ARRL  The National Association for Amateur Radio® has received approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for an emergency waiver to facilitate amateur radio emergency communications for hurricane relief.

The request, filed by the ARRL Washington DC Counsel on August 29, 2023, seeks a waiver of HF symbol rate restrictions.

Trained radio amateurs involved with the Amateur Radio Eme...

Updated 7:00 a.m. August 30, 2023:

Hurricane Idalia was upgraded to category 4 in the early morning hours of Wednesday, with sustained winds of 130 miles per hour. As of 7:00 a.m. the storm has been downgraded slightly to category 3. Winds are sustained at 120 miles per hour.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved an ARRL-requested emergency waiver to HF symbol rate limits, to allow...

Five new sunspot groups emerged this week, one on August 17, another August 18, two more on August 21 and another on August 22.  

 Average daily sunspot numbers rose slightly, while average daily solar flux declined. Average daily sunspot numbers went from 95.7 to 105.9 and average daily solar flux declined from 154.2 to 149.4.

No big geomagnetic events this week, and average daily planetary A i...

ARRL  The National Association for Amateur Radio® has announced  that the candidates for the 2023 ARRL Division elections are now official. ARRL members will choose between two candidates for Director in the Great Lakes Division, and two candidates for Vice Director in the Atlantic and Dakota Divisions. In the Atlantic, Dakota, Delta and Midwest Divisions, incumbents for Director are unopposed....

Amateur Radio operators activated on Sunday, August 20, 2023 to provide communications and information for Tropical Storm Hilary. As of mid-morning Sunday, the system was moving up the Baja Peninsula of Mexico, expected to cross into Southern California. Heavy rains were falling in San Diego, and local media reported that 250 airline flights had been canceled.

Amateur radio operations began Sund...

Eleven new sunspot groups emerged over the past week, August 10-16, but average solar indicators declined.

There were two new sunspots groups on August 11, three more on August 13, another on August 14, two more on August 15, and three more on August 16. On August 17 another new one appeared.

But average daily sunspot numbers declined from 108.9 to 95.7, while average daily solar flux dropped f...

ARRL  The National Association for Amateur Radio® is closely following updates from the Hawaii Amateur Radio Emergency Service®, Hawaii ARES®, as amateur radio operators respond following deadly wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

On Tuesday, August 8, wildfires, fueled by the strong winds of Hurricane Dora, were burning in Maui and Hawaiʻi Counties. By the next day, much of Lāhainā on Mau...

The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) has coordinated two European digipeating satellites that are scheduled to launch in fall 2023. At the Technical University of Košice in Slovakia, satellite Veronika, a 1U CubeSat, is scheduled for launch on a Falcon 9 launcher on the Transporter 9 mission in October 2023.

The satellite will be equipped with a 24/7 digipeater on two different bands, as...

Two new sunspot groups appeared on August 3, three more on August 7, and another on August 9.

But solar activity was lower over our reporting week, August 3-9, with average daily sunspot number dropping from 154.3 to 108.9 and average solar flux from 173 to 166.4.

Average daily planetary A index rose from 8.3 to 12.3 and average middle latitude A index from 9.3 to 10.1.

The middle latitude A in...

ARRL  The National Association for Amateur Radio® is helping members get more out of their digital magazine experience. ARRL members all have digital access to four high quality magazines: QST, On The Air, QEX, and NCJ.  If you have questions or concerns about how to get the most out of the digital editions, a new video on the ARRLHQ YouTube channel will help walk you through it.

The video, hos...

ARRL  The National Association for Amateur Radio® will close at 12 PM Eastern time (1600 UTC) on Friday, August 4, 2023, for a staff event.

The ARRL Headquarters lobby and store, as well as W1AW, will be open to visitors from 8 AM to 12 PM EDT.

There won’t be any interruptions to the W1AW bulletin or code practice transmissions. W1AW will follow its regular transmitting schedule. Additionally, th...

 The Australian Space Weather Forecasting Centre issued a geomagnetic disturbance warning at 0233 UTC on August 3.

"Two recent coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are expected to impact Earth on UT day 05-Aug, with the second possibly arriving early 06-Aug. G0-G1 geomagnetic conditions may be expected on 05-Aug, with a chance for isolated periods of G2 towards the end of the UT day on 05-Aug. Geomagn...

ARRL  The National Association for Amateur Radio®, as part of its mission to protect Amateur Radio, has filed comments against a proposal that would introduce high-power digital communications to the shortwave spectrum that in many instances is immediately adjacent to the Amateur HF bands.

The “Shortwave Modernization Coalition” (SMC), which represents certain high-frequency stock trading intere...

[Updated 7/31/2023]

Since May, ARRL  The National Association for Amateur Radio® has been reviewing the rules proposed in a petition before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from the “Shortwave Modernization Coalition” (SMC). The ARRL Laboratory has been studying the petition out of concern for potential interference to Amateur Radio communications.

Comments on the petition, RM-11953, w...

The Hurricane Watch Net (HWN) is looking for new members who are willing to train to become Net Control Operators. HWN is especially interested in recruiting bilingual operators who are fluent in Spanish and English or French/Creole and English. Net Control responsibilities can entail hours of duty to ensure all received ground-truth weather reports are forwarded directly to the National Hurric...

A radio experiment held on July 26, 2023, to decode a slow-scan TV (SSTV) message sent via the ham radio station on the International Space Station (ISS) was successful.

The image was received by a group of educators at the headquarters of  ARRL  The National Association for Amateur Radio® in Newington, Connecticut through the voice repeater on the ISS. Teachers from around the United States we...

 Average daily sunspot numbers declined slightly over the past week (July 20-26) to 128.1, compared to 130.6 over the previous seven days.

Average daily solar flux declined significantly from 190.5 to 172.2.

The solar flux forecast sees values at 165 and 162 on July 28-29, 158 on July 30-31, then 155 on August 1-3, then 165, 170 and 175 on August 4-6, 180 on August 7-10, 175 on August 11-13, 180...

Average daily sunspot numbers declined, but average daily solar flux increased.  Sunspot averages were 181.9 last week, and 130.6 this week.  Average daily solar flux increased from 179.4 to 190.5.

Two new sunspot groups emerged on July 14, three more on July 17 and another two on July 19.

Average daily planetary and middle latitude A index were both 12.9 this week, rising from 8.6 and 8.1.

Pre...

Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS), in collaboration with ARRL  The National Association for Amateur Radio®, plans to carry out a special slow-scan TV (SSTV) experiment from the ISS on Wednesday, July 26, 2023. During the event, the Columbus Module Repeater, transmitting at 437.800 MHz, will carry a message to be received by teachers attending the ARRL Teachers Institute o...

Updated 4 PM EDT, Wednesday, 7/19/2023

All services are back online. We thank you for your patience during recent intermittent outages.

Updated 9 AM EDT, Wednesday, 7/19/2023

Members may continue to experience a disruption in some online services as an intermittent system outage impacts ARRL headquarters. Members can continue to access the ARRL website, digital editions of ARRL magazines, and mana...