This summer, I have been activating the Iron Belle Trail, US-13184, a lot.  This is a newly-added POTA entity and it runs through Bandemer Park, which is less than a mile from my house as the crow flies, and less than a mile and a half by car. I can be on the air in 20 minutes or less from the time I leave my house.

If you’ve read my blog at all in the past, you know I’m not a fan of David Minster, NA2AA, ARRL’s current CEO. He’s driving down membership, which is now well under 20% of licensed radio amateurs. He’s driving away staffers, too. The latest to go is Steve Goodgame, K5ATA, ARRL’s Education and Learning Manager. In my humble opinion, his tenure has been a disaster.

There is a quiet irony at the heart of amateur radio. Ours is a hobby built on the principle of communication — of reaching out across continents, of connecting with strangers in the ether, of broadcasting our presence to the world. We accept, willingly and openly, that our callsigns are public. Our names and addresses are registered with national regulators. Anyone with internet access and a passing curiosity can look us up. That is the deal we sign when we get our licence, and most of us are perfectly comfortable with it.

But there is a world of difference between information that is publicly available and information that is actively handed to someone without our consent. And that distinction — painfully obvious in law, in ethics, and in plain common sense — appears to be one that our national organisations are struggling to grasp.

Last August, I got an email from Skip, K4EAK. He wrote: I’m a member of an RV club (the Family RV Association) which has an amateur radio chapter. FRVA’s annual convention will be next March in Perry, Georgia, and ARC is going to do a one-day prep session, followed by the Element 2 Tech exam the next morning. We’ll be using your “No Nonsense” guide, encouraging the participants (as you suggest) to read through it several times, take a few practice tests, and then attend the session before taking the exam. We also plan to follow your prep-day schedule and outline of topics.

Recent conflicts in Ukraine and across the Middle East have exposed a recurring and uncomfortable truth: when governments or military actors want to control the narrative, they don’t just shape the message—they switch off the medium. Internet shutdowns, cellular blackouts, and the targeted destruction of communications infrastructure have repeatedly severed citizen journalists from the outside world.

For a generation raised on always-on connectivity, the proposed solution is often more connectivity—satellite internet services such as Starlink. These platforms undeniably provide critical lifelines for journalists and NGOs operating in hostile environments. But from a systems engineering perspective, they introduce a familiar risk: centralisation. No matter how advanced, any network dependent on a relatively small number of ground stations, satellites, or control systems represents a potential single point of failure—whether through technical disruption, regulatory pressure, or direct attack.

Earlier this week, the Dayton Hamvention announced its 2026 award winners. This year’s Technical Achievement Award winner is Bob Famiglio, K3RF. It’s hard to argue with this choice. As the Hamvention press release points out….

I found this post on reddit yesterday, and I loved the idea so much that I have volunteered to be the unofficial PR guy for this project. Say what you will about MFJ projects—and I have sometimes been critical myself about them—Martin and his company have played a big part in amateur radio for a long time. This is a story that should be told. 

On February 13, 2026, I sent the following e-mail to my Delta Division Director, David Norris K5UZ

On a regular Saturday-morning Zoom meeting of hams a few months ago, a participant in Los Angeles asked the group, “Why can’t I activate one of my local parks and have it count in POTA?” Some of those in attendance echoed the sentiment. Based on that question, I asked myself what does POTA as a program look like? I recently published a snapshot of POTA sites, activations, and activators on this blog. There were several findings that we did not know before I published these results.