News from @K5RAV

West Gulf Division December, 2013, Issue 9 Newsletter





--- From the Directors Chair

--- K5C Celebrates, The Cleburne Courthouse Centennial Special Event

--- ARRL Foundation Scholarships

--- ARRL Centennial QSO Party Kicks Off January 1

--- WG Leadership to Operate Special Event Station

--- Riley Hollingsworth, K4ZDH Receives Radio Club of America’s Sarnoff Citation

--- December is YOTA Month

--- ARRL “Symbol Rate” Petition

--- Planned ARRL Events for K5RAV and N5AUS

--- Upcoming Hamfests/Conventions





News from David Woolweaver, K5RAV, West Gulf Division Director



--- From the Directors Chair



Greetings from the Rio Grande Valley! My last hamfest visit in 2013 was with the great folks at NCTECH in

Azle. With the 2013 event calendar complete, I have been busily working on hamfest and convention

preparations for next year. We have secured some excellent speakers for the Section, State, Division and

Centennial Conventions in 2014 and I hope that you will plan to attend and support all of these events.



Delta Division Director David Norris, K5UZ and I are pleased to formally announce that the 2014 WGD/Delta

Division Regional ARRL Centennial Convention will be hosting ARRL Consultant Riley Hollingsworth, K4ZDH

and also, QST Contributing Editor Ward Silver, N0AX. Both gentlemen will be amazing contributors to this

highly anticipated event. Director Norris and I have been working feverishly with HamCom, our Vice

Directors and our team of volunteers to make this event stand out. Joining the usual list of exhibitors will be

the ARRL’s popular EXPO booth. In addition, you may have the opportunity to work the Special Event Station,

W100AW/5. Look for more details in future newsletters, but plan now to be in Plano in June.



Vice Director Stratton and I have been working on our meeting notes for the 2014 ARRL Annual Board

Meeting, which will be held in Windsor, CT on January 17-18, 2014. As has become customary, together we

will be opening up W1AW on Sunday, January 19, and calling CQ WGD. However, this year will be especially

important as it will be a rare weekend for Amateurs to work the centennial call sign W100AW Special Event

Station. Look for more details on this event on Page 3 as it is our desire to prioritize WGD residents during

this opportunity.



Christmas time is always busy as clubs and their members come together to celebrate and spend a few

minutes reliving the great experiences that they shared in the year. John and I wish all of you a very Merry

Christmas and safe Holiday Season!



73, K5RAV









--- K5C Celebrates, The Cleburne Courthouse Centennial Special Event

The FCC approved of the selected “Ham Radio Special Event” call sign of K5C in early October, 2013. Eight

local volunteer radio operators were signed up to work the frequencies and mode of their choice, on

November 16. When the final log pages were in, it showed that they had contacted 399 amateur radio

stations in 37 different states in North America and 33 contacts in 14 foreign countries using voice and Morse

Code. These contacts included England, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, Australia, Malta and

Canada.



The volunteer operators opened this celebration to the world. The control operators were:



Matt Galandat, KY5O

Jay Stanfield, WB5UDA

Ken Bush, KB5YBI

Jim Erickson, KB0DBJ

Mike Kegley, KB5QFU

Jim Chance, WV5K

Jason Smith, W5NEC

Marty Reeves, AB5L



Congratulations to all for a successful event!



(reprinted with permission from WB5UDA)



--- ARRL Foundation Scholarships



The ARRL Foundation is now receiving scholarship applications for the 2013/14 scholarship season. Each

year the ARRL Foundation awards more than 70 scholarships that have been funded entirely by the

generosity of radio amateurs and friends, to young hams that are pursuing higher education. The awards

range from $500 to $5000.



All applicants must submit a full application and transcript to be considered (other rules may apply to specific

scholarships). The application period for all ARRL Foundation Scholarship opened October 1 each year and

closes promptly on February 1, 2014. Awards are usually announced to the winners by letter in mid-May.

Applicants should review the scholarship descriptions as some awards have specific geographic criteria or

requirements as to course of study.



Governed by a nine member volunteer Board of Directors, the ARRL Foundation is devoted to providing

valuable programs to serve the Amateur Radio community. To learn more about the ARRL Foundation or its

scholarship program please visit their website at http://www.arrl.org/the-arrl-foundation.



--- ARRL Centennial QSO Party Kicks Off January 1



The ARRL celebrates its centennial in 2014.



As part of the mix of events marking the League's 100th anniversary, the ARRL Centennial QSO Party gets

underway at 0001 UTC on January 1. This is a year-long operating event, in which participants can

accumulate points and win awards, as well as work new stations and make new friends. During 2014 W1AW

will be on the air at least twice from every US state and from most US territories, and it will be easy to work

all states solely by contacting W1AW portable operations. This will be the first ARRL-sponsored operating

event for which every member is worth at least one point. The event is open to all, although only ARRL

members and appointees, elected officials, HQ staff, and W1AW are worth points. Working the ARRL's

president, for example, earns 300 points!



