA, via the Hull 23cm repeater GB3EY at 10 am UK time. If you are not in range of the repeater itself, you can still watch the broadcast, again courtesy of the BATC website, by going to batc.org.uk/live/gb3ey And now for details of rallies and events The EMC & Compliance International Exhibition will be held at the Holiday Inn in Oxford from the 29th of April to the 1st of May 2026. The exhibition is open to all interested parties and is concerned with all aspects of EMC. For more information, including registration details, visit emcandci.com The Broadcast Engineering Museum has an open day on Sunday, the 3rd of May, from 11 am. The museum is located at 41 Capper Avenue, Hemswell Cliff, near Gainsborough, Lincolnshire DN21 5XS. Visitors will be treated to one of the largest collections of historic broadcasting equipment in the world. For more information, visit becg.org.uk/events Thorpe Camp Hamfest is taking place on Sunday, the 3rd of May at Thorpe Camp Visitor Centre, Tattershall Thorpe, LN4 4PL. Traders can arrive from 7 am, and visitors are welcome from 9 am. The entry fee is £5 per person. For more information, visit thorpecamp.org On Monday, the 4th of May, Dartmoor Spring Radio Rally will take place at the Yelverton War Memorial Hall, Meavy Lane, Yelverton, Devon, PL20 6AL. There will be the usual bring and buy, trader stands, refreshments, free parking and available. The doors will be open from 10 am to 1 pm, and admission costs £3. More details are available at dartmoorradioclub.uk Now the Special Event news Special event stations OL900CO, OL900JAR and OL900LT are active until December to celebrate the town of Jaromer in the Czech Republic. For more information, including details of awards that are available for working the stations, visit hamawards.eu On Saturday, the 2nd of May, between 9 am and 5 pm, Dundee Amateur Radio Club will be operating from Broughty Ferry Lifeboat Station using the callsign GB1BFL. The station will be active in support of SOS Radio Week. For updates on frequencies and modes in use, visit the Club's Facebook page. More details are available via dundee-amateur-radio.co.uk Now the DX news Using the callsign GB9IOW, a team of Belgian operators will be active from the Isle of Wight, EU-120, from Tuesday, the 28th of April until Tuesday, the 5th of May. Listen for activity on the HF bands, via the QO-100 satellite and on 23cm EME.  For more information, visit QRZ.com Paul, VP9KF, is active from Bermuda, NA-005, until Thursday, the 30th of April. He is operating using CW only on the HF bands. The station was spotted recently on the 17 and 20m bands. You can find more details at vp9kf.com  Now the contest news Today, Sunday the 26th, the UK Microwave Group EHF Band Contest runs from 0800 to 1700UTC. Using all modes on 76 to 241GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The SP DX RTTY Contest started at 1200UTC yesterday, the 25th, and runs until 1200UTC today, Sunday, the 26th of April. Using RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Polish stations also send their province code. Also, today, the 26th, the British Amateur Radio Teledata Group Sprint 25 Contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using 75 baud RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is your six-character locator. The UK and Ireland Contest Club DX CW Contest started at 1200UTC yesterday, the 25th, and ends at 1200UTC today, Sunday, the 26th of April. Using CW on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number.  Full rules, including UK and EI area codes, are available via tinyurl.com/ukeiccrules Tomorrow, the 27th, the RSGB FT4 Series Contest runs from 1900 to 2100UTC. Using FT4 on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is your report. On Tuesday the 28th, the RSGB SHF UK Activity Contest runs from 1830 to 2130UTC. Using all modes on 2.3 to 10GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday the 29th, the UK and Ireland Contest Club 80m Contest runs from 2000 to 2100UTC. Using CW on the 80m band, the exchange is your six-character locator. On Thursday the 30th, the RSGB 80m Club Championship runs from 1900 to 2030UTC. Using PSK63 and RTTY on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Saturday, the 2nd of May, the RSGB 432MHz Trophy Contest runs from 1400 to 2000UTC. Using all modes on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The RSGB 432 to 245GHz Contest starts at 1400UTC on Saturday, the 2nd of May and ends at 1400UTC on Sunday, the 3rd of May. Using all modes on 432 to 245GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The UK Six Metre Group Summer Marathon starts at 0000UTC on Saturday, the 2nd of May and ends at 2359UTC on Sunday, the 2nd of August. Using all modes on the 6m band, the exchange is your four-character locator. The ARI International DX Contest starts at 1200UTC on Saturday, the 2nd of May and ends at 1159UTC on Sunday, the 3rd of May. Using CW, RTTY and SSB on the 80 to 10m bands, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Italian stations also give their province code. On Sunday, the 3rd of May, the UK Microwave Group Low Band Contest runs from 0900 to 1400UTC. Using all modes on 1.3 to 3.4GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also, on Sunday, the 3rd of May, the Worked All Britain 7MHz Phone Contest runs from 1000 to 1400UTC. Using SSB only on the 40m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and Worked All Britain square. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 23rd of April Last week's HF propagation was dominated by the effects of a high-speed stream from a large coronal hole on the Sun. This pushed the Kp index up to 4 and 5 at times, with the result that maximum usable frequencies, or MUFs, were lowered. The ionosphere struggled, and often the MUF over a 3,000km path was below 21MHz. Yes, there were some openings up to 10m, but they were generally weak. Checks showed that paths opened up to Brazil, Kenya and Chile on the 10m band using FT8, but the signals were well down in the noise and barely workable. Get used to this, as it could be the norm for the next few years! Meanwhile, the solar flux index increased to 116 by Thursday, the 16th of April, no doubt aided by active sunspot group 4420. Next week, NOAA forecasts that the solar flux index could rise to 125. It also predicts that the Kp index may remain low due to a lack of coronal hole activity. Fingers crossed that we don't have any coronal mass ejections over the next week. If this pans out as predicted, we could have some decent HF conditions over the next seven days. Yes, the MUFs may be lower, but 14, 18 and perhaps 21MHz could be usable, with very occasional openings on 24 and 28MHz. DX to be worked this week includes TX9W from the Marquesas Islands; VP9KF in Bermuda; 7P8WR from Lesotho; C5B, C5C and C5D in The Gambia; D60DX in Comoros; and JD1BMH operating from Ogasawara And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The strong region of high pressure will remain with us for the next two weeks. So tropo should be considered a first-choice mode for a while. The main criteria for the quality of any resulting tropo is moisture. This is because moisture is a component in the calculation of the refractive index of the air. High pressure usually produces dry air above any temperature inversion, but we may not always get the moisture below the inversion. The end of last week was good with reports of beacons in Norway and Sweden into JO02 on 1.3GHz because of moisture present below the inversion. However, if the dry easterly wind returns, it may not go so well. Meteor scatter should continue to be uplifted by the declining Lyrids meteor stream, which peaked last week, and rain scatter is off the menu since the charts are dominated by high-pressure systems. Aurora is showing as occasional weak alerts, but apart from the odd fluttery signals on the LF bands, nothing too interesting at the moment. As usual, watch for the Kp index going up to 5. Keeping the best until last, we are approaching the period when Sporadic-E usually becomes a mode of interest. Work is well underway on a rewrite of the Propquest website, which should be ready soon. This will be the go-to place for the daily updates during the 2026 Sporadic-E season. EME now, and the Moon is moving into a lower noise position. Declination is high, but falling, and path losses will increase as we move away from the Moon's perigee, its closest point to Earth, which occurred on Friday, the 17th of April. Apogee, the Moon's furthest point from Earth and the point of highest path losses, occurs on Sunday, the 17th of May. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

The following DX information comes from Bernie, W3UR, editor of theDailyDX, the WeeklyDX, and the How's DX column in QST. If you would like a free2-week trial of the DailyDX, your only source of real-time DX information, justdrop me a note at thedxmentor@gmail.com 3X – Guinea – Elvira, IV3FSG, is QRV from3X3A on Roume Island (AF-051), Republic of Guinea, until April 25. Thisself-funded, single-operator DXpedition will focus on making contacts across HFand 6m bands using SSB, CW, and FT8/4/2 modes, utilizing two Icom IC-7300radios and multiple antennas. Roume Island is historically known as the"Treasure Island" of West Africa. https://www.qrz.com/db/3X3A   Z8 - South Sudan - The International DX Pressand OM3JW report that Diya, Z81D, aka YI1DZ, has had his World Food Programcontract extended by eight months and returns to Juba this week.  He will be on the air in his spare time, FT8and SSB, mostly on weekends.  QSL toOM3JW through OQRS.   C5 – Gambia - The 425 DX News reportsthat F4AGG and F5RAV will be on the air as C5D on digital modes RTTY, PSK andFT8 and as C5C on SSB and CW, between April 24 and May 8.  They plan a side trip to the Bijol Islands,AF-060, as well.  From the island thecallsign will be C5B, and on the RS-44 satellite.  C5D's QSL is through LoTW only.  C5C and C5B are both via LoTW or direct viaF5RAV.  4W6DA, Timor-Leste - VK4MAP, DarrenJohnston, has been active holiday-style since April 2 as 4W6DA. Heis mostly on 10M SSB, but is also on 80, 40, 20, 15, and 12M, using an ICOMIC-7300 at 100W into two wire antennas. QSL via VK4MAP and include four U.S.dollars or four Euros.   3B9N, Rodrigues Island - VU3OPT (akaOM0GA), Suvarna, has just completed the first week of a seven-week DXpeditionto Port Mathurin, Rodrigues Island (grid square MH1Øqh), where he is operatingas 3B9N. He will be there until May 20. He plans a trip to Lakshadweep (VU7) inthe second half of this year and is also considering a trip to Sri Lanka (4S)or Bangladesh (S2).D6 -Comoros -After completing his FH/UR9IDX operation from Mayotte Ivan will continues his journeyin the Indian Ocean with a month-long stop in the Comoros as D60DX. Listenfor him on CW and SSB S0 - WesternSahara – Naama, S01A, and Azman,S01AH, will be QRV as S09S until May 31st, operating from the Sahrawi Republic.Theyare running 100 watts to dipole antennas and multiband beams. They will beoperating QO-100, from several grids. Look for S09S to also be QRV duringthe CQ WPX CW Contest, May 30-31. QSL via Club Log and LoTW. 8R –Guyana - 8R1TMis QRV until May 10, weekdays between 2300-0300Z on 160-6M CW,SSB, digital and satellite.  PY1SAD, Aldir, says on the weekends it's"full time" on 160-6, the same modes. OX – Greenland- Bo, OZ1DJJ, isQRV as OX3LX from Aasiaat Island (NA-134), Greenland until April 25th. He isthere on a work assignment and will be QRV in his spare time.VK9/C - Cocos (Keeling) – Mark, VK9BSA, and Deena, VK9DEE, are QRV fromCocos-Keeling. Band conditions have not been favorable, and Mark willmainly be operating on weekends and some evenings. There is no fixedoperating schedule yet. FO/M - Marquesas Islands- The TX9W teamheading to the Marquesas Islands report they will depart in eleven days.They plan to be active from Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands on April 19.

GB2RS News Sunday, the 19th of April 2026 The news headlines: The RSGB has published a question bank for full-level examinations Catch up with the RSGB 2026 AGM on YouTube The RSGB has announced two new youth team volunteers At its 2024 meeting, the RSGB Examination Standards Committee agreed, with Ofcom approval, to publish the Full level examination question bank after a thorough vetting of the questions by the Examinations and Syllabus Review Group had taken place. ESC Chair Tony Kent, G8PBH, is pleased to announce that the question bank is now available via rsgb.org/exam-questions. It will also be accessible via links on the RSGB web pages for exam candidates and trainers. The copyright to the question bank is held by the RSGB. Developed by Aubrey, M8AUB, the user interface works on PCs and mobile devices with a web browser. It allows users to access questions in different ways, for example, by syllabus section, and even to create and take their own mock examinations. The Society believes this initiative will make a significant contribution to training and should become a valuable resource for both candidates and trainers. After it has had time to assess its impact at Full level, the ESC will consider rolling it out to the other examination levels of Foundation, Intermediate and Direct to Full. As candidates and trainers will now be able to use the interface to generate their own mock examinations from the question bank, the RSGB has removed all the Full Licence level mock papers currently on its website. If you encounter any issues with the questions or the question bank interface web page, please report them via the online examination informal query form. You can find this at the bottom of the exam forms web page at rsgb.org/exam-forms The RSGB would like to thank everyone who joined the RSGB 2026 AGM, which was held online yesterday, 18 April. If you missed the live event, you're able to watch the full livestream on the Society's YouTube channel at youtube.com/theRSGB As well as the formal AGM business, there was a special message from the RSGB President, and the Board answered questions from RSGB members on a wide range of topics. The AGM was followed by a presentation on the Society's work to defend the spectrum and ensure that radio amateurs can enjoy amateur radio across the bands. If you would like to read more about the RSGB's work in protecting the spectrum, including successes in spectrum access and defence, as well as current concerns, visit rsgb.org/spectrum-protection. Winners of the RSGB 2026 Construction Competition and the RSGB Trophies were also announced. Timestamps will be available in the video summary on YouTube, allowing you to skip to particular sections you wish to watch. Go to rsgb.org/agm to find out more about the AGM, including personal statements from the newly elected and nominated Board Directors, as well as the Regional Representatives. The RSGB is delighted to announce two new volunteer youth team roles as it continues to grow and strengthen its support for young radio amateurs across the UK.  Leon Shaw, M0VUF, will be the Youth Vice Chair, working closely with the Youth Chair Chris Aitken, MM0WIC to help guide and develop the expanding Youth Team. Sophie Bourne, M9LBW, will collaborate with Chris over the coming months with the intention of taking on full responsibility for the Youth Champion for Schools role later this year. Both Leon and Sophie represented the RSGB at last year's YOTA summer camp, supported the Youth stand at the RSGB 2025 Convention and took part in a Tonight@8 episode to share their experiences of amateur radio and how it has shaped their interests. Sophie also brought fresh ideas to the recent RSGB Membership Strategy Workshop, which will help to shape future youth engagement. The RSGB National Radio Centre will be closed to visitors on Monday, the 27th and Tuesday, the 28th of April 2026, due to essential maintenance work taking place. RSGB volunteers look forward to welcoming you on an alternative day. Don't forget that if you are an RSGB member, you can receive free entry to Bletchley Park, which includes the RSGB National Radio Centre, by downloading and printing a personalised voucher at rsgb.org/bpvoucher International Marconi Day is on Saturday, the 25th of April. This worldwide event is organised by the Cornish Amateur Radio Club to celebrate the birth of Italian radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi. Stations from around the world are coming together to celebrate the life of this remarkable man. For more information, including details of how to take part, visit gx4crc.com/imd Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk  . The deadline for submissions is 10 am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week.  And now for details of rallies and events Cambridge Repeater Group Rally is taking place today, Sunday the 19th of April, at Foxton Village Hall, Hardman Road, Foxton CB22 6RN. Traders can gain access from 7.30 am, and the doors open to visitors at 9.30 am. Entry costs £4, but there will be a discount for multi-occupancy vehicles. For more information, email rally2026@cambridgerepeaters.net and visit cambridgerepeaters.net   The Broadcast Engineering Museum is having an open day on Sunday, the 3rd of May, from 11 am. The museum is located at 41 Capper Avenue, Hemswell Cliff, near Gainsborough, Lincolnshire DN21 5XS. It is home to one of the largest collections of historic broadcasting equipment in the world. For more information, visit becg.org.uk/events Now the Special Event news The Ramsbury Amateur Radio DX Group will be active as GB80RY on Saturday, the 25th and Sunday, the 26th of April 2026. The station will be on the air to commemorate 80 years since the decommissioning of RAF Ramsbury in Wiltshire. Operators will be using CW, FT8 and SSB on the 80 to 10m bands. Special event station GB2JAF will be active on Saturday, the 25th of April, from 10 am to celebrate the life and work of Professor Sir John Ambrose Fleming, the inventor of the Thermionic Valve. Look out for activity on the 40 and 20m bands using SSB. There will also be some activity via the GB3LV repeater and EchoLink. More information is available at QRZ.com Now the DX news Phill, FK1TS is active again as C21TS from Nauru, OC-031, until July. He mainly operates using FT8 but may also try some SSB contacts. QSL via Logbook of the World or OQRS. QSOs are live-streamed on Club Log. Tom, VK2TBC, will be active as VK0TBC from Casey Station in Antarctica until December.  He operates using FT8 and SSB. For more information and updates, visit vk2tbc.com  Now the contest news On Tuesday, the 21st of April, the RSGB 1.3GHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130UTC. Using all modes on the 23cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday, the 22nd of April, the RSGB 80m Club Championship runs from 1900 to 2030UTC. Using SSB on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. The United Kingdom and Ireland Contest Club DX CW Contest starts at 1200UTC on Saturday, the 25th and ends at 1200UTC on Sunday, the 26th of April. Using CW on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number.  Full rules, including UK and EI area codes, are available via tinyurl.com/ukeiccrules The SP DX RTTY Contest starts at 1200UTC on Saturday, the 25th and runs until 1200UTC on Sunday, the 26th of April. Using RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Polish stations also send their province code. On Sunday, the 26th of April, the UK Microwave Group EHF Band Contest runs from 0800 to 2000UTC. Using all modes on 76 to 241GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also on Sunday, the 26th of April, the British Amateur Radio Teledata Group Sprint 25 Contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using 75 baud RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is your six-character locator. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday, the 16th of April 2026. Last week was characterised by a low Kp index and an equally low solar flux index. The Kp index was predominantly below 2 all week, thanks to a lack of Earth-directed CMEs or coronal holes. Unfortunately, that is about to change. The solar index has been consistently around the 100 mark, dipping as low as 93 on the 11th and only as high as 105 on Thursday, the 16th of April. This has meant settled ionospheric conditions that have not been outstanding but have at least been reliable. The maximum usable frequency, or MUF, over a 3,000km path has reached 24MHz at times, but often battles to reach 21MHz. This is a taste of things to come over the next few years as we descend towards sunspot minimum. The settled conditions mean, however, that there has been DX to work. The CDXC Slack group reports FT8 and CW contacts with 3X3A in Guinea on the 17, 15 and 12m bands. 3B9G in Mauritius has been logged on the 15m band using CW. D60DX in Comoros was worked on the 15m band using CW. Another DX includes 9V1DW in Singapore on the 17m band and TN8GD in the Republic of the Congo on the 20m band using CW. Now the bad news. A very large coronal hole on the Sun is rotating to become Earth-facing. A high-speed solar wind stream flowing from this zone reached the Earth last Friday, the 17th of April. Active Kp4 and minor G1 geomagnetic storming may be possible today, the 19th of April. So, we can expect reduced MUFs and poorer HF conditions. DXpeditions active this week include V47EM on St Kitts and Nevis; OX3LX from Greenland; T31TTT in Central Kiribati, TX9W from the Marquesas Islands; D60DX in Comoros and 3X3A in Guinea. NOAA predicts that the solar flux index will climb next week, perhaps reaching a high of 145 by Thursday, the 23rd of April. After the geomagnetic disturbances from the coronal hole die down, we may have two or more days of settled conditions before more disruption around Saturday, the 25th of April. This is coupled with a predicted Kp index of 4 – just in time for International Marconi Day! And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The main note on the weather influence is that once high pressure becomes established at this time of the year, it can be remarkably persistent. In this case, the high pressure that is now developing over the UK may remain in control until the end of the month.  Tropo will therefore be a mode of choice, but a cool north or north-easterly flow over the eastern side of the country will mean that western Britain fares best for any lift conditions. Over eastern areas, a cool northerly breeze will bring cloud and a few showers. The prospects for aurora are still worth checking out by noting the Kp index for values above 5 and preferably above 7. As we reported earlier, the effects of a large coronal hole may be reaching us today, the 19th. So, check the Kp index and listen for fluttery signals on the HF bands. Then get ready to turn your VHF beams northeast. As for meteor scatter, we are now coming up to the peak of the April Lyrids on Wednesday, the 22nd of April. We should see some activity increase beyond the random fare of recent weeks. In contrast, rain scatter may not be a good option with high pressure, or just isolated showers, not offering much for the microwave bands. We are rapidly heading towards May, when the prospects for Sporadic-E start to be worth checking. In the coming week, there are not too many suitable jet streams, which can be good regions to check for Sporadic-E. To get into practice for the new season, check the Sporadic-E blog on propquest.co.uk  for a jet stream map and look for spikes in the foEs trace on the graphs. The site is currently being worked on, so apologies for any dropouts. An update on EME prospects now. Moon declination reaches a maximum on Tuesday, the 21st of April. Moon perigee, its closest point to Earth, is today, Sunday, the 19th of April, so path losses will be at a minimum. Sky noise is slightly higher on Tuesday, the 21st of April, but this is minor and returns to low again on Friday, the 24th of April. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

GB2RS News Sunday, the 12th of April 2026 The news headlines: Join the RSGB 2026 AGM livestream from around the world Learn about the Society's work defending the amateur radio spectrum RSGB representatives attending the NARSA rally World Amateur Radio Day is on Saturday, the 18th of April, and what better way to celebrate than by joining the RSGB 2026 AGM? The AGM will once again be taking place online so that as many RSGB members as possible can watch and take part. To join the livestream, all you need to do is go to rsgb.org/agm  at 10 am on Saturday. Ahead of the event, RSGB members are being asked to vote for their two preferred Elected Director Candidates, endorse the Nominated Director candidates and vote on the other resolutions. Members have until 9 am on the 16th of April 2026 to cast their votes. Candidate information and details of how to vote can be found on the Society's AGM web pages. During the AGM, members of the RSGB Board will be answering questions. You can choose one of three ways to submit your question. If you would like to talk to the Board directly and ask a question live via Zoom, you'll need to pre-register by 9 am tomorrow, Monday, the 13th of April. Alternatively, RSGB members can submit a written question until 9 am on Thursday. Priority is given to questions submitted in advance, but questions will also be taken via live chat on the day if there is time. The Society has announced that if large volumes of questions are received, it will only include two questions per person or organisation during the AGM, to ensure that as many people as possible are included. Find out more about these deadlines by selecting the ‘Ask the Board a question' link from the right-hand menu in the AGM web section. Following the formal business of the RSGB 2026 AGM, the Society is delighted that its spectrum experts Murray Niman, G6JYB and Barry Lewis, G4SJH, will be joined by the IARU President Tim Ellam, VE6SH, who also holds the call G4HUA, and RSGB General Manager Steve Thomas, M1ACB. They will discuss the recent and current threats to the amateur radio spectrum and how the RSGB leads the input into many of the spectrum defences. RSGB EMC Chair John Rogers, M0JAV, will also talk about potential new major threats to the noise floor. RSGB Propagation Studies Committee Chair Steve Nichols, G0KYA, will facilitate the discussion. Whether you're new to amateur radio or have been enjoying it for decades, this is an important presentation that you won't want to miss. If you are attending the NARSA rally today, Sunday the 12th of April, pop by and say hello to members of the RSGB team who are attending. The event is taking place at the Norbreck Hotel in Blackpool. As well as an RSGB book stall, you will find the RSGB Morse Competency Lead, Eric Arkinstall, M0KZB, who will be offering Morse competency tests for those who would like to test their skills. Members of the Society's Regional Team will also be there, as well as RSGB President Bob Beebe, GU4YOX, who will be presenting the trophies for the construction competition, and best club website and stand at 1.30 pm. Find out more about the event at narsa.org.uk The RSGB had announced that Vaughan Ravenscroft, M0VRR, has stepped down as its Intruder Watch Coordinator. Ian Suart, GM4AUP, has taken on this role, in addition to being the OAS Coordinator. The RSGB Monitoring System, more popularly known as Intruder Watch, forms part of the IARU Monitoring System. It submits reports of non-amateur transmissions heard on the exclusive HF amateur bands to both the Ofcom Monitoring Station at Baldock and to IARU Region 1. Find out more about the service at rsgb.org/intruder-watch Don't forget that Tonight@8 will be live tomorrow night, on the RSGB YouTube channel and special BATC channel. The presentation will be delivered by Mark Foreman, G7LSZ, who is an associate professor of industrial materials recycling at a University in Sweden. He'll be discussing the recycling process of waste electronic and electrical equipment, and what happens to your rig when it is no longer working. Find out more at rsgb.org/webinars The next in the popular 145 Alive series of events takes place on Saturday, the 18th of April, from 1200 to 15:00 UTC. Many hundreds of operators are expected to be on the air using 145MHz FM and 144MHz SSB. For more information, go to the 145 Alive Facebook page or email 145aliveuk@gmail.com Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk. The deadline for submissions is 10 am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week.  And now for details of rallies and events Today, the 12th, Holsworthy Amateur Radio Club Spring Radio Rally is taking place at Holsworthy Livestock Market, New Market Road, Holsworthy, Devon EX22 7FA. The doors open to the public at 10 am, and entry is £3 per person. There is a bring and buy area and catering on site. More details are available via the ‘Rally' tab at m0omc.co.uk Cambridge Repeater Group Rally will take place on Sunday, the 19th of April at Foxton Village Hall, Hardman Road, Foxton CB22 6RN. Traders can gain access from 7.30 am, and the doors open to visitors at 9.30 am. Entry costs £4, but there will be a discount for multi-occupancy vehicles. For more information, email rally2026@cambridgerepeaters.net  and visit cambridgerepeaters.net Now the Special Event news Special callsign SX100PAOK is operating until the 18th of May to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Pan-Thessalonian Athletic Club. Look out for activity on all bands using CW, digital modes and SSB. A commemorative award is planned for participants, along with a QSL card to confirm QSOs. Visit QRZ.com  for more information and updates. To celebrate World Amateur Radio Day on Saturday, the 18th, members of the Union of Belgian Radio Amateurs are active as OO26WARD throughout April. QSL via Logbook of the World, eQSL or via the Bureau. Now the DX news Suvarna, VU3OPT, is active as 3B9N from Rodrigues Island, AF-017, until Wednesday, the 20th of May. He operates using CW and has been spotted on the 20, 15 and 10m bands. Visit 9n7ga.com  for more information. Herman, YB3GIH, is operating as 3X/YB3GIH from Boffa in Guinea until June. He operates using SSB on the 20 and 15m bands. QSOs are uploaded to eQSL, Club Log, and Logbook of the World. Now the contest news RSGB FT4 International Activity Day started at 1200 UTC yesterday, the 11th, and ends at 1200UTC today, Sunday, the 12th of April. Using FT4 on the 160 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is your report. Tomorrow, the 13th, the RSGB 80m Club Championship runs from 1900 to 2030 UTC. Using CW on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Tuesday the 14th, the RSGB 432MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1800 to 1855 UTC. Using FM on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also on Tuesday the 14th, the RSGB 432MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130 UTC. Using all modes on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Thursday the 16th, the RSGB 70MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130 UTC. Using all modes on the 4m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Saturday the 18th, the PACCdigi Contest runs from 0700 to 1900 UTC. Using FT4, FT8 and RTTY on the 160 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is your report and serial number. PA stations also send their province code. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday, the 9th of April 2026. After a pretty stormy run-up to Easter, from a geomagnetic disturbance point of view, the Sun has been quieter. In fact, the Kp index has been below 3 all week. Unfortunately, the solar flux index has also declined, standing at 108 on Thursday, the 9th of April. The only advantage has been a lack of solar flares. There have only been 12 minor C-class flares over the past three days compared with 29 C-class flares and six M-class flares on the 4th and 5th of April. We always look for a low Kp index over a higher solar flux index for better HF conditions. So how does this all affect HF propagation? The maximum usable frequency, or MUF, over a 3,000km path has been struggling to get up to 28MHz on most days. This leaves only 21 and 24MHz open after the initial post-dawn ionospheric build-up. This doesn't mean that 10m is dead, but it may be that the band is only open to DX and not open to Europe. This may change once the Sporadic-E season starts, but we are still a month away from that. DX being worked, according to the CDXC Slack group, includes 5W1SA in Samoa on 17m FT8, F0/F6BCW from French Polynesia on 12m CW and 3DA0TM in Eswatini on 20m USB. T31TTT on Kanton Island, Central Kiribati, has also been spotted on the 20 and 30m bands using FT4 and FT8. The DXpedition is focusing on FT modes, although the team is also operating some CW. Next week, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index will start around 105, but will increase a little over the week to reach the low 120s. Geomagnetic conditions are forecast to be quiet, with a maximum Kp index of 3 once we get over this weekend's predicted disruption, which has a forecast Kp index of 5. Then we are in for a rough ride next weekend, with a predicted Kp index of 6 on the 19th of April and disrupted conditions for three days. This is likely due to the return of active region 4392, which produced a coronal mass ejection that hit the Earth and caused the Kp index to rise to 7 on its last rotation. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The warm, dry weather of the middle of last week has left us with ideas of spring, but it has now been replaced by cooler, unsettled weather with rain or showers.  In fact, the next week or two will be generally unsettled, not atypical of April. This will be a good period for rain scatter on the upper GHz bands since April showers can be heavy and present good scatter opportunities. This unsettled weather means tropo retreats into the background for this period. Meteor scatter is still under the influence of random activity and best in the early morning hours. Aurora is currently looking more promising with solar conditions offering coronal holes and possible auroras as a result. Sporadic-E will start to make an appearance soon, especially on the 10m band, but realistically, we probably need to wait until we are into May before chances are more rewarding for the 6m band. It is often a feature of the early part of the Sporadic-E season that the traditional two periods of activity of the high season, morning and afternoon, start off as one broad period around the middle of the day. For EME operators, Moon declination is starting to climb again, going positive on Wednesday, the 15th of April. Earth-Moon-Earth path losses are past maximum now and continue to fall all week. 144MHz sky noise is high today, the 12th, and will fall to low for the rest of the week. Friday, the 17th of April, will be an exception as the Moon and Sun will be close in the sky.    And that's all from the propagation team this week.

