Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2470 for Friday, February 28th, 2025

Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2470 for Friday, February 28th, 2025
Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2470 with a release date of
Friday, February 28th, 2025 to follow in 5-4-3-2-1.

The following is a QST. Astronomers devise a novel way to battle RFI. A
special event remembers Bloody Sunday, a painful moment in US history
-- and a prominent figure in amateur radio and a friend to Newsline
becomes a Silent Key. All this and more as Amateur Radio Newsline
Report Number 2470 comes your way right now.

**
BILLBOARD CART

**
COMBINED TECHNOLOGIES HELP ASTRONOMERS FIGHT RFI

NEIL/ANCHOR: Our top story is about something ham radio operators know
all too well - the plague of RFI that disrupts communications.
Astronomers have come up with what they hope is a solution for what's
been troubling their sensitive radio telescope in Australia, and Graham
Kemp VK4BB tells us about it.

GRAHAM: An unlikely source of RFI that was compromising signals
received by a radio telescope in Western Australia has been identified
as an airplane deflecting broadcast signals. Realising that the
ever-growing presence of orbiting satellites may pose the same hazard,
causing astronomers' data to become contaminated, scientists have
devised what they hope is a solution.

The stray signals that were interfering with the sensitive telescopes
in the Murchison Widefield Array were even more puzzling because the
array is an area designated by the government as a radio quiet zone.
Stranger still, the signal turned out to be a broadcast signal from
Australian TV and appeared to move across the sky. Researchers at Brown
University in the US who are involved with the Murchison project,
determined that an airplane had been deflecting the signal, and had
likely been doing so for nearly five years.

This form of signal deflection, of course, held implications for other
objects in the sky, most prominently, satellites whose numbers are
growing each year. With this in mind, researchers at the university
devised a method of filtering the RFI via a new method that combined
two existing technologies already in use: Near-field corrections and
beam forming. The former allows the radio telescope to adjust to closer
objects more accurately instead of strictly peering into deep space.
The latter adds to the sharpened focus through use of a beam, just as
its name suggests. Using this combination, scientists confirmed that
the RFI had been deflected off an airplane moving at 492 miles per hour
and had originally been transmitted by Channel 7 on Australian digital
TV.

This is Graham Kemp VK4BB.

(SPACE.COM, BROWN UNIVERSITY)

**
BRAZILIAN YL DXPEDITION CELEBRATES WOMEN'S PROGRESS

NEIL/ANCHOR: Saturday the 8th of March is International Women's Day
but in the amateur radio world, it is being celebrated as International
YLs' Day by one group of DXpeditioners. We hear about them from
Jeremy Boot G4NJH.

JEREMY: The  São Paulo chapter of LABRE, Brazil's national amateur
radio society, has organised a two-day DXpedition that will take seven
YLs and their radio equipment to Ilha Comprida, IOTA number SA-024, an
island off the state's south coast. Three of the seven operators are
younger than 20. The team will be on the air on the 8th and 9th of
March to recognise and celebrate women's progress in the world and,
of course, to help any and all radio operators score contacts toward
IOTA, POTA, WWFF and DIB, Brazil's own diploma Island award. The YLs
will be calling QRZ as PR2L, using CW, SSB and the digital modes.

A commemorative QSL card will be available. For details, visit QRZ.com

This is Jeremy Boot G4NJH.

(GUILLERMO CRIMERIUS, PY2BIL)

**
YLRL OFFERING 3 MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIPS

NEIL/ANCHOR: Speaking of YLs, the Young Ladies Radio League is offering
scholarships again to promising young women who have their ham license
- and the deadline to apply is a little more than a month away. We have
details from Jack Parker W8ISH.

JACK: The international list of YLs honoring the memory of Ethel Smith
K4LMB, Martha Wessel, K0EPE and Mary Lou Brown, NM7N, is a long and
impressive roster. Scholarships from the Young Ladies Radio League are
named in memory of each of these three women.

The YLRL is accepting applications for this year's scholarships. The
deadline is April 30th. The Ethel Smith and Mary Lou Brown scholarships
award $2.500 each. The Martha Wessel scholarship awards $1.500. Winners
will be announced in July.

An application form and details on how to qualify are available on the
website. You'll find a link in the text version of this week's
newscast at arnewsline.org

[DO NOT READ:   https://YLRL.net/Scholarship   ]

This is Jack Parker W8ISH.

