Amateur Radio Daily

The Radio Club of America Announces 2026 Award Recipients and Fellows

2026-10-08T00:00:00Z

The Radio Club of America (RCA) proudly announces its 2026 annual award recipients and its incoming class of 2026 Fellows. Since 1935, RCA has recognized through its awards program major contributors to wireless communications. This year, fourteen awards are being bestowed, and seven RCA members are being elevated to Fellow status.

The 2026 Awards and Fellows ceremonies will be held at the RCA Awards Banquet in Westin Times Square in New York City on November 21, 2026. For details, please see RCA's website.

RCA's Awards Program

Award recipients are announced each year. Nominations are accepted from anyone in the wireless industry. Two broad categories of awards include: (i) public awards for anyone involved in wireless, and (ii) member awards that are restricted to RCA members. RCA elevates members to Fellow status at the same event by invitation based on the individual's contributions to RCA and to the art and sciences of wireless or broadcast communications.

Past award recipients include dozens of legends who created the wireless industry, including Edwin Armstrong, Martin Cooper, Jay Kitchen, Fred Link, Ted Rappaport, Henry Richter, Ulrich Rohde, and Joseph Taylor.

2026 Award Recipients

(RCA Service Awards will be announced separately)

RCA's 2026 award recipients join a proud tradition of wireless legends. Each practitioner has dedicated significant time and talent toward the advancement or preservation of skills that advance the wireless industry. The 2026 awards are listed in award name alphabetic order.

Dr. Andrea Goldsmith, Armstrong Medal – first female recipient in history!
RCA's first award was presented to Major Edward H. Armstrong for his invention of circuits that made AM and FM radio possible and for Major Armstrong's lifetime of championing work that established the foundation for modern radio technology. The award, now known as the Armstrong Medal, is only bestowed when an individual has demonstrated excellence and made lasting contributions to the arts and sciences of radio.

Dr. Ajay Poddar, Dr. Arno Penzias Award for Contributions to Basic Research in the Radio Sciences
Established in 2023, this award recognizes significant contributions to basic research involving RF and related subjects to inspire future generations of scientific professionals.

Audrey McElroy, Carole Perry Young Professional Award
Established in 2023, the Carole Perry Young Professional Award was established to honor a Young Professional who was part of the RCA Youth Activities Program in their formative years and who has gone on to a career in wireless science.

Mal Gurian, Centenarian Award
Initiated in 1989, this award recognizes any living RCA member who is 100 years old.

Dr. Henry L. Richter, Centenarian Award (honorary)
Initiated in 1989, this award recognizes any living RCA member who is 100 years old.

Jack Winters, Lifetime Achievement Award
Established in 2015, RCA's Board of Directors recognizes very significant achievements, and a major body of work accomplished over a lifetime, that has advanced the art and science of wireless technology.

Charles Kirmuss, Henri Busignies Memorial Award
The award, established in 1981, primarily recognizes achievements in the field of communications equipment and is granted to any person who has contributed substantially to the advancement of electronics for the benefit of humanity.

Anthony Rizi, Frank Gunther Award
Established in 1996, this award recognizes an individual for their dedication to the field of military communications.

Jay Adrick, Ralph Batcher Memorial Award
Established in 1976, this award is presented to an RCA member for their significant work in preserving the history of radio and electronic communications.

Charles Counselman, Dr. Ulrich Rohde Award for Innovation in Applied Radio Science and Engineering
Established in 2023, this award recognizes significant contributions to innovation in applied radio science and engineering in the wireless industry to inspire future generations of wireless professionals.

Mike Wolf, Excellence in Sales and Marketing Award
This Award is to recognize an individual who exhibits the "Esprit de Corps" of sales, marketing and promoting in the Wireless Industry. The ideal candidate should have been in the wireless industry for a minimum of 10 years. The nominee should not be judged on sales volume, but on their dedication to the wireless industry. They should demonstrate a professional and ethical approach to their business relationships. They should display integrity when representing the wireless industry and they should work for the betterment of the Radio Club of America.

2026 RCA Fellows

Elevation to Fellow is made by invitation only to RCA members who are in good standing for at least five years, in recognition of their contributions to the art and science of radio communications, broadcast, or to RCA are deemed outstanding by RCA's Board of Directors. The following RCA members are elevated to Fellow status in 2025:

Steve Floyd
Rachel Jones
Douglas Kwiatkowski
Geoffrey Mendenhall
Nick Pennance
Nicholas Tusa
Jack Varnado

Further Information

A complete listing of RCA Awards and previous recipients can be found at this link.

Founded in 1909, the Radio Club of America is the oldest, most prestigious group of wireless communications professionals in the world. Members are dedicated to the wireless arts and sciences for the betterment of society. The Radio Club of America is a 501(c)(3) organization. For more information, visit www.radioclubofamerica.org.

Source: Radio Club of America

TX Factor Visits National Hamfest

2026-10-05T00:00:00Z

The following is a message from TX Factor:

The latest episode from TX Factor is now on the air!

In late September 2026 TX Factor visited the annual National Hamfest at Newark, Nottinghamshire, UK. Hamfest is the UK’s premier amateur radio rally and we’re able to bring you as much of the action from the two-day event as possible.

In this initial show Bob McCreadie G0FGX chats with Dominic M0BLF from the ubiquitous Camb-Hams whilst operating QO-100. Bob discovers more about the proposed new rig release from Icom and updates us on a future repeater upgrade from Yaesu.

Bob meets key personnel from the RSGB to learn more about the Society's membership strategies and some changes in the way the Society meets and greets folk at major shows and conventions such as Hamfest and Dayton. There will be much more coverage and news from Hamfest in future episodes of TX Factor following soon.

