QSO Today – John Raifsnider – W8JER
John Raifsnider, W8JER, shares his ham shack with this wife, Micky, KE8ASK, and likes to rag-chew on DX. His signal is boosted by a new 70 ft tower and Mosley beam antenna, allowing him to extend his amateur radio circle that he has built up through the years

D-STAR ONE launched, telemetry received
German Orbital Systems reports a successful telemetry downlink has been received

PW-Sat2 deorbit sail deployment – on-board camera footage
PW-Sat2, the second Polish student satellite, also launched on the SpaceX Falcon 9 SSO-A flight with AMSAT Fox-1Cliff, is a student project with the goal to test a new deorbit sail

Foundations of Amateur Radio #187
Empirical evidence and the scientific method
The hobby of amateur radio is a curious animal. It sits at the junction between empirical evidence and the scientific method

Amateur radio online training course has record year
Essex Ham report their free amateur radio Foundation Online course continues to be a big hit, with over 550 people enrolling nationally during 2018, a significant increase on 2017

New book on the Icom IC-7610
Andrew Barron, ZL3DW, the best selling author of SDR for Amateur Radio Operators, and Amsats & Hamsats, has a new book out on Amazon and Kindle for owners and ‘wannabe owners’ of the Icom IC-7610

Surrey Amateur Radio Club January newsletter now available
Here is our popular newsletter, the first for 2019, with over 50 pages of Amateur Radio news, articles, and projects with a special look at Arduino

Solar eclipse this weekend
This weekend, Jan. 5-6, the New Moon will pass in front of the sun, producing a partial eclipse visible from coastal China to the Aleutian islands of Alaska

Ham radio, Morse Code alive and well in North Liberty
The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports on the enduring popularity of Morse Code

Propagation de K7RA
Sunspots returned with the New Year, with sunspot numbers of 13, 16 and 16 on January 1-3. The new region was AR2732, and the area of the spot tripled each day, beginning at 10 millionths of the visible solar disc, then tripling to 30 on Tuesday, and 90 on Wednesday

Scouts to speak to astronaut Mike Fossum KF5AQG
VI25AJ is a special event station which will be active at the Australian Scout Jamboree between 4th – 14th January, and past WIA Director Robert Broomhead, has some exciting news!

Third Wednesday monthly communications exercises set
FEMA Region 10 will conduct monthly communications exercises (COMMEX) on the third Wednesday of each month, starting on January 16, 1730 – 1900 UTC. Amateur Radio operators are invited to take part

France: Amateur Radio tax
REF say legislation to abolish the annual amateur radio tax has not completed all stages, they suggest amateurs await further info and do not to settle the tax claim due February 15

AMSAT at Thunderbird Hamfest in Glendale AZ
Patrick Stoddard, WD9EWK will have an AMSAT booth at the Thunderbird Amateur Radio Club’s Thunderbird Hamfest 2019 on Saturday, 12 January 2019

Australian Jamboree
8400 scouts from Australia and 18 other nations are going to participate in the 25th Jamboree in Tailem Bend between today, the 4th and the 14th

Masada Fortress special event
Members of the Holy Land DX Group will operate from the heart of ‘Masada Fortress’ as 4X0M (M=Masada) from today, January 4 until Sunday January 6th, 2019

DX News from the ARRL
The American Radio Relay League’s round-up of the forthcoming week’s DX activity on the amateur radio bands

SD logging App now free
With effect from January 1, version 21 of the logging App SD by EI5DI is free and unrestricted

Historic first images of Ultima Thule
Scientists from NASA’s New Horizons mission have released the first detailed images of Ultima Thule, the most distant object ever explored

Ofcom quizzed about enforcement
Michael Durbridge asked Ofcom if there had been any successful prosecutions concerning the unlicenced use of Radio Microphones

Ham Radio and The Big Broadcast
Essex Ham reports on the link up of over 35 of the UK’s network of Hospital Radio stations from Dec 30 to Jan 1

Shed radio DJ broadcasts in BBC local radio slot
BBC News reports Deke Duncan of Radio 77 said his interest in radio was sparked by pirate station Radio Caroline, which broadcast from a ship off the coast of Essex in the 1960’s

PJ4, Bonaire op
Operators Fred WW4LL and Mike NN9DD will be active as PJ4/WW4LL and PJ4/NN9DD, respectively, between February 4-10th

AMSAT / ARISS fundraising campaign
AMSAT and ARISS are currently supporting a FundRazr campaign to raise $150,000 for critical radio infrastructure upgrades on ISS