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I was playing around with RDS, or Radio Data System, it's a digital signal that's often embedded in a commercial broadcast FM transmission. Among other things it contains information about the station, its content, frequencies and potentially other useful information, such as traffic alerts. If you recall I've been working on 50 things to do with a Software Defined Radio and decoding RDS is one of those things. The decoding effort aside, I imagined a screen where you could see the RDS information, in real-time, as it was being transmitted by all the local FM broadcast stations. You'd see what music each station was playing, what their local clock thought the time was, how much they transmit other data and what they might do for emergencies, like say a Tropical Cyclone heading this way. It occurred to me that this would be an example of a fundamental difference between a traditional radio and a Software Defined Radio or SDR. Specifically, we're taught that you tune a radio to a frequency, it demodulates or decodes what's there and plays the sound, or digital information, or whatever is being transmitted, on that frequency. If you want to hear something else, you need to change frequency and the radio decodes that new frequency. If you have multiple channels to choose from, there are ways to automatically switch frequency, one after the other. One of my friends recently discovered an old scanner in a box and according to the specifications, it can scan 20 stations per second. If all 1,000 stations are programmed, it takes 50 seconds to scan them all. A lot can happen in that time. The traditional solution is having more radios. Ideally you'd have one for every frequency you care about. Cost aside, logistically this is not fun. Imagine having to power a thousand radios, or find the one where the volume isn't right, or even find space for them, or antennas. In the SDR world that's not quite how it works. Instead of tuning to one frequency, you essentially tune to a range of frequencies and then, using software, decode one or more of those frequencies, at the same time. Listening to multiple broadcast FM stations like that might not make a whole lot of sense, but what about decoding RDS, or listening to aviation frequencies, or local amateur radio repeaters, or multiple digital modes? While that might sound far fetched, a $50 RTL-SDR dongle can manage 2.5 MHz of bandwidth over USB, by comparison, my $1,000 Yaesu FT-857d can receive all of 200 kHz in Wideband FM mode, and only whilst tuned to the broadcast band frequencies. In normal AM or FM mode it's 10 kHz, so you'd need 250 of them to listen to the same frequency range. Again, just so we're clear, in analogue radio you need to change frequency to decode a different signal. In SDR you can simultaneously decode as many signals as resources permit. For example, I can make a simple GNU Radio flowgraph, a little program, that accepts a command line setting, in GNU Radio it's called a parameter block, and run it with a frequency I'm interested in. Then I can run another copy of the same program with a different frequency. Rinse and repeat and I have as many receivers as I need. While we're at it, you don't need to run the same program multiple times, you can run an FM decoder, a RTTY decoder, an AM decoder, all at the same time, as long as the frequencies you're looking at fit inside the bandwidth of the receiver you're playing with. Just so we're clear, this is one receiver, one antenna, one power supply, with as many decoders as resources allow. In other words, these two methods, analogue and SDR, are not the same. Am I glossing over things? Sure. With such a wide bandwidth comes susceptibility to interference and signal overload, also the RTL-SDR dongle doesn't transmit, although, in 2014 Ismo OH2FTG managed to change the centre frequency of his dongle 300 times per second, causing the on board oscillator to leak in a controlled manner, making a Frequency Shift Keyed or FSK transmission. Yes, I know, that's not quite up to the standard of a transmission coming from an 857d. You'll also need a computer, which you don't need to run an analogue radio, though truth be told, an analogue radio from the last couple of decades is pretty much a computer anyway. You can likely get away with a Raspberry Pi to process the data coming from an RTL-SDR dongle, so another $5, and yes, you'll need a monitor, keyboard, and a power supply. The point I'm making is that these two methods are not the same and in the evolving world of amateur radio, there's space for both. It also means that once you have this infrastructure, you can start experimenting with new radio technologies and approaches. Will it make my 857d and its siblings obsolete? Perhaps, but I doubt it. There's still plenty of valve radios going around, not to mention the spark gap transmitter at Grimeton in Sweden. In other words, this is growing the hobby, which ultimately is why I'm here. I will mention that it's not all hot cocoa and cookies. I've spent the past two days attempting to figure out why my very simple AM decoder isn't actually playing back the local ATIS or Automatic Terminal Information Service and why MacOS SDR applications don't include SoapySDR support, because of course they don't. Oh, yeah, I'm still trying to get my Proxmox server guest audio to work. I'm sharing this to make sure that you understand, that just like creating your own circuit board design and building it, there's plenty of experimentation to be done, problems to solve and challenges to meet, ultimately we're playing at the bleeding edge, at least it's not with sharp or hot implements. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

GB2RS News Sunday, the 22nd of March 2026 The news headlines: Put the RSGB 2026 AGM in your diary Make your vote count in the RSGB elections The RSGB is an official partner for WRTC2026 The RSGB 2026 AGM will take place at 10 am on Saturday, the 18th of April and will be held online to ensure as many members as possible can watch and take part. On the Society's website, you can now see details about the Calling Notice, Resolutions, the elected Board Director candidates, the Nominated Director candidates, and information about how to vote. The Society has also announced the results of the Regional Representative elections, where two candidates have been elected unopposed. There are three ways you can ask the RSGB Board a question at the AGM. Visit rsgb.org/agm  to find out more. In this year's RSGB elections, there are two vacancies for Elected Board Directors, and three nominations have been received. The candidates are Ben Lloyd, GW4BML, Tony Miles, MM0TMZ and John E. A. Moss, G0KTW. RSGB members are asked to vote for the two candidates they prefer to serve the Society as Board Directors for the next three years. As well as submitting their CV and personal statement in writing, the candidates have each taken part in a video interview so that RSGB members can find out more about them. The Society has separated the questions into an extended video and a short. Watch these videos by going to rsgb.org/candidates. Voting for candidates is now open and will close at 9 am on the 16th of April 2026. By voting in the RSGB elections, you are helping to shape the future of the Society and how it operates. Have your say and vote today. Go to rsgb.org/vote The RSGB is delighted to announce that it is an official partner for this year's World Radiosport Team Championship, also known as WRTC. RSGB representatives will attend the event, which is being held from the 8th to the 13th of July 2026 at Wyboston Lakes in Bedfordshire. They'll meet radio amateurs and spectators from around the world, and the Society has supported the event further by sponsoring one of the 50 competitor tents. RSGB General Manager Steve Thomas, M1ACB, has served on the WRTC UK Organising Committee for the past three years. RSGB President Bob Beebe, GU4YOX, will attend WRTC for its duration and conduct various duties throughout the week. If you'd like to volunteer and be part of this fantastic event, there are a range of roles available, including Contest Station Managers, Contest Station Builders and Transport roles. Visit wrtc2026.org/volunteers  to find out more. Did you know that RSGB membership is open to anyone with an interest in amateur radio, wherever they are in the world? The Society's publications are well respected around the globe, and the RSGB is proud to have members in over 50 countries. You can find out about joining the RSGB's community and meet some of its international members via rsgb.org/international-members The RSGB Awards Manager, Lindsay Pennell, GI3KME, has awarded Geoff, G4FKA, the first Supreme level of the Worked All UK and Crown Dependency Prefixes Award. The award was introduced in 2025 and is available to all radio amateurs and shortwave listeners in the UK and worldwide. Read more about Geoff's achievement by going to rsgb.org/award-stories A brand new GB2RS broadcast is now available in Wales. Elliot, MW9IQN, is located at the foot of the Cambrian Mountains. He transmits the RSGB News on 145.525MHz FM each Sunday at 5 pm with good coverage to the west coast. At present, Elliot is using quite low power and is broadcasting in English. However, a power increase is planned and, if requested, he would be pleased to additionally broadcast the script in Welsh. If you are in mid-Wales, do take a listen for this new GB2RS broadcast and give Elliot a call during his post-News net. Several other broadcasts can be received in Wales, notably Brian, GW6VEI, who covers Wales from St Asaph on 3650kHz LSB at 10.30 am. The full Broadcast Schedule can be downloaded at rsgb.org/GB2RSschedule Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk. The deadline for submissions is 10 am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week.  And now for details of rallies and events Today, the 22nd, Callington Radio and Electronics Rally is being held in the Town Hall, New Road, Callington, Cornwall, PL17 7BE. The doors are open to the public from 10 am until 1 pm. Entry is £2 each with no charge for those under the age of 16. The rally features a comprehensive selection of traders, clubs and societies from the southwest. There is also a bring-and-buy area, a catering service, disabled access, toilet facilities and ample parking. For more information, visit callingtonradiosociety.org.uk Dover Amateur Radio Club Rally is also taking place today, the 22nd, at Eastry Village Hall, High Street, Eastry, Kent, CT13 0QB. The doors are open from 10 am to 2 pm, and the entrance fee is £3. Refreshments are available on site. For more details, contact the Club via darc.online Now the Special Event news Special callsign GB2TSO will be active from mid-morning on Wednesday, the 25th of March 2026. Marc, 2E0MCJ and Stephen, M0CCA, are taking part in The Great Tommy Sleep Out from Noon, Cregg Veterans Retreat near Camelford in Cornwall. Listen for activity on the 40m band using SSB. Special callsign SZ40A is in use by the Radio Amateur Association of Western Greece, SZ1A, to celebrate 40 years of continuous presence, service and contribution to amateur radio. Look for activity across multiple HF bands and modes until the 31st of May. QSL via ON3UN. To see if you qualify for an award for working the station, visit awards.sz1a.org Now the DX news Gunter, DK2WH, is active as V51WH and V55Y from Namibia until Tuesday, the 24th of March 2026. He is operating using FT8, RTTY, SSB and some CW on the 160 to 6m bands. QSL via Gunter's home call, directly or via the Bureau. Haluk, TA2LE is active as J79H from Dominica, NA-101, until Thursday, the 26th of March.  Look for activity using CW, FT8 and SSB on the 40 to 10m bands. QSL via OQRS, Logbook of the World and Club Log. For more information and updates, visit tinyurl.com/J79H-2026 Now the contest news The British Amateur Radio Teledata Group HF RTTY Contest started at 0200UTC yesterday, the 21st, and runs until 0200UTC tomorrow, the 23rd of March. Using RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report, serial number and time. On Tuesday, the 24th of March, the RSGB SHF UK Activity Contest runs from 1930 to 2230UTC. Using all modes on 2.3 to 10GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday, the 25th of March, the United Kingdom and Ireland Contest Club Contest runs from 2000 to 2100UTC. Using CW on the 80m band, the exchange is your six-character locator. On Thursday, the 26th of March, the RSGB 80m Club Championship runs from 2000 to 2130UTC. Using SSB on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. The CQ World Wide WPX SSB Contest starts at 0000UTC on Saturday, the 28th and runs until 2359UTC on Sunday, the 29th of March. Using SSB on the 160 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Sunday, the 29th of March, the UK Microwave Group Millimetre Band Contest runs from 0800UTC to 1700UTC. Using all modes on 24 to 76GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 19th of March Last weekend's Commonwealth Contest got off to a bad start, thanks to a Kp index of 6 that really affected the ionosphere. As a result, HF conditions were not good with the maximum usable frequency over a 3,000km path below 21MHz until 1700UTC. Luckily, things improved a little on Sunday, but overall scores were down compared with previous events. The Kp index increase was due to a coronal hole stream, which reached 600 to 700 kilometres per second and a Bz that pointed south. The equinox period hasn't helped due to the Russell-McPherron effect, a phenomenon that occurs when the Earth's magnetic field aligns with the Sun's magnetic field during equinoxes, creating ‘cracks' in the magnetosphere. Otherwise, the week has been unremarkable. The solar flux index has remained firmly in the 110s, and there have been no X-class solar flares, only a few M and lesser C-class events. Next week, HF propagation may be dominated again by the solar wind. Coronal hole number 33 will begin to face Earth, and a high-speed stream was predicted to reach us this weekend, ending today, the 22nd. A coronal mass ejection was also predicted to arrive around Thursday, the 19th. NOAA predicts the Kp index will rise to 5 this weekend and not decline to 3 until the 26th of March. Meanwhile, the solar flux is predicted to remain in the 105 to 120 range until the 27th of March. It may then increase slightly to be in the 120s until the end of the month. As a result, expect lower maximum usable frequencies and poorer HF conditions until around next Thursday, the 26th and Friday, the 27th of March. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The high pressure that developed during the second half of last week formed on the warmer side of the front and, as a result, produced slightly better tropo conditions than looked possible the previous week. The weather is probably going to try to change to a cold-air high in the coming week, so expect conditions to decline. However, that's not the only reason for a decline. As the main high centre displaces west of Britain, we will find a colder and unsettled west or north-westerly pattern affecting the UK next week. So less tropo, but more chance of some rain scatter for the upper GHz bands. Meteor scatter remains in the random activity domain, although we are edging closer to the next major shower of the late April Lyrids. It's not to say that exciting things can't happen, however. Just after a HamSCI workshop on the subject of meteor scatter last weekend, a multi-ton meteoroid was reported from Cleveland, Ohio, on the HamSCI Google groups at around 1300UTC on the 17th of March. This produced a sonic boom and was visible in broad daylight. All is quiet on the Sporadic-E front, although we are slowly moving towards a period when the first glimmers of activity show themselves, particularly on digital modes.  Lastly, a comment on the chances of an aurora. These are usually enhanced due to solar-terrestrial alignment around the equinoxes, and with two coronal mass ejections predicted to arrive at the tail end of last week, ending today, the 22nd. As usual, check for an increasing Kp index above 5. For EME, yesterday saw the 5.7GHz section of the Dubus CW and SSB EME contest and associated all-mode activity weekend. With Moon declination positive and rising, and path losses still low, it hopefully produced some nice contacts. On VHF, 144MHz sky noise is low in the coming week. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

GB2RS News Sunday, the 8th of March 2026   The news headlines: RSGB members – secure your place on the Direct Digital Synthesiser programming workshop The latest edition of RadCom Plus has been published Listen out for groups that are active for British Science Week There's still time for RSGB members to book their place on the Direct Digital Synthesizer programming workshop, taking place in Blackpool on Saturday the 11th of April. If you would like a flavour of the workshop, watch our short video recorded at last year's RSGB Convention. You can hear from participants who enjoyed exploring new opportunities with Arduino and appreciated having a full six hours to see the project through from start to finish. Find the video on our YouTube channel and Facebook profile, and book the workshop via rsgb.org/practical-events The Winter 2025 / Spring 2026 edition of the RSGB's digital technical supplement, RadCom Plus, is now available via the RSGB app for mobile and web. RSGB members can enjoy four technical articles, including part five in the ‘Operating on the 30THz band' series and ‘Understanding Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing'. You'll also find articles on ‘Taming the end-fed half-wave antenna' and on the construction and use of a 4m solid state linear amplifier. Don't forget you can save articles in the app by bookmarking them. Within the mobile app, you can also download the edition to read whilst you're on the go. Members can also browse all the back issues of RadCom Plus, dating back to 2015, within the app. If you're not a member yet, you can read a sample edition of RadCom Plus. Go to rsgb.org/radcom  to get started. British Science Week 2026 began last Friday, and a wide variety of amateur radio activity is taking place throughout the ten days. From kit building to Morse-a-thons, from skeds to radio direction finding, this is a fantastic showcase of amateur radio to wider audiences. There is still time to get involved in this national event that celebrates science, technology, engineering and maths by listening out for operators on the amateur bands. A number of groups will be active throughout the week, including the Royal Signals Museum Outreach team, who will be active on Wednesday, the 11th of March, as GB100RSM. The team will be running a day full of activities for 60 pupils from Milldown Academy in Blandford Forum, so listen out for them and exchange greetings. You can find details of other groups that will be on the air by going to rsgb.org/bsw  and selecting ‘Events happening near you' from the right-hand menu. The Full and Direct-to-Full Exam Handouts, references EX309 and EX320, have been updated with immediate effect, so their 5MHz band plans now align with the main RSGB band plan, which was updated in January 2026. The new editions can be found at rsgb.org/exam-forms. The changes highlight that caution must be exercised to avoid out-of-band operation, as well as the fact that the band is for Full Licensees only. This follows Ofcom monitoring and warnings to errant operators. To encourage activity on the 2m band, the 145 Alive team has introduced 145 Alive 50. The trial period for this initiative runs until the 18th of April. The rules are simple. Call CQ on the calling channel and have at least one QSO per day on the 2m band. Record your contacts and send your log for 50 or more days, in ADIF format, to 145aliveuk@gmail.com. Electronic certificates will be supplied by the 145 Alive team to successful applicants. 145 Alive needs net controllers for its next event on Saturday, the 18th of April. Stations will be on the air from 12 am to 3 pm. The event predominantly features FM, but some SSB stations will also be operating. If you or your group would like to run a net, email 145aliveuk@gmail.com. Remember to include your name, callsign, location and Maidenhead locator. Today, the 8th, the Vintage and Military Amateur Radio Society is attending the Audiojumble event at K2 Crawley, Pease Pottage Hill, Crawley, RH11 9BQ. The Society's display and information stand will be of interest to those who enjoy historic equipment, including vacuum tubes. Everyone is welcome to drop by and will be made very welcome. Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk. The deadline for submissions is 10 am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week.  And now for details of rallies and events Today, the 8th, the Hack Green Military Surplus and Military Radio Hangar Sale is taking place at Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker, Nantwich, Cheshire CW5 8AL. The sale includes electronic equipment, amateur gear, components, military radio items and vehicle spares. For more information, visit hackgreen.co.uk On Sunday, the 15th of March, Ripon and District Amateur Radio Society Rally will take place at Great Ouseburn Village Hall, Lightmire Lane, Great Ouseburn, York YO26 9RL. The doors open for traders at 7.30 am and for the public at 10 am. Admission costs £5. Free parking and refreshments will be available. Tables are available at a cost of £10 each. Early booking is advised. For more information, email radars.rally@gmail.com Now the Special Event news To celebrate the centenary of the New Zealand Association of Radio Transmitters, which was formed on the 16th of August 1926, special callsign ZL100C will be active until August. QSL via the Bureau and Logbook of the World. Special callsign DB100FT is active throughout 2026 to celebrate the centenary of the Berlin Radio Tower. The 150m-high steel structure is one of the city's most iconic landmarks and has a prominent place in German radio broadcasting. Recently, the station was spotted on the HF bands using FT4 and FT8. QSL via the Bureau, or directly to DO2PZ. Now the DX news Jozef, ON6HX, is active again as YB9/ON6HX from Mataram on Lombok Island, OC-150, until Wednesday the 11th of March. The station is operating using CW, SSB, RTTY, FT8 and FT4. QSL via Logbook of the World, eQSL, or via Jozef's home call. Gerard, F2JD is active as HR5/F2JD from Copan, Honduras until Thursday, the 12th of March. He is operating using CW, SSB, FT8 and FT4 on the HF bands. QSL to F6AJA directly or via the Bureau. Now the contest news The RSGB March 144 and 432MHz Contest started at 1400UTC yesterday, the 7th, and runs until 1400UTC today, Sunday the 8th of March. Using all modes on the 2m and 70cm bands, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The ARRL International DX Contest started at 0000UTC yesterday, the 7th, and runs until 2359UTC today, Sunday, the 8th of March. Using SSB on the 160 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is RST and transmit power. American stations also send their state, and Canadian stations send their province. On Tuesday, the 10th of March, the RSGB 432MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 1955UTC. Using FM on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also on Tuesday the 10th, the RSGB 432MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. Using all modes on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday, the 11th of March, the RSGB 432MHz FT8 Activity four-hour Contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is a report and four-character locator. Also on Wednesday the 11th, the RSGB 432MHz FT8 Activity two-hour Contest runs from 1900 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is a report and four-character locator. Stations entering the four-hour contest may also enter the two-hour contest. On Wednesday, the 11th of March, the RSGB 80m Club Championship runs from 2000 to 2130UTC. Using CW on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Thursday, the 12th of March, the RSGB 50MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. Using all modes on the 6m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The Commonwealth Contest starts at 1000UTC on Saturday, the 14th of March and ends at 1000UTC on Sunday, the 15th of March. Using CW on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Sunday, the 15th of March, the UK Microwave Group Low Band Contest runs from 1000 to 1500UTC. Using all modes on 1.3 to 3.4GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator.  Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday, the 5th of March 2026. What a difference a week makes! In our last report, we mentioned that there were zero sunspots and a solar flux index of 130. This week has seen a turnaround with five active sunspot regions and a solar flux index of 144. HF propagation has been reasonable with openings up to 10m to various parts of the world. We have only seen M-class solar flares, although there have been around 40 of them in the past five days. We had a brief excursion in the Kp index when it went to 5 during one three-hour period, late on the 3rd of March. However, it soon recovered and has been at 2 or lower for the past two days at the time of writing. The effects of a small Earth-facing coronal hole started coming past the Earth on Friday, the 6th of March and is expected to be the source of a solar wind stream. According to NOAA and the Space Weather Prediction Centre, Active to Minor G1 geomagnetic storming will be possible today, the 8th of March. We have now seen the start of the 3Y0K Bouvet Island DXpedition, which is due to run until around the 17th of March. It has already been worked from the UK on bands from 40 to 12m. Bouvet is virtually due south from the UK, and the higher bands should be open from around 0700 to around 1900UTC. The 40 and 30m bands should open from around 2000 to 0400UTC. So, there are plenty of opportunities to work the station. Next week, the Space Weather Prediction Centre in the US forecasts that the solar flux index may be around 156 today, the 8th, but will then decline to be in the 120s or even 110s later in the week. We may have slightly unsettled geomagnetic conditions around the 10th to the 12th of March and again on the 14th and 15th of March, with an estimated Kp index of 4. In summary, HF conditions are not bad. Keep an eye on solarham.com  for daily updates. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The recent change of weather to introduce high pressure onto the scene provided some welcome enhanced tropo conditions in the last week. The March RSGB 144 and 432MHz Championship should still be able to benefit, except perhaps for the northwestern fringe of the UK, where the next Atlantic fronts will be making an intervention. It looks a little more problematic for the 432MHz UK Activity Contest on Tuesday, the 10th of March. The same is true for the RSGB 50MHz UK Activity Contest on Thursday, the 12th of March, as the low-pressure pattern returns and offers a chance of rain scatter for the microwave bands. The meteor scatter prospects are still driven by random activity, so as usual, a preference for the early hours of the morning is called for on this mode. It has been mentioned before that the Spring and Autumn are periods when auroras are more likely. This is known as the Russell-McPherron effect when the Earth's magnetic field is better coupled to the solar wind. So, keep monitoring the Kp index for signs of it going above 5. Then check the bands for fluttery signals, even on the LF bands. CW can be used as an early ‘heads up' for potential activity on the VHF bands. Lastly, thoughts about Sporadic-E should be kept in check for a while yet, since we are still very far away from the usual start of the season. For EME, Moon declination is negative and falling to a minimum next Thursday, meaning shortening Moon windows and lower peak elevation until then. Path losses are falling until apogee on Tuesday, the 10th of March. 144MHz Sky noise is moderate, rising to a high of more than 3000 Kelvin on Thursday and falling back by next weekend. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

Hello and Welcome to the DX Corner for your weekly Dose of DX. I'm Bill, AJ8B.The following DX information comes from Bernie, W3UR, editor of the DailyDX, the WeeklyDX, and the How's DX column in QST. If you would like a free 2-week trial of the DailyDX, your only source of real-time DX information, justdrop me a note at thedxmentor@gmail.comTo say that the world has been waiting on this would be an understatement. We have an update on the Bouvet DXpedition, 3Y0K - They have left Cape Town!The 3YØK team has departed Cape Town aboard the Danish registered vessel Argus from Icetugs, beginning the 1,500‑nautical‑mile transit to Bouvetøya. Argus completed scheduled maintenance and survey work prior to her arrival in Cape Town, ensuring full readiness for the voyage. Earlier this week, the expedition helicopter was loaded, inspected, and secured on deck. Both the vessel and the aircraft have successfully passed all required inspections. We appreciate the strong commitment demonstrated by the pilots, mechanics, expedition guides, and vessel crew as we move forward together as one team to make this a successful expedition. The captain and crew are performing excellently, and the team is enjoying good meals prepared by the ship's chef. Despite encountering rough seas during the first day at sea, preparations continue onboard as we expect to arrive atBouvetøya on February 26th at 08:00 local time. We extend our sincere thanks to all contributors for your continued support! 73, 3YØK Team  5N – Nigeria – Bodo, DF8DX, will be in Abuja, Nigeria, working at the Voice of Nigeria broadcasting station from March 1-10,. Operating under his new callsign 5N7QBR he plans to be active on the air as time allows and will participate in the ARRL DX SSB Contest. Using 100 watts and possibly Voice of Nigeria's large curtain antenna (about 19dB gain), he will operate CW, SSB, and FT8 on 10-80m bands. QSLs are accepted via LoTW, direct, bureau, or OQRS after the activity. For more information, see his QRZ.com profiles for 5N0OCH and 5N7Q.9G – Ghana – Arno, DL1CW, is QRV until March 3rd. He ismostly on CW with some RTTY possible through March 3. He is running 100 atts to a dipole and plans to be active on 3.5 through 50 MHz. QSL via LoTW and via the bureau to DL1CW. J5 - Guinea-Bissau – We have over 25.000 QSOs in the log after the first 24 hours of operation. We already logged more than 5.000 QSOs in CW. Only some 100+ SSB QSOs yet. Manymore CW and SSB to come in the coming days, don't worry... We have an Update on KP5/NP3VI, Desecheo Island- Asreported last week, KP5/NP3VI, the Desecheo Island DXpedition, has been extended to March 3. As of February 25th, they had exceeded 97,000 QSO milestone, “all generated using our fully solar-powered, unattended RemoteDeployment Unit.”  FJ - St. Barthelemy – On February 12, Andreas, DK6AS, began his February/March 2026 FJ/DK6AS operation from St. Barts. He'll be QRV on CW, FT4 and CT8 on 3.5 through 50 MHz,including participation in the ARRL International DX CW Contest. QSL via DK6AS either direct or via the bureau. This week, the DX Mentor YouTube episode will feature Hal, W8HC. Hal will be discussing the 9U1RU DXpedition that logged almost 180,000 QSOs. Give it a watch and let me know what you think.Until next week, this is Bill, AJ8B saying 73 and thanks to my XYL Karen for her love and support. I Hope to hear you in the pileups! Have a great DX week!