TX Factor is sponsored by The Radio Society of Great Britain.

Visit the website at txfactor.co.uk where you’ll be able to view all the episodes of TX Factor dating back to February 2014 and links to the TX Factor Youtube channel.

Source: TX Factor

APRS Connect is Now on iPhone

2026-10-04T00:00:00Z

The following is a message from APRS Connect:

APRS Connect, the messaging-first APRS client that launched on Android in August, is now on the App Store for iPhone (iOS 16.4 or later). It is free to install and use over APRS-IS. Connecting a radio and several advanced features are part of APRS Connect Pro, a subscription with a 7-day free trial.

APRS OTA, the on-the-air activity that runs entirely over APRS, has its own screens in the app, so you tap buttons instead of typing bot commands. Hosts go on the air in one tap. Each chaser's call arrives with their message, where they are and a Confirm button. A bar across the top shows QSOs, points and time left, with buttons to stay longer or message every chaser at once. A live map shows you and your chasers and adds up how far your contacts have reached. Chasers get the list of hosts on the air, tap one to call, and watch each step through to the host's QSL. Every op is saved with its map and scores and can be shared as a picture. Chasing works over APRS-IS, free. Hosting needs a radio, as APRS OTA's rules require.

The other services on APRS get the same treatment, a guided screen instead of a command to memorize: weather, the repeater finder, WHO-IS, the SMS, email and Winlink gateways, and APSPOT and APRS2SOTA self-spotting. #APRSThursday and other ANSRVR groups open as a single net room.

On iPhone the app connects to KISS TNCs over Bluetooth LE or TCP. It can also work through a radio's speaker and mic, using the built-in AFSK 1200 audio modem with VOX keying. Radios with a Bluetooth LE KISS TNC built in, such as the BTECH UV-Pro, connect directly.

Several things have been added since the app was first covered here:

The phone can be an IGate. It passes what your radio hears to APRS-IS and, if you choose, sends messages from the internet back out on the air for stations nearby. It can also be a digipeater that stays quiet when another digipeater has already repeated the packet.
A coverage map shows the places your beacons were picked up by a digipeater.
Pinned stations, a grid square screen, and the ISS on the map.
A setting chooses how messages go out: radio first, APRS-IS first, one link only, or every channel at once.
An optional account keeps messages, pinned stations and settings the same on every device. When two devices share a callsign and SSID, only one of them beacons, acks and digipeats at a time.
A "Rest of the world" map layer shows stations heard anywhere on APRS-IS, not only the ones your device heard.
The app is more accessible for operators who use VoiceOver and TalkBack. Every button has a spoken name, and an open conversation reads new messages aloud.

The newest of these are on iPhone now and reach Android with its next Play release.

More at https://aprsconnect.com, and on APRS OTA in the app at https://aprsconnect.com/ota. Download the App: https://aprsconnect.com/get/89x5bv.

Source: APRS Connect

Call sign grace period: A hard lesson learned

2026-10-01T00:00:00Z

By Rob Rosenberger (K4HST)

The FCC's two-year grace period is a safety net if we forget to put a reminder in our calendar app. One operator relied on it when he applied for a renewal in April, five months before the end of his grace period. But it requires more than just signing in. He needed to confirm the payment actually occurred.

This brings us to the sad tale of KE6MIT.

He attempted to renew it twice. His first application on April 9 placed his call sign in a temporary status that shielded him from losing it. His application was dismissed 19 days later, probably over a failure to pay. He did not petition the dismissal; the period for reconsideration closed; and his call sign returned to its normal grace period on June 9.

Did he not get the FCC emails? Did they go into his junk folder?

A second application on July 23 again placed his call sign in a temporary status, and the FCC again waited 19 days. Detailed records suggest the ULS checked the CORES database each workday to see if he paid $35. August 11 arrived and the FCC again dismissed his application.

KE6MIT reached the end of its grace period on September 14 — yet the window stayed open to petition the second dismissal for reconsideration… had he done so… which he didn’t.

That window shut on September 22 when the FCC closed the period for reconsideration and the ULS set KE6MIT to “expired.”

KE6MIT’s circumstances led me to analyze the ULS data to learn how many call signs expire for lack of payment. Over the last two years, roughly 20% failed to apply for renewal, while another 5% failed to pay their fee after applying:

Roughly 1 out of 16 operators who apply for renewal fail to pay for it. Did they not get the FCC emails? Did they go into a junk folder?

(The chart can only go back 24 months because the FCC apparently flushes payment data to control database bloat.)

All operators should consider doing four things: (1) put a note in your calendar app to update your email address before you pay a renewal fee; (2) update your FRN with a valid email address if needed; (3) submit a payment application; and (4) make sure the payment goes through.

Don’t learn this lesson the hard way. Your grace period offers zero protection if you fail to pay.

Source: Rob Rosenberger (K4HST)

Radio Club of America 2026 Technical Symposium & 117th Awards Banquet

2026-09-30T00:00:00Z

The following is a message from the Radio Club of America (RCA):

Join the Radio Club of America at the 2026 Banquet & Technical Symposium—where the brightest minds in wireless communications come together to share ideas, celebrate achievement, and build lasting connections.

Experience thought-provoking technical presentations, engage with industry leaders, explore emerging technologies, and conclude with RCA’s signature awards banquet honoring distinguished innovators.

The Radio Club of America Awards Program is an industry premier event. Every year, it is preceded by the day-long Technical Symposium. Both events showcase expertise and achievement in every segment of wireless.

