Modified French Amateur Radio Callsign for Great Britain Nationals

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ANFR – Agence Nationale des FRequences - the French telecom regulator, published the following news on their website

“After the United Kingdom’s request to no longer be part of the European Union, nationals of Great Britain who come for the first time to France for a temporary stay are now assigned an F4W type (non-EU CEPT) code.”

4M IRTS News in the East Leinster region

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4M IRTS News in the East Leinster region

The members of East Leinster Amateur Radio Club have proposed reading the IRTS (Irish Radio Transmitter Society) News on 4 metres as a Pilot for a couple of months. The Club Station will be operating portable for the duration of this pilot.

They have received a positive response from the IRTS and are now in the final preparation stages.

Their aim is to broadcast the IRTS News on the First Sunday of each month at 10:30am GMT for three months, using FM Mode on 70.350MHz, with a request for call-ins and signal reports after the broadcast. SWL's may leave a comment on the club's website.

Equipment used will be an Anytone AT-588 operating at 40W into a flowerpot antenna hoisted up as high as they can get it in a nearby tree.

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ARISS Ham Station in Columbus Module Is Once Again Operational

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ARISS Ham Station in Columbus Module Is Once Again Operational

Some 6 weeks after going silent following a spacewalk that installed new antenna cabling, the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) ham station in the Columbus module is once again operational. The Columbus station, which typically uses the call sign NA1SS, is the primary ARISS amateur radio station used for school contacts and other activities. A 27th January 2021 spacewalk replaced a coax feed line installed 11 years ago with another built by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Airbus.

While the specific cause of the problem has not yet been determined, a 13th March 2021 spacewalk that restored the antenna cabling to its original configuration provided the cure. The plan to return the ARISS cabling to its original configuration had been a “contingency task” for a 5th March 2021 spacewalk, but the astronauts ran out of time. The ARISS work was appended to the to-do list for astronauts Mike Hopkins, KF5LJG, and Victor Glover, KI5BKC, to complete a week later.

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