To qualify for points, all contacts must be two-way (no cross-band or cross-mode contacts), using CW, phone

(FM, SSB, AM, digital voice), digital (any digital mode, such as PSK31, RTTY) on 160, 80, 40, 30, 17, 15, 12, 10,

6, 2 and 1.25 meters, plus 70 centimeters and satellite. Stations exchange signal report and ARRL

abbreviation. Contacts do not have to be contest-style, and providing ARRL organizational information is not

required. A centennial database will assign point values to all logs submitted electronically. Those not

submitting electronically, however, will need to obtain the QSO information during the contact. Since this is

not a contest, participants may make contacts in any fashion they prefer.



The Centennial QSO Party is scored by totaling the values of all eligible contacts. There are no multipliers or

bonus points. Logs submitted via Logbook of the World (LoTW) will be scored automatically.



For full information, visit the ARRL Centennial QSO Party webpage.





--- WG Leadership to Operate Special Event Station



Director Woolweaver and Vice Director Stratton will be operating from W1AW in Newington, CT with the

Special Event Station call, W100AW, on Sunday, January 19, 2014 beginning at 9:00 AM until 2:00PM CST.

Look for the WG “Boys” on plus or minus 14.285 (+/-) Mhz USB. They will be calling, “CQ West Gulf Division.”

If you ever wanted to make a contact with W1AW, now is your chance! QSL 100%.



This will be the first opportunity for amateurs to contact the special event station on a weekend and we

expect a high volume of activity. In an effort to give WGD members priority, we are establishing a CALL LIST

whereby Division residents can pre-register for the event. K5RAV and N5AUS will then work the call list at

specific times in hopes that the propagation will permit contact with those who have pre-registered.



Please visit Call List Registration to pre-register. Registration will close at 8:00 PM on Sunday, January 12,

2014 so that we can post the call list and the time schedules in advance of operation. All pre-registrations

will be confirmed for contact information to insure residency.



Real time posting of frequency and operating schedule will be made on the West Gulf Facebook Page at “ARRL

– West Gulf Division” and on our Twitter Page “ARRL_WGD.”





--- Riley Hollingsworth, K4ZDH Receives Radio Club of America’s Sarnoff Citation

Retired FCC Special Counsel for the Spectrum Enforcement Division Riley Hollingsworth, K4ZDH, of

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is the 2013 recipient of the Sarnoff Citation. The Radio Club of America established

the award in 1973 to recognize an individual or club member for “significant contributions to the

advancement of electronic communications.” The Sarnoff Citation has been made to RCA members “who have

contributed to advancement of electronic communications in any significant manner, including nontechnical

support of the wireless industry,” the club’s website states.



“I could never adequately thank the Radio Club of America for this award,” Hollingsworth said in a statement

conveyed to those attending the awards banquet in Orlando. “To receive this — and it is still hard to believe

— from such a prestigious organization is an amazing journey for a 13 year old in South Carolina just learning

to appreciate the magic of radio. Thank you all, and thank you very much for benefitting the entire nation by

helping so many people choose a career in wireless.”

Hollingsworth’s engraved award, dated November 23, says, “For your significant contributions and

outstanding achievements in wireless communications.” Other Sarnoff Citation laureates include US Senator

Barry Goldwater, K7UGA (SK), ARRL Roanoke Division Director Dennis Bodson, W4PWF, and two-way radio

pioneer Fred M. Link, ex-W2ALU (SK).

In his FCC Enforcement Bureau position, Hollingsworth, who retired in 2008, revived enforcement of

Amateur Service rules and regulations.



(from the ARRL website)









--- December is YOTA Month



During December several European countries will promote ham radio to youth as part of a Youngsters On The

Air (YOTA) event, on all bands and modes. Stations will be on the air with “YOTA” as a call sign suffix or

appendage. “The idea for this is to break the ice for some youngsters,” said Bjorn Dettmaring, ON5CFG. “This

is not a contest but a shout out to the world of ham radio. Try to get as many youngsters as you can on the air

this month,” he urged.



Awards are available for operators or SWLs working or monitoring YOTA stations. Dettmaring said the

December event follows up on the success of the Youngsters On The Air events last summer. Awards are free

and will be distributed electronically. Only contacts during December 2013 are valid. Each station may be

counted only one time.





--- Regulatory: ARRL’s “Symbol Rate Petition Nears Top of FCC’s “Most Active Proceedings” List



As the Monday, December 23, deadline nears to comment on the ARRL's "Symbol Rate" Petition for Rule

Making (PRM), the petition has moved into second place on the FCC's "Most Active Proceedings" page (it was

in first place briefly). Since the FCC put the ARRL Petition on public notice for comment as RM-11708, it has

attracted 685 comments (as of December 19) and counting. The petition asks the FCC to delete the symbol

rate limit in §97.307(f) of its Amateur Service rules and to replace it with a maximum data emission

bandwidth of 2.8 kHz on frequencies below 29.7 MHz. In a briefing memorandum released this week, the

League took steps to clarify just what it is -- and is not -- asking the FCC to do. ARRL General Counsel Chris

Imlay, W3KD, said that while a significant majority of the comments support the petition, some appear not to

understand the petition's intent. The League reiterated that its filing would not "initiate any large scale plan

to convert to regulation of emissions by bandwidth," and would not affect any emissions other than data.



