FCC Rejects Ham Radio Club's NCE Applications

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The FCC recently threw out all eight applications for new Non-Commercial Educational (NCE) FM channels from a ham radio club in Washington state, citing 'numerous significant and egregious technical defects'

When the Media Bureau last month announced the settlement period for mutually exclusive applications filed in the recent window for new non-commercial educational stations, it also published a list of applications being dismissed due to technical defects.

The Fort Ward Amateur Radio Club was prominent on the list. The club, established in 2021 [by Louis Charles Hoffmann Alloin KI7AGD], is on Bainbridge Island, home of the historical Fort Ward WWII naval radio station. The club’s mission statement indicates that the club includes licensed amateur radio men, women, students and youths.

The FCC said it typically doesn’t review MX applications for technical defects at this early stage, but it made the effort to do so and the ham club’s technical defects were identified.

Fort Ward Amateur Radio Club - https://www.atdlines.com/fwarc-ehc.htm

Moon bouncing and radar imaging with LoRa

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Moon bouncing and radar imaging with LoRa

The LoRa radio protocol is well known to hardware hackers because of its Long Range (hence the name) but also its extremely low power use, making it a go-to for battery powered devices with tiny antennae. But what if the power wasn’t low, and the antenna not tiny? You might just bounce a LoRa message off the moon. But that’s not all.

The team that pulled off the LoRa Moonbounce consisted of folks from the European Space Agency, Lacuna Space, and the CA Muller Radio Astronomy Station Foundation which operates the Dwingeloo Radio Telescope. The Dwingeloo Radio Telescope is no stranger to Amateur Radio experiments, but this one was unique.

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Hoovers and Handhelds

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The German Bundesnetz Agentur has banned the sale of TESVOR model6 robotic vacuum cleaners, because it not only used lasers to chase your cat or dog, it also sported a wireless link, complete with a networked remote control.

It came into circulation without CE mark or any appropriate paperwork regards the wireless parts, so the TESVOR model S6 does no longer makes its rounds. While we could smile about that, the same Bundesnetz Agentur struck closer to home, and also banned the import, sale and use of the popular Baofeng UV5R dualband handhelds. Several Amateur Radio news outlets reported speculations that this may lead to a ban across Europe.

Informed postings on the Ei7Gl blogspot confirmed what Polish authorities found out in tests conducted on imported UV5R radios: Their transmitted spectrum is not clean enough, so the Polish authorities informed their German colleagues, who in turn quickly announced this ban