The ARRL Letter Online December 13, 1996 (Volume 15, Number 12) Page author: elindquist@arrl.org Page last revised 12:00 AM ET 12/13/96 IN THIS EDITION ARRL asks for primary allocation at 2.3 GHz The ARRL Letter to become electronic-only How to get The ARRL Letter McNamara leaves FCC W1AW gets equipment donations Call sign snafu Multiple club station calls signs legal AEA finds buyer(s) Solar flurries Colvin grant to Heard DXpedition Mars Global Surveyor relay tests successful George A. Wise, W7MB, SK In Brief: Vanity update; Mir back on the air; New on the ARRLWeb site; Transatlantic anniversary; Club insurance going up; Section Leader, SK; September QST Cover Plaque winners ARRL AGAIN ASKS FOR PRIMARY ALLOCATION AT 2300-2305 MHZ In comments filed in response to the FCC's plans to reallocate and auction off parts of the 2.3-GHz band for a new Wireless Communications Service (WCS), the ARRL has asked the Commission to create a primary amateur allocation in the 2300 to 2305-MHz segment and to maintain a secondary ham allocation in the 2305 to 2310-MHz band. Just before adjourning, the 104th Congress directed the FCC to reallocate 2305 to 2320 MHz and 2345 to 2360 MHz to wireless services and to assign new licenses by competitive bidding by April 15 in order to help balance the budget. "This legislation is, in the League's experience, the first time that Congress has substituted its judgment for the expertise of the Commission with respect to the allocation of specific frequency bands," the ARRL commented, later calling the congressional action "discouraging." The FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (GN Docket 96-228) in November, proposing to create the WCS to occupy the affected 2.3-GHz segments. The League said that part of the FCC's task now is "protecting incumbent users in the band," and suggested the FCC was obliged to accommodate continued amateur use in the 2305 to 2310-MHz band and to accommodate displaced amateur operations in the 2300 to 2305-MHz segment. "These actions, taken together, will compensate for the diminution in availability of the 2305-2310-MHz band for amateur operation," the League declared in its filing. The 2300 to 2310-MHz segment now is allocated to the amateur service on a secondary basis. Weak-signal work centers around 2304 MHz. The League called sharing of the 2305 to 2310 MHz segment with other services "distinctly problematic." "As a practical matter, it would tend to relegate amateur operation to non- metropolitan areas, away from customers of mobile service providers," the League said in its comments. The League already had petitioned the FCC (under Docket 94-32) to upgrade the 2300 to 2305-MHz band to primary status, but the ARRL suggested in its comments on GN Docket 96-228 that the FCC upgrade the status as part of the current proceeding instead. Noting that the amateur allocation at 2.3 GHz had been "arbitrarily winnowed down during the past ten years," the League urged the Commission to take "an affirmative step to protect what remains of the Amateur Service allocation and the important and varied amateur uses at 2300-2310 MHz, especially those centered at and near 2305 MHz." THE ARRL LETTER TO BECOME ELECTRONIC-ONLY PUBLICATION This marks the final printed edition of The ARRL Letter, which began publication to member subscribers in October 1982. Last January, we switched distribution of The ARRL Letter by mail from semimonthly to monthly and instituted electronic distribution of The ARRL Letter plus weekly electronic updates via the Internet, the World Wide Web and other on-line outlets, including the Netcom server. This distribution network has proven to be fast, efficient and effective. It's a terrific way to keep up with what's going on in the ham radio world every week, and it's been very popular with subscribers, so eliminating the printed version is a logical next step. But there's another, more practical aspect to our decision to end the printed, mailed version. Even on its current monthly schedule, The ARRL Letter loses about $12,000 per year, a loss which we can no longer justify in an era of belt-tightening. ARRL news--via bulletins and weekly electronic editions of The ARRL Letter--is widely available on the Internet and packet radio. In addition, modern production methods allow us to make news in QST much more timely for those who do not use the electronic information channels. Paid subscribers to The ARRL Letter can either switch to