• Radio Connects is 2025 ARRL Field Day Theme ( ARRL )
• The ARRL Solar Report ( ARRL )

  Geomagnetic field activity is expected to be at minor storm levels
  for March 18, and then from March 27 and 27 all due to recurrent
  Coronal Hole influences.
  
  Solar activity was at low levels. Multiple C-Class flares were
  observed from newly numbered Region 4028. More spots are rotating
  around the Southeast limb that maybe connected to the spot group.
  The largest flare of the period was a C6.8 on March...

• Perfect Storm Exercise in California Gets Results ( ARRL )

  The ARRL San Joaquin Valley Section (SJV) conducted “Perfect Storm,” an amateur radio emergency exercise, on March 5 - 7.

  Section Emergency Coordinator (SEC) Dan Sohn, WL7COO, asked that a section-wide exercise be created that would engage both amateur radio operators and non-amateurs to become more active in their community's emergency preparedness and response capabilities.  

  There were 120 par...

• ARRL Ham Radio Open House — Site Locator Live, PR Workshop Registration ( ARRL )

  ARRL Ham Radio Open House is a national event being hosted by local amateur radio clubs in April to coincide with World Amateur Radio Day on April 18. The event is designed to highlight technical innovations in ham radio, and show off the current state of the art. It will serve as a tool to tell the story of amateur radio being a pathway to tomorrow's technical careers. 

  A site locator is now li...

• Posts ( posts, arrl )

  The system will now automagically pull items from the ARRL News RSS feed every day and make them available as a post in this system. There will only be a snippet of the article with a canonical link to the article itself on ARRL’s site.

• Dayton Hamvention 2025 Award Winners Announced ( ARRL )

  The recipients of the 2025 Dayton Hamvention® Awards were announced on March 11, 2025. “The selection process was highly competitive, given the outstanding quality of nominations submitted this year. We extend our heartfelt congratulations to the winners for 2025,” said Dayton Hamvention Awards Chair Michael Kalter, W8CI.

  Technical Achievement Award: Dr. Kristina Collins, KD8OXT

  Dr. Kristina Coll...

• Hurricane Watch Net Founder Gerald Murphy, K8YUW, a Silent Key ( ARRL )

  Gerald E. “Gerry” Murphy, K8YUW, passed away on February 25, 2025. He was 88 years old, and the founder of the Hurricane Watch Net (HWN). 

  According to a statement released by current HWN manager Bobby Graves, KB5HAV, Murphy, then 28 years old, was stationed at the U.S. Naval Mobile Construction Battalion Center in Davisville, Rhode Island, in 1965. During his time off, he handled countless phon...

• Clubs are Gearing Up for ARRL Ham Radio Open House — Yours Can, Too! ( ARRL )
• The ARRL Solar Report ( ARRL )

  Spaceweather.com is reporting "A Hole In The Sun's Atmosphere" that
  should reach Earth on March 9 and 10.
  
  Solar activity has been at moderate levels for the past 24 hours.
  The largest solar event of the period was a M1 event observed on
  March 5 at 1150z from Region 4016. There are currently 10 numbered
  sunspot regions on the disk.
  
  Solar activity is expected to be low with a chance for M-class
  flares a...

• The ARRL Solar Report ( ARRL )

  A Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) associated with a filament eruption
  became visible on February 26 at 1448 UTC.  Model analysis
  determined this CME to be a miss ahead of the Sun/Earth line.
  
  Unsettled to active levels are likely on February 28 to March 1 as a
  Coronal Hole influence continues, and a glancing blow is possible
  from a Coronal Mass Ejection that occurred on February 25.
  
  Solar activity is fore...

• Get On the Air for the ARRL International DX Contest ( ARRL )

  We’re seeing peak conditions from Solar Cycle 25 just in time for the ARRL International DX SSB Contest. It gets underway this weekend at 0000 UTC on Saturday, March 1, and concludes at 2359 UTC on Sunday, March 2. 

  ARRL Contest Program Manager Paul Bourque, N1SFE, is gearing up to operate as part of a multi-operator, single-transmitter station for the event. He is eager to get started. “This is...

• Colorado High School Students Visit the Plishner Radio Astronomy and Space Sciences Center ( ARRL )

  In late January 2025, 17 students and staff members from Las Animas High School (LAHS) in Colorado visited the Deep Space Exploration Society Radio Telescope (DSES) located at the Plishner Radio Astronomy and Space Sciences Center near Haswell, Colorado. They also got an introduction to amateur radio.

  “This first field trip visit of high school students reflected the dreams of Michael Lowe, form...

• ARRL’s “On the Air Live” Continues to Grow ( ARRL )

  ARRL is equipping the next generation of radio amateurs with the knowledge to get active on the air. “On the Air Live” is a monthly interactive webinar series that does deep-dives into topics aimed at the new and intermediate ham. It complements material found in On the Air magazine. February’s event had nearly 130 people in attendance. 

  The events are hosted by ARRL Education Specialist Wayne G...