The 2026 Technical Symposium & 117th Awards Banquet will take place Saturday, November 21st in New York City.

Registration is now open.

Source: Radio Club of America

SAQ Grimeton to Air United Nations Day Message

2026-09-29T00:00:00Z

The following is from an email received from SAQ Grimeton Radio Station:

UN-Day 2026 transmission
On October 24th 2026, SAQ is scheduled to air a message to the World, promoting Peace, Unity, and Global Partnerships.

The unique Alexanderson alternator is scheduled for one transmission over the antenna on VLF 17.2 kHz CW.

The Grimeton Radio Station welcomes all visitors to attend the transmission. To attend one of the transmissions in the transmitter hall, a ticket will be required. Please see grimeton.org for complete visitor's information.

SAQ transmission schedule

14:20 CEST (12:20 UTC) Live YouTube broadcast begins.
14:30 CEST (12:30 UTC) Start-up of the Alternator.
14:45 CEST (12:45 UTC) SAQ on the air “VVV VVV VVV de SAQ SAQ SAQ”
15:00 CEST (13:00 UTC) Transmission of peace message

Live Video from World Heritage Grimeton Radio Station
The transmission event can be seen live on our YouTube Channel.

E-QSL online QSL form

In 1924 the construction of Grimeton Radio Station in Sweden was completed and the two transmitters, invented by Ernst F.W. Alexanderson was put into commercial operation. The radio station call sign was SAQ.

SAQ is the only remaining pre-electronic radio transmitter that has been preserved and is still functional, event though only one of the original two transmitters remain.

Test Transmissions
There may be some test transmissions, preliminary on October 23rd between 13:00 - 16:00 CEST. During the tests, SAQ will be on air shorter periods of time, when we will be carrying out some tests and measurements.

Amateur Radio Station SK6SAQ
The Amateur Radio Station with the call “SK6SAQ” will be QRV during the day on the following frequencies: – 3.517.2 kHz CW – 7.017.2 kHz CW – 14 017.2 KHz CW – 3.755 kHz SSB – 7.140 kHz SSB

Source: The Alexander association

Amateur Radio Daily will Attend Zero Retries Digital Conference and Pacificon

2026-09-28T00:00:00Z

Amateur Radio Daily (and Amateur Radio Weekly) will attend Zero Retries Digital Conference (ZRDC) and Pacificon October 16th through October 18th. My name is Cale (K4HCK) and I produce both publications. I'll be speaking at ZRDC about New Tech Hams, an emerging group of hams that are highly focused on digital communication and the software that powers it. Thanks to ZRDC for the invitation! I think this talk will be a lot of fun.

Tickets are still available for ZRDC both for in-person and Zoom based attendees. ZRDC focuses on technical innovation in amateur radio. The speaker line-up includes representatives from FreeDV, DigiPi, M17, and more. Learn more about ZRDC.

I will also be attending Pacificon and will share a booth with Zero Retries. Stop by booth 33 and say hello! I look forward to meeting you and hearing your feedback. Tickets for Pacificon are also still available.

73 and thanks for reading!

Source: Amateur Radio Daily

ISS SSTV Weekend Sprint

2026-09-27T00:00:00Z

ARISS has announced an upcoming SSTV event transmitted from the International Space Station (ISS) beginning this coming weekend on October 2nd and continuing through October 6th. This is SSTV Series 33 and will be the first SSTV event from ISS Expedition 75. The image content is expected to highlight student education.

Dates
October 2 through October 6

Mode
Robot 36

Frequency
437.500 MHz +/- Doppler shift

Received images may be submitted to the ARISS SSTV Gallery.

Source: ARISS

DXing at Galactic Scale

2026-09-22T00:00:00Z

By Bob Griffin (KC2JJM)

SETI -- the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

Every ham's logbook tells the same story in expanding circles. Across town on 2 meters. Across the country on 20. Across an ocean on a gray-line opening. Moonbounce, if you're stubborn enough. Each ring is the same discipline -- weak signals, patience, knowing your noise floor -- applied to a longer path.

This is a story about chasing the outermost ring.

SIXTY-FIVE YEARS OF A DEAD BAND

First, the puzzle that drives the whole field. The Fermi paradox, in one line: a galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars, most of them billions of years older than the Sun, should be full of civilizations -- so where is everybody? Enrico Fermi asked it over lunch in 1950, and it has not been answered since.

Since 1960, SETI has worked one way: point a big dish at a star and scan for a carrier near 1420 MHz, the hydrogen line -- the natural calling frequency any radio-literate civilization could find. Project Ozma did it with one channel. SETI@home did it with millions of our PCs (I had that screensaver running in the shack for years; many of you did too). Breakthrough Listen does it today with billions of channels. Sixty-five years of better receivers have returned exactly one thing: silence. No confirmed carrier, ever.

Every ham knows what a dead band usually means. A band that sounds empty on a carrier scan can be carrying dozens of QSOs at 20 dB below the noise -- you hear nothing because you're listening for the wrong mode, not because nobody's on the air. FT8 taught a whole generation of operators that lesson.

So here's the question my project asks: what if the silence is a design feature? In the paper, we develop a new testable hypothesis, called Behavioral SETI, to explain the apparent radio silence.

THINKING LIKE THE SYSTEM DESIGNER

Suppose an advanced civilization wanted to reach emerging societies across the galaxy, over spans of millions of years. Design that system the way an engineer would and three decisions fall out. Build no transmitter -- stars already radiate more power than any machine ever could; the cheap way to signal is to modulate sources already on the air. Write in ratios -- a sender who shares no units with you can only use dimensionless relationships among measurements; the message isn't on any one channel, it's in how observables move together. Spend nothing on receivers who can't act -- gate the message behind a proof of capability.

