NEWSLINE RADIO ************************************************************** Some of the hams of NEWSLINE RADIO... WA6ITF WB6MQV WB6FDF K6DUE W6RCL N6AHU N6AWE N6TCQ K6PGX N6PNY KU8R N8DTN W9JUV KC9RP K9XI KB5KCH KC5UD KC0HF G8AUU DJ0QN AND MANY OTHERS IN THE UNITED STATES AND AROUND THE GLOBE!!! ************************************************************** NATIONAL & REGULATORY NEWS HAMFEES FEES FOR AMATEUR LICENSES ARE ON THEIR WAY EVEN THOUGH THIS DOES NOT MEAN ANY IMPROVEMENT IN SERVICE FROM THE F-C-C. AS PREVIOUSLY REPORTED HERE ON NEWSLINE, DISCUSSIONS IN CONGRESS ABOUT POSSIBLE FEES FOR AMATEUR RADIO LICENSES HAVE ALARMED MANY HAMS. MOST FEAR THAT CHARGING FOR A LICENSE COULD BRING GROWTH IN THE SERVICE TO A SCREATCHING HALT. THIS, AT A TIME WHEN EXPANSION OF THE RANKS IS NEEDED FOR THE SERVICE TO SURVIVE. THE A-R-R-L HAS ALREADY GONE ON THE RECORD AS OPPOSING ANY FEE FOR A HAM TICKET THAT EXCEEDS THE EXACT COST OF ISSUING A LICENSE AND THE LEAGUE INDICATED THAT THIS WAS AN IRREVOCABLE STAND. UNTIL SEPTEMBER 20TH FEES WERE SIMPLY UNDER DISCUSSION IN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. THERE WAS NO BILL BEFORE CONGRESS PROPOSING THEM. BUT ON THE 20TH, WHILE MANY AMATEURS WERE USING THEIR LICENSES AND THEIR STATIONS TO PROVIDE EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS IN THE WAKE OF HURRICANE HUGO, AND WHILE OTHERS WERE PREPARING FOR IT TO HIT THE MAINLAND, A BUDGET BILL CONTAINING A LICENSE FEE PROPOSAL WAS INTRODUCED INTO THE HOUSE AS HR 3299. AS EXPECTED, THE SUGGESTED CHARGES ARE UNREALISTIC. MORE IMPORTANTLY, ACTION IS EXPECTED IN BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS EARLY IN OCTOBER. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAM FEES UPDATE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is a Newsline Instant Update. I'ts 0-3-0-0 U-T-C on Sunday October the 8th. The following information comes from Newslines David Black K-B-4-K-C-H. According to David, the U-S House of Representatives has passed and sent on to the senate the 1989 federal deficit reduction bill that includes a $30 fee for amateur radio licenses. The Senate is expected to act quickly on the measure and then sent it along to President George Bush for his signature. David is keeping a close watch on this congressional item and will have a full report in next weeks newscast. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LEAGUE COURT APPEAL TO SAVE 220 The American Radio Relay League has gone to court to stop the re-allocation of the lower 40% of the 1 and 1/4 meter band to commercial service. League Counsel Christopher D. Imlay, N-3-A-K- D has filed the petition to review the F-C-C reallocation oder. And he has done this in joint cooperation with a second Washington law firm. One that specializes in these matters. The petition demands that the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia set aside the reallocation of 220 to 222 Mhz over to land mobile services and then to remand the matter back to the F-C-C for re-disposition. In its filing, the league claims that the reallocation action was arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion. Case number 89 dash 1602 has been assigned by the court. At airtime, there has been no official comment by the F-C-C to the League's court challenge. ---------------------------------------------------------------- NO CODE RM's ASSIGNED RM-6995 has been assigned to the A-R-R-L request to create a codefree "Communicator Class" amateur license. At the same time, rule making identifiers were assigned to the eleven other petitions that ion some way request no-code licenseing or mofifications to present licensing proceedures to permit codefree operation. Numbering was assigned in order of reciept by date. RM-6984 was given to a petition by Alan Horowitz of Miami which was submitted last March 3rd while the A-R-R-L filing of August 31st received the last rule making number. Release date on these September 14. You have 30 days from that date to comment as to why these should or should not proceed to the Notice of Proposed Rule Making Stage. --------------------------------------------------------------- NTIA TO STUDY USE OF RF SPECTRUM The National Telecommunications and Information Administration says that they will soon begin a acomprehensive policy review of the use and management of radio spectrum in the United States. This marks the beginning of the first fundamental reexamination of spectrum policy objectives and issues since N-T-I-A's organization in 1978. The agency indicates that the review is timely in light of ever increasing demands for spectrum. These demands will cause changes requiring the development and fostering of policies that will encourage the most effective, efficient and fair use of spectrum. In the near future, N-T-I-A intends to issue a Notice of Inquiry to request public comment on specific economic, technical, and regulatory issues to be studies concerning US spectrum policy. For those of you who are not aware, the N-T-I-A is the Executive Branch agency principally responsible for the development and presentation of domestic and international telecommunications policy. The agency acts as the principal adviser to the President on telecommunication policy, and is directed to develop a long-range US spectrum management plan. The agency also has statutory authority to license government radio frequency