RAC Ontario Sections Bulletin for February 18, 2023

RAC Ontario Sections Bulletin for February 18, 2023

Official Bulletin Station for Radio Amateurs of Canada with this week’s bulletin.

NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL NEWS

1.   Changes to the RAC Email Alias/Forwarding System


As previously reported, in January many RAC members whose email addresses used the format
[email protected]” experienced problems sending and receiving emails.
Thankfully, our IT volunteers were able to resolve the issue, but we had to make significant changes
to the system to be compatible with internet, web hosting and cloud service providers in order to
prevent future outages.
The result is that we need to be able to separate the email addresses of RAC officials, staff and
volunteers from those of our members. In order to achieve this:
RAC members will switch to “[email protected]
RAC officials and volunteers (“corporate users”) will use “[email protected]

Both the “[email protected]” and the “[email protected]” email addresses will work simultaneously
until Sunday, May 15 to give RAC members time to update their user information on any websites
and subscriptions.
We understand that this is a big change and it is definitely not one we take lightly, but it is a necessary
step to ensure that we continue the important work in support of Amateur Radio in Canada and
internationally. We appreciate your understanding and continued support.
A Q&A which provides more information on the reasons for this change can be found on our website
at: https://www.rac.ca/cybersecurity/
— RAC website.

2.  1×1 Special Contest Callsign List (UK) Expanded

The holder of a UK Amateur Radio Full Licence or Full (Club) Licence may apply for a Special
Contest Call sign (“SCC”). This call sign may only be used in amateur radio contests of no more than
48 hours duration, run with the aim of contacting as many other stations as possible in a given period
of time and run by an amateur radio club, national or international amateur radio association or another
organisation (including amateur radio publications), generally accepted within the amateur radio hobby
(locally, nationally or internationally) as being a bona fide contest organiser.
The call sign will be in the format ‘G’ or ‘M’, followed by a chosen digit and a chosen suffix letter.
Examples are G8Z or M7R. We have made 520 call signs available, (G)(#)(&)(A-Z) and (M)(#)(&)(A-Z),
where ‘#’ is an applicable Regional Secondary Locator (if any) and ‘&’ is a digit from 0 to 9.
The RSGB publishes a list (http://www.rsgbcc.org/hf/information/scc.shtml) of SCCs, which is a guide
to availability. Applications take up to four weeks to be processed.
Full details of how to apply for a Special Contest Callsign, including the complete qualifying criteria,
can be found on the RSGB website.
— RSGB website

ONTARIO SECTION NEWS
ITEMS OF INTEREST

3.   The US Airforce may have shot down an Amateur Radio “Pico Balloon” over Canada


Since the famous takedown of a suspected Chinese spy balloon, US jets have shot down a total of
three more unidentified balloon objects, now confirmed to have been ‘commercial or benign’. There
is speculation that at least one these three objects may have been an amateur radio ‘pico’ balloon.
One part of the amateur radio hobby is launching high altitude balloons with various radio and other
payloads. Larger amateur radio balloons launched in the USA require FAA clearance, need a radar
reflector attached, and usually continually transmit APRS telemetry before naturally popping and falling
back to earth after a few hours, just like a weather balloon.
However there is also the simpler ‘pico’ ballooning hobby, which involves the use of mylar helium party
balloons to launch small solar powered payloads that are only a few grams in weight. They typically
transmit low power WSPR at HF frequencies and can only transmit whenever there is sufficient solar
power available. Amateur radio or SDR hobbyist stations around the world can pick up these
transmissions, and report them on amateur.sondehub.org and/or wsprnet.org. Well built balloons can
totally circumnavigate the globe several times over several months before degrading.
Read more – RTL-SDR Blog: http://bit.ly/3xAeGMl
— This week in Amateur Radio

4.   Special Theme for World Amateur Radio Day 2023 Announced

The Inter­na­tion­al Ama­teur Radio Union announces that Human Secu­ri­ty for All, HS4A, will be the theme
of World Ama­teur Radio Day on 18 April 2023. For the first time, the Unit­ed Nations Trust Fund
for Human Secu­ri­ty and the World Acad­e­my of Art and Sci­ence are part­ner­ing with IARU in a
cam­paign to high­light the role that ama­teur radio plays in address­ing the world’s most press­ing needs.
Human Secu­ri­ty mea­sures secu­ri­ty at the indi­vid­ual lev­el. First intro­duced by the U.N. in 1994, the
con­cept iden­ti­fies sev­en inter­re­lat­ed dimen­sions of secu­ri­ty that are essen­tial to an individual’s well­be­ing:
eco­nom­ic, food, health, envi­ron­men­tal, per­son­al, com­mu­ni­ty and political.
The part­ners believe Ama­teur Radio is unique­ly posi­tioned to address peo­ple-cen­tered, con­text-spe­cif­ic
secu­ri­ty chal­lenges by pro­mot­ing tech­ni­cal knowl­edge, prac­ti­cal skills, inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy, and the
deploy­ment of back­up sys­tems at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el that can be called upon in times of emer­gency.
The pan­dem­ic, cli­mate change, nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, and armed con­flicts on sev­er­al con­ti­nents under­mine
our secu­ri­ty and respect no bound­aries. Ama­teur Radio has repeat­ed­ly demon­strat­ed its abil­i­ty to address
human secu­ri­ty needs. It is a tru­ly glob­al com­mu­ni­ca­tions medi­um com­pris­ing some three mil­lion radio
enthu­si­asts con­nect­ing com­mu­ni­ties and the peo­ples of the world.
In cel­e­bra­tion of World Ama­teur Radio Day, IARU and its mem­ber-soci­eties will be con­duct­ing a spe­cial
two-week on-the-air event 11–25 April. Spe­cial event sta­tions will be oper­at­ing from around the world,
mak­ing two-way radio con­tacts to call atten­tion to the HS4A campaign.
— IARU.org website

This concludes this week’s bulletin.

Bulletin sent from Official Bulletin Manager VA3PC

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