GB2RS News Sunday the 1st of March 2026 The news headlines: British Science Week starts on Friday – what are your plans? Listen out for the RSGB President operating as GB5CC Make the most of the RSGB National Radio Centre's extended summer opening hours British Science Week starts this Friday, the 6th of March, and finishes on Sunday, the 15th of March. The annual event celebrates science, technology, engineering and maths, and is the perfect opportunity to share amateur radio with new audiences. A number of clubs are hosting events that are open to the public, ranging from a practical skills night with Chelmsford Amateur Radio Society through to the Lincolnshire Portable Radio Group, which is delivering a youth event with the International Bomber Command Centre. Several groups and organisations are looking to arrange skeds during the week. These include Crowthorne and Wokingham Without Men's Shed with Bracknell Amateur Radio Club, and also South Derbyshire and Ashby Woulds Amateur Radio Group. Get involved with British Science Week by attending an event, or by arranging a sked with one of these groups. Find out more by going to rsgb.org/bsw  and selecting ‘Events happening near you' from the right-hand menu. If you haven't planned anything yet, you can get involved by doing the RSGB ‘Riding the wave' activity with your friends and family. Find this worksheet, along with numerous other ideas and resources, by going to the RSGB British Science Week web page. The President of the RSGB, Bob Beebe, GU4YOX, will be operating as GB5CC for this year's Commonwealth Contest, which takes place on the 14th and 15th of March. He will be doing so in memory of former RSGB President, Bob Whelan, G3PJT, who sadly became a Silent Key at the end of last year. Bob Beebe looks forward to making contacts across the Commonwealth and sharing time on the amateur bands to reflect the fellowship, tradition and sense of community that Bob Whelan valued so deeply. Find out more about the contest at rsgbcc.org/hf If you are planning a visit to the RSGB National Radio Centre, you'll be pleased to hear that, in line with Bletchley Park's summer opening hours, the Centre is now open for an extra hour and will close at 5 pm each day. Remember that RSGB members can download a free entry voucher for Bletchley Park at rsgb.org/bpvoucher Did you know that each RSGB region has a Facebook page that has a focus on regional amateur radio communities? The majority of the posts are from clubs, individual licensees and event organisers from that area, and the content is moderated by members of the RSGB Regional Team. Some RSGB news content is also shared that will be of interest to amateurs in that particular region. These pages can also be used to ask for help about any aspect of amateur radio. Whether you're an individual or a club, make use of this resource! You can find the pages on Facebook – go to facebook.com/groups/rsgbregion1  for Region 1 or substitute the region number for your local region. The 235 Alive DMR net takes place on TGIF Talk Group 235 on Mondays and Fridays from 7.30 pm. Everyone is welcome. For details of how to connect, visit the 235 Alive Facebook page or 235alive.com International Women's Day YL Parks on the Air Party takes place annually on the 8th of March. This isn't a contest. The main goal is to encourage women to get out, get on the air, and be more active in amateur radio. For more information, visit the International Women's Day YL POTA Party Facebook page. SOS Radio Week is an annual event that takes place throughout the month of May to celebrate the work of the volunteers from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Independent Lifeboats and National Coastwatch Stations around the British Isles. Registration is now open via sosradioweek.org.uk Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk. The deadline for submissions is 10 am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week.  And now for details of rallies and events Today, the 1st of March, the Exeter Radio Rally is taking place at The Kenn Centre, EX6 7UE. The rally includes a bring-and-buy area, disabled facilities, catering and free car parking. The entry fee is £3. Traders can gain entry from 8 am, and the doors open to the public at 10 am. For more information, email Bill, G7AKJ via billwrench213@btinternet.com On Sunday, the 22nd of March, Callington Radio and Electronics Rally will be held in the Town Hall, New Road, Callington, Cornwall, PL17 7BE. The doors will be open to the public from 10 am until 1 pm. Entry is £2 each with no charge for those under the age of 16. A comprehensive selection of traders, clubs and societies from the Southwest will be present along with a bring-and-buy stall and the usual catering service. Pre-booking is essential, so contact Alastair, M0KRR, via alastair.kerr1@btinternet.com or by phone on 01503 262 755 with your requirements as soon as possible. Visit callingtonradiosociety.org.uk  for more information. Now the Special Event news Experimental Danish Radio Amateurs are celebrating the centenary of Denmark's first licensed amateurs. To mark the occasion, special callsign OZ100OZ will be on the air from 0000UTC on the 1st of March until 2359UTC on the 8th of March. For more information, including details of an award that is available for working the station, visit QRZ.com Special callsign ZL100C is active to celebrate the centenary of the New Zealand Association of Radio Transmitters, which was formed on the 16th of August 1926. The callsign will be active until the 6th of August 2026. QSL via the Bureau and Logbook of the World. For more information, visit QRZ.com Now the DX news Arno, DL1CW, is active as 9G5ZZ from Ghana until Tuesday, the 3rd of March. He operates on the 80 to 6m bands mainly using CW. QSL via Logbook of the World, the Bureau and Arno's home call. Andre, PD1DRE, is active as PJ2/PD1DRE from Curacao, SA-099, until Wednesday, the 4th of March. He operates using FT4, FT8 and SSB on the HF bands. QSL via eQSL. Now the contest news Today, the 1st of March, the Worked All Britain 3.5MHz Phone Contest runs from 1800 to 2200 UTC. Using SSB on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and your Worked All Britain area. Tomorrow, the 2nd of March, the RSGB 80m Club Championship runs from 2000 to 2130 UTC. Using PSK63 and RTTY on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report and signal number. On Tuesday, the 3rd of March, the RSGB 144MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 1955 UTC. Using FM on the 2m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also on Tuesday, the 3rd of March, the RSGB UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. Using all modes on the 2m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday, the 4th of March, the RSGB 144MHz FT8 Activity four-hour Contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 2m band, the exchange is a report and four-character locator. Also on Wednesday the 4th, the RSGB 144MHz FT8 Activity two-hour Contest runs from 1900 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 2m band, the exchange is a report and four-character locator. Stations entering the four-hour contest may also enter the two-hour contest. On Wednesday, the 4th of March, the UK and Ireland Contest Club 80m Contest runs from 2000 to 2100UTC. Using SSB on the 80m band, the exchange is your six-character locator. The RSGB March 144 and 432 MHz Contest starts at 1400 UTC on Saturday, the 7th, and runs until 1400 UTC on Sunday, the 8th of March. Using all modes on the 2m and 70cm bands, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The ARRL International DX Contest starts at 0000 UTC on Saturday, the 7th and runs until 2359 UTC on Sunday, the 8th of March. Using SSB on the 160 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is RST and Tx power. American stations also send their state, and Canadian stations send their province. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 26th of February 2026 We have just had a period of zero sunspots – the first time since June 2022. However, don't worry. This may be a sign of things to come, but this zero-spot period was short-lived. There are now signs of sunspots appearing over the Sun's eastern limb with old region 4366, last seen on the 11th of February, making its return. It is now renamed ‘active region 4378'. This is helping to boost the solar flux index, which stood at 125 on Thursday, the 26th of February. This is a long way off the usual solar flux index lows we experience at sunspot minimum, when it can be as low as 66 to 70. As we are now entering March and, with the hours of daylight increasing, we are seeing a change in HF propagation. The Spring equinox is a time for good North-South propagation, especially on the higher HF bands, although we may see the 10m band tailing off a little as we head towards summer. For the best overall DX HF propagation, head to 21MHz or higher, where you may get maximum global coverage. Propagation has been reasonable, but a high-speed solar wind stream from a coronal hole pushed the Kp index to 4 for long periods. This has not helped HF propagation, although its effects are not as bad as a Kp index of 6 or higher. DXpeditions to be worked this week include Bouvet Island, 3Y0K; Guinea Bissau, J51A; and the final days of Desecheo Island, KP5/NP3VI, which is due to end around the 3rd of March. Lubo, OM5ZW and Laco, OM4WM, will also be active from Thulusdhoo Island in the Maldives as 8Q7ZW from the 28th of February until the 12th of March 2026. Next week, the Space Weather Prediction Centre predicts that the solar flux index will remain in the 120 to 130 range. The solar wind model predicts that a cloud of plasma may hit Earth today, the 1st of March, so watch out for an increased Kp index. Otherwise, the first half of the coming week may be quiet, geomagnetically. However, the Kp index is predicted to rise to 4 on the 5th and 6th of March. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The early part of last week saw brief 50MHz FT8 spots of the J51A DXpedition to Guinea-Bissau in the southern part of the UK. As with TZ1CE last week, stations much further south benefited from the best propagation. As of Thursday, the 26th of February, Clublog showed no UK stations in their log yet. Earlier in the week, the station was an easy catch using FT8 on all the lower bands. The current spell of very unsettled weather will last into the early part of the coming week. Thereafter, it seems likely that high pressure will start to build over the country, possibly with another weak front after mid-week. This may soon be followed by another high before the end of the week. In terms of radio propagation, although some further rain scatter is probable at first, as we head into the coming week, there is every chance of tropo becoming a mode of choice. It's important to remember that not all highs are equal and, although they all tend to produce a strong temperature inversion, they may not be good for tropo if the air near the surface is too dry. Ideally, we need to see some misty low cloud or early morning fog trapped under the inversion for the better-quality lifts. This is because a change in moisture across the top of the inversion produces the biggest change to the refractive index. Other modes to consider, though not too seriously, are aurora after the recent coronal hole stream. The indication you are looking for is a high value Kp index, say 5 or greater, up to the maximum of 9. With meteor scatter, we are in a long gap in shower activity until the Lyrids in late April, so relying on random meteor activity is the best we can expect. Lastly, the prospects for Sporadic-E are not necessarily zero but are unlikely to be too exciting in this part of the year. The main summer season is normally considered to run from late April to mid-September. In the interim, the occasional burst of activity is possible, but probably limited to the 10 or 6m bands. For EME, Moon declination has started to fall again, going negative on Wednesday, the 4th of March. This means shortening Moon windows and lower peak elevation. Path losses are rising again after perigee. 144MHz sky noise is low throughout the coming week. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

GB2RS News Sunday the 8th of February 2026 The news headlines: RSGB member-exclusive DDS programming workshop in Blackpool What are your British Science Week plans? Submit your RSGB 2026 Convention ideas As part of the Society's strategy to support radio amateurs in developing their practical skills, the RSGB will be running a DDS programming workshop in Blackpool on Saturday, the 11th of April, the day before the NARSA Rally. The six-hour workshop, which was first run at the RSGB 2025 Convention, is intended for RSGB members who already have a basic knowledge of Arduino programming. Attendees will learn how to control and program a Direct Digital Synthesiser using a microcontroller and will use this to generate RF. As well as covering the maths behind the programming process, attendees will also gain an insight into vibe coding. So, if 2026 is the year you want to take your programming skills up a notch, this is the event for you. For full information and booking details, visit rsgb.org/practical-events This year's British Science Week runs from the 6th to the 15th of March with ‘Curiosity: what's your question?' as its theme. Several clubs, youth groups and schools have already planned events and activities, and the RSGB's team of Champions are working together to deliver more. You can take part by trying one of the great activity suggestions that the RSGB has on its website. You could get your local WI, Men in Sheds group, school or youth groups or even your own family involved. If you have your own ideas, let the RSGB know; they don't need to be ‘grand', simply demonstrating the magic of radio is enough. Another way to get involved with British Science Week is by taking part in a sked, which is a pre-arranged radio contact with another radio operator at a scheduled time and on a particular frequency. The RSGB National Radio Centre is offering groups and clubs the opportunity to arrange a sked and get its sought-after GB3RS callsign into the logbook. To take part in this unique offering, go to rsgb.org/bsw  and select ‘Events happening near you' from the right-hand menu. Contacts must be arranged in advance and would take place between 10 am and 4 pm during British Science Week. Is there a particular topic you'd like to learn more about at the RSGB 2026 Convention in October? Have you been working on some research or a project that you'd like to share with the amateur radio community? Or would you like to see a workshop explaining a new skill you'd like to try? Whatever the idea, submit your proposal to the RSGB by sending the title and at least a one-paragraph summary of your suggestion to convention@rsgb.org.uk If you're not yet an RSGB member and are curious to read RadCom Basics or RadCom Plus, take a look at the RSGB app, which is available for mobile and web. The RSGB has just released a sample edition of each, so whether you are a newcomer or are looking for more technical features, the samples will give you a taster of the Society's digital RadCom supplements. There are only three weeks left until the closing date for entries in the RSGB Construction Competition. The competition is open to all RSGB members and has six categories to enter, ranging from 'Beginners' to 'Construction Excellence'. Whether you are taking your first steps in construction or it is your 50th project, the Society invites you to get involved and be in with the chance to win a cash prize. Find out more by going to rsgb.org/construction-competition. The deadline for entries is the 1st of March 2026. The RSGB has several Regional Team vacancies, including District Representative positions in Hampshire, Leicestershire and Rutland, South Derbyshire and South Nottinghamshire, and also North Lincolnshire. This is an opportunity not only to support the work of the RSGB but to provide help and guidance for local radio amateurs and groups in your area. To find out how to apply or to view other Regional Team vacancies in other areas, go to rsgb.org/volunteers The RSGB is delighted to hear that Wick High School in Scotland is preparing for an ARISS contact later this year. The RSGB School Youth Chair, Chris Aitken, MM0WI,C is the Computing teacher at the school and also runs the school's amateur radio club, GM0WHS. Chris shared the news with the Society, and you can read more by going to rsgb.org/school-zone Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk. The deadline for submissions is 10 am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week.  And now for details of rallies and events The Red Rose Winter Rally, organised by West Manchester Radio Club, is taking place today, Sunday the 8th of February at Mather Hall, Mather Lane, Leigh, WN7 2PJ. Exhibitors can set up from 8.15 am and the doors open to visitors at 10 am. A large car park, catering, a bring-and-buy sale, improved disabled access and a seating area are available on site. For more information, visit wmrc.co.uk On Sunday, the 15th of February, Mid Cheshire Amateur Radio Society's Radioactive Fair will take place at Nantwich Civic Hall, Cheshire CW5 5DG. The doors will be open from 10 am to 3 pm. The event will feature a bring-and-buy sale, RSGB bookstall and raffle. Catering, parking and disabled facilities will be available on site. For more detail,s visit radioactivefair.co.uk Now the Special Event news To celebrate the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, the special event station DD2026OWG is active until the 1st of March. QSL via Logbook of the World. For more information, visit QRZ.com Six special event stations are active in Poland until the 22nd of February to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the city of Gdynia. Look for activity on the 160 to 6m bands, as well as the 2m and 70cm bands using CW, SSB, FM, RTTY, FT4 and FT8. For information about an award that is available for working the stations, and for QSL details, visit tinyurl.com/gdynia26 Now the DX news Aldir, PY1SAD, is active as 8R1TM from Guyana until the 23rd of February. He is operating CW, SSB and digital modes on the 160 to 6m bands and via satellite. Listen for activity between 2300 and 0300UTC during the week, and ‘full time' during the weekends. QSL via Logbook of the World, eQSL, QRZ.com or directly to Aldir's home call. Michael, OZ6AB,L is active as 5Z4/OZ6ABL from Watamu in Kenya until the 28th of February. The station is operating on the 80 to 6m bands using CW, SSB, FT8 and FT4. QSL via Logbook of the World, OQRS, or via Michael's home call.  Now the contest news Today, the 8th of February, the RSGB 432MHz Affiliated Societies Contest runs from 0900 to 1300 UTC. Using all modes on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Tuesday, the 10th of February, the RSGB 432MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 1955 UTC. Using FM on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also on Tuesday, the 10th of February, the RSGB 432MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230 UTC. Using all modes on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday, the 11th of February, the RSGB 432MHz FT8 Activity four-hour Contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is a report and a four-character locator. Also on Wednesday the 11th, the RSGB 432MHz FT8 Activity two-hour Contest runs from 1900 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is a report and four-character locator. Stations entering the four-hour contest may also enter the two-hour contest. Also on Wednesday the 11th of February, the RSGB 80m Club Championship runs from 2000 to 2130UTC. Using PSK63 and RTTY on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Thursday, the 12th of February, the RSGB 50MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. Using all modes on the 6m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Saturday, the 14th of February, the Worked All Britain 1.8MHz Contest runs from 1900 to 2359UTC. Entries need to be with the contest manager by the 24th of February 2026. Please note that the contest will include SSB contacts only. To view the complete rules, visit the Worked All Britain website. Also on Saturday, the 14th of February, the first RSGB 1.8MHz Contest runs from 2000 to 2300UTC. Using CW and SSB on the 160m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. The CQ World Wide WPX RTTY Contest starts at 0000UTC on Saturday, the 14th and ends at 2359UTC on Sunday, the 15th of February. Using RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. The PACC Contest starts at 1200UTC on Saturday, the 14th of February and runs until 1200 UTC on Sunday, the 15th of February. Using CW and SSB on the 160 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. PA stations also send their province reference. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 5th of February Last week was characterised by a high solar flux index but with a succession of X-class solar flares from active region 4366 on the Sun. Luckily, none of these resulted in a coronal mass ejection, so we got away lightly. The solar flux index stood at 178 on Tuesday, the 3rd of February, with the result that the 10m band was humming. US states logged included Oregon, Nevada, California, Washington and Idaho, all between 1530 and 1730UTC. As we always say, look for a high solar flux index and a low Kp index for DX – in this case, a Kp index of between 1 and 2.33. By comparison, the next day was a washout, possibly thanks to a Kp index increase to 3.67, thanks to a coronal mass ejection, or CME, that passed Earth at 1506UTC. Poor conditions continued on Thursday, the 5th, when the solar wind speed increased to more than 500 kilometres per second, the Kp index increased to 5.33, and maximum usable frequencies across a 3,000km path struggled to exceed 20MHz. Incidentally, February and March are good months for 10m band paths to the US. By April, paths start to drop away and start favouring South America, so if you need US states for your Worked All States award, now is the right time! In the meantime, keep an eye on active region 4366 as it may still have a sting in its tail. This monstrous sunspot group, 15 times the width of Earth, was Earth-centric on Thursday, the 5th. As always, we recommend visiting solarham.com  for daily updates on space weather. Next week, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index will be in the 130 to 150 range, although the Kp index might be unsettled at times, with an average Kp index of 3. Friday, the 13th of February, is forecast to be particularly unsettled with a Kp index of 5. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The markedly unsettled weather pattern continues to bring a mix of rain and showers and very strong winds at times, plus the threat of snowfall in some eastern and northern areas. This probably means that tropo will be hard to find during the coming week but leaves us with plenty of chances for rain scatter for GHz operators. In the solar-terrestrial domain, the disturbed Sun has once again brought a sequence of flares and coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, which has provided frequent auroral alerts as the Kp index has climbed to 4 or more. Listen for fluttery signals on the LF bands and perhaps ghostly sounding signals on HF and VHF, typically 10m to 2m.  Meteor scatter operators must rely upon random meteor activity, but over the whole Earth, this can amount to 25 million meteors or meteoroids per day, so there is every chance that even random activity could produce a path for you if you have a quiet site.  The mix of meteor activity and a low Kp index can lead to out-of-season Sporadic-E, given some jet stream weather activity. However, this is currently well south of the Mediterranean in its usual winter position, so any Sporadic-E may be a bit too far south to reach from the UK in the short term. This week, Moon declination is negative all week and falling until Thursday, the 12th of February. Moon window length and peak elevation follow suit. Path losses are rising again as we reach apogee, the Moon's furthest point from Earth, on Tuesday, the 10th of February. 144MHz sky noise is low but rising to high by Thursday, the 12th of February. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

