Five incumbents and two new section managers will officially take office July 1, 1997.
Incumbent SMs who ran unopposed are ... Alan Shuman, N1FIK, New Hampshire...
(Source: ARRL Letter Vol 16, No. 11)
The FCC won't be authorizing any more 1x1 Amateur Radio call signs under Special Temporary Authority (STA) any time soon. That was the word this week from David Horowitz, the acting chief of the FCC's Private Wireless Division. Horowitz--who's an attorney--said he felt the FCC should not have issued STAs for any 1x1 call signs while a rulemaking proceeding regarding formal rules for 1x1 call signs, FCC Docket WT 95-57, was in the works. Action in that proceeding might not happen for several months.
Horowitz' decision effectively denied a half dozen or so pending requests for 1x1 call sign STAs. Some two dozen written STA requests for 1x1 call signs were routinely granted over the past year or so by former Private Wireless Division Chief Robert McNamara. That number does not include the 52 1x1 call signs issued for use by contestants in last summer's World Radiosport Team Championship 96 (WRTC- 96) event in the San Francisco Bay area.
The League has been assured by the FCC Wireless Telecommunications Bureau that it will move expeditiously toward concluding the docket proceeding that includes the 1x1 call sign rules matter.
NNNN
Modifications to the Ariane 5 rocket's electrical systems and software will mean another costly delay for the Phase 3D Amateur Radio satellite. The European Space Agency (ESA) announced March 24, that the Ariane 502 which will carry Phase 3D aloft from Kourou, French Guyana, has been rescheduled for a mid-September launch. ESA said the schedule change was in response to recommendations of a board of inquiry that looked into the causes for the failure of the Ariane 501 launch last year. ''This additional action, which does not call into question the design of the launcher nor its flight readiness, is intended to improve its robustness, increase the operational margins and allow for degraded operating modes,'' an ESA press release said.
AMSAT-NA President Bill Tynan, W3XO, said a complete analysis had not yet been done but that he believed the delay would add ''on the order of 100,000 dollars'' to Phase 3D's cost. That's on top of an estimated 200,000 dollars combined funding shortfall that AMSAT-NA and AMSAT-DL were reporting in late February. So far, AMSAT-DL has invested nearly 2 million dollars in Phase 3D, compared to nearly 1.4 million dollars for AMSAT-NA. ''Every month adds costs,'' Tynan concluded.
Phase 3D fund-raising efforts will continue. Earlier this year, the Japanese AMSAT group, JAMSAT, helped bridge the funding gap by transferring 50,000 dollars to AMSAT-NA. The money represented excess donations from JAMSAT members for the Phase 3D SCOPE camera. The completed SCOPE camera, designed and built entirely by JAMSAT, has been installed and successfully powered up at the Phase 3D Integration Laboratory in Orlando, Florida, where preparation and testing continue.
Tynan emphasized that the Phase 3D team plans to take maximum advantage of the schedule change to perform additional testing. ''It's not time being wasted,'' Tynan said, adding that the Phase 3D team ''will use the delay to be even more sure about the spacecraft's readiness.''
Prior to announcement of the latest delay, AMSAT-NA Vice President Keith Baker, KB1SF, had been reporting that AMSAT was racing to meet the early July launch schedule and that work on the satellite was moving along swiftly.
A series of pictures of Phase 3D work in progress is available via the AMSAT-NA Web site at http://www.amsat.org. Depending on its workload, the integration team hopes to be able to update these photos as work progresses.
NNNN
That's right, a net for kids! Do you kids want to get your licenses or upgrade? Do you want to learn about all parts of Ham Radio, including Amateur Television and Morse Code? How about just talking to people your own age? Well, this is the net to check- in to! It's a net for kids to get together and learn about Ham Radio. We'll have a topic every week and we will form a round table and just hang out and talk about the selected subject. Cool, huh? Well, it gets better. We plan on having guest speakers sometimes, somebody to hold testing sessions, and you will definitely make new friends. We know what a lot of you are thinking- "I'm not a licensed ham . There goes that idea." Well, that's not a problem! Just grab the first ham you see and come on the air with us. Don't worry about being nervous, all of us are! Just relax and come join us. And we know some of you don't have a radio, just tune in on a scanner! The net will be held on Thursdays at 7 to 8 p.m. On the Derry repeater, 146.85. Talk to you there!
If you know some one that might be interested please forward this to them. It is very important that this gets sent to other clubs so if you could take the extra time and let them know or let us know how to get in touch with them , will you let me know. If this is forwarded to you please email us at kidsnetnh@juno.com and say hi and you will be put on the mailing list.
Kate, N1YHX, and Billy, N1YOQ NNNN