(YLRL)

**
SILENT KEY: RAIN REPORT'S ALANSON P. "HAP" HOLLY, KC9RP

NEIL/ANCHOR: Our next story is one that Newsline is particularly sad to
report. The amateur radio community has lost an influential and
selfless member -- and Newsline has lost a personal friend. We hear
about him from Don Wilbanks AE5DW.

DON: We at Amateur Radio Newsline are mourning the passing of Alanson
P. Holly, better known as Hap Holly, KC9RP. Hap is known as the founder
and moderator of the Radio Amateur Information Network, The RAIN
Report, an audio information service for amateur radio since 1990. At
the age of 4 Hap began having vision issues. One morning, at age 7, he
woke up totally blind. Both of Hap's parents were totally blind as
well. A book written by his mother in 1988, "What Love Sees", told the
story of the challenges of blind parents raising a blind child. In 1996
it became a CBS made-for-TV movie starring Richard Thomas and Anna Beth
Gish. It aired several times a year on Lifetime from 1999 through 2002.

Hap earned his Novice license in 1965 at age 14. A year later he earned
his General and in 1981 his Advanced class license. He was a phone
patch station and net control for the Westcars traffic net After
graduation from college in Illinois, he met his future wife, Stephanie.
They wed in 1976.

Hap has said that he owes a great deal of gratitude to Newsline's
founder Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF. Hap was a faithful Newsline listener
and Bill was only too happy to encourage and help Hap with The Rain
Report. Hap would share his booth space with Newsline at Hamvention
when it was at Hara Arena. I met Hap there. Bill and I recorded and
produced several Newsline eposides over the course of a few years on a
laptop sitting in that booth.

In 2002 Hap was named Amateur of the Year at Dayton Hamvention. Away
from ham radio, Hap was a professional keyboardist and a past president
of the Des Plaines, IL Toastmasters Club. He was an audio engineer and
monitor for Horizons for the Blind. For Hap, blindness was never a
disability, only a challenge that fine-tuned his other senses. He was
truly an inspiration. Hap passed from this world on Monday, February
24th. He was a friend to the entire amateur community, a friend to
Newsline and a truly inspirational presence to anyone having the great
fortune to have met him.

Good DX on farther up the dial, Hap. Tell Bill we said 73.

I'm Don Wilbanks, AE5DW.


NEIL/ANCHOR: The 220 MHz Guys Amateur Radio Club in Chicago, where Hap
held a lifetime membership, told Newsline that a memorial service was
being planned for this May.

**
ALABAMA ACTIVATION RECALLS 'BLOODY SUNDAY' OF US CIVIL RIGHTS ERA

NEIL/ANCHOR: Two hams who'll be on the air in Alabama in March aren't
just activating a POTA site but reminding the world of one of the most
painful moments in the history of civil rights in the US. We hear more
from Travis Lisk N3ILS.

TRAVIS: The challenging road to defending their constitutional right to
vote led hundreds of Black civil rights marchers onto another road --
one that led them outside Selma, Alabama on March 7th, 1965. There, as
they arrived at the Edmund Pettus Bridge bound for the governor's
office in Montgomery, the marchers were assaulted by state and local
police and forced back into Selma. That violent day came to be known as
Bloody Sunday. This protest was also an outcry over the killing of
civil rights protester Jimmie Lee Jackson who was beaten and shot
during a march for voting rights one month earlier.

Bloody Sunday marked the first of three historic marches that led to
the Voting Rights Act of 1965 later that year. Its story is told along
the 54-mile route now known as the Selma to Montgomery National
Historic Trail.

Sixty years later, amateur radio operators are marking the anniversary
of Bloody Sunday by calling QRZ on the weekend of March 8th and 9th to
call attention to that long, painful period in US history. This is a
POTA activation. The trail is designated by Parks on the Air as
US-4580. Listen for Tom KB5FHK and Sloan N3UPS, who will be operating
SSB on HF and linear transponder satellites. Tom told Newsline that the
operators will begin on 40m around 0000 UTC on that Saturday. They will
return on Sunday after 1300 UTC to operate on 10, 15 and 20 metres as
well as via linear transponder satellites.

Sloan and Tom will be sending commemorative QSL cards featuring an
image of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, a symbol of turbulence and struggle
- and ultimately of change. This is Travis Lisk N3ILS.