GB2RS News Sunday the 1st of February 2026 The news headlines: RSGB Board appoints a Deputy Company Secretary Make sure you are aware of changes in the RSGB 2026 band plans An opportunity to join the GB2RS Newsreader team The RSGB Board is delighted to announce that it has appointed Stephen Ramsden, M0CCA as Deputy Company Secretary. Stephen is a solicitor and former law firm managing partner, with extensive experience in governance systems and compliance frameworks. He is a keen HF portable operator and always interested to learn about and experiment with anything related to amateur radio. Stephen Purser, GW4SHF, has told the Board that he wishes to retire from his role as Company Secretary, and the Board's intention is that Stephen Ramsden will take on the full Company Secretary role after the AGM. You can contact Stephen Ramsden via dep.co.sec@rsgb.org.uk The RSGB 2026 Band Plans were published in the recently released February edition of RadCom. They are now also available on the RSGB website in a wider variety of formats, including more detailed change notes. This year's changes address a handful of key topics, including updates to the 5MHz band plan to emphasise correct operating, which comes in the light of out-of-band FT8 usage and Ofcom monitoring concerns. Updates at 50MHz have been made to accommodate new repeater inputs, which use a wider 1MHz split, easing the implementation of their duplex filters. In the 430MHz UHF band, provision for low-power ad-hoc repeaters and some editorial updates have also been made. As Band Plans change over time, please ensure you only refer or link to the current ones on the RSGB website and remove any older ones you have locally. Unfortunately, the RSGB still notes some websites and unofficial usage charts have obsolete information and urge that these are all removed. View the 2026 Band Plans at rsgb.org/bandplans The RSGB is looking for volunteers to join the team of newsreaders who broadcast the GB2RS news each Sunday. The GB2RS News Manager, Steve, G4HPE, is particularly interested in hearing from people in Wales and Northern Ireland, where he is keen to increase the number of broadcasts. He'd also like to bolster existing QO-100 and Digital Voice services and to add new stations to the national teams on the 40, 60 and 160m bands. If you'd like to be involved with any of these opportunities, or if you have proposals for transmissions using new modes or bands, get in touch. Read the full role description at rsgb.org/volunteers The next Tonight@8 webinar will be live tomorrow, Monday the 2nd of February, from 8 pm via the RSGB's YouTube channel and special BATC channel. RSGB Propagation Studies Committee Chair Steve Nichols, G0KYA, will be showing you how to use the Society's free online HF propagation tools. He'll explain how you can tailor your predictions to suit your particular station, including selecting the right mode, power, noise levels, antennas, and exact location. If you can't wait until tomorrow to hear from Steve, you can catch up on the presentation he delivered at the RSGB 2025 Convention. His lecture, ‘Was that solar cycle 25? What did we learn? is now available to watch in the RSGB 2025 Convention playlist at youtube.com/thersgb Chris Flanagan, G7NRO, is unfortunately no longer able to continue as RSGB QSL Bureau sub-manager for the G7 series, and the RSGB thanks him for the time he has given as an RSGB volunteer. RSGB members with G7 callsigns who collect QSL cards should now send their self-addressed envelopes to Mr Anthony Holles, G4AAV. You can find his details in the sub-manager list of the RSGB QSL Bureau web section at rsgb.org/qsl The January 2026 edition of RadCom Basics is now available for RSGB members to read via the RSGB mobile and web app. This edition includes articles on using a multimeter, advice on getting on the air, and the challenges that face radio amateurs who are new to the HF bands. RadCom Basics covers key aspects of amateur radio in a clear, accessible way and is invaluable for those getting started in amateur radio or wanting to explore something new. This is why the Society is delighted to have added to its collection of RadCom Basics back issues in the RSGB app, where RSGB members can now enjoy editions dating back to May 2019. The publication takes you through topics ranging from working split frequency to building your own digital hotspot, and from using FT8 to taking part in a radio net. With the RSGB mobile app, you can download editions to enjoy offline. You can also browse RadCom Basics on the web via rsgb.org/radcom And finally, a reminder that the next in the popular 145 Alive series will take place on Saturday the 7th of February from 12pm to 3pm. The event will include the addition of 144MHz SSB stations with vertical polarisation. For more information, visit the 145 Alive Facebook page. And now for details of rallies and events The Red Rose Winter Rally, organised by West Manchester Radio Club, will take place on Sunday, the 8th of February at Mather Hall, Mather Lane, Leigh, WN7 2PJ. Exhibitors can set up from 8.15 am and the doors open to visitors at 10 am. A large car park, catering, a bring-and-buy sale, improved disabled access and a seating area will be available on site. For more information and booking, visit wmrc.co.uk On Sunday, the 15th of February, Mid Cheshire Amateur Radio Society's Radioactive Fair will take place at Nantwich Civic Hall, Cheshire CW5 5DG. The doors will be open from 10 am to 3 pm. The event will feature a bring-and-buy sale, RSGB bookstall and raffle. Catering, parking and disabled facilities will be available on site. For more details, visit radioactivefair.co.uk Now the Special Event news Operators from the DARC special event team are active as DH2026EM until the 10th of February to celebrate the Men's European Handball Championship. QSL via DK5ON, Logbook of the World and the DARC Community Logbook. Look for activity on the HF bands using CW, digital modes and SSB. See QRZ.com for more information. Phil, ZL3PAH, is active as ZL60PAH until the 22nd of February to mark his diamond jubilee in amateur radio. He is operating using CW, RTTY and some SSB on the 80 to 10m bands. QSL via Logbook of the World. For more information, see QRZ.com Now the DX news Chas, NK8O, is active as 5H3DX from Tanzania until the 9th of February. In his spare time, he operates CW and digital modes on the 20 to 10m bands. If conditions allow, Chas may also be active on the 6m band. QSL via Logbook of the World, eQSL, or directly to NK8O. Harald, DF2W,O is active as 9X2AW from Kigali in Rwanda until the 9th of February. He is operating on the 160 to 6m bands using CW, FT4, FT8 and SSB as well as via the QO-100 satellite. QSL via OQRS. Now the contest news Tomorrow, the 2nd of February, the RSGB 80m Club Championship runs from 2000 to 2130UTC. Using SSB on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Tuesday, the 3rd of February, the RSGB 144MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 1955 UTC. Using FM on the 2m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also on Tuesday, the 3rd of February, the RSGB 144MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230 UTC. Using all modes on the 2m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday, the 4th of February, the RSGB 144MHz FT8 Activity four-hour Contest runs from 1700 to 2100 UTC. Using FT8 on the 2m band, the exchange is a report and four-character locator. Also, on Wednesday the 4th, the RSGB 144MHz FT8 Activity two-hour Contest runs from 1900 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 2m band, the exchange is report and four-character locator. Stations entering the four-hour contest may also enter the two-hour contest. Also on Wednesday, the 4th of February, the United Kingdom and Ireland Contest Club 80m Contest runs from 2000 to 2100 UTC. Using SSB on the 80m band, the exchange is your six-character locator. On Sunday, the 8th of February, the RSGB 432MHz Affiliated Societies Contest runs from 0900 to 1300 UTC. Using all modes on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 29th of January 2026 We had a much quieter week Sun-wise, with fewer geomagnetic disturbances and a decreasing solar flux index. Last week started at 153 but decreased to 133 by Wednesday. The Kp index started the week at 2.33 and, apart from an excursion to 5.33, was below 4.33 all week. The 5.33 value was due to an enhanced solar wind stream flowing from a small coronal hole. The lower Kp indices have meant that the ionosphere has had a chance to recover, and we have been seeing maximum usable frequencies, or MUFs, over a 3,000km path reaching 35MHz at times. The 10m band has been coming up quite nicely, with the RR90 beacon in Eastern Russia audible on 28.200MHz mid-morning. On Thursday, the 29th of January, the band was otherwise quite bare, apart from EM0WWA in Ukraine on 28.480MHz with some sort of digitised voice. Also, PP8ZAC in Brazil was loud on 28.025MHz using CW. A quick scan of the 28MHz low-power beacons revealed PY4YYF Brazil on 28.115MHz, YM7TEN in Turkey on 28.225MHz, and that was it. Hopefully, 28MHz will improve as we head towards Spring. Next week, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index will be in the 120 to 140 range, with the Kp index set to remain low until the 4th of February, when it is predicted to rise to 4. So, if this goes to plan, we can expect reasonable conditions on the HF bands. However, you might be better off on 18, 21 or 24MHz as the 10m band may not be as active as we would like. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The recent pattern of low pressure close to the southwest of the British Isles has staked its claim for another week. This means further spells of rain, especially in the south and west. The cold southeasterly wind over the northeastern half of the UK will persist, but any high pressure will stay well to the north and east of us, so tropo will probably be hard to find. Rain scatter, on the other hand, may be more productive, especially for the south and west. Some periods of rain, sleet or snow are possible in the northeast, where there may also be some snow static on antennas from time to time.  Meteor scatter will have to rely upon random meteors for the next few weeks, and, as most of you who follow these bulletins will remember, are at a peak in the pre-dawn hours. There has been a steady stream of auroral alerts recently. These have been mostly minor events, but they reinforce the notion that it is worth monitoring the Kp index, which gives a sense of Earth's geomagnetic activity. High Kp values are a useful indicator of a potential auroral event. Sporadic-E usually takes a break at this time of the year, but if you make a point of checking the foEs trace at propquest.co.uk, you may see that there are occasional spikes in the graph of the data from Dourbes in Belgium. This suggests that, although rare, out-of-season Sporadic-E does occur, especially on the lower bands such as 10 and 6m.  This week, Moon declination is positive and falling, going negative again on Thursday. Moon window length and peak elevation are falling. Path losses are rising again as we passed perigee on the 29th of January. 144MHz sky noise will be low all week. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

Hello and Welcome to the DX Corner for yourweekly Dose of DX. I'm Bill, AJ8B.I mentioned previously that I would be addressing two issues, as I do at the beginning of each year. The first is my goals for 2026. We accomplished that last week. The second issue was to share those contests that I have participated in over the years. I have found them to be excellent opportunities to improve your skills, garner you some new band slots and potentially some ATNOS. The dates that I am referring to include the State QSO Parties, international DX contests, and regional DX contests. I have worked many normally difficult entities during contests and found it very easy (sometimes) to get them in the log. I have about 90 dates that I would suggest that you keep in mind. However, you don't need to write them down. I have created two items to make it easy for you. There is a list of dates andcontests in both .pdf and Excel format. Both files can be found at www.aj8b.com/files. Let me know if you have any questions. If you are somewhat skilled with Excel, you can create a CSV file from the Excel workbook and import it in to your personal calendar.The following DX information comes from Bernie, W3UR, editor of the DailyDX, the WeeklyDX, and the How's DX column in QST. If you would like a free 2-week trial of the DailyDX, your only source of real-time DX information, justdrop me a note at thedxmentor@gmail.comKP5/NP3VI, Desecheo Island, makes history  - At its four-day mark, KP5/NP3VI has made over 10,000 QSOs on all continents. Their goal is to make over 100,000 QSOsduring their 30 days on the air. J5 - Guinea-Bissau - Bavarian Contest Club members will be operating J51A from Guinea-Bissau in February/March 2026. The location is on the island's northern shore with an unobstructed view over water, using generator power 24/7 due to lack of public electricity. Their  main goal is to provide contacts from Guinea-Bissau, which is ranked as number  85 worldwide, and number 53 in Asia. QSL cards and LoTW confirmations will be managed through Club Log OQRS, and donations are welcome via Club Log.H4 - Solomon Islands - DL2GAC, Bernhard now in the Solomon Islands as H44MS until mid-May.  He departed India last Wednesday, arriving in the Solomons' capital on Friday.  He is renewing his H44MS license, which was scheduled to expire in early February.  He will move to his "usual QTH" there tomorrow or Wednesday.  He has taken with him a Hexbeam that covers 20-6, to replace his old tri-bander that covered 20-10.  He says the weather is poor, lots of rain, no sunshine.  He plans to mostly be on 40M this time, with a dipole 20M high in a palm tree near the ocean. V6 - Federated States of Micronesia - Yesterday afterarriving on Chuuk (OC-011), JA1XGI (Haru) reports his amplifier was likely damaged during airport transport. Nevertheless, he has been active as V6CU25, operating FT8 and CW on 160, 40, 30, 20, and 15 meters. S21WD – Bangladesh 2026: Project Update - The NextGeneration DX Club is pleased to announce a major milestone for its upcoming Bangladesh DXpedition: the callsign S21WD has been officially issued for the project. The DXpedition will be active for 12 days and operate on 160 through 10 meters, including 5 MHz (60 m), using CW, SSB, RTTY, and FT8. In addition, activity via the QO-100 satellite is planned using CW, SSB, and FT4. I mentioned that the KP5 DXpedition to Desecheo was racking up record numbers and they were working all continents. If you would like to learn more about this DXpedition, check out the DX Mentor podcast and YouTube channel. AJ8B and W8GEX had a great discussion with team leader, Otis, NP4G, about all aspects of the DesecheoDXpedition. Give it a listen and let me know what you think!  Until next week, this is Bill, AJ8B saying 73 and thanks to my XYL Karen for her love and support. IHope to hear you in the pileups! Have a great DX week! 

The following DX information comes from Bernie, W3UR, editor of the DailyDX, the WeeklyDX, and the How's DX column in QST. If you would like a free 2-week trial of the DailyDX, your only source of real-time DX information, justdrop me a note at thedxmentor@gmail.comVP2V - British Virgin Islands - W5GI, Jonathan,has returned to Anegada Island in the British Virgin Islands and is QRV as VP2V/W5GI until January 20th. He is hopeful to work 1000 stations from POTA VG-0021. Listen for him on SSB and FT8 from both the park and his living QTH. He will be mainly on 20 meters but can also operate on 40, 17, 15, 12and 10 meters.ZD7 - St. Helena Island - AC1GQ, Casey,will be on St. Helena Island from January 10-24. He plans to operate with a QRP rig (QMX from QRP Labs) and an end-fed antenna (QRP Guys) on the 40m and 20m bands, if possible. Casey  will bring a copy of his home amateur radio license and is seeking advice on applying for a ZD7 license.  This one is right around the corner. “In collaboration with the Vieques Island Amateur Radio Club (NP3VI) and theManyana DXFoundation, we are proud to announce KP5/NP3VI, a landmark DXpedition to Desecheo Island (KP5), currently ranked by Club Log as the 14th most wantedDXCC entity worldwide. Located approximately 13 miles off the west coast of Puerto Rico, Desecheo Island has not been activated since 2009. This operation represents the first Puerto Rican-led DXpedition to Desecheo in 48 years,following the historic KP4AM/D activation in 1978. The primary mission of this DXpedition is to provide an All-Time New One (ATNO) to as many amateur radio operators worldwide as possible. Operators from Puerto Rico and international locations will participate to maximize coverage, band availability, and global accessibility. To ensure continuous, global on-air presence, two self-sustainedRemote Deployable Units (RDUs) provided by the Manyana DXFoundation will be deployed on the island. These stations will operate 24 hours per day for 30 consecutive days,utilizing state-of-the-art remote operating infrastructure from Remote Ham Radio (RHR). Operations will be livestreamed, and there will be real-time activityupdates via Club Log. NP4G, Dr. Otis Vicens, is DXpedition leader, and N2AJ, Stephen Hass, is media officer and pilot. DK6SP, Philipp, and DJ4MX, Sven, have announced the next adventure of the Next Generation DX Club. “This time, ouryoung and ambitious team will travel to the People's Republic of Bangladesh, better known as S2 to the amateur radio community…After bringing you 8R7X, Guyana in 2024 and V73WW, Marshall Islands last year, we are ready to make waves from one  Asia's most exciting and under-activated locations.” More information about callsign, dates, andoperators will follow. XU - Cambodia - DL7BO, Tom, who is QRV until January 18, is using the callsign XU7O. He will be active on 160-6 meters using CW, SSB, and FT8, with a focus on the lower bands. QSLinformation remains direct to DJ4WK, or via LoTW, Club Log, or eQSL. FY - French Guiana - F4GPK, Peter, is QRV as TO2FY until January 15 from Kourou. C5YK, The Gambia – Andre, ON7YK, is QRV from The Gambia as C5YK until January 25. He is operating on SSB, RTTY, PSK,FT8, FT4, and some CW on 20, 17, 15, 12, and 10M. QSL only via LoTW, eQSL, or direct to ON7YK. He posts his logbook on his website.   Z6 – Kosovo - HB9TSW, Gab, isQRV as Z68BG from Slatina Air Base, Kosovo, until January 28 using CW only. For direct QSL, send an SAE  with 3 green stamps via HB9TSW.

GB2RS News Sunday the 11th of January 2026 The news headlines: Give back to the amateur radio community in 2026 Understand the basic characteristics of dipoles for transmitting and receiving RSGB Lecture Coordinator role – a chance to educate and spark curiosity Have you set your goals for 2026 yet? How about using your knowledge and expertise to make a difference to the amateur radio community this year? The RSGB has two Elected Board Director vacancies that are available for nominations in this year's elections. The Society is looking for applications from members with leadership skills and a desire to embrace and implement the Society's strategic priorities. The RSGB also has three Regional Representative roles open for nominations. These are for Region 2 which covers Scotland North and the Northern Isles, Region 7 which represents South Wales, and Region 9 which covers London and Thames Valley. As a Regional Representative you will lead the team of District Representatives in your area and not only represent the Society but also support your fellow radio amateurs. Find out more about what it takes to succeed as a Director or a Regional Representative by reading the candidate packs via rsgb.org/elections The closing date for nominations is the 31st of January 2026. The first RSGB Tonight@8 webinar of 2026 is a fascinating presentation for all radio amateurs, regardless of how long you have been licensed. Tomorrow, Monday the 12th of January, Steve Stearns, K6OIK will explain the basic characteristics of dipoles for transmitting and receiving. Having a proper understanding of dipole properties and characteristics is essential to understanding many other antennas including complementary antennas such as slots. You can join the webinar and ask questions via the live chat on both the RSGB YouTube channel and special BATC channel. Find out more at rsgb.org/webinars Each year the RSGB delivers over sixty lectures, including around fifty at the RSGB Convention and a further eleven presented through its popular livestreamed Tonight@8 webinar series. These presentations cover a rich variety of amateur radio topics, cater to every level of experience and attract audiences from across the world. The Society is seeking a proactive, collaborative and passionate volunteer to become its Lecture Coordinator, who will play a key role in shaping the lecture programme. Could this be you? Working closely with the Tonight@8 and Convention teams, you would bring fresh ideas for talks that educate, inspire and spark curiosity. Your efforts would encourage radio amateurs to explore new areas, deepen their knowledge and embrace the excitement of amateur radio – all while supporting the Society's strategic priorities. Are you interested? Find out more about the role by reading the full description at rsgb.org/volunteers  and then contact the RSGB General Manager Steve Thomas, M1ACB via gm.dept@rsgb.org.uk When was the last time you checked your membership details in the RSGB Membership Portal? If you have moved house recently, changed your email address or callsign, put a few minutes aside to log in via rsgb.org/members  and select ‘Update details' to make any changes. Whilst logged in, visit the ‘Manage preferences' screen to select which topics you'd like to receive updates about, including GB2RS and online events. You can also choose whether to receive notifications when new editions of RadCom Basics and RadCom Plus become available. Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk  The deadline for submissions is 10am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week.  And now for details of rallies and events On Sunday the 25th of January 2026, the Lincoln Short Wave Club Winter Radio Rally will be held at Festival Hall, Caistor Road, Market Rasen, LN8 3HT. This is an indoor event with ample free parking. The doors will be open from 10am and admission is £3. Tables cost £10. To book tables, or for more information, contact Steve, M5ZZZ on 0777 7699 069 or email m5zzz@outlook.com The Red Rose Winter Rally, organised by West Manchester Radio Club, will take place on Sunday the 8th of February at Mather Hall, WN7 2PJ. Exhibitors can gain entrance from 8.15am and the doors open to visitors at 10am. A large car park, catering, bring and buy, raffle, improved disabled access and a seating area will be available on site. For more information and booking, visit wmrc.co.uk Now the special event news A series of special event stations is active from Italy to raise awareness of key figures who supported the life and work of Guglielmo Marconi. Throughout the month of January, listen for activity on all bands and modes. For more information, including details of an award that is available for working the stations, visit tinyurl.com/marconi26 The World Wide Award is currently underway and runs until the 31st of January. The award combines CW, SSB and digital mode activity from stations around the world. Real-time online award tracking is available for chasers. For more information visit hamaward.cloud/wwa   Now the DX news   Pierre-Jean, F4GPK is active as TO2FY from French Guiana until Thursday the 15th of January. He operates using SSB only. QSL via Logbook of the World and eQSL. Rikk, WE9G is active as J38WG from Grenada NA-024, until the 16th of January. Listen for activity on the 160 to 6m bands, mostly using FT8 but also some CW and SSB. QSL via OQRS, Logbook of the World or via WE9G. Now the contest news Today, Sunday the 11th of January, the RSGB Affiliated Societies 80 and 40m Data Modes Contest runs from 1300 to 1700UTC. Using PSK63 and RTTY on the 80 and 40m bands, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Tuesday the 13th of January, the RSGB 432MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 1955UTC. Using FM on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also, on Tuesday the 13th of January, the RSGB 432MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. Using all modes on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday the 14th of January, the RSGB 432MHz FT8 Activity four-hour Contest runs from 1700 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is report and four-character locator. Also, on Wednesday the 14th, the RSGB 432MHz FT8 Activity two-hour Contest runs from 1900 to 2100UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is report and four-character locator. Stations entering the four-hour contest may also enter the two-hour contest. On Thursday the 15th of January, the RSGB 70MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. Using all modes on the 4m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Saturday the 17th of January, the RSGB Affiliated Societies 80 and 40m SSB Contest runs from 1300 to 1700UTC. Using SSB on the 80 and 40m bands, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 8th of January 2026 Now that the dust has settled after the New Year's celebrations, we can get back to our regular propagation reports. The New Year has started with minor disturbed geomagnetic conditions at times, plus lots of C-class solar flares, and a healthy dose of sunspots. As we slide down the slope towards sunspot minimum, we can expect more geomagnetic disturbances and raised Kp indices. But we should still have good HF conditions for a couple of years. The Kp index hit 5 on the 2nd of January, but has otherwise been relatively quiet, often registering less than 1 or 2. And the lack of M- and X-class solar flares means we have had no solar fade-outs. With the solar flux index at more than 150 for much of the time, this bodes well for HF propagation and, as Propquest shows, the maximum usable frequency over 3,000km during daylight has often been more than 28MHz. Unfortunately, this does decline quite quickly after sunset, leaving the maximum usable frequency below 10MHz most of the time. As we head towards spring, we can expect this to improve. DX has been available. Stations worked include V51WH in Namibia on the 12m band using SSB, TZ4AM in Mali on 30m using CW, and ZS7ANF in Antarctica using CW on the 17m band. Next week, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index will be in the 130 to 150 range. Geomagnetic conditions are forecast to be variable, with the Kp index predicted to hit 5 on the 13th and 14th of January, and again between the 17th and 20th of January. So, we recommend you get your HF DXing in before the 13th and around the 15th and 16th, as propagation and maximum usable frequencies will no doubt be affected if the Kp index rises. With the three-week 3Y0K Bouvet Island DXpedition set for early February, now may be a good time to sort out your antennas. Remember that Bouvet is almost due south from the UK, so plan accordingly. More propagation details will be made available nearer the time And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The unsettled weather pattern continues to provide a variety of challenging weather types with heavy snow and rain, plus strong winds at times. The nature of such patterns in January is that the timing and track of the lows are critical for the rain and snow outcome. Overall, it's likely to be a cold-system week with occasional brief milder interludes as Atlantic fronts move through in the middle of the coming week. The effect on VHF and UHF propagation is limited with tropo unlikely, but there is a significant chance of rain or snow scatter at times for GHz operators. There have been some slight increases in the Earth's Kp index, which responds to solar activity. However, as we are between the peak periods of autumn and spring for aurora, it's probably not a major player this time. Meteor scatter has been a bit more interesting lately due to the peak of the Quadrantids meteor shower on the 4th of January. The shower has a short, intense peak, but spans the period from the 28th of December to the 12th of January. The next major shower isn't until April, so it's back to random activity from this weekend through to the late April Lyrids. Lastly, a reminder that mid-winter Sporadic-E does happen. The 6th of January saw a nice early evening 6m band opening to the Baltic states, moving round to Ukraine and the Balkans later. Recent Quadrantids meteors may have contributed some long-lived metallic ions, which can be focused into thin Sporadic-E patches. It's always worth checking the Sporadic-E Layer Critical Frequency values plotted on the Propquest graphs for short spikes in the purple trace, which could be a sign of potential interest in Sporadic-E on the 10 and 6m bands. For EME operators, Moon declination is negative again, and we are past perigee, so path losses are increasing, and Moon window length and peak elevation are reducing. 144MHz sky noise remains low but rising to high by Friday the 16th. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

The following DX information comes from Bernie, W3UR, editor of the DailyDX, the WeeklyDX, and the How's DX column in QST. If you would like a free 2-week trial of the DailyDX, your only source of real-time DX information, just drop me a note at thedxmentor@gmail.comLZØA, South Shetland Islands - LZ1AAW, Ivo, is onhis way to the South Shetland Islands where he will be working during the 34thBulgarian Antarctic expedition. He plans to be QRV in his spare time as LZØA. The dates are from December 28 to February 16, plus or minus two days. Ivo expects to be on 20M, and possibly other bands, on SSB and FT8/FT4. Theactivation is registered under IOTA reference AN-010 and WAP reference WAP BUL-01, and falls within CQ Zone 13, ITU Zone 73, and the DXCC entity VP8, LU -South Shetland Islands (#67 on the Club Log DXCC Most Wanted list). CE0X - San Felix and San Ambrosio - Felipe, XQ7IR, ispreparing for his upcoming 3G0XQ DXpedition to San Ambrosio, scheduled from January 12 to February 15.  He recently drove 14 hours to the Port of Valparaiso to oversee his equipment being shipped to Juan Fernandez.  Once all necessary paperwork is completed, Felipe and his gear will continue on to San Ambrosio by charter vessel in the coming weeks. This update is courtesy of DX World. XU - Cambodia - DL7BO, Tom, who is QRV until January 18, is using the callsign XU7O. He will be active on 160-6 meters using CW, SSB, and FT8, with a focus on the lower bands. QSL information remains direct to DJ4WK, or via LoTW, Club Log, or eQSL. FO - French Polynesia - FO/JI1JKW is QRVuntil January 6 from Tikehau and Tuamotu islands.  The band plan is to operate 7, 14, 18, 21, 24, 28 and 50, and SSB, CW and FT8.  QSL to his home QTH or use LoTW. FY - French Guiana - F4GPK, Peter, is QRV as TO2FY until January 15 from Kourou. C5YK, The Gambia – Andre, ON7YK, is QRVfrom The Gambia as C5YK until January 25. He is operating on SSB, RTTY, PSK, FT8, FT4, and some CW on 20, 17, 15, 12, and 10M. QSL only via LoTW, eQSL, or direct to ON7YK. He posts his logbook on his website.   VP8 - South Shetland Islands - LZ1AAW, Ivo, is heading to the Bulgarian Antarctic Base "St. Kliment Ohridski" on Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands (IOTA AN-010). He plans tooperate as LZ0A during his free time from late December 2025 to mid-February 2026. The base, located at 62¯38'S, 60¯21'W in the eastern part of Livingston Island, has been permanently staffed since December 11, 1993. 5Z – Kenya- Not an expedition but on the air casually, "holiday style," will be OZ6ABL/5Z4, Michael Johansen, January 15-28.  He says he will try to get on the air as much as possible.  It is his 14th trip to Kenya but the first time taking a radio along. Michael will be on 80-6 but did not get permission for60.  QSL to his home call, OZ6ABL, and LoTW and Club Log will also work. Z3 - Republic of North Macedonia - The specialevent callsign Z380CEF is being used to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Ham Radio Club "STEVO PATAKOT" in Bitola, Republic of North Macedonia. The club, formerly known as YU5CEF and currently Z37CEF, has been active since 1946. Operations will continue until December 31, 2026. XT - Burkina Faso – Max, DK1MAX, will be in Burkina Faso from January 4th to January 11th, 2026, operating as XT2MAX. He plans to use an IC-7300 rig with up to 100W of power, working mostly on 20m to 6m bands, and possibly lower bands if conditions allow. Modes will include CW, SSB, and FTx (MSHV, no F/H). QSLs will be handled via EA5GL and Club Log, with daily free LoTW uploads. 

