ARRL Life Member Ulrich Rohde, N1UL, has donated a Rohde & Schwarz SMBV100A vector signal generator to the ARRL Laboratory. The device offers internal signal generation for all major digital radio standards. “That is absolutely fabulous news and extremely generous,” ARRL CEO David Minster, NA2AA, told Rohde.

ARRL Laboratory Manager Ed Hare, W1RFI, said the instrument will be a valuable addition ...

The former president of Argentina, Carlos Menem, ex-LU1SM, died on February 14. He was 90. Menem took office in 1989, serving for 10 years. Menem was active on the air in the 1980s and 1990s. He had earlier served as regional governor. Menem served as a senator from 2005 until 2019. According to the New York Times, “Menem was hospitalized in December with kidney failure and had been put in a me...

At its Annual Meeting in January, the ARRL Board of Directors considered a motion to offer a new plan that would pay the new but not-yet-implemented $35 FCC application fee for a limited number of new radio amateurs younger than age 18 who, at the time of testing, belonged to an ARRL Affiliated 501(c)(3) charitable organization and passed their tests through an ARRL VEC-sponsored exam session. ...

As reported on Spaceweather.com, Canadian radio amateur Scott Tilley, VE7TIL, has snagged another signal from deep space. His latest conquest has been to copy the signal from China’s Tianwen-1 (pronounced “tee-EN-ven”) probe, which went into orbit around Mars on February 10. Tilley told Spaceweather.com that the probe’s X-band signal was “loud and audible.”

“It was a treasure hunt,” Tilley told ...

The University of Louisiana (UL) at Lafayette student-built CAPE-3 satellite was launched on January 17. A 1-U CubeSat, CAPE-3 includes a “digipeater and experimental UHF adaptive radio.” An AX-25 telemetry downlink has been coordinated on 145.825 MHz and a 1k2 frequency-shift keying (FSK) downlink has been coordinated on 435.325 MHz, “which may burst to 100 kHz bandwidth,” according to the IAR...

Former ARRL Southwestern Division Director Art Goddard, W6XD, of Costa Mesa, California, died on February 13. An ARRL Life Member, he was 78. First licensed in 1956, Goddard was an electrical engineering graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Montana State University. He worked for Collins Radio and later for Boeing, from which he retired as an executive.

After several years working wit...

The latest issue of the free publication ITU News Magazine highlights World Radio Day (observed each year on February 13), featuring two articles on amateur radio. Articles in the magazine include the evolution of radio throughout the ages, ham radio and emergency communications, and remarks by International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) President Tim Ellam VE6SH, regarding why World Amateur Radio...

Weather gone wild might be an apt description of the conditions in many parts of the US, with sub-freezing temperatures in areas not prepared for that sort of thing. Aberrant weather seems to be happening across many US regions. Snow has fallen in Texas and Oklahoma, accompanied by record-setting temperature readings.

The severe weather has caused power and telecommunications outages, and ARRL A...