(TOM GAINES, KB5FHK)

**
BREAK HERE: Time for you to identify your station. We are the Amateur
Radio Newsline, heard on bulletin stations around the world, including
the UHF repeater of the North Shore Radio Club. NS9RC. in Chicago on
Thursdays at 8 p.m. local time as part of its weekly net.

**
(10 minutes, 31 seconds)


YHOTY NOMINATING WINDOW OPENS

NEIL/ANCHOR: It's time for the amateur radio community to help us
begin identifying candidates to nominate for the Bill Pasternak WA6ITF
Memorial Amateur Radio Newsline Young Ham of the Year award. Amateur
Radio Newsline's Mark Abramowicz (pronouncer Abram-a-vich) NT3V is
chairman of the award committee and has more...

MARK: Do you know a young ham who brings a unique set of skills to the
hobby we love?

Is it someone who you might have recruited through a Field Day visit or
exposure to a Scouting Jamboree on the Air event?

How about a young person who joined your local radio club after finding
an Elmer and getting licensed?

Maybe you are that Elmer.

How about a young ham who found their way from being a regular check-in
for your club's weekly 2-meter net to being invited to join the net
control team and working and organizing public service events?

Is it a young person whose love of earth-space science was stimulated
by hearing the International Space Station astronauts on the air -
thanks to your mentorship - and arranging for that person to make
contact via ham radio with one of them?

Perhaps, this future leader in our hobby got exposed to contesting and
became competitive thanks to your help and support after getting on the
air in QSO parties or DX contests.

These are the kinds of young people Amateur Radio Newsline is looking
to recognize for their accomplishments.

Candidates should be 18 years or younger and from the continental
United States.

It's easy to nominate someone.

But you are the one who has to take the initiative and fill out that
on-line application to bring someone who might be selected as our next
Young Ham of the Year to the attention of our Amateur Radio Newsline
judges.

You'll find everything you need to know at the awards tab on our
website - arnewsline.org.

Deadline for online applications is May 31.

I'm Mark Abramowicz, NT3V.

**
GET READY FOR RAPID DEPLOYMENT AMATEUR RADIO

NEIL/ANCHOR: What amateur radio operating strategy combines a little
bit of being mobile, a little bit of fixed and - if you so choose - a
little bit of maritime? It's spelled R a D A R, which is the acronym
for Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio. Get ready, RaDAR Rally day is just
weeks away, as we hear from Randy Sly W4XJ.

RANDY: Eddie Leighton, ZS6BNE pioneered the operating concept more than
a decade ago in South Africa with an event known as the RaDAR Challenge
which was embraced worldwide by portable operators. This year the RaDAR
Rally, which takes place on April 5th, keeps the spirit and the
strategy of the original challenge. The four-hour rally is particularly
appealing to hams who are accustomed to working portable outdoors and
this is an activity that can be combined with Summits On The Air and
Parks On The Air. Operators spend four hours setting up a station as
quickly as possible, making five contacts, then dismantling the station
and moving to another location to do the same thing again. According to
the rules, the required distances vary depending on whether the radio
operator is walking, cycling, driving or even canoeing. All bands and
modes are acceptable but use of terrestrial repeaters is not.

This is Randy Sly, W4XJ

DO NOT READ: www.radarrally.info

**
TECHNIQUE MAY MAKE SOLAR PANELS MORE AFFORDABLE

NEIL/ANCHOR: If you use solar panels in your portable operation, or are
thinking about it, this development in solar power technology on a much
larger scale may be of interest to you. Jim Meachen ZL2BHF brings us
the details.

JIM: Harnessing the sun's power doesn't come easily or affordably
but researchers at the University of Tokyo believe they're working on
a future for solar panels that will be cheaper and more efficient: They
announced recently that they have combined titanium dioxide with
selenium, a production process that could bring down the heavy costs of
extracting titanium from its ore so it can be used in a variety of
energy-related products, including solar panels. The scientists'
method relies on introducing an element known as yttrium into the
process of purifying the titanium. So far, they have been impressed
with the resulting performance.

According to recent reports in Business Today and on MSN.com, the only
drawback is that the element leaves traces of itself behind in the
final result, enough of a contaminant that it could compromise its
durability and its resistance to corrosion.

The next challenge? Minimise what is left behind so that a new type of
solar cell will be available in the future with a higher level of
energy efficiency and affordability.

This is Jim Meachen ZL2BHF.