• The ARRL Solar Report ( ARRL )

  Solar activity is expected to range from low to moderate levels
  through March 15.  There is a varying chance for R1 or R2 (Minor or
  Moderate) events, and a slight chance for R3 or greater events.
  
  Geomagnetic field activity is likely to reach G1 (Minor) levels on
  February 28, March 9, and March 12 to 14.  Active levels are
  predicted for March 1. Quiet, and quiet to unsettled conditions are
  expected to...

• Bob Buus, W2OD, ARRL Northern New Jersey Section Manager, Silent Key ( ARRL )

  Robert “Bob” Buus, W2OD, passed away on February 18, 2025. He has served as the ARRL Northern New Jersey Section Manager since 2020. Buus served as an Assistant Section Manager, Emergency Coordinator, and Net Manager prior to his appointment. 

  Buus was born in Minnesota and was first licensed in 1950. He graduated from the University of North Dakota with a degree in electrical engineering. He wo...

• More Seats Available for On the Air Live ( ARRL )

  Due to significant demand, ARRL has expanded the number of available spots for this month’s On the Air Live, an online training session linked to content in the current issue of On the Air magazine. The program quickly reached its original capacity. The live event will be hosted by ARRL Education Specialist Wayne Greene, KB4DSF.

  “It is a good problem to have,” said ARRL Education and Learning Ma...

• High School and a Sci-Fi Movie Spark Interest in Amateur Radio ( ARRL )

  Steve Schickel was a young high school student in the late ’80s and was introduced to amateur radio through his electronics classes. He also spent time working at a local RadioShack and watching science fiction movies at a nearby theater in his hometown of Pensacola, Florida.

  Amateur radio’s next biggest influence on Steve came in 1997, on opening night of the movie “Contact,” about a scientist ...

• Changes in the ARRL Iowa Section ( ARRL )

  Election results have been finalized in the ARRL Iowa Section. Barry Buelow, WØIY, received 283 votes, defeating incumbent Leilia Garner, WAØUIG, who received 146 votes.

  Buelow, of Cedar Point, will assume Section Manager duties on April 1. Buelow is a veteran of the United States Air Force and has worked in aerospace engineering. He has served on the ARRL National Convention Committee and is a ...

• YLRL Scholarships Available for Students ( ARRL )
• DX Opportunities Abound Around ARRL International DX Contest ( ARRL )

  With Solar Cycle 25 still at peak conditions, and several popular contests this time of year, there have been some interesting, if not totally rare, DX opportunities on the HF bands. Spots have been flying on DX club email reflectors this week. VK9XU on Christmas Island, V73WW on Marshall Island, 5N9DTG in Nigeria, KH7AL/KH9 on Wake Island, and 7Q2MM in Malawi have all been noted, among many ot...

• The Yaesu is Dead. Long live the Yaesu. ( Yaesu, FT-900, FT-710 )

  Earlier last week, I went to turn on my FT-900, only to find that I had a PLL unlock from about 24MHz to 29MHz on AM & SSB. Luckily, it was still under warranty, so I filed a claim, sent in my radio and waited.

  Unfortunately, my FT-900 was deemed “unrepairable”. They’re sending me a check for the cost that was paid for the radio.

  So began the hunt for a new radio. I finally settled on a Yaesu FT-710 FIELD. Ham Radio Outlet had a good deal on it for $899.99, so I bit the bullet. Luckily the check from the FT-900 will cover a little over half of the cost for the new radio. It has more bells & whistles than the old radio, so I’m learning. So far, I haven’t had any complaints (except for today, since the Ham Radio Gods saw fit to close every band I can access as a Tech).

• AZ Repeater Listings ( Arizona, repeaters, repeaterbook, Arizona Repeater Owners Frequency Coordination Committee, Amateur Radio Council of Arizona )

  I got tired of the errors with RepeaterBook, so I visited the Arizona Repeater Owners Frequency Coordination Committee’s website. They provide various PDF files to download for 6m-23cm repeaters.

  The PDFs are nice, but the tables in them are difficult to read for those of us who need bigger type (read “blind-as-a-bat), so I extracted the information from the tables into CSV files and loaded them on this site. They can be found at https://wy7emt.radio/az-repeaters.php.

  I’ll keep them updated as each new version comes out (which isn’t very often).

• More Site Updates ( updates, W7JBT, Space, Contact, General, scripts, python3, ISS, International Space Station )

  Did some more site updates over the past several days.

• Page Updates ( HF, operations, band conditions, MUF, FoF2, WWV, Space, weather, NOAA )

  HF Operations

  I’ve changed the old “MUF” page to provide additional information useful to HF operations
  and renamed it, fittingly, to “HF Operations”. It now includes the current HF band conditions
  for 80-40m, 30-20m, 17-15m and 12-10m. It also includes the current calculated MUF and calculated atmospheric noise level. These are all figured or observed from WWV (Boulder, CO, US).

  Space Weather

  The Space Weather page, “Space” has had the accordion menus removed in favor of direct links to the data.
  It now also includes the latest observed NOAA Space Weather Scales.

