Radio

Amateur radio (Wikipedia category), often called ham radio, means different things to different people. I mean the US FCC current license levels Technician, General and Amateur Extra. I have been curious about mostly invisible electricity and electromagnetic wave technologies for as long as I can remember.

What is amateur radio? This video is a great summary of the history and current stats about Where Did All The Ham Radio Operators Go? (13 min) as of May 21, 2026. It may not all be accurate but it's well researched.

Modern mobile/cell phones work "well enough" "most of the time" so people may take for granted all that a modern phone affords and how it does so. Several internal radio transmitters and receivers make it the useful tool that it is: cellular phone, cellular data, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and NFC. Thankfully it is not necessary to know the exact locations of the closest cell phone tower, Wi-Fi access point, GPS satellite (and the four other satellite navigation systems) or call recipient unless something fails for some reason. The details are very important to those setting up the necessary infrastructure to make it all work as transparently as it often does. If you read even part of this page, please let me know, especially if you find something helpful. I would love to hear what you think about these and related topics.

What is the arrl.org? It's the Amateur Radio Relay League (wikipedia), the national, membership nonprofit located in Newington, CT that has represented amateur radio since it was founded in 1914. The daily business issues are nominally conducted via quarterly meetings by the staff and 15 elected Division Directors organized into subcommittees.

I hold volunteer positions with the ARRL as an
EB Section Technical Specialist,
Pacific Division Assistant Director and
I am an organizer of the pacificon.org annual division conference in San Ramon each Oct.
The Pacific Division Convention was first held in San Francisco in 1920. I think it was branded as Pacificon in the 1980s.
All views expressed are my own and are not endorsements of any kind.

I was curious for a while and I've been asked, what do the ARRL name badge colors signify? Roughly they signify the relationship of the wearer with the ARRL. Here's what the colors mean by clicking Your Title.

Why explore radio? Everyone has different reasons. This is both a strength and a weakness of amateur radio. I try to provide many answers below. HF radio is one of the primary ways we all can experience space weather between our sun and the earth. Many sciences are involved, things that we use every day. Anyone can legally listen at any time. It requires a license to transmit using more power and on more bands than limited, unlicensed bands allow. What now keeps me involved is the people I meet.

Modern phones use several different radios, frequencies and modes/protocols for different purposes. The same applies to amateur radio frequency bands and there are a lot more frequencies to try. You may have heard of names used to describe classes of frequencies and the bands of frequencies within them. These actually have definitions that are well defined. Some HF bands (3MHz to 30 MHz) can go around the world by bouncing between the earth and earth's ionosphere. The VHF (30MHz to 300 MHz) and UHF (300 MHz to 3GHz) bands are used primarily for line of sight communication, sometimes aided by repeaters placed in elevated locations. More and more Wi-Fi is starting to take place at very linear, short distance SHF (3 GHz to 30 GHz) frequencies. Now common microwave ovens work by enclosing microwave radio waves in a box to warm the outer inch and a half of food items through dielectric heating. These frequencies are still very different from much higher frequency visible light frequencies or the highest energy gamma rays our sun can emit during flares. Amateur radio is a way to directly experience some of the many effects of the sun on our home, the earth. Aurora lights are another example. The sun goes through 11 year cycles and produces space weather traveling through the interplanetary medium reaching the moon, satellites, the ISS and the earth.

Amateur radio operators were doing STEM before STEM/STEAM was a term. It was just called science. Amateur radio operators often see themeselves and are recognized by others as leaders in science research and education. Radio operators were the first makers before the first maker spaces. Explaining science to non-scientists and/or beginners is called popular science. Actually, many of the coolest tech happens while using radios although today radio has often been incorporated invisibly into technologies. For example at Starbucks and other fast food drive throughs, rather than yelling at each other, the headsets they use are called hme eos headsets. Radios incorporated into routine tasks are often reliable and invisible unless and until something needs to be redesigned, is unreliable or fails. Then more knowledge is required. Whether Einstein actually said something like it or not, some problems can not be solved by the way of thinking that created them. Viktor Frankl said "when we are no longer able to change a situation we are challenged to change ourselves." I recommend his book Man's Search for Meaning.

My best advice to anyone interested in any level of technology is to watch the 2023 documentary The Lost Century (trailer, full documentary, tubi), CE5 New Frontier of Contact and 2023 documentary Breaking the Science Barrier (trailer). As far fetched as this may sound to some people there is overwhelming evidence that technologies based on advanced physics have been actively suppressed for decades. Willful ignorance is far more unbelievable now. We need to get past ignorant denial by scientists and amateur radio and look toward wise, courageous people to guide us. The most informed people I know or have read about in science and technology are well aware of this. Progress must no longer be blocked. This is the most important national security issue in the history of the United States. It should not be interfered with by rogue elements.

As long as people are arguing about lights in the sky they will not ask about man made alien reproduction vehicles (ARV) UFOs, zero-point energy, electromagnetic gravitics and faster than light communication based on advanced, illegally classified physics and confiscated patents.

For more details see the bottom of the page at Quantum.

Of course the next thing anyone interested in radio should do is to get on the air ASAP with a friend. Showing up at your closest amateur radio club meeting a half hour early will yield an amazing amount of answers if you are open and willing to ask a few simple questions. Like the general population of your location, not all people are as willing or able to help newcomers but if you feel one club does not fit with your interests or personality then you are very likely to come across someone at another club meeting that is more likely to be a fit for you. Overall this self-selected group of licensed "amateur radio" people are some of the most interesting and generally knowledgable people I have met. Despite possible first impressions, people from all walks of life, genders, ages, skin colors and education can and do operate amateur radios including some celebrities as described below.

Directly and indirectly, radio touches many different kinds of activities across numerous fields like science, engineering, industry, communication and social services. The breadth and professional specializations can feel intimidating when initially learning about radio but I advise to just start with what you know and keep relating new learning to what is familiar to you. The rest of it can wait until you are ready. For over a hundred years radio technologies affect how humans communicate which influences which new radio technologies are explored. Traditionally radio communication is done without using modern cellular or Internet networks though increasingly people use radio and the Internet together when they can. Point to point communication without relying on any kind of infrastructure is very useful "when all else fails." Radios make use of waves (see below and radiation) and both AC and DC electrical currents to send and receive signals. On this page I have tried to order topics from general to more specific. Some parts of this page are for my own reference as I learn new things. I live near San Francisco, California, US which informs my perspective.

No Radio

It can be difficult to fully appreciate something as fundamental as radio until the absence is felt. The radios contained in your cell phone will fail to connect when you drive out of range of cell towers and access points. Spotty coverage was more of a problem in the past but there are still places people experience "no bars" on their phone. Phone carriers do not offer coverage absolutely everywhere, especially in areas that are rural, lightly populated, or have hills, mountains or other terrain that blocks radio signals.

Emergency Communications

Emergency preparedness is one of the reasons for allocating bands to amateurs. In fact over fifty percent of all amateurs site EmComm as a main reason for getting their license. The realities of EmComm may be more complicated than expected.

In my opinion emergency communications are more important than hobbies. Mutual aid agreements help professional and volunteer agencies prepare for and react to unexpected situations. Hopefully emergencies do not happen frequently and/or they are small enough to be handled by government capabilities but circumstances sometimes overwhelm government services temporarilty. "When all else fails" amateur radio can provide an important quick response and backup method of communication during critical periods before power, internet and cell phone infrastructures are restored. While amateur radio operators are not first responders with training they can provide critical assistance.

The following organizations provide a patchwork of overlapping support for each location in the US.
Each location has a different set of government agencies charged with public safety:
• police • fire • city/local • county • regional • state • federal

The federal agencies are documented well. FEMA sponsored Community Emergency Response Teams CERT (FEMA CERT) trained in many neighborhoods all over the US, RACES with ARRL, ACS/AuxComm (localwiki.org/sf, CA OES) NWS Skywarn, CISA, AuxComm and branches of the military including groups such as the Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS).

Other federal non-governmental agencies prepare and train to respond effectively in the event of disasters:
• ARRL ARES (article) • NTS (arrl.org/nts) • hospitals • Red Cross • Salvation Army SATERN (was satern.org, satern-program) • CalDART in California • emcomm-training.org

In my city of Antioch we are served by the city, Antioch Police and Antioch water, part of the Contra Costa Water District ccwater.com providing drinking water. We do not yet have a CERT team in our city but Oakley, Brentwood, Pittsburg, Clayton and the Morgan Territory (fb) do.

County wide, fire protection is provided by the CCCFPD (Contra Costa County Fire Protection District, ConFire which includes the former East County eccfpd.org since 01 Jul 2022. They sometimes work with our state wide CalFire fire.ca.gov) that have four stations. Within the county several smaller agencies can provide mutual aid support via pre-arranged agencies. The agencies are Moraga-Orinda, San Ramon Valley, Kensington and Rodeo-Hercules Fire Protection Districts.

Our area is also represented by ContraCosta.ca.gov and served by the Sheriff's office ESSU Communications Unit (ComU). Like many in our state PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) provides our electricity. Other parts of Contra Costa get their drinking water from EBMUD.com (East Bay Municipal Utility District).

That is quite a patch work of districts and agencies.

Emergency Preparedness

Disaster preparedness is one reason people often cite when exploring interests in radio through organizations such as local Community Emergency Response Teams or CERT. Whether you are aware of them or not there are planning efforts by government and non-governmental groups how to react to all kind of unusual events that may not happen very often. Some places have tropical storms and hurricanes.

In California earthquakes and wild fires are present. Wildfire seasons have seen increasingly large fires. The five largest CA wildfires were all in the last five years. Due to the impact of wildfires some people in California (and briefly the nation thanks to national news) know them by their names: Aug, Dixie, Camp, Tubbs, Thomas, Caldor and Tunnel (or East Bay Hills firestorm). Recent fire seasons have broken records.

Calfire, with over 60 fixed and rotary wing aircraft, says the state is getting hotter and drier. Rain with high wind storms and increased demand on the evolving power grids have made it necessary for electrical power Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) that have occured state wide in recent years. We never heard of that when I was growing up here. Two places to track fires in California are the Watch Duty app, amazingly informative, and Firescope website for more details.

Some earthquakes were accompanied by fires too: Northridge, Loma Prieta, 1906 SF. Nothing like the 1859 Carrington Event has happened in modern times but we are now nearing the peak of solar cycle 25 which is exceeding expectations so far. This raises the probability of a solar storm large enough to not only produce wonderfully beautiful aurora lights but also noticably effect terrestrial power grids. The world was a different place in 1859 so the effects would be completely different if it happened now. Emergency preparedness has renewed interest in radio as a backup communication method for all of these and "unknown unknowns" simply called "unknowns" in the Johari window heuristic.

What preparedness often looks like in practice is public service events and training events.

Radio Context

As a US google search term amateur radio has trended downward since 2004. Despite commercialization and the increasing importance and reliance on certain types of radio in daily lives like cellular phones and Wi-Fi the interests and experimentation around amateur radio has become fragmented in part due to the specailzations required to pursue them.

I guess my interest in radio was sparked when I was about three years old. Just before he passed away my grandfather gave me a pair of big, blue, single channel walkie talkies with big red talk buttons. To spark imaginations, why not give any kids you know a pair of FRS radios for about $7.50 each so they can communicate with their best friend? No license is required for FRS but maybe they or their parents could find uses for them around the house or on a trip.

A bit better is the Retevis RT40B (review) with rechargable batteries for a little higher price. I was introduced to the Motorola line of FRS radios too. For just $15 you can get a T-114. Taking a step up to around $70 gets you more features with a T-803. I was surprised to find the weather channels (wx), IP54 weatherproof, USB-C charging and bluetooth capability. This is handy from an iPhone or Android app so you can push to talk from your phone while your radio is in a tree for best reception. You can also share location via the app even without a mobile data connection. What3words is supported for app users and other users can load the proprietary location system. This systems is accurate down to a nine meter square and is more commonly used in the UK. With three words it is designed as a user-friendly way to act like grid squares or GPS numeric specifications. Off-grid group messaging is supported. An account is required for the advanced features. For sharing your location an optional

FRS in the US really is accessible. Rules vary by country. They call similar services personal radio service like PMR 446 (Private Mobile Radio) in the European Union, Malaysia, Singapore, Norway, and the United Arab Emirates. Batteries running out might be an issue but if the kids enjoy a first experience then maybe some rechargable batteries, a better radio or a CB radio (also no license required) might be worth a look.

Teaching radio opens future doors for young people. Many people in radio now say they were introduced to it early on but returned to it later in life. There is an ARRL Teachers Institute (video overview) that prepares educators to teach radio in their classrooms. Classes and equipment are provided at no charge during summer time classes.

With any technology, learning how things work involves breaking down complex things into smaller, less complex components. If you know what a technology does and you know from where you start, figuring things out usually involves understanding the connections from one compenent to the next. This can be visualized with an N2_chart or N-squared diagram. This is like following a bouncing ball as it traverses a technical system from one piece to another. For an amateur radio this would look like a transmitter, feed line, antenna and signal then back from signal, antenna, feed line to receiver. The same applies in the opposite direction.

Since the electromagnetic spectrum is a shared resource, transmitting (voice modes, Continuous Wave (CW)/Morse Code or digital modes) is regulated internationally (ITU) and nationally (FCC in the US, list by country) so operating effectively does require some patience. Digital modes are somewhat specialized with FT-8 taking the work by storm recently and modes based on teleprinters are still commonly used. They have unique sounds on the air as catalogued by sigidwiki.com/wiki/Category:Amateur_Radio. If interested, I encourage you learn more about all the electromagnetic radiation surrounding us all. An exceptional girl from Los Angeles named Veronica Harrington passed her amateur radio license exam at age five and a half. She was interviewed in 1992 on David Letterman making a contact. If she can do it so can most people if they are willing to try.

Radio and broadcast engineering are laden with historical terminology from wired telegraphy and related traditions, but understanding the historical context can be intriguing too. Sometimes a few CW prosign codes are still used in voice over the air conversations, not just prowords. Learning the jargon can feel like learning a new language but a handful of terms will get you most of the way to feeling comfortable hearing, not being surprised by and using the jargon yourself with others. For example, 73 formally means "best regards", a holdover from 1857 telegraphy, but informally it is now used as "good bye", "thanks", "best wishes" and "hope to see you again soon." 88 means "love and kisses". 33 is like a 73 between Young Ladies who might not want to use 88. CQ means "calling any stations". Due to the challenges when sending morse code, every possible abbreviation was valuable. A select few Q-code abbreviations are still used like QTH means your "position in longitude and latitude", QRZ means "who is calling me?", QRP means "low power", QSO is a radio contact and QSL is often a card to confirm a QSO. Like any language, knowing the termss makes things much easier to understand.

The many facets of amateur radio attract people with a wide range of interests. It certainly can develop into an obsessive pursuit if left unchecked. People may begin with an interest in radio communication and then combine other personal interests, making it their own. Simply overcoming the negative aspects of our tribal biological roots benefits everyone. In the amateur radio community an "elmer" is an experienced radio amateur who helps newcomers.

One amateur radio stereotype persists, that of bearded, retired white males. While some clubs find this partially true, radio waves do not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, age, sexual orientation or anything else. A minecraft project is in alpha. Efforts exist to include all people who may be interested. Many Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and other scouts pursue their interest in radio by earning their Radio Merit Badge. Alexia KM6LGG earned hers as a Girl Scout and serves as the ARRL East Bay Youth Coordinator. She is also an advisor to the ARRL on how to reach more (relatively) younger people.

A scout working toward his Boy Scout Radio Merit Badge building a crystal radio mentioned the kylarmack.com page with links that helped him with tools needed to solder, safety tips, electrical components, prepping, tinning, and cleanup. Thanks Ethan and Ms Ingram for reaching out from the Fullers Library.

Another scout working toward his Boy Scout Radio Merit Badge in the Sacramento area mentioned the aaastateofplay.com/all-about-ham-radio-for-beginners/ page with links. It has great information on the history and evolution of amateur radio, some excellent glossary of terms, study guides and online quizzes for obtaining a radio license. Radio is really embedded in a lot of commercial products we use every day, things like cell phones (many transmitters for voice, data, Bluetooth & GPS), wireless automobile locks, Wi-Fi, AM/FM/Satellite radios and more. Thanks to Christian and Tina for reaching out. Best of luck to all the scouts learning about amateur radio and STEM.

A man from San Jose I met passed a General exam. I happened to be one of the three VEs that electronically signed his CSCE, Certificate of Successful Completion of Exam, whilee using the exam.tools system. Surprisingly, 55% (over half) of all ARRL VEC candidates were processed using the exam.tools system. His grandson is in seventh grade. He is a mentor for the Almaden Country Day School school class that launched a 20 milliwatt pico balloon with tiny solar panels and no battery. They have been following it's progress around the globe. This is another example of a project that can really inspire kids of all ages about radio and STEM. In a small way I'm glad that I was able to assist this man and his grandson a little bit.

Like in almost every other country, amateur radio licensing in the US limits transmissions to non-commercial messages. Commercial or business related uses of radios require commercial FCC licenses. Some of the topics amateurs pursue include wireless experimentation, contesting/radiosport, public service communication, emergency preparedness/communication (emcomm, P.A.C.E. primary, alternate, contingency and emergency), technical experimentation and computer networking. A self-referencing definition is that radio uses radio to talk about radio. Interesting answers to "what is amateur/ham radio" come from duckduckgo, wikipedia, the ARRL (ham, amateur, 100th anniversary 2014, 24 min), mdarc.org, w5yi-vec, hamradioprep, britannica, thesurvivalmom, FCC, rsgb, Black Pilled (2019, 49 min), What No One Told You by HRCC (2023, 18 min), W6QY, Techquickie (5 min) and others. A brief history of amateur radio was posted by the Marin Amateur Radio Society. It's also helpful to address common myths and questions to tell what amateur radio is not.

Is amateur radio a hobby? Lots of people say it is. Parts of it definitely are hobbies. The FCC calls it a service. Now that I understand it better I feel it is more than "just" a hobby.

It's magical to transmit enough photons through a radio and antenna to convey messages over distances of a city, region, country, continent, the world or through space. Sections of the electromagnetic spectrum are groups of radio wave frequencies (bands) of radio spectrum. Visible light is also electromagnetic. After all of our collective efforts to understand electromagnetism, one of the fundamental forces of nature, it still fascinates. I have a strong feeling that even more discoveries about electromagnetism and physics are yet to come. It helps to know what those Kelvin ratings mean on LED light bulbs - it means the specific light color.

Since contacts can be international it is useful to convert times and dates to UTC, standardized at zero degrees longitude. The clock to the right shows UTC right now, provided by timeanddate.com. To use a newer digital method of transmission called FT8 clocks must be synchronized so that 15 second intervals can facilitate exchanges. A website time.is is useful to check the accuracy of your computer clock. An audio sample of each digital mode can be heard and a waterfall sample seen at sigidwiki.com.

Of special mention in the US are a special set of seven frequencies from 162.400 MHz to 162.550 MHz, NOAA Weather Radio aka the FM Weather band. These frequencies were first used for marine, aviation and farming purposes and are still used for those and other purposes today. The frenquencies continually broadcast a computer generated voice loop of current weather information in your area. Over a thousand transmitters are located far enough apart to give relatively local forecasts without interfering with the next closest transmitter on the same frequency yet cover about 95% of the US population. Some radios built for other purposes also include these channels as a handy feature. Though Weather Radio is not operated by and is not using amateur radio frequencies the broadcasts can be useful to anyone wanting to know the weather forecast.

Hams

Why is it called ham radio? The original meaning has completely disappeared, so ham means the same as amateur radio now. There are multiple origin stories. It was/is broadly used as a descriptive word for actors who tend to perform with too much obvious expression. It is generally agreed that it originated in the 19th century as a pejorative term used by professional wired telegraph operators to mock operators sending poorly formed morse code ("ham-fisted", awkward) and unprofessional morse code operators. The name is now embraced by amateur radio operators without regard to the origin.

Famous Operators

People (category) from all walks of life from almost every country are licensed and on the air. The vast majority of people I have met are outstanding but like any group of people there are some who are not.

Famous people have been licensed include Priscilla Presley, Patti Loveless, Chet Atkins, Ronnie Milsap, Gary Shandling, Cliff Richard, Stu Cook, Walter Cronkite, Art Bell, Marlon Brando, Burl Ives, Tony Randel, Arthur Godfrey, Howard Hughes Sr., Ray Dolby, Nolan Bushnell, Michael Bloomberg, Gen Curtis LeMay, Richard Feynman, Dick Rutan, John Sculley, Steve Wozniak, Bruce Perens, Bdale Garbee, Phil Karn, Kevin Mitnick, Cliff Stoll and David Packard.

Politicians include King Hussein and Queen Noor of Jordan, Barry Goldwater, George Pataki and John Baldacci.

Most astronauts and some pilots are licensed like Yuri Gagarin, Doug Wheelock, Chris Hadfield, Andy Thomas, Ron Parise, Jay Apt, Londa Godwin, Ulrich Walter, Owen Garriot and Sergei Avdeyev.

Radio figures include Hiram Percy Maxim, Guglielmo Marconi, Nikola Tesla, Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr. K1JT for FT8 and a Nobel prize in physics, Harold Beverage (antenna), Lee De Forest, Samuel Morse for morse code, Bob Bruninga WB4APR for APRS, Art Collins for founding the 1933 Collins Radio Co, Rockwell Collins and a part of Collins Aerospace (RTX Corporation, Raytheon), Gordon "Gordo" West WB6NOA, Bob Heil of Heil Sound and Leo Laporte of TWiT.tv.

Here are some videos about notable operators.

A stereotype of operators in the US is of old white men. US minorities are actually well represented. Radio is a medium where color is not represented on the air. What Hams Do is a TV Show about amateur radio from the Eastern Pennsylvania section that has an episode about operators of different ethnicities.

Radio News

Amateur radio news sites include:
arrl.org/news,
ham-tv.com every Tuesdays,
Linux in the Ham Shack podcast audio Wednesdays,
arnewsline.org weekly audio Thursdays,
arrl-audio-news weekly audio Fridays,
qsotoday.com interviews Saturdays,
TWIAR.net This Week In Amateur Radio Saturdays and
Ham Nation every other Wednesday videos.

Fyi, in Nov 2023 a very antiquated symbol rate restriction was removed in favor of a more modern bandwidth limit. The symbol rate was a problem and required FCC exemptions to be filed each time digital disaster communications were needed. The bandwidth limit is a much more fair way to measure modern digital modes. The rules took effect 8 Jan and a comment period ended 22 Jan 2024. A few related questions in the General exam question pool were removed.

On the Air is a suite of ARRL offerings for new ham radio licensees. There's a audio podcast which details items from the magazine, a monthly blog and a bi-monthly magazine (arrl.org/On-the-Air-Magazine). QST (arrl.org/qst) is the primary monthly magazine by ARRL. They also offer QEX for experimenters and the National Contest Journal (NCJ) for contesters.

Since 2024 Gordon "Gordo" West now leads up license instruction education efforts for the ARRL. His online Radio Waves newsletter is available with your other ARRL email newsletters, restarted in 2024. Instructors are encouraged to register for 25% discounts. His own instruction manuals, now published by the ARRL, parallel the traditional manuals offered.

Radio has played a role in a few recent stories. One of the "Chinese spy" balloons shot down over Canada seems to have been an amateur radio APRS weather balloon that had flown around the world a couple of times already.

What is the simplest way to listen to people using amateur radio, even before you have a license? There are numerous times each week that people talk on certain frequencies together. This is called a "net". The ARRL has a directory for some of these which you may be able to listen to. Local radio clubs often sponsor weekly nets. A great way to listen and talk to others about radio is to try it out in person at a Field Day event held in Jun by radio clubs all over the US and Canada.

Field Day

Field Day (arrl.org/field-day and field-day.arrl.org) is the most popular and widely publicized annual radio exercise in the US and Canada, sponsored by the ARRL and RAC respectively. The next Field Day will be Sat & Sun, 27 & 28 Jun 2026. It has been held since 1933 and is now held during the fourth full weekend in Jun running from 18:00 UTC (11:00 Pacific Daylight Time) Saturday through 20:59 UTC (13:59 Pacific Daylight Time) Sunday. Field Day serves as ham radio's open house, acquainting the general public with amateur capabilities, gets amateurs out of their home shacks, often uses off-grid/emergency power at temporary locations. More then 40,000 hosts set up stations to operate in less than ideal sites with whatever conditions exist that day. Activities include barbeques, scientific demonstrations, Get On The Air (GOTA) stations for newcomers contests for radio contacts and camping. Exercises keep people's skills fresh and current should they be needed in an emergency.

In my area the Mt Diablo club held their 2023, 2024 and 2025 Field Day events in Concord. Pictures and the scores of the current year and years to 2001 are at the bottom of the page. Just about every radio club holds an annual event including the clubs like darc.club near Antioch, kf6hte.org in Martinez, Livermore and Vaca Valley Radio Club near Vacaville. Formal and informal activities take place in many locations. Some people participate from home. For affiliated clubs there is an event locator with a map to look up events close to you.

Amateur Radio Conventions

To speak with others in person about radio there are big events you might want to consider attending.

The biggest is hamvention.org in Dayton, Ohio in May. They had 35,877 attendees in 2024. They have offered the ARRL Event app since 2019.

Hamcation.com attracts 25,000 attendees in Feb to Orlando, Florida. They offer the ARRL Event App.

Hamfest.org is in Aug in Huntsville, Alabama. They had a few short of 6,000 attendees in 2024. In 2026 they will host the ARRL National Convention. These first three are sometimes called the Big Three.

The west coast is home to several events. Quartzfest.org is an Arizona collection of RVers. It is held in Jan for a week that meets on BLM desert land since 1995. It looks like a lot of fun.

Seapac.org is in Jun in Seaside, Oregon with the Northwestern Division.

The Rocky Mountain Division had their July event in Utah HamconZion.com.

Pacificon.org is in Oct in San Ramon, California held since 1920 with about 1300 participants in 2025. I am very involved in organizing this event.

Contesting

Contesting is a whole, specialized part of amateur radio unto itself. Field Day is a big contest along with all the other activities. I hope to get more contesting experience during Field Day as our club has a focus on getting more points this year. The weekly contestcalendar.com is an amazing site that keeps track of many of the contests running all the time. Contests provide gamification to amateur radio. Many contesters are amazingly dedicated and have radio operating skills not easily developed.

National Traffic System

The national traffic system (NTS) (wiki) is a system established in 1949 to relay radiogram messages throughout the US and Canada. It is another way to exercise radio skills. In 2025 the ARRL, now performing a major upgrade to the NTS system, signed an MOU to work with an organization formed in 2016, radiorelay.org.

Annual Calendar Observances & Events

The arrl.org/kids-day takes place on the first Saturday of Jan and the third Sat of Jun. It is designed to promote Amateur Radio to our youth. The next Jan ARRL Kids Day will be Sat, 02 Jan 2027.

Field Day is amazing. A much less publicized exercise is Winter Field Day held during the last full weekend in Jan. This coincides with the end of Quartzfest near Quartzsite, Arizona. The next Winter Field Day is scheduled for Sat, 30 Jan & Sun, 31 Jan 2027.

In 2012 UNESCO declared 13 Feb to be International World Radio Day (wiki). The next event will be Sat, 13 Feb 2027.

The School Club Roundup week takes place each school year during the second full week of Feb, Mon, 1300 UTC 08 Feb - Fri, 2359 UTC 12 Feb 2027. This is the second roundup of each school year after Oct.

The next California Tsunami preparedness Week (lookup) is coming Wed-Tue, 24-30 Mar 2027.

The next World Amateur Radio Day, commemorating the founding of the IARU on 18 Apr 1925, will be held Sat, Apr 18 2026.

The arrl.org/kids-day takes place on the first Saturday of Jan and the third Sat of Jun. It is designed to promote Amateur Radio to our youth. The next Jun ARRL Kids Day will be Sat, Jun 20 2026.