e-mail delivery (send an e-mail message to circulation@arrl.org) or may request a credit or a refund (affected subscribers will be notified of their options by mail). Qualified subscribers who receive complimentary copies of the printed newsletter also may switch to e-mail delivery to ensure uninterrupted delivery of ARRL and ham radio news. Those currently eligible for a free subscription also will be able to get The ARRL Letter e-mailed to them for free upon request. All others can access The ARRL Letter on the ARRLWeb page (http://www.arrl.org), CompuServe, America Online, Netcom and other sources (see below, "How to Get The ARRL Letter"). We regret any inconvenience this change might cause to our print-version subscribers, but we see this as a necessary cost-saving measure and as a way to take maximum advantage of our internal resources and of electronic delivery, that has proven itself to be the best-available--and certainly the fastest--delivery system. --Rick Lindquist, N1RL How to Get The ARRL Letter For members and nonmembers alike, The ARRL Letter is available free-of- charge from these sources: The ARRLWeb page (http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter/). This version of The ARRL Letter includes any photographs. The HIRAM BBS: 860-594-0306. The ARRL Technical Information Server (Info Server): Send an e-mail message to info@arrl.org. The subject line should be blank. In the message body, type "send ltr.txt", where mm represents two digits for the month and dd represents two digits for the day (The ARRL Letter is published every Friday). For example, to request The ARRL Letter file for Friday, January 3, 1997, you'd type "send ltr0103.txt". Then, on a separate line, type "quit". CompuServe and America Online subscribers, as a downloadable text file in the services' ham radio libraries. The Netcom server, run by the Boston Amateur Radio Club and Mike Ardai, N1IST: Send e-mail to listserv@netcom.com (no subject needed). The body of the message should say "subscribe letter-list". McNAMARA TO LEAVE FCC FCC Private Wireless Division Chief Robert McNamara, N1KHF, says he's leaving the FCC December 13 to take a position with Nextel Communications Inc, a major telecommunications service supplier. "I certainly am sad to go," said McNamara, who called his colleagues "a great group of people to work with." A Massachusetts native, McNamara, 51, said he was taking advantage of an "opportunity that came along." He'll work in the office of Nextel's general counsel. "It's been an interesting tenure," he remarked of his 21 years at the FCC. He's been in his present position for the past two years. Before that, he headed the Private Wireless Division's predecessor, the Special Services Division within the former Private Radio Bureau--now the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. Deputy Private Wireless Division Chief David Horowitz will become acting chief of the Private Wireless Division upon McNamara's departure. The Private Wireless Division is the part of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau that regulates Amateur Radio as well as matters concerning public safety, industrial, transportation and other private radio services, aviation, marine, IVDS, broadcast auxiliary service, personal radio services, point-to-point microwave, antenna tower clearance, and the radio operator examination program. McNamara said that ham radio enjoys a lot of respect and recognition at the FCC, but he also suggested that hams keep up on spectrum issues in the future. "Spectrum is the key issue, something the amateur community should pay close attention to," he said. But McNamara said he does not expect a repeat performance of the move by the 104th Congress that ordered the FCC to reallocate 2305 to 2320 MHz and 2345 to 2360 MHz and auction it off to wireless services by April 15 in order to help balance the budget. "I'd be surprised if there's a lot of that in the future," he said. McNamara also said he thinks the vanity call sign program has been successful, despite a few glitches. He said the FCC tried to be responsive to hams and do "what the amateur community and the League agreed on." ARRL Executive Vice President David Sumner, K1ZZ, said the League is disappointed to see McNamara leave the FCC. "Ever since Ralph Haller [N4RH] left the FCC, Bob McNamara has been our primary contact on policy matters," he said. "We're sorry the FCC is losing him." Sumner and ARRL General