Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2424 for Friday April 12th, 2024

Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2424 with a release date of Friday
April 12th, 2024 to follow in 5-4-3-2-1.

The following is a QST. Hams help shed light during a solar eclipse.
3-D RF filters find a future in wireless devices -- and Hytera radios
are banned from sales worldwide. All this and more as Amateur Radio
Newsline Report Number 2424 comes your way right now.

**
BILLBOARD CART

**
HYTERA COMMUNICATIONS BANNED FROM WORLDWIDE SALE OF 2-WAY RADIOS

PAUL/ANCHOR: Our top story this week brings the latest chapter in a
long-simmering patent dispute between Motorola and Hytera. A US federal
court in the Northern District of Illinois has prohibited Hytera
Communications, a major provider of two-way radios, from selling,
distributing or importing its radios [quote] "until further notice,"
[endquote] requiring the company to pay a daily fine of $1-million to
the court if they do not comply.

Even as it acted in compliance with the US court injunction, Hytera
separately announced it was withdrawing its own counterclaims against
Illinois-based Motorola that it had filed in a Shenzhen court. Hytera
has denied claims that its H-series radios have infringed on Motorola's
trademark and copyright.

The US court injunction banning the radios' global sales came just as
Hytera was preparing to show at ISC West, a major security conference
being held in Las Vegas, Nevada, starting on April 9th.

(GLOBAL NEWS, IPVM, ISC WEST)

**
HAMS SUMMON HELP AFTER DEATH VALLEY DISTRESS CALL

PAUL/ANCHOR: When getting on the air from a national park isn't a POTA
activation - but a call for help - other hams are always there, as one
new operator in California discovered. We hear this story from Ralph
Squillace KK6ITB.

RALPH: A distress call from an amateur radio operator stranded in Death
Valley mobilized some quick-acting amateur radio operators - some of
them hundreds of miles away - to get the ham and his family some
assistance. According to personal accounts and media reports, Moritz
Wacker, KO6DZX, was camping with his family on Friday April 5th, when
their vehicle became stuck in the mud. Caleb Gustwiller, KD8TGB, and
Craig Rower, KE8QJV, were among those who picked up his weak distress
call on 28.430 MHz. The stranded ham had his radio along for the trip
and used it. Caleb said in an email to Newsline that he and other hams
who were listening -- including fellow members of the Black Swamp
Amateur Radio Club -- heard him faintly in Ohio. Those hams along with
many others posted on the Parks on the Air page on Facebook to get the
word out -- and still others called the county sheriff in Death Valley,
police in San Diego, which QRZ.com lists as the ham's address. Other
radio operators reached out to the National Parks Service police. Caleb
said it was an all-out effort from various locations.

Caleb told Newsline that the stranded ham is a relatively new licensee.
This was apparently a camping trip, not a POTA outing, but contacts
made with the Xiegu G90 and quarter-wave vertical did the trick.
According to all accounts, Rangers found the family and they were back
home safely that night.

This Ralph Squillace KK6ITB.

(CALEB GUSTWILLER, KD8TGB, HAM RADIO CRASH COURSE)

**

HAMS' EFFORTS HELP SHED LIGHT ON SOLAR ECLIPSE

PAUL/ANCHOR: The recent solar eclipse over North America gave hams a
chance to give back to science in a big way - as big as the sun itself,
you might say. Sel Embee KB3TZD has that story.

SEL: The day after the April 8th solar eclipse, logs were already
rolling in from hams and radio clubs in North America who had taken
part in the Solar Eclipse QSO Party. The party's organizer, the citizen
science group HamSCI, was already embarking on its next big challenge:
to study the logs and the results of other propagation experiments that
were taking place concurrently.

The inboxes were filling up fast, according to HamSCI's public
information officer Ed Efchak, WX2R. Ed told Newsline in a phone call
one day later: [quote] "We are certainly very very happy with
yesterday. A lot of people were on the air who understood that from the
standpoint of science you have to populate to propagate." [endquote]

That population included the Suffolk County Radio Club, W2DQ, which set
up a Field Day-style operation outside an eastern Long Island library
where it operated SSB and FT8. It was also a chance to educate visitors
as club vice president Ed Wilson N2XDD explained the hams' roles in the
ionospheric studies.