Foundations of Amateur Radio When you start the process of getting your hobby off the ground, either for the first time, or after a hiatus, you might be left with the impression that the only way to "do amateur radio" is to have a shack, a place where you can set-up your gear, and connected to that gear using coax, one or more antennas. While that's a common scenario, it's not the only one at your disposal. We are after all in the game of communication and over the past few decades options have exploded. Starting closest to the traditional radio, coax and antenna, is to consider indoor antennas. There's many to choose from. You can install one in the same room as your shack, or, you can build your antennas in the roof space, either way, invisible from the outside can sometimes be a requirement. Stealth is a topic all its own, and no doubt we'll get to that another time. A word of caution. If you do have an indoor antenna and associated coax, consider your transmitter power levels, since it's likely that given the close proximity, you'll exceed emissions safety standards, or you'll cause harm to other electronic equipment in the building. QRP or low power is a good way to go if this is something you're considering. If we step away from a traditional radio, coax, antenna configuration, you can build your shack in other ways too. For example, you can use a local repeater which you might trigger from a local handheld radio. Often dismissed as being for local communications only, there are thousands of repeaters across the globe offering a variety of bands, frequencies and modes. Often you can access a local repeater that can be connected to a remote one using a bewildering array of technologies, some using the internet, some using traditional RF. You'll find repeaters on 10m, 6m, 2m, 70cm and 23cm. There's nothing stopping you making your own repeater. You don't even need to go through the effort of making it completely standalone, for example, my Yaesu FT-857d has a detachable face-plate or head, connected to the main body by a short cable. There are plenty of other radios with a similar configuration. Presumably designed for the installation in a vehicle, where the head needs to be near the driver and there's unlikely to be space for the body, you can run a longer cable from the head to the body and install it somewhere more convenient. In my case it was bolted underneath the removable floor into the boot next to the spare tyre. There's several solutions that replace the connecting cable with an internet connection. Now, that internet connection can be across the room, from inside your shack to your garage, or between your shack and a remote hill where you have permission to put up a bit of gear. In fact, the same type of setup can be used to connect to shared radios, and companies like Elecraft, Flex Radio and ICOM make specific remote heads that can operate remote radio equipment, marketed as RF decks, without needing to install and maintain computers at either end, but more often than not, this equipment is brand or model specific. Which raises another option. You can connect to remote equipment across the internet using your computer, which means that your shack might be a computer, a laptop, or a mobile phone and your gear might be in a different country. Many radio clubs have discovered that their often extensive radio shack is virtually unused during the week, and have installed remote equipment to allow you as a member to connect, sometimes as part of your membership, sometimes with an extra fee, since there are costs associated with setting this up and keeping it running. At some point you're going to discuss this with other amateurs and you're potentially going to hear someone tell you that this is not "real radio". Considering over a century of radio evolution, from spark-gap through valves, transistors, integrated circuits and software defined radio, where exactly is the "real radio" line drawn? Is using WSPR, RTTY, FT8, Hellschreiber, Olivia, SSTV, PSK31, Domino, MFSK and thousands of other digital modes "real radio"? If the answer to that is an emphatic "yes", then ask yourself, how do you actually use those modes? The answer looks suspiciously like a computer running digital mode software, either connected to a physical radio in the same room, or connected to one across the internet. In other words, with the proliferation of communication alternatives, amateur radio is evolving. No doubt it will evolve further. So, today, a perfectly viable, and some might say, modern, amateur radio shack might not actually have any traditional RF based radio gear, though perhaps a hand-held might be something to consider when you next treat yourself, not because without it you're not a real amateur, but because it opens your world to other means of communication, something which I think is perhaps even more important than building the perfect shack. In other words, you are not required to have a shack to be a radio amateur, it's just that it brings with it another dimension of engagement and activity. Speaking from personal experience, I miss my functional shack, but it's evolving, so there's that. Next time I'll take a look at antennas, stealthy or otherwise. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Hello and Welcome to the DX Corner for yourweekly Dose of DX. I'm Bill, AJ8B. The following DX information comes from Bernie, W3UR, editor of the DailyDX, the WeeklyDX, and the How's DX column in QST. If you would like a free 2-week trial of the DailyDX, your only source of real-time DX information, justdrop me a note at thedxmentor@gmail.com LZØA, South Shetland Islands - LZ1AAW, Ivo, is onhis way to the South Shetland Islands where he will be working during the 34th Bulgarian Antarctic expedition. He plans to be QRV in his spare time as LZØA. The dates are from December 28 to February 16, plus or minus two days. Ivoexpects to be on 20M, and possibly other bands, on SSB and FT8/FT4. This initiative continues the long-standing tradition of Bulgarian presence and activity in Antarctica.  XU - Cambodia – DL7BO, Tom, will be on the air as XU7GNY, December 22 to January 18.  Tom will be on 160-6 CW, SSB and FT8, concentrating on the lower bands.  QSL direct to DJ4WK or use LoTW, Club Log or eQSL. 4K – Azerbaijan – 4K/DL4XT, Jan, will on 40 and 20-10M SSB, CW and FT8 December 26 to January 3.  He will be on the air casually, aka "holiday style."  For a QSL it's LoTW, Club Log OQRS and QRZ. TL - Central African Republic -  CR7BNW, João Salvador Correia, is set for his six-month TL8BNW operation in Bangui. His first activity has already begun using SSB and FT8 on 40, 20, 15, and 10M. QSOs will be uploaded to LoTW, QRZ Logbook, and via the Portuguese QSL bureau.FY - French Guiana - F4GPK, Peter, will be on as TO2FY December 22 to January 15 from  Kourou. C5YK, The Gambia – Andre, ON7YK, is QRV from The Gambia until January 25. He is operating as C5YK on SSB, RTTY, PSK,FT8, FT4, and some CW on 20, 17, 15, 12, and 10M. QSL only via LoTW, eQSL, or direct to ON7YK. He posts his logbook on his website.   VP8 - South Shetland Islands - LZ1AAW, Ivo, isheading to the Bulgarian Antarctic Base "St. Kliment Ohridski"on Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands (IOTA AN-010). He plans to operate as LZ0A during his free time from late December 2025 to mid-February 2026. The base, located at 62¯38'S, 60¯21'W in the eastern part of Livingston Island, has been permanently staffed since December 11, 1993. Darren, K4DMN will be active in ‘holiday-style' from December 23 until January 1 from St. George Island, NA-085. Activity from 80 to 10 metres using mainly FT8. Side trip to Dog Island and St Vincent is possible. QSL via LoTW, Club Log.TG, GUATEMALA -   Todd, AF4CZ, will once again be operating as TG9/call from December 7 until January 5, 2026. Operation during his spare time from 40 to 10 metres using mainly FT8 and FT4. QSL via LoTW.3A, MONACO -  Col MM0NDX and Steve MM0SAJ will once again be QRV as 3A/MM0NDX and 3A/MM0SAJ during December 30 and January 3. QRV on various bands and modes. Main focus on low bands in their evenings. QSL both calls to EB7DX (LoTW also).D4 - Cape Verde Islands – Beni, HB9HNT, will operate under the call sign D4NT until January 1, 2026. OX - Greenland - Michael,call sign OX3MC, operates out of Pituffik Space Base in northwest Greenland. His upcoming assignment runs from December 29, 2025, to February 25, 2026. Michael is most active on weekends starting around 0400Z and sometimes works radio in the evenings after 2100Z. Michael works HF SSB (160-10 meters). QSL is via the Danish OZ Bureau, and he does not use electronic  logging.  4K - Azerbaijan - The 4K0T DX-Pedition and Contest Team, with the Azerbaijan Radio Amateurs Society (ARAS), will conduct the first Parks on the Air (POTA) activation from Shahdagh National Park (AZ-0006) in Azerbaijan. The event takes place from December 29 to 31, 2025, on the 17-meter band (SSB) from grid square LN41CH.

The following DX information comes from Bernie, W3UR, editor of the DailyDX, the WeeklyDX, and the How's DX column in QST. If you would like a free 2-week trial of the DailyDX, your only source of real-time DX information, justdrop me a note at thedxmentor@gmail.com First, the bad news S2 – Bangladesh - S21AM and S21RCsay their planned IOTA AS-127 operation has been postponed until sometime next year.  Cited are logistical challenges  and operational constraints in the region and "adequateresource availability concerns." Now, the Good News U.S. amateurs to receive expanded 60-meter privileges - TheU.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has authorized expanded use of the 60-meter band for U.S. amateur radio operators, following rules adopted at the World Radiotelecommunication Conference 2015 (WRC-15). The new regulations, including a 15-watt effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) power limit (not effective radiated power, or ERP), will take effect 30 days after they are published in the Federal Register. Use of this band remains on a secondary basis. The full FCC Report and Order is available online, and ARRL provides more details on its website.  XU - Cambodia – DL7BO, Tom, will be on the air as XU7GNY, December 22 to January 18.  Tom will be on 160-6 CW, SSB and FT8, concentrating on the lower bands.  QSL direct to DJ4WK or use LoTW, Club Log or eQSL. 4K – Azerbaijan – 4K/DL4XT,Jan, will on 40 and 20-10M SSB, CW and FT8 December 26 to January 3.  He will be on the air casually, aka "holiday style."  For a QSL it's LoTW, Club Log OQRS and QRZ. A6 - United Arab Emirates – A60QATAR will be December 18-22 to join in Qatar's celebration.  Some Individual ops in UAE may use that call and add /1, /2, and similar. TL - Central African Republic -  CT1END, Carlos, reminds us CR7BNW, Joao, will be operating as  TL8BNW from Bangui, Central African Republic, for six months starting in December 2025. His first activity will take place from December 20-25, 2025, using SSB and FT8 on 40, 20, 15, and 10 meters. QSOs will be uploaded to LoTW, QRZLogbook, and via the Portuguese QSL bureau.FY - French Guiana - F4GPK, Peter, will be on as TO2FY December 22 to January 15 from Kourou. TG – Guatemala - TG9/AF4CZ willbe on the air "holiday style," December 7 to January 5, mostly digital modes on 40-10.  He will upload his log to LoTW, eQSL and Club Log. Z8 - South Sudan - YI1DZ (akaZ81D), Diya's, contract with UN-WFP in South Sudan runs until March 10, 2026, with a possible 11-month extension pending approval. Due to frequent travel and a rotating work schedulethat includes leave every six weeks, radio activity is limited tofree time, mostly on weekends. The author is currently in Istanbul and will return to Juba on December 15 and could be very active as Z81D the following weekend.C5YK, The Gambia – Andre, ON7YK, is QRV from The Gambia until January 25. He is operating as C5YK on SSB, RTTY, PSK, FT8, FT4, and some CW on 20, 17, 15, 12, and 10M. QSL only via LoTW, eQSL, or direct to ON7YK. He posts his logbook on his website.  “may be a little unreliable.” Manual log upload will be every several days. Borut says to not send cards through the bureau “as they will not find my home.” He will send direct cards once he is home in Slovenia, “via OQRS only.”  OQRS.   YU – Serbia - In celebration of IARU Region 1 Young Radio Operators Month, Serbian amateurs may use the special callsigns YT25YOTA and YU25YOTA throughout December 2025.

Here is what will be QRV this week:TG – Guatemala - TG9/AF4CZ will be on the air "holiday style," December 7 to January 5, mostly digital modes on 40-10.  He will upload his log to LoTW, eQSL and Club Log. Z8 - South Sudan - YI1DZ (aka Z81D), Diya's, contract with UN-WFP in South Sudan runs until March 10, 2026, with a possible 11-month extension pending approval. Due to frequent travel and a rotating work schedule that includes leave every six weeks, radio activity is limited to free time, mostly on weekends. The author is currently in Istanbul and will return to Juba on December 15 and could be very active as Z81D the following weekend. We have a new prefix from Trinidad and Tobago. WA3DX,Earl Markey, will be on as 9Y9DX from Arouca December 17-29, 40-10M FT8 and FT4. This is the first known issuance of the 9Y prefix. Earl says to QSL direct only to WA3DX or use LoTW. U.S. stations who want direct QSLs should include a self-addressed stamped envelope. He will also upload his log to Club Log.  C5YK, The Gambia – Andre, ON7YK, is QRV from The Gambia until January 25. He is operating as C5YK on SSB, RTTY, PSK,FT8, FT4, and some CW on 20, 17, 15, 12, and 10M. QSL only via LoTW, eQSL, or direct to ON7YK. He posts his logbook on his website.   4X – Israel - 425 DX News reports that as part of celebrating Hanukkah, the Israel Association of Radio Communications will have special callsigns 4X8NER and 4Z8NER on the air December 14-22.  QSL using LoTW or direct to 4Z5MU, and there will be an online certificate as well.  VK - Australia - From now until December 24, VK2SANTA will be on the air,  allowing children and others to talk to the North Pole on various radio frequencies. Updated times and frequencies are available online at https://www.qrz.com/db/VK2SANTA T8 - Palau - Koh, JA1ADT plans to be active from Palau as T88AC until December 17, 2025. Participation in the ARRL 10m contest. Focus on low bands before / after the contest. QSL via LoTW. Paper QSL will be available if needed – send with enough return postage.  The DX Mentor features a new YouTube episode this coming weekend – a discussion with Joe, W8GEX, offering Tips and Hints for DXers to get more into the logbook.  Between Joe, and AJ8B, the host, they have almost 100 years of chasing DX. Check it out and let me know what you think!  If you want to follow all the latest DX Podcasts and YouTube releases, you should check out the DX Mentor Facebook page and subscribe to be kept up to date on all of the DX activities. 

Way back in 2015, the World Radio Conference allocated a worldwide ham radio band at 60 Meters. Here in the US we are finally getting that band. A whopping 15 kHz wide, with Phone, RTTY, data and CW permitted, and a whole 9.15 Watts ERP power limit.Of course, we've had 5 descrete ‘channels' available on 60 for 23 years, initially for USB only, and later adding CW and data modes. One of those channels is in the middle of that new allocation, and it ‘disappears' into the new band. But we keep the other four, at their cuttent 100 Watts ERP.In this episode, hosts David W0DHG and Gary K4AAQ (eventually) discuss the details of the new band. Gary reviews some of the history, including several HRN programs tracing the inception and progressof the band. Find the programs in this HamRadioNow Playliston our YouTube channel.The band becomes available 30 days after the new rules are published in the Federal Register.Oh, and yeah, Gary had the wrong episode number. We docked his pay.

GB2RS News Sunday, the 14th of December 2025   The news headlines: Dr Bob Whelan, G3PJT, is now a Silent Key Two exciting opportunities to make an impact with the RSGB Free RSGB club affiliation for schools, universities and uniformed groups!   It is with great sadness that we share the news that Dr Bob Whelan, G3PJT, became a Silent Key on the 4th of December. Bob's contribution to amateur radio was extensive. First licensed in 1961, his main interest was in HF and LF CW operation. In this, he soon became a strong supporter of the Commonwealth Contest, operating from a number of DX locations for the contest over many years. He wrote the book ‘Reflections in a Rosebowl', which covers the history of the Commonwealth Contest, and he put much effort into building an online Commonwealth Contest community. Bob also played a very significant role in the RSGB, the IARU and the First Class Operators Club. For the RSGB, he started as a volunteer member of the RSGB HF Committee and later was President from 2002 to 2003 and again from 2013 to 2014. Our thoughts are with his family and friends. You will be able to read a full tribute to Bob in the February 2026 edition of RadCom. Are you an experienced operations leader who is passionate about delivering exceptional membership services and driving commercial growth? Or are you an advertising agent looking for a new opportunity where you can demonstrate your strong sales capabilities, excellent communication skills, and your ability to build and maintain long-term client relationships? The RSGB is seeking a full-time, highly motivated Operations Manager to be part of its senior leadership team, based at the RSGB HQ in Bedford. This is a key role, responsible for ensuring our members receive outstanding service, and the successful candidate will need to be commercially astute, organised, people-focused, and excited by the opportunity to make a meaningful impact. The Society is also looking for a new contractor or agency to work with, to support the development of RSGB advertising and contribute to the growth of its publications and digital platforms. If you are professional, proactive and excited by either of these opportunities, go to the RSGB website at rsgb.org/careers to find out more. The application deadline for both is the 4th of January 2026.  Did you know that amateur radio clubs in schools, universities and uniformed groups can affiliate with the RSGB for free? Your club will benefit from a copy of RadCom in the post each month, as well as access to the RSGB app, where you can read RadCom, RadCom Basics and RadCom Plus. You'll also get special book discounts, promotion of your club's activities, access to RSGB-affiliated club contests, and use of the QSL Bureau. Visit rsgb.org/affiliation  and follow the links. How about giving back to the amateur radio community in 2026 by becoming an RSGB Board Director? The RSGB has two Elected Board Director vacancies and wants to ensure that the voices around the table understand and reflect the community it serves. You'll need leadership experience and be keen to play an active part in helping to support the Society's strategic priorities. The Society is encouraging candidates from a diverse range of backgrounds to stand for election. Go to rsgb.org/elections  to find out more. The closing date is the 31st of January 2026, so act now. The RSGB Contest Club is excited to report that the third World Wide Award event will be taking place in January 2026. Award hunters can engage in a very enjoyable competition across all HF bands and modes, with many special international calls to work. The RSGB will be activating seven callsigns, all with the suffix ‘WWA'. RSGB members who hold a Full licence may activate the callsign for their country. To find out more, go to rsgb.org/contest-club YOTA Month continues this weekend with special call sign GB25YOTA. Listen out for operators from the RSGB National Radio Centre and the 2nd Marlborough Scouts. Students from Buckie High School, Wick High School and Simon Langton Boys School Radio Club will be active during the week, as well as The University of Sheffield Amateur Radio Club. Next weekend Cambridge University Wireless Society, along with some young visitors, will be active. Listen out and encourage these young operators. View the operating times, bands and modes for each group at rsgb.org/yota-month  RSGB HQ will close on Wednesday, the 24th of December 2025, at 2 pm and will open again at 8.30 am on Monday, the 5th of January 2026. In the meantime, if you need information about amateur radio, exams or RadCom, you'll find lots of details on the website at rsgb.org. To join the RSGB, renew your membership, or purchase a range of amateur radio books and other products, go to rsgbshop.org Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk. The deadline for submissions is 10 am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week.  And now for details of rallies and events Sparkford Radio Rally is due to take place on Sunday, the 28th of December at Davis Hall, Howell Hill, West Camel, near Yeovil, BA22 7QX. The doors will be open from 9.30 am, and admission will cost £2. Refreshments and free parking will be available on site. For more details, contact Luke on 07870 168 197 or email luke@mymixradio.co.uk   On Sunday, the 25th of January 2026, the Lincoln Short Wave Club Winter Radio Rally will be held at Festival Hall, Caistor Road, Market Rasen, LN8 3HT. This is an indoor event with ample free parking. The doors will be open from 10 am, and admission is £3. Tables cost £10. To book tables, or for more information, contact Steve, M5ZZZ on 07777 699 069 or email m5zzz@outlook.com Now the Special Event news Special callsign 4T95O is active to celebrate the 95th anniversary of the Peruano Radio Club, OA4O in Peru. Look for activity throughout December on the 40 to 10m bands, as well as on the 6m, 2m and 70cm bands using CW, FT8, FM, RTTY and SSB. Jose, HP2AT, is active as H82AT until the 31st of December to celebrate his 35th anniversary in amateur radio. Recently, the station has been spotted using FT8 on the HF bands. All QSOs will be uploaded to QRZ.com, Club Log, eQSL and Logbook of the World. In celebration of the GB2RS News service's 70th anniversary, Sean G7NJX will be active with the GB70RS callsign from the 15th to the 21st of December. Sean will be working on the 80, 40 and 20m bands using CW, FT4, FT8, PSK31, RTTY and SSB. There is a schedule of bands, modes, and operating times for the week on Sean's QRZ.com page. He will also do his best to spot his activity on the DX cluster. Now the DX news Roland, F8EN, is active as TR8CR from Gabon until the end of December. He is operating using CW only. QSL via F6AJA. Now the contest news The ARRL 10m Contest started at 0000UTC yesterday, the 13th, and ends at 2359UTC today, the 14th of December. Using CW and phone on the 10m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. American and Canadian stations also send their state or province code. Tomorrow, Monday the 15th of December, the RSGB FT4 Contest runs from 2000 to 2200UTC. Using FT4 on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is your report. On Tuesday, the 16th of December, the RSGB 1.3GHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230 UTC. Using all modes on the 23cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Thursday, the 18th of December, the RSGB 70MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230 UTC. Using all modes on the 4m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 11th of December We had a bit of everything last week, including increased Kp indices, a high solar flux, an X-class solar flare and coronal mass ejections. The solar flux index hit a maximum of 220 on Thursday, the 4th of December. This brought good HF conditions until Sunday, the 7th. The index declined to 169 on Thursday, the 11th, which was still more than enough to excite the ionosphere. We had an X-class solar flare at 0501UTC on Monday, the 8th of December. This originated from large active region 4298, which has now rotated out of view. We also had more than ten M-class solar flares over the past week, showing that the prediction of disturbed conditions on the downward part of the solar cycle still holds true. The Kp index hit 6.33 on Wednesday, the 10th, which disrupted maximum usable frequencies, or MUFs. The net result was that digisonde traces were missing at times, with the MUF over 3,000km being in single figures on Thursday, the 11th of December. To cap it all, we now have a very large Earth-facing coronal hole that threatens HF propagation today, the 14th of December. There has been DX around, but mostly on the lower bands. CDXC's Slack group reports that KP2B on St Croix was worked on the 80m band using FT8 on the morning of Thursday, the 11th of December. TO9W on St Martin was logged on the 40 and 30m bands using CW on Tuesday, the 9th of December. TT1GD in Chad also appeared on the 40m and 20m bands using CW on Monday, the 8th of December. Next week, NOAA predicts the solar flux index will be in the 130 to 140 range. However, as was mentioned earlier, geomagnetic conditions may be disturbed today, the 14th, due to a fast solar wind stream from a coronal hole. Conditions might calm down from the 15th to the 20th, before the Kp index hits 5 around the 21st to the 26th of December. In summary, get your HF DXing in during next week, before auroral conditions take their toll over the Christmas period. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The present period of unsettled weather will remain the driving force for weather conditions for most of the country for the period up to Christmas.  This will mean that there are likely to be some very windy spells with extensive rain and squally showers. It offers scope for rain scatter operators on the GHz bands, but scarcely any hint of good tropo conditions. One item of interest is the meteor scatter prospects from the Geminids, which peak today, the 14th of December. It is one of the busiest showers of the calendar with a peak hourly rate of 120, so it should provide plenty of opportunities and is worth exploring during the week before and following the peak. The solar conditions have again remained interesting enough with a red alert on the evening of Wednesday, the 10th of December, and there is always the potential for the Kp index to produce signs of auroral radio activity once it goes above 5. Finally, a reminder that this winter period, from mid-December to mid-January, can produce some surprisingly effective Sporadic-E. It's possibly easiest to see by checking the propquest.co.uk  graphs to see if the foEs trace is showing any sharp spikes. The 10 and 6m bands are probably the more likely bands to show signs of activity in these winter events, but it's certainly worth checking if the graphs show any promising signs. For EME operators, Moon declination went negative on Friday the 12th of December, meaning shortening Moon windows and decreasing peak elevation. We are past perigee for the month, so path losses are increasing. 144MHz sky noise starts low but increases to high by Friday, the 19th of December, when the Sun and Moon are close in the sky. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

GB2RS News Sunday, the 9th of November 2025   The news headlines: The RSGB launches its Construction Competition for 2026 RSGB exam shutdown over the festive season The Society appoints a new volunteer Brickworks Champion   Whether you have only recently soldered your first wire in a kit build or you have experience in designing an advanced software or systems engineering project, the RSGB Construction Competition is for you! As part of the RSGB's strategic growth priority, it wants to inspire people from different communities to find out more about amateur radio. That is why the Society has introduced a new category this year called “Reimagination”. If you think your project could be interesting to the maker community, or you have an idea that could encourage people from groups such as Men's Sheds to try amateur radio, this is the category for you. If it is radio-related but motivates non-radio amateurs to find out more, the RSGB welcomes your entry! There are six other categories, which means there really is something for everyone. You must be an RSGB member to enter, but you can live anywhere in the world, as entries will be judged online to allow you to participate and demonstrate your creativity remotely. The deadline for entries is the 1st of March 2026, and you have an opportunity to win a cash prize. For full details of the competition, including the other categories, visit rsgb.org/construction-competition If you're thinking of taking an amateur radio exam before Christmas, be aware that the last date you can take an online exam, either at a club or at home, is Monday, the 22nd of  December. The RSGB Exams Team will, where possible, post out exam results before HQ shuts over Christmas and New Year. Exams will resume on Monday, the 5th of January 2026 and the booking system will be available during the festive season, so you can book exams for January onwards. You can book your exam online at rsgb.org/exampay RSGB Board Director, Ben Lloyd, GW4BML, is delighted to announce Derek Hughes, G7LFC as the new volunteer RSGB Brickworks Champion. The Brickworks scheme consists of 23 tasks that give an insight into different aspects of amateur radio. Derek brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to this role, having previously been involved in the development and running of the Brickworks scheme. He currently serves as Chairman of the Quantum Amateur Radio & Technology Society. Derek is committed to building strong relationships with clubs across the UK, including those already engaged with RSGB initiatives. Individuals and clubs are encouraged to contact Derek via brickworks.champion@rsgb.org.uk  with their suggestions about how to develop the reach of the RSGB's Brickworks programme. Find out more about the programme by going to rsgb.org/brickworks The RSGB has continued to release content from its recent Convention. Watch the ‘Meet the Board' session and hear an update on the Society's strategy, as well as an outline of next steps and some important RSGB roles that need the right volunteers to step forward. These include four Board Directors and three Regional Representative vacancies, for which nominations open next week. An in-depth interview about polar modulation is also available to watch; listen to Hans Summers G0UPL, Mike Walker VA3MW and Stewart Bryant G3YSX sharing their thoughts about how this exciting technology is being applied within amateur radio. You can see both in the ‘RSGB 2025 Convention' playlist on the RSGB YouTube channel at youtube.com/theRSGB If you've been involved with Jamboree on the Air this year, the RSGB would love to hear from you. You have until this Thursday, the 13th, to submit your report and photos to radcom@rsgb.org.uk  and be included in the special JOTA feature in the January 2026 edition of RadCom. Essex CW Activity Week starts today, the 9th, and runs until Saturday, the 15th of November. This is a friendly, non-contest style event to encourage both experienced and new Morse operators. Slow-speed Morse operators are especially welcome. Whilst the aim is to contact as many radio amateurs as possible in a week, it is hoped that a QSO goes beyond just an exchange of signal reports and becomes a CW chat for as long a duration as you wish. Anyone who works at least 25 other stations qualifies for a free award certificate. Lots more information, including preferred operating frequencies, can be found via the ‘Activity Week' tab at essexcw.uk Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk. The deadline for submissions is 10 am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week.  And now for details of rallies and events Rochdale and District Amateur Radio Society Winter Rally is taking place on Saturday, the 15th of November at St Vincent de Paul's Hall, Norden, Rochdale, OL12 7QR. The doors open at 10 am and entry costs £3. Traders, catering and plenty of free parking will be available on site. For more information, email rally.radars@hotmail.com On Sunday, the 30th of November, Bishop Auckland Radio Amateur's Club Rally is taking place at Spennymoor Leisure Centre, County Durham. Traders, catering, ample parking and disabled facilities will be available. For more information and downloadable trader forms, visit barac.org.uk Now the Special Event news Members of the Tarragonès Radio Club in Spain are active with special callsign AO25TWHS until the 30th of November. The station is often spotted on the HF bands using FT4. More information, including DX Cluster spots and a link to a diploma that is available for working the station, is available at QRZ.com Special event station V84SRU is active from Brunei on all bands and modes until the 26th of November to mark the centenary of the International Amateur Radio Union. Recently, the station was spotted on the 15m band using SSB. For more information, visit QRZ.com Now the DX news Members of the Italian DXpedition team are active as 5R8TT and 5R8XX until Wednesday, the 12th of November, from Nosy Be, AF-057 in Madagascar. Four stations are active on the 160 to 6m bands using CW, FT8, SSB and RTTY. QSL directly to I2YSB. To find out more, visit i2ysb.com/idt Members of the Yaguarete DX Group are active as CP7DX from Tarija in Bolivia until tomorrow, the 10th of November. They are operating FT8 and SSB on the 160 to 6m bands, as well as via EME. QSL via OQRS or directly to LU1FM. More details are available via QRZ.com Now the contest news The Worked All Europe DX RTTY Contest started at 0000 UTC yesterday, the 8th, and ends at 2359 UTC today, Sunday, the 9th of November. Using RTTY on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Today, the 9th, the UK Microwave Group Low Band Contest runs from 1000 to 1400 UTC. Using all modes on 1.3 to 3.4GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Tuesday the 11th, the RSGB 432MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 1955 UTC. Using FM on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also on Tuesday the 11th, the RSGB 432MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. Using all modes on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday the 12th, the RSGB Autumn Series SSB Contest runs from 2000 to 2130UTC. Using SSB on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Wednesday the 12th, the RSGB 432MHz FT8 Activity four-hour Contest runs from 1700 to 2100 UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is a report and a four-character locator. Also on Wednesday the 12th, the RSGB 432MHz FT8 Activity two-hour Contest runs from 1900 to 2100 UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is a report and a four-character locator. Stations entering the four-hour contest may also enter the two-hour contest. On Thursday the 13th, the RSGB 50MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 2000 to 2230 UTC. Using all modes on the 6m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Saturday the 15th, the 2nd RSGB 1.8MHz Contest runs from 2000 to 2300 UTC. Using CW on the 160m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and district code.                                                                                                                                                                       Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 6th of November 2025 Last week was a mixed bag in terms of HF propagation. Earlier in the week, the 10m band was working very well, with Australia romping into the UK by mid-morning. But later in the week, everything had changed. Solar activity was high with multiple X-class and strong M-class solar flares. At least three coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, were expected to graze or directly hit Earth, sparking strong geomagnetic storms on the 6th and 7th of November. The X-ray flare on the 4th of November was the first seen since June and came from active region 4274 – a large sunspot group which helped push the solar flux index to 147. The Kp index climbed to 6.67 in the early hours of the 6th of November. Later that morning, maximum usable frequencies, or MUFs, were badly affected, with a maximum of 18MHz over a 3,000km path as a strong G3 geomagnetic storm was in progress. So, it looks like good DX on the higher bands may be off the cards for a few days. However, one interesting contact was noted on the CDXC Slack chat group when ZL7/LZIGCC was spotted on 14.005MHz using CW at 10.30 am on Thursday, the 6th. Interestingly, the current solar activity is nearly all in the Sun's northern hemisphere, so are we heading for a second peak in Cycle 25? Next week, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index may decline to the 130 to 145 range. Geomagnetic conditions are predicted to remain unstable until around the 12th of November. With active region 4274 rotating to be more Earth-facing, we may expect more solar activity, such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, before things quieten down. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO We are becoming well acquainted with mild, unsettled weather, and as a result, there were plenty of rain scatter options on the GHz bands in the last week. These are likely to continue through the coming week. Tropo is not completely out of the frame in the extreme south and east, albeit fleetingly, but for most of the UK, it is unlikely to be a strong feature. As in recent weeks, a few auroral alerts are coming through, but so far, nothing too dramatic is showing up on the VHF bands. Meteor scatter looks more interesting as we move into mid-November. The Leonids, one of the more important meteor showers in the calendar, peaks just after next weekend on Monday the 17th and Tuesday the 18th, so we should expect to see some increasing activity as we progress through the coming week. The UK Activity Contest events feature 432MHz on Tuesday 11th, when the eastern side of the UK may have one of the fleeting moments of tropo to the east and south. Later in the week, on Thursday the 13th, it's the turn of 50MHz. Conditions look weaker for tropo for the 50MHz UK Activity Contest, but still favour the extreme east of England, if there is any left by then. Meteor scatter or even aurora might come to the rescue for this one. For EME operators, the Moon's declination is at its highest this weekend, ending today, the 9th, so Moon window lengths and peak elevation are also at their greatest. Path losses are now increasing as we passed perigee on the 5th of November. 144MHz sky noise is low and at its lowest midweek. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

