“Ham radio operators from the Northern Berkshire Amateur Radio Club will be participating in a national amateur radio exercise from 1 p.m. Saturday, June 22, until 1 p.m. Sunday, June 23, at the Agricultural Fair Grounds, 371 Old Columbia St., Adams, MA. [Full story]
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K9HI Presentation at ARRL Maine State Convention & Hamfest, June 15, 2024
ARRL Vice Director Phil Temples, K9HI, attended the Maine State Convention & Hamfest in Augusta, Maine, on June 15, 2024. He assisted at the ARRL table and co-presented at the ARRL Forum with Maine Section Manager Phil Duggan, N1EP.
Temples presented a special door prize at the ARRL Forum—a 100th anniversary hard copy edition of the ARRL Radio Amateurs Handbook to lucky winner Timothy Tracy, KC1CMX, Carmel, Maine.
Logbook of The World Status
Despite several ARRL statements that Logbook of The World (LoTW) and DXCC data are safe, it seems that some users are still concerned that this may not be the case due to the time that it’s taking to restore service.
Follows is a recent post from Jon Bloom, ex-KE3Z, one of the original LoTW authors:
—
Perhaps it will ease some minds if I tell you that I know for certain that these data are safe. I know this because I personally assisted ARRL staff to get these data backed up to locations and systems that are in no way connected to ARRL HQ or cloud systems. The LoTW data, for example, exists in multiple physical locations and cloud backup services. Such is also the case for the LoTW source code. In addition, I imported the LoTW data backup into a separate, new test database system to verify it. This took several days since the database is about 3 Terabytes in size. (It’s a LOT of data!)
Getting the systems themselves back on-line is another matter, and I have no information to share about that as I’m not involved in the ongoing process of restoring them. ARRL has apparently made the decision, wisely in my view, not to bring any affected systems back into service until all parts of them can be vetted and secured. But the data itself is safe, and LoTW will definitely be back at some point.
— Jon
[We are working with Jon to get LoTW back online. As you can see from his explanation, there is not a definite timeframe. We want to be sure that the LoTW platform is secure before we bring the system back up. I hope that this helps. —Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC]
Director’s Field Day Message
Hello everyone,
I know that many folks are preparing for and looking forward to Field Day 2024. I very much enjoy visiting Field Day sites throughout New England to talk with friends, meet new hams, and to see what everyone is doing. Unfortunately, I have had surgery on my foot and, as a result, I am unable to do much walking at this time. I hope to be back on my feet by the end of July. This means that I will not be able to make my usual Field Day visit tour this year. I hope that you can understand my situation and I wish everyone a safe and fun Field Day 2024.
Best and 73,
Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC
(603) 413-5400
Mail: ab1oc@arrl.org
ARRL New England Division Director
Robust Lineup of Vendors and Speakers at the 2024 Northeast HamXposition
Northeast HamXposition Press Release ROBUST LINEUP OF VENDORS AND SPEAKERS AT THE 2024 NORTHEAST HAMXPOSITION June 1, 2024 For more information, visit: <https://hamxposition.org/> https://hamxposition.org Plans are shaping up for the 2024 Northeast HamXposition and New England Division Convention on August 22-25, 2024 in Marlborough, Massachusetts. This year's convention will be held at the Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel & Trade Center, 181 Boston Post Road W, Marlborough, MA 01752. This venue is located off of I-495 on Route 20 west. It offers many amenities and lots of nearby family-friendly attractions and dining options. The festivities kick off on Thursday evening, August 22 with entertainment provided by nationally known comedian Juston McKinney. Seating is limited to 250 people. Tickets are just $35, and also available as part of the "Convention Plus" package. Join your fellow hams for a delicious DXCC/Contest Banquet on Friday night with Yuri Onipko, VE3DZ, as he recaps his 50 years of DX and contesting activities and shares his operating experiences from a variety of locations around the world. Steve Goodgame, K5ATA, will present the keynote on Saturday morning. Steve leads ARRL's Education and Learning Department. He has a passion for youth outreach, and works