Counsel Chris Imlay, W3KD, met with McNamara, Horowitz and Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Chief Michelle Farquhar December 11, and they took the opportunity to wish McNamara well. McNamara attended the ARRL National Convention in Peoria earlier this year and met with ARRL Board members there. W1AW RECEIVES EQUIPMENT DONATIONS FROM MANUFACTURERS Al Caplan, W0RIC (left), of Timewave holds a DSP-59Y plug-in DSP module that his company has donated to the ARRL Maxim Memorial Station, W1AW. With him is W1AW Station Manager Joe Carcia, NJ1Q. The DSP-59Y board is designed to be installed in a Yaesu speaker cabinet. W1AW also has recently received equipment donations from Alinco (a DX-70TH HF/6-meter transceiver, a DR-605T VHF/UHF FM mobile transceiver, and an EMS-14 desk mike); Yaesu (a G-5400B az/el satellite antenna rotator, for an installation going up next spring); and L. L. Grace (a Kansas City Tracker with Doppler shift tuning option). Carcia expressed "deepest appreciation" to all of the manufacturers who have donated equipment to W1AW. (The ARRL is a tax- exempt, not-for-profit organization as described in Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Voluntary donations are tax-deductible to the extent provided by law.) CALL SIGN SNAFU AT FCC AFFECTS NEW HAMS Imagine you've just passed your licensing examination and your new ticket finally arrives in the mail bearing your brand-new call sign. Maybe you even order a batch of new QSL cards. Then, you get on the air only to learn that your brand-new call sign isn't your call sign after all, because the FCC already had issued it to someone else! In fact, in some cases during mid to late October, the FCC's computers apparently issued the same call sign to several individuals at different times. In a way, it's been a game of musical chairs, but one where the last person to be assigned the call sign gets to keep it. Among those affected were Louise Williams, KF4MTE, and John Lake, KF4MTC, both of Newberry, South Carolina, and George Merchant, KF4MTD, of Joanna, South Carolina. Williams first was issued KF4MTO. A check of the FCC transaction records indicates that KF4MTO was a busy call sign, having first been assigned Williams on October 23, then reassigned on October 30 to another YL in North Carolina before ending up with its "rightful" owner, yet another YL in Tennessee on November 2. Williams was issued KF4MTE on the same date, but not before the call sign had briefly been assigned first to different individuals in Florida, also on October 23 and October 30, respectively. Lake's and Merchant's call signs had similar histories, and they, in turn, had first received other call signs on their new licenses. The FCC discovered the problem in late October. Commission personnel were wrestling with computer-related problems for about a week during late October and early November, just prior to issuing the first Gate 2 vanity call signs on November 4. All of those affected appear to be first-time licensees. "The incorrect licenses were not supposed to be mailed out, but somehow, they were mailed out," said a spokesman at the FCC's Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, office. He said he had "no idea" how many licensees were affected, but he believes the FCC's current database has been corrected so that no call sign has multiple holders. But some people affected might not have gotten the word yet. "The correct licenses might not have been mailed out, so they might be holding a license with the wrong call sign," he conceded. "We're going to try and see which ones didn't get mailed out." He emphasized that the call sign in the current FCC database is the correct call sign. Gettysburg personnel were looking into the reasons for the irregularity with an eye toward making sure it doesn't happen again, he said. MULTIPLE CLUB STATION CALL SIGNS ALL LEGAL The assignment of multiple club station call signs to the same clubs--some of which may exist only on paper--is perfectly legal according to a staff member in the FCC's Private Wireless Division. However, the practice-- which has become more prevalent and obvious during the issuance of Gate 2 vanity call signs in November--has raised the hackles of some hams. A California ham wrote the ARRL expressing his concern that the multiple applications were "clearly in violation of the spirit" of the vanity call sign program, and a New York ham asserted that "club calls should be for real