Hello and Welcome to the DX Corner for yourweekly Dose of DX. I'm Bill, AJ8B.Each week I try to focus on those entities that will be available in the next 7 days. There is so much data to sift through that I thought a focus on the next week might be helpful. Here is what you should find QRV when you tune the bands. The following DX information comes from Bernie, W3UR, editor of the DailyDX, the WeeklyDX, and the How's DX column in QST. If you would like a free 2-week trial of the DailyDX, your only source of real-time DX information, justdrop me a note at thedxmentor@gmail.comWe have a 6O3T - Somalia Update -   “Good morning, everyone, we'd like to thank you all for the affection and patience you've shown towards our 6O operation. Despite the high noise level, we're moving forward with great personal satisfaction, sometimes at the expense of the usual CW/SSB modes, but often it's a necessary choice. We're enjoying good openings on the 6 meters band toward Europe, around 11:00 GMT, with a few shorter ones toward Asia as well. In the afternoon, around 15:00 GMT, the SIX band will open again. We've been transmitting for the second night in a row on 80 and have logged several nice QSOs. In the coming days, we'll likely make some tests on 160m, though without too many expectations.Finally, we've been receiving many emails about call corrections and typing errors, our apologies, but this is not the right time. All such requests will be handled once we're back home.” ThebPJ6Y Adventure is QRTAfter an amazing weekend participating inbCQWW SSB 2025, the PJ6Y adventure is coming to a close. Our Young Operators team achieved an incredible milestone — over 55,000 QSOs! “On behalf of the PJ6Y 2025 team, I would like to thank all of you who took the time to work us,” said Gregg, W6IZT. A special thanks goes out to our sponsors and supporters — this expedition would not have been possible without your generous help and encouragement. 5R, MADAGASCAR The Italian Dxpedition Team led by Silvano, I2YSB announce a new activity from Madagascar until November 12 as 5R8TT utilizing CW, SSB, and RTTY and as 5R8XX on FT8. A team will be operating with 4 stations from 160 to 6 meters. QSL via I2YSB. https://www.i2ysb.com/idt/ 9L, SIERRA LEONE  The ex-3C2MD managed to plan another DXPedition as 9L8MD until November 10. The team will be active as 9L8MD from 160 to 6 metres using CW, SSB, RTTY. QSL via IK2VUC. 9U, BURUNDI  Members of the Russian DX Team with Vasily R7AL as team leader will be active as 9U1RU until November 20. Plan is to be active with 7 stations from 160 to 6 meters using high power. QSL via Club Log. https://www3rudxt.org/9u1ru Z6,KOSOVO  Look for S58MU and S50X as Z66IPA until November3. They will be operating from 160 to 10 meters. QSL for all calls via S58MU. VU4, ANDAMAN ISL  The World DXPedition team will be QRV until November7 from 3 POTA locations. ‘Needless to say, the support of corporate and private sponsors are essential to make this DXPedition a success. The Team priority will be to make as many QSOs as possible and offer the highest exposure as possible for sponsors. Corporate or Club sponsors (donating $1,000 or more in cash or equipment) will be recognized on our QSL cards and website. '  The DX Mentor features a new Podcast episode this coming weekend – The Yasme foundation and the great contributions of Ward Silver, N0AX. Check it out and let me know what you think!If you want to follow all the latest DX Podcasts and YouTube releases, you should check out the DX Mentor Facebook page and subscribe to be kept up to date on all of the DX activities.If you would like a copy of the special SWODXA Newsletter for October that has over 100 pages of articles about 160M, just drop me a line and I will send it to you.   Until next week, this is Bill, AJ8B saying 73 and thanks to my XYL Karen for her love and support. I Hope to hear you in the pileups! Have a great DX week! 

GB2RS News Sunday, the 5th of October 2025 The news headlines: Don't miss out – book now for the RSGB 2025 Convention! Join October's Tonight@8 webinar for a fascinating talk on a Marshall Islands DXpedition The RSGB is helping to promote JOTA activities in October Today, Sunday the 5th of October, is the last day for you to buy your RSGB 2025 Convention and dinner tickets. The online ticketing portal closes at 11:59 p.m. tonight, so please act quickly to ensure your attendance. You will be able to purchase a Convention ticket at the door, but not at the reduced rate currently available. The event is taking place between the 10th and 12th of October in Milton Keynes, and this year's theme is “Discover, Learn, Progress”. To start planning your weekend, go to rsgb.org/convention  and download the Convention programme and speaker information. You'll also be able to view the menus, as well as see what forums and drop-in sessions you can attend. Click on ‘What else is happening at the Convention?' to find details on the AMSAT-UK Colloquium, Special Interest Groups, as well as information on Friday's tour of Bletchley Park and the RSGB National Radio Centre. Don't forget that if it is your first time at the event, pop along to the new ‘Welcome desk' that will be set up in the bar on the Friday evening. If you're going to the Convention, remember to make sure you have your QR code ready to collect your badge at the conference centre. This can either be on your mobile or as a printed copy. The QR code can be found in your purchase email, as well as in the reminder email, which will be sent out this week. If you are unable to travel to the Convention, the RSGB will be livestreaming a selection of lectures. Find out how to join the livestream via rsgb.org/livestream  If you have tickets for the Gala Dinner on Saturday and wish to reserve a table with friends, send your name and callsign details to radcom@rsgb.org.uk Jamie Williams, M0SDV, will be talking you through a DXpedition to the Marshall Islands for the RSGB's next Tonight@8 webinar tomorrow, the 6th of October. In February 2025, the V73WW team made 103,864 QSOs using CW, SSB, RTTY and FT8. The team of six came from four countries, with the operators having an average age of only 28. Jamie is a 24-year-old radio amateur who has been involved with the hobby since 2015 and has been busy with contests and DXpeditions ever since. The Tonight@8 webinars are livestreamed for free on the RSGB's YouTube channel and special BATC channel, allowing you to watch the presentations and ask questions online. Go to rsgb.org/webinars  for more information. Jamboree on the Air, also known as JOTA, is taking place between the 17th and 19th of October. The event promotes friendship and global citizenship and is a brilliant celebration of amateur radio among the groups within the Scout Association. Samuel McCutchion, M0UEL, is the RSGB Youth Champion for Scouts, Cadets and Guides, and he is compiling a list of JOTA stations which will be shared on the RSGB website. Sam is encouraging everyone to get involved either by putting a station on the air or listening out for the JOTA stations. If you are part of a Scouting group and are planning to get involved with JOTA, then please contact youthchampion.scouts@rsgb.org.uk  with a summary of your station name, callsign and any other relevant information. The RSGB is offering four awards for GB2RS news broadcasts that were logged between the 1st of August and the 30th of September. The awards are part of several activities that have been taking place to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the weekly news broadcast. Applications for awards should be submitted no later than the 31st of October 2025, and should be sent to the RSGB Awards Manager via awards@rsgb.org.uk. The certificates are free of charge and will be supplied as a PDF. Find out more via rsgb.org/gb70rs On Wednesday, the 8th of October, YouTuber James, M0GQC, will be broadcasting his next live episode from the RSGB National Radio Centre. James will be active from approximately 6.30 pm on the 40m band using the GB3RS callsign. His channel @HamRadioOnline is an interactive show where people can call in or simply watch the station live on YouTube. If you haven't already got the Centre's callsign in your logbook, this is a great opportunity to do so. The next Essex CW Amateur Radio Club Boot Camp will be held on Saturday, the 18th of October 2025. Due to cancellations, a few places have become available. If you would like a day practising and improving your CW skills in a friendly, supportive atmosphere, then email Steve, G4OCP at info@essexcw.org.uk before the 7th of October. And now for details of rallies and events Today, the 5th, the 50th Welsh Radio Rally is taking place at Llanwern High School, Hartridge Farm Road, Newport in South Wales. The doors are open for traders from 7 am and for the public from 9.30 am. Admission costs £3. For more information, email welshradiorally@gmail.com On Sunday, the 12th of October, the Autumn Dartmoor Radio Club Rally will take place at Yelverton War Memorial Hall, Meavy Lane, Yelverton. The doors open at 10 am and admission is £3. For more information, email 2e0rph@gmail.com Also on Sunday the 12th, Hornsea Amateur Radio Club's Annual Rally will take place at Driffield Showground in East Yorkshire. Exhibitors can gain access from 8 am, and visitors are welcome from 10 am. For more information, email lbjpinkney1@hotmail.co.uk Now the Special Event news To celebrate 130 years since the birth of radio and 100 years since the formation of the International Amateur Radio Union, lots of special event stations are active from Italy. You can see live updates on all of the stations and their most recent contacts via the II1IARU page at QRZ.com Special callsign GB70RS is in use to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the RSGB's weekly news service GB2RS, which has been running continuously since the 25th of September 1955. A team of amateurs is using the callsign on a variety of bands and modes. QSL via the Bureau, Logbook of the World and eQSL. For more information, visit the GB70RS page at QRZ.com Now the DX news Nine operators are active with five stations as V6D from Chuuk, OC-011, in Micronesia until tomorrow, the 6th. The station is active on the 160 to 6m bands using CW, SSB, FT8 and RTTY. QSL via Club Log's OQRS is preferred, or via DL4SVA. See v6d.mydx.de  for more information. Bernhard, DL2GAC, is active again as H44MS from Malaita Island, OC-047, in the Solomon Islands until the 25th of November. Listen for activity on the 80 to 6m bands using SSB and FT8. QSL directly via Bernhard's home call or the Bureau. Now the contest news Both the IARU and RSGB 432MHz to 245GHz Contests started at 1400 UTC yesterday, the 4th, and end at 1400 UTC today, the 5th of October. Using all modes on 432MHz to 245GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The UK Microwave Group 24 to 76GHz Contest runs from 0900 to 1700 UTC today, the 5th of October. Using all modes on 24 to 76GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The RSGB Autumn Series CW Contest runs from 1900 to 2030UTC tomorrow, the 6th. Using CW on the 80m band, the exchange is signal report and serial number. On Tuesday, the 7th of October, the RSGB 144MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1800 to 1855 UTC. Using FM on the 2m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Also on Tuesday, the 7th of October, the RSGB 144MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130 UTC. Using all modes on the 2m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday, the 8th of October, the RSGB 432MHz FT8 four-hour Activity Contest runs from 1700 UTC to 2100 UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report and four-character locator. Also on Wednesday, the 8th of October, the RSGB 432MHz FT8 two-hour Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2100 UTC. Using FT8 on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report and four-character locator. On Thursday, the 9th of October, the RSGB 50MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130 UTC. Using all modes on the 6m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The Oceania DX CW Contest starts at 0600 UTC on Saturday, the 11th and ends at 0600 UTC on Sunday, the 12th of October. Using CW and SSB on the 160 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 2nd of October 2025 Last week was characterised by very unsettled geomagnetic conditions with a Kp index that reached 7.33 on the 30th of September and was often above 5. This is not good for HF propagation! But what caused this? A high-speed solar wind stream at around 750 kilometres per second, coupled with the Bz component of the Sun's magnetic field pointing south, led to the disruption. But there didn't seem to be any particular solar event that triggered the high-speed solar wind stream. The Russell-McPherron effect is probably to blame. This is a phenomenon where the alignment of the Earth's and the Sun's magnetic fields, during the equinoxes around March and September, allows charged particles from the solar wind to more easily penetrate the Earth's magnetosphere. This enhanced connection leads to more intense geomagnetic storms and increased aurora activity as the Bz aligns favourably with the Earth's magnetic field at these times. This may pass as we get further into October. As a result of the geomagnetic storm, maximum usable frequencies, or MUFs, have often been lower than normal. A quick listen on 28MHz on Wednesday, the 1st of October, confirmed the poor conditions. It's a shame, as October is normally a fantastic month for HF DX. The solar flux index peaked at 187 on the 30th of September, having been above 170 since the 28th of September. Next week, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index will remain above 150 to 160 all week. The good news is that geomagnetic conditions are forecast to improve, with a maximum Kp index of 3. If that comes to pass, we can expect HF to be better after a day or two, and we might be able to make the most of the autumnal conditions for DX. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The current spell of unsettled weather, mainly over northern areas, is typical of the season, but it's also common to find high pressure passing by in between the deeper lows. In the current pattern, the highs are mainly for the southern half of Britain. This will bring some good Tropo conditions at times for the VHF and UHF bands.  As we head into autumn, these lifts may linger through much of the morning on some days before the temperature rise breaks down any temperature inversion. A good clue is that it's usually over when the overnight fog clears. On the other hand, there will probably be some good rain scatter opportunities on the GHz bands as the active lows push fronts across the country, especially in the north. There are signs that we may return to high pressure over the country during the RSGB 2025 Convention weekend from the 10th to the 12th of October. We have a meteor shower to play with during the coming week. The Draconids peak on Wednesday, the 8th of October, but the shower stream is spread over the whole of the week. Lastly, there have been some reasonable auroral events recently, so, as usual, keep a watch on the Kp index going over 5 since, as we said earlier, these autumn months are very much favoured for auroral activity. For EME operators, the Moon's declination is increasing and goes positive tomorrow, the 6th, so lengthening Moon windows and increasing peak elevation is the story for the coming week. Path losses continue to fall as we approach perigee on the 8th of October. 144MHz sky noise will be low for much of the next seven days. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I came across an article written by programmer, artist, and game designer "blinry" with the intriguing title: "Fifty Things you can do with a Software Defined Radio". Documenting a weeks' worth of joyous wandering through the radio spectrum it explains in readily accessible terms how they used an RTL-SDR dongle to explore the myriad radio transmissions that surround us all day and every day. As you might know, I've been a radio amateur since 2010 and I must confess, even with all the things I've done and documented here, there's plenty in this adventure guide that I've yet to attempt. For example, when was the last time you decoded the various sub-carriers in an FM broadcast signal, including the pilot tone, the stereo signal, station meta and road traffic information? Have you ever decoded the 433 MHz sensor signals that your neighbours might have installed, weather, security and other gadgets? Or decoded shipping data, transmitted using AIS, or Automatic Identification System, and for context, we're only up to item 12 on the list. One of the biggest takeaways for me was that this is something that is accessible to anyone, and is a family friendly introduction to the world of radio that amateurs already know and love. The article touches on various applications that you might use to explore the highways and byways of the radio spectrum, including SDR++, SDRangel, WSJT-X, QSSTV, and even mentions GNU Radio. With enough detail to whet the appetite, I learned that SDRangel, developed by Edouard F4EXB and 70 other contributors, has all manner of interesting decoders built-in, like ADS-B, Stereo FM, RDS, DAB, AIS, weather balloon telemetry, APRS, even VOR. As it happens, you don't even need to install SDRangel to get going. Head on over to sdrangel.org and click on "websdr" and it'll launch right in your browser. Once you're up and running, you can use your RTL-SDR dongle to start your own small step into the wide world of radio, amateur or not. Sadly the PlutoSDR does not work on the experimental web version, so I had to install SDRangel locally. That said, I did get it to run and connect to my PlutoSDR which worked out of the box. The user tutorial is online and the Quick-Start walks you through the process of getting the software installed and running. One thing that eluded me for way too long is the notion of channel decoders. Essentially you configure the receiver, in my case a PlutoSDR, and start it running. You'll be able to change frequency and see the waterfall display, but nothing else happens, and there's no obvious AM, FM or other mode buttons you'd find on a traditional radio. Instead, you'll need to add a channel decoder, cunningly disguised as a triangle with circles at the corners with a little plus symbol at the top. You'll find it immediately to the left of your device name. When you click it, you're presented with a list of channel decoders, which you can add to the work space. This will do the work of actually decoding the signal that's coming into the software. SDRangel also supports M17, FreeDV, RTTY, FT8 and plenty of other amateur modes, and includes the ability to transmit. Oh, did I mention, it can also connect to remote kiwisdr receivers? I have to say, it's a joy to see software that I've previously looked at and admittedly shied away from, actually doing something with the radio spectrum around me. I will confess that SDRangel has a lot of moving parts and it's like sendmail, user friendly, just picky whom it makes friends with. So, time to dig in, play around and bring it to the next amateur radio field day "Show and Tell" and share with the general public just how interesting the radio spectrum around us can be. I'm going to work my way through the 50 items, just for giggles. What are you waiting for? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Foundations of Amateur Radio I've owned a Yaesu FT-857d radio since becoming an amateur and at the time I was absolutely blown away by how much radio fits inside the box. It's smaller than most of the commercial radios I'd seen when I bought it. I came across a video by Michael KB9VBR, the other day showcasing a wooden cigar box with a complete, well, almost complete POTA, or Parks On The Air, activation kit. I say almost, since Dave KZ9V, the owner of the kit, points out that the box doesn't contain an antenna. It made me wonder how small is small? According to RigPix, the lightest transmitter on an amateur band, in this case, the 5 GHz or 5cm band, is an Amateur TV transmitter. Weighing in at 3.9 grams. The Eachine TX-06 is capable of FM with about 18 MHz of bandwidth with an audio sub-carrier. Of course, that's not a transceiver, but I thought it worth mentioning in case you needed an excuse for something tiny in your shack, besides, as far as I can tell, there's never too much Amateur TV in the world. I've built a crystal radio on a breadboard which is tiny, but it doesn't transmit, so to set the stage, I think we need to limit ourselves to transceivers, that is, a device capable of both transmitting and receiving, on amateur bands. Before continuing I'd like to express my thanks to Janne SM0OFV, for the rigpix.com database that he's been maintaining, in notepad, since 2000. Without the invaluable information documented for the currently 7,512 radios, I'd be spending an awful lot of time hunting for information. Moving on, the FaradayRF board is a transceiver, capable of using 900 MHz or the 33cm band. It comes in at 30 grams, but without a computer it's a circuit board with potential. The PicoAPRS by Taner DB1NTO, is a 2m transceiver specifically for APRS, weighs in at 52 grams and similar in look and a third of the weight of an Ericsson T18 mobile phone. Speaking of mobile phones, the PicoAPRS does WiFi and Bluetooth, can pair with your phone and act as an AX.25 modem. I'll confess, I'm drooling. Moving right along, for 70cm there's a Rubicson Walk 'n' talk, weighs in at 65 grams. Mind you, the RigPix database puts this under the "License-free / PMR446" section which comes with a sage warning, check your local laws before transmitting. There's a few Alinco DJ-C models for different markets that operate on 2m or 70cm, weighing in at 75 grams. The ADALM Pluto weighs 114 grams, but you'll need a USB power supply of some sort to make it do anything. It can operate between 70 MHz and 6 GHz, but the user interface is limited to a single button and LED, so if you want to interact with it, you'll need some external technology. Moving on to HF transceivers, weighing in at 199 grams, without the bag, but all the options, is the Elecraft KH1. Transmits on 40m, 30m, 20m, 17m and 15m and receives between 6 and 22 MHz. It's CW only, but you can receive SSB. If CW isn't your thing, RTTY and PSK can be used on the 40m band with a Silent System Handy PSK 40. Presumably the Handy PSK 20 runs on 20m. Both weigh in at 250 grams. The Zettl P-20xx SSB does SSB, AM, FM and CW, transmits on 10m, 11m, 12m and 15m as well as the MARS frequencies and receives between 14 and 30 MHz, weighs 300 grams. Even comes with CTCSS. Another Elecraft model, the KX2 weighs in at 370 grams, does 80m to 10m and the WARC bands, does SSB, CW and data. Mind you, you'll also need to add the weight for the microphone and paddles, and factor in a computer if you want to do more than PSK and RTTY. The Expert Electronics SunSDR2 QRP does 160m to 10m, the WARC bands and 6m. Weighs in at 500 grams, has a network port and two independent receivers. Operates at 5 Watts. There's no user interface, unless you count the reset and power buttons, so I'm not sure if it can operate on any mode with just a microphone, but given the "Depending on software" disclaimers throughout, I'm going to guess you'll need to bring a computer to make it sing. The Risen RS-918SSB does all HF amateur bands between 160m and 10m, has a user interface and display, even a big tuning knob, has built-in FreeDV and does FM, SSB and CW. I'd hazard a guess that this is the lightest self-contained transceiver that you can take out on a POTA mission to a park. Weighs 623 grams and comes with an internal battery. The Elecraft KX3 also does 160m to 10m, and 6m, with a 2m option. Weighs in at 680 grams, but that doesn't include any options. And finally, we pass 1 kilogram and hit 1,100 grams and discover a radio that does all bands and modes, the Icom IC-705 with a battery, but no antenna. The Yaesu FT-817, FT-817dn and FT-818 weigh 70 grams more, but that weight includes both a battery and antenna. Of course there are other options. For example, there's the (tr)uSDX by Manuel DL2MAN, and Guido PE1NNZ, does 80m, 60m, 40m, 30m and 20m, CW, SSB, AM and FM. Comes in a kit, weighs 140 grams. It's not on RigPix, so I only know about it because it was mentioned by Dave KZ9V. Similarly, I bumped into, wait for it, a single transistor transceiver called the Pititico, in case you're wondering, Pitico means very small in Portuguese and Pititico means very very small. Designed by Miguel PY2OHH, it comes in various revisions, including one by Ciprian YO6DXE, also known as DX Explorer on YouTube, complete with a circuit board design, and with some modifications can do AM in addition to CW. It's also not in the RigPix database and I have no idea what it weighs. The point being that this rundown is intended as a starting point to explore how small you can really get and still activate the Park or Peak you intend to. While you're contemplating weight, remember to account for power, control, and most importantly an antenna or six. Again, big thank you to Janne SM0OFV, for the rigpix.com website. Also, thank you for the memories of the Spectravideo SV-318 and SV-328, the last time I bumped into one of those was in 1980-mumble when I was working in a computer shop on the Haarlemmerstraat in Leiden, Mr. Micro Zap, if you're curios. What lightweight adventures are you looking for next? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