The next ARRL Field Day will be Sat, 27 Jun & Sun, 28 Jun 2026. See the section above about Field Day.

The next Radio By the Bay hosted in Alameda by the California Historical Radio Society will be Sat, 27 Jul 2026.

The National Night Out is an annual community-building campaign that promotes police-community parternships and neighborhood camaraderie. The next National Night Out will be on the first Tuesday of Aug, 04 Aug 2026.

The National Lighthouse/Lightship Weekend NLLW is held near the anniversary of the US Lighthouse Service, 07 Aug. The next Weekend is Sat 08 Aug & Sun 09 Aug 2026.

FEMA sponsors the National Preparedness Month ready.gov/september. This is a time when no other major amateur radio events are taking place. Schools are back in session and clubs might look for a good kick-off for their fall seasons. Weather is generally good enough for outdoor exhibits at fairs and town parks.

FEMA and FCC sponsor a test of TVs, radios and cell phones (EAS and WEA) at least once every three years. The last test was at 2:22 ET on Wed, 04 Oct 2023 so we are due for one soon.

International Observe The Moon Night (moon.nasa.gov/observe-the-moon-night) is when the moon is in the first quarter on a Saturday. The next day is Sat, 19 Sep 2026.

California QSO Party (cqp.org) is the first weekend of Oct. The next party is Sat, 03 Oct & Sun, 04 Oct 2026.

A Simulated Emergency Test (SET) is another preparedness event sponsored by the ARRL ARES. It takes place during the first full weekend of Oct every year. The next test is Sat 03 Oct & Sun, 04 Oct 2026.

The national Fire Preventation Association (NFPA) sponsors preventation week the first week of Oct. The next week is Sun, 04 Oct - Sat, 10 Oct 2026.

An annual practice event for an earthquake is called the Great ShakeOut held on the third Thursday of Oct since 2008. Text the word "ShakeOut" to 43362 and reply with a number signifying your time zone to get texts. You can register your email online. Participation info for California, winlink, flyers, posters, videos and more are available. A sponsor is the earthquakecountry.org/alliance. The next event is scheduled for Thu, 15 Oct 2026.

The first School Club Roundup week of each school year takes place during the third full week of Oct, Mon, 1300 UTC 19 Oct - Fri, 2359 UTC 23 Oct 2026. This is the first roundup of each school year. The next one of the school year is in Feb.

Jamboree On The Air - Jamboree On The Internet (JOTA-JOTI) is the largest scouting event each year with approximately a million scouts participating from 150 countries. I think that's MORE THAN FIELD DAY! It takes place the third weekend in Oct each year across the country and around the world. All scouts (Boy, Girl) may earn their patches. The next event is scheduled for Sat, 17 Oct 2026.

The next ARRL Pacific Division Ham Radio Convention Pacificon.org is 16-18 Oct 2026 in San Ramon, CA hosted by mdarc.org held since 1920.

Perhaps the largest amateur radio contest is CQ World Wide during the last weekend of Oct (SSB) and last weekend of Nov (CW) to make as many contacts with DXCC entities and CQ zones as possible. It began in 1948 and is sponsored by cq-amateur-radio.com. The next events are scheduled for Sat, 24 Oct - Sun, 25 Oct 2026 (SSB), and Sat, 28 Nov - Sun, 29 Nov 2026 (CW).

The NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) puts on a Skywarn Recognition Day during the first weekend of Dec. Approximately 375,000 volunteers around the US called Storm Spotters report timely and accurate severe weather reports helping the NWS keep local communities safe. The NOAA National Weather Service office in my area is in Monterey covering the San Francisco Bay Area. The next event is not yet scheduled for a Sat in Dec 2026.

In 2026, two year long events are sponsored by the ARRL. They are called clubs.arrl.org and a contest www.arrl.org/america250-was.

In 2023 a year long event sponsored by the ARRL called Volunteers-On-The-Air or vota.arrl.org. Points were awarded for contacting ARRL volunteers and staff but not through a repeater.

Modulation & Modes

I find the most useful display of the 18+ amateur bands is the ARRL band chart. For more details there is the full band plan. Beyond amateur radio, the US NTIA.gov provides an updated frequency allocation chart.

The choice of power (measured in watts) and frequency within the electromagnetic spectrum make a big difference in performance. The scale is logarithmic across 20 orders of magnitude (10x) or about seven SI prefixes (x1000) of frequency. Wi-Fi is in the upper UHF and lower SHF range (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz & 6 GHz in SHF 3 GHz - 30 GHz frequency and 0.1 m - 0.01 m / 1 cm wavelength). Common radio orders of magnitude are:
• Ultra High Frequency (300 MHz - 3 GHz frequency and 1 m - 0.1 m wavelength)
• Very High Frequency (VHF, 30 MHz - 300 MHz frequency and 10 m - 1 m wavelength)
• High Frequency (HF, 3 MHz - 30 MHz frequency goes far and 100 m - 10 m wavelength)
Visible light is much higher in the 750-420 THz frequencies and shorter in the 400-700 nm wavelengths. Naming of the frequencies can be a little confusing in common use by different people but the acronyms do have frequency and wavelength definitions.

In addition to AM and FM modes used with car radios for AM (530 kHz - 1700 kHz or .530 MHz - 1.7 MHz in Medium Frequency MF) and FM (88-108 MHz VHF) broadcasts there are other modes. The choice of mode or emission ( AM / FM / Single Sideband or SSB / CW (continuous wave, carrier wave, morse code) / PM aka PSK / FSK ) is usually by convention. Single sideband or SSB is roughly the lower or upper half of an amplitude modulation signal. Lower Side Band (LSB, used on 160m, 80m and 40m band) or Upper Side Band (USB, 30m and above) are the SSB conventions.

Morse code is carried by the on and off of a continuous wave (CW) emission. It has narrow bandwidth, uses less power and travels very far. What does it look like? ... --- ... is SOS, a distress call. When spoken it's pronounced di-di-dit dah-dah-dah di-di-dit. A useful alternative "double D" notation for writing the same thing is ddd DDD ddd. Oddly, learning to send (good intro but may introduces some bad habits) is easier than receiving. Each letter, a group of dits and dahs, should be treated as a single sound because it is most often now learned as an audible language. The best way to learn to receive is the somewhat complicated looking morsebrowser. To try it just click BC1, REA group, REA lesson and the green Play below them. Flashlights, flags, tapping or experimental lasers could also be used to send and receive messages in a similar way.

Most radios from 1887 until 1920 used pulsed radio waves (CW across all bands) to spell out messages. These "wireless" messages (vs. wired telegraph) were typically "spark gap" transmitters. They were broad transmissions over short distances. The ability to focus energy into narrow frequencies greatly increased distances. James Clerk Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism predicted electromagnetic waves. Experiments were conducted by Heinrich Hertz (hertz is now the unit for cycles per second) and others.

Patents were filed in 1897 by both Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi for radios. Lawsuits ensued for decades. The first famous transmission of a single character of morse code across the Atlantic (Poldhu, England to St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada) was claimed to be in Dec, 1901 by Marconi. This might not have happened exactly as claimed but he got credit for it anyway. Marconi was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1909 with Karl Ferdinand Braun "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy".

Public awareness of wireless telegraphy (now radio) jumped due to maritime rescues. The 15 Apr, 1912 RMS RMS Titanic and 7 May, 1915 RMS Lusitania incidents proved the value of having radio on board ships. Later incidents include the Italian SS Andrea Doria 26 Jul 1956 incident with the MS Stockholm of Sweden off the coast of Nantucket, MA, US.

Aircraft now carry airband and other radios. Due to the height of aircraft, AM transmissions in the VHF band typically travel about 200 miles (322 km) in good weather. Here's a funny video of the Three Stooges trying morse code.

Voice AM experiments began Dec 23, 1900 and commonly started to be used on radios after WWI, about 1918. With the need to spell out words clearly, sometimes with weak signals, various phonetic spelling alphabets were put into use. While other alphabets have been used, the two most common since the 1960s seem to have been the NATO/ICAO and Assoc of Public Communication Officials (APCO) law enforcement alphabets of mostly 1960s common first names. Sometimes hilarious alternatives can be heard but are less helpful when trying to just communicate clearly.

Newer digital modes have become very popular thanks to increasingly powerful computer signal processing. Combining the Internet and VOIP with an Android, iOS or Windows/Mac/Linux computer make it possible to connect to many repeaters via EchoLink software. You can listen and if you have a license you can transmit. IRLP and WIRES (used by Yaesu radios) allow connections from repeater to repeater. D-Star (used by Icom and Kenwood radios) also allows similar connections though at present this may be considered a form of encryption. P25, DMR and D-Star use the AMBE codec which is closed-source, proprietary and patent encumbered even if the patent expired in 2017. Using AMBE requires companies to pay royalty fees for products that use it. I'm hopeful that the open source M17 project (video) using codec2 replaces proprietary, patent encumbered solutions some day. M17 received a development grant from ARDC (who manages 44net) through the fiscal sponsorship of openResearch.institute.

Other HF digital modes still have dedicated operators though the modes are less well known. Phase shift keying (PSK) has a club epc-mc.eu that promotes it.

FT8 is now an especially popular modulation mode because brief, semi-automated radio contacts can be made with low power, compromised antennas and very weak signals. FT4 (Dr Taylor video from 2020) is newer and much faster and does not require synchronized clocks. This is wonderful during unfavorable conditions. Software is needed with FT8 to keep clocks very synchronized so 15 second blocks can alternate exactly on time for transmission and reception. There are FT8 episodes in the ARRL podcast On The Air Nov 2022 podcast and On The Air magazine articles. FT8 feels very different from contacting another person in other ways. Double clicking is just not the same though both are real time. Despite it's enormous popularity some people question it's role in amateur radio though other new technologies have faced similar periods of resistance in the past.

Listening is perfectly legal for everyone but transmitting requires a license in the US. Visitors from the US to over 100 countries, but not all countries, can operate legally while traveling under Reciprocal Operating Arrangements. If you plan to operate while on a trip be sure to look up the rules before you leave.

As of Sep, 2022 there were 101,913 licensed individuals in CA according to the arrl.org. The CA population is about 39 million people, so about one in five hundred or 0.26% have their license. As of Sep, 2022 there are 772,488 licensed individuals in the US. The US population is about 333 million people, so about 0.2% have their license. There are an estimated 3,000,000 (perhaps a high estimate) licensed operators out of 8,000,000,000 people world wide or about 0.04% have a license world wide.

Safety

New regulations are in effect since May 3, 2021. A great overview, a calculator and articles are linked from www.arrl.org/rf-exposure. Calculating your own station's maximum exposures is a requirement. 2M frequencies are some of the most absorbed frequencies by the body. With low wattage, only a few feet are required for safe distances. Taking a few minutes to calculate your numbers will put you and anyone near you (family and neighbors) at ease.

Looking at The Earthing Movie (Dr Meade video) and Schumann resonances there is more to learn about the body and electricty.

Broadcast and Commercial Radio

AM broadcast radio dominated from around 1920 to the 1950s until television broadcasting became widespread. FM broadcast (Wyoming LLC attorney Broadcasting History) radios followed around 1945 when the FM channels were established. FM Digital modes are a natural progression from analog because they are clearer and take less bandwidth. The FCC approved HD Radio in the US in 2002, a simultaneously broadcast, compressed signal with less noise and additional information. Some newer two meter (144 MHz - 148 MHz) FM handheld transceivers (HTs) offer usually one of D-star, P25 (includes C4FM and Yaesu System Fusion variant aka. YSF) or DMR. Automatic Packet Reporting System APRS is fascinating too and I moved that information to a separate section as I researched it.

DMR is interesting because it is widely deployed commercially and an open standard. Mike KB9VBR did an introductory video (31 min) worth watching which is still relevent despite being recorded a few years ago. I don't know how much has changed since then.

Amateur radio with it's non-pecuniary limitations contrasts with radio frequencies (RF) used in commercial settings. Marine, shipping, passenger services, trucking, aviation, land-based government (military, police, fire) and commercial businesses (taxis, drones, etc.) use RF too. The FCC offers the General Radiotelephone Operator License (GROL) license for adjusting, maintaining and reparing commercial radios, Marine MROP and Maritime GMDSS. Many first responders now use trunked radio systems that are not used in amateur radio. People who like to use radio scanners need upgraded scanners to listen to trunked radio systems.

Experimenting & Building

Experimentation with electronics and antennas is part of amateur radio though was more popular in the past. Kit building is a great way to learn and achieve something tangible. There are ample opportunities to continue learning and to teach. Kit building, swap meets, diy technology (before the term makers was used), and open source software are parts of many amateur radio shacks for fun, to reduce costs and for the pride of building something useful.

Soldering electrical components is an acquired skill. It takes a little set up and components but gets easier with practice. I found a video presentation from k6is.org that is a great overview. Other interesting pages about soldering include how to solder, procedures, tips for beginners, a guide from adafruit and PCB problems to avoid.

The annual Pacificon Convention hosts a huge, two day kit building activity for all ages each Oct in San Ramon, CA.

Despite the goal of remote communication, face to face meetings are very important to hams. Club meetings, on-the-air nets, public service events, swap meets, volunteer examinations, Field Days and hamfests (great CA list from the Sierra Nevada ARS, see snars.org and arrl.org/hamfests) are common ways to meet other hams and get out of the shack from time to time. Due to the non-pecuniary restrictions on operating amateur radios some of these happenings have unusual local histories.

Meshtastic is one such area now. It uses unlicensed ISM and amateur bands using LoRa spread spectrum wireless tranmission and LoRa P2P mesh protocol for digital text communication with a mesh network. The Meshtastic table at Pacificon 2025 in San Ramon was a big hit, and a welcome introduction to the established mode for many attendees.

A new mode that also uses LoRa is Wi-Fi 802.11ah HaLow. Though published in 2017 it was not until 2025 when it became commercially available as mass produced chipsets from Morse Micro and Newracom. It has less bandwidth but better penetration through obstacles and longer range than typical Wi-Fi at 2.4 GHz due to the frequencies it uses and is seeing adoption for Industrial IoT, agricultural and security applications.

Fox Hunting

Amateur radio direction finding (ARDF) also called transmitter hunting (T-hunting) or fox hunting or radiosport (ardf-rg.org, pejla.se, rdf-sf.org) can incorporate practical, technical, direction finding skills with competition. Loop or yagi directional antennas are often used with an attenuator to dampen a signal as one gets closer. ADF was used in aircraft and marine vessels too. See My Equipment for tape measure yagi build instructions.

The annual Pacificon Convention once again hosts T-Hunting events for all ages each Oct in San Ramon, CA.

Waves

The energy of radio waves decreases as it travels further and spreads out. At some point the signal is too weak to be picked up by a receiver. A signal's power, frequency, height of the transmitting antenna, possibly ionospheric conditions and obstructions in the terrain between the transmitter's antenna and receiver's antenna determine how strong the signal is received. Certain HF frequencies can be used over great distances thanks to skip between the earth's ionosphere and the earth though they can require antennas that are quite large.

STEAM and STEM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) areas are fundamental to radio pursuits, especially electromagnetism, AC power and DC. This includes understanding parts of the periodic table. Radio and electronics offer practical and theoretical applications of STEM. Key forumlas for any radio test include Ohm's law (E=IR), Power Law (P=IE) (pics, mdarc and a smart example video by Calum M0MCX of DxCommander.com) and some other equations. Equations are most often used when passing exams and building or fixing things.

Some variables have multiple names due to tradition. Don't let this throw you. Given any two the other two can be derived.
Voltage is measured in volts named after Alessandro. The E stands for "electromotive force".
Current is measured in amps named after Andre-Marie. The I stands for intensity in French.
Resistance is measured in Ohms named after Georg. The R stands for resistance.
Power is measured in Watts named after James. The P stands for power.
jwflame describes all four well in a video. Other videos like Terry's or Will's might describe these ideas more visually or kinetically. If some of them have helped you email me the URL and I can add them here.

If only the people doing initial research had guessed correctly then the flow of electrons would make more sense and not seem to go the wrong way by convention.

Why talk about frequency in MHz (thousands of kHz) sometimes and wavelength (lambda or λ) in meters other times? Wavelengths historically are shorthand notations and allow a more tangible feeling for the radio waves. Frequency and wavelength are two ways of specifying a particular radio wave traveling at the speed of light (c, 299,792,458 m/s in a vacumme, approx 300,000,000 m/s). At that speed, light could go around the Earth at the equator 7.48 times in a second if it could magically bend around the earth. The equation that relates the two is wavelength in meters = 300 / freqency in MHz. Common wavelengths are approximate.

There are the same equations using feet instead of meters but they have different conversion factors. 1/2 lamda = 468 / frequency in MHz. (video) One small adjustment is that the velocity factor of a signal isn't in a vaccume, it's in a wire or through the air. So signals slow down a little bit - 5%-34% if in certain types of wire or a velocity factor of 0.95-0.66. Different wires and mediums have different velocity factors but the values can be looked up. In air there is less slow down. A commonly used velocity factor of air is 0.9997.

Broadcast radios transmit using many watts from well engineered, elevated locations so their propagation is optimized. For example broadcast AM or amplitude modulation radio uses a wavelength of 256 meters so it goes long distances. The sound quality may not be terrific. Wide FM or frequency modulation radio uses a wavelength of 3 meters and is broadcast in stereo so it does not go as far but FM is much clearer.

The FCC in 2002 approved the use of HD Radio in the US, a simultaneously broadcast, compressed signal with less noise and additional information. HD is implemented with licensed iBiquity trade secrets, not an open format. The adoption of HD surged since 2012 in most cars. There is no intent to end analog signals as the FCC did with analog television completed in 2009.

What became Sirius XM satellite radio monthly subscription service began in 2001. They transmit 2.3 GHz signals from six satellites. For people that do not have good reception of AM or FM or who move between broadcast locations a satellite radio subscription is useful.

Packet radio has interested me for a long time but I have not yet been active with it. Internet over radios is something we now use every day as Wi-Fi using frequencies that do not require a license. Packet radio was developed in the 1970s along side other fundamental networking technologies. In the 1980s I read about Phil Karn's KA9Q networking operating system and TAPR research and development. These days AREDN Mesh networks are being deployed for amateur radio and emergency use.

Software-defined radio (SDR) has long reached for the promise of becoming a flexible way to implement radios. As hardware performance continues to increase and hardware costs continue to decrease new capabilities become possible including better use of the electromagnetic spectrum. Newly designed amateur radios combine analog and software-defined approaches. I hear from Steve Stroh N8GNJ in his Zero Retries issue 0219 from 12 Sep 2025 that new radio designs often begin their life in a GNU Radio software design. An SDR pioneer offering premium amateur products is flexradio.com.

The FCC in the US (category, founded 1934) is an independent agency of the federal government. It regulates radio, television (including satellite and cable), wires and has jurisdiction over broadband access, fair competition, spectrum use, public safety and homeland security. The rules governing telecommunications are under Title 47 of the US Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The full names of the "Parts" listed below are all Title 47, Part XX. For example amateur radio is CFR Title 47, Part 97.

Here's a good overview video. Creating this chart was a very useful and informative exercise for me and I hope you find it helpful too.

Of note are some wireless computer standards. Bluetooth wireless is up to version 6.2 as of 2025. Bluetooth is used for keyboards, mice, auto radios, phones, earbuds, headphones and speakers. Bluetooth profiles (sometimes called services, functions or properties) are used to to describe what a device can communicate about. You might want to turn off Bluetooth on your devices if you are not using it and turn off discoverability if possible. Pair a device immediately if you plan to use it.

Near-field_communication or NFC first standardized in Dec, 2003 has not changed much. Pairing can be required for higher security though this is more complicated. Stories about card skimmers have been in the news that intercept the signals. It is based on Radio-frequency_identification or RFID (LowFID LF .125 MHz, most commonly HighFID HF 13.56 MHz and UHFID US UHF 915 MHz) as used in credit cards (contactless payment systems), bayAreaFastrak.org bridge toll devices and increasingly used by phone wallet apps in phones where the US is catching up. RFID devices can be used for inventory control can be active (like scanner/readers) or passive. NFC credit cards and modern passport documents typically now contain NFC (ISO/IEC 14443) that are passive, unpowered.

Passports use NFC too but there are additional steps used for security. The front and back cover have foil embedded acting as a faraday cage so they can not be read at a distance. There is also Basic Access Control (BAC) which means the reader must first scan the Machine Readble Zone (barcode) at the bottom of the photo page which act as a cryptographic protection of the data before reading. he passport number, expiration date and your date of birth are the key to decipher the data.

Proximity cards aka keycards originally used .125 MHz without smart chips. Some use 13.56 MHz RFID.

Remote keyless systems are widely used in automobiles. Many now also provide remote keyless ignition (RKI) aka remote starters.

In home automation there are Z-Wave using an 800-900 MHz unlicensed band mesh network and ZigBee aka IEEE 802.15.4 for things like lighting, doorbells, temperature control thermostats, sensors, cameras and security devices. The newer, 802.11 based IPv6 mesh entry to watch with strong corporate backing is Thread represented by the threadgroup.org website. Diverging a little from the amateur radio theme, it bears mentioning that the uses of home automation that use some of these wireless communications protocols include smart speakers and smart displays with virtual assistants like Amazon Echo, Google Nest (was Google Home) and Apple HomePod.

Garage door openers are another familiar use of wireless communication. These have traditionally used 300-400 MHz frequencies since the 1980s.

These wireless methods have proliferated. It appears security has not always been the primary concern compared to other concerns. Some concerns have been addressed in newer standards.

Though not wireless, covering some wired computing standard types may be useful. USB is up to version USB4 2.0 as of 2022. Notable on the list of USB device classes is the USB HID class used by keyboards and mice. USB in particular has been used to charge cellular phones starting with USB-A to mini cables, then micro, and now USB-C. Apple in particular was using their own lightning (connector) standard for iphone 5 (2012) up until the iphone 14 (through Sep, 2023) and now iphone 15 and up all use USB-C. Oh, USB-C now also supports the Thunderbolt and DisplayPort display standards. Display devices and cables often use HDMI Type A (standard). HDMI is now up to standard version 2.2 as of June 2025. I have not kept current with standards in this area.

WiMAX is like Wi-Fi but is the IEEE 802.16 set of protocols often deployed in urban areas in using 10 to 66 GHz frequency range.

Amateur Licensing

Because everyone must pass exams to operate legally there is a natural focus on licensing. Other pursuits do not have this type of focus. To take an exam in the US there may be an exam fee, typically $15 for ARRL exams. People must also use FCC websites to register. While the websites are a bit difficult to navigate the ARRL describes the FCC ULS and FCC application fees well. People must register for free with CORES, COmmission REgistration System, and provide a 10 digit FRN, FCC Registration Number before beginning an exam.

After passing your Technician exam you will get a Certificate of Successful Completion of Exam or CSCE that is transmitted to the FCC. Since Apr, 2022 the FCC requires a fee $35 paid directly to them, not the people giving the exam. Soon after your call sign is automatically assigned by the FCC based on where you took your exam.

Just twenty six correct out of thirty five (72.5% passes) multiple choice questions are needed to pass Technician level. General is the same. So even if you do not prepare perfectly for every question, you do not need to know everything to pass your exam. If you get a perfect score you may have studied too much! An FCC amateur radio license is a license to learn. Extra requires thirty seven correct out of fifty. The last morse code requirement was dropped 23 Feb 2007 and some exam requirements were dropped before then. This was a significant hurdle. A few people have not heard that morse code was dropped from amateur radio licensing. There is a strong segment of POTA (pota.app) and SOTA (sota.org.uk) activators that still use morse code because of lighter weight radio equipment and better signal to power efficiency.

People have successfully passed their exams using many different preparation methods. Commercial and free resources are useful. In 2025 a new resource that looks great is the HamBook.org/tech2022 free online or available electronically and on paper for a price. Dan KB6NU has a freely downloadable Technician seven hour youtube video class (a tremendous value) and PDF study guide/manual. Jason KC5HWB of Ham Radio 2.0 did that video and recently streamed and broke it into four parts.

The ARRL provides members with FREE VIDEO COURSES for Technician, General and Extra licensing that correspond to their manuals.

Jason KC5HWB also provided a good overview of the methods for exam prep with a sponsored video and a couple ads. Method four is study on your own with a book. I did that though I would recommend some other methods now. Everyone learns differently. Method three outlines the free video series outlined above you can follow just like an in-person ham cram class. Method two is hamstudy.org. Method one is hamradioprep.com for a price. Bonus method is to search to find your local club. Pacificon.org does a free annual class in Oct in San Ramon, CA. As a new organizer of the conference I have a bias. BeniciaARC.com restarted their one day ham cram classes again too. A free online class is offered by young ladies (YLs) for YLs via the Young Ladies Radio League ylrl.net. Whatever method you decide I encourage you to put in the time and get licensed to join the 1/4% club!

A good approximation of a new call is what was just assigned. The number of characters before the call sign district and after the call sign district are sometimes counted. You can see the last Group D 2x3 call signs assigned in the past few days in each call sign district like district 6. The ARRL Worked All States map (thumbnail to left) shows where US call sign districts and ARRL sections are located. This map is useful when contesting for the commonly used abbreviations of sections. When upgrading to General and Amateur Extra, operators can choose to keep their call sign or request a new, shorter call sign in their new group. Individuals, clubs and special events can be assigned call signs. Radio and television call signs are based on a country's ITU prefix.

The district numbers in call signs usually signify a location in the US. Call signs in district 6 are by default in California unless a vanity call sign is used or someone moves. People are no longer required to get a new call signs when moving.

Groups of US call signs specify the format of available call signs. Newly licensed Technicians now are automatically assigned a Group D 2x3 (six character) call sign in the US district where they are licensed. Technicians and Generals can get a 1x3 vanity call sign if it is available. Amateur Extras can get a 1x2 or 2x1 or 2x2 vanity call sign (including AA-AK prefix excluding AH) if it is available. Call signs become available after they are canceled or expired. A two year grace period and/or silent key rules may apply. Special rules and history exist for US Overseas Territories. Thanks to Carol Milazzo KP4MD for the details.

If I had to do it over again, hamstudy.org and drilling with the printed question pools themselves seems best though reading books gives more context while at the same time focusing to pass the exact exam questions. The hamstudy.org educational website is sponsored by SignalStuff.com who also sell flexible Signal Stick antennas for HTs and other antennas. SignalStuff.com provides the most popular online testing software docs.exam.tools used by VECs to administer online and some in-person license exam sessions. My Extra test was done with exam.tools.

I have heard good things about the Gordon West books.

The ARRL offers learn.arrl.org with videos from Dave Casler KE0OG (review) and others. Mentors can find resources from ARRL and license instructors can register with ARRL to get some benefits.

For my Technician exam prep I used the ARRL book (click licensing on the left of that web page). I took my exam with the Sunnyvale VEC in person because it was recommended to me. I listened to the ARRL morse code cassette tapes just enough to pass my 5 WPM exam too so I had a Tech+ license.

I then did not use my license much. When I next invested the time to upgrade I used the Kindle versions of easywayhambooks.com and drilled with the actual question pools (best advice from Briggs Longbothum AB2NJ) to pass my General and Extra. I took my General exam in person through mdarc.org who uses the ARRL VEC. Getting a General is a big jump with all the HF privileges. For my Extra I did an online zoom exam with the glaarg.org VEC group. The main reason I did this was to get my VE credentials just in time for Pacificon 2022 and I am glad that I did. I have enjoyed being a VE since then.

Vanity Call Signs

Operators may apply for available call signs under the vanity call sign program. The vanity call sign system went into effect in 1995, allowing operators to request particular call signs in districts where they do not live, a significant departure from the past. The number in the middle generally signifies a district of the US. Ae7q.com/query is a wonderful site, showing all present and soon available 1x2 and 2x1 call signs. radioqth.net/vanity/available is also very good. K2cr.com supplements ae7q with prediction of pending applications, showing all recent applications with likely outcomes though it does not show history or FRN. Radioqth.com shows call signs available beginning the next day. Using qrz.com to look up 1x3 calls not shown on these sites will yield some more good calls available right now. The calls with smaller morse code weight are highly valued. I am proud to use my grandfather's call sign.

