This is V_3___, Official Bulletin Station for Radio Amateurs of Canada with this week's bulletin.

NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL NEWS

1.  November-December 2024 issue of TCA available

The digital (eTCA) version of the November-December 2024 TCA is now available for viewing or download.  The paper version is now at the printer.
To download your copy please visit: https://www.rac.ca/digitaltca/
-- rac website

ONTARIO SECTION NEWS
ITEMS OF INTEREST


2.  ARRL Systems Disruption

The ARRL DXCC® System has been returned to service, and our staff is again processing applications for credit toward DXCC awards. The queue includes
nearly 3,000 award applications submitted via Logbook of The World® accounts and mailed paper applications. We are processing the backlog as quickly as possible, and will provide additional progress updates.

For now, the online DXCC application will remain offline. Any new award applications we receive will experience significant delays as we work through the backlog.

We are grateful for your continued patience and understanding as we continue to make progress on the few remaining services that have required additional attention to bring back online.

-- arrl website

3.  Eclipse QSO Party Top Scorers Announced

Congratulations to Dennis Egan, W1UE, who claimed the highest score in the category of single op during HamSCI's Solar Eclipse QSO Party.
He shares the glory with the Souris Valley Amateur Radio Club, KØAJW, in North Dakota, which claimed the number one spot in the multi-op category.
HamSCI, the citizen science investigation organization, made the announcement on its website on the 24th of October and thanked all amateur radio operators who got on the air. Those QSOs helped generate data for space physics research about the eclipse's impact on the HF radio spectrum and, of course, that makes science itself the biggest winner.

-- Dave Parks WB8ODF. (via amateur radio newsline)

4.  HamSCI Program Gets $1.8 Million NSF Grant

Nathaniel Frissell, Ph.D. (W2NAF), was recently awarded a grant of $1.8 million by the National Science Foundation to further the efforts of HamSCI, a network
of ham radio operators helping to measure weather effects among the earth's ionosphere.  The grant supports the development of a network of 30 standardized receive stations capable of observing high frequency Doppler shifts, HF amateur radio Weak Signal Propagation Reporter transmissions, very low frequency (VLF)
transmissions and natural radio emissions, and the geomagnetic field.

The grant will also fund 10 WSPRSonde transmitters to serve as a source of GPS-stabilized HF beacon signals and will tie into the existing WSPR network.

-- University of Scranton (via hamweekly.com)

This concludes this week's bulletin. Does anyone require repeats or clarifications?
Hearing none, This is V_3___ returning the frequency to net control.

Bulletin sent from Official Bulletin Manager VA3PC

Hello, I went to Ram trophies today to order a new hoodie with our club crest on it. Seemed like a simple thing, we've been talking about this for some time and I even have a webpage for it,  but I was surprised to find that Ram Trophies claims to not have our crest on file and if we want a crest on our items, then there will be a "Digitizing" fee of $100 or so. The person did agree that if we went ahead with that, then we could have our own copy on a thumb drive to hopefully get around future problems. Who knows though, every time we get up to date, along comes an upgrade.

I wonder where all the crests came from on all the t-shirts I have now.

I told the chap I would be interested in digitizing the crest and would let the club know, but if there is no interest, then I'll call them on Monday and cancel the whole idea.

regards

I am not sure if everyone receives this or seeks it out.  If this is a waste of time, let me know.

https://www.calameo.com/read/007665474b6...rm=7665474

This is V_3___, Official Bulletin Station for Radio Amateurs of Canada with
this week's bulletin.

NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL NEWS

1.  RAC Canada Winter Contest, Sat, Dec 28, 2024

0000 UTC to 2359 UTC on Saturday, December 28, 2024.

In December each year the Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) sponsors the Canda Winter Contest. Amateurs all over the world are invited to participate.

This year there are several updates to the rules including:
- Updated the suggested 40-metre phone frequency for Canadian SSB QSOs to avoid conflicts with FT8 or other digital frequency usage;
- Added information and a table to illustrate how scoring is calculated;
- Added clarity around how QRP entries are handled and adjudicated;
- Added instructions on how paper logs can be converted to electronic logs using utilities established for our contests.

If you need help preparing or submitting your log or have any other questions,
please contact Sam Ferris, VE5SF at ve5sf @ myrac.ca.

-- Sam Ferris, VE5SF – RAC Canada Winter Contest Manager

2.  NASA, NOAA: Sun Reaches Maximum in Solar Cycle

In a teleconference with reporters last week, representatives from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the international Solar Cycle Prediction Panel announced that the Sun has reached its solar maximum period, which could continue for the next year.