clubs, not imaginary ones." Both hams decried the issuance of 23 club station call signs issued to members of one family in California. The FCC spokesman said, however, that there's nothing in the current regulations to prevent any club from holding several different call signs, nor is there anything to prevent the trustee of those licenses from taking advantage of the vanity call sign program--provided the trustee is willing to put up the $30 per application. AEA FINDS BUYERS FOR ITS PRODUCT LINES Advanced Electronic Applications Inc is being sold--piecemeal. AEA Chairman Mike Lamb, N7ML, announced December 10 that AEA will sell each of its three product lines (data products, test analyzers and antennas) to three separate buyers. Letters of intent are in place and agreements are in the drafting stage, according to Lamb, who already had laid off most of the staff at the company's Lynnwood, Washington, headquarters earlier this fall. Lamb assumed daily control over AEA earlier this year following the sudden departure of former AEA President Rod Proctor, KI7ZI. Subsequently, the company introduced several new products (including the long-awaited DSP-232 multimode TNC) to the amateur market, but it appears to have been a case of too little, too late. As of late November, AEA was just barely in business, and telephone callers were being told to contact ARRL "in about a month" for information regarding service arrangements. The ARRL was not aware that it would be listed by AEA as a contact point, and those seeking customer service should not contact the ARRL to request it. The League cannot help AEA customers with service or technical problems. Lamb said this week that because of the intervening holidays, he didn't anticipate the sales would be consummated until early January. He said the new owners "will likely offer warranty and out-of-warranty service to old AEA customers." While he declined to reveal the names of the prospective new owners, Lamb said that at least one of the companies was already in the ham radio business "with a very good reputation." He also would not say whether the AEA name would survive the buyouts, but said he expected the new owners would maintain AEA's standards. Lamb said an official announcement on the buyouts would be made "as soon as the sales are complete." SOLAR FLURRIES Solar seer Tad Cook, KT7H, in Seattle, Washington, reports: Solar flux has still been moving off the recent flurry of activity caused by region 7999. More activity wasn't expected until this region returned and solar flux rose after December 17, but it looks as if we are seeing increased activity a bit early as the flux rises in the past couple of days. Average sunspot numbers were down about 8 points compared to last week, solar flux was down over 11 points, and the average A index was up about 1.7 points. The projection from the NOAA Space Environment Center a few days ago says the flux should rise again and peak around 94 right around Christmas, and geomagnetic conditions are expected to remain quiet. Paul, 5X4F/5Z4FO writes this week about 10-meter openings from Arua in the northwest corner of Uganda. "I have had two 10-meter openings into the US from here since July 1995." He said the first was October 30, 1995, when 24 East Coast stations were worked between 1744 and 1832 UTC. The second was during the CQWW CW contest on November 24, 1996, when 17 East Coast stations were worked between 1447 and 1535 UTC. "The last opening corresponds to the high solar activity on that day," he said. Paul mentions the ARRL 10-Meter Contest this weekend, and he says that he made 53 contacts in the 1994 contest and 95 in 1995. Alan, NS0B, says he believes the solar minimum already has occurred, based upon his analysis of moving averages of solar flux and sunspot numbers. He does a smoothed 365-day running average and says that the solar flux bottomed out between May 15 and May 23, and has been rising since, while the bottom for sunspot numbers was during the same period around May 19. Based on this observation he says that the recent solar cycle has been one of the shorter ones at 9 years, 8 months. Sunspot numbers for December 5 through 11 were 0, 0, 12, 13, 20, 17 and 31, respectively, with a mean of 13.3. The 10.7-cm flux was 69.6, 69.7, 69.2, 68.6, 73.7, 72.4 and 77.6, respectively, with a mean of 71.5. The planetary A indices for the same period were 2, 1, 4, 3, 7, 18, and 10, respectively, with a mean of 6.4. ARRL COLVIN