International Radio Amateurs' Organization

Sun City in South Africa will host the next IARU Region 1 Conference in 2011

An Amateur Radio 2009 Year Planner has been sent to all Members of the European Parliament

Radio Ham Chip N2YO has had a lot of publicity for his Satellite Tracking website from a Venezuelan Radio Station and numerous Spanish Language Blogs

The New York Times website reports that astronaut Donald Pettit, amateur radio callsign KD5MDT, has created a video of the Auroral Borealis as viewed from the Space Station

There were nine Section Manager races this Fall, four of which saw no opposition. Election ballots were counted and verified on Tuesday, November 18 at ARRL Headquarters for the remaining five races

'CQ' magazine is calling on FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Kris Monteith to move swiftly to name a successor to Riley Hollingsworth, K4ZDH, as Special Counsel for Amateur Radio, and to bring FCC enforcement back to the ham bands

Due to the poorest condx on the HF bands in 54 years during 2008, the clubs involved in the Roskilde 1658 Award have unanimously decided to prolong the award activities throughout 2009, until December 31, 2009

The Austrian OeVSV website reports changes to the Amateur Radio regulations, one of which means Amateurs will get access to all frequencies above 275 GHz

37 Latvian radio hams are licensed to use the special prefix YL 90 + usual suffix of the station to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Republic of Latvia

ARRL Headquarters will be closed November 27 and 28 in observance of Thanksgiving. There will be no W1AW bulletins or code practice transmissions those days. The ARRL Letter will be published on Wednesday, November 26, but there will be no ARRL Audio News on Friday, November 28. ARRL Headquarters will reopen Monday, December 1 at 8 AM Eastern Standard Time. We wish everyone a safe and bounteous Thanksgiving holiday.

The Global ALE High Frequency Network (HFN) -- an international Amateur Radio Service organization of ham operators dedicated to emergency/relief radio communications -- has become the first network to operate continuously for more than 500 days on all international Amateur Radio shortwave bands simultaneously. According to HFN International ALE Coordinator Bonnie Crystal, KQ6XA, the main purpose of the Network is to provide efficient emergency and disaster relief communications to remote areas of the world. "Beginning with a core group of six North American radio operators in June 2007, HFN rapidly expanded to cover large areas of the planet with 24/7 digital communications," she said."HFN was designed to be an open framework for global Amateur Radio emergency services to interoperate on HF using the Automatic Link Establishment (ALE) system." Relying on ionospheric radio communications, interconnected HFN base stations scan the radio bands every 10 seconds, from 3.5 MHz-28.0 MHz. Through this Net, Crystal said, ham operators stay connected with each other at all hours of the day or night in any mode of operation, and can send Internet e-mail or cell phone mobile text messages from the field."

VK and PY seem to have been back in contention with Big Dave top on Monday and V51AS (Namibia) and Z29KM (Zimbabwe) top at the weekend

The UK regulator Ofcom has supplied the figures for the total number of Amateur Radio Licences issued as at 31st October

The Gadget Show, broadcast on the UK TV station Channel 5, recently compared two PMR446 walkie talkies, the Icom Digital F4029SDR and the Motorola FM TLKR-T7

Anderson's Creek Primary School in Warrandyte, Victoria, Australia experienced a very successful Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact

STS-126 mission specialists Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper, KD5TVR, and Steve Bowen worked outside the station Tuesday for the first of the mission's four spacewalks

Worcester Radio Amateurs Association (WRAA) are pleased to announce another of their club's talks in December

An International Space Station Expedition 18 ARISS school contact has been planned with participants at St. Teresa's School, South Wairarapa, New Zealand on 20 November

There's two interesting events on the horizon at the Maidstone YMCA Amateur Radio Society…

Martti, OH2BH says ' In case of any uncertainties about your low-band QSOs, here you have a much anticipated log search machine and a short recap'