(MSN, BUSINESS TODAY)

**
WORLD OF DX

In the World of DX, Bo, OZ1DJJ, is in Greenland using the callsign
OX3LX until the 14th of March. He will primarily remain on the main
island, IOTA number NA-018 but may take a day trip to Manitsoq, IOTA
number NA-220. He will be operating holiday style since this is a
work-related trip. See QRZ.com for QSL details.

Dave, G4BUO, is on the air from Samoa, IOTA number OC-097, using the
callsign 5W0UO until the 3rd of March. Dave operates mainly CW. QSLs
will be uploaded to LoTW in early April.

In Jamaica, IOTA number NA-097, Iain, G4SGX will be calling QRZ as
G4SGX/6Y from the 1st through to the 21st of March. Iain operates
mainly CW and will be on 80-10 metres. Listen for him in the RSGB
Commonwealth Contest on the 8th and 9th of March. See QRZ.com for QSL
details.

Mamoru, JH3VAA, is on the air with the callsign 8Q7VA from the
Maldives, IOTA number AS-013, until the 5th of May. See QRZ.com for
QSL details.

(425 DX BULLETIN)

**
KICKER: BROADCAST STUDENTS GET SCHOOLED IN AMATEUR RADIO

NEIL/ANCHOR: We end this week by sharing a happy discovery at a
Maryland high school where students learning about professional radio
have fallen in love with the amateur side of things. Here's Kent
Peterson KC0DGY to tell us what happened.

KENT: There was electricity in the air - or perhaps it was
electromagnetism - when high school students in Kent County, Maryland,
participated in their first ARRL School Club Roundup last fall. With
the support and some loaned equipment from the Kent Amateur Radio
Society, K3ARS, the students logged contacts in the US and a number of
others overseas. For them it was "a pivotal moment," the radio society
president, Chris Cote, KE5NJ, told Newsline. He said it exceeded
everyone's expectations.

Earlier this year, the sparks flew again, in a manner of speaking,
during Winter Field Day. Some of the teens, who are involved with WKHS,
Kent County High School's FM radio station, returned  to experience
once more what the amateur side of the medium can do - and just how far
it can go - by calling CQ from the school parking lot with members of
KARS.

Now even more students are along for the ride. With the help of Chris
Cote and KARS, Chris Singleton, KE3MC, is guiding them on that journey
-- one that the broadcast engineer took himself not so long ago when he
was still a student at the school: Chris Singleton teaches the
broadcasting course on the Eastern Shore, Maryland campus where he is
also manager of the school's FM radio station. Along with Chris Cote,
he is encouraging the students to study for their license and to set
their sights a little higher. They're hoping to reapply for an
astronaut contact through Amateur Radio on the International Space
Station, crossing fingers that the second time will be the charm. If
they were thrilled about working Moscow during last fall's roundup,
imagine what a low Earth orbit QSO will feel like to them.

This is Kent Peterson KC0DGY.

(RADIO WORLD, CHRIS COTE, KE5NJ; CHRIS SINGLETON, KE3MC)

**
Have you sent in your amateur radio haiku to Newsline's haiku challenge
yet? It's as easy as writing a QSL card. Set your thoughts down using
traditional haiku format - a three-line verse with five syllables in
the first line, seven in the second and five in the third. Submit your
work on our website at arnewsline.org - each week's winner gets a
shout-out on our website, where everyone can find the winning haiku.

NEWSCAST CLOSE: With thanks to the Amateur Radio Daily; Brown
University; Business Today; Chris Cote, KE5NJ; Chris Singleton KE3MC;
David Behar K7DB; Guillermo Crimerius, PY2BIL; MSN.com; Radio World;
shortwaveradio.de; Space.com; Tom Gaines, KB5FHK; Wireless Institute of
Australia; YLRL; and you our listeners, that's all from the Amateur
Radio Newsline.  We remind our listeners that Amateur Radio Newsline is
an all-volunteer non-profit organization that incurs expenses for its
continued operation. If you wish to support us, please visit our
website at arnewsline.org and know that we appreciate you all. We also
remind our listeners that if you like our newscast, please leave us a
5-star rating wherever you subscribe to us. For now, with Caryn Eve
Murray KD2GUT at the news desk in New York, and our news team
worldwide, I'm Neil Rapp WB9VPG in Union Kentucky saying 73. As always
we thank you for listening. Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) is Copyright
2025. All rights reserved.