During May 2024, a barrage of large solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) launched clouds of charged particles and magnetic fields toward Earth, creating the strongest geomagnetic storm at Earth in two decades — and possibly among the strongest displays of auroras on record in the past 500 years.

-- full article at https://science.nasa.gov/ (via amateur radio.com)

ONTARIO SECTION NEWS
ITEMS OF INTEREST

3.  Pi Zero Power Optimization

If you’ve ever designed a battery-powered device with a Pi Zero, you have no doubt looked into decreasing its power consumption.  Generic advice, like disabling the HDMI interface and the onboard LED, is omnipresent, but Manawyrm from Kittenlabs goes beyond the surface-level, and gifts us an extensive write-up where every recommendation is backed with measurements. Armed with the Nordic Power Profiler kit, she aimed at two factors, boot time and power consumed while booting, and made sure to get all the debug information we could use.

All in all, this write-up helps you decrease the boot time from twelve seconds to just three seconds, and slash the power budget of the boot process by 80%. Some recommendations are as simple as config.txt entries, while others require you to recompile the kernel. No matter the amount of effort you can put into power  optimization, you’ll certainly find things worth learning while following along, and her effort in building her solar-powered Pi setup will help us all build better Pi-Zero-powered solar devices and handhelds.

-- Hackaday Blog (via this week in amateur radio news)

4.  Dream Rig Contest Underway

The 5th annual Youth "Dream Rig" Essay Contest has begun to accept submissions.

The contest is sponsored by The Intrepid-DX Group, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that promotes amateur radio activities around the world and recognizes the importance of including youth in the amateur radio hobby.

The first place prize is an ICOM IC-7300 transceiver. Second place prize is an ICOM ID5100AD dual-band mobile radio with D-Star, and the third place prize is an ICOM IC-T10 dual-band handheld.  All entrants and winners must promise to keep the radios for one year, without flipping, trading, or selling them, and to use the
radios on the air.

Contestants must be USA or Canadian amateur radio license holders aged 19 or younger. All contestants must be in the U.S. or Canada. They must write a two-page essay answering the following question: “What do you see as ham radio’s place in society? How can it benefit our society, and at the same time, become attractive to others your age?”

-- For full details see the arrl website.

This concludes this week's bulletin. Does anyone require repeats or clarifications?
Hearing none, This is V_3___ returning the frequency to net control.

Bulletin sent from Official Bulletin Manager VA3PC

Attached are some of the pics from the Xplornet building upgrades.  If have been in the building before, you may notice a difference.  Enjoy!

Hate Clock Changes? This Expert Disagrees

By Sara Kornberg. Published 10-Sep-2024
The idea of “locking the clock” and eliminating clock changes is gaining steam. This expert wants us to reconsider.

Permanent DST failed the last time the US tried it. Most parents did not like to send their kids to school in the dark.
©iStockphoto.com/mikdam
In 2024, 71 countries use DST—and it seems that in each and every one of them, a sizeable portion of the population wants to get rid of it.
In the United States, as one example, several states want to “ditch the switch” and stay on either permanent DST or permanent standard time.
NEWS: DST ends in the US 2024
The Benefits No One Talks About
timeanddate.com has talked to Dr. David Prerau, an internationally recognized expert on DST.

“The current system is the best of both worlds,” says DST expert Dr. David Prerau.
In his opinion, the DST debate puts too much focus on the negative sides of seasonal clock changes:
“When people think about DST, they often think about the negative effect of losing an hour of sleep one day of the year when we set the clocks for summertime. What they don’t think about is that by doing that, we gain 238 days in the spring, summer, and fall with all the benefits of lighter evenings and 118 days in the winter without the very late sunrises,” he says.
Dr. David Prerau
[*]Has been called “The World’s Foremost Authority on Daylight Saving Time” by the New York Times.
[*]Expert consultant on Daylight Saving Time for the United States Congress and for the British Parliament.
[*]Interviewed by over 150 newspapers and magazines and appeared on over 200 TV and radio programs worldwide.
[*]The author of the book Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time.
Dr. Prerau thinks the current system is overall an excellent compromise:
“It is the best of both possibilities since it provides the many benefits of DST for most of the year and yet avoids the negatives that winter DST would bring during the year’s darkest months.”
He argues that DST also has many other benefits:
“It reduces traffic accidents and crime, reduces energy usage, increases public health because it gets people out in the evening, and improves the quality of life for people who don’t like going out in the dark.”
Same as Traveling between Time Zones
Despite all this, there’s no shortage of voices in the US expressing discontent and a determination to cancel the practice.
If you’re one of many people who only see the turning of the clocks as a hassle, he reminds us that traveling between time zones is really no different from switching the clocks for DST:
“Losing one hour of sleep when changing the clocks is no different than going one time zone to the east, from Chicago to New York, from London to Paris, or from Bejing to Tokyo–and people do that constantly. The difference is perhaps that people plan more when they’re traveling. Travelers know they are going to a different time zone, so they often make some preparations for it; they get a little more sleep or avoid making a lot of plans at night or early the next morning,” he says.