GB2RS News Sunday, the 17th of August 2025 The news headlines: Read daily updates from the RSGB's YOTA summer camp team ‘Women in amateur radio' panel to be held at RSGB Convention in October The RSGB Awards Manager announces a new awards series This year's Youngsters on the Air summer camp begins tomorrow, Monday, the 18th of August, and the RSGB is sending a team of four young members to take part. YOTA camps are an amazing opportunity for young people to operate the latest amateur radio equipment, take part in construction activities and make international friendships. The Society will be keeping you up to date with the group's progress by sharing daily updates and photos. This year's camp is taking place near Paris and is being organised by REF, the French national amateur radio society, and the IARU. Read the daily blog updates by visiting rsgb.org/yota-camp  and selecting ‘YOTA Paris 2025' from the right-hand menu. The Society will also be sharing updates via its Facebook and X channels. If you'd like to get involved with getting young people on the air, why not participate in YOTA Month in December 2025? If you'd like to host special callsign GB25YOTA or if you'd like to find out more, email the YOTA Month Coordinator, Jamie, M0SDV via yota.month@rsgb.org.uk The list of confirmed speakers for this year's RSGB Convention continues to grow, with a further round of names released. If you haven't already purchased your tickets, be sure to book online now to secure your place and watch Dan McGraw, M0WUT, explain PCB design for low-voltage switched-mode power supplies. You'll also be able to get an insight into what has been learnt from Solar Cycle 25, with a presentation by the Chair of the RSGB Propagation Studies Committee, Steve Nichols, G0KYA. The Society has also confirmed that RSGB RadCom Technical Editor Peter Duffett-Smith, GM3XJE, will be presenting a lecture on the importance of understanding the input impedance of your transmitter. The IRTS Youth Officer Ana Cañizares, EI5IXB, will be sharing her experience of getting young people in Ireland involved in amateur radio. In addition, the RSGB has announced that it will be holding a ‘women in amateur radio' panel discussion. This exciting session will highlight five women who enjoy different aspects of amateur radio and will discuss the various opportunities, challenges and potential barriers that may exist in engaging more girls and women with amateur radio. Find out more about these thought-provoking presentations by going to rsgb.org/convention  and selecting RSGB 2025 Convention speakers from the right-hand menu. The Convention takes place between the 10th and 12th of October and is a must-do on every radio amateur's calendar. The RSGB Awards Manager has introduced a new awards series for amateur radio contacts with stations across all UK country and Crown Dependency prefixes. The Worked All UK and Crown Dependency Prefixes Award offers several different sub-sets, with the rules varying slightly for each. The idea for the award was put forward as a way of encouraging, or tapping into, intra-UK activity as well as encouraging contact with UK amateurs. Get involved with this new award by going to rsgb.org/awards  and selecting ‘Worked All UK and Crown Dependency' from the right-hand menu. You can find details of other awards offered by the Society using the same link. National Coding Week takes place during the third week of September, and the RSGB is dedicating the whole of the month to amateur radio and coding activities. This year, the Society has created two new activities for you to try. Both build on worksheets it shared in previous years; however, you don't have to have done those first. The Python Pocket Morse activity has been developed by the RSGB Maker Champion Tom Wardill, 2E0JJI and is a low-cost opportunity to learn some Morse and programming together. The exercise will cover using a BBC Micro:bit V2 and the ‘more advanced' Python programming instead of the previous block programming mode. It is intended as a gentle introduction to both Python and small computer programming and can be done without any previous knowledge of the micro:bit. You can download the full instructions by going to rsgb.org/coding  and selecting ‘Python Pocket Morse' from the right-hand menu. The other new activity is the LoRa balloon challenge. As well as the manual, which guides you through the process of building your own LoRa tracker and seeing how far your signal can reach, the Society has released a video in which Fraser, MM0EFI, demonstrates the process. Find both on the RSGB website at rsgb.org/lora-balloon International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend started at 0001UTC on Saturday, the 16th and ends at 2400UTC today, the 17th of August. The event usually attracts more than 500 lighthouse entries located in over 40 countries. To find out more and to view a list of participating stations, visit illw.net This year's British Inland Waterways on the Air event will run from Saturday, the 23r,d until Monda,y the 25th of August. The event is open to amateurs who use canals, towpaths, rivers, lakes or reservoirs for work or recreation. To find out more, visit Nunsfield House Amateur Radio Group's website at nharg.org.uk  and follow the ‘BIWOTA 2025' link. Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk. The deadline for submissions is 10 am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week.   And now for details of rallies and events Today, the 17th, Finningley Amateur Radio Society Rally opens its doors at 10 am. More details are available at g0ghk.com Also today, the 17th, the West Manchester Radio Club Red Rose Summer Rally is taking place at Mather Hall, Mather Lane, Leigh, WN7 2PJ from 10 am. More information is available by following the ‘Red Rose Rally' tab at wmrc.co.uk On Sunday, the 24th the Milton Keynes Amateur Radio Society Rally is taking place at Heron's Lodge Guide Activity Centre, Bradwell Road, Loughton Lodge, Milton Keynes. Free on-site parking, catering and disabled facilities will be available. The entrance fee is £3. The doors open to the public from 9 am. For more information, visit mkars.org.uk/mkrally Also on Sunday the 24th, the Torbay Amateur Radio Society Rally is taking place at Newton Abbot Racecourse. The doors open at 10 am and entry costs £3. You can find out more via torbayars.org Now the Special Event news Leicester Radio Society is active as GB8OVJ until tomorrow, the 18th, to mark the 80th anniversary of VJ Day. The station is operating on the HF, 2m and 70cm bands. Operators are using CW, phone, FT4, FT8, SSTV and RTTY. More information is available at QRZ.com 4U0ITU is the callsign in use by the International Amateur Radio Club at ITU HQ in Geneva. The station is active in celebration of the 160th anniversary of the International Telecommunication Union. QSL via Logbook of the World and OQRS. Now the DX news Steve, ZL2KE, is active as E51KEE from Rarotonga, OC-013, on the South Cook Islands until tomorrow, the 18th of August. He is operating CW and some SSB on the 40 to 10m bands. QSL directly to IK2DUW. QSOs will be uploaded to Club Log and Logbook of the World. Phill, C21TS, is active in Nauru until September 2025. He has made over 83,000 QSOs so far and hopes to reach 100,000 contacts before leaving the island. Recently, the station was spotted on the HF bands using FT8. QSL via Logbook of the World and OQRS. Now the contest news On Tuesday the 19th, the RSGB 1.3GHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130 UTC. Using all modes on the 23cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Thursday the 21st, the 70MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130 UTC. Using all modes on the 4m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Sunday the 24th, the UK Microwave Group 5.7 and 10GHz Contest runs from 0600 to 1800 UTC. Using all modes on 5.7 and 10GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Thursday the 14th of August Last weekend was characterised by unsettled geomagnetic conditions caused by a massive coronal hole on the Sun. At one point, the Kp index got up to 6, with a corresponding decrease in maximum usable frequencies, or MUFs. The Dourbes Digisonde failed to record much at all over six hours. Luckily, that disruption had passed by Monday the 11th as the ionosphere started to get back to normal. Meanwhile, the solar flux index reached a peak of 153 on the 10th, before dropping back to 140 on Thursday, the 14th. There have been numerous C-class solar flares and ten M-class events over the past five days, but nothing of note. The MUF over a 3,000km path exceeded 24.9MHz at times, but has generally been between 21 and 24MHz. Another coronal hole is Earth-centric at the moment and could cause some disruption, with increased Kp indices by tomorrow, the 18th or Tuesday the 19th. HF DX has been good at times, with the stand-out station being T30TTT in Western Kiribati. The station has been worked on many bands, including 20, 15 and 10m using CW, as well as FT4 and FT8. After two weeks, there will be just one operator who is there until mid-September. So you have plenty of time to work him. Stanley, AH6KO, in Hawaii, has also been spotted on the 15m band using CW. This is a relatively rare opportunity and good for anyone chasing their Worked All States award. A little closer to home is Henri, OJ0JR on Market Reef, who has been easily workable on the 30m band using FT8. Get in quick, though, as he is only there until tomorrow, the 18th. Next week, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index will remain in the 140 to 150 range. Unsettled geomagnetic conditions are forecast for tomorrow, the 18th, until Wednesday the 20th, probably caused by the coronal hole mentioned earlier. Better conditions are predicted for the 23rd to the 27th with a maximum Kp index of 3. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO Last week's propagation highlights were SSB and CW QSOs between the UK and Las Canarias on both the 23 and 13cm bands between G4GLT, EA8DMF, ED8BRZ and EB8AYA.  There may be more Tropo next week with high pressure close to, or over, the British Isles. However, at this time of the year, any Tropo will be due to temperature inversions. These can be at the surface and are especially persistent over water, so look for marine paths across the North Sea or up the east coast to Scotland. Other potentially good marine paths might be across the Channel or Biscay to Spain and beyond. The hot days of high summer break down these surface inversions over the land during the day so, if your station is inland, your best chances of Tropo in summer will often be overnight and until mid-morning. Inversions can also be elevated in the region of the high pressure, say between 1 and 2km above ground, giving good DX prospects that are not affected by the heating of the summer day. In this high-pressure period, it is much more likely to be a surface inversion that drives the Tropo. There will be little rain in prospect except for parts of Ireland, South Wales and southwest England, where a few thundery showers are possible. However, these will not be particularly good for rain scatter. There continue to be some aurora alerts, so monitor the Kp index and if it is rising to, say, 6, try beaming north on the 10, 6, 4 and 2m bands in turn to see if any genuine auroral signals are coming back. Lastly, the Sporadic-E season is coming into its closing weeks. 10m is a good band to check first. If Sporadic-E is very short-skip there, try moving up to 6m or beyond for a strong event. Digital modes are best, so use these to get clues as to where the CW and SSB paths might show up next. Meteor scatter operators have been very busy during the Perseids meteor shower. The Perseids should still provide some activity in the coming week. Moon declination is positive and rising until Tuesday the 19th, so Moon window lengths and peak elevation will follow suit. Path losses are rising again as we are now past perigee. 144MHz sky noise is low to moderate all next week. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

Foundations of Amateur Radio One of the many challenges associated with being a radio amateur is actually being able to listen to weak signals. If you're like me and more than half the planet, you live in an urban area, which comes with the benefits and pitfalls of having neighbours. From a radio perspective, there's plenty of noise that drowns out weak signals, so more and more amateurs are finding new and interesting ways to deal with this. Over the years I've talked plenty about so-called web-sdr, or internet accessible software defined radios. Essentially a radio receiver, preferably in a radio quiet area, hooked up to some software that allows you to listen in using a web browser. There's thousands of internet based services across the globe, the most popular of those are websdr.org and kiwisdr.com. As a new amateur you might have visited one or more of these and tuned around to listen to various radio stations and QSOs or contacts between amateurs, on bands that you can't access because you don't have the gear, or frequencies that are drowned out locally by your neighbour's pool pump, air conditioner, LED lighting, solar power inverter, television, motor home, cycle, or whatever else they seem to have an endless supply of behind closed doors. As a crusty amateur, and after about 15 years, I'm probably one of those, you might have started experimenting with building your own, or you might be blissfully unaware of these internet marvels. Either way, one restriction you run into is the ability to do anything other than listen. You might get the option to pick between Upper and Lower Side Band, or AM, sometimes even FM, but generally that's your lot. This means that trying to use such a tool to decode WSPR, or FT8, or RTTY, CW, PSK31, or whatever else takes your fancy becomes a challenge. It occurred to me that if you're able to capture the raw signal from a web browser, you could feed that into your decoder of choice. It would also mean that you wouldn't need any local hardware to start playing. Before you get all hot and bothered like I did. This is a non-trivial process that several others have attempted to wade through with varying levels of success. Much of the documentation I've discovered revolves around virtual audio cables and loop back software, and even the idea that you physically plug your computer's speaker output into your line input, or even hold a microphone up to your speakers. Aside from the lack of elegance associated with such contraptions, they require that you install all manner of weird software, and in many cases deal with permissions, since microphones are generally locked for good privacy reasons. Prompted by the webserial tool by Phil VK7JJ, it occurred to me that if we can talk to actual physical hardware within a web browser, then we can probably use a web browser as an audio source for local decoding software. Before you start hunting for the source code, there is none. I've spent the past few days playing around and although I made a waterfall display inside GNU Radio that used the audio from websdr.org, the results were not amazing, and I created a proof of concept by using a tool called BlackHole on the Macintosh I was using at the time. It's essentially doing shenanigans with audio mapping, not something which I really want to do, but it gives me a pretty picture, or not, as the case may be. More interesting is the progress being made over in the KiwiSDR community, where there is already an I/Q button, in other words, the raw data needed for processing further down the line. I came across projects that link the KiwiSDR to other tools, but it's unclear if that's the hardware, or the web client, I suspect it's the hardware, but I might be mistaken. If you're not sure what this might mean, think about listening to the same frequency at the same time across the globe using multiple web browser tabs, and comparing the signals in real time, or decoding them, or using them for comparing signal strengths, or propagation, or any number of things that are currently only possible with a vast network of radios under your own control. If you need to nerd out on the technicalities, the idea is that if you can access an SDR via a web browser, it would be cool if we could decode the stream coming back without needing to install software on the computer. There appear to be tools that do this kind of thing to get the audio into "ffmpeg". If that's gobbledegook to you, ffmpeg is a tool that allows you to do all kinds of cool stuff with audio and video. Using something called WASM, or webassembly, it's possible to link web browser audio to ffmpeg. I suspect it's possible to use the same mechanism to send audio to GNU Radio, or any other decoder, for processing. There also appears to be a thing called a Web Audio API AudioBuffer where the raw audio gets sent to, so perhaps that's accessible in some way. The point being, that I think this is doable, so much so, that I suspect that someone already did this. If you know of anything that fits the bill, let me know. In case you're wondering, this is tangentially linked to the Bald Yak project I've been working on, mainly because I need incoming RF into my shack and my HF antenna situation at present is really not up to the task, urbanite and all. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Digital Modes, Text Messaging, Repeaters—and Why Clarity Matters In this episode of the Prep Comms Podcast, we dive into one of the most misunderstood parts of MURS radio: digital modes. Is digital really banned on MURS? Can you send a text? What about crossband repeaters or modes like MT63, RTTY, or APRS? Caleb clears the air by breaking down what the FCC actually allows—and where people still cross the line. From legal analog data modes to banned digital voice, this episode brings clarity to a confusing corner of the radio spectrum. We'll also hit: Texting over MURS (yes, it's possible) Why repeaters—including crossband—are a no-go How your antenna system makes or breaks signal strength What “manual control” and bandwidth limits really mean Mentioned in this episode:

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day Randall, VK6WR, encouraged me to get on-air. He described it like this: "There is a mystery signal on 40m that you can try your new Universal Radio Hacker skills on. It appears to be a FSK signal separated by 7kHz with the two signals at 7.0615 and 7.0685 MHz. Each of them on their own sounds a bit like a Morse signal, but my CW decoder decodes junk. But if you can see it on a spectrum scope, it is clearly FSK because either one of them is on at any time." He went on to say: "You'll need an SDR to receive the signal given the separation, but could be a fun investigation!" Having just discovered "Universal Radio Hacker", a tool that can help you decode radio signals, that sounded like something I'd love to have a go at. Unfortunately, after the demise of my main workstation last year, my current set-up doesn't allow me to do such recordings, but Randall, ever the gentleman, provided a recording of the signal. He writes: "This was captured with gqrx demodulating the signal as SSB audio with the VFO tuned to 7.060, so both "signals" are there, one very low freq and one very high freq." If you're curious, I've uploaded the file as it was shared with me to my VK6FLAB GitHub repository under "signals". Over the next two days I spent my time attempting to decode this signal. I opened up Universal Radio Hacker and spent delightful hours getting precisely .. nowhere. Some of that is absolutely my unfamiliarity with the tool, but this is a great exercise in learning on the fly, where truth be told, I tend to live most of my life. It wasn't until several hours later that I decided I should at least listen to the audio. To my ear it sounded like 25 WPM Morse Code, but being still in the learning phases, while my brain was triggering on the sequences, decoding wasn't happening. Of course I could cheat and forward the audio to one of my fellow amateurs, but the actual message wasn't really the point of the exercise, at least not at this stage. Instead I fired up "multimon-ng" which has an in-built Morse decoder. I spent some hours doing more Yak Shaving than I was expecting, but even then, I still didn't get more than gobbledegook out of the process. I used "Audacity" to shift one of the signals by one wavelength and mixed them together. This allowed me to reduce the noise significantly, but still none of my tools did anything useful. In case you're wondering why, if you have a tone and noise and shift one signal by the wavelength of the tone, then mix them, the tone adds to itself, but the noise, random in nature, is just as likely to add as it is to subtract, so in effect, you're increased the signal to noise ratio. After multimon-ng failed, I tried an online Morse decoder, which gave me all manner of text, but none of it made sense to me. Of course it's possible that this is someone rag chewing in a different language, but I couldn't make any sense of the thing. I did come up with some issues that prompted me to create the signal repository. I realised that I didn't have any known "good" signals. Previously I'd tried decoding a sample FT4 signal, but that went nowhere, mainly because the signal was noisy. So, what I'm going to do over the next couple of weeks is create some clean, as-in, computer generated, known signals, and add them to the repository. The aim is to have a known good starting point to learn from. In software development this technique is often used to limit the number of unconstrained variables. In our case, if I generate a known good Morse Code signal, then I can learn how to use Universal Radio Hacker to decode it, so when I come across an unknown signal, I can use the techniques I learnt to attempt to decode it. Feel free to make pull requests with known good signals yourself. RTTY, PSK31, WSPR, FT8, etc. Feel free to include non-amateur modes. One thing, I'm not looking for off-air recordings of signals, yet, that can come later, right now I need signals that are pure, as-in, as I said, computer generated. Of course at some point, perhaps sooner rather than later, I'll discover that generated signals are no easier to decode than off-air recordings, but that's for another day. Meanwhile, you too can play. Download one or more sample files and decode them. Let me know what you learn. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Foundations of Amateur Radio A recent comment by a fellow amateur sparked a train of thought that made me wonder why there is a pervasive idea within our community that you need a radio transmitter and antenna to be a radio amateur, moreover that for some reason, if you don't have either, you're not a real amateur. I suppose it's related to the often repeated trope that the internet enabled modes like Allstar Link, Echolink and even IRLP, are not real radio, despite evidence to the contrary. Instead of fighting this weird notion, I figured I'd get on with it and find a way to play even if you don't currently have the ability to erect an antenna or key a transmitter for whatever reason. Before I dig in, a WebSDR is a Software Defined Radio connected to the Internet. It allows a user to open a web browser, pick from a massive collection of receivers around the world and listen in. Some of these also have the ability to transmit, but more on that later. Here's the idea. Have you ever considered tuning to a WebSDR, using it to pick a signal and using your computer to decode that signal? I'm aware that some sites provide a range of in-built decoders, but that doesn't cover the wide spectrum of modes that amateur radio represents, let alone the modes that are not specific to our hobby. As I've said previously, many of the modes in use today are essentially the width of an audio stream. This means that if you tune a WebSDR to a frequency the audio comes out of your computer speakers. If that's voice, your job is done and you can hear what's going on. If it's something else, then you're going to have to find a way to decode this to get the message. So, if you send the audio from your web browser into something like Fldigi or WSJT-X, you'll be able to decode the signal if it's supported by those tools. This is true for all the other tools too, Morse, RTTY, you name it. Depending on which operating system you're using the way to implement this will differ. Starting with a search for "WebSDR and WSJT-X" will get you on your way. You might ask why I'm advocating WSJT-X, even though it only supports a small set of modes and that's a fair question. In my experience, it's the simplest to get running and get results. Two tips, make sure you set your configuration to indicate that you don't have a radio, otherwise it's going to attempt to control something that isn't there, and make sure that your computer clock is set accurately using NTP or Network Time Protocol. You can thank me later. Now I hinted earlier at transmitting. There's a growing range of places where your amateur license will give you access to a station somewhere on the internet and with that the ability to get on air and make noise. An increasing number of radio amateur clubs are building remote stations for their members to enjoy. There are also individuals and small groups doing the same independently. A few organisations are offering this as a service to paid subscribers. These tools often implement a remote desktop session where you connect to a computer that in turn is connected to a radio. The supported modes depend on what is installed at the other end. Others implement a slightly different method where you run specialised software locally, sometimes inside a web browser, that connects to a server across the internet, allowing you to run whatever digital mode you want on your own computer. I'll point out that even if you start with receiving digital modes using a WebSDR, you can expand that into transmitting at a later stage. So, no antenna, no transmitter, no problem, still an amateur! I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Foundations of Amateur Radio Over the years I've talked about different ways of using our license to transmit. I've discussed things like modes such as voice AM, FM, and SSB, and digital modes like FT8, WSPR, RTTY, FreeDV, Hellschreiber, Olivia and even Morse code. Recently it occurred to me that there is something odd about how we do this as a community. Now that I've realised this it's hard to unsee. Let me see if I can get you to the same place of wonder. Why is it that we as amateurs only use one such mode at a time? Let me say that again. With all the modes we have available to us, why do we only use one mode at a time, why do we get our brain into the mindset of one activity, stop doing that in order to move to another mode? It's weird. Amateur radio is what's called "frequency agile". What I mean by that is we are not restricted to a fixed number of channels like most, if not all other radio users. We can set our transmission frequency to whatever we want, within the restrictions imposed by our license conditions, and start making noise. There's agreement on what mode you can use where, but within that comes a great deal of flexibility. We have the ability to find each other. Call CQ and if the band is open and your station is transmitting a signal, the chance is good that someone somewhere on planet Earth will respond. We change frequency at will, almost without thought, but why don't we do this with modes? The closest I've seen is local VHF and UHF contests where you get different points depending on which mode you're using, and even that seems hard fought. It's weird. We have an increasing range of Software Defined Radios, or SDR, where your voice, or incoming text, can be transformed to a different mode at the touch of a button, but we rarely if ever actually use this ability. In case you're thinking that the restriction relates to the availability of SDR in the average amateur radio shack, most amateur modes fit within a normal audio stream and that same flexibility could be applied to the vast majority of transmitters scattered around the globe, but to my knowledge, it isn't. Why is that? Better still, what can we do about it? Can we develop procedures and processes to make us more, let's call it "mode agile", giving us the ability to change mode at the same ease as we change frequency? What would a "mode and frequency agile" amateur look like? What processes would you use? Right now the best we have is to QSY, or announce that we're changing frequency, but I've never heard anyone use that to describe a change of mode. Of course it's possible that I've led a sheltered life and not been on-air enough, but if that's the case, I'd love to hear about it. So, what is stopping us from becoming even more flexible? Do we need to practice this, develop better tools, teach new amateurs, have multimode nets, invent new modes that share information across different modes simultaneously, build radios that can transmit on different frequencies, or something else? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Hello and Welcome to the DX Corner for your weekly Dose of DX as part of Ham Radios oldest Ham Radio Magazine on the air, “This week in amateur radio.” I'm Bill, AJ8B. I am not sure how many of you are interested in 60M, but overall interest is growing. One of my best friends, Joe, W8GEX, produces a 60-meter newsletter. Joe is considered by many as the godfather of 60m. With almost 250 entities confirmed on 60, I can understand why. New Zealand stations ZL4OL and ZL2CC have been heard around 0700z. Watch your 60m packet cluster for these advid 60M operators. 4U1UN has been on 60m recently. Keep an eye out for that one also. Some of the rare DX on 60 meters recently has included A51AE, 7Q6M, and T77C.Don't forget to have a look at our website 60metersonline.com. There are details about our DXCC and WAS Awards for 60 meters. . Thanks, Joe, for letting me use this information. You can learn more about 60 meters by checking out the DX Mentor podcast, episode 24. (https://youtu.be/Mq7YN6euHHM ) Just go to YouTube or your podcast app and search for The DX Mentor. Episode 24 will give you all the details about getting on 60 meters. This section of DX News comes from Bernie, W3UR, editor of the DailyDX, the WeeklyDX, and the How's DX column in QST. If you would like a free 2-week trial of the DailyDX, your only source of real-time DX information, just drop me a note at thedxmentor@gmail.com Inveterate DXpeditioner IV3FSG, Elvira, will operate D68Z from March 3 until at least March 18. Elvira is currently QRV. She will be operating on 160-6M CW, SSB, RTTY, FT8, and FT4. Elvira will use three ICOM IC-7300 radios, with one dedicated to 6M (grid locator LH18og) operational around the clock. The antenna setup will include a 6M delta loop, a DX Commander vertical for 30-10M, and an IWØRGN multiband vertical for 160-10M. To minimize duplicate QSOs, please verify Club Log online and Club Log LiveStream. For digital QSOs, monitor D68Z on PSK Reporter. IKØXBX, Francesco, will be the pilot station for this DXpedition. QSL cards are available via OQRS and LoTW. The VK9XU team ended their Christmas Island operation on Tuesday at 0257Z with around 58,000 QSOs, surpassing expectations. They thanked everyone for their discipline in the pileups. The team is now heading to Cocos (Keeling) Island. Arriving after sunset, they will start limited activity the first night and set up antennas the next day. They look forward to working everyone as VK9CU on Cocos. The DX-Adventure team is embarking on a DXpedition to the Andaman Islands (AS-001) as VU4AX from March 10th to March 20th, 2025. The team, consisting of 12 experienced operators, will be active around the clock on multiple bands from 10m to 160m, including WARC + 60m, using CW, SSB, and DIGI modes. They will operate six stations, transporting 1,150kg of meticulously prepared equipment to ensure the best possible experience. The DXpedition aims to provide a rare opportunity for QSOs, especially for USA operators, as VU4 ranks #28 for the USA and #53 worldwide. The team is supported by three experienced Pilot Stations: W2IRT Peter J. Dougherty, E21EIC Champ, and ON9CFG Bjorn. They will closely monitor propagation conditions to maximize the chances of contacts with stations across the United States. Updates and contact details for the Pilot Stations can be found on the DX-Adventure website - https://www.dx-adventure.com The DX-Adventure team looks forward to making a QSO with you from VU4 South Andaman. The DX Mentor podcast recently interview the DX-Adventure team. When that is available, I will let you know, or you can subscribe to the DX Mentor podcast and YouTube Channel to be updated.Until next week, this is Bill, AJ8B saying 73 and thanks to my XYL Karen for her love and support. I Hope to hear you in the pileups!

