New North Texas Section Manager

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Nancy McCain, K5NLM, of Fort Worth, has taken over the position, succeeding incumbent SM Chris Brewer, N5GMJ, who resigned due to increased work and family commitments.

north_texas_section-Manager_Nancy_mccain_arrl

ARRL Field Services and Radiosport Manager Dave Patton, NN1N, made the appointment in consultation with Brewer, who recommended McCain for the post, and ARRL West Gulf Division Director Dr David Woolweaver, K5RAV. Brewer, of Saginaw, has served as the North Texas Section Manager since April 30, 2013.

McCain, who is presently a North Texas Assistant Section Manager, has been active in ARES, RACES, and in Army and Navy MARS. She is a retired emergency management specialist. 

Nancy will complete the current term of office as North Texas Section Manager, which runs until March 31, 2017.

New Award Scheme for Portable Operators

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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.

Amateur Radio Portable Operators Club ARPOC

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

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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.

Matt Ettus N2MJI.jpg

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