GRANT TO HEARD ISLAND DXPEDITION The ARRL Colvin Award Grants Committee has authorized a grant of $5000 to the 1997 Heard Island DXpedition. The DXpedition team, operating as VK0IR, hopes to activate this rarely visited, remote location during January and February 1997. Heard Island, a territory of Australia, is located in the South Indian Ocean. The team says its activities will involve natural science research (specifically, a study of cryptofauna) as well as ham radio operations and "radio science." The cost of the entire expedition has been estimated at $320,000. The DXpedition will cover five weeks in January and February. The team is scheduled to depart Reunion Island on January 3, 1997, and return on February 5. Approximately two weeks will be spent on Heard Island, and brief visits to Crozet and Kerguelen Islands also are planned. A team of 20 hams, supported by about a dozen others, has been assembled for the expedition. The Colvin Award is conferred by the League in the form of grants in support of Amateur Radio projects that promote international goodwill in the field of DX. It is funded by income from an endowment established by the late Lloyd Colvin, W6KG. The Heard Island grant is the second Colvin Award to be bestowed by the ARRL. The first was made earlier in 1996 to the organizers of the World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC). For more information on the Heard Island DXpedition, set your browser to http://www.ccnet.com/~cordell/HI/ on the World Wide Web. MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR RELAY TEST A SUCCESS The Mars Global Surveyor relay test in late November was a tremendous success (see "DXing enroute to the Red Planet," QST, Jan 1996). The MGS was launched on November 7 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. By the time the relay test arrived, the MGS was 3.1 million miles from Earth. For several hours, the spacecraft sent a steady carrier of 1.3 W at 437.1 MHz into a near- isotropic antenna. Many amateurs around the world participated in trying to detect the extremely weak signal, a lot of them successfully using the AF9Y FFTDSP program. On his Web page (http://www.webcom.com/af9y), Mike Cook, AF9Y, of Huntertown, Indiana, displays the FFTDSP spectrograms of MGS for the initial CW Mode at 1413 UTC on November 25, 1996, using two 5-foot helix antennas. He reports that his receiver was set so that 800 Hz on the FFTDSP screen corresponded to 437.09551 MHz--which was estimated to be the receive frequency at the start of CW mode. MGS actually was detected 180 Hz lower, at 980 Hz (Cook says that in CW mode, the receiver will shift the FFTDSP trace to the right as the receive signal moves down). AF9Y says the signal level dropped below detection for 45 minutes during the worst-gain period of the spacecraft's rotation. At the station of Darrel Emerson, AA7FV, in Tucson, Arizona, the approach was to try very high frequency resolution to pull the signal out of the noise, allowing for changing Doppler shift from the heliocentric orbital motion of the Mars Relay transmitter. Using a stable reference tone injected into the receiver passband to measure--and then compensate for-- receiver phase and frequency drift, a resolution of 0.013 Hz was achieved. The signal width measured from the MGS with this system was 0.0175 Hz, yielding a signal-to-noise ratio of 19 dB from a single 15-element Yagi. Emerson summarized some of his results on http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/demerson/marsspec.htm. Emerson reports heavy Internet use during the test to communicate among participants and for the control station at the Stanford dish to update the spacecraft's status. "It was quite an exhilarating, but exhausting, event for all those who took part," Emerson said in thanking those at Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) and Stanford University "who made it all possible." --SpaceNews GEORGE A. WISE, W7MB, SK DXCC Honor Roll DXer George Wise, W7MB, of Portland, Oregon, died December 10. He was 76. Wise was charter member No. 1 of the Willamette Valley Amateur Radio Club. Bob Wruble, W7GG, reports that Wise achieved the first five-band DXCC and 160-meter DXCC awards in the seventh call district. A memorial service was set for December 14 at Kern Park Christian Church in Portland, Oregon. His wife, Helen, W7RVM, is among the survivors. --Bob Wruble, W7GG In Brief . . . Vanity update: The FCC in Gettysburg reports