• Service for John Todd ( slient key, John Todd, W7JBT, Sheridan, Wyoming, Last Call, Brandmeister, talkgroup, 31566, Northeast Wyoming )

  The services for John (W7JBT) will be on October 24 at 14:00 UTC-7:00 at The Rock Church in Sheridan, WY. Absolute address is pending confirmation.

• New Domain ( wy7emt.lltodd.family, wy7emt.radio, domain name, change, new )

  You may have noticed a bit of redirecting going on if you tried using the wy7emt.lltodd.family domain.

• DAPNet POCSAG node coming! ( YouTube, video, DAPNet, Hampager, paging, coverage, Spurious Emissions, N4RTD )

  I’m in the process of getting a DAPNet paging node set up. I have all of the equipment, just waiting to get the antenna installed.

• BBS Email and News ( SMTP, POP3, News, BBS, BPQ32, BPQ, STDVAZ:WY7EMT-7, EMTBBS:WY7EMT-1 )

  Since none of the apps I can find seem to want to play nice with the BBS, I’ve disabled SMTP, POP3 & News ports (8025,8110,8119 respectively). To access your messages and read news on the BBS, you can either connect with the node or open the web page and click on the WebMail link to log in and read all of it in your browser. If I can ever figure out what the issue is with BPQ, I’ll re-enable those ports and post a message here.

• Data updates ( data, update, pages )

  To reduce the stress on the servers hosting remote data, I’ve set the scripts to download the appropriate data ONLY if the provider’s timestamp is newer than the one here. This should also reduce my server traffic.

• BBS hardware move complete ( hardware, swap, BBS )

  The hardware move was completed late yesterday afternoon and the node’s been running good for the past 24 hours (with the exception of changing a setting or two and having to restart today).

• Moving linbpq to new machine ( server, swap, BBS, node, STDVAZ:WY7EMT-7 )

  I have to shutdown my big server to save a little bit of electricity.

• Node is available again ( firewall, crash, node, BBS, online )

  It took me a little longer than I’d planned, but the firewall is back up and operating normally again.

• CRASH ( firewall, crash, node, BBS, offline )

  The firewall decided to update itself this afternoon and crashed in the middle of it.

• BBS ( BBS, node, packet, linbpq, BPQ32, N2UEM, G8BPQ, PHXAZ:N2UEM-7, Arizona, AZ, Phoenix, Saint David )

  I decided to use the server at home for a little more than streaming movies. I bit the bullet this past week and set up a packet BBS.

• NeverNeverNeverNEVER ( checkinstall, GNU, CTRL-C, unusable system, unbootable system, bug, NeverDoThis )

  When I build code off of Github, I use checkinstall to help manage the package installation. I discovered a rather nasty surprise when I stupidly interrupted checkinstall with CTRL-C… an unusable, unbootable system. Go figure.

• Yet Another APRS Client ( APRS, Xastir, YAAC, Yet Another APRS Client, TNC, serial, APRS-IS, client, SourceForge, JAVA, KA2DDO )

  I’ve been using Xastir for APRS for years now. Unfortunately, it’s really looking dated. I was searching around the other day and stumbled acrossa JAVA-based client called YAAC (Yet Another APRS Client) by KA2DDO. I’ve been testing it for the past few days, and it seems like a stable and fast client with a bunch of options. You can use a serial TNC, network TNC, APRS-IS and a bunch of others.

• J-Pole Coverage Map ( coverage, map, antenna, free, web tool, SPLAT, Radio Mobile Online, VE2DBE, STDVAZ:WY7EMT-7, DAPNET )

  I finally took the time to plot out the coverage for my J-Pole antenna. This is, of course, based on ideal numbers. Since I don’t have an analyzer, I don’t have the actual feed loss or gain to work with. Even so, it appears to be close enough to what I know about the basics (+/- a few kilometers).

• mmdvmhost-websocketboard-pistar ( MMDVM, pi-star, pistar, dashboard, DG9VH, MMDVMHost-Websocketboard, github, GitHub, repo, repository )

  So I found this really great websocket-based dashboard for MMDVM. Only problem was that it didn’t really work with pi-star.

• Tags become keywords ( posts, keywords, tags )

  So I’ve managed to finally get the “tags” function working in my page-editing script.

• Initial APRS password generator ( APRS, APRS-IS, password )

  This is an initial test of an APRS-IS password generator.

• QSL Card Layout ( QSL card, QSL )

  So this is the basic design for my QSL cards. My layout software doesn’t export, so I had to recreate it using image editing software.
  They’ll be slightly different, but this is the general idea.

• General upgrade ( birthday, Yaesu, FT-900, HF, radio, gear )

  Thanks to my better half, I’ve managed to get my hands on a Yaesu FT-900 with internal antenna tuner. Still have to build a wire antenna for it and get a straight key, but I’m still studying to upgrade to General anyhow, so it’ll give me time to get things ordered and built.

• Moving In ( website )

  Pardon the dust as I complete the website.

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