The Volunteer Monitor (VM) Program is a joint initiative between the ARRL and FCC to enhance compliance in the Amateur Radio Service. This is the VM Program report for September 2021.

Technician operators in Mansfield, Ohio; Avon Park, Florida, and Pulaski, Tennessee, received Advisory Notices after making numerous FT8 contacts on 20 meters. Technician licensees do not have operating privileges ...

Students at the Mary Hare School for deaf children in the UK took part in what appears to have been a world-first event for Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS). Facilitating the late-morning direct contact with astronaut Mark Vande Hei, KG5GNP, at NA1SS were ARISS-UK and members of the Newbury and District Amateur Radio Society (NADARS). The ground station used the call sig...

Richard H. “Rich” Arland, K7SZ, of Dacula, Georgia, died on October 7. An ARRL member, he was 75. In addition to other books, Arland was the author of Low-Power Communication and other ARRL publications, and he was an avid QRP enthusiast and experimenter. Arland had been a radio amateur since 1963. He volunteered in the ARRL Field Organization as a Technical Advisor and as an Official Emergency...

During the Edmond (Oklahoma) Amateur Radio Society’s ARRL Field Day 2021, Marcus Sutliff, N5ZY, spoke with visitors from John D’Aquino’s Young Actors Workshop (YAW) and learned of their plans to make a short film in which amateur radio plays a role, and they needed some help. The filming was to take place in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and they needed someone with film or video experience and someone...

Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) is helping high school computer science students become makers by providing a grant to purchase Raspberry Pi computers and Arduino microcontrollers. California High School computer science AP teacher Sean Raser said he believes that a hands-on approach is the most effective way for students to learn and retain knowledge. The class would aim to accompl...

Get ready to place your last-minute bids on items for sale in the 16th Annual ARRL Online Auction. GigaParts is sponsoring this year’s auction, which features QST “Product Review” items, vintage gear, classic books, novelties, and the ever-popular ARRL Lab “Mystery” boxes. Visit the Auction website, register to bid, and check out details on the items available. Keep an eye on the ARRL Facebook ...

Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) has firmed up the date for a contact between the ISS and the Mary Hare School for deaf children in the UK. It will take place on October 12 at 1112 UTC as a direct contact via amateur radio between students at the Mary Hare School and astronaut Mark Vande Hei, KG5GNP, at NA1SS. Students will take turns asking their questions, with replies...

Due to the low number of essays received, the Intrepid-DX Group has extended the submission deadline for this year’s Youth “Dream Rig” Essay Contest to November 15, 2021. The winner of the 2021 contest will be announced on December 1. Those who submitted an essay last year are invited to submit again. The prize is an Icom IC-7300 transceiver.

Entry rules:

(1) Write and submit a two-page essay tha...

Tad Cook, K7RA, Seattle, reports: Sunspots were visible every day this week, but the numbers were lower. Average daily sunspot numbers declined from 58.4 to 30.7, and the average daily solar flux was down by 2.9 points to 86.9.

Geomagnetic activity was a little higher, with average daily planetary A index going from 7.3 to 8.1, and average daily middle latitude A index from 6.3 to 6.7.

Friday, Oc...

ARRL President Rick Roderick, K5UR, in a written statement on the newly filed H.R.5378 before the U.S. House Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee on Wednesday, urged Congress to direct the FCC to preserve Amateur Radio’s secondary use of the 3 GHz band.

President Roderick’s statement was the result of a quick, well-organized response by ARRL to counter the continuing threat to A...

ARESLAX, an arm of the ARRL Los Angeles Section, has used a $23,600 grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) to purchase equipment that will help Amateur Radio Emergency Service® (ARES®) team members to locate and eliminate sources of radio frequency interference (RFI) that could hinder their operations.

“ARESLAX is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization supporting emergency communicatio...

Today (October 5) is the official release date for the new Windows 11 operating system, Microsoft has announced, but it will be a slow reveal. Radio amateurs may be eager to learn if it will run the station software they’re running under Windows 7 or Windows 10, and if they’ll need new device drivers.

“We are not too concerned,” said Tom Wagner, N1MM, of the widely popular, free logging softwar...

The launch of a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Epsilon rocket carrying several amateur radio payloads has been rescheduled for October 7. Launches on October 1 and October 3 were scrubbed. This would be the fifth launch of the Epsilon Vehicle.

The launch will carry four amateur radio satellites into space: TeikyoSat-4 (TS-4), Z-Sat, KOSEN-1, and NanoDragon. On October 6, four addition...

Get ready to bid and support ARRL education programming when the 16th Annual ARRL Online Auction gets under way on Friday, October 8, at 10 AM EDT (1400 UTC). The auction continues through Thursday, October 14. GigaParts is sponsoring this year’s ARRL Online Auction. A preview of the items that will be up for bid begins on Tuesday, October 5. This year’s auction features ARRL Product Review and...

The oft-cited figure of 3 million radio amateurs worldwide may need updating. That number was what the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) published in 2000 for the global head count. The IARU once regularly collected amateur radio population statistics, but stopped the practice around the point when the worldwide amateur radio population began to decline.

Data available elsewhere for a few...

Tad Cook, K7RA, Seattle, reports: Sunspot activity was up over the past week, with the average daily sunspot number rising from 28.7 to 59.4, and average daily solar flux up 11.4 points to 89.8. Nice to see our sun peppered with spots again as we move into the second week of fall in the Northern Hemisphere.

The 10.7-centimeter solar flux was 101.6 at noon on Wednesday, September 29. That’s the h...

On September 11, some 115 amateur radio volunteers from five states provided communication support for LoToJa, the longest single-day USA Cycling (USAC)-sanctioned bicycle event in the country and now in its 39th year. Starting in Logan, Utah, the 203-mile course ends in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, taking cyclists through northeastern Utah, southeastern Idaho, and western Wyoming in the process. The...