Connecticut Governor Proclaims Amateur Radio Recognition Week

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Connecticut Governor Proclaims Amateur Radio Recognition Week

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont has released an official statement, designating 16-22 April 2023, as Amateur Radio Recognition Week. The proclamation coincides with World Amateur Radio Day (WARD), which is held annually on 18th April 2023.

Members of the Meriden Amateur Radio Club (MARC) pursued the proclamation with the Governor’s office.

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ARDC Grant Funds FreeDV Project

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To advance the state of the art in HF digital voice and to promote its use, Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) has awarded $420,000 to the FreeDV Project.

FreeDV is a low-bit-rate digital voice mode for HF radio. Initially developed by David Rowe, VK5DGR, an international team of radio amateurs are now working together on the project. FreeDV is open-source software, released under the GNU Lesser Public License (LPGL) version 2.1. The modems and Codec 2 speech codec used in FreeDV are also open source.

Hardware and software developers can integrate FreeDV into their projects using the FreeDV API. To operate FreeDV, radio amateurs either run the FreeDV GUI application on Windows, Linux and OSX machines or use the SM1000 FreeDV adaptor. Either method allows hams to use a single-sideband HF radio to send and receive FreeDV signals. To learn more about FreeDV, go to https://www.freedv.org.

Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) is a California-based foundation with roots in amateur radio and the technology of internet communication. The organization got its start by managing the AMPRNet address space, which is reserved for licensed amateur radio operators worldwide.

Additionally, ARDC makes grants to projects and organizations that follow amateur radio’s practice and tradition of technical experimentation in both amateur radio and digital communication science. Such experimentation has led to advances that benefit the general public, including the mobile phone and wireless internet technology. ARDC envisions a world where all such technology is available through open source hardware and software, and where anyone has the ability to innovate upon it.

ARDC - https://www.ardc.net

Auto Industry Non-Committal to Keeping AM in New Cars

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Auto Industry Non-Committal to Keeping AM in New Cars

Automakers have replied to U.S. Sen. Ed Markey’s letter urging them to maintain broadcast AM radio as a feature in electric vehicles and other future vehicles. But the auto industry’s response by no means offers any guarantees that the senior band will remain in the dashboard going forward.

Markey wrote in December to all the big automakers: Ford, General Motors, Stellantis, BMW and Kia among them. He asked for a thorough accounting of where AM radio receivers stand in the view of automakers and to inform him of any plans to discontinue access to AM in new cars.

The auto industry response comes from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation and appears to be a resounding non-endorsement of AM radio. In fact, the letter makes no mention of the industry’s intentions of keeping AM radio intact in the dashboard.

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