Radio Ham Established World War 1 Listening Post

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Hippisley Hut is an amateur radio station named after Richard John Bayntun Hippisley, an amateur radio enthusiast with the call sign HLX 

He worked with others to persuade the Admiralty to establish a radio station at the start of the Great War. They argued that they were picking up more intelligence than the Marconi stations were. 

Full story - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/11482593/The-holiday-home-that-won-the-First-World-War-and-other-amazing-conversions.html

Irish Amateur Radio Course Guide

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The national society in Ireland, the IRTS have made available an online course guide for the amateur radio licence examination

Irish_Amateur_Radio_Course_Guide

The guide has been designed by the Irish Radio Transmitters Society to assist individuals prepare for the exam and also to act as a template for those organising classes.

In Ireland there is only one class of amateur radio licence, this is regarded by Ofcom as being equivalent to the UK Full (Advanced) for reciprocal licensing purposes.

Unlike the UK licence system there are no practical assessments there is just a single 60 question exam paper which is in two parts.

  • Section A covers Amateur Radio Regulations & Related Topics (30 Questions in total)
  • Section B covers Amateur Radio Theory & Related Topics (30 Questions in total)

Two hours is allowed for the exam and the pass mark is 60%. Holders of this HAREC qualification are able to apply to Ofcom for a Full M0 reciprocal licence.

IRTS Course Guide - http://www.hamradio.ie/course-guide/intro/course_guide.html

Amateur / Ham Radio Statistics - March 2015

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Ofcom have released the latest stats of the number of UK amateur radio licence holders.

Monthly Amateur Licence Statistics - March 2015

Amateur Club Radio Licence - 1493 (1.79%)

Amateur Foundation Radio Licence - 20017 (24.04%)

Amateur Intermediate Radio Licence - 8495 (10.20%)

Amateur Full (Reciprocal) Radio Licence - 761 (0.91%)

Amateur Full Radio Licence - 52493 (63.05%)

Grand Total - 83259

Ofcom - http://licensing.ofcom.org.uk/radiocommunication-licences/amateur-radio/guidance-for-licensees/monthly-stats/

America is also experiencing a grow in licence numbers.

At the end of 2014, the total number of radio amateurs in the FCC’s Universal Licensing System (ULS) database reached an all-time high of 726,725

The trend has continued in the first 2 months of 2015, which saw the ham population rise to slightly more than 727,000.

Just under half of all US licensees hold the Technician class licence which can be considered equivalent to the UK Foundation license.

Amateur Radio Statistics web pages - http://www.ah0a.org/FCC/index.html

Full ARRL Story - http://www.arrl.org/news/us-amateur-radio-numbers-reach-an-all-time-high​