Volunteer Examiners

The FCC oversees radio in the US. They used to administer the tests themselves but now delegate this authority to Volunteer Examiner Coordinator (VEC) groups organized by the ncvec.org. The question pools (with answers) for Technician, General and Extra are downloadable. The people who volunteer to administer the exams through the VECs are called Volunteer Examiners, or VEs. People can be a VE with more than one VEC. Dave KE0OG has an 18 minute video of the history and an overview of VE credentials and tasks. The FCC maintains the list of VECs who all processes to become a VEs and give exams. I think the three main VEC organizations that organize exams for FCC licensing throughout the country are the ARRL Volunteer Examiners from CT (about two thirds of all US exams), w5yi-vec.org from TX and glaarg.org from Los Angeles, CA. The larc-vec.org or Laurel VEC of MD is notable because it is used by some people associated with Google. The Laurel VEC charges no fees, lowering the barrier to entry for newcomers. The amateur-radio.org has the Sunnyvale VEC in Sunnyvale, CA, gearsw5rhc.org has the GEARS VEC in Chico, CA, and sandarc.org has the SANDARC VEC in San Diego, CA.

The government's use of licensed amateur radio operators as VEs dates back to the founding of the amateur radio service in 1912. Prior to 1984 many Novice exams were administered by volunteers and the FCC administered all exams above the Novice. After 1984 all license exams were moved to volunteer oversite. The 1984 pacificon.org in Santa Clara on 02 Sep happened to be the first session for the ARRL. I am honored to participate and support the pacificon.org VEs.

After Licensing: Next Steps

I recommend getting on the air ASAP. If you don't have a radio yet, borrow one from a friend or a new friend at a local club. The three VEs that signed your license might want to help you. Some friends at the Benicia club created a video I Passed The Test, Now What?. There are so many different aspects to amateur radio you just need to pick one that inspires you, begin operating and explore. Start with what you know best. In addition to some good online advice about objectives there are also a few books (and/or kindle versions) that are available for those newly licensed: Ham Radio for the New Ham by Stan Merrill AI7E and Get on HF the Easy Way by Craig Buck K4IA. Of course getting your next higher license will give you more privileges. To be a capable VE for all licensing exams you will need your Amateur Extra license. As a Technician it looks like a lot of work to upgrade, but it just takes 70% on 35 multiple choice questions to upgrade. Efficient studying practices with the questions and just the right answers (like you hopefully did for your Tech) will get you there quicker than you might think. With an Extra license getting your ARRL VE credentials is accomplished with a simple open book test based on the VE manual. I find my volunteer work as a VE very rewarding.

I have it on good authority (thanks young youtuber K0NNK) that the Baofeng UV-5R (review or GT-5R improvement, KE0OG review, KI6NAZ testing) is no longer the best choice for an inexpensive handheld HT. If you are newly licensed, the QRZ.com Jumpstart program is an interesting offer. This is a free radio, a rebranded TYT UV-88 dual band HT for the price of shipping. The TYT TH-UV88 with 1400 mAh Li-ion battery is a budget HT that has better receive filtering than the UV-5R for about the same price though at least one review shows it has spurious emissions. I hear that it depends on the firmware revision. Another inexpensive alternative is the Quansheng UV-K6 (duckduckgo, amazon). The TYT UV8000E 10W dual band costs $80 with a 3600 mAh Li-ion battery and cross-band repeat (an older KE0OG review) is also interesting.

I'm taking another look at tri-banders 2M, 1.2M and 70cm because the 220 band is a less used band with support in some places, specifically my local mdarc.org repeaters. The TYT TH-350 tri-band at $72 with 5W output, 1600mAh Li-ion battery is attractive and recommended by a friend. I haven't seen reviews yet but the Baofeng UV-S9 Plus, a tri-band 8W output HT with a nice package (models change so fast, see UV-9R) for about $40 including the speaker mic, programming cable and two Lithium ion 2200 mAh batteries.

These all have SMA female antenna connectors (except the Baofengs) and use SMA male antennas except the Baofengs which are SMA male connectors with SMA female antennas. Like many technical people I get carried away researching equipment choices.

International Telecommunication Union

There are many interesting facts about the ITU. It's first predecessor was named the International Telegraph Union, established in 1865 as one of the first international standards organizations. This indicates how powerful the telegraph was at the time. In 1906 another predecessor was founded, the International Radiotelegraph Union. In 1932 it merged it's predecessors, included telephony and changed it's name to International Telecommunications Union. In 1949 it joined the newly created United Nations as a specialized agency. Every four years the 193 member states of the ITU hold a Plenipotentiary Conference (informally Plenipot or PP) to manage itself. In 2022 at PP-22 in Bucharest, Romania the first female Secretary General was elected, Doreen Bogdan-Martin.

Distances & Propagation

Let's say ideally two people with line of sight on top of hills using FM radios on 2 meters (VHF, approximately 146 MHz) can communicate about 100 miles. Since people do not live and rest on the tops of hills all the time repeaters are used, often on top of a hill overlooking a town or city. A repeater is a receiver and transmitter that instantly transmits a received signal on a second frequency with a bit more power. The transmitter frequency is specified. For 2M the receiver offset is either -0.6 MHz or +0.6 MHz. This is called duplex or operating split. This works quite well. This allows sharing local communication with users of the repeater. In my area a simplex net is used weekly for checking into our ARES net. The last specification for using a repeater is the CTCSS/PL sub-audible access control tone. This prevents accidental interference from other radio signals. Another feature of many repeaters is a time out to avoid monopolizing the machine, sometimes set at two minutes.

Some mind bending context: The scale of time (** 10 min video) and the universe (4 min Epic Spaceman video, 6 min Guardian video) are really difficult to comprehend. We live in a galactic filament in the Virgo Supercluster in the Local Group (12 min video) in the Milky Way Galaxy (7 min video to scale) that has 100 billion to 400 billion stars. There are an estimated of 200 billion to two trillion galaxies in the observable universe.

The solar system (wikipedia) (37 min video) has eight planets (2 min video, ** 7 min video) that all orbit in the same direction, counterclockwise. The center of the solar system is not exactly (video) the center of the sun, it's the barycenter. All but one spin on their axis in the same counterclockwise direction. Earth rotates around a tilted axis 23.4 degrees from the ecliptic plane which creates our seasons as the earth circles the sun in 365 1/4 days. Each day our earth rotates once. We have a wonderful moon (3 min video) that always shows us the same side of itself, so there is no dark side and light side, just a near side and a far side though the lighting of the moon changes as it rotates around the earth.

The different layers of our ionosphere change from the dark side to light side of the planet each day which changes how the bands of amateur radio react. Some frequency bands are effected by space weather (heliophysics portion of astrophysics) and the 11 year solar cycle. The solar cycle is measured by counting the spots on the sun recorded daily since 1755 in solar cycle number one. More precise space based measurements and helioseismology have been recorded daily since 1979 but sun spots are still a good indicator. Variations coming from the sun influence propagation of some radio wave bands. As activity increases noise increases and signal propagation improves due to changes in the ionosphere, particularly higher layers E and F ions created by solar ultraviolet radiation. Each layer may reflect some angles of some radio frequencies from earth back to the earth. This is called skip and allows communication beyond line of sight. The daily day/night change in the lower "darn" D layer also changes propagation. This page has amazing detail: Understanding HF Skywave Propagation

Solar cycle 25 began in Dec, 2019. It increasd until 2025 and is now decreasing (NOAA solar-cycle-progression) until approximately 2030 when the next cycle begins. Perhaps not the most numerous, but the strongest, unpredictable solar flares, CME and radio blackouts may happen when a cycle is declining like right now. Hourly "band conditions" are monitored via beacons and the data is available online in many forms including the next images updated hourly.

What do all those measurements mean? I am fascinated but I don't yet fully understand all of them, but don't they look cool? Solar irradiance is the power per unit area received by the earth from our sun measured in watts per square meter. There is a glossary with fascinating details to accompany the images and numerous measures.

A lot of sources provide predictions. Dr Tamitha Skov (youtube) WX6SWW (qrz), the "space weather woman", provides space weather forecasts with explanations. More official government sources include NOAA (swpc.noaa.gov), NASA (faq), and ESA. Additional sources include spaceweather.com, solarham.com by VE3EN, WM7D, Carl K9LA and others.

NOAA provides a nice graph of the predicted and actual solar cycle progression. Cycle 25 sunspot numbers are above predictions and should peak approximately Jul 2025. ESA & NASA collect solar data from the SOHO satellite launched in 1995, NASA STEREO satellites launched in 2006 ahead and trailing Earth's orbit around the sun, SDO launched in 2010, Parker Solar Probe launched in 2018 and the NASA-ESA Solar Orbiter launched in 2020. At the sun's equator it takes about 25 days to complete a rotation and about 12 days to rotate across the face of the earth facing disc. The sun's poles rotate a bit slower so it takes about 35 days to complete a rotation.

In fact new research shows an "Extended Solar Cycle" based on the sun's magnetic field shifts. This model better predicts solar flares (A, B, C, M & X), solar particle events (S1, S2, S3, S4) and coronal mass ejections (CMEs, G1, G2, G3, G4, G5). The solar parts influence geomagnetic storm effects at the earth. The solar flux index generally goes up when the sunspot number rises.

The solar wind, flares and CMEs that are directed toward earth interact with the magnetosphere and can effect our radio signals, auroras, satellites (including GPS), astronauts, airplane passengers and power grids. The apparent 11 year sunspot cycle seems to be a symptom of the combined 22 year Hale Cycle of alternating magnetic polarity with the 22 year surface toroidal magnetic field.

Geomagnetic Poles & Satellite Navigation

To my eye we seem overdue for a geomagnetic reversal of the poles. Looking at the history the intervals between reversals is not regular and the charts do not show intensity or intervals between stable polarities. The movement of magnetic poles seems high, 50 km per year though it has recently been moving toward the north pole, not away. Adjustments must be made continually for all kinds of deviations including space weather's solar wind effects on the earth. Modern navigation systems rely on Global Positioning Systems in the US, operated by the US Space Force, one of several satellite navigation (GNSS) systems around the earth. The others are operated by Russia, China, the EU, Japan (local) and India (local). The precision of measuring the time delays from satellite signals for longitude, latitude and altitude/elevation boggle the mind yet are commonly available in all kinds of consumer electronics now.

Practical Coiling & Knots

Simple, practical practices can add up to make things easier. Some methods require a little more practice and skill than others but learning them pays dividends. Are you working with cables, cords, ropes, hoses, mason string or guy wires? Over-under and chaining (LRN2DIY) is a great video. The over-under coiling (KERF How To) is a single coil version of the boating figure eight method. Halving is used within some of these. Chaining (essential craftsman) for extension cords is a great method especially when doubling the cord and starting from a larks head at the folded end - brilliant. Masons (Joseph Schulte and Essential Craftsman) have some amazing practical layered details. A boating supply company shows how to correctly coil rope (West Marine) uses the figure eight method for longer ropes.

Use context and common sense as guides and learn from people who commonly use ropes like climbers, boaters, masons, weavers, campers, sometimes even carpenters. One method is hanging a rope or cord (CTSCAPER). Others (Terry Peterman) work too. There is more than one way to tie knots and coil rope (Jason's Knot Channel). Some people who execute these well look like magicians.

Many kots (youtube knots) are useful and this could be a whole topic unto itself. I have found that knowing the alternative names for the knots really helps avoid confusion. When I learned it I replaced my bowline loops with the angler's loop (First Class Amateur). Two half-hitches and taut-line are useful. The trucker's hitch, especially with an auto-locking loop, is used for tightening using leverage. Arbor knots (TheSmokinApe) aka jam knot or bushcraft zip tie are often handy as they can loosen and tighten. Climbers have some great knots like the alpine butterfly knot, tied in the middle of a line. It is stable in both directions unlike a quicker overhand knot. Stopper knots (Trailguide Pictures) come in a few flavors, some decorative. The overhand is simple, double overhand is larger, figure-eight a bit larger, etc.

ARRL Affiliated Club Google Map

I have downloaded from the ARRL affiliated club information with meeting locations for four Divisions (Pacific, Southwest, Northwest and Rocky Mountain) across 11 states (WA, ID, MT, OR, WY, CA, NV, UT, CO, AZ, NM). I downloaded them with club names and websites circa 2023 using arrl.og/find-a-club. Since WA and CA have counties in multiple sections I marked each of their counties as well when I added them to the map. I checked for club websites and quickly searched for present and/or past activity. I left out a few clubs that do not seem to show recent activity. The ARRL has some resources for clubs like the club news.

There are two tailored club member management systems that I am aware of. I am a member of a club that started using hamclubonline.com in approximately 2022, w6ek.org. A few clubs manage their members using hamcommunity.com though the site is moving to a new site ham.community.

Links

Link	Comments	Updated
mdarc.org	Mt Diablo Amateur Radio Club (MDARC) meetings are held on the 3rd Friday of the month at 7:30 PM in Lafayette, CA in Central Contra Costa County. The main radio net is held every Thursday at 7:30 PM on 147.060 MHz +0.6 MHz transmit offset w/ PL/CTCSS tone of 100Hz. (MDARC nets, other nets) MDARC sponsors Pacificon annually in San Ramon, CA on the 3rd Weekend of Oct. Pacificon is the ARRL Pacific Division Ham Radio Convention representing Northern California, Nevada and Hawaii. Monthly exams are held by Volunteer Examiners before the 3rd Friday club meetings and a few other times. A calendar has the supported public service events. The club is one of three Special Service Clubs in the Pacific Divison and was established in 1947. It is the second largest in the division, surpassed only by snars.org. The W6CX MultiMode Digital Voice repeater build information from K6JM is fantastic. (info)	20230209
darc.club	Delta Amateur Radio Club meets at 7:15 PM on the last Thursday of each month covering Antioch, Brentwood, Oakley and Pittsburg, CA. The club became affiliated with the ARRL in 2020. Radio nets are held every Thursday at 7:00 PM on 146.535 MHz simplex. Another radio net is held every Wednesday at 8:00 PM on the W6CX repeater, 147.060 MHz +0.6 MHz transmit offset w/ PL/CTCSS tone of 100Hz. This net helps reach people who may not be able to reach our simplex Pittsburg net control on Thursdays. This is the club closest to where I live, in East Contra Costa County. (info)	20221104
W6HHS	Heritage High School Amateur Radio Club is in Brentwood, CA. Radio nets are held every Wednesday at 8:15 PM on WA6HAM repeater, 147.735 MHz -0.6 MHz offset, pl/ctcss 107.2 Hz. (info)	20240511
beniciaarc.com	Benicia Amateur Radio Club was established in 1979. Informal nets are held at 10:30 AM and 7:30 PM daily on the primary repeater. Mondays at 7:30 PM is a directed net on the primary repeater. The last Monday at 7:30 PM uses the secondary repeater. The HF nets are daily at 10 AM on 10 meters (28,400 kHz) and at 3PM on 15 meters (28,315 kHz). Meetings are on the second Tuesday of the month at 7:30 PM in the downtown Fire Station at 150 Military West. Entry is via the West 2nd Street door. They hold One Day License Classes. An Annual party is held in place of the Dec meeting. (info)	20231104
sbara.org	South Bay Amateur Radio Association (KU6S or SBARA) was affiliated with the ARRL in 1974. They meet at 7:30 PM on the second Friday of each month online during Covid-19 and at Hurricane Electric. They are one of three Special Service Clubs in the Pacific Division along with SNARS and MDARC. (info)	20231104
kf6hte.org	Martinez Amateur Radio Club meets at 9:00 AM on the second Saturday of each month. Radio nets are held every Thursday at 6:45 PM on 146.505 MHz simplex and 7:10 PM on 444.450 MHz, positive offset with a 107.2Hz CTCSS tone. (info)	20230627
ccra.us	Contra Costa Repeater Association. Hosts weekly nets via three linked repeaters WA6HAM around Mt. Diablo, specifically Concord, San Ramon and Orinda. Supported by the groups.io ContraCostaEmCommNet. Repeaters in this area are coordinated by the Northern Amateur Relay Council of California, narcc.org. CCRA began in 1977. In case of an emergency in Contra Costa County cities and CERT groups are assigned simplex channels from a spreadsheet called the CORE 49. Though not intended to be programmed into all radios, people like to program them so they are programmed and the channel numbers are consistent. The first frequency is intended to be replaced by your local frequency for convenience. The local repeaters are included with offsets and subaudible tones. Having simplex frequencies programmed on the output frequency of a repeater as a backup is useful in case the repeater is not working as intended. This is not the same as listening to the repeater input frequency.	20230724
narcc.org	Northern Amateur Relay Council of California. Repeater coordinator for 10M band and higher working with the FCC, ARRL and Northern California hams. NARCC was incorporated in 1987. The national calling frequency for 2m FM simplex is 146.520 MHz. Spacing of 2M FM simplex channels is 15 kHz here, not 20 kHz like in surrounding western states, Canada and Mexico. Digital channels are handled by the NorCal Digital Coordination Council ncdcc.net. Allocated frequencies have different characteristics. Neighboring coordinators are in Oregon orrc.org, two in Nevada snrc.us and CARCON offline), HawaiiRepeaters.net and three recognized coordinators in Southern California: SCRRBA, TASMA and 220SMA.	20240906
barkradio.org	Berryessa Amateur Radio Klub meets every three months in Woodland and was affiliated with the ARRL in 1993. On-air meetings are Sundays at 7:30 PM. (info)	20221107
Exam Prep Best Advice from Briggs Longbothum AB2NJ	The best test prep advice I've been given is to prepare in the same way you will take your exams. This is possible since all exam questions and answers are published. Print out the question pool and drill through the questions and ONLY the correct answers.	20221104
karoecho.net	Kensington Amateur Radio Operators (KARO) and El Cerrito Ham Operators (ECHO) cover those cities and surrounding areas. Their page on GMRS is great. Their website is well documented. (info)	20230111
Martinez CERT	Martinez CERT is sponsored by the City of Martinez, Martinez Police and FEMA.	20230812
Concord CERT	Concord CERT is sponsored by the City of Concord and FEMA.	20230812
WC CERT	Walnut Creek CERT Saturday HAMS (SHAMS) now meet on Tuesday, not Saturday. They work with the city of Walnut Creek and FEMA. (youtube, info)	20230812
Lamorinda CERT	Lamorinda is the Lafayette, Moraga, Orinda area of CCC sponsored by Moraga-Orinda Fire District (mofd.org), larig.org and FEMA.	20230812
w6vvr.net	Vaca Valley Radio Club meets in Vacaville and was affiliated with the ARRL in 1988. As of 2015 the club merged with the Mt Vaca Radio Society mvrc.org (info) of Davis serving Yolo County and nearby areas. Swap meet is in May at the Dixon Chamber of Commerce. Their repeater is well located and used for nets and public service events. (info)	20230124
wa6kqb.org	Contra Costa Communications Club is in and around El Sobrante and San Pablo, West Contra Costa County. It was first affiliated with the ARRL in 1987. (info)	20230123
ebarc.org	East Bay Amateur Radio Club is in and around Richmond, CA, West Contra Costa County. It was first affiliated with the ARRL in 1948. (info)	20230123
nbara.org	North Bay Amateur Radio Association meets in Vallejo and was established in 1947. (info)	20221121
napasars.org	Silverado Amateur Radio Club meets in Napa established in 1962. (info)	20230105
vomarc.org	Valley of the Moon Amateur Radio Club meets in Sonoma and was affiliated with the ARRL in 1969. They host an annual hamfest in Apr. (info)	20230105
sonomaCountyRadioAmateurs.com	SCRA meets in Santa Rosa and were established in 1931. They work with the ACS in Sonoma and sponsor GMRS repeaters. (info)	20230220
w6sg.net	MARS - Marin Amateur Radio Society was established in 1933. They merged with the Marin Amateur Radio Club in 2000. They hold weekly nets, a monthly Membership Meeting and a monthly Critical Mass event on the third Sunday at 10:30 AM. Critical Mass started as a radio practice group in 2010 inviting anyone to participate with an emphasis on newly-licensed amateur radio operators including topics such as the NATO phonetic alphabet, programming your handheld radio, working satellites, checking out other people's "go-boxes", local repeaters and battery management. (info)	20221212
w6ek.org - Sierra Foothills ARC	Monthly meetings on the second Friday in Auburn in Western Placer County. Host of the annual Loomis Hamfest in Mar. The net control for the net is currently AI6US. Established in 1958. They also serve nearby areas like Roseville. (info, approx 280 members)	20230222
WPARC	Western Placer Amateur Radio Club meets in Roseville. (info, approx 55 members)	20230129
EGF ARC	Elk Grove/Florin Amateur Radio Club seems to have been established in 1969 and reformed in 2011. (info and info)	20221127
Lodi ARC	Lodi Amateur Radio Club was affiliated with the ARRL in 1986. On-air nets are Wednesdays at 6:30 PM. Meetings are held on the first Thursday at 6:30 PM at Casa Flores, 400 E Kettleman Ln, Lodi. They sponsor a VHF/UHF Contesting site n6sjv.org. (info)	20221125
Stockton-Delta ARC	Comes together with Lodi ARC for HamCram/VE sessions to help teach new hams how to get started. Established in 1931. Some of the history of the clubs and licensing from the 1950s overlaps around 6m from Bethel Island. (info)	20221128
Stanislaus ARA	Based in Modesto. Established in 1976. (info)	20230218
larig.org	Lamorinda Area Radio Interest Group affiliated with the ARRL in 2019. On-air meeetings Wed at 7:30 PM except the third Wednesday is in person at 7:00 PM in the Garden Room at the Orinda Public Library, 26 Orinda Way. On Tuesday mornings at 9:30 AM is an informal coffee at Cafe Teatro at the Orinda Library. (info)	20221121
livermoreark.org	Livermore Amateur Radio Klub established in 1959. (info)	20221121
k6eag.org	Hayward Radio Club was affiliated with the ARRL in 1954. One site that was recommended regarding ARES and RACES is k7yca.org. Meetings are held on the third Friday of every month except Jan. (info)	20221121
acsct.org	Alameda County Sheriff's Communications Team.	20231002
ww6or.com	ORCA - Oakland Radio Communication Association is a large and active club affiliated with the ARRL in 1999. (info)	20221121
arcaham.org	Amateur Radio Club of Alameda was established in 2004. (info)	20230123
n6brk.org	Northern Alameda County (NAlCo) ARES and RACES was established in 1982 and serves Berkeley, Albany, UC Berkeley and Alta Bates Summit Medical Center. (info)	20221231
sfarc.org	San Francisco Amateur Radio Club was established 1916. I think that is the oldest club in the Pacific Division. (info)	20221125
baears.com	Bay Area Educational Amateur Radio Society is based in San Bruno, CA and affiliated with the ARRL in 2002. (info)	20220102
paara.org	Palo Alto Amateur Radio Association (PAARA) since 1937. For Field Days and Pacificon they setup contest and GOTA stations with many trailers, towers and antennas. (info)	20221211
scc-ares-races.org	Santa Clara County ARES/RACES joined together since 1978 and joined by ACS in 1996.	20221231
50mhzandup.org	A specialized club focusing on higher frequencies and transverters located in and around Sunnyvale, CA. (info)	20221212
ncdxc.org	Northern California DX club is a specialized club focusing on DX. They are located in and around Cupertino, CA. (info)	20221228
ncdxf.org	Northern California DX Foundation. DXpeditions to desirable DXCC entities. They run the International Beacon Project to test propagation conditions. Seems to be not affiliated with the ARRL.	20240121
fars.k6ya.org	Foothills Amateur Radio Society serves the southern SF peninsula area including the cities of Los Altos, Palo Alto and Mountain View. They have been the sponsor of a monthly electronics flea market. (info)	20221211
wvara.org	West Valley Amateur Radio Association is in San Jose, CA. (info)	20221212
qsl.net/sccara	Santa Clara County Amateur Radio Association is in San Jose, CA. They were founded in 1921 and hosted Pacificon before mdarc.org. (info)	20221212
nccc.cc	Northern California Contest Club. Contesting is a specialized amateur radio pursuit of operating and technical excellence. The club sponsors the annual California QSO Party (CQP) in Oct among others. Includes the impressive station N6RO/NR60/N60 of Oakley. Working long distances (DX now often implies other countries) has been a constant part of radio since radio's "spark gap" history though only arc welders now use anything similar. I think there's a lot more to come, even harnessing superluminal communication (disambiguation, renamed from faster-than-light_communication wayback) one day. (info)	20241101
n6na.org	The River City Amateur Radio Communications Society (River City ARCS) is based in and around Carmichael, CA and Sacramento. They were established in 1976. They have had some great presentations on their youtube channel, one with Budd Drummond W3FF, founder of buddipole.com, and have a great 10M page. (info)	20230225
tcares.net	Tuolumne County Amateur Radio Electronics Socity is based in and around Sonora, CA. They have linked repeaters that cover approximately the Sierra Nevada CA counties of Tuolumne, Alpine, Mariposa, Calaveras, Mono and Amador. Nets are held M-Sa on 40 m 7.141 mHz SSB at 8 AM and several others including Wed at 8 PM on their repeaters. (info)	20221231
calaverasars.org	Calaveras County Amateur Radio Society is based in and around Angel's Camp, CA. (info)	20230120
edcarc.net	El Dorado County Amateur Radio Club is based in and around Placerville, CA. Their call sign AG6AU contains the elements of Silver (Ag, 47) and Gold (Au, 79) in homage to their history as the location of the beginning of the 1848 California Gold Rush. (info)	20230709
w6lie.org	Kern County - Central Valley Amateur Radio Club is based in and around Bakersfield, CA. Their inland location is pretty flat, so they have a page with interesting California Road and Weather links. (info)	20230111
snars.org	Sierra Nevada Amateur Radio Society is based in and around Reno, NV. The club was founded in 1968 and is one of three Special Service Clubs in the Pacific Division. They serve Northern Nevada and Eastern California communities. (info)	20230123
taosarc.org	Taos Amateur Radio Club is based in and around Taos, NM. (info)	20230120
ARRL	The American Radio Relay League is the advocacy and education organization representing the interests of amateur operators in the US. It was formed in 1914. The ARRL works with many other organizations like clubs and the FCC on many issues including policies, licensing, advice and education. They publish many good books and periodicals. They are also the sponsor of the messaging National Traffic System. Internationally we are in International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) Region 2 with RAC of Canada, FMRE of Mexico (FRS there is slightly different) and 40 other countries in North and South America. In Region 2, only Greenland and Saint Lucia do not have member societies but they do issue amateur radio licenses. The IARU page links to all the societies, but for a few more samples, Region 1 contains the RSGB in the UK, REF in France, USKA in Switzerland, ARI in Italy, DARC in Germany (works with BNetzA) and RSK in Kenya. Region 3 contains JARL in Japan and WIA in Australia. The ARRL divides up the country into divisions and sections (wonderful map). Each Section elects a Section Manager. Each Division has a Division Director and Vice Director to represent their area to the Board of Directors which shape ARRL policies and advocate for national amateur radio interests. I am in the Pacific (info) division (northern California, Nevada and Hawaii, one of 15 in US). All 71 sections in the US (there are 14 in Canada) and 2800 ARRL affiliated clubs (some clubs are not affiliated) can be listed with find-a-club including CSV lists of clubs in a section or division. Neighboring Southwestern Division covers parts of Southern California with four California sections and the Arizona section:  SB - Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties),  ORG - Orange (Inyo, Orange, Riverside and San Bernadino counties),  LAX - Los Angeles (Los Angeles County),  SDG - San Diego (San Diego and Imperial counties) and  AZ - Arizona (all counties). Our other division neighbors are Northwestern with six sections (WWA, EWA, OR, ID, MT, and AK) and Rocky Mountain with four sections (WY, UT, CO and NM). In 2024 the new Division conference is called HamCon:Zion sponsored by the Dixie Amateur Radio Club of St George, UT. The rest of the divisions from (approximately) west to east are Dakota, Midwest, West Gulf, Central, Delta, Great Lakes, Southeastern, Roanoke, Atlantic, Hudson and New England (page clubcomm). The ARRL Worked All States map shows where US call sign districts and ARRL sections are located. When the ARRL was founded in 1914 there were four regions: Eastern, Central, Western and Pacific. In the 1940s and 1950s the ARRL established the divisions.	20240908
EB - SF East Bay arrleb.org Section (info) of ARRL	I live in the East Bay section, one of seven sections in the Pacific Division (info). The four CA counties (out of 58) of Napa, Solano, Contra Costa and Alameda are included in the Section (map). We have a convenient list of the 25 clubs in our section. The SF Bay Area clubs are very active among the SF, East Bay and Santa Clara Valley sections. The Bay Area has amazingly diverse people, micro-climates and economics. The central nine Bay Area counties are Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma and San Francisco. Larger definitions may include the Central Coast and some Central Valley counties. The Central Coast includes Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey counties. The Central Valley counties that may be included are San Joaquin, Merced and Stanislaus. The economic statistical areas are an interesting way to look at affinities and economic activity. Because EB is in the middle our four neighboring sections (boundaries and following entries) are: SF - San Francisco (SF and northern coast), SCV - Santa Clara Valley (San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties), SV - Sacramento Valley (inland, Sac and northerly) and SJV - San Joaquin Valley (inland, south of Sac). The other two sections in the division are NV - Nevada and PAC - Pacific (see also the active HawaiiARES.net). In most US states there is one section per state! Perhaps there are ten sections across two divisions in California because there are over 101,000 licensed hams among a population of 39 million people in California, almost 0.26% of the population. I was appointed as a Technical Specialist (wayback) in Jun 2024. I assist the East Bay Section as needed to promote the advancement of the radio art.	20240908
Pacific Division (info) of ARRL	The Pacific Division is one of 15 ARRL divisions. The directors meet twice yearly to conduct the business of the arrl.org with work done in various committees. It is also a group of seven out of the 71 sections of the ARRL. I was appointed Pacific Division Assistant Director in Sep 2024 and I help edit the pacific.arrl.org website.	20260515
SF - SanFranciscoSection.org (info) of ARRL	The San Francisco section covers seven counties including the City and County of San Francisco northwards up the Pacific coast. This includes the counties of Marin, Sonoma, Lake (slightly inland), Mendocino, Humbolt and Del Norte on the Oregon border. There were 16 clubs in the section as of 2023. SF is in the Pacific Division. New San Francisco section website sanfranciscosection.org and discord.gg/r4XFk9HF.	20260422
SCV - ARRL Santa Clara Valley.org Section (info)	The Santa Clara Valley section covers the five counties of San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito. SCV is in the Pacific Division.	20230117
SV - ARRL Sac Valley.org Section (info)	The Sacramento Valley section covers twenty counties including the City and County of Sacramento northwards. This includes parts of the Sierra Nevada mountains. This includes the counties of Amador, Alpine, Yolo, Sutter, Placer, El Dorado, Colusa, Yuba, Nevada, Glenn, Butte, Sierra, Plumas, Tehama, Trinity, Shasta, Lassen, Siskiyou and Modoc. SV is in the Pacific Division.	20230117
SJV - San Joaquin Valley Section (info) of ARRL	The San Joaquin Valley section covers twelve counties from just south of Sacramento southwards including parts of the Sierra Nevada mountains. This includes the counties of San Joaquin, Calaveras, Tuolumne, Mono, Stanislaus, Merced, Mariposa, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern. SJV is in the Pacific Division.	20230117
CalOES	There is a weekly net on the 80 meter band Mondays at 8:00 PM and Wednesdays on 40 meters at 10AM listed on mdarc.org/activities/nets-on-other-systems and a wayback link with details.	20221125
QRZ	Call sign database with user generated profile pages. Q codes punctuate radio, first used in radiotelegraphy circa about 1912 to facilitate communication between operators speaking different languages. QRZ means "who is calling me?" and is more a more friendly lookup than the FCC database. Have you been licensed for six months or less? The QRZ Jumpstart offer with gigaparts.com is valid through at least Dec 31, 2021. New hams can get a nicely discounted HT radio package for $22 valued at $144.	20221107
glaarg.org	Greater Los Angelese Amateur Radio Group VEs. I took an exam with them to get my Amateur Extra upgrade. The FCC oversees several volunteer exam coordinators. The ARRL and affiliated clubs are the most traditional VEC. As online testing has skyrocketed during the COVID-19 era more people can take exams from home rather than waiting for and trekking to an exam location in person.	20221108
CaliforniaHistoricalRadio.com	The California Historical Radio Society was established in 1974 is raising money for a museum about commercial broadcast radio on the island of Alameda, CA just south west of Oakland. They also have a youtube channel.	20221121
ARRL arrl.org/arrl-audio-news	ARRL weekly audio newscast runs between 10 and 15 minutes released on Friday. A morse code letter "K" and four second breaks are inserted every three minutes for transmission via repeaters.	20221212
arnewsline.org	Amateur radio newsline is an independent weekly audio news bulletin released Thursday or Friday.	20221212
qrznow.com	Amateur radio news website.	20221212
Ham Nation	Long running video amateur radio show every other Wed. The apparent production sponsor has changed from twit.tv to HRCC but older episodes are also available.	20221222
lhspodcast.info	Linux in the Ham Shack (LHS) podcast. Open source and amateur radio.	20221227
redsummitrf	Red Summit RF, Charlie "Red" NJ7V has this blog and a youtube channel. He has been a cohost on Ham Nation.	20240514
amateurradio.com	Amateur radio news website.	20230105
cq-amateur-radio.com	Amateur radio magazine since 1945 focusing on operating including DXing and contesting. They offer the Worked All Zones award. (wiki)	20231011
cqsanta.com	CQ Santa on 80m HF 3.916 MHz. Goes well with noradsanta.org tracking Santa's path.	20221227
dxmaps.com	DX Maps is one of several websites that "spots" or shows current contacts between amateurs all over the world across all bands. This and others help people make contacts.	20221227
w8bi.org	Dayton Amateur Radio Association, home of the annual Dayton, Ohio hamvention.org, the ARRL National Convention and world's largest amateur radio gatherings in May with over 32,000 attendees.	20221227
arrl-nfl.org	Orlando Amateur Radio Association, home of the annual Orlando, Florida hamcation.com, another huge amateur radio gathering in Feb with nearly 25,000 attendees.	20240513
harc.net	Huntsville Amateur Radio Club, home of the annual Huntsville, Alabama hamfest.org amateur radio gathering in Aug.	20230807
otvarc.org	Oregon Tualatin Valley Amateur Radio Club, home of the annual Northwestern Division Seaside, OR seapac.org gathering in Jun.	20230807
AARC	Albuquerque Amateur Radio Club, home of the annual Albuquerque, NM Rocky Mountain divisionconvention.org (wayback, duckduckgo) in Aug.	20230807
Dixie	Dixie Amateur Radio Club (DARC) W7DRC of Washington County, Utah presents the Hamcon Zion in St. George, Utah in July.	20240206
k7ya	Yuma Amateur Radio Club with YARHO (Yuma Amateur Radio Hamfest Organization) are the home of the annual Yuma, AZ Southwest Division yumahamfest.com in Feb. It was canceled in 2023	20230807
ylrl.net	Young Ladies Radio League established in 1939. Organized into Districts along call sign assignments. Offers a free online Technician class by women for women in Feb 2024.	20240129
dxlabsuite.com	Freeware applications for logging contacts. Steep learning curve.	20221127
fldigi	One of many software packages for digital modes. This is the Narrow Band Emergency Message System (NBEMS) software. It can be used with just a laptop and a radio via the microphone and speaker. These messages are broadcast unlike WinLink.org which passes traffic more point to point and sent via radio then relayed across the Internet when necessary. Every other Tuesday mdarc.org hosts an fldigi net on W6CX.	20240809
qcwa.org	Quarter Century Wireless Association has many chapters for operators licensed for 25 years or more. My local chapter is 228. (wiki)	20230111
noji newham	This is a Utah ham's opinionated overview of what to do as a new ham in a question and answer format. I enjoyed reading "Click here if you feel you were pressured into doing ham radio." His budget gear suggestions seem reasonable too.	20230123
grid_square.php	This is a lookup I use if I need my maidenhead grid square aka LOC (morse code), IARU Locator, QTH or grid locator. The first pair (field) encodes base 18, "A" to "R". The second pair (square) encodes base 10, 0 to 9. The third pair (subsquare) encodes base 24, "a" to "x", often lower case. The fourth pair (extended square) encodes base 10, 0 to 9. This alpha numeric code is simply a short string that designates an area location. Two degrees of longitude E-W and one degree of latitude N-S are the area covered, so the size and squareness of a non-square grid square varies with latitude. The US has 488 grid squares in the contiguous US. Grid squares were adopted by the IARU VHF Working Group that met in Maidenhead, England in 1980 replacing the European QRA/QRZ/QTH system adopted in 1959 which had some issues being expanded outside Europe.	20230221
DLARC	Missing an old QST, Callbook, 73 magazine or a Manual for an ICOM, Kenwood or Yaesu radio? The Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC) might be able to help. The Internet Archive has scanned and indexed ham radio publications thanks to a grant from a private fouindation.	20230310
CalDART.org	Disaster Airlift Response Team is a private group of pilots donating their own time, fuel and skills throughout California when needed.	20230920
CARLAradio.net	California Amateur Radio Linking Association is a network of repeaters providing coverage across California and Western Nevada. It is intended to be used as a reliable communications resource during significant local, regional and wide area incidents, and is open to all licensed amateur radio operators.	20230920
TahoeAmateurRadio.com	Tahoe Amateur Radio Association (TARA) is a network of seven repeaters around Lake Tahoe. Tara is linked with N6ICW.	20240121
n6icw.org	Serves Sacramento Valley, Chico and Lake Tahoe with three transmitters. There are six voting receivers in and around the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Foothills that work together to receive signals.	20240121
wavetalkers.com	Mission is to help you learn to become a more effective communicator in any medium.	20230920
stationProject.blog	Based in New England, has notes on the construction and operation of a multi-op amateur radio station. Includes notes on all kinds of stations for mobile, satellite, HF and VHF/UHF.	20240511
nist.gov WWV	Based in Fort Collins, CO since 1966, broadcasts time information on 2.5, 5, 10, 15 and 20 MHz. (wikipedia) The same organization also transmits from WWVH in Hawaii and was first operated in 1919. Like beacons this station can be used as a reference to estimate propogation conditions.	20240523
CSV17 tennis ball Antenna Launcher	AKB Engineering by Alan Biocca sells one of the best systems anywhere to launch tennis balls that tow lines over trees to raise antennas. A lot of experience went into this solutuon.	20240621
localhams	A Brentwood, CA group trying to restart local emergency preparedness.	20250901

