April 21 2019 - VK NATIONAL NEWS BROADCAST ON VK1WIA ---------------------------------------------------------------------* THE BEST NEWS YOU'LL GET ALL WEEK Oh... and to contact us with your news because If It Matters To You It Matters To Us! Email nationalnews@wia.org.au http://www.wia.org.au click news in member area & submit your audio TWITTER http://twitter.com/VK1WIA Please... If you are only submitting text and not audio, NEVER send just links & url's but write your story as you would expect to hear it being read back and then when you upload audio also email us the txt version. ---------------------------------------------------------------------* NATIONAL NEWS FOR WEEK COMMENCING Apr 21 2019 IN OUR 24th YEAR OF NON STOP NEWS Amateur Radio in Space pioneer SK THIS & MORE IN THIS EDITION OF NEWS FROM THE WIRELESS INSTITUTE OF AUSTRALIA 2019 AND FOR WEEK OF APRIL 21 2019 Amateur Radio in Space pioneer astronaut Owen Garriott, W5LFL, SK ARRL reports the US astronaut who pioneered the use of Amateur Radio to make contacts from space — Owen K. Garriott, W5LFL — died April 15 at his home in Huntsville, Alabama. He was 88 The ARRL news story reads in part: Garriott’s ham radio activity ushered in the formal establishment of Amateur Radio in space, first as SAREX — the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment, and later as ARISS — Amateur Radio on the International Space Station. “Owen Garriott was a good friend and an incredible astronaut,” fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin tweeted. “I have a great sadness as I learn of his passing today. Godspeed Owen.” An Oklahoma native, Garriott — an electrical engineer — spent 2 months aboard the Skylab space station in 1973 and 10 days aboard Spacelab-1 during a 1983 Space Shuttle Columbia mission. It was during the latter mission that Garriott thrilled radio amateurs around the world by making the first contacts from space. Thousands of hams listened on 2-meter FM, hoping to hear him or to make a contact. Garriott ended up working stations around the globe, among them such notables as the late King Hussein, JY1, of Jordan, and the late US Senator Barry Goldwater, K7UGA. He also made the first CW contact from space. His Son, Richard Garriott, W5KWQ, was a private space traveller to the ISS, flown there by the Russian Federal Space Agency, and he also carried ham radio into space. arrl.org/news/amateur-radio-in-space-pioneer-astronaut-owen-garriott-w5lfl-sk WIA WIA Merit Awards are presented each year at the WIA AGM. The Board are keen to receive nominations for worthy recipients of these awards. Details on the awards and how to make nominations are on the WIA web site, wia.org.au Nominations are currently open and need to be submitted by the end of APRIL. (WIA Secretary) Good morning everyone, this is Grant VK5GR one again on behalf of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group. Over the past couple of weeks, I have been talking about a new event on the Amateur Radio calendar - designed to get people experimenting on air again. The FreeDV QSO party is now only 1 week away, starting at 0300 UTC Saturday 27th! What is FreeDV you may ask? It is a home grown digital mode, created by David VK5DGR. It is designed for use on HF, allowing us to transmit voice signals in less than 1kHz of bandwidth, at signal to noise ratios that are equivalent to SSB. If you have never heard it before, here is a sample of the signal to listen for: So what is the FreeDV QSO party? It is a gathering of people on air who like experimenting with FreeDV. You can collect points by working other FreeDV stations which will qualify you for the FreeDV award presented by AREG. Whats more, by getting more people on the air at the same time using FreeDV, it makes it easier for people to experiment with it! Look around the following frequencies to help find stations using FreeDV during the event: 1870kHz 3630kHz 7180kHz 14130kHz 21180kHz and 28330kHz. During the QSO party, you can work each station once every 3 hours per band too, earning points and multipliers along the way. If you want to know more, head on over to the AREG Website, www.areg.org.au where a full copy of the rules is available. There are also links to the website that you can download the software from, with versions available for Windows, Apple and Linux users. Dont forget, If you can use FT8 today then you can just as easily use FreeDV! We hope to see you all on the air next week using FreeDV, so place the FreeDV QSO party in your calendar today. 