"The Petition proposes no changes that would affect in any way the existing rules governing Morse

telegraphy, phone, and image emissions," the ARRL stressed in its talking points. "The state of the art in

digital communications now allows transmission protocols in which the symbol rate exceeds the present

limitations of §97.307(f) of the FCC rules, but the necessary bandwidth of the protocol is within the

bandwidth of a typical HF single sideband channel (3 kHz)." The League contends that eliminating symbol

rate limitations for data emissions and substituting a maximum authorized bandwidth "would permit the

utilization of all HF data transmission protocols presently legal in the Amateur Radio Service, as well as state-
of-the-art protocols that fall within the authorized bandwidth."



The briefing memo stresses that the petition would not:



•affect HF sub-bands where phone and image emissions are now permitted nor affect HF CW operation.

•permit digital voice transmissions in data and RTTY subbands nor add rules affecting digital voice.

•change restrictions on automatically controlled digital stations.

•permit data emissions to use occupied bandwidths in excess of what is now allowed.



Further, the petition does not call on the FCC to expand the frequencies on which "unspecified digital codes"

may be used. The original petition, as filed, included an error that the ARRL corrected in an Erratum deleting

the erroneous reference to unspecified digital codes at HF. "It was never our intention to permit unspecified

digital codes at HF," the League said.



All told, the ARRL talking points state, the proposal represents a balanced approach. "ARRL attempted, in

adopting the 2.8 kHz maximum bandwidth proposal for data emissions at HF, to balance the two objectives of

facilitating use of new and future data emissions and protecting against usurpation of the band by a few data

stations," the briefing memorandum said. "Some bandwidth limit is necessary if the outdated symbol rate

limit is eliminated, as it should be."



Reply comments – ie, comments on filed comments – on the ARRL's petition are due by January 7, 2014.



(from the ARRL website)



 --- Planned ARRL Events for K5RAV and N5AUS



Director Woolweaver, K5RAV and Vice Director Stratton, N5AUS plan to attend the following upcoming

events:



K5RAV

-- ARRL Annual Board Meeting, January 17-18, Windsor, CT



N5AUS

-- 2014 Amateur Radio Fiesta, January 11, Schertz, TX

-- ARRL Annual Board Meeting, January 17-18, Windsor, CT



ARRL Convention and Hamfest events are a great place to visit with the Division and Section Leadership! Each

event will also include an ARRL forum where you can receive additional insight into Division and Section

matters.



At anytime that you have a concern or just want to say hello, contact Director Woolweaver at

K5RAV@arrl.org.



-- Upcoming Hamfests and Conventions



01/11/2014 | 2014 Amateur Radio Fiesta

Location: Schertz, TX

Type: ARRL Hamfest

Sponsor: San Antonio Radio Club

Website: http://w5sc.org



01/17/2014 | North Texas Section Convention (Cowtown Hamfest)

Location: Fort Worth, TX

Type: ARRL Convention pending Executive Committee approval

Sponsor: Lockheed Martin Amateur Radio Club

Website: http://www.cowtownhamfest.org



02/22/2014 | Orange Hamfest 2014

Location: Orange, TX

Type: ARRL Hamfest

Sponsor: Orange ARC & Jefferson County ARC

Website: http://www.qsl.net/w5nd/



03/01/2014 | 25th Elk City Hamfest

Location: Elk City, OK

Type: ARRL Hamfest

Sponsor: West Central Oklahoma Amateur Radio Club



03/01/2014 | Irving ARC Hamfest 2014

Location: Irving, TX

Type: ARRL Hamfest

Sponsor: Irving Amateur Radio Club

Website: http://www.irvingarc.org/iarchamfest.html



03/07/2014 | West Gulf Division Convention (Green Country Hamfest)

Location: Claremore, OK

Type: ARRL Convention

Sponsor: Green Country Hamfest Committee

Website: http://greencountryhamfest.org



03/08/2014 | Williamson County ARC Hamfest

Location: Georgetown, TX

Type: ARRL Hamfest

Sponsor: Williamson County Amateur Radio Club

Website: http://wcarc.com



03/15/2014 | West Texas Section Convention (59th Annual St. Patrick's Day Hamfest)

Location: Midland, TX

Type: ARRL Convention

Sponsor: Midland Amateur Radio Club

Website: http://hamfest.w5qgg.org



03/22/2014 | South Texas Section Convention (Greater Houston Hamfest)

Location: Rosenberg, TX

Type: ARRL Convention

Sponsor: Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club (BVARC)

Website: http://houstonhamfest.org



03/29/2014 | HamEXPO

Location: Belton, TX

Type: ARRL Hamfest

Sponsor: Temple Amateur Radio Club

Website: http://tarc.org