IN THIS EDITION:

• +ARRL Board reaffirms, modifies restructuring plan
• +FCC cracks enforcement whip!
• +Mitch activates Hurricane Watch Net
• +New ham satellite in trouble
• +Hams hang tough during Texas floods
• FCC sequential call sign update
• Solar update
• Don Sinnock, W0RWH, SK
• In Brief: This weekend on the radio; Vanity update; FCC sets exam fee reimbursement maximum; Correct dates for ARRL RTTY Roundup; New ARRL DXCC List; New FCC Secretary mailing address

+ Available on ARRL Audio News

ARRL BOARD REAFFIRMS, MODIFIES ITS RESTRUCTURING PLAN

In a special meeting October 24, the ARRL Board of Directors reaffirmed the bulk of its July 1998 Amateur Radio License Restructuring plan with some modifications. Among other things, the Board's July plan would eliminate the Novice and Tech Plus license classes. To provide a logical entry path to HF for Technicians, the Board now has suggested offering CW privileges to Technicians in the current General CW allocations on 80 through 10 meters. Technicians would be permitted up to 200 W PEP.

"The July plan eliminated the HF door by eliminating the Novice license," observed ARRL Executive Vice President David Sumner, K1ZZ. "This is, in effect, a replacement for the Novice, but without an additional license class."

The Board also agreed to replace its originally proposed A, B, C, and D license class designations with Extra, Advanced, General, and Technician.

Under the July plan--and under the FCC's proposed streamlining--the entry-level HF license would be the General. Board members at the October 24 meeting near St Louis expressed concern that the leap to HF privileges under the July plan could prove too daunting, especially for younger newcomers. Under the ARRL plan, it would require passing two written examinations plus a 5 WPM code test to become a General. Some also were troubled about the growing gulf between the "traditional" HF operator and the newer VHF-only amateurs.

Addressing the Morse code requirement in the International Radio Regulations, Sumner summed up the Board's position by saying that the new privileges would amount to self-testing. "By their very nature, you can't use the privileges until you know the code," he said.

The special ARRL Board meeting was called to consider the League's comments on the FCC's amateur licensing "streamlining" proposals in WT Docket 98-143, released in August. Comments are due December 1. During the daylong session, the Board also proposed that the FCC rules ban multiple-choice Morse code tests and establish that a passing grade for a code test be either 70% correct answers to 10 fill-in-the-blank questions or one minute out of five of solid copy.

The Board affirmed its proposals in RM-9196 to improve the procedures for granting Morse code exam credit on the basis of a physician's certification of a disability. It also affirmed "its strong desire" that written exams be modified as necessary "to demonstrate better the depth of the applicant's current radio technical knowledge and operating skill."

The Board supported retention of the topic definitions to be included in written exams, as contained in §97.503(c) of the FCC rules, with some modification to accommodate the new four-class structure.

The Board also reaffirmed its desire that Advanced class volunteer examiners be permitted to administer General class exams, and it renewed its request in RM-9115 for several rules changes involving RACES stations.

The Board noted that it had "heard and considered the views of thousands of ARRL members" on the amateur licensing issues raised in both the ARRL and FCC proposals.

FCC CRACKS ENFORCEMENT WHIP ON JERSEY HAM

The FCC has begun to crack its amateur enforcement whip. A New Jersey ham has been ordered off 40 meters until further FCC notice after allegedly causing interference to the ANARC Net on 7.240 MHz October 18. The FCC also issued an Official Notice of Violation October 21 against James C. Thompson, KA2YBP, of Waretown, New Jersey.

Thompson, 58, was accused by FCC inspectors out of the Langhorne, Pennsylvania, FCC office with illegally retransmitting programs from a Standard Broadcast (AM) station on 40 meters and willfully interfering with the amateur net. The FCC also charged Thompson with failing to properly identify.

It's the Commission's first amateur enforcement action since the FCC announced it would consolidate amateur enforcement within the Compliance and Information Bureau under the coordination of Riley Hollingsworth, K4ZDH, the CIB's legal advisor for enforcement.