73 from Grant VK5GR ---------------------------------------------------------------------* INTERNATIONAL NEWS With thanks to IARU, RSGB, SARL, Southgate AR Club, ARRL, RAC, NZART AMATEUR RADIO NEWSLINE & the World Wide sources of the WIA. INDIA Ham radio to help during polls in West Bengal Ham Radio has been used at various polling booths over the years but arguably not to THIS extent The Deccan Herald reports in a unique initiative, the Election Commission and the Ministry of Communications have granted permission to the use of Amateur Radio for election-related communications Amateur radio will be used 31 areas across four Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal where there is no mobile network coverage. The ham radio operators will be conveying poll-related information from the related polling booths to the concerned authorities on polling days. Read the full story at https://www.deccanherald.com/national/national-politics/ham-radio-to-help-during-polls-in-wb-728368.html AUSTRIA Daniel EA4GPZ / M0HXM has published an overview of the papers to be discussed at the IARU Region 1 meeting in Vienna next weekend April 27-28 His post, which you can find on www.southgatearc.org is an overview of proposals to be presented during this meeting. The proposals can be found in the conference documents. There are a total of 64 documents for the meeting, so a review of all of them or an in-depth read would be a huge work. southgatearc.org/news/2019/april/overview-of-iaru-r1-interim-meeting-proposals.htm#.XLZMkvZuKUk SWEDEN Sweden's nation amateur radio society, the SSA, has set up a separate youth section led by Oliver, SA 5O DJ The young people themselves have already taken the main responsibility for the business, with their own budget and their own business plan. Through the establishment of a youth section, this becomes clearer and hopefully the business becomes even more visible. Currently, for this Easter weekend, the NOTA camp in Finnish Salo will have thirteen Swedish young people participating. In August, the SSA will send three participants to the IARU Region 1 Youth Camps Youngsters On The Air in Bulgaria. https://tinyurl.com/SwedenSSA BELGIUM F/ON6JUN/P to commemorate 75th anniversary of D-Day Belgium's UBA reports major commemorations are planned to commemorate the D-Day landing of the Allies on June 6, 1944 Rewinding back to the occasion of the 50-year commemoration in 1994, members of the UBA departments NNV and GBN started an annual expedition to Ranville on the historic Pegasus bridge. Corporal Tappenden landed there with the paratroopers of the British 6th Airborne on the night of June 5-6, 1944 near two bridges. Tappenden sent the historic "Ham and Jam" to England with his radio station WS 38. This ham and jam code meant that the bridges were intact and in their possession. This was the start for the Normandy landing on June 6. The GBN and NNV departments donated a similar WS 38 radio to the museum, with which corporal Tappenden sent this message. The son of Corporal Tappenden sent the message back into the air with this radio station in 2004. This year the expedition will continue with departure from Belgium on Friday, May 31 and return on June 7. UBA members Xavier ON4ALY, Fernand ON6UF and Hans ON3HBB are present and work together with RSGB sections that operate from the places where the ships left for the Normandy landings. Want to know more re the special radio station F/ON6JUN/P that broadcasts from this unique location? Send an e-mail to xavier.goddaergmail.com Source UBA via SoutheGate ARC News https://tinyurl.com/BelgiumUBA UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Hamvention® has announced that it will open their gates to all, without charge, on the final day of the annual gathering in Xenia, Ohio. Hamvention 2019 General Chair Jack Gerbs, WB8SCT, said the idea is to encourage the curious to see what attracts some 30,000 visitors to Hamvention. “We have decided to open the doors to Hamvention to the public on Sunday, May 19, without buying a ticket,” Gerbs said. “This will make it a little easier and cheaper for someone with just a little interest in Hamvention to see what all the excitement is about.” MEXICO 55th Anniversary of IARU Region 2 On April 16, 1964, the 1st. Pan-American