constantly to find ways to engage more youth in wireless technology and help teachers ELEVATE their STEM programs. The Saturday evening Grand Banquet will feature special guest Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW. Known as "Space Weather Woman" in social media, Dr. Skov forecasts and analyzes space weather processes - in the heliosphere and exosphere. Several new vendors will have their wares on display at the convention this year: FlexRadio, Elecraft, and SteppIR Communications Systems. We'll also feature Halibut Electronics, Club Gear Online, Reliance Antennas. Remote Ham Radio, VE2DX Electronics, Gold Medal Ideas, AG Custom Gifts, and others. New for 2024 is "Mini-Contest University," based on K3LR's popular Contest University. CTU has been featured at the Dayton Hamvention since 2007 and has been presented in 15 countries to over 10,000 participants. Mini CTU is a series of contest-oriented talks and presentations offered at HamXposition all day Friday. HamXposition is pleased to offer a Parks On The Air (POTA) track featuring presentations designed for both newcomer and experienced POTA operators alike. There will be a functioning portable station operating on the hotel grounds designed to show beginners how to "chase" POTA contacts. In addition, an actual POTA activation will occur in a nearby state park following the prize drawing and closing ceremony. This year, volunteers will staff a special "Get On The Air" station, W1XPO, to mentor and assist newcomers in making their first HF contact. Our popular EmComm track will be back for 2024. Veteran emergency communicators will share their knowledge and experience to help others to "up their game." In addition to talks and presentations, convention goers will get to see operational emergency communications vehicles on display in the parking lot. As always, the Northeast HamXposition will feature a robust flea market, open to tailgaters on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. No major convention would be worth its salt without great prizes. Along with hourly drawings, we're pleased to announce that one lucky person will receive the grand prize-an Icom IC-705 QRP all-in-one transceiver. Second prize will be a Xiegu X6100 QRP HF/6m transceiver. The third prize will be an Icom ID-50A VHF/UHF/D-Star handheld. Tickets can be purchased in advance by visiting <https://ticketing.
hamxposition.org/> https://ticketing.hamxposition.org . The ARRL Diamond, The National Association for Amateur Radio, Amateur Radio Emergency Service, ARES, ARES logo, National Traffic System, NTS, and NTS logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of American Radio Relay League, Inc. Parks On The Air and POTA are registered trademarks belonging to Jason Johnston, W3AAX. (c) 2024 Northeast HamXposition(tm) - <https://hamxposition.org/privacy-policy> Privacy Policy
2024 ARRL Club Grant Program Applications Now Open
From the ARRL Facebook page:Attention Amateur Radio Clubs:
The ARRL Foundation is pleased to announce the return of the Club Grant Program for 2024!
This is an opportunity for clubs to apply for grants up to $25,000 to fund projects in their community with an emphasis given to projects that are of a “transformational” nature, or a club that has a plan to improve the community through education, recruiting, training, and promotion of amateur radio.
Western MA June 2024 Section News Now Available
The June 2024 Western MA Section Newsletter is now available at https://wma.arrl.org/blog/2024/05/31/section-managers-report-june-2024/.
ARRL Systems Service Disruption Update, June 4, 2024
From ARRL News:
Updated 6/4/2024
On or around May 12, 2024, ARRL was the victim of a sophisticated network attack by a malicious international cyber group. ARRL immediately involved the FBI and engaged with third party experts to investigate.
This serious incident was extensive and categorized by the FBI as “unique,” compromising network devices, servers, cloud-based systems, and PCs.
ARRL management quickly established an incident response team. This has led to an extensive effort to contain and remediate the networks, restore servers, and staff are beginning the testing of applications and interfaces to ensure proper operation.
Thank you for your patience and understanding as our staff continue to work through this with an outstanding team of experts to restore full functionality to our systems and services.
We will continue to update members as advised and to the extent we are able.
This story will be updated with new developments.