Foundations of Amateur Radio Recently I received a lovely email from Michele IU4TBF asking some pertinent questions about the Bald Yak project. If you're unfamiliar, the Bald Yak project aims to create a modular, bidirectional and distributed signal processing and control system that leverages GNU Radio. The short answer to how I'm doing getting GNU Radio to play nice with my computer is that I have bruises on my forehead from banging my head against the wall. When I get to success I'll document it. To be clear, I'm not sure what the root cause is. I suspect it lies between the GNU Radio developers, the people making packages and the manufacturer of my computer. I'm the lucky one stuck in the middle. A more interesting question that Michele asked was, for Bald Yak, what is the A/D and D/A requirement for making GNU Radio talk to an antenna? This is a much deeper question that meets the eye and I think it serves as a way to discuss what I think that this project looks like. Ultimately in the digital realm, to receive, an analogue antenna signal needs to be converted to digital using an Analogue to Digital or A/D converter, and to transmit, the reverse uses a Digital to Analogue or D/A converter to make an electrical signal appear on your antenna. The specific A/D or D/A converter determines what you can do. The sampling rate of such a converter determines what frequencies it can handle, the sample size determines the range of signals it can handle. You can compare it with a video screen. The sample rate determines how many pixels on the screen, the sample size determines how many colours in each pixel. The sample rate of an A/D converter is measured in samples per second. If the device only has one channel, you could think of this as Hertz, but if there are multiple channels, like say a sound-card, the sample rate is likely equally divided across each channel. You might have a sound card capable of 384 thousand samples per second, or kilo-samples, but if it supports simultaneous stereo audio input and output, only 96 of those 384 kilo-samples will be allocated to each channel and only half of those will actually help reconstruct the audio signal, leaving you with 48 kHz audio. In other words, the advertised frequency response might not have a direct and obvious relationship with the sample rate. At the moment I have access to a few different A/D and D/A converters. The simplest one, a USB audio sound card, appears to do up to 192 kilo-samples at 16 bits. The next one, an RTL-SDR tops out at a theoretical rate of 3.2 million or mega-samples at 8 bits. The Analog Devices ADALM-PLUTO, or PlutoSDR handles 61.44 mega-samples at 12 bits. Now, to be clear, there are other limitations and considerations which I'm skipping over. Consider for example the speed at which each of these devices can talk to a computer, in this case over USB. I'm also going to ignore things like mixers, allowing devices like the RTL-SDR and PlutoSDR to tune across frequency ranges that go beyond their sample rate. Each of these three devices can convert an analogue antenna signal into bits that can be processed by GNU Radio. All of them can also be used to do the opposite and transmit. Yes, you heard me, several amateurs figured out that an RTL-SDR can actually transmit. Credit to Ismo OH2FTG, Tatu OH2EAT, and Oscar IK1XPV. The point being that whatever Bald Yak looks like, it will need to handle a range of A/D and D/A converters. As I've said previously, I'm aiming for this to work incrementally for everyone. This means that if you have a sound card in your computer or an $8 USB one, this should work and if you have an $33,000 NI Ettus USRP X410 lying around, this too should work. Also, if you have an X410 lying around not doing anything, I'd be happy to put it to use, you know, for testing. So, kidding aside, what about the rest of the Bald Yak experience? GNU Radio works with things called blocks. Essentially little programs that take data, do something to it, then output it in some way. It follows the Unix philosophy, make each program do one thing well, expect the output of every program to become the input to another, design and build software to be tried early and use tools rather than unskilled labour. Amateur radio transceivers traditionally use electronics blocks, but if we move to software, we can update and expand our capabilities as the computer we're using gets faster and the GNU Radio blocks evolve, and because it's all digital the computer doesn't actually have to be in the same box, let alone the same room, it could be in multiple boxes scattered around the Internet. So, the idea of Bald Yak is a collection of blocks that allow you to do radio things. You might have a separate box for each amateur radio mode, AM, FM, SSB, RTTY, CW, WSPR, FT8, FT4, Q65, but also modes like Olivia, FreeDV, SSTV, Packet, PSK31 or Thor. Instead of having to figure out how to wire these modes into your radio and your computer, the infrastructure is already there and you just download another block for a mode you want to play with. We'll need to deal with variables like which A/D and D/A converter is being used and what their limitations are. We'll also need to build a command and control layer and probably a few other things. I'm considering a few other aspects. For example, GNU Radio is mostly run with text files. We might distribute those using something like a web store. GNU Radio is proving hard to install, perhaps a LiveCD is the way to go. We'll need to come up with a base level of functionality and the documentation to go with it. I'm still contemplating how to best licence this all, specifically to stop it from being exploited. Feel free to get in touch if you have ideas. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

This is The DX Mentor podcast. I hope to help those hams trying to move up the DXCC ladder as well as those that at on the DXCC Honor Roll. As fast as technology is moving, no one can keep up on it all. I am here to help. #DX #Hamradio Our guests were Ed, W0YK, and Joe, W8GEX The topics that we covered included: Intros - Joe, W8GEX, and then you How did you get in to Ham Radio? How did you get in to chasing DX? You have operated from Japan, Syria, Jamaica, and the Galapagos. Can you give us highlights of those operations? How did you get in to contesting? RTTY: Describe it a bit Seems to be your favorite mode, what do you like about it? Are there still DX stations using RTTY? Describe the various RTTY contests It would seem to me to be as popular as ever, correct? Let's talk about the RTTY sprint - seems daunting to me Resources mentioned include: RTTY Contesting : https://www.rttycontesting.com/ AA5AU Page : https://www.aa5au.com/ Weekly RTTY Sprint : https://radiosport.world/wrt.html NCCC Weekly Sprint : https://www.ncccsprint.com/rttyns.html MMTTY RTTY Decoder : https://hamsoft.ca/pages/mmtty.php 2Tone RTTY Decoder : https://www.rttycontesting.com/downloads/2tone/ North American Sprint : https://www.contestcalendar.com/contestdetails.php?ref=155 CQWW RTTY DX Contest : https://www.contestcalendar.com/contestdetails.php?ref=130 Southwest Ohio DX Assoc. https://www.swodxa.org Daily DX https://www.dailydx.com/ DX Engineering https://www.dxengineering.com/ Icom https://www.icomamerica.com/ IC-905 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-905/ IC-9700 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-9700/ IC-7610 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-7610/ IC-7300 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-7300/ IC-7760 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-7760 IC-PW2 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-PW2

January 11, 1965, Amateur Radio Station WN9NSO made its first, shaky 5 wpm CW… attempt… in the 40 meter Novice band. 60 years later, WN9NSO is now K4AAQ, our East Coast Host. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, as Gary talks about what ham radio was like for that Novice, 60 years ago. No repeaters. No digital (RTTY was it). No computers. Lots of AM.Gary opened up the Zoom and was joined by Ron K9ID, a friend from the Chicago suburbs and then WN9RPD/WA9RPD, and a newer friend, Jerry KE4TTS. Join us for a trip down memory lane.

Foundations of Amateur Radio Bald Yak, week 2 During the week an interesting question was put to me. Am I going to make this into a GNU Radio tutorial? In short, no and yes. At this point I know enough about what I'm attempting, to recognise that I'll be deep diving into the bowels of GNU Radio and the inevitable idiosyncrasies that a large project like that has and as a result I'll likely have to explain the context in which something broke, which will no doubt result in me having to walk you through the details. So, this means that there will be trips into how this thing works, but I'm not currently planning a GNU Radio course, not only because that's not what Bald Yak is about, but because I like to know what I'm talking about, even if the peanut gallery might at this point call out: "Why start now?" -- yes, from time to time, what I'm talking about here is based on something I'm still in the process of learning and obviously I make mistakes. Now, if you haven't been playing along, let me state the purpose of why I'm here. "The Bald Yak project aims to create a modular, bidirectional and distributed signal processing and control system that leverages GNU Radio." In the pursuit of happiness, I've been resisting making a table with the various communication protocols in use to extract data and control the data stream within the software defined radio world. I've been avoiding this because I don't feel like I know the landscape well enough. Of course, making the table will create a better understanding, chicken and egg. I do have a handle on what functionality is required. So, in the spirit of writing it down or it didn't happen, here's what I know. This thing needs to be bi-directional because it needs to be able to receive and transmit. I don't yet know if this functionality needs to be symmetric. What I mean by that is that I don't know if both directions need the same functionality. Consider for example a distributed receiver decoder. Imagine a device that spits out bytes at a particular rate. These bytes represent received radio signal. How and what they are specifically I'll leave alone for the moment. This information needs to be read and processed. The processing could happen on the same computer, or it could be a separate computer connected to the local network, or a remote network across the internet. There could be more than one computer doing the work. We could choose to send the whole stream of bytes, our radio signal, to every computer. This is how YouTube works when multiple people watch the same video - and yes, I'm ignoring caching for the moment. It requires a boatload of network bandwidth and hardware. You could send part of the signal to a receiver, this is how WebSDR works. This requires a mechanism to select and control each part of the data stream. A third option is to use a networking technique called multicast. It provides a way to send a data intensive stream, like our radio signal, to multiple computers simultaneously. NASA uses this to distribute radio signals all over the place. I used it in the early 1990's to broadcast a live radio show I hosted, Online Computing Radio, across the globe with listeners in Sweden, Switzerland and Greenland whilst I was in a radio studio in Perth, Western Australia. This only to say that multicast has been around for a long time. Another way to look at this is that a radio transmission is a multicast signal. As long as you're within range, anyone can receive the same signal. To keep track of what we were talking about, this is discussing how a digitised received radio signal is distributed to various computers for processing. Each of those three methods can be combined in interesting ways depending on requirements. For example, a spectrum logging tool might expect the entire stream, but an FM decoder might only want one little slice, a RTTY decoder might want a different slice and an FT8 decoder yet another. Before I go on, let me come up with some terms. No doubt these will get refined, but for now, I'm going to define a receiver as a computer that acts as a destination, or sink, for a stream of radio bytes across the network. Similarly, I'll define a computer that generates a source of radio bytes as a transmitter. I'm not yet sure what to call the computer that's physically connected to the antenna, but I'll start with using the term "antenna node". This isn't strictly accurate, since there's more than an antenna there, but I have to start somewhere. I note that GNU Radio calls a transmitter a source and calls a receiver a sink. With that nomenclature, our "antenna node" would be considered both a sink and a source, which doesn't really help us here. Back to the receiver. All of this needs some form of control intelligence, as-in, a receiver needs to be able to control where the signal comes from, or said differently, you need to be able select an antenna node. Not only that, you need to be able to tell the antenna node specifically what data you want and perhaps in what form. Now, on the reverse side of this, the transmit chain, do we need the same functionality? Does an antenna node need to be able to accommodate multiple transmitters? Does such a thing exist? Do we want it to exist? How would we get one data stream from the transmitter to the antenna node? How would we do this with multiple streams? Is the same control system required? At this point you're likely to realise that this isn't trivial. We can pick something and just start, but I'd like to spend at least a little amount of time considering the options. With over 40 years in the computing field I'm leaning towards making the transmit and receive identical because we don't yet know what we don't know and besides I can sort of see how multiple transmitters might use the same antenna node and what the real world applications of this might be. Something else to wrap your head around, what if the transmit logic was the reverse of the receive logic, as-in, the same thing, just swapping sink and source around. It has a certain elegance about it, even if I don't yet know how this might be achieved. I'd also like to take a moment to thank Kevin VE7ZD, Nick VA3NNW and Mark W1MM for their thoughts and suggestions. Keep them coming. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

This is The DX Mentor podcast. I hope to help those hams trying to move up the DXCC ladder as well as those that at on the DXCC Honor Roll. As fast as technology is moving, no one can keep up on it all. I am here to help. #DX #Hamradio Our guests today are Rolf, DL7VEE, Christian, DL6KAC, and Joe, W8GEX. We are going to be discussing the upcoming DXPedition to C21MM, Nauru with Rolf and Christian. The DXpedition to Nauru, C21MM, will run from October 10th, 2024 to October 29th, 2024. I normally don't do this, but from the Daily DX, I can share the following information, which is essentially what we discussed in the first 12 minutes: With less than 4 weeks to go, the team of 14 German operators are ready. We follow our main principles being light-weight and cost effective. As always, only transceivers from Elecraft will be used. All equipment including antennas will be transported by the team members using “traditional luggage” partly oversized. However, this does not mean that we compromise on the antennas. For the high bands we are going to use our 2-element full size wire beam from LZ Antennas. That provides us with some dB more gain compared to a vertical. By using the LBS Pentaplexer we can operate 3 high bands together at the same time on this antenna. As always, we follow our strategy to use resonant and full-size single band antennas on all bands (except 160 m). No grounded verticals will be used. Verticals with an elevated radial are even better for reception, also known as Up & Outer. This time we will carry two 22 m (72 feet) Spiderbeam fiberglass poles for 160 m & 80 m (compared to 18 m poles on our last DXpeditions). That is perfect for 80 m and an improvement for the top band as well. We will also bring the brand new 14-m-HD-fiberglass pole from Spiderbeam which gives us 2 m more height compared to the 12-m-HD-pole. This one is perfect for bands from 60 m and up. For low band receiving we plan BOGs. Jan, OK2ZAW (QRO.CZ), supported us with RX band filter boards for splitting one BOG to different receivers on different bands. For 40 & 30 m we try loops this time. We always use small band pass filters for each band between transceiver and amplifier and additional bigger band pass filters to the antennas. We will run our proven shift system with radio and free time slots 24/7, ensuring that our experienced operators will have full concentration in their shift. 5 stations between 160 and 6 m in CW, SSB, RTTY and FT8 are planned. Starting with a first group of 6 men from October 10th only on high bands for few days. Second part of the group will arrive October 15. Here are some of the links that we mention during the discussion: https://c21mm.mydx.de http://www.dl7vee.de https://c21mm.mydx.de/?Welcome https://c21mm.mydx.de/?Donate_here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFh_EW64gDo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1KrGZRzVGY Southwest Ohio DX Assoc. https://www.swodxa.org DX Code of Conduct : https://www.dx-code.com/ Daily DX https://www.dailydx.com/ DX Engineering https://www.dxengineering.com/ Icom https://www.icomamerica.com/ IC-905 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-905/ IC-9700 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-9700/ IC-7610 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-7610/ IC-7300 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-7300/

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I was handed a sheaf of paper. The person handing it to me, an amateur, was insistent that I take custody of this little collection. I asked what it was that they intended for me to do with it and the response was that because I did things with history, I should do this too. Aside from taking on a new project, trying to juggle life and income, their observation was pretty spot on, even though I had never quite seen it in that way. Over the years I've often explained things in the context of the era in which it came into being, the first transatlantic telegraph cable in 1858, the first 20m contact between the UK and Australia, back in 1925, the founding of the IARU, also in 1925. For some years I've been playing with the idea of documenting the journey from Spark Gap to SDR. I started writing down milestones, collecting information about the various protagonists along the way, attempting to capture their life milestones and their radio related accomplishments. One friend went so far as to take photos of the replica spark gap transmitter in Hobart, Tasmania as used by Douglas Mawson between 1911 and 1914 during their Antarctic expedition. Between being entrusted with the written history of 28 Chapter of the Ten-Ten International Net and today I've started a spreadsheet. If you know me at all, you know that I love a good spreadsheet. This one is pretty simple, date, event, event type, protagonist, note and source. So far I've got about 85 rows. I'm using it to capture milestones directly related to our hobby, when the first EchoLink node went live, when RTTY came to be used on-air, the invention of FM, when we got access to the 2m band, when 160m was taken away during World War II, ultimately, all of it. There is already a website that documents some of this but it's USA centric, even though our community is global, and it does not include any sources, so there's no way to verify any of the events, which I think is essential if you're going to capture this in any meaningful way. I want this list I'm creating to include all manner of amateur related things, the first time F-troop went on-air, the first CQWW, perhaps even every CQWW. I have also set-up a form so you can contribute your events and over time grow it into something that captures what it is that we've done over the years. Perhaps it will grow into a section on Wikipedia, perhaps it will become its own thing, it's too early to tell. As I've said many times, if you didn't write it down, it didn't happen. So, this is me, or us, writing it down. Perhaps we'll be able to find a way to make it through the next 100 years. You can find the Amateur History Project under Projects on my home-page at vk6flab.com - I look forward to reading your contributions. So, thank you Christine, VK6ZLZ for pushing that sheaf of paper into my hands. I hope I'm worthy of the history that it represents. I'm Onno Vk6FLAB

This is The DX Mentor podcast. I hope to help those hams trying to move up the DXCC ladder as well as those that at on the DXCC Honor Roll. As fast as technology is moving, no one can keep up on it all. I am here to help. #DX #Hamradio DF4GV, DL4SVA, DK2AMM, DJ7TO, DL1KWK and DL2AWG went to Kiritimati (OC 024) from the 13th of March to the 27th of March, 2024. We ran 3 Stations, 24 hours per day. Our main modes were CW, SSB, RTTY, and some FT8. Members of our team had also participated (amongst others) in the following past DXpeditions: 3D2AW, 3D2EU, S7GWG, 4S7RTG, 5B/DJ7TO, 5R8MM, 5R8WG, 5WØGW, 5WØM, 8Q7IO, 9H3O, 9N7AN, A35WG, C21EU, H44WG, HU1DL, J48IO, J48M, J79WG, KH8/DL2AWG, MD/DL4SVA, P29RO, S79GG, TX7EU, T2C, T3ØD, T31EU, V6EU, V73D, VP6EU, XRØYD, XX9D, YJØAWG, ZBØ/DJ7TO, ZK1AWG, ZK3N, ZL/DJ7TO, ZM4T. The Guest for this episode is DF4GV Elmar : (https://www.qrz.com/db/DF4GV) Resources mentioned include: DX Code of Conduct : https://www.dx-code.com/ Southwest Ohio DX Assoc. https://www.swodxa.org Daily DX https://www.dailydx.com/ DX Engineering https://www.dxengineering.com/ Icom https://www.icomamerica.com/ IC-905 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-905/ IC-9700 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-9700/ IC-7610 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-7610/ IC-7300 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-7300/

Foundations of Amateur Radio Internet access across HF radio In the mid 1980's there was this thing called a Bulletin Board System or BBS. You would connect your computer to a gadget called an acoustic coupler that you would sit next to a telephone. You'd pick up the handset, dial a phone number and wait until there was a squeal in your ear. Then you'd push the handset into the rubber cups on the coupler and watch as your computer started putting characters on your screen. Now, truth be told, my first foray was the next generation of this, an actual modem where you didn't actually have to touch the telephone, instead, the device could dial on your behalf using so-called AT commands. And if we're being totally honest, I never actually connected to a BBS. My adventures with global communications started with Usenet News in 1990, but I'm here to make a point, I promise. Amateur radio is a hobby that is for experimentation. One such experiment is a thing called packet radio. Before you roll your eyes about ancient technology, this gets very cool, very fast. At its most basic, packet radio is about digital radio communication. Until not that long ago to play you needed a thing called a TNC or a Terminal Node Controller. When I got my license in 2010 I was told that this was a magic box to make digital communication possible between a radio and other radios and amateurs. Right now, many people are playing with WSPR, Weak Signal Propagation Reporter as well as FT8, both examples of things intended to get specific chunks of information exchanged between two stations. What if I want to chat, or send a file, or a picture? There are tools like "js8call" which is experimenting with the idea of using FT8 to chat, but what if I told you that there's a better way? Written by John WB2OSZ, named after a canine that became extinct 9,500 years ago, "direwolf", is software that implements an expensive piece of 1980's hardware, a TNC, that runs just fine on a $5 Raspberry pi. It's been around for over a decade, the oldest date I can find is March 2013 though undated versions before that exist. It's an example of a so-called software-modem, simple to get started, and it implements the essential pieces of packet radio. It's currently running connected to my radio and I can see packets of information scrolling past. In this case I'm tuned to the local APRS, or Automatic Packet Reporting System frequency of 145.175 MHz. It's the same information that you can see if you point your web browser at aprs.fi While that's great, it's just the beginning. Tune to another 2m or 70cm frequency and you can use it to connect to a BBS being run by a local amateur, or, you can tune to a HF frequency and connect to one run somewhere else. Direwolf also supports a technology called KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid, yes really, developed by Brian WB6RQN, Phil KA9Q, Mike K3MC and others. KISS allows you to connect a modem, like direwolf, to a computer and use technologies like TCP/IP, the primary language of the internet, across a radio link, any radio link. Let me say that again with different words. You can use your HF radio to browse the internet. No proprietary modes in sight, weak signal, error correction included, all open source, all free, all ready to go. While we're singing its praises, direwolf can also act as an iGate, an interface between radio and services like aprs.fi, a digipeter that receives and re-transmits APRS data and plenty more. It gets better. What if you wanted to use something like RTTY, PSK31, Olivia or some other mode? You could use "fldigi" instead of direwolf since it too supports KISS. To be fair, there are lots of moving parts here and I've glossed over plenty. This isn't intended to discuss precisely how to do this, rather that it's possible at all and has been for quite some time. I can't wait to attempt to browse the internet using my radio, for nothing other than the thrill of attempting it. I wonder if I can do this with Morse Code as the underlying protocol. Only one way to find out. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Olivier Hubert with BBC presenter Cerys Matthews for the BBC Midwinter Broadcast (Source: BAS and BBC) Many thanks to SRAA contributor, TomL, who shares the following recording of the BBC Midwinter Broadcast to Antarctica, recorded on June 21, 2024 at 21:30 UTC on 11,685 kHz.TomL notes:BBC 2024 Midwinter broadcast to Antarctica. 11685 kHz using AM-Sync (LSB). Location Campton Hills Forest Preserve, St. Charles IL. Loop-On-Ground antenna amplified by Welbrook Medium Aperture preamp, into AirSpy HF+ SDR & laptop using SDR Console 3.2. RTTY station on 11690 kHz prompted recording on the lower sideband. Thunderstorm noise persistent.

This is The DX Mentor podcast. I hope to help those hams trying to move up the DXCC ladder as well as those that at on the DXCC Honor Roll. As fast as technology is moving, no one can keep up on it all. I am here to help. #DX #Hamradio The W8S DXpedition to Swains took place October 4th to the 17th, 2023. The 10 operators made almost 90,000 QSOs on 160 – 6 meters on CW, SSB, RTTY, and FT8. Our guests today are Adrian, KO8SCA, Johannes, PA5X, and Joe, W8GEX. This past weekend, the W8S DXpedition was recognized as the 2023 SWODXA DXpedition of the Year! At that time of this recording, we did not know that this group would be the DXpedition of the Year. "From October 4, 2023 until October 17, 2023 an international team of 10 operators will be active from Swains Island as W8S. QRV on all HF bands in CW, SSB, FT8 and RTTY with 6 stations from 2 separated camps." Introductions W8GEX – Joe went to Swains in 2012. He is the co-host. I think this will be a great conversation. KO8SCA – Adrian PA5X - Johannes Video of Adrian getting the first 6 M QSO with AJ7QVI Story of Johannes trying to get a spot Swaines Island – 10/4 to 10/17 Why Swains? What was the Island Like? The Team How many stations? Preparation Challenges that you did not expect? Anything you would do differently? Overall thoughts? Success? Goals - 90K QSOs Fund raising - How can listeners contribute? What were your expectations? How can hams donate? What's next? Swains Website https://www.swains2023.com Southwest Ohio DX Assoc. https://www.swodxa.org Daily DX https://www.dailydx.com/ DX Engineering https://www.dxengineering.com/ Icom https://www.icomamerica.com/ IC-905 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-905/ IC-9700 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-9700/ IC-7610 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-7610/ IC-7300 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-7300/

This is The DX Mentor podcast. I hope to help those hams trying to move up the DXCC ladder as well as those that at on the DXCC Honor Roll. As fast as technology is moving, no one can keep up on it all. I am here to help. #DX #Hamradio We DF4GV, DL4SVA, DK2AMM, DJ7TO, DL1KWK and DL2AWG want to go Kiritimati OC 024 13th until 27th March 2024 We will be running 3 Stations 24 hours per day. Our main modes will be CW and SSB and RTTY and perhaps FT8 We will be QRV from 160 until 6 meters. No 60m ! Members of our team participated (amongst others) to the following past DXpeditions: 3D2AW, 3D2EU, S7GWG, 4S7RTG, 5B/DJ7TO, 5R8MM, 5R8WG, 5WØGW, 5WØM, 8Q7IO, 9H3O, 9N7AN, A35WG, C21EU, H44WG, HU1DL, J48IO, J48M, J79WG, KH8/DL2AWG, MD/DL4SVA, P29RO, S79GG, TX7EU, T2C, T3ØD, T31EU, V6EU, V73D, VP6EU, XRØYD, XX9D, YJØAWG, ZBØ/DJ7TO, ZK1AWG, ZK3N, ZL/DJ7TO, ZM4T. Guests: DL2AWG Guenter : https://www.qrz.com/db/DL2AWG DF4GV Elmar : https://www.qrz.com/db/DF4GV Resources mentioned include: DX Code of Conduct : https://www.dx-code.com/ Southwest Ohio DX Assoc. https://www.swodxa.org Daily DX https://www.dailydx.com/ DX Engineering https://www.dxengineering.com/ Icom https://www.icomamerica.com/ IC-905 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-905/ IC-9700 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-9700/ IC-7610 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-7610/ IC-7300 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-7300/

Jonathan Taylor, K1RFD, has reached his 50th year has a ham radio operator, is the creator of Echolink, one of the first amateur radio Voice over Internet Service linking amateur radio stations, the receiver of technical innovation awards, and author of "VoIP: Internet Linking for Radio Amateurs", now in its second edition.  K1RFD checks all of the ham radio boxes for operating, homebrewing, software development, radio restoration, and is my QSO Today.

Richard Gutknecht NZ2I, is a second generation amateur radio operator, catching the bug at an early age and getting the Novice license at age 15. Answering his country's call to duty, Rick joined the Air Force and became an active ham while stationed in Germany.  Now retired, Rick enjoys getting on the air, volunteering for his amateur radio club, and now producing and co-hosting a podcast on current events and American history.  NZ2I is my QSO Today.

This is The DX Mentor podcast. I hope to help those hams trying to move up the DXCC ladder as well as those that at on the DXCC Honor Roll. As fast as technology is moving, no one can keep up on it all. I am here to help. #DX #Hamradio In this episode of The DX Mentor, our #DX gurus, will discuss: The Upcoming Clipperton Island DXpedition This is being conducted by the Perseverance DX Group Tell us about the Perseverance DX Group K3EL - David - Team Leader, Veteran of Mellish Reef, Austral Islands, Campbell Islands Heard Island, Marquesas Islands, Ducie Island, N6WN - Chris - EMT, Networking, RTTY, DXing -vs- Contesting January 17th for 16 days as TX5S The most recent major DXpeditions to Clipperton were: 2013 as TX5K, in 2008 as TX5C and in 2000 as FO0AAA. Additionally, during 2015 there was a scientific expedition to Clipperton. Operating as TX5P, Alain F6BFH made several thousand contacts. There has never been FT8 or 60m operation from Clipperton. Prep Why Clipperton? When did you start preparation? What kind of things must you take in to account when planning a DXpedition? Is this DXpedition any different than previous DXPeditions you have been on? Will there be a doctor on the DXpedition? DXpedition Support - Pilot Stations? - Fund Raising How can listeners contribute - Vendor Support Clipperton Island Any landing issues? First time for FT8 - prepared for that? First Time for 60M - Prepared for that? What does Science and Research mean? What can we do to help? Resources mentioned include: Clipperton Island https://clip.pdxg.net/ Southwest Ohio DX Assoc. https://www.swodxa.org Daily DX https://www.dailydx.com/ DX Engineering https://www.dxengineering.com/ Clipperton Island https://clip.pdxg.net/ Perserverance DX Group https://wp.pdxg.net/ Icom https://www.icomamerica.com/ IC-905 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-905/ IC-9700 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-9700/ IC-7610 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-7610/ IC-7300 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-7300/

In this episode we meet Skip, VE6BGT, a prolific builder and EME microwave operator.  Skip tells us about his microwave radio, amplifier and antenna projects.  He also recently put  his old mechanical RTTY station back on the air featuring a model 28 teletype.  Skip has a great YouTube channel.  Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/@VE6BGT  

Passionate about electronics and radio since childhood, Orv Beach (W6BI) has a knack for digital modes, including CW, RTTY, packet radio, Pactor, Winlink, and AREDN. He has built and manages an extensive AREDN mountain top network in LA and Ventura Counties and delivers lectures globally on accessing this latest digital mode. Learn more about Orv Beach on my QSO Today. #HamRadio #DigitalModes #AREDN #W6BI