You may hear about public and private Land mobile radio systems (LMRS). This is a category across different countries including many different systems including military systems. Earlier systems used AM simplex mode. FM simplex is now more common and digital modes are increasing.

Satellites & ISS

In 1945 Arthur C Clarke shared his ambition of geosynchronous satellites communicating over the earth. Successfully transmitting and receiving over long distances is possible. Using large, powerful, directional, circularly polarized antennas, automatic two axis (azimuth and elevation, Yaesu G-5500) rotor (for Keplerian orbital elements) and automatic doppler frequency controls would be amazingly helpful but that's not required to get started and make your first contacts. Only a Technician license is required for all this unlike much of HF. HTs with a handheld dual band antenna can make contacts too. Satellite passes are short so speed and quickness is also intimidating for newcomers. Receiving first is always recommended and do not transmit on the uplink if you can not hear the downlink as beginners do make this mistake sometimes. A recorder like a Sony PX470 with line-in jack is helpful too.

The International Space Station has an amateur radio station (wikipedia, ariss.org aka Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) on board operated by most of the visiting astronauts. Most astronauts have an amateur radio license regardless of their country of origin. Several (list changes over time) Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites can facilitate contacts, most managed by AMSAT via FM, SSB, CW or packet. Their nine part intro to working amateur satellites pages are great. They provide a way to "look up" and predict the next pass of each satellite including the ISS. Sean KX9X did a video for dxengineering.com with broad getting started advice. Some of the other videos in the series are good too. Josh KI6NAZ interviewed KX9X (part 1) too. Tracking satellites can be done via amsat.org/track, n2yo.com and/or phone apps. There are a handful of useful apps for iPhone users (GoSatWatch, SatSat) and Android users (AmsatDroid, HeavensAbove app). Doppler effects require 70cm uplink and downlink frequency adjustments.

There are several dedicated tracking map pages from spotTheStation.nasa.gov (tracking_map), ESA, astroviewer, isstracker.com and others that give the current ISS location. The ISS is often classified as another satellite for observation.

As far as equipment, a full duplex HT and a polarized dual band antenna like an Arrow 146-437 (gripped at the end) or ElkAntennas.com 5 element log periodic antenna (no duplexer required) would help facilitate simultaneous uplink and download and provide the best experience. Sean recommends WA5VJB designed homebrew yagis if you want to build your own. Trying to make contacts with two handheld radios and yagis might need some help from a friend.

Commercially there are some interesting satellite services available. SpaceX now provides Starlink Internet service using a constellation of over 3,000 small satellites. They use phased array antenna dishes in three bands between 12-18 GHz, 27-40 GHz and 60-90 GHz. This is a great service if traveling or if broadband is not available in your area. They aim to provide with T-Mobile global mobile phone coverage with testing beginning in 2024. The numerous satellites are not great for astronomers and increases the chances of dangerous space debris collisions. Only a handful of companies, many of which went bankrupt in the 2008 era, have tried to offer services via a dozen or so low earth satellites. Sirius XM provides hundreds of radio channels via satellite and streaming for receivers marketed for homes, offices, automotive, marine and aviation with a monthly subscription. Garmin inReach is an interesting two way service targeted at hikers with a monthly subscription.

Schools in my area have participated in ARISS contacts. In Sonoma County, part of the ARRL East SF Bay Section, contacts were made by students in Sebastopol, CA 2017 and in Santa Rosa, CA 2019. According to the ARRL Sacramento Valley Section website The River City ARCS n6na.org is helping Sacramento Girl Scout Troop 1089 prepare for an ARISS contact in Feb 2024.

Astronomy

People wonder when they look up and take time to consider what we are seeing. Since acknowledging that the sun is at the center of our solar system and other galaxies exist a lot of people have contributed to our collective understanding of science. The visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum we interact with every day is visible light. Things like planetary defence depend on using the electromagnetic spectrum. The documentary Planetary Defenders (1 hr 15 min) was released by NASA 26 Apr 2025.

Moon Bounce

A unique way to communicate is bouncing signals off the surface of the moon and back to earth called Earth-Moon-Earth or EME. (EME images) This mode and more are possible with just a Technician license.

Meteor scatter or meteor burst communication is similar using the ionized trails of comets.

Space

As of Jul 2022 only 570 people - total - have traveled to space, and only 24 people have traveled beyond low Earth Orbit and either circled, orbited or walked on the Moon! This number is going up thanks to NASA's Artemis program missions.

In 2019 the United States Space Force was created. They released a self-titled documentary 01 May 2025 The US Space Force (20 min).

In 2024 China created the People's Liberation Army Aerospace Force. the second space force.

Continous Wave / CW / Morse Code

Since 2007 there is no longer any morse code licensing requirements for any level of US FCC amateur radio license: Technician, General or Amateur Extra. Between 2000 and 2007 the morse code requirement for Amateur Extra was reduced from 20 WPM to just 5 WPM. Though no longer required for radio licenses, CW emissions are narrow, very power efficient and useful so they are still used for POTA (pota.app), SOTA (sota.org.uk) and double the points for contacts during ARRL Field Day each year. The need for Field Day CW operators was a driving force behind the creation of the Long Island CW Club.

One of the first ways to try using morse code casually might be generating and using ringtones for friends or your own name! (search morse code ringtone generator) makemorse provides mp3 files from a website. Several apps are available. For Android I use Morse Code Generator that provides wav files.

Morse code (youtube audio) letters are the encoded characters send by starting and stopping a continuous wave (CW) emission. The wave is an audio tone between 500-900 Hz. CW is synonymous with morse code and a quick abbreviation. The combination of dots and dashes encodes characters used first with wired telegraphy and now with radios or visible light. Even before wired telegraphy, back to 400 BC on the Great Wall of China and beyond, similar forms of telegraphy were used like drums, smoke signals, signal fires, reflected sunlight (mirrors) or other lights. Signal flag semaphores on ships or blinking your eyes or tapping if you are a prisoner of war are also possible communication.

In 1832 the first electrical telegraph was invented by Pavel Schilling. In 1844 the first demonstration message send from Washington, DC to Mount Clare, Baltimore railroad station on Samuel Morse's line was WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT? The first transcontinental telegraph was completed in 1861. In 1864 telegraphy played a key role in the civil war as commander in chief Abraham Lincoln was able to learn of events as they happened. On 12 Jul 1999 the final US commercial Morse code transmission signed off with WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT. In 2006 the Timeline of North American telegraphy shows that Western Union discontinued telegram services. A fascinating youtube documentary released in 2018 covers the western Australia Overland Telegraph operations until the 1960's told by some of the last living previously employed wired telegraph operators. In a way, with infrared nasa laser communication we seem to be going back to the future though morse has been replaced by newer digital encodings.

Morse code is traditionally sent with a straight key moving vertically. A short press makes a dot or dit, the basic unit. A press three times as long as a dit makes a dash or dah. Between elements is a dit length pause. A pause three dits long is used between characters. A pause seven dits long is used between words. Spacing is essential. Unlike computers, each operator of a straight key has a unique sound style or rhythm. This is called a "fist". Learning morse code requires learning the letters, numbers, prosigns and common abbreviations. Functionally and electrically the key down connection transmits when you press down. The signal transmitted is a wave on the frequency. What you hear is called a sidetone of audio frequency that starts and stops at the same time as the transmitted radio frequency.

Much ado is made about keys and equipment. As little as a couple pieces of exposed wire can be used to send code but human sensitivities are liable to motivate most people to get a better key or paddle for comfortable practice and sending. Getting started is a bit of a chicken and egg problem.

For practice sending on a PC the PCW Fistcheck is very useful as it visually shows the dots and dashes compared to whatever words per minute (WPM) setting you set. A keyboard lacks the responsiveness necessary for high speeds but seems OK when learning a little. The right arrow or left mouse or pins of a serial port are used as straight keys.

A key with a radio is best, perhaps using a dummy load on the antenna output. When starting out a difficult part is choosing which key and which radio because you really don't know what you need yet and the choices are vast.

There are some videos available about building homebrew clothespin keys with practice sound oscillators or hacksaw blades as I tinkered with. Many pictures for commercial and homebrew keys are at sideswipernet.org/keys/pic-index with similar materials for straight keys or homebrew morse keys or paddles. Bases may be heavy for base stations or light weight for portable use. Homebrew materials can be nail files, knive blades, steel rulers, windshield wipers, paper clips, pvc, printed circuit boards, etc, Some of the best pictures I have seen of homebrew keys are the SKCC WeekEndSprint month of August: Below the results scores are pictures. They are very amusing! 2025 2024 2023 2022 2021

LICW instructors recommend a straight key when learning to send morse code as this is arguably the most direct way to relate to and feel the sending of morse code. Solid beginner straight keys I look forward to trying sometime are the K4 from ebay and cwmorse.us camel back. Better keys are appreciated as one's skill improves. Iambic dual paddle keys are now common and required for some morse code learning like cwops.org/cw-academy. Begali, Vibroplex and a handful of boutique manufacturers are highly sought after and often cost hundreds of dollars. There are big differences and incredible craftsmanship and beauty available. In the beginning, getting started with with what you have available is more important than precisely how you start.

Once you have a key there are a surprising amount of (generally 1/8" aka 3.5 mm stereo) cables and adapters (even USB adapters) used when connecting keys to a radio, code practice oscillator and/or computer. Headphone y-splitters (male to two female from wiredco.com and six way) with 3.5 mm male-male cables combine signals. These quickly become desired for passing simple signals to and from computers, radios, oscillators and headphones. The difference between TS mono, TRS stereo cables and now common (on phones) TRRS cables, stereo with microphone, also becomes apparent very quickly. Many computers have separate TRS cables for stereo output and microphone. Most phones now combine the input and output using TRRS. Special combiners and splitters are useful.

Morse code seems to now most commonly be sent using dual paddles with an iambic keyer moving horizontally. Straight keys are still common but more physically tiring at higher speeds. When using paddles, after the keyer speed is set a squeeze of the left paddle makes repeated, perfectly spaced dits. The right paddle repeats dahs. Squeezing both alternates between the two. Slight variations of space between characters and words remain unique but characters are consistent because a computer keyer forms the perfectly spaced elements making up a letter. Functionally the paddles connect to ground and the keyer converts this to repeated dits and dahs with a matching sidetone. This contrasts with the even more rudimentary function of a signal connecting to ground.

Learning then increasing copy and sending speed takes consistent practice. A gentle way to learn copying and sending letters (only) is morse-learn.acecentre.net. For configurable speed copying use lcwo.net.

A straight key, super simple code practice oscillator project from 4sqrp.com/sscpo.php can be built quickly from a parts kit for $15 plus shipping (about $4) if you already have a soldering iron. The wave form is not a smooth sine wave but for the price it is a very good option. A similar code practice oscillator option is the AntiqueWireless.org kit uses screws to make contacts instead of soldering and costs $19.

I bought a $30 oscillator from ebay. I do not recommend it. It's waveform was further away from a pure sine wave and it produces a significant background hiss and hum. It requires a 9 volt DC power supply that I recycled from an old telephone. Using a 9 volt battery did not improve the output waveform or background hiss and hum. It has a tone knob and volume knob which are nice. It has a female 3.5 mm audio jack which is also great for connecting to similar sources with male/male cables.

For $25 the Vibroplex CPO might have been better from Scott W4PA.

nfarl.org (PDF instructions) provides a great looking kit for $10, $20 with prepaid shipping. It fits into an altoids mint tin. I took this to Field Day and everyone loved the capacitative key and LED built in. I had an empty altoids tin so I drilled a hole in the side for the 3.5 mm jack to accept a key while it's closed. Finding all my tools and assembling it took about an hour and a half, well worth it. I have assembled three of these now and I really like them.

https://www.breadboardradio.com/cpo.html for $25 by W4SFV in South Carolina also looks like a very useful code practice oscillator.

Some other interesting ARRL code practice oscillator articles outline plans with parts lists.

This section would not be complete without mention of the morserino.info. This is a purpose built device for learning morse code.
Earlier versions available as kits. The version 3 device is sold by shop.qrplabs.com/morserino.

Two highly recommended groups for learning and improving speed the Long Island CW Club and CW Ops. They have opposing recommendations when learning.

• longislandcwclub.com or LICW, uses moresecodebrowser for practice, has very comprehensive zoom classes and a curriculum structure to learn with others at your own pace. The letters are learned three at a time each week and a carousel structure encourages picking up letters at any time. Radio related topics are also covered each week summarized in their podcast. I like listening to this. An annual or lifetime fee is required. I became a member in 2023 with some friends and I enjoy it very much. It was great meeting Howard in 2025 at pacificon.org. Of course he asked me about my morse code skills and I had to answer that I am not as confident yet as I would like. As I improve my character recognition I'm listening to morsecode.ninja/licw who partnered with the Long Island CW Club. A sample of morse code is listening to this learning R-E-A characters video for just a few minutes. These are helping me practice each day, 20 minutes at a time, preferably several times but not always. The immediate feedback of these is really helping now that I have learned the basics again. Eventually a lot of rote practice is needed to get better but can be done with just a little persistence.

• cwops.org/cw-academy is available at no cost but requires significant time committments, acceptance into a class and a keyer with iambic paddles. They use the morsecode.world website for practice. The 4sqrp.com/crickey paddles kit (includes a keyer) would suffice though it is now discontinued.

cwinnovations.net was started by some folks that worked with the Long Island CW Club. They use the morsecode.world website for practice.

Copying call signs gives practice to recognizing random characters. A Windows software RufzXP is helpful.

A great simulation when preparing for Field Day or a contest is the LATEST version of Morse Runner. Be careful to avoid the older 1.6 Windows version that comes up in quick searches. This is a great way to practice contest exchanges without the need for equipment or sending code yourself. The macros do it for you with function keys. You can focus on receiving the call sign, and in the case of Field Day, the class and section. This has really boosted my confidence.

Other organizations that exist to educate, promote and connect with others interested in morse code including naqcc.info, qrpArci.org, norCalQRP.org and others.

Practice sessions are sent daily from the ARRL W1AW station on nine different frequencies. You can also use EchoLink over the Internet to listen. MP3 recordings are downloadable at many different speeds.

A full online course to learn morse code, 12 half hour sessions, is available online as a podcast from Fred K6RAU.

Antennas

The signal strength in a receiver is displayed as a reading on an s-meter from S-zero (S0) to S-nine (S9). Each number on the s-meter is equivalent to six decibels or four times the power. Three dB is double the power. So S9 is 54 decibels and signals stronger than S9 are described as the number of decibels "over" S9. Another discription is at mdarc.org/technical/decibels.

Antennas and feed line are fascinating, crucial to communications and often OVERLOOKED! They can be as simple as a "resonant" length (for the frequency/wavelength) of suspended wire like the dipole to the right. They can also get complex fast by applying mathematics, physics, covering multiple bands, weatherproofing and the many different (sometimes overlapping and/or strange sounding) names used to describe them. Antenna types is a good list. A search for hf resonant antenna plans can get you quickly started building your own. Small adjustments to impedance can be made with delta or gamma matching. The best alternative to using a strictly resonant antenna is using an impedance matching tuner. Nobody uses a strictly resonant antenna all the time, especially when changing bands on HF. Impedance is the measure of resistance measured in ohms (DC also uses ohms) in an alternating current (AC) circuit.

A couple of interesting videos recommended by Bruce KM6CWV of beniciaarc.org feature Rick DJ0IP part 1 and part 2 talk about multiband wire off center fed dipoles, baluns and ununs. For balun information he recommends several sites including W7EF-baluns. I am running an OCFD and I have already learned some ways to improve my antenna.

One project I built years ago is a simple, passive parabolic reflector held around a 2.4 GHz external Wi-Fi access point antenna. It's called the EZ-12 or Windsurfer and it worked great when I needed it. I made two of them from file folders and aluminum foil to go on the two external antennas of a Linksys WRT-54g running DD-WRT, a legendary 2003 (!) access point and software combination. Now that three bands (2.4, 5 and 6) are used at the physical layer for Wi-Fi 6/6E (802.11ax) and Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be published Jul 2025) certainly upgrades might be recommended. WPA in particular needs to be WPA3 to be fully secure. Wi-Fi 8 802.11bn will be focusing on reliability, estimated to finalize in 2028. 802.11 drafts continue to get approved and implemented. It is still early but Wi-Fi 8 (802.11bn) is expected sometime around 2028 which adds 60 GHz frequencies and more speed.

Allocation of frequencies vary by country but wireless commercial networks have evolved. Bands allocated as WiMAX have a standard set of frequencies in 2.3, 2.5 and 3.5 GHz though it has largely been superseded by LTE/5G. In the not too distant future, the late 2020s expect standardization of 6G with commercial deployments in the early 2030s. Many commercial standards are overseen in part by the 3GPP.

One type of antenna I think most of us use now without realizing it is the fractal antenna. They are hidden inside of cell-phones and handle UHF frequencies. There is not much activity in the amateur community with them but I think there is a wealth of knowledge in the commercial realm.

