Every so often a mode comes along that genuinely threatens to reshape how we talk on HF. Fifty years ago, that mode was single sideband, which overtook AM as the dominant voice mode largely because it packed a signal into roughly half the bandwidth. Now there's a new contender aiming to do the same thing all over again.

FreeDV has introduced a new digital voice mode called RADE — short for Radio Autoencoder — which occupies half the bandwidth of an SSB signal, while reportedly delivering more natural-sounding speech than earlier digital voice modes have managed.

Getting young people into amateur radio often comes down to having the right support network behind a school club — and the Azores has just built exactly that.

It's already been a busy year for school amateur radio clubs in Portugal, and particularly in the Azores, where clubs have recently started coordinating joint activities and sharing knowledge through a newly formed group known as RERA.

Spectrum congestion isn't just an amateur radio problem — it's now a public safety one, according to two of the United Nations' leading technical agencies.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) have called on governments to introduce tougher protections against radio spectrum interference, warning that the same frequencies used to monitor climate, forecast weather, and deliver early warning messages are increasingly being crowded out by satellite and wireless systems.

Every POTA or SOTA activator knows a session can throw up surprises. Few, though, turn into a genuine emergency response.

Michael Miller, KH6ML, had just logged his 11th QSO during a POTA/SOTA activation on 16th September at Hawaii's Diamond Head when his 12th contact of the day happened right there on the summit — not over the air, but in person. A visitor approached him for help: a woman had collapsed inside the summit's observation bunker after hiking the trail.

Good manners on the air never go out of style, and now there's a net dedicated to making sure they don't. Time to brush up on your on-air etiquette — and your general manners — because a new net has launched with exactly that in mind.

The Sunflower GAPT Net does a bit of both things its name promises. Launched by the Sunflower Linked System, the net lives up to its title: Good Amateur Practice and Trivia — GAPT for short. Net control duties fall to Daryl Stout, NK5LA.

There's something wonderfully incongruous about a modern HF rig calling CQ from a site that predates the wheel. That's exactly what just happened in southeastern Turkey.

Amateur radio operators broadcasting from Karahantepe — part of the Taş Tepeler Neolithic network, pronounced "carra-hon-TEP-pay" — connected with nearly 1,000 stations across 40 countries during a three-day operation aimed at putting the ancient site on the global map.

Two threads of the same story are converging in Washington right now: one about testing the systems that warn the public in a crisis, the other about making sure those warnings can still reach people in their cars.

US broadcasters and communications providers are gearing up for a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) on 17th November. Participants include analogue radio and TV stations, digital broadcast systems, and cable TV systems, all of whom received advance notice from the Federal Communications Commission, as required. The test will be broadcast in both English and Spanish.

If you've got a half-finished homebrew project gathering dust on the bench, this is your sign to get back to it.

The RSGB 2027 Construction Competition is officially open for entries, giving RSGB members anywhere in the world the chance to get stuck into designing and building something of their own.

Getting young people hooked on STEM often comes down to finding the right entry point, and AMSAT's Youth Initiative has just added another one to its growing library.

The AMSAT Youth Initiative has released its fifth online course, Satellites and Astronomy, as part of the ongoing Satellites in Space Help Us Live a Better Life on Earth series. The course is available now at www.BuzzSat.com.

Remote digital mode operating has always come with a bit of setup baggage — port forwarding, VPNs, and enough configuration to put off anyone who just wants to get on the air. A new platform is aiming to strip that away entirely.

HamRadioWeb is a new web-based platform built for remote FT8/FT4 operation, designed to work straight from any mobile browser or PC without the usual complexity of VPNs or port forwarding. It's aimed squarely at the DX community and anyone managing a remote station or DXpedition setup, where quick, low-friction access matters.