If that's the design, nobody hears it with a carrier scan. You find it by looking for behavior in sources that already exist -- which means searching astrophysics archives, not the airwaves.

THE CRYPTOLOGICAL GATE

The strangest rule is the third one, and it deserves its own explanation. The framework predicts the message arrives locked: a short pointer tells you where to look, but the payload behind it is protected by what a cryptographer calls proof of work -- a puzzle that is cheap to set, expensive to solve, and trivial to verify once solved. Why would anyone bother, across interstellar distances? Three reasons an engineer would insist on it.

First, the gate is a license exam that grades itself. A sender cannot proctor anything from thirty light-years away. Solving the puzzle certifies the receiver's capability with no effort from the sender: if you opened it, you had the computers; if you had the computers, you have the industry and the science to act on what's inside. Nobody unqualified can even read the question.

Second, it sets the timing automatically. Our own computing grew eight-billion-fold in one working lifetime -- Cray-1 to Frontier, 1976 to 2022. A gate pitched at industrial-scale computing opens within a generation of a civilization first noticing it. The lock is a fuse, timed by the receiver's own growth -- no schedule, no appointments, nothing that can go stale over a million years.

Third, the unlock is authentication. When the receiver transmits the solved key back, that transmission proves the work was actually done -- no spoofing, no accidental triggers, no energy wasted answering noise. In ham terms: the gate is the ultimate CTCSS. Except this tone can't be looked up in a manual. It can only be earned.

WEAK-SIGNAL DISCIPLINE, APPLIED TO ARCHIVES

So that's what I did: 49 searches across public archives -- GOES X-ray satellites, neutron monitors, pulsar timing arrays, Voyager's magnetometers, solar neutrino detectors. And here's the part I'd defend at any club meeting: the methods are ham methods. Long integration to pull signals out of noise. Measuring the noise floor before claiming anything sits above it. And never trusting the rig without a test signal -- every detection limit is verified by injecting synthetic signals and confirming the pipeline recovers them. The whole campaign's positive control was recovering the Sun's known five-minute oscillations from satellite data -- the WWV of the project. If your system can't hear the known signal, your silence means nothing.

The score: 45 nulls with measured limits, and no contact. In this business a calibrated null is the product.

THE EMAIL TO JAPAN

My favorite result wasn't in any dataset. One channel needed solar-neutrino data from Super-Kamiokande, the great detector in a mine in Japan. The public link had been dead for years. So I wrote to the collaboration -- callsign in the signature, one ham asking about data. The spokesperson answered the next day, pointed me to a public 22-year dataset better than the one I'd asked about, and committed to fixing the dead link. We ran the search within 48 hours. Null, with limits -- and the first time anyone had asked that dataset an aperiodic question. QSL received, you might say.

HOW FAR DO OUR SIGNALS GET?

A 2025 SETI Institute study ran the honest numbers on Earth's own detectability, and hams will appreciate the EIRP ladder: Arecibo's planetary radar, at 20 terawatts EIRP, would stand out at 12,000 light-years. The Deep Space Network: 65. The combined mobile-phone leakage of the entire planet: 4. The loudest thing humanity ever put on the air was pinging asteroids. Everything we broadcast to each other barely leaves the neighborhood -- one more reason silence proves so little.

And one thought I can't shake, as an AM DX'er myself: the earliest thing any radio civilization transmits is its lowest bands. A designed listening post watching for emerging civilizations wouldn't need to decode a 1930s 500 kW AM flamethrower like WLW -- just detect the carrier, coherently integrated, far below any demodulator's threshold. Carrier detection at absurd SNR is a very ham idea. The paper takes it seriously.

GOING DEEPER

The write-up, a six-minute animated version, and the full paper with every method and limit are here:

https://dxtra.com/static/galactic-dx/summary.html?src=hamdaily

Source: KC2JJM

POTA/SOTA Activation at Diamond Head Turns Into Real-World Emergency Response

2026-09-21T00:00:00Z

The following is a press release from KH6ML:

HONOLULU, HAWAII — September 16, 2026 — What began as an early-morning Parks on the Air and Summits on the Air activation at one of Hawaii's most recognizable landmarks unexpectedly turned into an opportunity for an amateur radio operator to put years of emergency preparedness and communications training to practical use.

A short video documenting the Diamond Head activation and emergency response is available here: https://youtu.be/_GO4as2CSvc

Michael Miller, KH6ML, began hiking the Diamond Head Summit Trail on Oahu at approximately 7:15 a.m. Wednesday morning. His plan was to complete a combined POTA and SOTA activation before heading to his full-time job as a partner at Tiki's Grill & Bar in Waikiki.

Operating portable from the summit with an FX-4CR HF transceiver at approximately 20 watts, a small Bioenno battery, end-fed wire antenna and an AnyTone VHF/UHF handheld, Miller completed 11 contacts.

His activation included Diamond Head State Preserve, POTA US-6425; Diamond Head Summit State Trail, US-10913; and the Diamond Head SOTA summit, KH6/OH-025.

Moments after completing his 11th contact, a visitor approached Miller and asked if he could help. A woman had collapsed inside the observation bunker below the summit.

Miller immediately left his HF station behind, took his handheld radio and headed toward the patient while calling 911. Because of uncertainty about cellular coverage inside the reinforced structure, Miller also advised amateur radio operators with whom he had been communicating to stand by in case an alternate communications path became necessary.

