SELARC January 2021 Hamfest Cancelled
The board has planned a fundraiser to offset the annual cost of operating the club in lieu of the regular Hamfest.
A quantity of tickets, minimum of 25, to be sold at $100.00 each, for a $500.00 cash payout.
Each member who purchases a Hamfest ticket to recieve membership for the current year! Tickets should be available at the meeting..
Contact: Ernie Bush - N5NIB for additional info!

If you would like to become a member of SELARC, please print out and complete the application/renewal form and return it with your check to: P.O. Box 1324, Hammond LA 70404. Thanks!

==> FCC to Require Email Addresses on Applications
Amateur radio licensees and candidates will have to provide the FCC with an email address on applications, effective sometime in mid-2021.
If no email address is included, the FCC may dismiss the application as defective.
The FCC is fully transitioning to electronic correspondence and will no longer print or provide wireless licensees with hard-copy authorizations or registrations by mail.
A Report and Order (R&O) on "Completing the Transition to Electronic Filing, Licenses and Authorizations, and Correspondence in the Wireless Radio Services" in WT Docket 19-212 was adopted on September 16. The new rules will go into effect 6 months after publication in the Federal Register, which hasn't happened yet, but the FCC is already strongly encouraging applicants to provide an email address.
When an email address is provided, licensees will receive an official electronic copy of their licenses when the application is granted.

The Report and Order can be found in PDF format online at, https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adopts-electronic-licensing-report-and-order

==> International Broadcast Station Interference Overwhelms Hurricane Watch Net
As Category 4 Hurricane Iota neared landfall in Central America on November 16, the Hurricane Watch Net (HWN) was forced to suspend operations at 0300 UTC because of what HWN Manager Bobby Graves, KB5HAV, described as "deafening interference from a foreign AM broadcast station that came out of nowhere at 0200 UTC."
At the time, the net had shifted to its 40-meter frequency of 7.268 kHz, collecting real-time weather and damage reports via amateur radio.
"This was heartbreaking for our team, as the eyewall of Iota was just barely offshore," Graves said. "The storm had weakened slightly to a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 155 MPH." After activating at 1300 UTC, the net was able to collect and forward reports from various parts of Nicaragua and Honduras via WX4NHC throughout the day for relay to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Iota was the most powerful storm on record to make landfall this late in the hurricane season.
Graves said the very strong AM signal was on 7.265 MHz. "From my location, it was S-9," he told ARRL. "You could not hear anything but the BC station." Graves noted that other foreign broadcast stations were heard from 7.265 to 7.300 MHz and splattering close by.
The offending signal appeared to be from a 500 kW broadcaster in Turkey. Graves said the HWN has a long history on 7.268 MHz, but that the net is now considering a 40-meter frequency below 7.2 MHz
Stations handling emergency traffic during the response to Category 5 Hurricane Iota had requested clear frequencies on November 16 to avoid interfering with the HWN and with WX4NHC, as well as with a Honduran emergency net operation on 7.180 MHz and a Nicaraguan emergency net operating on 7.098 MHz. It's not known if those nets were also affected by interference from the numerous broadcasters on 40 meters...

==> ARRL Petitions FCC for Reconsideration of Order Removing 3.4 GHz Amateur Allocation
ARRL has petitioned the FCC to reconsider its order removing the secondary amateur allocation at 3.3 - 3.5 GHz and requiring that amateur operations in the 3.450 - 3.500 GHz band cease "on a date consistent with the first possible grant of flexible use authorizations to new users."
"The amateur services in this band long have been operated on a secondary allocation status, functionally similar to the de facto secondary status of Part 5 experimental licenses, whose continued operation was (correctly) approved in the same proceeding," ARRL told the FCC. "Continued operation of amateur stations similarly should be permitted in the vacant portions of this spectrum that otherwise will go unused.
ARRL said the public interest is in using the spectrum, not in leaving it vacant waiting for some future application. "The Commission's decision in this proceeding undermines its long-standing policy objective to provide for and encourage more intensive use of spectrum," ARRL said.
"The Commission's decision to remove the amateur secondary allocation throughout the 3300 - 3500 MHz band," ARRL said, "appears to be based upon a mistaken conclusion that amateur secondary 'sharing' of this spectrum is equivalent to the type of 'sharing' that occurs with primary government and other primary commercial users, when in fact amateur secondary operations are quite different in usage, scope, and signal range."....

