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==> FCC Proposes to Institute Amateur Radio Application Fees
Amateur radio licensees would pay a $50 fee for each amateur radio license application if the FCC adopts rules it proposed last week. Included in the FCC's fee proposal are applications for new licenses, renewal and upgrades to existing licenses, and vanity call sign requests. Excluded are applications for administrative updates, such as changes of address, and annual regulatory fees.
The FCC proposal is contained in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in MD Docket 20-270, which was adopted to implement portions of the "Repack Airwaves Yielding Better Access for Users of Modern Services Act" of 2018 — the so-called "Ray Baum's Act."
The Act requires that the FCC switch from a Congressionally-mandated fee structure to a cost-based system of assessment. In its NPRM, the FCC proposed application fees for a broad range of services that use the FCC's Universal Licensing System (ULS), including the Amateur Radio Service that had been excluded by an earlier statute. The new statute excludes the Amateur Service from annual regulatory fees, but not from application fees ...

==> Hurricane Watch Net Logs More than 29 Hours of Continuous Operation for Laura
The Hurricane Watch Net (HWN) logged 29.5 hours of continuous operation in advance of Hurricane Laura, beginning at 1300 UTC on August 26. One primary function of the HWN is to obtain real-time ground-level weather conditions and initial damage assessments from amateur radio operators in the affected area and relay that information to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) by way of WX4NHC.
"Since Laura had become a Major Hurricane (Category 3) overnight, well ahead of earlier forecasts, we opened our net on both 14.325 MHz and 7.268 MHz," said HWN Manager Bobby Graves, KB5HAV. "We did this for two reasons. HF propagation was horrible on both bands, and we wanted to make sure anyone trying to contact us would be able to do so." Graves said it strained resources, but the net was able to get its job done. The HWN remained in continuous operation until Thursday, August 27, at 1830 UTC, well after Hurricane Laura made landfall in Louisiana, near the Texas border. ...

==> Historic Winlink Gateway KH6SP Ceases Operation
The last amateur radio digital gateway -- KH6SP -- at the Navy site in Wahiawa, Hawaii, went silent on August 1. The site housed two amateur radio gateways donated by a group of Hawaii amateurs led by Thomas Overman, W2AIT -- KH6UL and KH6SP. For more than 8 years, Overman maintained the Winlink software running them. The system had high-gain log-periodic arrays with low-angle radiation that provided the maritime community with email service across the Pacific and later handled inter-island traffic...

==> Amateur Radio Volunteers Ready as Deadly Hurricane Laura Makes Landfall
Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES®) teams along the Gulf Coast were ready to assist as needed after Hurricane Laura made landfall as a powerful and deadly Category 4 storm along the Texas-Louisiana border with sustained winds of 150 MPH. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) predicted "unsurvivable storm surge" was in the vicinity of 20 feet or greater, driving Gulf waters inland into waterways and lowlands. More than a half-million people in Louisiana and Texas were told to evacuate ahead of the storm, but not everyone did -- or was able to leave. Widespread power outages were reported. By Thursday morning...

==> Ham-Astronauts to Crew Boeing, SpaceX Commercial Missions for NASA
Ham-astronauts abound among crew members assigned to pioneering commercial space missions by Boeing and SpaceX. Jeanette Epps, KF5QNU, is the latest astronaut assigned to the Boeing Starliner-1, a four-passenger vehicle that will undertake its first mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2021. Others on the crew will include veteran Sunita Williams, KD5PLB, and Josh Cassada, KI5CRH. Another crew member is yet to be named. ...

==> New Contest for Portable Stations to Debut
A new amateur radio contest for portable operators -- the Fox Mike Hotel Portable Operations Challenge (POC) -- will debut October 3 - 4. The event is aimed at leveling the competitive playing field between fixed stations and portable stations. Scoring for the POC, based upon a kilometers-per-watt metric, will be handicapped in favor of the portables. The contest is the brainchild of Frank Howell, K4FMH. ...

==> Technology and Technique Making Ham Radio Testing Possible During Pandemic
Amateur radio license testing continues during the pandemic, with a combination of remote Volunteer Examiner (VE) test sessions and careful in-person session planning. In Hawaii, VE Team leader and Section Manager Joe Speroni, AH0A, said he and his team passed the 100-candidate mark on August 10 for video-supervised remote test sessions. Speroni said the most recent session administered exams to 10 candidates simultaneously. ...

==> QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo to Become Twice-Yearly Event
The QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo over the August 8 - 9 weekend appears to have been an unmitigated success, so much so that another virtual event will be held next March.
It was far better than we expected," Virtual Ham Expo Dhair Eric Guth, 4Z1UG/WA6IGR, told ARRL. "We had over 26,000 registered and over 14,000 on the platform both days."
Guth said event sponsors and exhibitors that he's heard from so far "are thrilled with the turnout, engagement, and responses that they received." He said they're also enthusiastic about the second QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo, set for March 13 - 14, 2021. "Our plan is to offer this twice a year," Guth added. ...

==> US Department of Defense to Share 3450 - 3550 MHz with 5G Commercial Operations
The FCC will auction sharing rights to the upper 50 MHz of the 3300 - 3500 MHz secondary amateur radio allocation to commercial 5G interests in the wake of the Department of Defense (DoD) agreement to share spectrum at 3450 - 3550 MHz. The entire band currently supports a variety of military operations, and amateur radio has a long history of peaceful coexistence with the Department of Defense as a secondary user of this spectrum.
Late last year, the FCC proposed to delete the amateur 3300 - 3500 MHz secondary allocation as well as the amateur-satellite allocation at 3400 - 3410 MHz. The FCC could auction the 100 MHz of spectrum in early 2022...

==> Russia-Ukraine "Radio War," HF Radars are Most Frequently Reported Ham Band Intrusions
The Russia-Ukraine "radio war" and the Russian over-the-horizon radar (OTHR) "Contayner" were the most frequently reported amateur band intruders during July, according to the International Amateur Radio Union Monitoring System (IARUMS). IARUMS characterized the ongoing broadcast radio war transmissions between the neighboring nations as "spiteful and provocative."
Clandestine stations have appeared on 7.055, 7.090, and 7.110 MHz. IARUMS has determined that the heavy harmful interference from the Contayner Russian OTHR is coming from a location east of Moscow. Contayner OTHR signals have been monitored on various frequencies on 40, 20, and 15 meters, with a typical occupied bandwidth of about 12 kHz....

==> Lost Video Archive from 1997 Heard Island VK0IR DXpedition Found
The VK0IR DXpedition to Heard Island took place in January and February of 1997. Co-Leader (with Peter Casier, ON6TT) Robert Schmieder, KK6EK, shot a lot of video during the amateur radio adventure, but lost track of it afterward. During the VK0IR DXpedition, DXers from around the world were astounded that signals from the subantarctic Indian Ocean could be heard at the bottom of the solar cycle. A team of 20 operators carried out the massive, expensive, then-high-tech, and very successful DXpedition, making a remarkable 80,673 contacts. The VK0IR story was told in detail in the September 1997 issue of QST...

==> SAQ Alexanderson Day in the Age of COVID-19
Despite mid-summer conditions, at least seven US listeners, most of them radio amateurs, were able to copy the 17.2 kHz signal from the SAQ Alexanderson alternator at the World Heritage Grimeton Radio Station in Sweden. The July 5 transmission from the vintage electro-mechanical transmitter commemorated the annual Alexanderson Day. All told, more than 600 reception reports were received -- a new record...

==> Radio Amateur Takes Part in Historic First Commercial Human Spaceflight to ISS
Bob Behnken, KE5GGX, was one of two NASA astronauts who made spaceflight history over the weekend. Behnken and Doug Hurley were the first astronauts since the 1970s to make a water landing, after their Crew Dragon capsule splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday. On May 30, the pair made history as the first live crew to be launchedinto space in a commercial vehicle, for a stay on the International Space Station (ISS), marking the return of human spaceflight to US soil for the first time in nearly a decade....

==> ARRL 2020 Simulated Emergency Test (SET) Scheduled for October 3 - 4 Weekend
The 2020 ARRL Simulated Emergency Test (SET) will take place October 3 - 4. The annual, nationwide exercise provides Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) volunteers the chance to test personal emergency-operating skills and communication readiness in a simulated emergency deployment. ARRL is asking participants to adhere to Center for Disease Control (CDC) and local health department COVID-19 guidelines by staying home, maintaining safe distances when around people, and following recommended cleaning and disinfecting practices. ...