Hollingsworth said the FCC acted in the Thompson case on complaints from amateurs, but FCC inspectors did all the legwork. FCC inspectors at Thompson's home found an AM receiver "positioned adjacent to the Amateur station's microphone and tuned to 1450 kHz," the FCC said. Hollingsworth said FCC personnel used a combination of long-range and local monitoring and tracking to zero in on Thompson's QTH as the source of the interfering signal.

Hollingsworth said he anticipates additional amateur enforcement cases to develop as a result of calls to the Amateur Enforcement Line, 202-418-1184.

MITCH ACTIVATES HURRICANE WATCH NET

The Hurricane Watch Net, activated October 24 to keep an eye on Hurricane Mitch, formally stood down October 30 at 0100 UTC. By week's end, Mitch remained stalled off the coastlines of Honduras and Belize, downgraded to a tropical storm after pummeling the area with high winds and torrential rain for several days. Mitch began the week as an extremely dangerous Category 5 storm packing winds of more than 155 MPH. Nearly three dozen people have died as a result of the storm.

As Mitch hit its stride, the Hurricane Watch Net shifted late Tuesday to round-the-clock operation. Hurricane Watch Net Manager Jerry Herman, N3BDW, reports that the Net and the operators of W4EHW at the National Hurricane Center operated through the night on 3950 kHz and then resumed operation on 14.325 MHz during daylight hours, once 20 meters was open into the affected area. The Net secured operations after Mitch was downgraded to a tropical storm.

"Net members will remain on frequency informally to assist stations in the affected area as long as propagation lasts," Herman said. The Net could be reactivated should Mitch regain hurricane status, however.

The Hurricane Watch Net shares storm tracking reports with the National Hurricane Center in Miami via W4EHW.

Other Amateur Radio nets also have been active. The Mexican Hurricane Net was active on 7055 kHz. A Central America Emergency Net also has been active on 7090 kHz.

The Salvation Army Net was reported monitoring 14.265 MHz to assist with health-and-welfare traffic. A health-and-welfare net also was active October 28 on 14.320 with W9KJI as net control.

NEW AMATEUR SATELLITE IN TROUBLE

SEDSAT-1, Amateur Radio's newest satellite, is in trouble following its successful launch October 24 from Cape Canaveral. After fewer than two dozen orbits around Earth, problems arose with the spacecraft's batteries and solar panels.

"This should not have happened," said SEDSAT coordinator Mark Maier, KF4YGR, at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, in a posting to SEDSAT team members and others. SEDSAT-1 was fabricated by students at the UAH. It was boosted into orbit by the same Delta II rocket that carried the Deep Space One probe into space. The package contains a Mode L digital store-and-forward transponder and a Mode A analog transponder. SEDSAT-1 has been heard from at various times this week, however, and ground controllers remain optimistic.

Maier said any hope of useful recovery depends on establishing uplink communication, "and the sooner the better." He said the satellite likely would need uplinks from more than one site "because the uploads will have to be compressed into daytime periods." Maier is hoping to upload code to alter the spacecraft's power-consumption cycle so it's more conservative.

"We can still activate the Mode A and imaging function, but only on a conservative schedule," he said this week.

Chris Lewicki, KC7NYV, of the University of Arizona reported earlier this week that telemetry from SEDSAT-1 indicated the spacecraft's power had dropped to zero at one point and the satellite reset itself. Intermittent telemetry suggests the batteries were not storing their specified 8 Ah. Lewicki said the satellite went quiet halfway through a pass over Tucson on orbit 27, indicating it had gone into its "power cycle" mode. Lewicki said in this state, the satellite notices that it is in extremely low power conditions and waits 10 hours until attempting to transmit again.

The solar panels appear to be producing as much power as expected, but Lewicki said they are "slow to react when exiting an eclipse period," so charging does not start until at least 10 minutes into a daylight cycle. As a result of the power cycling, images of the satellite's deployment from the booster were lost.

Maier said the team needs "full daytime data" for SEDSAT-1, and the SEDSAT team has been actively seeking monitors around the world to listen and decode telemetry for periods when the spacecraft is nearing the end of its day cycle and entering eclipse. He said the satellite's orbit "processes out of North America for fairly long periods"--a half a day or more at a time--making it unavailable to ground controllers. The downlink is 437.91 MHz, 9600 baud FSK (with adjustment for Doppler shift). A telemetry program is available at the SEDSAT Web site, http://www.seds.org/sedsat/tracking.

