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AE5ME > ARL 10.04.16 03:50l 61 Lines 7930 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: ARRL Letter April 7th Part 2 of 4
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National Parks on the Air Update
Thanks to the ARRL IT Department, there are now daily updates to the National Parks on the Air (NPOTA) activity statistics. The new statistics are listed on the NPOTA Leader board page. There, you can find info on the number of parks activated, total number of NPOTA activations, and number of QSOs per NPOTA unit. As of April 6, more than 240,000 NPOTA contacts had been confirmed in Logbook of the World, from nearly 3400 activations since January 1. The California National Historic Trail has hosted 4115 QSOs, more than any other NPOTA unit.
There are 47 Activations on the NPOTA calendar for April 7-13, including Cesar Chavez National Monument in California, and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan. Details about these and other upcoming activations can be found on the NPOTA Activations calendar.
Keep up with the latest NPOTA news on Facebook. Follow NPOTA onTwitter (@ARRL_NPOTA).
Author, TV Reporter are the 2015 ARRL Bill Leonard, W2SKE, Award Recipients
Author Don Keith, N4KC, and TV reporter and anchor Jackie Lukas are the recipients of the 2015 ARRL Bill Leonard, W2SKE, Award. Keith was recognized for an article on Amateur Radio, "Wave of Popularity," that he contributed to American Legion magazine. Lukas, a reporter and anchor for News 12 Long Island in New York, was honored for reporting the Great South Bay Amateur Radio Club's activation of a lighthouse "in an uplifting and positive manner." The ARRL Board of Directors named Keith and Lukas in January to receive the award.
Don Keith,
N4KC, is the recipient of the 2015 ARRL Leonard Award in print media.
The ARRL Bill Leonard Award honors up to three professional journalists each year for outstanding coverage highlighting the enjoyment, importance, and public service value the Amateur Radio Service has to offer. The award is a tribute to the late CBS News President Bill Leonard, W2SKE, an avid Amateur Radio operator and advocate. Each recipient will receive an engraved plaque, and a $250 contribution will be made in each recipient's name to the charity of their choice.
"I look forward to receiving the plaque and am very humbled by the award," Keith reacted. He expects to attend a formal presentation at the Huntsville Hamfest in August. Keith said the American Legion's national Amateur Radio club (K9TAL) is working to reach members who might be interested in Amateur Radio and "especially its public service aspects." Keith has designated the Amateur Radio Advancement Group, which is affiliated with the Birmingham Amateur Radio Club, to be the beneficiary of his award. Keith is the author or co-author of more than 30 books.
News 12 Long Island reporter Jackie Lukas received the 2015 Leonard Award from Great South Bay ARC President John Melfi, W2HCB (left), at the March 2016 meeting of the Great South Bay Amateur Radio Club. [Kevin Morgan, AB2ZI, photo]
Lukas responded, "Thank you so much! It's such an honor. I'm glad you enjoyed my story just as much as I enjoyed covering it!" Lukas received the Leonard Award plaque at the March meeting of the Great South Bay Amateur Radio Club.
ARRL Media and Public Relations Manager Sean Kutzko, KX9X, praised the efforts of media professionals who report on Amateur Radio activities. "We owe a lot to the journalists who highlight Amateur Radio's capabilities to our communities and our country," he said. "When Amateur Radio provides communication for a natural disaster or school contact with astronauts on the International Space Station, and the media covers that service, more and more people become aware just how much of a resource we are. The ARRL Leonard Award is our way of saying, 'Thank you for telling our story.'"
MicroHAMS Digital Conference Showcases Innovative Applications, Hardware
Each March in the heart of the Pacific Northwest's software capital, the MicroHAMS club hosts the annual MicroHAMS Digital Conference (MHDC). Having expanded beyond being Microsoft's radio club, MicroHAMS now boasts members from all around the Puget Sound area, including a lot of digital innovators. This year's conference was booked solid.
Curt Black, WR5J, explained how the RAMROD bicycle race network would work. Mt Rainier in the background gives an idea of the topography involved.
"I always come away from this conference energized and full of ideas about ways to put digital technology to work for ham radio," said ARRL Contributing Editor Ward Silver, N0AX, who was a presenter at MHDC 2016. "This year was no different as the presenters focused on SDR and related technologies, including networking and fully digital radios."
A challenging application of digital ham radio is to provide seamless race-day coverage of the RAMROD (Ride Around Mount Rainier in One Day) bicycle race. Curt Black, WR5J, described the perils of attempting data links around a 14,000-foot mountain surrounded by dense fir and hemlock forests, over a 150-mile race course with 10,000 feet of elevation changes. It's not easy, but they do it and have bigger plans for 2016. The technology involves everything from 80 meter NVIS to 900 MHz RFID and D-RATS over the D-STAR system.
John Petrich, W7FU, is taking SDR into the UHF-microwave transceiver world with a design using the Ettus Research USRP B200 SDR and the GNU Radio Companion software platforms. The radio covers from 70 MHz to 6 GHz without converters and is an excellent "workbench" for someone interested in getting into SDR/DSP technology.
Alex Schwartz, VE7DSW, described his LiF/BiLiF adapter boards that use a conventional transceiver's IF to create a fully functional spectrum scope. "It's a particularly sweet combination with the FT-817 and can perform just about any type of modulation and demodulation you can think of," Silver commented.
Two fully digital radios in late prototype stages also were shown. The HamShield by Morgan Redfield, KG7OGM, and Casey Halverson, KC7IBT, is a 144/222/432 MHz handheld based on the Arduino. The project was funded through Kickstarter, and the presentation was as much about the trials and triumphs of funding development as it was technical. Local company Northwest Digital Radio's Universal Digital Radio UDRX is in pilot production after a long development and will have product available at Dayton Hamvention®. The 440 MHz transceiver is built to handle a wide variety of digital protocols and modulation types.
Morgan Redfield, KG7OGM (left), and Casey Halverson, KC7IBT, show off their Hamshield 144/222/432 MHz handheld prototype, which was funded through Kickstarter.
Following the ham radio presentations, Phil Horkin, AF7GY, gave a fascinating explanation of how MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) technology works. MIMO is commonly applied in the wireless data industry, in such devices as WiFi routers. MIMO depends on the presence of multipath propagation to work. Implementing it over line-of-sight links is the challenge, and Horkin is at the forefront of figuring out how to do just that, increasing a channel's throughput considerably without consuming more bandwidth.
Silver said his own presentation discussed the changes ahead for ham radio, as new technology and new hams come aboard, taking Ham Radio 1.0 to Ham Radio 2.0. "It will be different, but not unrecognizable, as hams carry the fundamentals forward into the second century of Amateur Radio," he predicted.
"For radio amateurs, digital conferences such as this one offer opportunities to discover technology that is opening up little-used bands and achieving communication capabilities that were science fiction not long ago," Silver observed. "The pace and breadth of development remind me of how packet radio and commercial wireless data developed with considerable overlap in the 1980s, a partnership that continues to pay dividends today."
Presentations are available on the MHDC website. -- Thanks to Ward Silver, N0AX
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