About a week ago, the FCC announced that it is accepting comments on a Petition for Rule Making (RM-11831) that seeks to change the rules to require that all digital transmissions use techniques “whose technical characteristics have been documented publicly.” Filed by Ron Kolarik, K0IDT, the petition expresses concerns that some currently used digital modes are not readily and freely able to be decoded, and it asks the FCC to require all digital codes to use protocols that “can be monitored in [their] entirety by third parties with freely available, open-source software,” per §97.113(a)(4).
Read MoreOPINION : Three Great Club Newsletters
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Every month (well, almost every month), I send out a column to amateur radio newsletter editors. (To get on the mailing list, click here.) As a result, these newsletter editors put me on their mailing lists, and I get a variety of club newsletters every month.
Read MoreOPERATING : A CW (and life?) Lesson Learned→
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Last night, I worked Jack, W4TJE. He’s a great operator, and I always enjoy chatting with him. Later that evening, I got the following email:
Dan,
You mention on your QRZ.Com page how working Field Day in 2002 got you back into amateur radio. I have a similar story here. I’ve always been active, but was never much of a CW op. I just didn’t get it, never saw the attraction. But, at a Field Day around that same time, I watched an old WWII era ham, now SK, working CW at what sounded like machine gun speed, all while sipping coffee and with a cigarette dangling off his lips, and cracking jokes with us while he did it......
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