The patient, a visitor from Japan, was traveling with her husband and adult daughter. Miller began gathering information from the family and relaying it to emergency dispatchers while Honolulu Fire Department personnel responded.

"The 911 dispatchers were extremely professional," Miller said. "They were calm, direct and focused on getting the information the responding crews needed. The communication between dispatch and the field response was impressive."

Honolulu Fire Department personnel reached the bunker and assumed care of the patient. Additional firefighters and rescue personnel followed with medical and rescue equipment. The difficult location required responders to develop a plan for moving the patient from the confined bunker and across the steep summit terrain.

A helicopter was subsequently brought into the response.

"The professionalism of the firefighters was remarkable," Miller said. "They climbed Diamond Head carrying their equipment, immediately assessed the situation and went to work.

Miller later accompanied the patient's daughter down the trail and helped her reconnect with her family and emergency personnel at the base of Diamond Head.

Later that afternoon, Miller received a message from the family thanking him for his assistance and reporting that the woman was doing well and the family had returned to their hotel.

For Miller, the incident also demonstrated how the skills developed through amateur radio can complement broader emergency-preparedness training.

"Did ham radio help? I think it was one piece of the puzzle," Miller said. "Amateur radio teaches us to communicate clearly, know our location, pass information accurately and think about what happens when normal communications aren't available. Add CERT training, Red Cross training, Scouting and other life experiences, and hopefully you're a little better prepared when somebody needs help."

Miller serves as a Deputy Coordinator for Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) for the City and County of Honolulu. He is also an Assistant Section Manager and Government Liaison for the ARRL Hawaii Section. Outside amateur radio and emergency communications, Miller is a partner at Tiki's Grill & Bar in Waikiki.

The incident was a reminder that while POTA and SOTA provide amateur radio operators with opportunities to practice portable operations, antennas, low-power communications and field deployment, those same habits of preparedness can have applications far beyond making contacts.

"I went up Diamond Head looking for radio contacts," Miller said. "The most important contact I made that morning wasn't on the radio."

73 from KH6ML

Source: KH6ML

"Active" call sign probably isn’t what you think

2026-09-17T00:00:00Z

By Rob Rosenberger (K4HST)

Do this: visit the FCC call sign lookup and search for W0QUF. It says right there on the page: "Status: Active." Except it's not. Look farther right and you'll see its grace period started in January. Now search for it at the ARRL call sign lookup. They give you no hint it's in a grace period.

Do an FCC lookup on KD0NZJ. It's long expired, right? Except it's not. Look to the left and you'll see a "PA" icon, which means it remains active pursuant to FCC rule 1.62. If you look it up on ARRL, it'll say "(Administrative Update Applied)" below the expiration date. They give you no hint you can lawfully communicate with them.

Neither FCC nor ARRL offer visual cues on their search pages when you look up a call sign. You must inspect the data with your calibrated eyeballs to confirm its status.

So, let's go over what you need to know. We'll break it down into five categories:

A "live" call sign is marked active and can transmit. It has not reached its expiration date. Roughly 90% of all "active" call signs fall into this category.

A "dagger" call sign is marked active and can transmit regardless its expiration date. A "pending application" extends its life. Roughly 430 call signs fall into this category (a scant 0.05%) and the FCC often spends years resolving them.

A "grace" call sign is marked active yet cannot transmit. It exceeded its expiration date, lies within its two-year grace period, and has no pending application. Roughly 10% of all "active" call signs fall into this category.

A "zombie" call sign is marked active yet cannot transmit. It exceeded its grace period with no pending application, yet the ULS database failed to mark it expired. The most recent example is KI4FHE. (If you run an FCC lookup, do not have any liquids in your mouth! You've been warned.) Zombies might pop up for a day or two if the second anniversary of their expiration date falls on a holiday Monday.

A "dead" call sign is marked canceled, expired, or terminated. Enough said.

You might ask "where did these five terms come from?" The short answer: The interwebs apparently had no terms for them and I needed a taxonomy for the niche PDF amateur radio call books I produce. My searches of online amateur radio literature, developer repositories, and the FCC's ULS documentation revealed no similar published model ... so I offer this to the public domain:

Terminology	FCC Status	ULS LicenseStatus	Expiration Date	Additional Condition	Output / Action
Live	Active	A	Future	None	Standard black text
Dagger	Active	A	Past (Any length)	Pending application	Superscript dagger (†) e.g. WQXN317 since 2021-04-20
Grace	Inactive	A	Past (< 2 years)	No pending app	Dark red text e.g. WA4RHD
Zombie	Inactive	A	Past (>= 2 years)	No pending app	Triggers logging warning e.g. KI4FHE from 2026-04-26 to 2026-09-09
Dead	Inactive	Non-A	N/A	None	Excluded from output

Ta da! You now understand what "active" means when you look up a call sign on a search page. Calibrate your eyeballs for the FCC, shame the ARRL webmaster for me, and 73!

Source: Rob Rosenberger (K4HST)

brugtgrej.dk is Denmark's Premier Marketplace for Used Ham Radio Gear

2026-09-15T00:00:00Z

The following is a message from brugtgrej.dk:

Since the year 2000 I have been running a site for announcing used ham radio gear here in Denmark. It has since grown to be the one and only place for buying and selling used ham radio gear and has also become the biggest discussion forum here in Denmark.

Earlier this year, I released generation II of the platform to make it more contemporary, and I added a lot of features for daily ham use. The site is called brugtgrej.dk. The language can be switched between Danish and English. My latest added feature is a Shack display intended to run on a PC in the shack to show relevant live information on DX, aurora, satellites, weather, lightning etc.