use. **************************************************************** INTERNATIONAL NEWS UK NOVICE: CODED AND NO-CODED A pair of new entry level Novice class licenses have been proposed for the United Kingdom by the Radio Society of Great Britain. One of these is a codefree certificate with VHF voice privileges above 30 MHz including six meters. Passing a simple five word per minute code test will bring with it high frequency radiotelephone privileges on 160 meters but there is a catch. If the British Department of Trade and Industry gives its nod to the RSGB proposal, the prospective U-K Novice will be required to take training course that runs approximately thirty hours. This course would be given by a DTI approved instructor. The Society says that this mandatory training would replace the morse code as a method of assuring that the standards of the British amateur service are maintained. Those who pass the course and qualify for either the Novice B (no-code) or the Novice A (5 word-per-minute) licenses would be granted many emission modes applicable to the bands and band segments assigned to the license class, but at a maximum power of only five watts. There would be no minimum age to get either U-K Novice ticket and both would carry a three year renewable license term. The RSGB says that this proposal is based on a survey of all of its members aged 25 and younger. The Society adds that a Novice ticket is needed to offset severe shortage of skilled technicians and engineers now being suffered by that nations electronics industry. The United Kingdom has a no-code amateur license, but it requires an extremely high level of skill to obtain. Most youngsters are not willing to expend the time it takes. As a result, the United Kingdom's electronics industry has not seen the engineers and techs that it needs. RSGB hopes that its easy access Novice proposal will turn around that tide. If the DTI approves the RSGB Novice proposal, it will place the United Kingdom in the position of being second only to Japan in its liberalization of amateur licensing using no-code as an entry point. It also makes the contriversary in the United States over the proposed introduction of a codefree license seem totally frivolous regarding level of competency for entry. Perhaps the British solution of requiring an applicant to pass an approved instruction program before taking an amateur exam is a better way of weeding out incompetents then relying on Morse Code to accomplish this end. ---------------------------------------------------------------- HF TRANSLATOR A communist block nation appears to have developed a working HF linear translator. One so advanced that it is capable of relaying part or all of an entire amateur band to new spectrum? The existance of sucth a repeating devcice came to after numerous european SWL's reported hearing the 40 meter amateur band in the 38 meter band! One of these SWL's, Phil Perkins in England was interviewed by Jonathan Marks, G-8-W-G-N on his on the Radio Netherlands Media Network program on October 5th. Perkins noted that on 8.879 MHz - - a frequency often used for ground-to-air commercial transatlantic aircraft communications, that a curios transmitter was in operation. A transmitter that repeats signals from 40 meters to a new frequency about 1.8 MHz further up the band. What caught Perkins attention was the abnormally high amount of C-W traffic heard on and about 8.879 Mhz. He soon realized that the communications content was that of radio amateurs on 40 meters calling "C-Q Contest!" Perkins tuned to 40 meters and found the signals to originate on 7.016 MHz. The SWL noted that listening on two receivers tuned to the separate signals shows a slight difference in reception time between the two. This indicates that a translation process is taking place. Since the Perkins report, numerous other hams and S-W-L's in Europe, including the people at Radio Netherlands have confirmed the existance of this unique radio relay system. All say that this "translator" usually comes on the air at 2100 UTC. Based on propagation at this time of year, Perkins believes whatever the system is located somewhere in eastern Europe. Radio Netherlands is offering a free Media Network T-Shirt to the first listener who provides an answer to what this translator system really is. ***************************************************************** EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS HURRICANE HUGO - A FINAL LOOK By Roy Neal K6DUE NBC Network News Corespondent (retired) Hugo has given us a classic illustration of ham radio at its best, and unfortunately, a few cases of our service at its worst. For almost a week, I listened but did not put my own station on the air. I was reporting on the hurricane foe commercial television and could not devote enough time to message handling. And, I also felt no need to request any information on the air because amateur radio was doing a perfectly beautiful job of reporting conditions and status. So, I was surprised to hear reports of at least two amateur stations being used by broadcasters to conduct interviews. At one station in Miami the commercial reporter was heard to say that he was going to get his story no matter what as he took over the mic. I wonder why the operator of that station didn't just pull the switch. Such interviews are illegal and, more important, they tied