"To use it, you must put your TNC in KISS mode and must set the appropriate COM port parameters," Lewicki said. Current two-line Keplerian elements also are available at the SEDSAT Web site. E-mail telemetry reports including the orbit number, your latitude/longitude, UTC, and brief description of hardware used to telemetry@seds.org.

For more information, visit the SEDSAT Web site at http://www.seds.org/sedsat/.

HAMS HANG TOUGH DURING TEXAS FLOODING

After nearly two weeks of flood duty, hams in Texas are battered but not beaten. Some individual stories of dedication and heroism also have begun to emerge from within the Amateur Radio ranks.

Many residents displaced by the flooding remain in Red Cross shelters this week. More than two dozen people died. South Texas Section Manager Ray Taylor, N5NAV, reports that at one point, hundreds of hams were active in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas handling various flood-related duties ranging from net control to shelter communication.

"We've had awful good cooperation," Taylor said. Some hams from as far away as Nacogdoches, near the Louisiana border, volunteered. Hams manning shelters got some relief when the Red Cross was able to get cell phones. "We are beginning to secure the Red Cross net here in San Antonio," Bexar County EC Neil Martin, WA5FSR, said earlier this week. "There are still shelters open, but the Red Cross will handle everything by cell phone unless we have more problems."

Martin said the net control station at the Red Cross still was being staffed around the clock "because we are using a VHF/UHF linked system to communicate with shelters in Cuero, Victoria, and other areas toward the coast."

Martin singled out three San Antonio-area hams for special recognition--Shelter Communications Manager Bobby Rodriguez, K5AUW, Red Cross Liaison Stan Stanukinos, KA5IID, and Teri Thomas, KC5BJI. "Bobby and Stan have been at the Red Cross communications center almost continuously since Saturday afternoon with only snatches of rest," he said. "Teri has done yeoman service in finding and scheduling operators."

Taylor said prompt response by a ham couple in his area, Comal County, made the difference between life and death for some residents of a flooded mobile home park there. Taylor said husband-and-wife team, Susan and Leo Manor, NF0T and N0ERI, went down to the trailer park to check out the situation. "Nobody had warned these people," Taylor said of the residents. Using their vehicle, the Manors were able to pull several trailers to higher ground before the water got too deep. "At least we saved some lives there," he said.

Taylor also credited Comal County EC Todd Covington, N5IJR, with taking time away from his own flood-damaged home to roll out the PrimeCo communications van and pressing it into flood duty. Two repeaters in the van have been aiding Red Cross communication.

Taylor said linked repeaters have ensured wide coverage. In addition, hams in Texas made use of HF nets on 40 and 75 meters for regional coordination. A voluntary communications emergency affecting net frequencies on the two bands has been rescinded, however. In addition to helping the Red Cross, Taylor said, ham radio operators have been providing communication and other support for the Salvation Army, the Dallas-based Baptist Men's Kitchen feeding program, and other outside relief agencies.

Taylor himself has been deeply involved in coordinating much of the flood emergency traffic throughout the affected region. He said this week that he expected hams to be active in the flood emergency "for another three weeks."

FCC SEQUENTIAL CALL SIGN UPDATE

The following is a list of FCC sequentially assigned call signs issued as of October 5 1998. For more information about the sequential call sign system, see Fact Sheet PR5000 #206S or contact the FCC, 1270 Fairfield Rd, Gettysburg, PA 17325-7245; e-mail fccitd@fcc.gov.

++ All call signs in this group have been issued in this district.

SOLAR UPDATE

Solar sage Tad Cook, K7VVV, Seattle, Washington, reports: Solar activity was sharply lower last week. Average sunspot numbers dropped by well over half, and average solar flux declined over 17 points to around 109. This seems to be cyclical though, since the average solar flux was down to the same level four weeks ago, roughly corresponding to the rotation of the sun. Average solar flux for the previous 90 days declined this week from 132 to 131, and the solar flux values were far below this value on every day of the past week.

Conditions were fair for the DX contest last weekend, and although solar activity was low, there was quite a bit of activity on 10 meters, where the author of this bulletin operated mobile. An old IC-730--unused since the previous solar cycle--was dusted off, placed in the car, and--when hooked to a quarter-wave trunk mounted whip--it was clear that 10 meters was back. Here on the West Coast it was fascinating to observe the propagation following the sun, with many contacts to JA, VK and ZL around sunset.