Quote:“If people made the same preparations before changing the clocks as when traveling between time zones, many of the negatives would be minimized. I propose a national campaign to prepare people ahead of the DST switches to make adjusting easier.”

Dr. David Prerau, DST Expert
Is It Time to “Lock the Clock”?
Even though all US states, with two exceptions, use DST, they have different opinions on the best DST practice going forward.
Currently, 19 states want to “lock the clock” and stay on [/url]year-round summer time.

Many US states, specifically nineteen, would like to stay on permanent Daylight Saving Time (DST). Out of these, a few—three states—are also considering permanent standard time. In total, five states are interested in adopting permanent Standard Time, along with one Canadian province, British Columbia (BC).
©timeanddate.com
One of the senators who has [url=https://www.timeanddate.com/time/us/daylight-saving-usa.html]argued for this solution is Florida Senator Marco Rubio, the man behind the Sunshine Protection Act:

Quote:“This ritual of changing time twice a year is stupid. Locking the clock has overwhelming bipartisan and popular support. This Congress, I hope that we can finally get this done.”

Marco Rubio, Florida senator
Mr. Rubio said this in a press release in March 2023. He was not available to answer any further questions from timeanddate.com. Neither was Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, one of the original sponsors of the act. In November 2023, he released a statement on making DST permanent:
“When we ‘fall back’ and lose the extra hour of daylight saving time on Sunday, we are sacrificing energy savings, crime reduction, and economic benefits for darkness.”
In 2018, as Governor of Florida, Senator Rick Scott was one of the first to sign the bill:
“It’s time to lock the clock. Floridians are sick of changing their clocks because we all want more sunshine,” he states on his website.

Will the Sun be setting on DST in the US for good? 19 states have passed legislations to get rid of the practice, but Congress still needs to give final approval.
©iStockphoto.com/Daniel Lange
Historically an Unpopular Solution in the US
Dr. Prerau is skeptical of the idea of permanent DST.
“Year-round DST is actually not a new idea,” Dr. Prerau explains.
“It was in use in the US in 1974. There was an energy crisis, and one thing proposed to help it was to extend DST from the then standard six months per year to instead have permanent DST for two years. When it actually happened, a lot of people found all the negatives and didn’t like it at all,” he says.
“They didn’t like getting up in the winter in the dark, going to work in the dark, and especially sending their kids to school in the dark. The sunrises in the winter got very late, around 08:30 or 09:00 am, in places like Minneapolis and Seattle. It became unpopular very quickly, and Congress repealed it after the first year.”
Keeping Daylight Saving Time all year would move sunrise and sunset times 1 hour later in the day, resulting in darker mornings and more daylight in the afternoon.

Quote:“In my experience, during winter, people want daylight after waking up in the morning rather than later in the day.”

Dr. David Prerau, DST Expert
Light has been proven to powerfully influence our body clock and the day-night cycle, known as the circadian rhythm.
The Case for Permanent Standard Time

“Solar time is the most honest clock, defined by the Sun’s apparent position in the sky,” says Jay Pea, president of Save Standard Time.
In 2022, the Sunshine Protection Act was unanimously passed in the Senate but failed to make it beyond the House of Representatives. And since the bill needs to be signed into law, the 19 states that wants permanent DST still continue with the seasonal time change.
Because recent permanent DST bills have stalled in the US Congress, there have been more recent efforts to focus on a move to permanent standard time instead. Any move to year-round standard time does not require national-level approval.
We turned to Jay Pea, president of Save Standard Time, a nonprofit lobby group, to hear more about this option:
“Permanent Standard Time eliminates both the acute harm of clock change and the chronic harm of DST itself. If individuals continue to prefer DST, they can simply wake themselves earlier to allocate more daylight after their workdays.”
Pea claims that standard time (also known as normal time or winter time) is an approximation of solar time.
“Solar time is the most honest clock, defined by the Sun’s apparent position in the sky, wherein “high noon” corresponds to 12 pm, he says.”

Quote:“In our opinion, history, science, and common sense point to permanent Standard Time as the healthiest, fairest, safest, and most lasting solution.”