it received another 405 vanity call sign applications between November 26 and December 4, 226 of them filed electronically. Gettysburg personnel now have processed vanity applications received through October 31. The ARRL estimates the FCC backlog as of December 4 at approximately 1600 applications. No date has been announced for the opening of Gate 3. The FCC also reminds hams filing for modifications and renewals to include a ZIP code to avoid delays. Mir back on the air: The Mir crew reported early this week that during a space walk, crew members repaired an antenna problem that had disabled the spacecraft's ham radio setup. The antenna apparently was damaged during an earlier space walk. --Dave Larsen, N6JLH New on the ARRLWeb site! Now you can use the ARRLWeb page to search for clubs and examination sites. The ARRL Affiliated Clubs page lets you search for affiliated clubs based on state, ZIP Code (you can search within 20, 50 or 100 miles of the ZIP Code you select) or ARRL section. The ARRL Exam Session Search lets you find exam sessions by state or ZIP Code (you can search within 20, 50 or 100 miles of the ZIP Code you select). You can even find US ham radio test sessions in other countries (We found three sessions listed for Japan --Ed). Click on Clubs or Exams on the ARRLWeb page, or, to get right to the club search, set your browser to http://www.arrl.org/field/club/clubsearch.phtml. The exam search engine is at http://www.arrl.org/arrlvec/examsearch.phtml. Transatlantic anniversary: December 11 marks the 75th anniversary of the first shortwave transatlantic radio transmission, sent from Greenwich, Connecticut, to an American amateur in Ardrossan, Scotland, back in 1921 (see QST, Dec 1996, page 30, for details). The US station, 1BCG, was owned by Minton Cronkhite. In Scotland, Paul Godley, 2ZE, copied a message sent by 1BCG. A commemorative W1BCG operation, using a replica of the 1921 transmitter, continues through December 15 in the vicinity of 1815 kHz in the 160-meter band (as close as practical to the original frequency, which was 1350 kHz--in the present-day standard broadcast band). Club insurance going up: Albert H. Wohlers & Co of Park Ridge, Illinois, which administers the ARRL ham radio and club liability insurance plan, has raised the minimum premium for the ARRL Club Liability Insurance to $325 per year. This will represent an increase for many clubs. Wohlers also notes that the ARRL ham radio equipment insurance plan for individual stations covers all losses. The company says it's paid out $2.4 million on 2700 claims over the past five years, the majority of the claims resulting from lightning damage and theft. For more information, contact Wohlers at 800-323-2106; fax 847-803-4649; e-mail cusv@ahw.com. Section Leader, SK: The ARRL Field Services Department has discontinued the Section Leader newsletter as of the December 1996 issue. A new, quarterly newsletter for ARRL Affiliated Clubs, The ARRL Club Companion, will appear after the first of the year. The quarterly Field Forum will include articles that would have appeared in Section Leader. First published in 1985, Section Leader was distributed to section managers and their appointees. September QST Cover Plaque winners: Edward Kennedy, K3NS, and John Heckscher, were the winners of the September 1996 QST Cover Plaque Award for their article "The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program." The ARRL Letter The ARRL Letter is published by the American Radio Relay League, 225 Main St, Newington, CT 06111; tel 860-594-0200; fax 860-594-0259. Rodney J. Stafford, KB6ZV, President; David Sumner, K1ZZ, Executive Vice President. Electronic edition circulation, Kathy Capodicasa, N1GZO, e-mail kcapodicasa@arrl.org. Editorial, Rick Lindquist, N1RL, e-mail elindquist@arrl.org. Visit the ARRLWeb page at http://www.arrl.org. The purpose of The ARRL Letter is to provide the essential news of interest to active, organizationally minded radio amateurs faster than it can be disseminated by our official journal, QST. We strive to be fast, accurate and readable in our reporting. Material from The ARRL Letter may be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form, including photoreproduction and electronic databanks, provided that credit is given to The ARRL Letter and The American Radio Relay League. ARRLWeb's home page ARRLWeb search Begin or renew your membership online Email ARRL HQ Email ARRLWebmaster ARRL news bulletins