RAC Ontario Sections Bulletin for April 29, 2023
Official Bulletin Station for Radio Amateurs of Canada with this week’s bulletin.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL NEWS
1. Reminder of Special Event Callsigns for Coronation of King Charles:
In effect May 5th to July 2nd, 2023 VA becomes CJ, VE becomes CK, VO becomes CY, and VY becomes CZ
In effect May 5th to July 5th, 2023
VC3C sponsored by VE3FXX
— IC website
2. FCC Proposes Changes to 60-Meter Band
The FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on April 21, 2023, that deals with the 60m band. In a prior petition, ARRL urged protecting the existing use of the band by amateurs when adding a new allocation adopted internationally.
Currently, radio amateurs in the US have access to five discrete channels on a secondary basis, limited to an effective radiated power (ERP) of 100 W PEP.
The FCC proposes to allocate 15 kHz of contiguous bandwidth between 5351.5 – 5366.5 kHz on a secondary basis with a maximum power of 9.15 W ERP. This allocation was adopted at the 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15). ARRL said that years of amateur radio experience using the five discrete channels have shown that amateurs can coexist with primary users at 5 MHz.. “Neither ARRL,
nor, NTIA, is aware of a single reported instance of interference by a radio amateur operating at 5 MHz to date.”
The Commission wrote, “Finally, we note that Canada has essentially implemented the same rules as ARRL has requested.”
The FCC proposed to allocate the 15 kHz bandwidth, but stopped short of making a proposal on whether the existing channels should remain allocated to amateur radio and what the power limitations should be. They requested comments on their proposal.
— ARRL newsletter
ONTARIO SECTION NEWS
ITEMS OF INTEREST
3. 2023 Online Ham Bootcamp
The Nashua Area Radio Society’s spring 2023 online Ham Bootcamp will be held on Saturday, May 13, from 10 AM to 6 PM Eastern Time. Access to the session via Zoom.
Ham Bootcamp includes a series of demonstrations and tutorials designed to help newly licensed hams get on the air. Ham Bootcamp is also a great opportunity for hams who are interested in seeing what the hobby has to offer.
You can register for Ham Bootcamp at:
https://www.n1fd.org/register-ham-bootcamp/
For additional information, contact Anita Kemmerer, AB1QB, at
[email protected].
— Nashua Area Radio Society https://www.n1fd.org/
4. Indian Researchers Develop Micro-Supercapacitor
Scientists in India say that they have created the smallest micro-supercapacitor to date, developing it out of two-dimensional materials: graphene and molybdenum disulfide.
This is considered significant because as electronic devices continue to shrink their energy storage devices must be just as small. Supercapacitors are considered ideal for this task because they not only store energy but can handle the kind of rapid charge-discharge
cycles beyond the ability of conventional chemical batteries.
Researchers used two-dimensional materials for the ultramicro-supercapacitor because they are semiconductors. Each of the multi-layer electrodes acts as a field-effect transistor. The tiny device has a remarkably high capacitance and an easy ability to integrate with
electronic chips because of its use of a gel electrolyte instead of a liquid.
Their next challenge is to create devices out of other two-dimensional materials in an attempt to boost capacitance even further.
— Amateur Radio Newsline (Friday April 28th)
This concludes this week’s bulletin.
Bulletin sent from Official Bulletin Manager VA3PC