PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio #1425

Josh Marler (0:00)

Heard every week on Amateur Radio bands all around the world, broadcast on low-power AM and FM stations all across the United States, and one of the first podcasts on the Internet. We are This Week in Amateur Radio, the worldwide premiere amateur radio and technology news magazine and bulletin service of the air. Here are the stories for release around the earth as we come to air with edition number 1425 of This Week in Amateur Radio.

George Bowen (0:31)

The FCC cites a GMRS licensee for operating an illegal linked repeater network on the GMRS band. Rich Moseson, W2VU, assumes the role of news editor at the ARRL.

An upcoming FCC vote could give high-speed satellites use of more spectrum. The Dayton Hamvention names its first woman as its 2027 general chair.

Candidates are named for the ARRL director and vice-director positions and we'll have some other news from the league this week. A 10-year-old receives her ham license, and a lot more. A 12,000-year-old archaeological site gets on the HF bands. Alaska sends New York City a special tribute on 9-11. And solar power from space, delivered by laser, is proposed. We will have all the details coming up in this week's report.

Josh Marler (1:24)

These headlines will come to you in a moment, along with this week's special features. We'll visit with Bruce Paige, Kk5Do, and get an update from Amsat, and what's new with all those amateur satellites in orbit. Australia's own Onno Benshop, Vk6Flab, and Foundations of Amateur Radio will cover coronal mass ejections, wind flares, solar flux, and geomagnetic storms. Our own amateur radio historian, Will Rogers, K5Wlr, returns with a brand new edition of A Century Of Amateur Radio. And we'll stop by and visit with Bill Salyers, AJ8B, in the DX Corner with all of the latest DXpeditions, DX, upcoming contest, and much more. That's all straight ahead as North America's premier amateur radio and technology news magazine and bulletin service This Week in Amateur Radio takes to the air right now.

Reporting from the Hamshack TV studios in Knoxville, Tennessee, where we're rested up and ready for a new season of This Week in Amateur Radio, I'm Josh Marler, AA4Wx.

George Bowen (2:36)

Welcoming you to our 28th season of This Week in Amateur Radio, I'm George W2Xbs, reporting from our Headquarters Studio Facility in Albany, New York, where fall is definitely in the air.

Mike Nikolich (2:49)

Reporting from our studio in Orland Park, Illinois, I'm Mike Nikolich, Kilo9DxMike. And to paraphrase George Costanza, I'm back, baby.

Chris Perrine (3:00)

And reporting this week from Back in the Saddle in Cortlandville, New York, I'm Chris Perrine, Kb2Faf.

George Lama (3:08)

And reporting from our news bureau just outside Rochester, New York, along the southern shore of Lake Ontario, this is George, KiloCharlie2OscarXRayJuliet.

Ed Johnson (3:18)

Coming to you from the sunny Space Coast in Florida, I'm Ed, W2PH.

Don Hulick (3:24)

And reporting from our QTH in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, I'm Don Hulick, K2Atj.

Will Rogers (3:31)

And reporting from our news bureau in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where as we approach autumn, Mother Nature seems to have forgotten to turn off the summer heat. I'm Will Rogers, K5Wlr.

George Bowen (3:45)

Hello everyone, before we get into this week's newscast, I'd like to tell everyone that This Week in Amateur Radio now has its own Discord server. That's right, a place online where we can discuss everything technology and Amateur Radio. So join us. Just go to Discord on your computer or download the Discord app on your portable device and search for TWIAR or This Week in Amateur Radio.

We look forward to seeing you on the new This Week in Amateur Radio Discord server.

Mike Nikolich (4:19)

The FCC Enforcement Bureau has issued a notice of violation to Gary M. Bextat, Senior of Newman, Georgia, for operating a network of nearly two dozen link general mobile radio service or GMRS repeaters in violation of FCC rules for this service. Bextat is Co-Founder and CEO of North Georgia GMRS, Incorporated and Licensee of GMRS Station WQYU407.

He also holds Amateur Radio License WB4GMB. According to the FCC notice, there are only eight repeater frequency pairs shared nationwide by more than 300,000 active GMRS licensees and millions of family radio service users. Because the GMRS spectrum is so limited, the service only works as intended when local users can hear each other and cooperate in the sharing of channels.

Linking multiple repeaters is not in the public interest because it enables the retransmission of messages over much larger geographic areas, thereby limiting localized availability of the GMRS channels, monopolizing a limited spectrum resource, and increasing the potential for interference. It notes that GMRS repeaters may be connected to the telephone network or other networks, such as the Internet only for the purpose of remote control. Repeater linking is permitted in the amateur radio service, but not for GMRS communications for the reasons explained in the notice. Enforcement Bureau agents monitored several of Bextat's GMRS repeaters this past February, according to the notice, and observed that the repeaters were connected via the Internet and were being used to convey messages to multiple repeaters for simultaneous transmission on the repeaters' respective over-the-air output frequencies in violation of section 95.1749 of the Commission's rules. Bextat was given 20 days to fully explain the violation and spell out the specific actions taken to correct the violation and preclude recurrence.