KH6BZF sent a note on October 28 suggesting that we might have passed a temporary lull in solar activity. To support this idea, he noted several solar flux readings from the observatory in Penticton, British Columbia. These readings are taken three times per day, at 9 AM, noon and 3 PM local time, although it is the noon measurement that is used for the official solar flux number for the day. The 12 consecutive solar flux readings for October 26 through 29 were 104.8, 104.1, 104.9, 101.7, 103, 103.8, 104.8, 107.8, 108.1, 109.7, 109.5, and 112.9. You can check the progression yourself on the web at Cary Oler's Solar Terrestrial Dispatch page at http://holly.cc.uleth.ca/solar/index.html, then click on "Solar Activity" in the left frame, then "10.7 cm Solar Radio Flux."

The predicted solar flux for October 30-November 1 is 115, 115 and 120, and the projected planetary A index is 10, 8 and 8. This should mean slightly better conditions for the BARTG RTTY Contest this weekend, as compared to the CQ Worldwide DX Phone Contest last weekend.

Look for unsettled geomagnetic conditions around November 3, and again from November 16-21, due to recurring coronal holes. Solar flux should remain above 120 through November 13, then retreat to 110 by November 20. This is all based on the previous solar rotation, so with luck perhaps some unseen new activity will rotate into view, improving HF propagation.

Radio Netherlands has a great collection of propagation web links. See them at http://www.rnw.nl/realradio/propagation.html.

Sunspot numbers for October 22 through 28 were 60, 71, 43, 49, 50, 17, and 33, with a mean of 46.1. The 10.7-cm flux was 114.9, 112.5, 110.9, 107.5, 104.1, 103, and 107.8, with a mean of 108.7. The estimated planetary A indices were 18, 13, 13, 16, 7, 6 and 12, with a mean of 12.1.

DON SINNOCK, W0RWH, SK

Well-known VHF/UHF and EME op Don Sinnock, W0RWH, of LaPlata, Missouri, died October 24 after a lengthy illness. He was 59. Sinnock was an ARRL member.

IN BRIEF:

• This weekend on the radio: The BARTG RTTY Sprint is October 31. The HSC (high-speed CW) Contest is November 1. Just ahead: The ARRL November Sweepstakes CW is November 7-9! Also that weekend: The North American Collegiate ARC Championship, the IPA Contest, and the Japan International DX Contest.

• Vanity update: The FCC appears to be making a little headway in processing vanity applications. The FCC office in Gettysburg reports it has processed vanity applications received through September 30. On the most recent processing run, it granted 201 new call signs. Another 189 applications landed in the work-in-process (WIPs) stack. With the new $13 fee in place as of September 14, the FCC received a whopping 1499 vanity applications during the month of September--nearly 80% of them filed electronically.

• FCC sets exam fee reimbursement maximum: The FCC has announced that the 1999 maximum Amateur Radio volunteer examination reimbursement fee will be $6.49, based on a 1.5% Consumer Price Index increase between September 1997 and September 1998. The 1999 ARRL/VEC test fee will be $6.45. The 1998 ARRL/VEC test fee is $6.35. Note: Elements 1(A) and 2 are always free of charge at ARRL/VEC examination sessions.

• Correct dates for ARRL RTTY Roundup: The ARRL RTTY Roundup will be January 2-3. Incorrect dates had been posted and circulated. See December QST, page 95 for the operating event rules.

• New ARRL DXCC List: The November 1998 edition now is available. It's the ideal way to record the DXCC entities you've worked and QSLed! The latest printing includes all DX Century Club rules, Advisory Committee members, an expanded cross reference for prefixes and more. It's $3 from ARRL. Call 888-277-5289 or visit ARRLWeb at http://www.arrl.org and order Item 7067.

• New FCC Secretary mailing address: The FCC is slowly moving to The Portals. Effective November 2, 1998, the FCC's Office of the Secretary will relocate to The Portals, 445 Twelfth St SW, Washington, DC 20554. The Commission expects to complete its relocation to The Portals within the next six months. For information concerning paper filings, etc, see http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/1998/db981023/pnmc8062.txt