Amateur Radio Congress was inaugurated in Mexico City in order to create what is known today as IARU Region 2 Delegates from Argentina, Bermuda, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru, the United States and Venezuela were present. IARU President, Herbert Hoover Jr., W 6 ZH, was very clear in his speech when stating the objectives of the new organization: “First establish the bases for a permanent organization to promote the interests of radio amateurs in the Western Hemisphere; Second...get to know each other better, obtain a deeper perspective and strengthen international friendship ties..." He encouraged present societies to participate actively with their regulators to get the votes needed in the coming World Radio Conference, where it was imperative to defend the bands allocated to we radio amateurs. --------------------------------------------------------------------* HAM RADIO OPERATIONAL NEWS - IT'S A CONTACT SPORT All major Australian contests, rules and results, are on the Contest Section of the WIA website. wia.org.au/members/contests/about 2019 Next Saturday, April 27 is International Marconi Day, and HADARC will be operating VK2IMD, the only IMD station in Australasia. This is because the first direct radio message from the UK to Australia, sent by Marconi's station in north-west Wales was received at Wahroonga. Listen for VK2IMD on a range of HF bands from 10 am Eastern time, Saturday; until 10 the next morning. For WIA National News, this is Julian VK2YJS & AG6LE. Hornsby & Districts ARC IMD page: https://www.hadarc.org.au//imd.html Global IMD stations list: http://gx4crc.com/imd-stations/ 20th Harry Angel Memorial Sprint May 4 IARU HF World Championship 13-14 July. Trans-Tasman Low-Band Contest July 20 VK Remembrance Day Contest is August 17-18 -------------- The first 3 month period of the Ted Powell Memorial DX Challenge for 2019 has now closed. The objective of the challenge is to work the most wanted DXCC entities based on their ranking in Clublog's "Most Wanted" list, which is published on the contest website. All Australian amateurs are eligible to enter and entering is easy. You don't need to be a serious DXer. Get in for the 2nd 3 month window NOW on vk2au.org -------------- THRU THE DX WINDOW DF13, German special event Look for special event stations with Prefix's DF13 to be active until June 30th, 2019. This to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the maiden flight of the Junkers F-13, The first all-metal built airplane, was introduced to civil aviation and is the mother of all commercial aircraft. All QSOs will be automatically confirmed after July 15th, 2019, with a QSL card via Bureau. If you do not need a QSL card, let them know. Send direct QSLs via DM2TO -- shipping starting after August 1st, 2019. For more details and info on awards, see QRZ.com Panama special event Look for special event callsign H 31 A to be active until August 15 to commemorate 500th anniversary of the foundation of Panama City. Activity will be on most HF bands using SSB and the Digital modes (RTTY, PSK31 and FT8). QSL manager is HP 1 AVS (SouthGate) Anniversary of the Federal Republic of Germany Look for special event stations DM 70 GER and DL 70 BRD now active until December 31st, 2019 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Federal Republic of Germany which was established on May 23rd, 1949. Operations will be on CW and SSB. (SouthGate) Celebrating its 50th anniversary, Sweden's National Society for the Active Visually Impaired is active as SF 50 CG throughout 2019. QSL via SM 0 BYD. (RSGB) Special call EI 19 RE active for 2019 The special call sign EI 19 RE will be active for the duration of 2019 to commemorate the establishment of the first Irish parliament. It first met in January of 1919 following a landslide victory for Irish nationalists in December 1918. https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2019/01/special-call-ei19re-active-for-2019.html (SouthGate) Scouting’s Gilwell Park is being honoured through 2019 with GB 100 GP. (vk6pop) In the World of DX, amateurs in Turkey are using the special call sign TC 10 GITRAD to mark the 10th anniversary of the radio group G.I.T.R.A.D. They are on the air all year through the 31st of December. No cards are required. However, if you need a paper QSL card please mail yours directly to TA 7 AZC and include a stamped self-addressed envelope