The best value is provided if you create a user because that way we know your location to show more relevant information.

73 DE OZ1DW
Christiane

Source: brugtgrej.dk

HamRadioWeb Offers Remote FT8 Operation

2026-09-14T00:00:00Z

The following is a message from HamRadioWeb:

I wanted to share a new web-based platform for remote digital operations that might be of interest to the DX community and operators managing remote stations or DXpeditions: HamRadioWeb

HamRadioWeb is designed to streamline remote FT8/FT4 operating directly from any mobile browser or PC without requiring complex setups like VPNs or port forwarding. In addition to remote TX/RX control, it features:

Live FT8 geospatial heatmaps and signal footprint visualization.
Grid-level SNR benchmarking against nearby stations.
Azimuthal radar & path telemetry relative to the shack.
Automated DXCC and award hunting synchronized with logbook data.

It’s built to make remote digital mode operating visual, data-driven, and easily accessible on the go.

Source: HamRadioWeb

Helioclock Review: An In-Depth Look at a Well-Crafted Situational Awareness Display

2026-09-12T00:00:00Z

By Cale Mooth (K4HCK) Amateur Radio Daily

Anthony (KA9NWM), the creator of Helioclock, was kind enough to send along the Live USB Stick version of Helioclock for me to review. I've been evaluating Helioclock in my shack and home office over the last two weeks.

There has been a deluge of ham radio focused, situational awareness "dashboards" that have entered the market over the past several months. Some are free and some cost hundreds of dollars. I've been a HamClock user for many years, and full disclosure, I've contributed code to the Open Ham Clock Backend project to help keep HamClock running. I've also been a regular user of Open Ham Clock since it was released earlier this year. There are many others including DXLook, Ham Radio dashboard, HamDash, 73QRZ, HAM-HQ, and on and on. Most aren't great. A few are very good.

Until recently, there were only two main players in the situational awareness dashboard space and that was Geochron and HamClock. Geochron is the gold standard, exquisitely crafted (and very pricey), while HamClock provides similar information in a more utilitarian package at the low price of free.

Where does Helioclock fit on the spectrum? A beautiful and well-designed display piece that gives Geochron a run for both its price and design.

Setting up and customizing Helioclock

For this review I ran Helioclock on my old gaming rig with 16GB of RAM and a graphics card capable of pushing the full 4K experience to a 55 inch 4K television. Helioclock's minimum specs support a Raspberry Pi 4, so it should be quite capable on a range of hardware.

Helioclock was easy to set up using the Live USB Stick. I plugged it into my rig, pointed the BIOS at the USB stick, and everything just worked. Without a single click or press of a key, a default version of Helioclock starts up, ready to be customized.

I tend to blindly click around in these initial states simply exploring and trying to figure things out for myself. Initial customization steps aren't incredibly intuitive so I would recommend at least glancing at the documentation and getting some queues from the keyboard shortcuts section.

Muscle memory sets in quickly, but then you're presented with a new challenge: The sheer amount of potential information and widgets to display.

I won't list every data point that Helioclock provides, but if you can imagine it, it's probably there. I'll call out a few that are unique or presented in a unique way:

Tropical storms including tracking cones
Visible Planets
Best Band Now
FAA Weathercams

After using Helioclock for a few days it becomes clear that there are two main user types that this device is catering to. Hams, and non-hams that may be interested in weather, planetary events, news, and astronomy. Helioclock provides a pulse on all of these things. The weather focus makes sense considering the author's background as a meteorologist and producer of weather graphics and systems for broadcast television.

I'm rarely on the air with my ham activities. (Too much time spent sifting through content on the internet for my weekly amateur radio newsletter.) As a result, I gravitated more toward the weather and planetary event aspect of Helioclock, eventually turning off most of the ham radio related information. (All the ham info is there. DX spots, PSKreporter integration, WSJT-X integration, POTA, SOTA, satellites, and more.)

The result is a beautiful world map with plenty of eye candy, from lightning strikes to aurora, tropical storms, and a news crawl of my favorite news sites. (You can import any news source with an RSS feed.) At a glance from across the room, Helioclock feels polished, looks professional, and is quite visually interesting. It's a wonderful addition to a techie space such as a ham shack, home office, or even a corporate environment. It looks like an interface you might find in a sci-fi movie, and absolutely worth the $40 to get started.

Let's talk design

I was a designer in a previous career (including designing graphics for broadcast television!) and to this day I can't avoid looking at everything with a designer's eye. I notice every little detail and many times I wish I didn't. Most readers of this section won't notice or care about what I'm pointing out. For the slim percentage of you that do, it's not a deal-breaker.

There are some picky issues such as the satellite imagery not spanning the full map (due to NOAA sats not covering the poles) and the lack of smooth scrolling of the news feed. (This can probably be fixed with some fancy CSS hacks.) The overall style is very "high-tech," even movie UI-esque, but it also looks like a lot of the AI generated web applications out there in terms of color and typographic choices. This one is better than most, but if that style knocks you over every time you see it, be prepared. To be fair, in this context, that style can work really well.

The only major design issue I struggle with is whether Helioclock should be viewed from across the room, or up close on a desk. I don't think Helioclock has figured that out quite yet. Maybe the intent is both. For example, sitting at my workstation, Helioclock is three feet away on a 55 inch 4K TV. The map looks great and is readable. I can pick out every state and country, timezones, POTA spots, etc. What I can't read is most of the information in the panels. The typography is set very small. The information panels, including the clocks, are completely illegible across the room. (Sizing can be adjusted by reducing the resolution to 1080 or simply hitting control+plus on the keyboard.)