Two terms I had heard for a long time but did not fully understand are dBd and dBi. These abbreviations stand for decibels (dipole) and decibels (isotropic). There is a formula between the two: 0dBd = 2.15dBi. What does this mean? A dipole antenna is two wires of one quarter wavelength each. It is used as a reference when designing antennas. By comparison an isotropic antenna is also a reference but it is an abstract concept from which antenna gain is calculated. Gain is how much extra signal is provided in a certain direction. Omnidirectional antennas radiate in all directions equally.

Another term on the exams is dBm which means decibels relative to a milliwatt.

Directional antennas are made from active or driven elements (radiators) and passive or parasitic elements (reflectors and directors). I didn't know it when I was a child, but TV antennas were often designed as log-periodic antennas.

End Fed Half Wave (EFHW) antennas like the spooltenna.com make it relatively easy to get on the air while on the move. I hope to do more with these as I do more POTA.

Feed line

As I have learned more about stations I have come to appreciate the importance of feed lines. As I set up my own station I realize there are tradeoffs I will need to make. Twin lead and window line are balanced and were used before coax cable was common.

Coax cable was introduced especially as rotators were used with directional antennas and to reduce the interference that can occur when debris is introduced along twin lead feed lines. Coax is more often used now but there are important considerations. Coax is an unbalanced feed line. Due to the skin effects of radio signals coax acts as three conductors, not just two! This is because the inner conductor has a single skin, but the inside of the shield and outside of the shield act as individual conductors. Baluns and chokes can address the problems that coax introduces. More people need to know about this important consideration!

John Portune W6NBC gave a great presentation to the ARRL on ugly baluns (video) where he describes the coax outside shield current chokes and the recommended torus knot for them. He recommends the use of this online wrapping calculator. I use these on my coax. He also presented at mdarc.org on ferrite toroid baluns (PDF slides) and recommends this online ferrite calculator.

The environment can also greatly effect the antenna and feed line performance. I am experiencing this at my own home. While guessing or approximating can work, it's best to get some measurements that take into account all the variables involved. Without some kind of analyzer you won't know how to trim an antenna installed in your environment. A NanoVNA is a great option at a reasonable price.

APRS

What can one do with radio? Automatic Position Reporting Systems on the 144.390 MHz US frequency reports location or other telemetry data. Marcel Stieber gave a great presentation in May 2020 at an mdarc.org meeting. APRS has some vocabulary as Marcel describes. APRS uses an "aloha" broadcast system, no sessions are used. Data is sent out without expectations of hearing back.

Using time and reporting GPS location coordinates via APRS (aprs.org, aprs.fi) transmitters can be tracked as they move by a cooporative system of receivers over the Internet. APRS uses packet radio AX.25 digital packets using built-in or stand alone Terminal Node Controllers (TNC). Some radios have it all built in. An app you can use on an android phone is APRSDroid.

Future Equipment

There are many recommendations about equipment. Youtuber Josh KI6NAZ poses the question: Who are you going to talk to? A quick check for people (service group: HA, your state w/ zip code or city) and ARRL clubs will give great lists. Going to RepeaterBook.com and clicking on your state is very useful too. Check out his video list Are you new to radio?

This LidoRadio.com auto seat bolt mounting arm for an HT looks great.

Even just wanting to set up antennas and get on the air I want an antenna analyzer or spectrum analyzer to know how well it's working, effects of adjustments, etc. As technology advances, better tools for lower cost are becoming more available.

VNA in NanoVNA stands for Vector Network Analyzer. It performs antenna and feed line analysis. I need one of these and the price is reasonable The 2019 product was released with a 2.8 inch screen and it is an amazing low cost, high performance device at its price point. It uses a 3.7V Li-ion battery. Several clones have come on the market so to ensure firmware support be careful to get the right one. There are now several variants including the improved H and H4 that has a four inch screen. Though very powerful it does not come with much documentation and the UI is not very intuitive. There is a very good groups.io support email list with files and wiki. There are also youtube videos, presentations and references available online. Along similar lines, reviews I've watched about the TinySA Ultra Spectrum Analyzer by Josh is around $220. Dave Casler reviews it too. The USB C port matches other modern cell phone cables. A whip antenna with one of these looks really useful for finding RFI. The attenuator he uses is around $23. Other standard tools I've seen are available from Rig Expert or MFJ.

A Youtuber Dave Casler KE0OG has some recommendations for getting started with HT (Radioditty GA-510 FM dual band with 10 watts, amzn.to, review), mobile (Anytone AT-D578UVIIIPro DMR from bridgecom at $460, review) and base station radios. For the base station he recommends the IC-7300 because it is so easy to use and incredibly popular. It does not do 2M, 70cm, DMR or D-Star. The recommended antenna is an MFJ-2010 off center fed dipole, resonant for 40m, 20m, 10m and 6m. I'm looking forward to trying these sometime.

Several radios (video by Jason KC5HWB) are attractive to me as targets for my first HF radio. Compared to the HF + 6m IC-7300, the slightly newer FTDX-10 SDR HF + 6m might have a better receiver and be a good choice. I know several very experienced people that just bought this radio and love it. The Yaesu FT-991 is not an SDR but it does cover 70cm, 2m, 6m, HF and has C4FM which is attractive to me. The older design HF mobile Icom IC-7100 radio is not the more common IC-7300 but it does cover 70cm, 2m, 6m, HF and D-Star. Another good choice in an HF mobile form factor is the Yaesu FT-891 (100W, no 2M/70cm, review) which replaces the 2022 discontinued FT-818 (6W) and FT-817 (5W) but these do transmit on 2m/70cm. The Xiegu G90 is used by a few people I know. It costs about $450 though the screen is very small, it outputs 20 watts and it does not support 6m. The Xiegu X5105 only outputs 5W but includes 6M. The Xiegu X6100 at $600 has a nicer screen and is more portable but outputs only 5 watts. There are mixed reports on the Xiegu G106 but Charlie NJ7V has used one and recommended it for beginners on HF. Discontinued model used radios are worth evaluating though digital modes are generally more difficult to operate easily.

Anthony Luscre K8ZT does a great job in his "buy an amateur radio" presentation tiny.cc/buyar and provides an amazing transceiver spreadsheet of many radios and a beginner cost estimator spreadsheet among many other great presentations (green button top left) from k8zt.com.

I want to get a DMR & D-Star hotspot. There are a lot of possible features. AllStarLink.org is a connection capability like EchoLink. (They have about 28,800+ nodes as of Jul 2023. Oh, they use asterisk PBX. allscan.info is a directory of nodes. The mdarc.org repeater does not support it.) Here are some models to compare.

Working satellites is a goal but a dedicated antenna is advisable. Amsat station and operating hints gives me some guidance to move forward. A circularly polarized would help a lot. The Arrow II yagi or Elk Antenna dual band log periodic yagi would be great.

Another pursuit where a dedicated antenna is advisable is t-hunting or fox hunting. Arrow has their fox hunt loops and a homebrew would work if I invest the time to build one.

Since my call sign contains CB I feel like I should try one again. A search for the Best CB radios 2023 with SSB would be great. The Uniden Bearcat 980 compares favorably because it includes SSB, NOAA weather and public address (PA) features, althought the combined scanner capability of the Uniden Bearcat 885 without SSB looks interesting too. The Cobra 29 LTD Classic (and family of radios) are popular CB choices. For a budget, the Uniden Pro505XL and similar options are very reasonably priced but they have bad reviews and may fail quickly. The Uniden Pro520XL might be worth a try on a budget or maybe a President Adams.

When I was in school I bought and played with a handheld CB AM radio. My location was not very good for communicating from home and I did not operate mobile very much. I still have a coiled mag mount CB antenna in the garage I will put to use again someday.

Though not required, I want to get a mobile rig (Jason KC5HWB youtube) installed in my vehicle rather than using the HT with a mag mount. A go-to for 2M only was the Yaesu FT-2980 because it had a heavy duty top heat sink, transmits up to 80 watts and cost around $190. The 2980 was sadly discontinued so the slightly more expensive newer Yaesu models are worth a look. Dave KE0OG recommends the Anytone D578UVIII (youtube) with DMR. He reviewed the Pro version which is sold out from Bridgecom but the Plus version was available for $460. The Anytone AT5888UVIII 2m 1.2m and 70cm analog radio runs $250 without DMR. An economical Chinese choice would be an Anysecu WP-9900 for about $115 but it doesn't have good amazon reviews. The TYT TH-9800 Quad Band only does FM but it does 10M 6M 2M and 70cm. The newer Yaesu FTM-6000R is dual band and ran $300. The Icom IC-2730A is a nice dual band and has been out for a long time and runs $310. The Icom IC-7100 has been out for a long time as well and does HF and all modes but runs $1000. someone I spoke to liked the Btech UV-50x2Dual with 50W at $219. The Anytone AT-778UV is dual band with 25W at $124 but I haven't seen reviews. The TYT TH-7900 has dual bands, 50W and runs $205. The QYT KT-7900D has quad bands, 25W and runs $89. Looks like very funny, confusing model numbers, aren't they? The QYT KT-8900d has dual band, 25W at $90 There are many other choices in and around this category and some can change quickly.

I am interested in operating QRP (low power ~ 5W, challenging, skill required, portable, sometimes CW only). Jason KC5HWB reviews some radios. These would allow me to activate some parks (pota.app, wikipedia) or summits (sota.org.uk, wikipedia) or islands (IOTA) or lighthouses (world wLOTA.com, arlhs.com) or boats (BOTA). There's also youthOnTheAir.org YOTA. Though you must know what you are looking for, places to find used/previously owned equipment for sale are flea markets, local clubs, ebay.com, swap.qth.com, facebook.com/marketplace, forums.qrz.com online swapmeet, hrcc Discord #swap, eham.net, mtcradio.com and consignment HRO. The Silicon Valley www.electronicsfleamarket.com meets Mar - Sep on the second Sunday at West Valley College in Saratoga, CA. In Sparks, NV is hamandhifi.com. Functioning equipment may be donated to other hams in clubs or places like Heritage High School radio club in Brentwood. Non-working electronic items in Contra Costa County may be recycled www.cccrecycle.org/214/Properly-Recycle.

I got a GMRS radio, a refurbished Kenwood TK-380. as these allow "neighborhood radio watch" programs to be built by operators with only a GMRS license that does not require an exam like the amateur radio service. The advantages of GMRS over FRS are higher transmit power and real antennas instead of fixed, small antennas required by FRS. GMRS and FRS radios share some channels though GMRS requires a license. I have seen Alan Thompson present several times and met him. I recommend his 2023 mp4 presentation hosted by mdarc.org. The cerafund.org organization supported by Alan and others from the edcarc.net are doing great work preparing their community for fire seasons (eldoradocountyfire.com) and provide a model for others to consider implementing in their localities.

With my 4sqrp.com/crickey paddles and keyer it is designed to output to a radio so it pulls a signal to ground, that's it. I didn't know it at the time but I needed a sidetone and a speaker. Though the LED on the paddles works, when I plug in a 1/8" headphone jack I just heard clicks. Jumper wires with alligator clips to the SSCPO are sufficient.

After a sidetone is present a couple videos talk about how to amplify a speaker with minimal materials. Hobby Lobby 6 in x 8 in x 4 in unfinished wooden boxes can help amplify a bit with resonance.

Like antennas, feed line does not often get the attention it deserves. ABR Industries (abrind.com) makes custom coax cables with beautiful, custom label and color heat shrink labeling, heat shrink providing weather proofing and strain relief, machine accuratacy stripping, solidly crimped connectors and optional cable bundle sheathing. Ferrite chokes are also available. During the factory tour youtube Mike K8MRD set up a discount code K8MRD at checkout to provide a 10% discount.

My Equipment

Link	Comments	Updated
Icom ID-5100A	(search, rigpix, eham, universal) This dual band 2M 70cm mobile is a great choice. It does D-Star as well. Mine does not have the bluetooth module installed yet. It draws up to 20A so the correct power, fuses and wire sizes need to be used, at least 12 gauge or preferably better. The length of the wires matters too. The longer the wires, the more losses. The A is for American vs the E for European version.	20251128
Yaesu FT-60	In production, two meter and 70cm HT with wide receiver first released in 2004 with an SSM-17A speaker microphone. It has strong eham.net reviews. It charges the battery from the power cord unlike the newer FT-60s which require a separate charging cradle and I believe they can not be operated while charging. Some of the buttons are not obvious, so cheatsheets as well as manuals can help program HTs, especially in the field. I have not done the MARS mod to increase transmit to 137-174 MHz and 420-470 MHz. It holds up well for daily work for preppers vs the VX-6R but the VX-6R MARS mod unlocks 6M, GMRS, FRS and MURS sounds nice. (rigpix) Though the design is old, it's rugged design is well respected among experienced hams.	20231229
1/4 wave mag mount	Mine might be an older model of new-tronics.com Hustler UGM that I got from Ham Radio Outlet in Oakland before they closed that location.	20221121
Abbree 28.3 in or 71.9 cm antenna	This is a little bit long and bulky but I've seen transmitting comparisons against other models I was considering and this one transmit a little better than others. I think this is a folded 3/4 wave antenna at 2M that also covers 70cm. If you order one, be sure the connector is right for your HT. For my FT-60 I need SMA Male. I'm looking forward to trying a Super-elastic Signal Stick due to it's flexibility. Others need SMA Female or BNC.	20231010
Kenwood TS-590S	This is an amazing radio that puts out up to 100 W on HF and 6M (25 W in AM mode). (kenwood, eham, universal-radio, rigpix, rigreference) It was first released in 2010 and discountinued around 2014 for the TS-590SG. It has a USB 2.0 USB-B port built in like a printer. It got it with an MC-43S microphone and a powerpole cable stub to run from any 12V (13.8V) source. I ordered some fuses to stand in for the factory cable. My antennas are still a work in progress.	20250130
Astron RS-35A	Linear power supply. (astron)	20250130
MFJ-2010	This 63' off center fed dipole (OCFD) wire antenna is recommended by Dave KE0OG and covers 40/20/10/6M up to 300W.	20231111
J-Pole Kit antenna	This rollup, twin lead antenna kit comes from AmateurRadioSupplies.com of North Haverhil, NH. They redid their website in Sep 2023. The single band two meter version is a bit simpler to assemble than then 2m/70cm version. It claims to handle up to 50 watts with SWR < 1.5:1 if cut to center of the band. Outside my window I have a 1/2" pvc mast with two levels of guy wires. It's not very strong but can work for light weight, temporary antennas like the rollup.	20230123
Copper Slim-Jim antenna	This copper antenna was made by Bruce AH0U. The description by KB9VBR is fantastic. This has more gain and will handle much more power than my roll-up. I use a 2" pvc mast with guy wires. I am reasearching telescoping fiberglass options like from mgs4u.com Max-Gain Systems and others for POTA.	20231111
pcw fistcheck	Precision CW Fistcheck software. It uses the right arrow key, your mouse button or a serial port with a key to practice sending morse code. When set to say 12 WPM it shows how long your dits and dahs are and what characters you have sent.	20231207
4sqrp.com/sscpo.php	Super Simple Code Practice Oscillator (SSCPO) sold as a kit. There's a great assembly video. It uses a 9-volt battery. It was my first kit, didn't take long to build and costs $15 plus $4.15 shipping. Kits are assembled by the IA Boy Scout Troop 40 Amateur Radio Club WN0BSA and Lily Cripe KE0JOL. This is also a fundraiser for OzarkCon held each Apr in Branson, MO. Recording the wave form using Audacity I find the wave form is not a pure sine wave. I made a simple hacksaw blade key and use it with jumpers. I also made a sideswiper/cootie key that could be jumpered to a keyer or radio for iambic but I'm not using it yet as I am focused on . My first straight key will probably be a K4 from ebay or a cwmorse.us camel back with Navy style knob (review of cwmorse paddles) or a used J-38 if I can find one.	20230707
J-38 Key	(eham, K6IX, AI4FR, j-38-madness) This is my first straight key and I was happy to find it. It is a US Army WW II collectible straight key purchased from the CHRS in Alameda, CA. Many thousands of these were made by around six suppliers (including Lionel) under government contract during the early years of the WW II era as it was already in production. Just after the war there was a surplus. Second hand keys are hard to come by and this one was modified. Mine is shorter in length and doesn't have the rear binding posts. Mine is also missing the shorting bar. It works fine for my purposes. I intend to disassemble and restore it's original shine. I use jumpers to the SSCPO or one can use a TRS 3.5mm adapter to plug in a cord to a radio.	20260514
Speed-X 510 Bug Key	Speed-X Model 510 Les Logan Co. Mfg. in San Francisco, CA. (telegraphkeys, a non-vibroplex bug, radioBlvd) Collectible semi-automatic bug (manual dah, weighted pendulum makes dits) purchased from the LivermoreARK.org for a token donation to the club in Livermore, CA. It was restored by a machinist NA6O. It has a cast zinc base, a grey crackle paint finish indicating it was an early model, no t-bar handle and is a little smaller than a model 500. It was nicknamed the "pocket key" due to it's size compared to the model 500. It was manufactured between 1937 and 1947, probably closer to 1937 since it seems to be a pre-production key, is a real piece of history. The Speed-X line traces back to Les Logan, who was not only a manufacturer but also a champion telegrapher in the 1930s and 40s. His reputation for lightning-fast, accurate code is part of what gave his keys such credibility. Logan ran the Speed-X Company out of San Francisco from around 1937 to 1947. In 1947 he sold the company to E.F. Johnson, which kept the line going and later passed it along to the Nye Company, but the "Les Logan era" keys are especially prized.	20250816
4sqrp.com/crickey.php	Cric-Key by David Cripe NM0S was sold as a kit and mounted on the provided wooden base. Sadly it was discontinued It didn't take long to build and costs $25 plus $8.15 shipping. It includes the paddles and a keyer with a 9-volt battery. Kits are assembled by MDARC's own Gene AA0EI. A stereo jack with some simple jumpers allow using the SSCPO as a sidetone generator with the Cric-Key. This is also a fundraiser for OzarkCon held each Apr in Branson, MO. There is a new paddle called 4S-Key that looks interesting.	20260514
4sqrp.com/4SDL.php	A 4S Dummy Load was designed and kit by David Cripe NM0S, sold as a kit. It cost just $12 plus $3.65 shipping, handles 10W and has power indicator level LEDs 0.5W, 1W, 2W and 5W. This is also a fundraiser for OzarkCon held each Apr in Branson, MO.	20231207
Power Supply	Radio Shack cat. no. 22-504 is a slightly older model than the one pictured. 13.8 Volts at 3 Amps (about 40 Watts) is fine from this regulated linear power supply used for powering HTs. It's heavy.	20221209
wiredco.com	Roger Dean is a great vendor of quality cables, connectors, LEDs and accessories in Scottsdale, AZ. I found him at Pacificon and have placed several orders for things like: adapters USB-C to older (micro, A), older USB A to USB-C, iPhone lightning to USB-C, USB-C to Gigabit Ethernet, car charger, wall charger, etc.	20250312
Opek SWR-3	Standing Wave Ratio/Power Meter. It provides basic functionality up to 150MHz at a modest price. It requires a transmitter to test an antenna. My radio will not go below 1W to set for the recommended SWR value of .8 watts. It requires a male/male adapter to be put inline with a PL-259 feed line for measuring. An antenna analyzer (like a NanoVNA or RigExpert AA-230, RigExpert Zoom, etc.) can test on it's own. That's an answer to a licensing exam question.	20231017
Kenwood TK-380 Type 1	This is an amazingly solid, commercial handheld radio capable of trunking. I bought mine refurbished from cerafund.org during a training workshop for citizens participating or interested in the neighborhood radio watch (NRW) program designed to prepare for the next wildfire in/around El Dorado County. I am sure this was used previously in service for a fire department or police department. The radio, battery and charging cradle with power cable were $75 and an extra battery was $17. The charging cradle and extra battery were brand new in the box purchased in bulk. (radioReference specs, manual) It requires a special cable and the KPG-49D software called FleetSync to program it. The recommended cable is from bluemax49ers.com. It was programmed for the local network of GMRS repeaters in use in Placerville, Cosumnes, Oak Hill, Coloma and Pollock with a "talkaround" channel for simplex on the output of one of the local repeaters and a special Alert channel using a proprietary pager type system. The Alert channel is controlled by trained volunteers. Bearcat scanners are also used by volunteers in conjunction with the GMRS radio to track fire and emergency events in real time from listening to primary radio sources. The system is not a replacement for 911 but is an informed citizen lead supplement to the professional first responders in the area. Stories were relayed about recent fire events and how this system saved lives.	20230709
B-Tech GMRS-Pro	BTECH is BaoFeng Tech. IP67 submersible 5W handheld GMRS radio with Bluetooth, NOAA WX weather channels, FM radio, USB-C charging, GPS, speedometer & compass. It says it does texting and location sharing but I haven't done it yet. It has a 3000 mAh Lithium-Ion battery and was released in China in 2022. Apps are linked from the product page to connects to iOS and Android and program the radio. The speaker mic is not the K1 Kenwood standard. (search)	20251008
Baofeng UV-5R	I could not resist the price of the BaoFeng for testing. The speaker mic is the K1 Kenwood standard. (search)	20250101
pacificon tape measure yagi	I've printed the parts thanks to the Clayton ccclib.org printing service and collected the other parts. I used grey PVC to keep mine from being mixed up with others at the annual San Ramon pacificon.org event.	20260527
tape measure yagi	I've bought the parts and assembled the PVC with hose clamps. There are other designs (duckduckgo) but this was easy since I had a broken tape measure ready for use in radio direction finding. KK6USY has a video for PVC and welding rod from a 1993 QST design. WA5VJB has a club yagi project pdf among other designs.	20231011
HTX-202	This is a single band radio made by Realistic, sold by Radio Shack around 1995. I bought this used as my first radio. The eham reviews and article are good. It needs a battery holder soldered to the board so that it's memory is not wiped each time I turn it off. One of the screws got stuck when I was trying to open it. I have not yet taken the time to complete the project.	20221121
HX-280S	This is a submersible handheld marine VHF radio with weather receive made by Standard Horizon, the marine brand of Vertex Standard. Yaesu is also a brand of Standard Horizon. It is similar to the HX400 sold today.	20230102
IC-R10	This is a handheld receiver 0.5 MHz to 1300 MHz AM, FM, SSB and CW. Unfortunately the power button sticks right now.	20230103
JTDX_improved	JTDX_improved is a modified software implementation for use with FT8 over the standard JTDX and over the original wsjt-x. It may yield 30% more decoded signals because of improvements. WSJT is software by the creators of FT8 and FT4 modes. Weak-Signal open source software was originally written by Joe Taylor K1JT, hence the name WSJT. (direct)	20230929
Meinberg NTP	This is a Windows NTP clock synchronization software needed for FT8. Reviews say is more accurate but the setup steps are a bit more involved. For me I had to adjust the clock drift value in the windows registry which was annoying. Another alternative is Dimension4 though it may be unsupported now. An easy way to validate the time of your computer is a website time.is	20240430
Winlink Express	This is the recommended email client to transfer WinLink email via amateur radio or telnet. Transferring email can be very important during an emergency. There are quite a few layers to using WinLink but it is easy to install and get started. Your initial address is <your call sign>@winlink.org after registering via the email client with their servers. Tactical call signs are well supported. It can be used along with a software soundcard modem VARA HF or Vara FM from the same website. In 2016 it was renamed from RMS Express to Winlink Express which can be seen in settings files. A weekly practice net happens on Wednesdays. These messages are point to point, a last mile connection to/from the Internet compared to NBEMS fldigi which has a more open broadcast design.	20230501
Echolink	This is VOIP software (wikipedia) supported on the mdarc.org repeater to connect my phone or computer with repeaters over the Internet. This contrasts with Internet Radio Linking Protocol (IRLP) links repeaters to each other.	20230727
Morse Runner 1.84	MorseRunnerCE is the groups.io discussion. This Windows software simulates CW on-air contacts and pile-ups for contests including Field Day. I like this a lot. Do not use older versions who may come up as higher google results.	20240813
Simon's WorldMap 1.4.4	Beautiful, real time world map with sun, moon, and satellite tracking.	20250423
N3FJP.com	Amateur Contact Log (AC Log) is an easy to use, commercial, Windows contest logging software. A trial version is available. This seems very popular for Field Day logs. A different version of the software is available for each contesting event for about $8.99 each or the whole bundle is $59.99 with all the versions and free upgrades for life. Reviews are available from several sites like eham.net, comparisons to DXKeeper, dxzone and others. There are lots of varied opinions, even among experienced contesters, about which is best to use. Favorites also change over time and require different hardware or operating systems. The levels of support and reviews convinced me n3fjp is an amazing choice. Alternatives include N1MM Logger+ which is free and seems to be used by a large majority of contesters, Ham Radio Deluxe, FDLog, DXlab Suite (includes DXKeeper), Log4OM, Logger32, FastLogEntry, WriteLog and others. Specialized software for logging on phones (Android hamrs.app, iPhone HamLog), certain contests and other platforms are also popular. An internet search for "amateur radio logging" with your platform should give good results. Even a text document with a template can work. MacLoggerDX and MacDoppler run on Mac.	20240519
USB Headset	This is a great Sennheiser PC 7 USB mono headset for PC and Mac. It has one ear for speaker and an affordable, good quality boom microphone for zoom meetings and/or dictation software. The other side is just a pad. In the operating system I can enable or disable the microphone or mono speaker.	20230308
USB Webcam	This is an affordable USB Webcam usable with desktop, laptop, Windows, Mac, Android, ChromeOS or Linux. I use it for Zoom or Skype meetings. It has a microphone but I disable it in the operating system. I have not heard of Anivia before but it works great. Though I use it at lower resolution, it can do 1080p and has a camera type mount for a tripod stand which I like. It has a hinge for height adjustment and a privacy cover over the camera lens.	20230308
Tabletop Tripod	This Hakuba Multipod is a great little tripod from BHPhotovideo.com but it is no longer available. I use it for Zoom or Skype meetings. The telescopic legs make adjustments easy. The clamp is pretty wide but another attachment may be needed for wider phones. The standard camera type mount is versatile and compatible. Something similar without the clamp might be the this one though they have a range of products in the mini tripod category and smartphone tripod mount search for a tripod head.	20230501
Meeting screen	To cover up the room I use for Skype and Zoom I got two yards (72") of 72" wide felt fabric from a local joann.com store. I use a nice Berkeley/SF image for my background effect but my attempts so far have fallen short. This is an economical choice and blocks the light from the other side of the felt quite well. I added grommets along the top and hang it from paracord strung between a solid shelving unit and two picture wall anchors in a sort of Y shape around the camera field of view. Green background was recommended by the Zoom software setting but I'm struggling now with white balance due to the strong color. Professionals with high end cameras might carry a light meter or an 18% grey card to adjust their setting but I can't find a software setting. Despite the lighting with warm 2700K LED bulbs from my local DollarTree.com I look either red/sunburn or washed out if there's too much direct light. Maybe daylight bulbs would be better though I usually don't prefer them. If I hold my hands next to my face, filling the frame and blocking the background, the color auto adjusts to more natural colors. I'm trying other color backgrounds next. Sheets might be the right color but allow too much light through. I'm using felt with a sheet now.	20230308
rainlendar.net	This is a a configurable clock I use on Windows machines. I display a nice one month calendar, a yearly calendar on another monitor, the current time and zulu time.	20230722
cygwin.com	Open source software, linux tools on a Windows machine including a bash shell and optinoal utilities. This includes a vi editor named VI iMproved or vim and important unix command line tools such as ssh, screen, ls, grep, date, pwd, less, chmod, cp, cat, export, cat, echo, mv, find, rm, who, sort, ftp, scp, mutt, procmail, irssi, ps, kill, man, info, etc. With Cygwin-X you can run X software that is common on a phone clock gnome clock. It has a simple stopwatch and a timer with alarms and a world time zone clock. see grantbow.com/command_line.html for more introductory resources.	20230612
Kohler enCube	Kohler enCube 1.8kW peak output, 1.4kW sustained output, 100 amp hour AGM battery. It has a stepped, modified sine wave output with two AC outlets, two accessory plug outlets and two USB outlets. Youtube review. protoolsreviews. (images, Lowes, Amazon). I haven't used it too much. New these units went for around $1200. I saw one on ebay for $500 now. PG&E was giving some of these units to qualifying customers. I did not measure or time it accurately but I think I ran a 350 watt load for about four hours or so before it beeped an alarm so that is 1.4 kWh. It does not seem to charge very quickly on a gas powered generator. Solar input voltage is limited to around 15 volts. I have not tried to use parallel panels of the same make & model yet. The fan is a little noisy sometimes. It's heavy, around 109 lbs. For a few alternative DIY builds where components (battery, charge controller, inverter, solar panels) can be replaced check out ProjectsWithDave, LithiumSolar (built w/ recycled cells, tool recommendations), diylithiumsolar7078 and Will's active channel which has great reviews and several systems like his newest hand truck. He compares his build favorably to a Bluetti all in one. Check out related videos to those as well.	20230625
Cisco SPA504g	SIP capable phone purchased with a pool of others organized by a livermoreark.org group for hamshackhotline.com use. HH is a free dedicated voip telecom service for the Ham Radio community. After the HTTP profile is created via the HHOPS helpdesk check the firmware and follow the provisioning instructions.	20230926
Cell Info Lite app	Why don't more people look at their phone's signal strength? This is a great Android app that allows me to learn about how strong my phone's signal strength is, what frequency band it is using and the location of cell towers on a map.	20231116
WebSDR.org sites	kfsdr.com and kfs.wsprdaemon.org are in Half Moon Bay. There is a fascinating 2022 talk about it.	20231130
Passthru	One needs to get their cables from outside somehow. I pass mine through a window.	20240508
Ham Bootcamp	The Nashua (New Hampshire) Area Radio Society, (NARS, n1fd.org) provides an online virtual bootcamp experience for hams of all experience levels as featured in the Oct, 2020 issue of QST. Primary presenters are Fred Kemmerer AB1OC and James Finchum AC1DC. Their six minute intro video is posted. I listened to the bootcamp in May 2024. They have been doing this for about a dozen years. They also provide online tech nights online where no membership is required. Their online memberships provide access all recordings and is very reasonably priced. They did a great job! (info)	20240511
Micca Speck 4k media player	This video device is wonderful to loop a set of videos. My current playlist is an arrl intro and an RSGB intro video on a usb stick. The RSGB video has kids making interesting types of contacts. Add a monitor and internal or external speakers for full effect.	20240707
Multimeters	I have two Harbor Freight Cen-Tech multimeters - the $6.99 7-Function Digital and the $12.97 6 Function Mini Clamp Meter. Since even electronics professionals will make mistakes, using a wrong setting, I don't need to worry much about harming these multimeters.	20240730
Yaesu FT-897D	I had to return it, but this radio with 13.8 V power source puts out 100 W on HF and 6M (20 W when using internal batteries), 50 W on 2M and 20 W on 70cm. (yaesu, eham, universal-radio, rigpix, rigreference, qrpblog, hanklambert) It was first released in 2003 and discountinued around 2014 for the FT-991. It coveres 160m to 70cm with all modes: SSB, CW, AM, FM and digital. The D model adds the 5MHz 60M band. I borrowed the radio from mdarc.org. It came in a suitcase with a mounted FP-30 power supply, mounted LDG AT-897 tuner, mic, headset, two batteries, W4RT fast battery charger and cables to run from any 12V (13.8V) battery. To operate FT8 I ordered a digirig.net with Logic Levels (Yaesu) CAT Config and Yaesu FT-8xx cords, mfj-2010 67 feet long, DXE-8X (RG8X) coax feed line, connectors (wiredco.com), two 1/8 TRS audio cables, a pair of d-ring anchors, heat shrink tubing and paracord to secure my masts. My antennas are a work in progress. For masts I use PVC and guy wires that is just strong enough to support the antennas over my roof line for line of sight to Mt Diablo though the hills where I live still attenuate my signals. The 50W on 2M is what I need to get through to the East County net control operator each week without having to drive somewhere and use my 1/4 wave mag mount. This was a great radio for me.	20230719
Venus SW-3B QRP CW Transceiver	I had to return this, but a friend in our CWWC group in Walnut Creek loaned me this radio (search). It only covers the 40, 30 and 20 meter bands and can receive SSB. It needs an 8v - 15v DC power supply. The power plug size is a little odd. It has an electronic keyer. The PDF manual and PDF Guide are helpful. This BNC feed line is recommended among other parts on page 48 of the guide. I will use some dipole antennas (mdarc) or two legs of 32.5 feet, 23.1 feet and 16.1 feet respectively. I've been struggling to get all the parts ready.	20240319

