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The Annual Armed Forces Day (AFD) Crossband Test, hosted by the Department of Defense, is scheduled for Saturday, May 10, 2025.

The event will test two-way communications between military stations and amateur radio operators as authorized by the Federal Communications Commission in Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations 47 CFR 97.111. The test provides opportunities, and challenges, for operators to test their individual technical skills in a controlled scenario that will not impact public or private communications.

The annual DOD message will be transmitted via RTTY on 14667.0 kHz at 1400 and 2000 UTC. Military stations will transmit on selected military frequencies and announce the specific amateur radio service frequencies that will be monitored.

All scheduled times will be in UTC, and all scheduled transmissions will be upper sideband (USB), unless otherwise noted. Frequencies, times, and other technical information can be found at the DoD MARS – Armed Forces Day site at: www.dodmars.org/mars-comex-information-website/armed-forces-day.

Those who wish to document their contacts with a QSL card should visit www.usarmymars.org/armed-forces-day-qsl-card-request and complete the request form. For more than 50 years, military and amateur stations have taken part in this event

;”>ARRL welcomes members and all radio amateurs to visit us at the 2025 Dayton Hamvention®, May 16 —18 in Xenia, Ohio. The event features three days of fun activities, ham radio programming, and plenty of opportunities to engage with ARRL.

Saturday’s ARRL Youth Rally will be a fun day of ham radio discovery and friendship for young people aged 11 to 21. Among the team leading the Youth Rally will be volunteers from the ARRL Collegiate Amateur Radio Program (CARP), who are also exhibiting and presenting at Hamvention.

In addition to the CARP forum, ARRL has many other exciting forums planned at Hamvention. Start off Friday with a surfside lesson on portable antennas with “Salty Walt” Hudson, K4OGO, of the popular Costal Waves and Wires YouTube channel. Salty Walt’s forum is Friday, 10:15 AM – 11:15 AM, in room 3.

The ARRL Membership Forum is on Saturday.

There are many other great ARRL forums for you to attend. See the whole list at www.arrl.org/expo.

You can also visit ARRL’s large exhibit area in the Telsa Building. All the great things you expect from ARRL will be there, including a chance to get some ARRL merch and publications, plus your free 2025 ARRL button. The ARRL VEC will be on site to help hams renew their licenses; you can visit with ARRL leaders face-to-face and learn about how to get involved in your local ham community (and much more).

You can also see the ARRL Sweepstakes Icom Dream Station on display.

You asked, we listened: The ever-popular on-site radio emissions testing by the ARRL Lab returns this year. Have your handheld tested to make sure the output is clean. Expert engineers will be on hand to do it right in front of you.

Find ticket information at www.hamvention.org. Download the ARRL Program Guide [PDF]

Dear ARRL Member,

On March 12, 2025, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a Public Notice titled “In Re: Delete, Delete, Delete,” seeking input from the public on FCC rules that may be outdated, unnecessary, or in need of modification. This inquiry is part of the FCC’s ongoing effort to alleviate regulatory burdens across various services, including the Amateur Radio Service.

As part of this review, ARRL is conducting a thorough examination of the provisions in Part 97 and related rules that affect amateur radio operators. ARRL’s written comments, which will be prepared by our FCC Counsel and the ARRL Executive Committee, will include consideration of feedback we received from members.

Members who want to share comments and concerns about this matter are urged to share your feedback directly with ARRL. Please submit your comments by March 31, 2025 and use the following feedback form:

www.arrl.org/fcc-public-notice-march-2025

ARRL will submit our official filing to the FCC by the April 11 deadline. After that, there will be an opportunity for reply comments at the FCC until April 28, and then later, opportunities for public comment on any rules the FCC proposes to delete or modify.

While the FCC Public Notice is a broad inquiry that does not single out any specific radio service, ARRL is nonetheless committed to protecting the Amateur Radio Service, promoting its public interest goals, and ensuring your right to access radio spectrum.

ARRL will continue to work on this matter, and we will inform members as more news develops.

Thank you,

73

ARRL Executive Committee

Amateur Radio station WX4NHC is located at the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami, Florida. The station has been totally assembled from donated equipment and is operated by an organized group of volunteer amateur radio operators since 1980. Read about its history.

WX4NHC activates whenever a hurricane is within 300 miles of landfall in the areas of the western Atlantic, the Caribbean or the eastern Pacific. The team of operators also provides emergency backup communications from NHC to NWS Offices and other agencies in case of local landfall. The NHC operators work in conjunction with the Hurricane Watch Net, VoIP WX-Talk Hurricane Net and other volunteer networks to collect real-time surface reports for the NHC hurricane specialists via amateur radio using many modes such as HF and VHF/UHF voice, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) systems, EchoLink and IRLP, and Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS). Input also comes from two non-amateur volunteer weather observer networks–ON-NHC (Observers Network), and CWOP (Citizens Weather Observers Program), using on-line reporting, email and fax. WX4NHC also relays hurricane advisories via the amateur radio nets to the hurricane affected areas and governmental agencies when conventional means of communications have been interrupted.

Observers’ surface reports provide the forecasters with supplemental weather and damage data that are not normally available to them and are frequently incorporated into their advisories as they provide a human perspective and eyewitness accounts of what people are experiencing during a hurricane. The WX4NHC team has been nationally recognized for its volunteer international humanitarian efforts by the National Hurricane Conference and the South Florida Hurricane Conference.