The Battleship IOWA Amateur Radio Association’s NI6BB will celebrate the IOWA’s 81st “birthday” from 1600 to 2400 UTC on 22 February 2024. Look for us on 7261, 14261, 14061, 21361 and or 21061 KHz. QSL per instructions posted under NI6BB as found on QRZ.com and or at https://biara.org.

The 2023 running of the Armed Forces Day (AFD) Cross-Band exercise will be held on May 13, 1300 – 2200 UTC (6A – 3P PST). A complete list of participating stations, modes, frequencies, times, and other details was announced. The event is open to all radio amateurs. Armed Forces Day is May 20, but the AFD Cross-band Military-Amateur Radio event traditionally takes place 1 week earlier in order to avoid conflicting with Dayton Hamvention^®.

During the exercise, radio amateurs listen for stations on military operating frequencies and transmit on frequencies in adjacent amateur bands.

Military and amateur stations have taken part in this event for more than 50 years. It’s an exercise scenario, designed to include ham radio and government radio operators alike.

Per previous announcements: “The AFD Cross-band Test is a unique opportunity to test two-way communications between military communicators and radio stations in the Amateur Radio Service, as authorized in 47 CFR 97.111. These tests provide opportunities and challenges for radio operators to demonstrate individual technical skills in a tightly controlled exercise scenario that does not impact any public or private communications.”

Military stations in various locations will transmit on selected military frequencies and announce the specific ham band frequencies they are monitoring.

An AFD message will be transmitted utilizing the Military Standard (MIL-STD) serial PSK waveform (M110) followed by MIL-STD Wide Shift FSK (850 Hz RTTY), as described in MIL-STD 188-110A/B. The AFD message will also be sent in CW and RTTY.

FCC “Technician” course (entry level)
FCC “General” course (2nd level)
Each course is 2 sessions:

The sessions will be on 29 April and 6 May 2023

Technician 9:30 AM to 1:15 PM both Saturdays (bring your lunch)
General 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM both Saturdays

The FCC tests will be 10:00 AM to noon on 13 May 2023

At the start of the 29 April Technician course, a member of the Palos
Verdes Amateur Radio Club will give a 30-minute presentation on how to get further involved in amateur radio.

The class location is at Fred Hesse Community Park,
29301 Hawthorne Blvd., Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275
The Hesse Park facility no longer requires a mask
Confirm your attendance to Walt, K1DFO at wfordway@juno.com

There is no fee for either course. Taking the FCC test is $15. After
passing the Technician test the FCC will send you an e-mail for paying its $35 license fee and then they will post your call sign.

Optional Material (sold at cost):
Gordon West books with all the FCC test questions,
$30 for the Technician and $25 for the General
Paper copy of Walt’s Power Point charts,
$29 for the Technician and $25 for the General

For courses sponsored by the Palos Verdes Amateur Radio Club, students thru grade 12 who pass their examination at a PVARC VE test session will, upon application to the Club, be eligible for reimbursement up to a maximum of $50 to cover the cost of materials and the examination fee.

Everyone who obtains their first ham radio license through a PVARC VE test session, regardless of age, will receive a free membership in the Palos Verdes Amateur Radio Club for the remainder of the current calendar year.

NI6BB will be informally on the air 12/28/23 to celebrate IOWA’s 177th anniversary as a state. The hours will most likely be from 1800 to 2400 UTC.  Bands and frequencies will be up to the individual operator(s). Look for us in the cluster spots.

As the representative of the National Museum of the Surface Navy at Battleship IOWA in San Pedro, California, the Battleship IOWA Amateur Radio Association (BIARA) will honor the sailors and ships previously home ported in San Pedro who were attacked on December 7, 1941, with special crossband activations of NEPM on December 6^th and 7^th, 2022.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked on 7 December 1941, seven of the battleships formerly homeported in San Pedro Bay weren’t present. Eight Pacific fleet battleships (Arizona, California, Maryland, Nevada, Oklahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania) were at Pearl Harbor and absorbed the brunt of the Japanese attack. Of these eight, three sank, one capsized, and four suffered varying degrees of damage.

With authority from the Navy and Marine Corps Spectrum Office Southwest, we will transmit using the IOWA’s NEPM call sign on assigned military frequencies and listen for calls from the amateur radio community in their adjacent bands. NEPM will transmit on 14.375 MHz, 18.170 MHz, and or 21.460 MHz on J3E/USB and or A1A/CW. The operator will advise listeners as to where they are listening. Amateur participants are reminded not to transmit on the NEPM military frequencies. Operations on both days are expected to be from 1500 to 2400 UTC. QSL procedures can be found at https://biara.org. For specific questions in advance of the operation, contact w6hb@biara.org.

Spectrum Office Southwest, we will transmit using the IOWA’s NEPM call sign on assigned military frequencies and listen for calls from the amateur radio community in their adjacent bands. NEPM will transmit on 14.375 MHz, 18.170 MHz, and or 21.460 MHz on J3E/USB and or A1A/CW. The operator will advise listeners as to where they are listening. Amateur participants are reminded not to transmit on the NEPM military frequencies. Operations on both days are expected to be from 1500 to 2400 UTC. QSL procedures can be found at https://biara.org. For specific questions in advance of the operation, contact w6hb@biara.org.