My Memberships & Volunteering

I guess my interest in radio was sparked when I was about three by a pair of walkie talkies given to me by my grandfather just before he died. I later built many of the projects in the Radio Shack Science Fair 200 in 1 Electronic Project Kit with springy wire connectors, a clear plastic cover and a wide, oversized manual. There are so many wonderful kits out there now like this from playz.com and from Elenco, Jameco, Digi-Key and others.

Later I had a handheld CB radio but I didn't use it much where I lived because the hills all around blocked most signals. Later in the 1990s while doing IT support work for a company I used a Motorola Spirit Pro unlicensed radio to ask questions of my coworkers within the building. This was very effective. I used a Bearcat handheld scanner which was interesting but not very useful in the hills.

For those looking to get a call sign as their California automobile license plate there was a presentation summarized in a Lodi ARC newsletter pdf you should see. Briefly, talk to Sacramento and document everything you do very well. Do not work with your local DMV office.

A lot of issues come up when installing radios into automobiles. A great site addressing this is k0bg.com.

Deprecated Technologies

Of course technology has not evolved without failures. Because I live in the SF Bay Area I was in the service rollout area for Metricom's Ricochet. It was a 128kbps flat rate wireless internet service which started in Cupertino. I enjoyed the service but it was relatively short lived. The company went bankrupt so my modems are useless now. Areas in San Diego and Colorado tried to keep services going but they too were shut down.

Broadband adoption has increased dramatically but this is not the case everywhere. I was a long time user of modems with their Hayes AT command set. My modems plugged into the wall but acoustic couplers were used in the early days like in the classic Matthew Broderick movie Wargames which I watched many times. Modems used hard wired telephone lines with acoustic signals to establish connections by making a phone call. Bulletin boards were stand alone computers that you dialed before the Internet. I setup a UUCP Internet email server for a good friend of mine at his small business. UUCP scheduled phone calls on a regular basis to transfer email in the time period before full time internet connections were affordable. It feels extremely antiquated now but these systems were state of the art in the 1980s.

It is all too easy to go off on a computer tangent from radio. My first introduction to computers was a rented Commodore PET computer model 4016 with a cassette drive. My family's first home computer was an Apple II Plus. We used Commodore 64 computers at school, typing LOAD "*",8,1 to load programs off of a 5 1/4" inch floppy drive. We later got a pre-Windows MS-DOS 80286 computer.

Has anyone else ever played the 1980 phenomena that was Pac-Man (fever song) using real quarters, perhaps in a physical arcade?

I first got on to the Internet in college in the 1990s just before commercial adoption. I was very excited in college to purchase an Apple Macintosh IIsi computer with an external Dovefax modem which included a digital voice answering machine. Later I was a founding board member of Silicon Valley Public Access Link (SV-PAL), a 501(c)(3) for Internet access in Santa Clara County started in 1994 which still provides service today.

Boat anchors are a term used for large, heavy, old, deprecated radios that might be heavy enough to keep a boat from floating away. Restoring old radios with vacuum tubes is a possible specialty of radio but not many people use them any more. There are a few questions in the licensing exams about vacuum tubes but I think they should be removed.

Stan Benson

My grandfather, Stanley Benson, was also K6CBK until he went silent key in 1975. He got his call sign in 1954. He worked as a radio engineer, then at Lockheed, and was a member of the first Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio (OSCAR I) team that launched in Dec, 1961 shortly after Sputnik 1 was launched in 1957. For 20 days signal reports were collected as it transmit "HI" in morse code until the end of the mission. Stan's name appears on the OSCAR wikipedia page, several times in the Feb 1962 QST (pages 13, 14, 18, 20) including article "Honor Roll of Oscar Participants" and 73 magazine (page 29). Even today there is a restored, operational backup copy of OSCAR-1 broadcasting "HI" (video) in morse code from ARRL HQ in Newington, CT on 145 MHz. Lance Ginner (K6GSJ) gave a 2011 talk in San Jose about his experiences on the team including OSCAR satellites including OSCAR eight. Many more satellites followed (116+) that are now managed by AMSAT. Gene Root was the first president of the Lockheed radio club. Stan served as president of the club. The picture is from 1971. He passed away in 1975. If you knew him and read this it would be great to connect.

Quantum Effects

The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena,
it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence. -- Nikola Tesla

The TL;DR version is that my best advice to anyone interested in any level of technology is to watch the 2023 documentary The Lost Century (trailer, full documentary, tubi), CE5 New Frontier of Contact and 2023 documentary Breaking the Science Barrier (trailer). As far fetched as this may sound to some people there is overwhelming evidence that technologies based on advanced physics have been actively suppressed for decades. Willful ignorance is far more unbelievable now. We need to get past ignorant denial by scientists and amateur radio and look toward wise, courageous people to guide us. The most informed people I know or have read about in science and technology are well aware of this. Progress must no longer be blocked. This is the most important national security issue in the history of the United States. It should not be interfered with by rogue elements.

As long as people are arguing about lights in the sky they will not ask about man made alien reproduction vehicles (ARV) UFOs, zero-point energy, electromagnetic gravitics and faster than light communication based on advanced, illegally classified physics and confiscated patents.

Suppressed technologies include solutions to:

The New Paradigm Institute introductory short film to the right (youtube 20 min 14 sec) premiered 02 Sep 2025 gives a good overview.

The second Global Disclosure Day (youtube video 4 hours 9 min) took place 19 Oct 2025. (trailer 1 min 47 sec) The host was Sara Nelson, Executive Director of the Romero Institute. A spotify podcast released 16 Oct 2025 introduced the plan for the event. Recently retired Senate Armed Service Committee staffer Kirk McConnell is introduced and gives an interview from 59:34 to 1:07:52 during the four hour video. Experiencer Chris Bledsoe closed out talking about a message told to him tied to Israeli and Iranian missles. The website is globalDisclosureDay.org. Mention was made about the US Space Disruptors Day 2024 with a web page at shoshinworks.com/events talking about government & private investments in startups.

Another organization exploring beyond traditional physics with many researches, co-founded by Edgar Mitchell, is noetic.org (youtube, origins) in Novato, CA.

A great overview of quantum technology was released on the pbs.org website in Nov 2024 (yet expires Dec 2024), Nova season 51 episode 14 on Decoding the Universe: Quantum (also youtube 54 minutes).

The views of the Lost Century and Breaking the Science Barrier are not yet supported by the mainstream scientific consensus. As much as society has been convinced to instantly dismiss the possibility, the ties are strong from advanced, suppressed technologies to unidentified flying objects. Given the credentials and evidence supporting these views I believe they will become mainsteam soon. The evidence continues to accumulate, with increasingly regular stories appearing in mainstream news outlets. For me, after listening and checking many references I think "crazy" is far better assigned to the status quo. Continuing to ignore growing evidence and continuing to misinterpret related media coverage that has already revealed parts of these stories again and again is more crazy than the views represented above.

It is not hyperbole to say that we do not live in a democracy as long as secrets of this magnitude are being suppressed. Gross economic greed continues. There can be no peace on this planet without justice. There can be no justice, social or otherwise, when half the population of the planet is required to live in abject poverty as a result of the energy system.

Climate change denial is absurd. The human race is not alone in the universe. Strangely, these are very connected via an incredible web. Fear, uncertainty and doubt have been used very effectively for a long time.

In Dec 2023, the US House, the US Senate and the President of the United States signed into law, as part of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), direction to the National Archives to create the UAP Records Collection (faq), Record Group 615. The definitions set forth outline a lot. Included are "copies of all Government, Government-provided, or Government-funded records relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena, technologies of unknown origin, and non-human intelligence (or equivalent subjects by any other name with the specific and sole exclusion of temporarily non-attributed objects)." Each federal agency is directed to review, identify, and organize each UAP record in its custody for disclosure to the public and transmission to the National Archives. A deadline was set for 300 days after 22 Dec 2023, the passing of the legislation. The deadline expired on 18 Oct 2024. Just 10 days before the deadline the Executive Branch's National Archives and Records Administration nara.gov (wikipedia) extended this deadline with AC Memo 04.2025 to 30 Sep 2025 without any explanation.

I have been criticized by many, including some very well intentioned friends, for including quantum information with radio on this page. The good news is these technologies exist to greatly improve the world. If there is even a chance that it is true, and I think there is now ample evidence to show that it is, should I be complicit with covering up the truth?

90% of media related to UFOs/UAPs that you may have seen or read growing up can now be seen as part of a long running campaign of misdirection trying to make people believe extra terrestrial / non human intelligences are a threat which they are not. Some people and many quite popular, scary, sci-fi movies may overtly and tacitly claim that ETs are a threat which they are not. The 1938 radio drama War of the Worlds, narrated by a 23 year old Orson Welles, sure scared some people.

A strong argument for the existence of extra terrestrial intelligence, specifically in the Milky Way Galaxy, is the 1961 Drake equation specifically and the 1950 Fermi paradox more generally. The judgement of a group was at least two to six active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations likely exist in just our galaxy of 100 billion to 400 billion stars and at least that number of planets. This Science and Technology Congressional Research Group was headed by Marcia Smith and presented to Jimmy Carter. There are an estimated 200 billion to 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.

Especially in the last century, science and physics continue to advance tremendously. We have seen advances in radio but is it just me or do things feel a bit stagnant? All of radio communication is still based on electromagnetic waves. What if more were possible? Results that challenge conventional physics have been widely reported. I am sure new understandings will some day, perhaps sooner than we can imagine, extend communication beyond electromagnetic radio waves to include faster than light communication (wayback, why did it change?). Remember, any sufficiently advanced technology is going to be indistinguishable from magic to the public.

In 2024 I finally saw a 2017 dutch documentary "The Mind Of The Universe". (website, duckduckgo). It describes a 2016 chinese satellite launched to prove quantum communication.

What is common today was inconceivable to telegraph operators in the era before radio. I hope that hams continue to apply their curious nature to explore fundamental sciences further as first explored in the 1620 Novum Organum by Francis Bacon, the Baconian method and the further developed scientific method. Some of the most thoughtful, brightest and well intentioned people I have met are licensed amateur radio operators. If even hams can not wrap our heads around all the data and evidence that is already available, what are the chances that the rest of the 99.8% of the US population will? If not now, when? If not us, who?

An interview and a 2020 talk with Stephen A Schwartz were eye opening. Schwartz has published seven books available on amazon. What do founders of our standard physics Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Wolfgang Pauli, Paul Dirac, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodenger all share? They all were materialists and they all came to believe that consiousness was causal and fundamental to physics based on their research. They might agree that the 25 meetings of the Council of Trent from 1545-1563 have created a false dichotomy in western societies. The council put out decrees around the separation of spirit and physics that have been adhered to. The schism was reinforced until other scientific disciplines were founded in the late 19th century that started showing evidence to the contrary. In the interview Schwartz also outlined the laws published in his 2015 book The 8 Laws of Change.

Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600 in Rome's Campo de' Fiori where there is now a statue in his honor. He is now thought of as a martyr or symbol for free thought and speech. The last person executed by the inquisition was in 1826 in Spain. Many sciences are showing that materialist science can not adequately account for all of the findings that diligent research has shown for many years in many ways. Meditation and nonlocal consciousness experiences, attaining and sustaining intentioned focused awareness, are foundational to all religions per the stories of Jesus, Budda and Mohammad. Roger Penrose wrote several books about quantum consciousness in the 1990s mentioned by Anton Petrov in a video about a new 2024 paper. Meditation is taught in martial arts dojos, catholic monestaries, buddhist monestaries, japanese monestaries and elsewhere. The collective intention of a large group of people is a powerful force.

How about Dark Energy and Dark Matter? This is another part of the Electric Universe set of ideas challenging mainstream physics. It's interesting that Dr. J.C. Ransom, a Plasma Physicist, an author and former aerospace worker, said that "part of the problem is that the scientists have taught what was taught in 1950 since 1950."

A 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn coined the term paradigm shift. (He never intended that modern society would use it as it is used now.) Now we seem to be facing just such a shift about the science of consiousness. Consciousness will soon be more widely recognized as a foundational part of science though this is still not the dominant view today. Especially younger scientists recognize that materialism as a model of science is simply not adequate. A growing literature of consciousness research shows that materialist science is not adequate to fully understand reality. The boundaries that western societies have about time and space will soon be recognized to not be as rigid as is commonly understood today.

The materialist viewpoint of science has also sidelined important and growing evidence that modifies some of the foundational theories in physics, specifically Kirchhoff's law (Stephen Crothers & Pierre Marie Robitaille) and the theory of relativity which led to quantum mechanics. The 1927 Solvay Conference on Physics in Brussels may have led many scientists away from observable physics. Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery by Rupert Sheldrake outlines ten dogmas of institutional science (see chart below), supposedly easily disproved with existing evidence. The title of the US book "Science Set Free" has a title outside the US "The Science Delusion". He gave an interesting TED talk that was banned. One possible explanation for the common, hardened materialist point of view is that electromagnetism simply came after and experimental results and earlier explanation. This is essentially the materialist world view that lacks personal meaning and personal connection. The commonly accepted world views were not dogmatically materialistic before the 17th century. Can untestable hypotheses, like those of astronomy and cosmology, be taken as serious parts of science at all?

Adam Curry (bio, search, instagram, x, entangled.org, scientificExploration.org wiki) appears in several of Dr Greer's documentaries is a researcher who worked at the former Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) Lab and Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) (noetic.org) co-founded in 1973 by former astronaut Edgar Mitchell. Dr Curry gave this 2018 talk (1 hr 40 min) that includes an experiment live on stage referencing the Global Consciousness Project and explains the now active, academically explored step beyond materialism, panpsychism.

The Institute for Venture Science or ivscience.org is trying to bring together ideas with growing amounts of data behind them. I first heard about it from Dr Gerald Pollack.

Scientists the world over since the 2010s have been grappling with the replication crisis. The replication/reproducability crisis of psychology, medicine and science is a serious finding that spurred the development of metascience. It seems many research findings in all fields are not reproducable like everyone assumed. Qualified people have tried and reported they fail. Only a small number of findings have been verified independently. Some say the statistical confidences need to be tightened but this does not explain the failure of many attempts to verify foundational research findings upon which many fields of science have been built.

Movies like the 2019 Ad Astra (film) with Brad Pitt and Donald Sutherland aim to limit the imagination of viewers, making all searching for life in the distant universe a dangerous and psychologically destablizing endeavor with no positive results, driving people crazy and providing a miliary nuclear weapon as a wonderful silver bullet solution to such dangerous problems. This is a terribly destructive message.

The 1996 film Chain Reaction includes a scene (youtube) where Morgan Freeman's character spells out to Keanu Reeves' character a similar scenario of hidden technological breakthroughts to benefit those in power.

Some may not know or may have forgotten about the intensity of the Cold War between 1947 and 1991 and all the direct and indirect effects it had. Mar 2024 saw the release of the Netflix nine part documentary Turning Point: The Bomb And The Cold War. One turning point was the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in northern Ukraine reported to lead to Perestroika which led to the 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall. The series gives context to the ongoing 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. It reviewed the history of nuclear weapons and cultural influences. It is amazing to me that 2,121 acknowledged nuclear weapon tests have been performed using 2,476 devices. These include tests on land, in the atmosphere, on barges, underwater and in space.

"I think the driving force, that was in us all that were aware of it, was fear. When you can't control things fear can ravage you."
-- Kathleen Bailey, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State 1985-1987

Movies and television shows that come to mind with negative or scary extra-terrestrial messages are the 1968 science fiction 2001: A Space Odyssey (also the 1984 sequel 2010), 1979 science fiction horror Alien by Ridley Scott with Sigourney Weaver (with nine or more follow on movies, the most recent Alien: Romulus in 2024), 1983 The Day After (seen by 100 million people when initially broadcast on ABC), 1987 Predator with Arnold Schwarzenegger (who served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 to 2011), 1989 The Abyss, 1993 - 2002 television show The X-Files (nine seasons, also a 2016 season a 2018 season, and the 1998 film The X-Files and 2008 film The X-Files: I Want To Believe), 1996 Independence Day with Will Smith and 1998 Armageddon with Bruce Willis. Much of the Star Wars (Darth Vader, Sith, Empire) and Star Trek (Borg, 8472) franchises are about dramatic threats of various kinds. The 2016 Arrival threatens a confusing disclosure. I watched these well before the 2017 New York Times article so I now understand these movies in a totally new way. The 2018 Ready Player One (wikipedia) animated dystopian cyberpunk film was directed by Steven Spielberg. Like many people I watched, enjoyed and was influenced by all manner of science fiction with interest. One's age and level of being "read in to" change how we take these in when watching them. Now I don't like to watch science fiction because of the contrasting, difficult, complicated and real implications of delayed disclosure. Some aspects are poorly hidden in plain sight and decades of brilliant counter intelligence efforts have made real disclosure across and and all forms of media, all the more difficult now.

Movies continue to be released relating to the topics of nuclear arms. 2023 saw the release of Oppenheimer.

There are neutral, mixed, comical or positive messages in films and television too. In 1956 Forbidden Planet was released. The 1960s science fiction Lost In Space was rerun for many years with dramatic scripts. 1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind had a somewhat hopeful message and was informed by Jacques Valle. There were 235 1970s science fiction films (list) and many books written each year. Each decade from the 1920s has a list of films and books back from the 1920s to today. It was followed by the movies like the 1982 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1984 Starman and the 2001 K-PAX. Don't forget the 1993 classic movie Coneheads (imdb, wikipedia) Movies with ensemble casts like the 2021 Don't Look Up and the 2023 Asteroid City are dramatic comedies. They hold up a mirror to help movie goers better recognize commonly held public sentiments as conflicting. Apple TV+ in 2023 released a comedy Hello Tomorrow! (imdb, wikipedia) about selling real estate on the moon, a scam system. Apple TV+ in 2024 released Fly Me To The Moon (imdb, wikipedia, website) about faking part of the moon landing footage. These seem like additional attempts at providing some level of public disclosure or at least familiarity with NHI related issues in a less threatening environment. None are fully informed but they seem to help chip away at negative public assumptions built up over decades.

Documentaries often share good information mixed with a message that aliens are a threat. James Fox released a documentary in Dec 2024 called The Program (imdb, trailer). 2024 saw the Amazon series Alien Disclosure Files (imdb). 2023 Netflix miniseries Encounters (imdb, trailer) Episode one talked about a 8 Jan 2008 event in Stephenville, TX ufo sighting corroborated by FAA public airspace flight data obtained after a FOIA request. FAA public airspace flight data is was made no longer available after this event. MUFON released a report about this event. 2021 saw the Netflix series Top Secret UFO Projects: Declassified (imdb). It talks about a 2013 event named Citizen Hearing and addresses the To The Stars Academy. It also mentions that the world still behaves as if all the evidence presented in many ways does not exist though it does. Some of the history reviewed is the 1947 Project Sign, 1949 Project Grudge, the 1952-1969 Project Blue Book, 1952 Washington DC UFO Incident and the 1953 Robertson Panel. In 1975 the Church Committee investigated the abuses of the CIA, NSA, FBI and IRS during a year of investigations into intelligence abuses. The 2023 The UFO Movie (imdb, BrianDunning.com/ufo) is available on youtube but like many documentaries now it comes to no conclusions.

In Einstein And The Bomb (2024) while fleeing from Nazi Germany to the UK I heard Einstein quoted "it is only men who are free who create the inventions and intellectual works that make life worthwhile." Einstein claimed to be not just a pacifist, but a militant pacificst. He also felt guilty by inaction and that pacifism without action was not enough to resist organized military force. If key technologies, inventions and patents about physics, communication, energy and gravity are actively suppressed nobody on earth is free either. He gave a speech in 1933, just before leaving London, experessing hope that the present crisis would lead to a better world. Just after the speech he set sail for Princeton, NJ, US.

If we follow the mainstream news organizations at all we see that reporting on UFO and UAP has increased dramatically in mainstream media since 2017. (reddit.com/r/UFOs is fun) Luis Elizondo and Christopher Mellon claims that ETs are a threat which they are not. The manmade, secret illegal government alien reproduction vehicles operated by men posing as ETs are a hugh threat to everyone but them. In 2019 pent up public curiosity around Area 51 lead to a Las Vegas, NV Storm Area 51 Rally initiated by a comedian's facebook meme. In 2023 Chinese spy balloons have been touted as threats. One of these turned out to be an amateur radio pico balloon. My friend Ian Kluft KO6YQ was quoted in that article. Ian helped me get my first amateur radio license. Josh KI6NAZ had an 8 minute video about FAA approved balloons with an overview of how they use Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) and Weak Signal Propagation Reporter (WSPR) and contrasted with ADS-B used by aircraft.

A 2021 series of four episodes UFO (imdb) was released by Paramount Plus. Like many shows of this type recently, there is a kernel of truth, reviewing mainstream news stories with real pictures and data, while interjecting mixed in sensationalism, military input, superstition, stigma, wild ideas, unproven claims, speculation, ridicule, contempt, dismissiveness, mystery, scary music, criminal charges, frustration, fear, uncertainty and doubt. Eye witness UFO testimonials are intermixed featuring people struggling to describe what they have seen. The first episode (52 minutes) is newly posted and free on youtube. The second episode (48 minutes) is newly posted and free on youtube.

A 2023 series of five episodes UFOs: Investigating The Unknown (imdb) was released by National Geographic. The first episode (42 minutes) was released on youtube in Feb 2024 with a scary title, The Global Threat. The sheer number of these types of shows is really amazing. None of them ever seem to talk about the important questions of who is in those UFOs, how they are powered or how they move.

Podcast videos like Down to Earth carry UFO/UAP news.

The National Geographic shows related to UFO/UAP seem sensationalist to me but they do replay on cable channels all the time.

60 Minutes released 10 May 2025 (54 min) a combined episode with clips from Mar 2025, Aug 2021 and Jul 2023.

60 minutes 16 Mar 2025 (13 min) aired (Title: How the US is confronting the threat posed by drones swarming sensitive national security sites, transcript) an investigation of the New Jersey drone sightings. Follow up including a six minute video and the 13 minute video story, is at cbsnew.com/60-minutes/overtime. There are multiple sightings over about five years including more than one General. The soon to be elected President of the United States promised to reveal the details after he was elected. On 28 Jan 2025 the White House Press Secretary had a statement from the President. An update on the New Jersey drones. After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons. Many of these drones were also hobbyists, recereational and private individuals that enjoy flying drones. In time it got worse due to curiosity. This was not the enemy. (8:16 of 46 min) This has been covered extensively by mainstream and many citizen journalists. This explanation may describe some of the sightings but was cleary not true in all cases. News Nation responded during the 23 Mar 2025 Q&A (24 min).

DrStevenGreer.com

I have discovered the work of Dr Steven Greer (DrStevenGreer55_youtube, drstevengreer-disclosure_youtube, drstevengreer_vimeo, drstevengreer.com, shop.siriusDisclosure.com, wayback siriusDisclosure.com). I then watched his documentaries and many of the youtube videos on his channel. The truth feels far stranger than the science fiction many of us have grown up watching.

In 2024 additional news came from the NewParadigmInstitute.org & Daniel Sheehan (the link jumps below on this page), a constitutional attorney who works with Dr Greer and has appeared in several of his documentaries.

I enjoy and grew up watching science fiction. Some stories are very aspirational like parts of the Star Trek universe. There are some newer, troublesome, very scary fictional stories being released on streaming services that encourage more people to think about extraterrestrial biological entities (EBEn) as alien threats.