and money for postage. ---------------------------------------------------------------------* BROADCAST MONITORING SWL AND SCANNER NEWS websdr.org websdr.mwrs.org.au:8901/ http://farnham-sdr.com/ Listen from UK to satellites Radio Caroline Easter Broadcasting Radio Caroline North live from radio ship, Ross Revenge, anchored in the estuary of the River Blackwater, Easter Friday until Easter Monday. You will be able to hear them on radiocaroline.co.uk (sourced to SouthGate) WIRELESS WEATHER Strong radio bursts from sunspot AR2738 Massive sunspot AR2738 is sending bursts of radio energy toward Earth strong enough to make audible noises in the loudspeakers of common ham radio transceivers and shortwave radios. An amateur radio astronomer in New Mexico recorded some of the bursts last weekend--and they sounded like ocean surf. Visit Spaceweather.com to hear the sounds and find out how you can detect them in your own backyard (SouthGate) THE QNEWS WORK BENCH - the nuts and volts report – Measure Twice cut Once. Well this is actually off the workbench and undergoing trials Thanks to smart speakers, audio documentaries are about to evolve to the next level. Newspapers are rapidly moving into the audio documentary space, previously dominated by radio. At a session on smart speakers and podcasts at Radiodays Europe, Steve Ahern, reporting for radioinfo.com.au heard from major British newspapers who showcased their audio offerings and was blown away by the experience. There were good simple ideas, such as the Guardian’s Voice Lab offering, a sports quiz for smart speakers based on the year’s sports news. Included in the quiz are replays of audio grabs that were used in the original reports. The Financial Times has been producing audio content for ten years as part of its transition from print to digital. What excites FT is that there is a large listenership for their audio and that many of those listeners are young people who they may not have reached by their traditional text based outputs. The FT is focusing on three areas of interest: Lean back and listen audio content Engagement with ‘native’ commercial content Interactive audio (Q&As and interactive documentaries) The FT’s Hidden Cities is “an entirely new form of storytelling,” according to the FT’s Alistair Mackie. You can try it too here on the link in this week’s news, but it is best experienced on your smart speaker. https://www.ft.com/hiddenberlin Once you've listened, imagine how this interactive documentary is put together. It is not a linear experience (although the whole 90 mins can be listened to in one go if you want), it is recorded in segments, then a series of interactive logic steps is overlaid on the audio segments. Then a range of interactive questions are planned, which trigger different audio segments as requested. There are also questions and jokes to interact with the listener. After the audio was recorded and edited, there must have been a lot more additional work done to overlay the interactive elements. It's a very impressive piece of work. Read more on radioinfo.com.au/news/interactive-documentary-making-smart-speakers-rde19 © Radioinfo.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------* WORLD WIDE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP NEWS ATV (Every pixel tells a story) - arvideonews.com hamradiotube.com youtube.com qdg.org.au Artistic SSTV from Iceland Until the 29th of April, as part of an art installation in Iceland by Lucy Helton, KD2MFV, SSTV images will be transmitted by TF3JA. The images are of Icelandic glaciers photographed many years ago. Look for USB signals on 14.230MHz at 1300, 1800 and 2300UTC. Amateur radio operators who receive these transmissions are being asked to print out the images received and post them back using instructions on the website in the wia text news www.lucyhelton.com (rsgb) SARL 2019 AGM on YouTube The 2019 AGM of the South African Radio League held April 13 was live streamed on YouTube SARL News reports: "The SARL "Unlocking Amateur Radio Technology" Symposium took place in Stellenbosch and was attended by 60 people. The presentations were well received; a lot of interesting discussion took place." During the afternoon, VHF/UHF and SOTA meetings took place. Watch the SARL 2019 AGM at the link we like in this week’s text edition best read at wia.org.au https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gKaeyD1ZuM