Hams Respond to Historic Floods in Hawaii

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Hawaii, which was slammed with two so-called "atmospheric river storms" that brought heavy rains and high winds, flooding all the state's islands and sweeping many houses off their foundations. ARES and RACES hams were activated, providing realtime ground reports for weather and field information on Oahu and Maui. 

“... VHF linked repeater systems carried individual voice reports sent to EOCs. Meanwhile, federal emergency ICS-213 forms were transmitted carrying messages and incident reports over peer-to-peer Winlink via VHF or on HF.
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— ARRL Pacific Section Manager Alan KH6TU/AD6E

As emergency crews cleared landslides and repaired communications and power lines, hams continued to update road and weather conditions, assisting with coordinated communications. As Newsline went to production, recovery continued after what was being called the state's worst flooding in two decades.

FCC Warns Pittsburgh Amateur Radio Operator for 911 Interference

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FCC Warns Pittsburgh Amateur Radio Operator for 911 Interference

The Federal Communications Commission has sent a notice of licensed operation and harmful interference to an amateur radio operator in Pittsburgh regarding transmissions on a 911 emergency services channel from a handheld transceiver.

Last summer, the FCC received a complaint from Allegheny County, Pa., Emergency Services concerning interference with one of its UHF “T-Band” emergency communications channels.

The interference affected the county’s west EMS dispatch channel on 470.4375 MHz.

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Starlink Satellite Broke Apart in Orbit after Suffering an Unexplained "anomaly."

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A Starlink satellite broke apart in orbit after suffering an unexplained "anomaly," apparently due to an "internal energetic source" rather than a collision. "The incident appears to have created some debris, with fragments likely to fall to Earth over the next few weeks," reports Scientific American. From the report:

The satellite lost communication at about 560 kilometers above Earth, Starlink said. While the statement from Starlink, which is a subsidiary of Musk's rocket company SpaceX, merely noted that investigations are ongoing, LeoLabs said its radar observations of the event indicated an "internal energetic source" as the likely cause rather than a collision.

The incident underscores the potential hazards of the increasingly large numbers of satellites and other spacecraft in low-Earth orbit -- some 10,000 Starlinks are currently in orbit and counting. Starlink's statement said that "the event poses no new risk" to the International Space Station or to the upcoming launch of NASA's Artemis II mission, targeted for 11th April 2026