The truth really seems far less believable than many fictions promoted (passively and actively) to the public. Why do I believe what Dr Greer and his team say? The evidence is mounting.

I have not served in the military. I thank those that have risked their lives to protect our country and people here and elsewhere. In the US, military and elected officials swear similar oaths of office/enlistment. It seems clear from the testimony of over 850 whistleblowers, quite a few available via youtube video interviews on Dr Greer's channel, that a domestic enemy exists in the "legacy group" the secret, illegal, rogue parts of our government and other governments hiding UFO/UAP evidence and technologies. Some people conflate this and other groups as the "deep state". The secrecy and deception are particularly unsettling and difficult for people to believe, especially by those that have served in a branch of the military.

There are agendas held by this legacy group who are also part of the intelligence communities. There are rough consensus about a geopolitical agenda, financial control agenda, militaristic agenda, technology control agenda and even an extremist fringe religious agenda. People of authority and responsibility have been influenced.

Those that have taken these oaths need to follow through by demonstrating the incredible courage needed to stand by these convictions even in the face of proven dangers that exist in doing so. A legal effort based on the RICO Act is now gaining momentum in parallel to legitimate government investigations.

When good people do nothing evil prevails. That's all it takes.

Dispositive evidence proves that US Presidents, US Congress, parts of the US Military, some US government contractors and many foreign governments have been systematically deceived for decades. Dr Greer became involved with these matters in the early 1990s. Even many people operating inside classified, top secret, special access programs (SAPs) are being deceived. Secrecy, public/private partnerships and compartmentalization are key tools. There is no legitimate US Presidential or US Congressional oversight of these secret, illegal government and government contracted programs. Some SAPs do have legitimate oversight, some do not. Technologies and related illegal operations need to be exposed and oversight restored. Secrecy is the biggest threat.

Many of Dr. Greer's documentary films and youtube channel videos document phenomena he's experienced on Close Encounters of the Fifth kind or CE5 expeditions. (Unveiling The Mysteries of UFO Phenomena part 1 50 min, part 2 48 min) Bijou, to the right is a picture taken during a CE5 event in Arizona in 2009. Kindness, just below Bijou, is another example.

Dr Greer's work is an amazing body of evidence. He has collected evidence that has come from numerous sources. The evidence demonstrates, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that both genuine extraterrestrial UFOs, extraterrestrials and manmade UFOs (operated by the secret illegal government) do exist today here on earth. It sounds fantastic and beyond belief, yet anyone who even casually looks at the growing evidence will be forced to admit these conclusions are fully substantiated. Discernment between genuine and man made UFOs is a critical part of the secrecy and is repeatedly used to obfuscate human operations masquerading as ET operations. People today have been taught all of our lives to dismiss claims about UFOs/UAPs and label those talking about them as conspiracy theorists (also a great 1997 film with Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts and Patrick Stewart). Just because you are a little paranoid does not automatically make you wrong.

Facts can be assessed in different ways and arguments can be made to draw opposite conclusions using identical facts. It seems many science based political issues face systematic disinformation. The truth feels improbable only because of secrecy and systematic disinformation developed around it. In truth, as most of us learned in school, a healthy scepticism is at the heart of the scientific method which has propelled our world to new heights via 322 BCE Aristotle, 1543 copernican aka scientific revolution and Isaac Newton's Principia (1687) which started the early 19th century Age of Enlightenment.

Disclosure of UFO/UAP has already happened in 2001, 2017, 2020, 2023 and continuing, some even admitted by our constitutional US Government.

I believe the general public has been systematically made to believe, in ways large and small, that aliens pose a threat to humanity. The "psychological warfare value" of the UFO/UAP issue is being used against the public and feels difficult to underestimate. Perhaps the most dangerous part of the UFO/UAP issue is the secrecy that seems to have been systematically developed around it because it tacitly sets up an environment allowing larger and more numerous secret actions to take place.

Since 16 Jul 1945 Trinity test (near Alamogordo, NM now named White Sands Missle Range) and 06 & 09 Aug 1945 (WWII kiloton detonations in primarily civialian targets Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Kokura was spared due to cloud cover.) nuclear activities on earth have garnered attention due to likely inadvertent damage to extraterrestrial intelligences. Bombs likely have done damage to the unseen as well as our material world. Tests in the USSR from 29 Aug 1949 (first USSR test RDS-1) and Nov 1 1952 US Mike Test and 1953 Soviet tests of megaton bombs on earth likely further damaged extraterrestrial intelligences. An entire city called Project Iceworm was built in the Greenland ice sheet by the US Army in he 1950s and 1960s. Camp Century was powered by a portable nuclear generator and dangerous waste was left behind. There were multiple purposes for the base. The timely release of movies such as Oppenheimer in 2023 glorify nuclear weapons, creating a backdrop of patriotism that further reinforces the scientific stories of the incomplete status quo. Patents and sciences have been systematically pruned over time to allow higher profits for a few at the expense of the many.

In all news outlets of Jun 2023, David Grusch is a verifiably credentialed US military intelligence officer who formerly served on the official, investigative, DoD office All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), formerly named the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF), formerly Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). He testified in an open hearing before congress but was unable to disclose all that he knew due to an ongoing internal military investigation. He's informally called a UFO whistleblower. His Jun 2024 interview is with Joe Rogan. (2 hr 41 min) At 1 hr 18 min he talks about why the US classifies things, Executive order 13526, USC section 1.4, E & F. The highlights of reporting aired in Jun 2023 was referenced several times which includes a later Pentagon response. A 2024 one year anniversary video (4 min 26 seconds) is a helpful summary. The full report video I watched is now private. While listening very carefully, all words of his interview do not agree with Dr Greer's assessments but many of the secrecy parts do agree. He talks about secret, illegal, covert human, black, unacknowledged special access, compartmentalized government projects with reverse engineered fantastical technologies using advanced physics. The reporting I saw, which may intentionally or unintentionally mislead, characterize UFO/UAP themselves (not the secrecy) as threatening to the public. Manmade technologies need to be fully separated from actual, genuine, "non-human intelligence" technologies and pilots. He has chosen not to disclose all the evidence he has. His allegations were deemed urgent and credible for intelligence committees by the Inspector General of the Intelligence Services of the US to investigate his allegations and the classified and unclassified evidence he has.

Being a sceptic is not the same as being in closed-minded denial, it's about following facts and learning the truth. Being a scientist should not be used as a cop-out, as a way to say "I don't think this can be true and if it is true I should know about it because I am so important." There is tremendous hope that these technologies will come to light after many decades of secret illegal government engineering. Not only are we not alone in the universe, but technologies exist to provide unlimited energy using the zero-point energy field. A further propulsion technology, eletromagnetic gravitics, explains how UFOs/UAPs move. Poverty worldwide could be eliminated in a generation so that the three billion people who need energy to cook their dinner can do so without destroying their local environment. If we all work together we can cross this huge, artificial, technological chasm and claim a beautiful, brave new world if we can take it.

Dr Greer has released his Disclosure Project Intelligence Archive dpiarchive.com. You can discover many reference documents and illustrations of what he covers in many of his other materials including the Cejka patents.

The CE5 apps for Apple and Android connect people and instruct how to make peaceful, direct contact now through group meditation and consciousness as described elsewhere by Dr Greer.

On 18 Oct 2023 there were two requirements passed by congress and signed into law. After 180 days, Feb 2024, a report and hearing was to be held. It was widely reported (Washington Post), very disappointing and didn't say much. As evidence is mounting (as of Apr 2024) that AARO actively obfuscates I didn't expect much from this. I had hoped to be surprised. After 365 days many agencies and contractors were required to turn over all UFO/UAP information they have. As I write elsewhere on this page, the deadline was pushed out to 30 Sep 2025 without any explanation.

As linked from Dr Greer's newsletter in Jun 2025, on 22 Jul 2018 in Petaluma, CA at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS, noetic.org) a workshop was held and recorded:
Part 1 The Holographic Universe 57 min,
Part 2 States of Consciousness and Levels of Civilization 66 min,
Part 3 CE-5 & Contact 57 min and
Part 4 Questions & Answers 40 min.

Dr Greer has released and been featured in many interviews, given talks and produced documentaries.

Dr Greer Interviews:
1. May 2020 (1 hr 42 min) with Patrick David
2. Oct 2022 (2 hr 42 min) with Curt Jaimungal and some details of physics
3. Feb 2023 (2 hr 19 min) with Shawn Ryan
4. Jun 2023 (1 hr 8 min) with Billy Carson
5. Jun 2023 (1 hr 4 min) with Frank Elaridi
6. Jun 2023 (1 hr 22 min) with Michael Sandler
7. Jun 2023 (1 hr 18 min) with Debra Silverman
8. Jul 2023 (2 hr 47 min) with Shawn Ryan
9. Sep 2023 Part 1 (11 min) with Cam Capone
10. Sep 2023 (1 hr 27 min) with Michael Sandler
11. May 2024 (47 min) with Blake Cousins annoiuncing the DPIArchive.com
12. Jun 2024 (1 hr 22 min) with Dana Carvey & David Spade starting at 27:25
13. Jun 2024 (1 hr 31 min) with Michael Sandler
14. Jun 2024 (14 min) clip and Danny Sheehan clip w/ Aaron Abke commentary
15. Jun 2024 (2 hr 34 min) with Patrick David again
16. Jun 2024 (16 min) talk about Black Budget Programs, UFO Crash Retrievals & Secret Base diagrams
17. Jul 2024 (16 min) levels of holographic consciousness and descriptions of technologies by Dr Greer
18. Jul 2024 (15 min) hope for the future and slides on types of "aliens"
19. Aug 2024 (16 min) Q&A on organized religion, lantern analogy vs light they contain and political corruption
20. Oct 2024 (1 hr 55 min) with Mike Thurston
21. Nov 2024 (20 min) with Chad Robichaux, a USMC Force Recon Veteran.
22. Dec 2024 (1 hr 28 min) speaks to UK/NJ drones and Battle for Disclosure documentary
23. Dec 2024 (1 hr 6 min) second interview with Dana Carvey & David Spade starting at 5:10
24. Dec 2024 (5 min) Newsmax interview
25. Dec 2024 (3 hr 35 min) released 21 Dec, London event was filmed 08 Sep 2024
26. 15 Jan 2025 (1 hr 23 min) Dr. Steven Greer Podcast Episode 1
27. 17 Jan 2025 (1 hr 16 min) Dr. Steven Greer Podcast Episode 2
28. 19 Jan 2025 (56 min) Dr. Steven Greer Podcast Episode 3
29. 26 Jan 2025 (64 min) Dr. Steven Greer Podcast Episode 4
30. 5 Feb 2025 (59 min) Dr. Steven Greer Podcast Episode 5, 324 pg briefing
31. 17 Sep 2013 (3 hr 11 min) Art Bell interview recorded on SiriusXM
32. 28 Apr 2020 (10 min mashup) with over 10,000,000 views on Be Inspired
33. 14 Feb 2025 (62 min) Dr. Steven Greer Podcast Episode 6 - Catastrophic Disclosure
Described is a letter to the President from Greer dated 09 Feb 2025 that advises "The following Executive Orders are urgently needed."
* Explicit Whistleblower protection specifying both legal amnesty and personal security.
* An Executive Order authorizing a TS-SCI SAP with significant funding currently configured under law enforcement to stand down these illegal operations and especially use of electo-magnetic pulse weapons (EMP) currently being used against NHI craft as these actions imperil the future of humanity.
* An Executive Order requiring all such UFO/UAP operations to be fully disclosed within 6 months or those responsible will be vigorously prosecuted.
* An Executive Order to authorize an advanced diplomatic team to make peaceful contact with the NHI civilizations.
* An Executive Order authorizing the review and release of Advanced Technology (AT) held by this criminal organization that would create total energy independence for ths US and would begin a new energy economy with which the US would lead the world economically.
34. 14 Sep 2024 (1 hr 39 min) Dr. Steven Greer interview by Chad Robichaux on the The Resilience Show (TRS) podcast episode 024
35. 19 Feb 2025 (11 min) Dr. Steven Greer interview clip of Col. Ross Dedrickson, USAF Ret.
36. 21 Feb 2025 (2 hr 9 min) Dr. Steven Greer speech from Jun 2023 with testimony from Steven Digna Jr, Michael Herrera and DC Long.
37. 26 Feb 2025 Dr. Steven Greer full interview (2 hr 27 min) by DJVlad of VladTV for his members. Public premiere 25 Mar 2025 Clips include: 1. (5 min), 2. (4 min), 3. (3 min), 4. (8 min), 5. (10 min), 6. (3 min), 7. (7 min), 8. (4 min), 9. (3 min), 10. (4 min), 11. (6 min), 12. (3 min), 13. (3 min), 14. (5 min), 15. (4 min), 16. (7 min), 17. (3 min), 18. (7 min), 19. (10 min), 20. (4 min), 21. (3 min), 22. (5 min), 23. (6 min), 24. (7 min) and 25. (7 min).
38. 17 Feb 2025 (3 hr 12 min) Dr. Steven Greer interviewed by Danny Jones
references the 2013 Mirage Men debunking & counterintelligence documentary available for streaming on tubi.tv.
39. 06 Mar 2025 (54 min) Dr. Steven Greer interviewed by Khloe Kardashian
40. 31 Dec 2024 (38 min) Dr. Steven Greer interviewed by Charlie Kirk on his podcast
41. 17 Mar 2025 (85 min) Dr. Steven Greer Podcast Episode 7 - What Does Elon Know?
42. 17 Mar 2025 (102 min) Dr. Steven Greer interviewed by Alex Jones
43. 24 Mar 2025 (56 min) Dr. Steven Greer Podcast Episode 8 - Current Events, Consciousness
44. 01 Apr 2025 (2 hr 2 min) Dr. Steven Greer interview by Chad Robichaux, a USMC Force Recon Veteran on the The Resilience Show (TRS) podcast episode 051
45. 03 Apr 2025 (54 min) Dr. Steven Greer Podcast Episode 9 with Michael Herrera by Michael Mazzola.
46. 10 Apr 2025 (3 hr 39 min) interview of Dr Greer by a somewhat contentious Jesse Michels.
47. 20 Apr 2025 (56 min) Dr. Steven Greer Podcast Episode 10, excerpt from the CE-5 Cruise 10 Apr 2025.
48. 09 Jul 2025 (62 min) interview by Blake Cousins
49. 13 Sep 2025 (97 min) Dr Steven Greer Podcast with special guest Jon Stewart, comments after House hearing 09 Sep 2025.
50. 04 Oct 2025 (67 min) Gaia interview announcing a live Colorado event GaiaSphere 08-09 Nov 2025: UAP Disclosure & CE5 Contact.
51. 19 Oct 2025 (82 min) Dr Steven Greer Podcast Episode 12 with Ashton Forbes.
52. 20 Nov 2025 (64 min) Dr Steven Greer Podcast Episode 13.
53. 26 Nov 2025 (56 min) Dr Steven Greer Podcast Episode 14 on the new Age of Disclosure documentary by Dan Farah, aka The Age of Deception. There is little new information provided that was not part of the 2001 or 2024 disclosure events at the National Press club. We are not alone is an important message. Denying the reverse engineering and human operations of 80+ years sets up people watching to be tricked again and again.
54. 15 Dec 2025 (50 min) Dr Steven Greer Podcast Episode 15.
55. 25 Jan 2026 (61 min) Dr Steven Greer Podcast Episode 16.
56. 21 Feb 2026 (70 min) Dr Steven Greer Podcast Episode 17.
57. 25 Mar 2026 (62 min) Dr Steven Greer Podcast Episode 18.
58. 25 Mar 2026 (77 min) Aubrey Marcus interviews Dr Steven Greer.
59. 04 Apr 2026 (16 min) Benny Johnson interviews Dr Steven Greer.
60. 07 Apr 2026 (5 min) NewsMax & Finnerty interviews Dr Steven Greer.
61. 22 Apr 2026 (1 min) excerpt, Rob Lowe interviews Dr Steven Greer.
62. 24 Apr 2026 (67 min) Dr Steven Greer Podcast Episode 19.
63. 08 May 2026 (130 min) 25th Anniversary of 2001 Disclosure Project Press Conference National Press Club Event attempted to be drowned out my www.war.gov/ufo release of over 160 documents.
64. 09 May 2026 (3 min) Newsmax Rob Schmidt interviews Dr Steven Greer.
65. 19 May 2026 (52 min) DeVory Darkins interviews Dr Steven Greer.
66. 20 May 2026 (6 min) djvlad interviews Dr Steven Greer, part 1. Also see parts 2 (3 min), 3 (4 min), 4 (10 min), 5 (9 min), 6 (6 min) & 7 (9 min).
67. 23 May 2026 (65 min) Dr Steven Greer Podcast Episode 20, Strategy and Tactics of Disclosure.

Use this youtube search to find more.

Talks:
2018 Boulder, CO parts 1, 2 and 3 Q&A

Documentaries & Shows:

More public information is available from Dr Greer's websites. Taken together, there is a rich amount of dispositive data, more than is available for some medications prescribed to US patients.

As mentioned by Dr. Greer, the To The Stars organization and Academy aka TTSA were founded by Jim Semivan, former senior CIA Intelligence Officer, Hal Puthoff and Tom DeLonge of Blink-182. Other key people include Luis Elizondo, Steve Justice, Chris Mizer and Christopher Mellon. They produced a 2019 and 2020 History Channel series Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation. The History Channel also shows The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch and Ancient Aliens. Promoting pseudoscience with fiction and Gish gallop seem like good ways to obfuscate any belief that advanced secret illegal government scientific discoveries might already exist.

Quantum mechanics and it's effects have been explored by physics since 1900 with "modern" theories exlaining wave-particle duality developing in the 1920s. Now fields exist such as quantum computing, quantum information theory. Phenomena are being explored as quantum entanglement (as announced 11 years ago from work at a lab in Delft, NL sponsored by Microsoft), nonlocal phenomena, johnson-nyquist noise (hackaday), and spooky action at a distance which was famously postulated in 1935 by Albert Einstein and in 1964 by John Stewart Bell. Topics convered in mainstream science journals in the 1950s are no longer pursued at all.

Dr Greer and others clearly describe vacuum energy also called zero-point energy. Max Planck introduced the idea of zero-point energy and published papers between 1911 and 1913 with interest from Albert Einstein and assistant Otto Stern. Walther Nernst in 1916 proposed that empty space is filled with energy. It was proven in the 1950s by Casimir. NASA quietly confirmed this in 2014 in their Eagleworks Labs.

The link in the previous paragraph to Eagleworks in the Zero-Point_energy article is a link to a heading. Heading "Space travel and gravitational shielding" was renamed to "Space travel and unconventional approaches". A whole paragraph of text was added denying the connection between Zero-point energy and quantum theory from the same IP address.

Mass and inertia canceling (anti-gravity) electrogravitics propulsion were controlled by some humans since Oct, 1954 according to a whistleblower that saw a classified paper in a vault stating it. Gravity drives were openly and widely reported in 1950's scientific and aerospace journals. The science has not been publicly expanded upon. I hope these technologies are someday accepted and harnessed without interference from anyone including unacknowledged SAPs.

So what does consciousness have to do with all of this? It turns out, quite a lot. In 1933 Erwin Schrodinger was awarded the Nobel prize in Physics for his equations. His linear partial differential equations provide a way to calculate the wave function of a quantum-mechanical system and how it changes dynamically in time. He postulated that the number of minds in the universe is one. The Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind (CE5) contact protocol is based on group meditation. This is a human initiated contact with extraterrestrials or extraterrestrial biological entities (EBEN). Hundreds of CE5 contacts have been recorded, documented and released to the public, some in documentaries. The Sirius documentary, the Gaia series and the other documentaries share the best parts of the evidence they have accumulated.

As mentioned in the 2013 documentary Sirius, Ben Rich of the Lockheed Skunkworks gave a talk at UCLA saying that he had the technologies to send ET home. After a speech he was speaking with a student, Jan Harzan. Ben asked the student "How do you think ESP works?" Jan responded "all points in space and time are connected." Ben Rich confirmed "That's how it works,".

The speed of light is far too slow to communicate over vast distances such as between stars and between galaxies. This can be explained by the use of dimensions we can not yet access except in classified, compartmentalized, covert, secret illegal government projects.

Various human experiences and research, developed as separate bodies of knowledge, will need to be woven together as we learn how they connect and what principles underlie them. The laws surrounding transdimensional physics, consciousness and thoughts using resonant high voltage electrical frequencies have been the basis of classified advances in science for decades. Dr Steven Greer has witnessed advanced health technologies in a classified project. Innate abilities in humans may not yet be well developed by most people, but augmentation technologies already exist in some covert projects. Disclosed projects include SRI projects (2019 documentary Third Eye Spies) with Dr Russell Targ and others. In the Princeton PEAR lab, research by Dr Robert Jahn (now icrl.org) and others used quantum random number generators that show they are affected by human thought intentions. The structures of water memory have been found and documented to be altered by thoughts.

Superfluidity of helium might provide a good analogy for our society. Coherence of one percent of the total may be a tipping point before the whole becomes coherent. There is some evidence to suggest such effects.

Army Colonel Phillip Corso (retired) wrote The Day After Roswell book described in this interview. In 1947 as a young Colonel he was the post duty officer. He was in charge of his post between Roswell and Wright-Patterson AFB. He observed a recovered pilot's ET body and later in his career saw the autopsy reports. In the CE5 documentary, Colonel Corso described to Dr Greer a 1957 encounter with EBEN asking him to turn off the radar and related systems used against their ET vehicles. Colonel Corso drove out in a Jeep, met them and asked "What's in it for me?" The response was "A new world if you can take it." The details are relayed by his son in this interview.

An interview with mortician Glen Dennis in Roswell, NM describes his 1947 colleague who assisted in an autopsy of a recovered pilot's ET body. First Lieutenant Haut testified about the Roswell press release.

Morphogenic fields are how the body guides the formation of organs out of cells. Likewise we all play our own roles in the human organizations in which we participate. The word "organization" even connotes this relationship.

Hundreds of patents and scientific inquiries have been confiscated, sequestered, witheld from the public and suppressed, sometimes ruthlessly. One confiscated patent provides more efficient solar panels as described in The Lost Century. Other patents related directly or indirectly to zero-point energy and electrogravitics. Due to the nature of secrecy it is impossible to know for sure, but even from what is known we have lost a century's worth of scientific advancement and innovation that would have saved countless lives and prevented untold destruction and suffering around our planet.

Stanley Meyer had a car that ran on water. He died outside a Cracker Barrel saying "They poisoned me."

Floyd "Sparky" Sweet had a vacuum triode that produced 223 kilowatts. After numerous death threats and a burgulary he died just after a visit by two strange men.

Thomas Henry Moray had a device in the 1930s that produced 50 kilowatts. After multiple death threats he died due to a gunshot wound.

C. E. Amman had a 1921 electric car that needed no fuel.

USAF Lt Col Charles L Brown's lab was destroyed after proposing a device that gave cars 20% greater efficiency by treating the air intake of any car.

What may be the world's biggest problem? Powerful psychopaths according to Professor Brian Klass who wrote a book, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us.

There are efforts to normalize the thought of aliens as a threat to national security and justify more spending on things like the Space Force. The worst case scenario is for people to be willing to be led like sheep. There is an antidote to the top down, pro-war, centralized control and power promoted as national security. Wider disclosure of extraterrestrial/non-human intelligences and their technologies can be done peacefully and in an enlightened way. Agency (philosophy, the capacity to act) and active participation are needed to prevent the passive status quo to roll over the society like a tsunami.

Dr Steven Greer's home is down the road from Thomas Jefferson's farm. This could be "the next american revolution" of peaceful disclosure in the hands of "we the people." The purvue to directly contact extraterrestrial intelligences should not be ceded to people that do not have peaceful intentions. The CE5 protocols, allowing people to directly invite contact, are well documented.

National Press Club Disclosure Events

Our representative US government disclosure actually has taken place in ways large and small though not officially and consistently from the President of the United States. People reasonably ask when first discovering these complex issues, why don't aliens simply land on the White House lawn and open diplomatic relations? The reason is likely that people with malevolent intent could quickly make such an event appear to be an alien invasion, especially if they supplement genuine extraterrestrial activity with their covert man made alien reproduction vehicles. It is our own responsibility to regain control of such illegal activities. It is very likely that genuine extraterrestrial diplomatic relations have already been intercepted in the past. This is why efforts continue to take place promoting direct contact from the earth's population via invited contact with extraterrestrials, so called close encounters of the fifth kind (CE5). Two events stand out in Washington DC that took place to inform the public. Credible, first hand eyewitness testimony has been given at two National Press Club events held by Dr Steven Greer.

The third 2026 National Press Club event held by Dr Greer was on 08 May 2026. "Coincidentally" over 160 documents were released from war.gov/ufo the same day. The event emphasized the public information released via dpiarchive.com with terabytes of data from Dr Greer released in his book, documentaries and more. He reviews recent news and addresses counterintelligense efforts including gaslighting about alien hybrid breeding programs and rumors about demons leaked by VP JD Vance and others. Programmed life forms (PLF) are man made "frankenstein" alien DNA with some human DNA. These include what we hear about "greys" and "reptilians" which are manufactured. Recently I saw a TV news spot about illegal aliens, the human kind, using similar words that do not describe peaceful extraterrestrials. Speakers giving testimony offering to do so again in sworn testimony before congressional hearings were:
1. Michael Herrera, US Marines, retired
2. Jaime Maussan, Mexico, holds the Buga sphere
3. Roderick Castle, US Marines, Retired
4. Randy Anderson, US Army Green Beret, Retired
5. Mike Bautista, US Army Green Beret, Retired
The tic-tac is made by Lockheed, a reverse engineered vehicle. Several images were shown during the video. Also discussed was the orb recovered in Colombia, South America near the city of Buga and studied near Mexico City. The image shows the proto-sanscrit writing and a circuit board type design though the perimeter is not pictured containing openings around the center. It has been shown to contain microscopic fiber optics embedded in resin dated to 12,560 years old. It may be the first ET artifact that remainds in the hands of private citizens. There was an attempt steal it. Some of the test results of the metal material and resin came in after the Gaia video.

The second 2023 National Press Club event held by Dr Greer and speakers was in 2023 Conference (removed) Sat and Sun, 10 & 11 Jun, then on 12 Jun a second National Press Club event (rumble video, full youtube, webinar removed, schedule removed, press page) with six witnesses plus Dr Greer. To support the effort with your members of congress, letters can be easily sent to your US Representative, two US Senators and the US President about the event.

Lt Col Donald Heckert is a USAF veteran who spoke at the second National Press Club event. He was a pilot with high security clearances.

Michael Herrera is a US Marine who spoke at the second National Press Club event. He tells his story of what he saw that he should not have seen. He was interviewed in Jul 2023 by Sean Ryan.

Steven Digna Jr is a US Army Seargent veteran stationed at Ft Irwin, CA who spoke at the second National Press Club event. He was disabled while on duty and a victim and witness of a Raytheon alien reproduction vehicle. His experience at the live fire training range where he worked verify that some of these UAPs are indeed owned by the USAF. He shared his first hand experiences with more than one of these vehicles.

DC Long is an Army veteran who also spoke at the second National Press Club event. He tells his story of what happened to him and his father after refusing to sign an NDA related to levitation technologies. He was interviewed in Jul 2023 by Sean Ryan.

Evidence from Eric Hecker (Robert Earl White and Sean Ryan Jul 2023 interviews), a whistleblower stationed at the South Pole, confirms that amazing science is being conducted there. He worked there for Raytheon and spoke at the second National Press Club event. There are other neutrino detector capabilities so far undisclosed. He claims the detector is also a directed energy weapon that has initiated earthquakes on earth including one in Christchurch, NZ. It is also a faster than light communication system based on quantum entanglement. He presents his story on his website deciphering.tv. He gave another speech released 28 Jan 2025 (youtube, 63 min) titled The Real Truth in Antarctica for snippy.space talking about his experience. The informative part is just after 41 minutes. Topics include Havana Syndrome, Gary McKinnon, IceCube Neutrino Observatory (search, wikipedia), causing earthquakes and more.