Jay Pea, Save Standard Time
When it comes to what Pea calls “the most honest clock,” Dr. Prerau argues that we already accept three artificial changes when it comes to time:
“The first one is mean time, the second is time zones, and the third is DST, with the clock changes twice a year.”
He sums up:
“So, we’re willing to accept a change from the actual solar time to make it better and easier for us. That’s what DST does; we accept the change because we think it benefits us.”
More Cons than Pros to Permanent Standard Time
Dr. Prerau explains that there are many cons to Permanent Standard Time in the US:
“Permanent Standard Time would give very early sunrises in spring and summer, including sunrises before 4:30 in places like New York and Chicago. With such early sunrises, almost no one gets the benefit of that hour of sunlight because most people will be asleep. So, instead, we take that hour of sunlight in the very early morning and move it to the evening when it’s more useful.”
He argues that any state can opt to have Permanent Standard Time just by passing the law, but only two states have chosen it, Hawaii and Arizona:
“This is for a very particular reason. Hawaii is the southernmost state and closest to the equator, so sunrise and sunset don’t change that much year-round. In Arizona, it’s so hot in the summer that people don’t want an extra hour of daylight in the evening. Because of the temperature, they look forward to the Sun setting so that they can go outdoors in the evening.”

A hot day in Monument Valley Tribal Park, Arizona.
©iStockphoto.com/YinYang
No DST in most of Arizona
Why DST Is Still Such a Hot Potato
There’s no doubt that DST both engage and divide us. We ask Dr. Prerau why he thinks this is:
“Because it has a direct effect on each person. Some people love to have that extra hour of light in the evening and feel positive about it, some people don’t like the dark in the morning and feel negative about it. And no one likes changing the clocks; that’s an inconvenience.”
Babies and DST: Adjusting your baby’s sleep
So, what will happen with DST in the future? Will more US states “lock the clock?” According to Pea in Save Standard Time, it’s only a matter of time:
“Modern society runs 24/7 in terms of computation, communication, commerce, and travel. Biannual clock change today has become excessively confusing and expensive. DST costs both money and lives to no objective benefit. Citizens across the US are increasingly calling on legislators to ditch the switch.”
Dr. Prerau is not as conclusive in his response:
“A lot of countries have gone up and down, back and forth between the options, and sometimes, if they have an energy crisis, like the US had in 1974, they put it in, and when that goes away, they put it out. So it’s a constantly changing situation. In the US, we’ve been pretty stable. For now, almost all US states, with two exceptions, use DST, which I think is good. It makes it uniform.”
No matter what happens in the future, we here at timeanddate.com will keep you updated on the latest changes.

This is V_3___, Official Bulletin Station for Radio Amateurs of Canada with
this week's bulletin.

NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL NEWS

1.  RAC Insurance Program - 2025 Applications Now Open

RAC is now accepting applications for insurance coverage for the 2025 calendar year.
Like in previous years, information about the program, including more details about coverage and fee structure, is available at http://www.rac.ca/insurance/
--- rac bulletin

2.  IARU Region 3 Proposal Moves Forward on 40m Band

The IARU's proposal is the result of a recent consultation by the Wireless Institute of Australia with the goal of finding band plans for various modes that could ultimately form the basis of a global agreement. The proposal noted that very little spectrum is set aside for digital modes and discusses the potential use of channelisation of the bands for digital modes. To deal with the challenge of allocations that include SSB and CW, the committee studied, among other things, activity shown on ClubLog.

Full proposal can be found at https://www-iaru-r3.org

ONTARIO SECTION NEWS
ITEMS OF INTEREST

3.  WRTC 2026 Announces UK Event Headquarters

Organisers of the prestigious World Radiosport Team Championship have announced that its headquarters will be Wyboston Lakes in Bedford in the east of England. Mark MØDXR, chairman of the UK organising committee, said that anyone interested in attending the event as a spectator will be able to book their place through the WRTC 2026 website starting in 2025. The WRTC will feature 50 competing two-person teams operating throughout the counties of Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk.

-- IARU 2026 committee  -via ham radio newsline

4.  The Internet Archive Has Been Hacked

Most would put the Internet Archive in the category of the library — with its aim of preserving and providing knowledge for the aid of all who might call on it. Sadly, it appears this grand institution has been hacked.

At the time of writing, it appears the Internet Archive has restored the website to some degree of normal operation. As is always the way, no connected machine is ever truly safe, no matter how much we might hope that’s not the case.
--- hackaday.com

This concludes this week's bulletin. Does anyone require repeats or clarifications?
Hearing none, This is V_3___ returning the frequency to net control.

Bulletin sent from Official Bulletin Manager VA3PC