I’ve been critical of the ARRL in the past, but I think they’re doing a great job with providing hams with news about happenings in amateur radio. You can get the news by going to their website, or if you’re a member, subscribe to the weekly ARRL Letter.
Here are a few items of note that have been published lately:
- UC Berkeley Trains, Tests Hundreds of New Hams. This item describes a March 16 VE “mega session” at which 50 new Technicians, three new Generals, and five new Amateur Extra class licensees passed their exams. I was, of course interested in this because I recently taught a one-day Tech class that resulted in 37 new licensees.It also described two amateur radio-related courses taught by UC Berkeley’s Dr. Michael “Miki” Lustig, KK6MRI. I was especially interested in his “Hands-On Ham” course for sophomores. Something like this could be a good follow-on course for my Tech graduates. I’ve e-mailed KK6MRI, and will write more about this course when I get the information.
- Comedian, Actor, TV Writer and Personality Garry Shandling, ex-KD6OY, SK. Marlon Brando, KE6PZH/FO8GJ, died not quite a dozen years ago, and now Garry Shandling. Back in the day, we knew about celebrities who were ham radio operators, like Arthur Godfrey and Walter Cronkite. It’s a shame that hams like Brando and Shandling felt that they had to get licenses under assumed names. I wonder how many other celebrities there are out there operating under assumed names?
- ARRL HF Band Planning Committee Seeks Suggestions on IARU Region 2 HF Band Plan. Review the study the existing IARU Region 2 Band Plan; formulate a clear statement of any proposed changes, including a brief explanation of why each particular change would benefit all IARU Region 2 spectrum users; and submit input via e-mail by June 1, 2016.
- “Elmer” Inspiration, Elmer “Bud” Frohardt Jr, W9DY, SK. The ham radio mentor who inspired the term “Elmer” — Elmer P. “Bud” Frohardt Jr, W9DY (ex-W9GFF), of Madison, Wisconsin — died on March 22. He was 93.
Dave New, N8SBE says
I keep an RSS feed to the ARRL site (as well as your blog). It’s a great way to see, at a glance, if anything has been posted recently, and with a click, you can either access the original page, or the RSS summary. I have tabbed pages for RF/Ham Radio, Photography, etc.
I used to use iGoogle, but Google seems to suffer from ADD, and they lost interest in that project a while back, so I had to cast about to find a suitable replacement. I’m currently using NetVibes, since I could get it to look and behave similar to iGoogle.