up one of the few available emergency channels just at the peak time of operation. The other side of that story is the superb work accomplished by such nets as the International Assistance and Traffic Net with its frequent updates from the scene. Good work was done by the Hurricane Watch Net and I also found the International Amateur Radio Network to be a good source of information. I listened and used the stories of St. Croix and St. Thomas and Monsurat (sic?) along with the interplay with the Red Cross and the United Nations as help was requested and sent. And, to my occasional dismay, I also heard stations tuning up on emergency frequencies by the hour. And there was the 'belcher' putting out his fake burps at frequent intervals plus some other sounds as well. Putting these noises out right over the top of the emergency traffic. There were even the regular 'old timers' who insisted on conducting their 'back-yard qso's' within a kilohertz or two of the half dozen emergency nets on the high end of 20 meters. It makes you wonder where the Official Observers (OO's) and volunteer monitors (VOLMON) are at a time like tat. Perhaps we should investigate some way of establishing a radio task force to track down and prosecute these lids, and to turn off the self appointed 'traffic cops' who jump up in such great numbers to protect the emergency operators that they become the problem in themselves. But, they were in the minority. For the most part, what I heard was a highly skilled bunch of hams operating at a high level of efficiency and getting their traffic through under trying conditions. And then, when Hugo came ashore here in the Carolinas', I heard some superb work on the VHF/UHF nets. We can be very proud indeed of the work done out in the field by several hundred hams, working with state and local officials and with the Red Cross at a time and in a place where all other forms of communication were wiped out. Power outages and high winds knocked out Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Charlotte as Hugo blasted his way through the Carolinas'. But hams with HT's, car batteries and generators at base stations stayed on the air and on the job. On these frequencies I have heard no derogatory comments on the amateur radio operation. To the contrary, hams have been on commercial radio and television all over the nation for the past week. They clearly explained what was going on, and the amateur radio service seems to have reached a new high in public esteem. This observer for one can only say 'nice going fellas. You have made this ham very proud to be a member of the fraternity.' **************************************************************** LEGAL NEWS PRB-1 WIN IN COSTA MESA CALIFORNIA Hams in Costa Mesa California have something seventy five feet high to cheer about. Its a new antenna ordenence that gives them a lot more then they expected. They say it came their way thanks to a very involved A-Double-R-L Director named Fried Heyn W-A-6- W-Zed-O. Heres the story. For many years, Costa Mesa had no antenna odenence. Hams wanting to put up an antenn system were told to go ahead and put up whatever they wanted when they approached the city for permission. Then, without any public fanfare, the city enacted a 30' maximum height ordenence a few years ago. To put up antenna system over 30' high required a major variance, but the ordenence was not enforced very often unless someone filed a complaint. When the city decided that it was time to change the variance requirement, it was brought to Heyn's attention that this might be an oportune time to act. He appointed Art Goddard W6XD to research the spearhead a drive for a new ordenence that would be less restrictive on the amateur community. What was being proposed was not much of a change, so Goddard organized a mass turnout of hams for a Costa Mesa City Council meeting that lasted until 2 AM. While that motion was passed, the council also enacted a second motion that held in abayance any enforcement of any antenna ordenences against radio amateurs until there was an antenna ordenence that both the city and the amateur community could agree on. P-R-B - 1 material from attorney and Vice Director Wayne Overbeck N-6-N-B and an emergency communications news story about Costa Mesa resident Gordon West W-B-6-N-O-A were supplied to the Council by Director Heyn in September of 1988. He also provided other documentation showing no need for amateur stations to have permits for their stations or antennas. This lead to a second City Council meeting where it was P-R-B - 1 that had the greatest impact. The Costa Mesa City Attorney felt that the terms of P-R-B - 1 took precidence over anything the city might want. As a result, Costa Mesa agreed that its current ordenence was not within federal preemption guidelines. With that in mind, Heyn, Overbeck and Goddard met with local hams and city planners to work up an ordenence acceptable to both. In mid-August, that proposal was brought before the City Council which passed it with very little discussion. It calls for a maximum antenna height without variance of 75 feet, grandfathering of all existing towers and antennas as long as they are registered with the city before May 1990 and exclusion of any antenna weighing 80 lbs or less. The city also took the unusual step writeing to each ham living in Costa Mesa to let them know that the major restrictions of the old ordenence had been lifted and detailing the new and more liberal one. Those letters went out a few weeks ago on September 6th. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 10 METER PIRATE TAXI DISPATCHERS IN NYC (UPDATE) The New York City F-C-C office says that it needs the help of area hams to rid the ten meter amateur band of illegal taxicab dispatch services. As reported a few months ago, hams in the northeast were outraged over the indifference of the New York City F-C-C office to the problem of the interlopers. One ham had his life threated by the illegals. On September 15th, Newsline received a call from Kevin Mc Keon. McK eon is the Engineer in Charge of the New York City Field operations Bureau. He told newsline that significant progress had been made in collering the pirate dispatch stations and FAXed us a report on what had been done. The F-C-C action includede the inspection of taxicabs in May and June with several of the illegal stations closed down as the result of the investigation. But the problem is far from over, and the F-C-C says it needs help. If you are a ham living in the New York City area or vacinity, and if you have information on who the illegal operators are, their hours of operation, their location, address or vehicle license numbers, please send it to the New York City F-C-C. They are located at 201 Varick Street, New York City, New York, 1-0-0- 1-4. Again, we will repeat the address. Its 2-Zero-1 Varick Street, New York City New York. The zipcode is 1-0-0-1-4. The F- C-C"s Mc Keon says that he will keep the amateur community posted on this one. ---------------------------------------------------------------- HAM INDICTED ON FRAUD CHARGES An Oceanside New York ham faces a possible maximum of 250 years in jail and 12.5 million dollar fine if he is convicted on all fifty counts of alleged mail fraud. Michael D. Harrison, W-B- 2-P-T-I was indicted by a Grand Jury of the United States District Court on charges that he knowingly devised a scheme to obtain money by means of fraudulent pretense by mail. The indictment says that Harrison placed full page adds in 73 Magazine stating that the long defunct Atlas Electronics had joined forces with Uniden to bring out the very popular 2510 ten meter mobile rig. The add indicated that Atlas was operating out of a post office box in Lynbrook New York and offered the transceiver for only $219.95. The government says that Harrison never delivered the promised radios even though he received a substantial number of prepaid orders. The largest was for over $3,000. On January 26th, Harrison was arrested and charged with mail fraud. He was released after posting a $25,000 bond. No trial date has yet been set and prosecutors say that the full dollar amount of the alleged swindle may never be known. **************************************************************** REPEATER/FM/COORDINATION NEWS ARKANSAS TO MACC Arkansas has suffered a "Big Mack Attack!" On October 2, Arkansas became the latest state to be admitted to the giant Mid America Coordination Council. Mack now functions as an "umbrella" organization to eleven states by providing unified repeater coordination guidelines and national political representation to the coordinators and coordimnation councils which volunteer to fall under its domain. In addition to Arkansas, Mack reepresents the states of Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Misouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. This makes the Mid America Coordinatoin Council the largest organization of its type to serve amateur radio anywhere in the world! ------------------------------------------------------------- SERA EXPANDS The already giant Southeastern Repeater Association has expanded once again. This, with the addition of Western Kentucky and Mississippi as new coordination districts. That brings to eight the number of states flying the S-E-R-A banner. In addition to Kentucky and Mississippi, the Southeastern Repeater Association provides services to the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia. S-E-R-A is second in size only to the Mid America Coordination Council. -------------------------------------------------------------- COORDINATORS D-BASE LIVES The ARRL administered National Repeater Coordinators Database is alive, well and finally living in Newington. Applications are now being accepted by System Administrator Jay Mabey, NU0X at ARRL Headquarters for user registration. At the present time, access to the database is strictly limited to bonafide frequency coordinators who have been recognized as such by the ARRL board of Directors per Minute 61 of their Summer 1988 Meeting. Currently the database contains the total technical information used by T-MARC (Mid Atlantic Repeater Coordination Council) for their routine coordination purposes as well as directory level information for many other regions of the country. Safeguards have been built in to the software to prevent unauthorized access by non-registrants and to keep coordinators from viewing other coordinators information without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------ ARRL REPEATER DIRECTORY This note to those of you who own repeaters. It is now time to submit your repeater changes and updates to your frequency coordinator in order for them to be included in the 1990-91 issue of the