2017 Advancing the Art of CW Awards

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CWops has announced the recipients of its 2017 awards for advancing the art of CW.

“Many radio amateurs can trace their interest in CW to have begun with achievement programs and activities in the Boy Scouts”
— CWops

The Boy Scouts of America was recognized for its programs over the years that have advanced the art of communicating with Morse code.

Roger Cooke, G3LDI, was recognized for his many years of successful efforts in advancing the art of CW as the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) GB2CW coordinator, as well as for his on-the-air code practice, teaching Morse code, and authoring Morse Code for Radio Amateurs, now in its 12th edition.

New APRS satellites QIKCOM-1

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QIKCOM-1, a APRS digirepeater was deployed from the ISS during Friday 27th October at 0915 UTC attached to the SIMPL spacecraft.

At 4 Watts, it will be 10 dB stronger than PSAT(84) and about the same power level as ISS and should be easy to receive on the 145.825 downlink.

Users are asked to check your ground stations and make sure they are ready to receive  IGate packets during those initial orbits from all over the globe.

Being released from ISS, QIKCOM-1 will, of course, have the same Elements and tracking info as ISS until they begin to separate. This means passes over the USA every 90 minutes beginning at 0630 EDT in the Southeast and ending after 1440 PDT in Southern California.

QIKCOM-1 is not intended for UNATTENDED BEACONS. It is designed for Live Operations and experiments only.

For the initial passes, do not attempt 2-way contacts. Just set your STATUS text to indicate your TX power and antenna type and transmit at 1m intervals ATTENDED as described on the web page during these first few orbits. So we can get statistics on uplink quality.

More Infomration - http://aprs.org/qikcom-1.html

 

Irish Online Amateur Radio Applications

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ComReg is in the process of finalising its new online paperless application facility for all Amateur Station licence applications. It expects to make this new facility available before the end of October 2017.

When The system goes live, all new online facility, payment for all applications or amendments must now be made by debit or credit card. Cheques and postal orders can no longer be accepted. ComReg will issue a further communication when the new application facility is ready for use and will provide detailed information on how to use it.

IRTS have clarified that payment of fees for the Amateur Station Licence examination, which are paid directly to IRTS, may continue to be paid as usual either on line by credit card or PayPal or by post using a cheque or money order.