==> Arizona Congresswoman Introduces National Amateur Radio Operators Day Resolution
US Representative Debbie Lesko of Arizona has introduced a resolution to designate April 18, 2021, as National Amateur Radio Operators Day, to recognize the important contributions of amateur radio operators. ...

==> ARRL Seeks Waiver of Proposed FCC Amateur Application Fees
ARRL has urged the FCC to waive its proposed $50 amateur radio application fee. The Commission proposal was made last month in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in MD 20-270. The proposal has already drawn more than 3,200 individual comments overwhelmingly opposed to the plan. The fees, directed by Congress and imposed on all FCC-regulated services, are to recover the FCC's costs of handling and processing applications.
"Amateur radio applications were not listed when the Congress adopted its 1985 fee schedule for applications, and therefore amateur license applications were excluded from the collection of fees," ARRL said on November 16 in its formal comments on the proposal. "Similarly, a decade later when regulatory fees were authorized, the Amateur Service was excluded, except for the costs associated with issuing vanity call signs." The new statutory provisions are similar. Amateur radio license applications are not addressed in the application fees section and explicitly excluded from regulatory fees," ARRL said, and there is "no evidence of any intent by Congress to change the exempt status of amateur applications and instead subject them to new fees."
ARRL argued that the FCC has explicit authority to waive the fees if it would be in the public interest, and should do so for the Amateur Radio Service. Unlike other FCC services, the Amateur Radio Service is all volunteer and largely self-governing, ...

==> Academic Paper Predicts Sunspot Cycle 25 Could be Among the Strongest Ever
A research paper, "Overlapping Magnetic Activity Cycles and the Sunspot Number: Forecasting Sunspot Cycle 25 Amplitude," by Scott W. McIntosh, Deputy Director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, et al., has concluded that Solar Cycle 25 could be among the strongest sunspot cycles ever observed, and will almost certainly be stronger than the just-ended Solar Cycle 24 ...

==> SKYWARN Recognition Day 2020 Adjusts for COVID-19
Since 1999, the annual SKYWARN™ Recognition Day (SRD) has celebrated the long relationship between the amateur community and the National Weather Service (NWS). SKYWARN Recognition Day 2020 will take place from 0000 UTC to 2400 UTC on December 5. Amateur radio operators comprise a large percentage of SKYWARN volunteers across the country...

==> Low-Frequency Station SAQ Broadcasts UN Day Message of Unity in Face of COVID-19
On United Nations Day, October 24, the Alexanderson alternator station SAQ in Sweden transmitted a message on 17.2 kHz urging unity in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The message transcript follows. ...

==> "Black Swan" Exercise Offers Opportunity to Demonstrate IPAWS via HF
The SHARES HF program recently brought the FEMA Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS) and the Winlink HF email development team together to demonstrate that an IPAWS message could be delivered by HF in the event of an internet outage. IPAWS is FEMA's nationwide local alert system that provides authenticated emergency and life-saving information to the public through mobile phones using Wireless Emergency Alerts, to radio and television via the Emergency Alert System, and on NOAA Weather Radio.
The recent Ohio Military Reserve "Black Swan" exercise provided the opportunity to demonstrate the ability to deliver an IPAWS message via HF....

==> Australian Space Communications Station Will Feature Optical Data Transfer
The University of Western Australia (UWA) is set to install an optical communications station capable of receiving high-speed data transmissions from space. The communications station will be able to receive data from spacecraft from anywhere between low-Earth orbit (between 100 miles and 620 miles above Earth's surface) to as far away as the surface of the moon -- some 240,000 miles away.
Astrophotonics Group Leader Dr. Sascha Schediwy at UWA and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy (ICRAR) said optical communications are an emerging alternative to radio waves and are expected to drastically improve data transfer capabilities from space...