A-Double-R Repeater Directory. Repeater updates must be submitted via the A-R-R-L recognized frequency coordinator for your area. While a form is provided in the back of the Repeater Directory for this purpose, some coordinators or spectrum management councils require the use of a specific type of paperwork to register or to record a system perameter change. Only packet system and beacon changes may be sent directly to the League. As to repeaters who are not coordinated or coordinated by a non A-Double-R-L listed coordinator? It appears that you are out there on your own. --------------------------------------------------------------- ARIZ0ONA TO CALIFORNIA INTERLINK OPENED Hams driving between Phoenix Arizona and San Diego California have a new way to keep in contact with home base. On July 12th, the two cities were permanently linked on two meters. John Braden K-7-L-K-L and John Neyer N-7-J-B-Z have traveled to the top of Smith Peak and installed the last of the gear used to intertie the Phoenix 146 dot 68 MHz repeater to the 147 dot 24 system on Mt. Laguna in San Diego. If you have occasion to travel between Phoenix and San Diego, all you need to keep constant contact is a two meter radio and a C-T-C-S-S encoder set to 103 dot 5 hertz. The link is open to anyone, but tone access is required on the **************************************************************** DX NEWS IN DX, do you need Liechtenstein? Who doesn't. If you were lucky, you worked Y-3-U-H-0 slash H-B-Zero. He was active on 160 through 10 meters on C-W, S-S-B and R-T-T-Y through September 11th. If you made the path then Q-S-L via Y-U-3-Zed-V. And while on the subject of DX, there are now two groups heading for Bouvet Island. The first to announce their intention to make the trek was the Legion of Indianapolis DXers headquartered here in the United States. They say they are tied in with a National Geographic Magazine survey trip and are ready to go. That operation starts in early February of next year. Probably February the second. Now, the Norwegians are getting into the act. The Norweigan DXers feel that they should activate Bouvet first since the island is owned by that nation. They have announced their intention to beat out the Americans and have set up a fund to collect a quarter of a million dollars to show up the Americans and get there first. Indications are that a challange to the right of the Americans to operate from Bouvet may also take place. **************************************************************** CONTEST & AWARDS NEWS 10 MHZ CHANGE Effective immediately, the American Radio Relay League will accept contacts made on the 10 MHz WARC band for both its Worked All States and D-X-C-C award programs. This change in league policy comes as the result of agreements reached at the recently concluded Region 2 I-A-R-U conference in Orlando Florida. The league cautions that the change still precludes use of 10 MHz for the single band or five band awards. The change brings I-A-R-U Region 2 into line with the rest of the I-A-R-U represented world of amateur radio. **************************************************************** MISCL. NEWS HPM MEMORIAL AWARD RECIPIENT Kevin D. Biekert, K-B-5-A-Q-V of Clear Lake City, Texas has won the highest award given by the ARRL to a young person for participation in Amateur Radio, the Hiram Percy Maxim Memorial Award. Kevin was first licensed in 1987 He is now 17 years old and holds an Amateur Extra class ticket. Among the accomplishments that brought Kevin the award were his role in founding the Clear Lake Amateur Radio Club, serving as a club officer, his work with Novice classes, his DXing, and his communications with amateurs in the Soviet Union. The Hiram Percy Maxim Memorial Award is given annually by the American Radio Relay League to the person under the age of 21 who best exemplifies the ideals of Amateur Radio: service, communication, and experimentation. John Nickel, W-D-5-E-E-V, the Emergency Coordinator for Harris County Texas submitted the winning nomination. -------------------------------------------------------------- HAM WINS GRAMMY A Louisville ham has won a Grammy. The National Acedemy of Recording Artists and Sciences recently honored Larnell Harris W-D-4-L-Zed-C as the best male performance by a gospel singer. Harris who is known by the nickname Stu, received his award at the 31st annual Grammy Awards Ceremoney in Los Angeles. ------------------------------------------------------- CANADIAN HACKERS From the Canadian Amateur Radio federation comes word that Toronto police have charged seven people with the theft of communications. Not radio gear, but rather time on the air,that was paid for by others. The charges were filed against the seven after so many calls were made to a paging systems automatic message service that normal business on the system ground to a halt. As many as 10,000 calls a month were being generated by the hackers who had formed a club called Scannerville. Meanwhile, another group of Canadian hackers calling itself Pagerville has been known to tie up paging terminals with messages sent by modem via the telephone lines. **************************************************************** END OF THIS EDITION OF THE NEWSLINE BBS NEXT UPLOAD IN ABOUT 14 DAYS THANK YOU FOR DOWNLOADING & READING THE AMATEUR RADIO NEWSLINE -------------------------- Via AV-Sync (404) 320-6202