From ARRL.org:

The FCC has announced that rule changes detailed in a lengthy 2019 Report and Order governing RF exposure standards go into effect on May 3, 2021. The new rules do not change existing RF exposure (RFE) limits but do require that stations in all services, including amateur radio, be evaluated against existing limits, unless they are exempted. For stations already in place, that evaluation must be completed by May 3, 2023. After May 3 of this year, any new station, or any existing station modified in a way that’s likely to change its RFE profile — such as different antenna or placement or greater power — will need to conduct an evaluation by the date of activation or change.

“In the RF Report and Order, the Commission anticipated that few parties would have to conduct reevaluations under the new rules and that such evaluations will be relatively straightforward,” the FCC said in an April 2 Public Notice. “It nevertheless adopted a 2-year period for parties to verify and ensure compliance under the new rules.”

The Amateur Service is no longer categorically excluded from certain aspects of the rules, as amended, and licensees can no longer avoid performing an exposure assessment simply because they are transmitting below a given power level.

“For most amateurs, the major difference is the removal of the categorical exclusion for amateur radio, which means that ham station owners must determine if they either qualify for an exemption or must perform a routine environmental evaluation,” said Greg Lapin, N9GL, chair of the ARRL RF Safety Committee and a member of the FCC Technological Advisory Council (TAC).

“Ham stations previously excluded from performing environmental evaluations will have until May 3, 2023, to perform these. After May 3, 2021, any new stations or those modified in a way that affects RF exposure must comply before being put into service,” Lapin said.

The December 2019 RF Report and Order changes the methods that many radio services use to determine and achieve compliance with FCC limits on human exposure to RF electromagnetic fields. The FCC also modified the process for determining whether a particular device or deployment is exempt from a more thorough analysis by replacing a service-specific list of transmitters, facilities, and operations for which evaluation is required with new streamlined formula-based criteria. The R&O also addressed how to perform evaluations where the exemption does not apply, and how to mitigate exposure.

Amateur radio licensees will have to determine whether any existing facilities previously excluded under the old rules now qualify for an exemption under the new rules. Most will, but some may not.

The ARRL Laboratory staff is available to help amateurs to make these determinations and, if needed, perform the necessary calculations to ensure their stations comply. ARRL Laboratory Manager Ed Hare, W1RFI, who helped prepare ARRL’s RF Exposure and You book, explained it this way. “The FCC did not change any of the underlying rules applicable to amateur station evaluations,” he said. “The sections of the book on how to perform routine station evaluations are still valid and usable, especially the many charts of common antennas at different heights.” Hare said ARRL Lab staff also would be available to help amateurs understand the rules and evaluate their stations.”

RF Exposure and You is available for free download from ARRL. ARRL also has an RF Safety page on its website.

The ARRL RF Safety Committee is working with the FCC to update the FCC’s aids for following human exposure rules — OET Bulletin 65 and OET Bulletin 65 Supplement B for Radio Amateurs. In addition, ARRL is developing tools that all hams can use to perform exposure assessments. 

From the ARRL Letter, January 7, 2021:
Effective on June 29, 2021, amateur radio licensees and candidates must provide the FCC with an email address on all applications. If no email address is included, the FCC may dismiss the application as “defective.” The FCC has already begun strongly encouraging applicants to provide an email address and will email a link to an official electronic copy of the license once it’s granted.

While many, if not most, amateurs already have provided an email to the FCC, this also will become a requirement. Under Section 97.21 of the new rules, as amended, the holder of a valid amateur radio station license “must apply to the FCC for a modification of the license grant as necessary to show the correct mailing and email address, licensee name, club name, license trustee name, or license custodian name.” For a club or military recreation station license, the application must be presented in document form to a club station call sign administrator who must submit the information to the FCC in an electronic batch file.

Under new Section 97.23, as amended, each license must show the grantee’s correct name, mailing address, and email address. “The email address must be an address where the grantee can receive electronic correspondence,” the revised rule will state. “Revocation of the station license or suspension of the operator license may result when correspondence from the FCC is returned as undeliverable because the grantee failed to provide the correct email address.”

Licensees can log into the ULS License Manager System with their FRN and password to update their FCC license record, including adding an email address. For questions or password issues, call the CORES/FRN Help Line, (877) 480-3201 (Monday – Friday, 1300 – 2300 UTC) or reset the password on the FCC website. 

NI6BB and the US Iowa has been featured on HamNation many times in the past couple of years. But soon, HamNation will no longer be associated with the TWiT network.  The show is moving to the YouTube channel of Josh KI6NAZ, Ham Radio Crash Course. HamNation returns January 6, 2021 on the HRCC YouTube channel.

We will see you January 6, 2021, and every other week on the Ham Radio Crash Course YouTube channel!

Bottom Cycle Blues

Written and recorded by Raul Midón AE3RM, a little tune about my love for the hobby of Ham Radio!