Attorney Derek Garcia spoke at the second National Press Club event. He outlines RICO efforts to bring illegal operations to court and restore constitutional oversight of them.

The first 2001 National Press Club disclosure event was held Wed, May 9, 2001, full youtube). Disclosure clearly took place with twenty two military, intelligence, government, corporate and scientific witnesses to establish the reality of UFOs and corresponding advanced energy and propulsion technologies.

US House of Representatives & Senate Hearings

Each of these hearings are somewhat helpful because they refocus public attention and often validate legitamate concerns, directly or indirectly, about UAP. Threats are often a focus which help provide additional military funding, some of which may be diverted to unacknowledged special access programs (USAPs) that benefit. Until evidence is finally presented about the extraterrestrial pilots and the reasons why they come here to our planet even the strongest staatements made by these witnesses will not get the attention they deserve and people will continue to be harassed and threatened after testifying. All of these hearings can and should quickly do more. Getting people up to speed from no background in these topics can be a feat of mental gymnastics many people simply are not ready to take.

The 2025 Sep House hearing of the Oversight Committee was held Tues, 09 Sep 2025 (live video 2 hr 52 min). The chair was Rep Luna of FL who gave a strong statement about whistleblowers and the ranking member Rep Crockett of TX gave a disappointing opening statement denying the validity of NHI. Mr. Burlison talked about additional testimonies entered into the record that were provided via Dr Steven Greer: Michael Herrera, Rodrick Castle, Randy Anderson, Steven Digna and three others. • the five witnesses from left to right were
1. Mr. Jeffrey Nuccetelli, USAF Veteran and career national security, law enforcement and public administrator. (document)
2. Chief Alexandro Wiggins, US Navy speaking on his own behalf (document)
3. Mr. George Knapp, award winning television journalist in Nevada with KLAS-TV introduced by Ms. Titus (document)
4. Mr. Dylan Borland, USAF Veteran (document)
5. Mr. Joe Spielberger, Sr Policy Counsel at the Project on Government Oversight (document)

The 2024 Nov Senate hearing of the Armed Services Committee was held Tues, 19 Nov 2024 (full video, 34 minutes senate.gov page) just a week after the second House hearing. This hearing's focus was on a UAP report (PDF, 18 pages) released 14 Nov 2024. The previous directors of AARO were Sean Kirkpatrick and Timothy Phillips. Testimony was given by the AARO office's new director, Dr. Jon T. Kosloski. He was appointed in Aug 2024. The chair was Senator Gillibrand and the ranking member Senator Ernst. A private classified briefing was held, then this open hearing. A new term was used, Unidentified Aerial Systems (UAS) that are either sensors used to detect UAP and/or groups of drones. Another term used to categorize reverse engineered technologies without specifying what they are is Technology of Unknown Origin (TUO). Dr Kosloski said "it is important to underscore that to date, AARO has not discovered any verifiably evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology." This directly contradicts testimony provided by people to AARO and the two House hearings just after the second house hearing. A famous "go fast" video was supposedly resolved by AARO to their own satisfaction as a parallax error. A widely reported series of incursions was discussed in the closed and open sessions of the hearing that took place over a USAF base in Langley, VA over a period of 17 days in Dec 2023. The base houses F-22 airplanes. The objects were varied in number, size and shape and were not identified. Their origins and objectives remain unknown. New UAP sensors and UAP reporting procedures were discussed several times during the hearing.

The second US House hearing was Wed, 13 Nov 2024 before the US House Joint Subcommittee hearing titled "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing The Truth". Each of these hearings are important because it refocuses public attention and validates legitamate concerns about UAP even if the threats are focused more than the pilots and the reasons why they come here to our planet.
• Here is Dr Greer's 21. Nov 2024 (20 min) interview with Chad Robichaux released Nov 26 that refers to the second UAP House hearing.
• hearing announcement, web page includes written testimony and wrap-up
• full hearing video (2 hr 26 min)
• Immaculate Constellation PDF document distributed during the hearing
• the four witnesses from left to right were
1. Dr. Tim Gallaudet (Ross Coulthart interview released a few days before, written testimony)
2. Mr. Luis Elizondo (page section below, written testimony)
3. Mr. Michael Shellenberger (wikipedia, written testimony) and
4. Mr. Michael Gold (bio at planetary.org, written testimony)
• reference was made to the poorly received NASA UAP study
• rally after hearing (39 min) held by the New Paradigm Institute and the Mutual UFO Network (mufuon.com, @mufonhq).

The first US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability public hearing was 26 Jul 2023 youtube (2 hours 34 minutes) with three witnesses from left to right:
1. Mr Ryan Graves, former Navy Lieutenant, Exec Dir of Americans for Safe Aerospace
2. Mr David Grusch, former Sr Intelligence Officer (claims), and
3. Mr David Fraver, former Navy Commander from the tic-tac videos.
The tic-tac was actually a man-made UAP by the Lockheed Skunk Works. It seemed very helpful and ground breaking for the US House of Representatives but was still incomplete. The highlights of reporting aired in Jun 2023 which referenced the hearing several times and a Pentagon response. The full report video I watched is now private.

The latest investigation announced 11 Feb 2025 (16 min) is part of the House Oversight Committee chaired by Rep Comer. It is called the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets and led by Rep Anna Paulina Luna that capitalizes on the US Presidential executive order to declassify files concerning the assassinations of JFK, RFK and Dr MLK Jr. It will investigate the 1963 assassination of JFK, 1968 assassination of RFK, 1968 assassination of Dr MLK Jr., UAP, USO, the Epstein client list, the origins of Covid-19 and the 9/11 files. The task force will be made up in part by Republican Representatives Burchett, Boburt, Burlison, Crane, Gill and Mace. The first meeting will be in Mar 2025. At time index 9 min 41 seconds Rep Luna says she wants to acknowledge from a government perspective that
we are not alone.

NewParadigmInstitute.org & Daniel Sheehan

Harvard attorney Daniel (Danny) Sheehan is very involved in disclosure and appears in Dr Greer's documentaries. The New Paradigm Institute (NewParadigmInstitute.org, videos, resources) is a project of the Romero Institute (RomeroInstitute.org) law and public public policy center of Santa Cruz, CA. He has served as attorney in many cases for organizations including the New York Times and Jesuits of the Catholic Church.

Daniel Sheehan Interviews:
1. Jun 2024 (34 min) with Amber Yang (info)
2. Jun 2024 (1 hr 47 min) with James Landoli
3. Jun 2024 (2 hr 3 min) with Thomas Fessler
4. Sep 2024 (1 hr 16 min) with Jeffrey Mishlove
5. Oct 2024 (3 hr 16 min) Episode 245 with Julian Dorey
6. Oct 2024 (3 hr 29 min) Episode 246 with Julian Dorey
with twenty four excerpts and supplemented videos from his youtube clips channel (1, 2, 3, 4)
7. Oct 2024 (3 hr 16 min) Global Disclosure Day (NPI page)
8. Dec 2024 (1 hr 30 min) with a remarkable summary and updates
9. Dec 2024 (9 min) clip with his wife Sara Nelson and interviewer Amber Yang from a longer interview (40 min) by WantToKnow.info (videos @peersservice)
10. 20 Feb 2025 (2 hr 5 min) on That UFO Podcast with Andy (4 min excerpt)
11. 14 Mar 2025 (3 hr 30 min) on Debriefed Podcast.
12. 22 Apr 2025 (18 min) panel on the USS Hornet in Alameda, CA.

Use this youtube search to find more.

#DebateDisclosure was a non-partisan and bi-partisan issue attempting to get the issue asked about during presidential debates in 2024. Reigning in illegal activities will stabilize markets. The question asked to presidential candidates should be: do you support the passage of the 2024 Senate bill with the controlled UAP disclosure act? That 2023 NDAA Senate version included part of the Schumer/Rounds UAP Disclosure Act of 2023 PDF, 64 pages long and passed 17-0 by the Senate Intelligence Committee, but it was amended to remove some parts by the House (Republican Rep Mike Turner of Ohio and Republican Rep Mike Rogers of Alabama, perhaps Republican Rep Mike Johnson of Louisiana) and conference committee before it was signed into law. The senate version contained a seven page UFO/UAP "controlled disclosure campaign plan" to release information with a seven year sunset clause. The controlled disclosure campaign plan was not included in the 974 page NDAA that passed.

On 27 Sept 2024 Yale with the New Paradigm Institute hosted a teach-in event, "More Things in Heaven and Earth". (press release, NPI) The goal is to elevate the academic discourse surrounding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), commonly known as UFOs. Videos were posted of speakers Jim Garrison (22 min), Daniel Sheehan (49 min), Kevin Knuth (1 hr 25 min) and Stephen Brown. The event was sponsored by the Yale Student UFO Society, New Paradigm Institute and Visible College. Sheehan reminds us about the federal law that requires information about UAPs to be released to the National Archives by 18 Oct 2024. Zero-point energy, electromagnetic gravitics and faster-than-light communications were not covered.

An event sponsored by the New Paradigm Institute was a live stream Sunday, 20 Oct 2024 Global Disclosure Day. Dr Steven Greer was missing from the lineup. Just 10 days before the deadline the National Archives and Records Administration nara.gov extended this deadline with AC Memo 04.2025 to 30 Sep 2025 without any explanation.

The first have of this Mar 2024 video explains Daniel Sheehan's perspective on the incompatible views of Louis Elizondo vs Dr Steven Greer.

NewsNationNow.com & Ross Coulthart

Ross Coulthart is an Australian investigative journalist and author that has authored or co-authored six books and quite a few news items on UFOs and UAPs since 2021. He hosts the Need To Know podcast with American Bryce Zabel. He hosts Reality Check as a topic with NewsNation. He interviewed David Grusch who later testified before the US House of Representatives in 2023. He is also involved in the newly established 2023 Australian Non-Human Intelligence Research Institute nhir.org.

Ross Coulthart Videos:
1. Jun 2024 (1 hr 40 min) keynote of Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU) with a history of his UAP discoveries. The whole topic has been engineered to have a huge credibility chasm helping continue the secrecy. It is a long video but his own story as a very sceptic investigative journalist is compelling. The alignment of whistelblowers and investigations from the Army, Navy, Air Force, scientists, politicians and inteligence communities are all now openly accusing the unacknowledged special access programs (USAPs) of a decades long series of alien craft and alient pilot retrieval with reverse engineering. I am certain there are many conflated cases not all the same especially actual aliens versus human made alien reproduction vehicles. At the end of the Q&A session he lays out what is at stake. People have been murdered to keep this secret, the biggest secret in all of human history. The world would change overnight if this secret is released, that we are not alone in the universe. Nothing could transform humanity more than this realization.
2. Aug 2024 (21 min) Review of DNI announcement and AARO 2023 report with opinions of expert researchers.
3. Jun 2024 (34 min) Inside a Space Force base with Brian Entin.
4. Aug 2024 (1hr 13 min) MJ-12 document research.
5. Nov 2024 (57 min) retired Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, PhD.
6. 18 Jan 2025 (42 min) Whistleblower reveals UAP retrieval program; object caught on video | NewsNation account by Jake Barber, USAF Combat Controller. He gives first hand account of transporting an actual UAP vehicle crash retrieval, an egg shaped vehicle of non-human origin.
7. 19 Jan 2025 (1 hr 9 min) followup, Ross Coulthart exposes new UAP video and whistleblower: What's next? | Reality Check
8. 26 Jan 2025 (2 hr 47 min) full NewsNation interview by Jake Barber.
9. 15 Jan 2025 (1 hr 28 min) Donald J Trump Jr's Triggered podcast interviews Ross Coulthart.
10. 19 Feb 2025 (57 min) interview of Matthew Pines, a sharp analyst.
11. 23 Feb 2025 (5 min) NewsNation update of Jake Barber.
12. 02 Apr 2025 (85 min) NewsNation interview of Jake Barber and Matthew Pines outline their progress and frameworks.
13. 09 Sep 2025 (3 hr 27 min) NewsNation Reality Check, Full House UAP hearing with analysis.
(I have watched many others but not linked them)
14. 31 May 2026 (37 min) Ross Coulthart Q&A with Meagan Medick.

Use this youtube search to find more.

Jake Barber's skywatcher.ai (@SkywatcherHQ) scientific effort in the private sector has released several videos. Part 1 was released 28 Jan 2025. Part 2 was released 07 Apr 2025.

Jesse Michels also interviewed (3 hr 4 min) 30 Jan 2025 Jake Barber. (with 10 min clip and an 11 min clip)
Jesse Michels also interviewed for a second time Sammy @UAPGerb on 21 Feb 2025 (2 hr 26 min). The two ET/UFO/UAP/NHI youtube analysists compare their understandings of a huge number of different investigations spanning decades. Many claims are compared. Another channel mentioned was by Chris Ramsay @Area52Investigations.

The Sol Foundation.org

In Nov 2023 the Stanford schools of Engineering and Medicine and The Sol Foundation.org held a symposium about UAP. Seventeen videos from this conference were released on youtube in Feb 2024. It combines hard sciences, humanities and politics. While most speakers have earned Ph.D. degrees and are addressing the likely presence on the Earth of UAP, the real issues of who are in the UAP, where did they come from and why they are here are not covered. Some of the speakers have been characterized by Dr Greer as less than fully forthcoming about or even obfuscating what they might reasonably know about UAP. While helpful in a general sense, discussing issues after disclosure is accepted, wider acceptance seems necessary making some of these efforts feel somewhat premature.

A second conference was convened Nov 2024. The videos are being released starting in late Jan 2025 appended below through at least Mar 2025.

A third conference was convened Oct 2025 in Italy. The videos are being released.

Retired Army Reserve Col and current aerospace executive, Karl Nell spoke about the 2023 Charles Schumer Amendment to the National Security Funding Bill passed in Dec, a month after the symposium. The terms Technology of Unknown Origin (TUO) and Non-Human Intelligence (NHI) were introduced in the bill. It is apparently a push by legislators in the legitimate, constitutional government to plan and roll out a controlled disclosure of NHI. Mr. Nell has stated in Jun 2023 that the US government has retrieved a non-human craft. It sounds like additional disclosures are coming forward soon.

Another Nell May 2024 interview states that the there is "zero doubt" of non-human intelligences present on earth interacting with (some) humans. He is asked how can people in the audience come to the same conclusion. Regarding data he cites other high level people who are in a position to know have said the same thing: Paul Hellyer, Former Canadian Defense Minister, Haim Eshed, Former Israeli Space Security head, Chris Mellon, Dept Asst Secretary of Intel Louis Elizondo and David Grusch. Sen Marco Rubio, Sen Charles Schumer (both from the gang of eight) and Sen Mike Rounds have sponsored legislation looking for the whole truth about UAP. From a first principles perspective it is likely we are not alone in the universe. He gives many reason people may cite against disclosure and for disclosure. He cites a 2015 book by Eric Cline 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed for information about analogies between today and the Bronze Age collapse of human civilizations. NewsNation's Ross Coulthart provides further reporting on Karl Nell's talk with some additional insights. Heather of Nice People Talk also collects excerpts of Nell's talks with supporting video excerpts of Paul Hellyer (which I had not seen before), David Grusch, other US Legislators and other youtube interviews and asks some good questions.

Still going strong, Jacques Vallée (video) gave amazing anecdotal context, numerical context and deep understanding from his sixty five years of investigation. He explans why the UFO/UAP phenomena remains so mysterious for much of the public and the pentagon with an amazing graph. Half of his remarks are about a graph. The graph charts estimated curves along the category of strangeness vs. the number of reports out of ten observations. His two conclusions from the graph are: a) current analysis methods are insufficient and even blind and b) military analysis are highly relevant but only in a minority of cases hampered by severe selection criteria. Military assumptions around unknown threats greatly limit their possible investigations. A real danger lies in a lack of a wider research program that addresses life sciences, social realities as well as physical performance and military threats. This Oct 2022 video interview was also interesting to me.

Hal Puthoff Ph.D. (video), now CEO of Earthtech.org, among other things talks about a book published in Oct 2023 Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations. He cites the author and insider Under Secretary James Lacatski after a 2011 meeting in Washington, DC "the United States was in possession of a craft of unknown origin and had successfully gained access to its interior." Mr Nell, Mr Lacatsky, David Grusch, Jacques Vallée and Christopher Mellon are five among a growing number of claims that the US government already has recovered alien spacecraft and bodies. Dr Puthoff's Electrical Engineering Ph.D. was completed in 1967 at Stanford on laser spectroscopy and he went on to co-author papers on zero-point energy.

Another speaker is a Current Member of the Canadian Parliament Larry Maguire (video). While it is interesting to hear about the analogous Canadian politicial perspectives, how a government other than the US is trying to cope with the realities of non human intelligences, he does not reveal any new evidence. This is a global issue and other countries are wresting with it. Bad actors with advanced reverse engineered technology and tremendous resources breaking laws do not limit themselves within internatinal borders, they make use of borders for their advantage.

The talk by political science professor Jairus Victor Grove (video) stretched my mind around UAP politics with serious consequences. Beatriz Villarroel, Ph.D. (video) talks about detecting UAPs. Christopher Mellon (video) talks about the consequences of several types of disclosure. Conference organizers Garry Nolan, Ph.D. (video) talks about UAP material science and Peter Skafish, Ph.D. (video) talks about UAP Anthropomorphism. The symposium closing remarks were given by David Grusch (video).

Many of these speakers do not seem to understand yet that most of these eye witness testimonials represent objects linked to illegal activities, beyond legal government oversight, and should not be protected by legal agreements assumed to be under legal government oversight. Dr Steven Greer's Feb 2024 update part 1 video and part 2 video reinforce this conclusion. He also tells an amazing story that President Eisenhower actually met with non human intelligences just before he lost control of the military industrial complex and secret, illegal, top secret special compartmentalized information (TS-SCI) special access projects.

The talk by Timothy Gallaudet, Ph.D. (video) is "How the US Government's Apparent UAP Apathy is a Case of Misplaced Priorities". He is a retired Rear Admiral, US Navy and former administrator of NOAA. As a leader of astrophysicists his belief is that thinking we are alone in the universe is an incredibly arrogant position. He is on the board of Americans for Safe Aerospace. In May 2024 (two hour and twenty one minute interview, six minute preview) he appeared on the Shawn Ryan Show. Quite a bit of material is covered including references to a few books and references to other Sol Foundation speakers. A Ross Coulthart interview was released by NewsNation in Jul 2024. They cover the over-classification of NHI, an op-ed by Chris Mellon on over-classification and a blog post on Mellon's website about USN vs. USAF approaches as well as many related topics.

Iya Whiteley, Ph.D. (video) talks about experts intuitively knowing a field but how they are sometimes unable to verbalize their expertise to others. An example she describes is the ability to cope with returning from walking on the moon for those twelve astronauts. She is a psychologist and author working with pilots and astronauts. She cites a declassified paper where results of highly calibrated number generator instruments are affected by conscious thought. Her experience working with pilots to use new AI automation uncovered problems where planes were dropping out of the sky every single week until pilots were willing to talk about problems after a critical mass of trust was reached. This talk has potentially amazing impact for anyone skilled in a field such as computers or radio and those working closely with them.

Jeff Kripal Ph.D. (video) talks about the history of religions is a professor and author. He has convened Archives Of The Impossible twice at Rice University in Houston, TX. The Mar 2022 conference opening by Jacques Vallée and Mar 2023 conference opening by Jeff Kripal were interesting too. More videos from the conferences are available from the youtube channel @RiceHumanities for Mar 2023 and, soon, Mar 2024. Dr. Kripal talks about the scale, technology and religion of UFO phenomenon. He cites a book published in Sept 2023 They Flew: A History Of The Impossible.

Diana Walsh Pasulka, Ph.D. (video) is a professor of religious studies and author of at least three books. She reviews four parallel academic UAP research traditions. These traditions are invisible research programs, public scholarship ufology, academic study of UAPs and emergent UAP studies (aka UAP interdisciplinary studies).

Paul Thigpen, Ph.D. (video) is a Retired Catholic Professor of Theology and author of Extra Terrestrial Intelligence and the Catholic Faith. The UAP issue is multi-faceted.

Second Sol Foundation meeting, Nov 2024

1. Beatrix Villarroel (34 min) Civilian Astronomers
2. Jonathan Berte (27 min) Beyond Speculation
3. Alexander Wendt (32 min) The Last Humans: UFOs and National Security
4. Eric Davis, Kirk McConnell and Peter Skafish (46 min) on the Politics of Executive Branch UAP Secrecy
5. Avi Loeb (29 min) New Results from the Galileo Project
6. James Beacham (37 min) What Is Reality?
7. Eric Schrock and Peter Skafish (30 min) Widening the Information - Energy Spectrum
8. Garry Nolan and Matthew Pines (32 min) Standards of Evidence & UAP
9. Ryan Graves and Leslie Kean (32 min)
10. Tim Gallaudet (31 min)
11. Jeffrey Kripal and Karin Austin (23 min)
12. Peter Skafish and Leslie Kean (31 min)
13. Rizwan Virk (32 min)
14. Karl Nell and Garry Nolan (46 min)
15. Mitch Randall (19 min)
16. Jeffrey Kripal hosts Stephen Finley & Ted Peters w/ sound issues on UAP & Religion (35 min)

Luis Elizondo

Luis Elizondo is an amazing factor in the public awareness of UAP. He resigned in a letter to the Secretary of Defense from his military position. He maintains a security clearance and is a consultant with parts of the US government. In Aug 2024 he and Harper Collins published a memoir book named Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs. His book debuted at number one on the New York Times Best Seller list. He is often careful to explain what he knows and what he doesn't know but often emphasizes possible threats at the end. He embraces the unknown aspects of UAP without acknowledging what he must know are illegal, unconstitutional black projects with reverse engineered, manmade UAP which are the real threat. He has done many interviews.

Luis Elizondo Interviews:
1. Sep 2024 (1 hr 43 min) with Curt Jaimungal for the fourth time

Use this youtube search to find more.

George Knapp

George Knapp is an investigative journalist of UFO and UAPs working for a Las Vegas, Nevada TV station looking into UFO and UAP phenomena for over 35 years. He has broken several stories over the years that nobody else would pursue. He and others he works with and makes TV shows with make claims both for and against the threats of these phenomena since all are origins of them are unknown despite his investigative efforts stopping short of even logical conclusions that are not substantiated (yet) by government agencies here and abroad. I believe he often conflates several different groups of very different kinds of activities together under the heading of the unknown. In Nov 2024 Netflix relased a six part documentary series featuring George's work Investigation: Alien. Some of the people he talks with in his shows I have heard speak before. There are a whole crew of people that produce shows like Ancient Aliens on National Georgraphic that appear to give partial truths among threats and mysteries. These people may be genuine from their perspective but they feel very uninformed overall given the other research I have done.

Nov & Dec 2024 Drones Over the UK and US

Much speculation has been reported across many mainstream news outlets beginning in Nov. Relatively new terms like plasmoids seem to help furthering obfuscating real sightings mixed in with drones mixed with increased numbers of people seeing planets in the sky. Sightings are described as 2024_US_air_base_drone_incursions_in_the_United_Kingdom. Additional sightings are described as 2024_Northeastern_United_States_drone_sightings. In this MUFON Report a twitter post from an insider claims many of the SUV sized drones match the tens of thousands of drones sold to the Department of Defense used in the Ukraine war used to detect dirty nuclear bomb material. This video reasons that these events might be a psychological operation. This video from a US military drone operator reasons the drones may not be effectively deployed for their mission.

MUFON

The Mutual UFO Network was established in 1969 to scientifically study UFOs composed of citizen volunteers who investigate sightings. It claims 4000 members world wide. It generally has more of a focus on pseudoscience but I find it also contains some useful content. It publishes a monthly journal and holds an annual symposium. Their youtube podcast has accumulated many interviews including filmmaker Ron James released in Jun 2025 and provides an overview of contemporary UFO/UAP related activity. They discussed suppression of released UFO/UAP documentary film streaming via amazon that I experienced recently.

Dan Farah

The South by Southwest film festival (SXSW 2025) on 09 Mar 2025 saw the release of a film The Age of Disclosure (1 hr 50 min, website, wikipedia, imdb, youtube, search) Directed by Dan Farah (imdb, 7 Apr 22 min interview). It was re-released in November, 2025. It has interviews of 34 senior US Government officials but has not had a huge impact overall. It is a partial truth and a disinformation piece, disclosing a little information with a lot of unspoken and false spin. It is good that present and former US officials validate that we are not alone in the universe. The trouble is it leaves out all the other evidence regarding covert human operations. It leaves out zero-point energy, anti-gravity technologies and faster than light communication already in use in illegal and unconstitutional ways.

Megyn Kelly

Megyn Kelly covers the documentary The Age of Disclosure in her episode 1225 (07 Jan 2026, 1 hr 54 min, Grusch clip 1 13 min, Luna clip 2 8 min, Grusch clip 3 9 min) with guests David Grusch and Anna Paulina Luna.

Steven Spielberg

Thankfully Steven Spielberg is still at it. His world wide box office performances of feature films has surpassed $10.7 billion. While known for many of his most popular films in his filmography directing Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial he also directed Jurassic Park, AI: Artificial Intelligance, Minority Report and Ready Player One. He was executive producer of Back to the Future, Men In Black, Deep Impact, Transformers, Extant and Halo. His story telling has directly and indirectly shaped us all. The teaser (2 min) for Disclosure Day (website, imdb, official trailer 2 min, 12 Mar 2026 and final trailer 2 min, 27 May 2026 ) looks scary. You can faintly make out the clicking portion the talking by Emily Blunt includes the words "go seek it."
SXSW interview Mar 17, 2026 (58 min). The scheduled release date is 12 Jun 2026.

There seems to be more momentum growing in and around the release of Disclosure Day. I found this commentary (23 min) thought provoking.

Interviews worth watching giving more insight: fandango (12 min) 27 May 2026.
"<7:17 Spielberg> ... we needed the present tense. That was the essential part of our creating hopefully a belief system that the audience will say "Oh my god, this is here. This is happening."
"<11:38 fandango> When the day comes that we do get disclosure that aliens are real, how do you think that should be rolled out? and how do you think the infromation coiuld come out? Cuz we know how you feel about the aliens. I don't know how you feel, but like if we come to the moment, like what do you think is going to happen?"
"<11:54 Spielberg> Well, if we ever come to that moment, which I think we should, we certainly all deserve to know. Uh, all I can say is, uh, when that moment comes and we all sort of start to the people in the know what day it's going to be that they disclose this, uh, people will be saying in the know, well, there will be no other day like tomorrow."

extratv (7 min) 01 Jun 2026.
"<3:51 extratv> How real is this? Is this do you feel this is truly going on in levels that we are not aware of? And would you be for a disclosure day?"
"<3:58 Spielberg> I I would absolutely be for a an actual disclosure day, which is sort of why I made the [laughter] film uh to maybe hurry it along a little bit more. but uh because film speaks so much uh you know you know in movie theaters people sometimes they are on at home on television and in motion picture theaters. We kind of uh often see the truth coming more in the in the in the guise of stories and entertainment than we even do over the news in terms of gaining facts or trying to figure out what's true and what isn't true which seems to be harder and harder today to separate one from the other. ..."

Postscript

The date format used on the page with spaces is intended to allow searching: two digit day, three letter month abbreviation and four digit year without commas.

I started this page in 2022 but I've been licensed by the FCC since 1997, first as KE6YCT. Here's my qrz.com/db/K6CBK, hamcall.net/call?callsign=K6CBK and ae7q history. Thank you to all the contributors who have helped me keep this page updated. Email WAS encouraged to <K6CBK@arrl.net> but arrl.net addresses have proven to be unreliable in delivering email so email me at <grantbow@gmail.com>.

Last update: 20260601