WW SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS - FEMALES IN RADIO. INTERNATIONAL GIRLS' EVENT HAS ROLE FOR AMATEUR RADIO April 25th marks International Girls Day in Information and Communications Technology. Private companies, non-profit organizations and even big businesses around the world are getting involved. The event is backed by the membership of the International Telecommunication Union and it provides girls and young women with a window into the tech world with the hopes of sparking interest in studies and an eventual career. Yes, ham radio is getting into the act too. In Austria, hams in the vicinity of Vienna are being asked to listen with extra attention for the voices of young girls on the air from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. local time from the offices of A1 Austria Telekom in that city. The girls will be assisted by employees of the company at the workers' ham radio station and will be calling QRZ on both HF and EchoLink. According to the ITU website, since the program began, more than 357,000 girls and young women have participated in International Girls in ICT Day in 171 countries worldwide. (ARNewsLine) WW SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS - FINAL FRONTIER Australian CubeSat to use 76 GHz The IARU Satellite Coordination Panel has announced the amateur radio frequencies for the Australian 76 GHz CubeSat CUAVA-1 that is expected to launch in July 2019 from Japan into a 400km orbit. CUAVA-1 is a 3U CubeSat and the first CubeSat project of the new ARC Training Centre for CubeSats, Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and their Applications (CUAVA), whose primary aim is the education and training of people, mostly PhD students, for the space sector. With significant heritage from the QB50 CubeSat INSPIRE-2, CUAVA-1 is a 3U CubeSat that will link with the international radio amateur community for outreach, training, and increased data downloads, observe the Earth with a novel multi-spectral imager, use a GPS instrument to explore radio occultation and the reception of GPS signals scattered off the Earth as well as provide a backup determination of the CubeSat location, investigate plasma environment and associated space weather with radiation detectors, and explore the performance of a new communications payload. Downlink telemetry on 9k6 GMSK AX25 on UHF and high speed downlinks on 2.4 GHz, 5.6 GHz and 76 GHz. These frequencies have been coordinated by the IARU: Downlinks: 437.075 MHz, 2404.000 MHz, 5840 MHz and 76.800 GHz Uplinks: 145.875 MHz, 2404.000 MHz and 5660.000 MHz More information on CUAVA-1 can be found at https://www.cuava.com.au/ (SouthGate) WW SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS --- FT8 (IT'S GREAT MATE) FT8 Performance Secrets video Neil Smith G4DBN investigates what really matters when you are aiming for the ultimate performance with FT8 and other digital modes Neil demonstrates and explains the most common problems which affect the receive and transmit paths on analogue and SDR systems. Using real-world examples of each of the pitfalls, Neil presents practical tools and techniques to help you improve your digimode performance from LF to microwaves. Watch RSGB 2018 Convention lecture - FT8 Secrets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smWp0TOEtlQ (SouthGate) WW SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS --- INTERNET, THE HAMS DOMAIN. France: Connection of amateur stations to the Internet The REF site has published a brief update on progress of Decree regarding the conditions under which radio installations in the Amateur Services can connect to a network open to the public The Network of French publishers were recently consulted by the Higher Commission of Digital and Post Offices for the publication of the decree relating to amateur services and networks open to the public. We have been listened to and our proposals are taken up by the commission whose full text of the opinion is at the link in the written word of the newscast you are now tuned to. https://www.r-e-f.org/images/Documents/DGE/csnp_2019.pdf (sourced to SouthGate) WW SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS --- IOTA www.iota-world.org OC-059. Haru, JA1XGI, will be active as V 6 K from Kosrae Island sometime later in the year. Activity will be on 40/30/20/15/10 meters using mainly CW, sometimes FT8. QSL via JA1XGT