Conversely, standing next to the TV, I can read everything, to the point where I have to physically move my head to take everything in. I'd be very curious to try Helioclock on a small monitor next to my desk and see if that might be a better experience for me since I'm interested in the information within the panels.

If the goal is eye candy across the room, none of this really applies.

Helioclock vs. HamClock vs. Geochron

There's really no comparison between Helioclock and HamClock other than they present a lot of the same data points. HamClock feels dated and archaic next to Helioclock's modern design and high resolution maps. It's 1996 vs. 2036.

The most interesting comparison in my view is Helioclock vs. Geochron. Helioclock is very much a contender with the Geochron offering, especially in terms of visual presentation and available data layers. Helioclock provides a very similar experience at $500 less and no recurring subscription for additional data layers. If I were Geochron, I'd be watching Helioclock closely, especially with regard to Atlas.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of Helioclock and Geochron at Hunstville Hamfest:

Post by @K4HCK@mastodon.radio

View on Mastodon

Final thoughts

This review really only scratches the surface of what Helioclock is capable of. If I had more time I'd go much deeper into the ham radio related data points and the SDR integration that is also a key feature. Perhaps another review is in store for the future.

Overall, Helioclock is one of if not the best situational awareness display available. While not free, it really is a steal at $40 if you have an old PC or Raspberry Pi laying around. A fully purpose-built appliance for individual and multiple displays starts at $369 at the time of this writing. I highly recommend picking one up!

Source: Amateur Radio Daily

Fire Prevention Week Special Event Highlights Fire Safety

2026-09-11T00:00:00Z

This year, Fire Prevention Week will be from Sunday October 4th through Saturday October 10th. In Ontario we will be using special event call sign VE3FIRE, operating as a Wild Card station, and in the US there will be stations using the call signs N0F through N9F along with KF2IRE, another Wild Card station. All twelve stations are working to highlight fire safety regarding the charging of lithium-ion batteries during Fire Prevention Week.

This event is not a contest. As we make contact with hams worldwide, this is more of a public service event where we will be giving tips to our contacts about the possible hazards inherent in overcharging lithium-ion batteries and tips on how to use and charge these batteries safely.

While this event is not a contest, a downloadable printed certificate will be available for those who work ten or more of the twelve stations. More about getting the certificate is available on the hamfire.com information site and QSL information is available on the VE3FIRE QRZ page.

Source: HamFire

Activate All RI POTA Event

2026-09-10T00:00:00Z

Activate All RI aims to get all 61 of Rhode Island POTA parks on the air September 11–13. Think of it as a POTA take on a state QSO party: get a bunch of us out operating and give everyone else a weekend of Rhode Island parks to chase. Activating every park in a state over one weekend is one of those things we can actually tackle because we’re so tiny. Might as well put that to good use!

We start at 0600 EDT Friday September 11th and end 1800 EDT September 13th.

For hunters, it’s a chance to fill in missing parks toward Worked All RI, or just chase a few of us from home or park-to-park. The website has an activation schedule, live RI spots, and a tool that lets hunters import their POTA hunted-parks history and get a schedule for just the parks they still need.

Source: Rhode Island POTA

SafecomLink for Pactor – Hamradio Edition Launches in the WiMo Store

2026-09-09T00:00:00Z

The following is a press release from SafecomLink:

The Software Behind the Next Generation of Pactor Modems

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, September 1, 2026 WiMo & SafecomLink today announced that SafecomLink for Pactor – Hamradio Edition is now available through WiMo Antennen und Elektronik GmbH, one of the world’s leading suppliers of radio-communications and antenna technology, serving the amateur radio, professional and commercial radio, aviation, marine, and industrial markets. Developed in close collaboration with the WiMo and SCS (Special Communications Systems) teams, the release brings the full power of the SafecomLink platform to the Pactor community, sold either bundled with a Pactor modem or as a standalone license, and positioned as the software that brings SCS’s new generation of modems to life.

OVERVIEW & AVAILABILITY

A software platform, purpose-built for Pactor

SafecomLink for Pactor – Hamradio Edition turns an SCS Pactor modem and a standard HF transceiver into a complete, modern HF digital-communications system, reliable long-range messaging, file transfer, internet email gateway, and AI-powered information access, the same capabilities trusted by 90,000-plus users worldwide, now tuned for the amateur-radio operator running Pactor. Crucially, SafecomLink integrates with every one of the modem’s features driving the hardware natively and exposing its full feature set through one clean, unified interface.

It is offered in the WiMo store three ways:

Bundled with a DR-9400 Pactor modem (ready to operate out of the box)
As a standalone 2-year license
As a standalone lifetime license

THE COLLABORATION

Built hand-in-hand by WiMo, SCS, and SafecomLink

This launch is the product of a deep, months-long collaboration between the SafecomLink, WiMo, and SCS engineering teams. Drawing on SafecomLink’s long experience with amateur-radio operators and a close understanding of their real-world needs, SCS developed and refined modem features specifically to support SafecomLink’s requirements, so the hardware and the software were engineered around the same goals from the start.