Meanwhile, HamSCI reported that WSPR data was already coming in from a
concurrent event, the Gladstone Signal Spotting Challenge. He said
valuable results were collected as well from HamSCI's personal weather
stations, the time-delay-of-arrival experiment and the medium-wave
recordings experiment.

Conclusions are, of course, a long way off -- but visitors to
Hamvention in Ohio next month will be hearing more of what's to come.

This is Sel Embee KB3TZD.

PAUL/ANCHOR: If you were involved in the QSO Party and haven't already
done so, upload your logs in .ADI or Cabrillo format, following the
link in the text version of this week's Newsline script at
arnewsline.org.

[DO NOT READ: https://seqp.contesting.com/seqpsubmitlog.php ]

**
NASA IDENTIFIES MEMORY CHIP THAT GARBLED VOYAGER'S DATA

PAUL/ANCHOR: Scientists at NASA have identified a damaged memory chip
that compromised Voyager 1's transmissions. We have more details from
Travis Lisk N3ILS.

TRAVIS: NASA engineers are confident they have traced the source of the
garbled data that was coming from the deep-space probe, Voyager 1.
According to the NASA website, one of the on-board computers was found
to have corrupted memory and that a single chip within the Flight Data
Subsystem failed, causing this to happen. Since November any science
and engineering data sent to Earth has been garbled. Engineers were
able to link the small percentage of corrupted data to that single
memory chip.

Whether the failure was the result of wear and tear after 47 years of
flight -- or something else -- NASA engineers are now hopeful that they
can fashion an alternate method of keeping Voyager 1 on the job.

This is Travis Lisk N3ILS.

(NASA.GOV, HACKADAY)

**

**
DEADLINE APPROACHES FOR OMIK SCHOLARSHIP FUND APPLICANTS

PAUL/ANCHOR: There's still time left for high school seniors or college
students to apply for assistance from the OMIK (OH MIKE) Scholarship
Fund. This nonprofit organization was established as a separate entity
by the OMIK Amateur Radio Association to fulfill the mission of
motivating youth in their education. The fund supports those pursuing
studies in electronics, science, mathematics or communications.

The deadline for applications is the first of May. Previous years'
scholarships were supported in part by grants from Amateur Radio
Digital Communications. For additional details on how to apply, see the
link in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org

[DO NOT READ: https://www.omikradio.org/omik-scholarship/info ]

(OMIK AMATEUR RADIO ASSOCIATION)

**

WEST VIRGINIA BROADCAST TOWERS DESTROYED IN WINDSTORM

PAUL/ANCHOR: This year has not been kind to broadcast radio towers in
the United States. The latest towers to be destroyed are in West
Virginia but this time it was by an act of nature - a fierce windstorm
with gusts of up to 90 mph. Jim Damron N8TMW has that report.

JIM: High winds have destroyed two of the four towers serving the West
Virginia MetroNews network's flagship radio station, WCHS-AM and its
sister FM station. WCHS, a news, talk and sports broadcaster, is known
as "The Voice of Charleston."

The AM radio station, which broadcasts on 580 kHz with a 5 kw signal,
is the Primary Entry Point Emergency Alert System for West Virginia.
Its programming serves the southern and southwestern part of the state.

The tower damage also affected AM station WSWW, which broadcasts on
1490 kHz. That station, an ESPN radio affiliate, returned to its
regular sports programming a day later.

A pair of FM translators also broadcast the stations' signals on 95.7
MHz and 104.5 MHz.

A report on the Radio World website showed photos of the wreckage.
Questions remained on how or when the towers would be replaced.

On a personal note, I had the privilege of working at WCHS radio
several years ago.

This is Jim Damron N8TMW.

(RADIO WORLD)

**
NOMINATE NEWSLINE'S NEXT YOUNG HAM OF THE YEAR

PAUL/ANCHOR: We're getting closer to the deadline time for this year's
Bill Pasternak Memorial Young Ham of the Year award. Let Newsline know
of any promising young amateurs who are deserving of this honor.
Candidates must live in the continental United States and be 18 years
of age or younger. Tell our judges about your nominee's talent, promise
and commitment to the spirit of ham radio. This is your chance to help
honor and acknowledge that person who will, no doubt, go on to teach
and inspire others. Find the nomination form on our website
arnewsline.org under the "AWARDS" tab. Nominations close on May 31st.