OC-133. Saty, JE1JKL, will be active as 9M6NA from Mohammed's, 9M6MO, QTH on Labuan Island, East Malaysia between May 23-28th., His focus will be on 6 meters FT8. All the logs will be promptly uploaded to LoTW. https://jsfc.org/je1jkl/9m6na.html OC-207 OC-128. Both DXPeditions to these islands are now cancelled "due to some unforeseen circumstances." OC-235. Operators Audie/DU1ZDR and Gazelle/DU1ZDQ will be active as DZ 1 A from Patrick's on the Beach, Siargao Island, between May 4-5th. Activity will be on specifically IOTA frequencies 14260 and 7055 kHz using CW and SSB. (iota details from SouthGate) ---------------------------------------------------------------------* 2019 Social Scene VK3 - Moorabbin & District Radio Club HamFest 2019 Saturday 11th May. VK 2019 WIA Annual Conference Sydney weekend 24-26 of May. (wia) https://www.wia.org.au/joinwia/wia/2019agm/ VK2 Oxley Region Amateur Radio Club Field Day June 8 and 9 (vk2zhe) VK5 - South East Radio Group 2019 Annual Convention and Australian Fox Hunting Championships 8-9 June (vk5hcf) VK3 - GippsTech 2019 13'14 July (vk3pf) VK4 - Townsville Amateur Radio Club's Cardwell Gathering 4 days commencing October 4 (vk4zz) VK3 - Yarra Valley Amateur Group HamFest, 13th October (vk3cnw) VK3 - Ballarat Amateur Radio Group, BARG Hamvention Oct 27 (vk3kqt) 2020 Social Scene ALARAMEET 2020 Bendigo (vk5yl) October 2020 in Bendigo Victoria. Heidi VK3FHID and Jenny VK3WQ are leading the team who are planning an eventful weekend. This team is meeting regularly and are looking forward to seeing you in Bendigo. Submitting news items If you would like to submit news items for possible inclusion in the VK1WIA broadcasts, please email your item in text to nationalnews@wia.org.au and don't JUST send url's links or posters, but take the time to pen YOUR contribution. To submit audio read "how to submit items" in the weekly news page on http://www.wia.org.au/members/broadcast/contribute/ We would appreciate items no longer than 2 minutes in length as we only have a half hour. Remember the sooner you submit material the more the likelihood of it being broadcast in the very next edition of WIA National News. Each item will only be broadcast once, if you want a couple of mentions, please submit different slants to keep your event 'fresh' and always if the news room is to read your item --- write it in the 3rd person. A reminder when supplying HamFest info we obviously can't plug DEALS from commercial traders "on air", but we at the WIA will put your supporters 'goods' in this text edition "no worries." We cannot give blatant 'plugs' to raffles. (new Jan 2019) ---------------------------------------------------------------------* ===================================================================== WIANews - we've reported...YOU decide. TWITTER http://twitter.com/VK1WIA Societies and Club News Letter Editors can EXCHANGE a feed prior to the actual broadcast date, e-mail nationalnews@wia.org.au Call-backs follow the RF editions, but also for text readers you may lodge a quick reply to let us know you read it, who knows, you might even get a "cheerio call". Thanks to our dedicated band of broadcast volunteers who utilize their time and equipment in bringing you this weekly broadcast. Who and where are they? http://www.wia.org.au/members/broadcast/where/ The purpose of "WIANews" is to rapidly provide news of interest to WIA affiliated clubs and active amateurs residing in Australia and the globe. We strongly encourage membership in the Wireless Institute of Australia and participation in the activities of local clubs. Opinions expressed in "WIANews" are those of the writers who submit material and do not necessarily reflect those of the rebroadcasters, nor the National WIA, but IF broadcast, are done so in the spirit in which they were submitted." Material may be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form, a credit to WIANews wouldn't go astray... If you have call-backs to contribute to the National News call back tally then please send through your call-backs to callbacks@wia.org.au Who listens to radio? 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Once your unsubscription has been processed, you will probably receive another message confirming your unsubscription from the list, and at that point you should stop receiving messages. ---------------------------------------------------------------------*