For years we’ve listened closely to what ham operators actually need on the air, and in SCS and WiMo we found partners ready to build toward that vision with us. SCS shaped real modem capabilities around our requirements, WiMo made it effortless to put in operators’ hands, and the result is something none of us could have delivered alone. – Irad Deutsch, General Manager, SafecomLink

As engineers we care about one thing in the end: does it work flawlessly for the operator. Building these modem features hand-in-hand with SafecomLink is how we made sure the answer is yes, every time. – Hans-Peter Helfert, Pactor Engineering, SCS

Our customers want gear that simply works together, and that is exactly what this partnership delivers. SafecomLink’s understanding of the operator is remarkable, and pairing it with SCS’s modems in our store was an easy decision. We’re proud to bring this combination to the amateur-radio community. – Uli Zehndbauer, WiMo Antennen und Elektronik GmbH

WHY IT MATTERS
For the operator, the value is direct: a single, supported platform that unlocks the entire feature set of the Pactor modem, backed by three organizations working as one: hardware and software designed to work together, sold and supported through a trusted retailer, with the assurance that the software will keep pace as the modems evolve.

About WiMo & SCS
WiMo is one of Europe’s leading suppliers of amateur radio and radio communication equipment, serving the amateur radio community with a comprehensive range of antennas, radios, accessories, and technical solutions. SCS is the inventor of PACTOR, a protocol and line of HF radio modems used globally by sailors, ham operators, and emergency teams for reliable data communication.

About SafecomLink
SafecomLink is a grid-independent radio-data platform that turns standard HF, VHF, and UHF radios into sophisticated digital communication systems, reliable long-range messaging, file transfer, email gateway, and AI-powered information access even when traditional networks fail. With more than 90,000 users worldwide and support for 100+ radio models.

Learn more:

https://www.wimo.com/en/scs-pxdragon-dr-9400
https://safecomlink.com/plans-hamradio-operators

SafecomLink 1178 Broadway, New York, NY 10001 United States Website: https://www.safecomlink.com/

Source: SafecomLink

HAARP Notice of Transmission

2026-09-08T00:00:00Z

The following is a message from the HAARP Program Office:

The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) will be conducting a research campaign September 8 – 11 UTC, with operating times specified in the table below. Operating frequencies will vary, but all HAARP transmissions will be between 2.8 MHz and 10 MHz. Actual transmit days and times are highly variable based on real-time ionospheric and/or geomagnetic conditions. All information is subject to change.

Note that, because the experiments generally require real-time schedule and frequency adjustments based on ionospheric conditions, no frequencies are specified in the table below. The included transmission notice supplement contains information on the frequencies HAARP is authorized to transmit. HAARP transmissions will only occur on our authorized frequencies. There are no specific data collection requests by investigators, but reception reports are appreciated and may be submitted to our online form at https://haarp.gi.alaska.edu/form/reception-reports.

Transmission Schedule

September 8
0100-0500
1700-2230

September 9
1400-1800

September 10
1200-1600

September 11
0200-0700

For updates on ionospheric conditions in Gakona, please consult ionograms from the HAARP Diagnostic Suite: https://haarp.gi.alaska.edu/diagnostic-suite

Resources for Reading Ionograms

Understanding HF Propagation and Reading Ionograms from Bootstrap Workbench: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTFKNCo3Cl8

Reading Your Ionogram-Keeping It Simple from John (VE6EY): https://play.fallows.ca/wp/radio/shortwave-radio/reading-your-ionogram-keeping-it-simple/

Source: HAARP

APRS Connect: A Messaging-First APRS Client for Android, Free Over APRS-IS

2026-09-04T00:00:00Z

The following is a message from APRS Connect:

APRS Connect is a new APRS client for Android, built around conversations rather than a packet console. It is free to install and use over APRS-IS. APRS Connect Pro, a subscription after a 7-day free trial, adds radio connections, offline map downloads, the radar layer, track export, extra beacon profiles and capture replay. An iOS version is in progress.

Most of what answers on APRS is a bot that expects exact wording. APRS Connect keeps a directory of 22 of them and gives each a guided screen instead of a command to memorize: WXBOT and WXNOW weather, the REPEAT repeater finder, WHO-IS lookup, the SMS, email, Winlink and WhatsApp gateways, the QRX missed-message mailbox, APSPOT and APRS2SOTA self-spotting, and ANSRVR group nets. The exact packet each button will send can be shown before it goes out, and you can always type a command by hand instead. #APRSThursday and other ANSRVR groups appear as a single net room rather than a thread per stranger, and APRS OTA ops can be hosted and chased from one screen.

Messages are kept as one thread per station, with delivery state on every message and automatic retries. All of this is in the free app.

With Pro, the app connects to KISS TNCs over Bluetooth Classic, Bluetooth LE, USB serial, or TCP, or to a radio's speaker and mic through a built-in AFSK 1200 audio modem with VOX or wired PTT. Several links can run at once as named channels, alongside APRS-IS, and every received frame is tagged with the link that carried it.

The map is a vector basemap rendered on the phone. Every tile you view is cached and redraws with no connection; whole regions download ahead of a trip with Pro. Every frame heard is stored and decoded field by field in the packet log, which can be filtered and exported as a capture file.

More at https://aprsconnect.com, with what is free and what Pro adds at https://aprsconnect.com/docs/free-and-pro and the full feature list at https://aprsconnect.com/features. Google Play: https://aprsconnect.com/get/89x5bv.

Source: APRS Connect

Software Fix Keeps Veritium HFClock Running

2026-09-03T00:00:00Z

Users of the Veritium HFClock now have a fix available to keep their HamClock based device functional. N2TBN and AI4Y have teamed up to provide detailed, step-by-step directions aimed at getting Veritium HFClocks working again. The procedure requires removing the rear panel and flashing the device's firmware.

Once the new firmware is applied, users will run through a few brief setup steps and HFClock will continue to operate.

HFClock owners can download PDF instructions that describe how to fix their device.

Source: AI4Y