Call your Congress Member – Vote Yes on HR 4006

Please call your US Representative in Congress as you read this and ask them to vote YES on House Bill HR4006. This bill serves to amend the Communications Act of 1934 to prohibit the application of certain private land use restrictions to amateur station antennas, and for other purposes is about to come to the well of the US House of Representative for a vote. This bill would remove private land use restrictions that prohibit, restrict, or impair the ability of Amateur Radio operators from operating and installing reasonable antennas on property that they own or control.

If you live in Virginia House District 6, please call Representative Ben Cline’s office at (202) 225-5431, provide your name, City and Zip code and ask the Congressman to vote Yes for this bill. 

Other phone numbers for Rep Ben Cline’s office can be found here: https://cline.house.gov/contact/offices

Should you reside outside of Virginia 6, please contact your Representative in Congress and ask them to support the Bill and vote yes. Find your Representative by visiting https://www.house.gov/. At the top right of the page enter your zip code and search.

Read more from the American Radio Relay League: https://www.arrl.org/news/legislation-to-remove-private-land-use-restrictions-on-amateur-radio-introduced-in-congress

Full PDF of the Bill from Congressman Johnson can be found here: https://billjohnson.house.gov/uploadedfiles/amateur_radio_emergency_preparedness_act_signed_bill_text.pdf

 

ARRL Helps Radio Amateurs Comply with New RF Exposure Evaluation Rules

From ARRL.org – 

ARRL The National Association for Amateur Radio® provides free, comprehensive resources to help radio amateurs ensure they are compliant with the new RF exposure rules.

On May 3, 2021, new FCC rules governing RF exposure evaluations went into effect. While the exposure limits were not changed, the requirement to conduct an evaluation was made more broadly applicable to amateur licensees. A 2-year transition period was implemented to allow existing amateur licensees to conduct evaluations and make any changes necessary to ensure that their station complies with the exposure rules. On May 3, 2023, the transition period ended. All licensees must now conduct evaluations of their current station and reassess compliance when making changes to their stations that would affect exposure going forward.

As detailed in a May 2023 QST article by Greg Lapin, N9GL, the rules now require amateur radio operators to perform station evaluations. The Amateur Radio Service is no longer categorically excluded from certain aspects of the RF exposure rules, and licensees can no longer avoid performing an exposure assessment simply because they are transmitting below a given power level.

The ARRL website features an RF Exposure landing page with resources, such as an RF exposure calculator, the entire RF Safety section from the 100th Edition of the ARRL The Handbook, a video explaining the topic, FAQs about the subject, and more. These tools and resources are available to the public without an ARRL membership or website account.

For further assistance with technical matters, ARRL members enjoy the additional resources of the ARRL Technical Information Service, and access to the experts within the ARRL Lab.

Chasing the Backstory of Mountaintop Portable

Steve WG0AT is a well-known Summits on the Air activator. His excursions to the top of SOTA summits to operate mountaintop portable with his to goats, Peanut and Rooster is legendary. But there is so much more to his story. Steve has been operating from the top of mountaintops long before the existence of SOTA. So what was that like? What was the motivation? How have things changed? Join us as we talk with Steve about those early days.

IARU R1 Records on 134 and 241 GHz DK5NJ & DB6NT

New IARU R1 Records on 134 and 241 GHz Amateur Radio Bands

Tuesday, March 1st 2022

DK5NJ at the Leipzigerturm (797 m ASL) near Schmiedefeld JO50ON60BJ

DB6NT at the Aschberg (913 m ASL) near Klingenthal JO60GJ03RO

distance 92,8 km

Air temperature 6°C at Aschberg

Relative humidity 29% on the Aschberg

DK5NJ and DB6NT worked in CW
QSO on 76 GHz at 14:45 UTC with 599
QSO on 122 GHz at 15:01 UTC with 599
QSO on 134 GHz at 15:03 UTC with 599 IARU 1 Record
QSO on 241 GHz at 15:38 UTC with 559 IARU 1 Record

find more information:
www.dk5nj.de

Important Changes To EZNEC

Important Changes To EZNEC

Last year, Roger Steyaert K7RXV made an interesting presentation to the club on the topic of network analyzers, one of which was a program called EZNEC. He just alerted us to an important announcement from Roy Lewallen, W7EL, about his retirement in 2022 and his release of EZNEC to the public domain. If you have ever used EZNEC or thought about using it, you’ll want to check out the details HERE. The site has been completely rewritten and updated.

EZNEC Pro+ v. 7.0 is now available! – FREE

The highlights of his earlier announcement are:
EZNEC (Pro/2) will be free beginning in 2022
EZNec Pro/4 will be discontinued
There will be no support or refunds for these programs after 2021.

Get all the details here: https://eznec.com

Basic Antenna Principles Using Antenna Modeling

This program by Mike Mladejovsky WA7ARK was recommended to us by club member Roger Steyaert K7RXV. The presenter is a knowledgeable retired professor. This video starts in the middle of the recording but at the beginning of his presentation.

https://youtu.be/ZTAHBNHKa_c?t=2280