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Bill Somerville, G4WJS SK
· HF, News · admin

From Joe, K1JT, we received the sad news that Bill Somerville, G4WJS, died suddenly and unexpectedly a few days ago. He was only about 65 years old.

Bill was the first to join Joe in in 2013 forming a core development group for WSJT‑X. Joe: “Bill has been closely involved with WSJT‑X and related software projects ever since. Our free, open-source software could not have achieved its extensive worldwide popularity and influence in ham radio without Bill’s essential contributions. In addition to writing code for important portions of the Qt-based user interface for WSJT‑X, Bill helped to bring the overall program structure more nearly up to professional standards. Moreover, he devoted countless hours to program support, patiently answering user’s questions on WSJT-related forums.

I have only started to think about the many ways in which I will miss Bill — not no mention how we all will miss his immense and positive impact on WSJT‑X and related projects. For more than eight years Bill and I communicated closely and regularly on ham radio topics, sometimes many times per day. Perhaps I will be able to write more about it in the near future.

Rest in peace, dear friend G4WJS.

–Joe, K1JT”

Photo shows Joe K1JT ® and Bill G4WJS (L) with Nick Henwood, G3RWF [Source: RSGB Twitter Account]

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Is India building its own over-the-horizon radar (OTHR)?
· HF, IARUMS · admin

According to a report by Alpha Defense India, the Defence Research and Development Organisation’s premier radar development laboratory is working on an “over-the-horizon” OTH radar system to keep a close eye on Chinese movements in the Indian Ocean region. The system design has already been completed, according to the report. The next step is the realisation of a prototype.

The radar prototype is to have two different types of radar arrays — a log-periodic wire antenna array and a broadband monopole antenna array. It is believed that the log-periodic antenna array will be used to determine the best frequency (MUF), which is known to depend on current conditions in the ionosphere and the sunspot cycle. The monopole antenna array is to consist of an array of 32 elements. The actual system is to be developed later after extensive testing and evaluation.

This over-the-horizon radar system will then be used to monitor and track ship movements over a large area, giving the Indian armed forces the ability to look over the horizon over a large distance, so the report.

OTHR often massively interfere with amateur radio, so as the wellknown Russian Contayner OTHR, the British radar from UK base Cyprus, from the Iran or from China. They are present daily on several frequencies within the exclusive amateur radio HF bands.

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HF Band Plan Review
· HF, News, Spectrum · admin

Over the past 18 month a proposal for an IARU HF Digital Mode reorganization has been undertaken by representatives of all three IARU Regions. 

The objectives were to review the data modes usage of the Amateur Radio HF spectrum and propose changes that:

  • Reduce inter-mode conflict between dissimilar operating modes; and
  • Facilitate the expansion of new technologies.

In conducting the review it was realized that it was necessary to update the manner in which the IARU creates its band plans. Accordingly, the IARU’s band planning definition toolkit were redefined, and additional data mode definition characteristics has been added to help separate activities that are fundamentally incompatible within the data mode family.

With the band planning process updated, the proposal then revised the band plans of all three IARU Regions, focusing on the data sub-bands and taking into consideration:

  • Popularity and capacity requirements; and
  • Existing band users and inter-mode compatibility assessments.

The team also took the opportunity to harmonize the band plans of all three IARU Regions to the greatest extent possible of course.

The proposal is now being discussed in the relevant committees.

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Wolf Harranth, OE1WHC — SK
· HF · admin

We are saddened by the news of the death of Wolf Harranth, OE1WHC, the founder of the DokuFunk archive. Wolf passed away on 3 August after a short, serious illness.

Many will still know Wolf Harranth from his work at Radio Österreich International — from “Kurzwellenpanorama”, “the programme for shortwave listeners”. Later it was called “Medienpanorama” (Media Panorama), finally “Intermedia” — all of them a must for shortwave listeners and radio amateurs, because the programmes not only gave a good overview of shortwave events and were always up to date, but because Wolf also offered a lot of thoughtful material — in his own critical but pleasantly communicative way.

Wolf was also the founder of the non-profit Viennese documentation archive for research into the history of radio and electronic media — Internationales Kuratorium QSL Collection — abbreviated Dokufunk-Archiv. What started as a QSL card collection is now a considerable archive on the history of radio and the amateur radio service, with many contemporary historical documents. According to Wikipedia, the archive now holds about six million items, including 1500 bequests, making it “the world’s largest institution with archival records and collections of any kind on the history of radio, with a focus on broadcasting and amateur radio.” The holdings are accessible free of charge and are constantly being added to.

It is probably less well known that in Austria Wolf was regarded as one of the country’s legendary literary translators. He was awarded the Austrian State Prize for Literary Translation and the international Astrid Lindgren Translation Prize, among others, for this work. He translated classics such as the “Jungle Book” or the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”.

He was also a recipient of the Roy Stevens, G2BVN memorial award in 2017, the IARU Region 1’s highest recognition for excellence in amateur radio, for his decades of effort and work on the DokuFunk archive. 

With Wolf, OE1WHC, not only the DX scene has lost one of its greats. Wolf passed away shortly before his 80th birthday.

Photo: Wikipedia/Harranth

Tom Kamp DF5JL
IARU Region 1 HF Manager

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Kyrgyzstan: Allocation for 60m / 5 MHz
· HF · admin

The Union of Radio Amateurs of Kyrgyz Republic (ARUKR) announced that on 4th June 2021, the Kyrgyzstan Telecommunications Regulator made the new WRC-15 Amateur Secondary Allocation of 5351.5 – 5366.5 kHz available to Kyrgyz hams at a maximum power of 100 W.

Other Secondary allocations made available at the same time were 472 – 479 kHz (1 W), 122.25 – 123 GHz and 134 – 141 GHz (both at 100 W).

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