New Award Scheme for Portable Operators

The Amateur Radio Portable Operators Club (ARPOC) have unveiled a new award scheme encouraging operators to get out and about.

“We hope that the award scheme encourages operators to get out in the fresh air with their radio equipment and enjoy the benefits that portable operating can bring as well as help with promoting the hobby to the public.”

— Matthew Payne, M0LMK, ARPOC

Any licensed operator can take part in the award scheme and individuals can apply for and claim their personalised award certificates online. Downloadable certificates cost £2.00 each or are free for full members of ARPOC which costs just £5 a year. Funds raised from the award scheme go towards ensuring the scheme can be continued for many years to come.

There are a number of different award certificates that can be gained each with their own challenges. These include awards such as:

• Life’s A Beach
• Portable Professional
• Lighthouse Lurker
• Operating Within Tent

While many licence holders have shacks at home and associated QRM issues, ARPOC want to encourage members to get out and about and experience the joys of operating a portable station away from the noise.

The names of the awards themselves hint towards what situations and locations the members will experience when they work towards these certificates. For instance, a few trips to the seaside will be needed for the Life’s A Beach award, while members will have to travel to five other countries if they opt to work towards their European Sun Seeker award. This award tasks members with operating a station from two different beaches that are in no less than five different European countries. Operators will also need to complete a standard exchange with at least one station at each location.

Once members have successfully completed their tasks, they can apply for the awards they have worked towards. All of these new ARPOC awards are available to download. That means these prized certificates can be downloaded and printed off quickly and easily, ensuring members are able to enjoy them almost immediately.

ARPOC - http://www.arpoc.org

International Achievement Award for Radio Ham

Radio Amateur Matt Ettus, N2MJI has won the 2014 annually awarded Wireless Innovation Forum of International Achievement Award at the recent WInnComm 2015 event held in San Diego, California, USA.

The Forum International Achievement Award is presented to an individual, group of individuals, or organization that made especially significant contributions to international furtherance or acceptance of Software Defined or Cognitive Radio. 

Matt, N2MJI has utilised his company Ettus Research, now a part of National Instruments, resources as an innovatior in the Software Defined Radio community since he released the first Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) in January of 2005 with GNU Radio software support. 

Over the past year Matt Ettus has made significant contributions to the international SDR community with one of the most novel being RF NoC, an innovative network-on-chip based programming architecture that enables flexible and instantly reconfigurable FPGA acceleration for radio designers. This new approach improves the modularity of FPGA IP, improving reuse across designs.

The Wireless Innovation Forum is a non-profit international industry association dedicated to driving the future of radio communications and systems worldwide.

Wireless Innovation Forum Announcement - 
http://www.onlineprnews.com/news/570592-1427830733-wireless-innovation-forum-announces-2014-achievement-award-winners-at-winncomm2015-in-san-diego.html

2015 Young Ham of the Year Award

Amateur Radio Newsline is seeking nominations for its 2015 Young Ham of the Year Award.

For consideration, a nominee must have used amateur radio in some way that has benefited his or her community or encouraged technological development directly or indirectly related to communications.

Nominees must be 19 years or younger, and reside in the United States including Hawaii , Alaska , Canada , and Puerto Rico or any of the Canadian Provinces. The individual must also hold a currently valid United States or Canadian Amateur Radio license.

This award is not a contest. The person selected as ‘Young Ham of the Year’ is judged on his or her overall accomplishments and contributions.

Any prizes awarded are secondary in nature.

The deadline for submitting an application is May 30th 2015 and the decision of the judging committee is final. To obtain an application, send a self addressed, stamped envelope to 2015 Young Ham of the Year Award, in care of Amateur Radio Newsline, 28197 Robin Ave. Santa Clarita, CA 91350 .

Presentation of the 2015 Amateur Radio Newsline Young Ham of the Year Award will take the weekend of 15-16 August 2015  at the Huntsville Hamfest in Huntsville Alabama.

Download Nomination Form - http://www.arnewsline.org/yhoty