U. S. Hams Get a New Ham Band (Sorta)

The FCC just gave American hams more frequency space on the 60 meter band, taking it from a limited channelized space into a frequency agile allocation.  See the FCC ruling here. 

The FCC just handed American hams an early Christmas present.

U.S. hams now have access to a brand-new chunk of the 60-meter band: 5351.5-5366.5 kHz. That’s on top of the discrete 60m channels we’ve been using up to this point.

Here are the only caveats (and they’re pretty minor): you’ll need at least a General Class US license to use the new allocation. And if you’re working the new band, you’re limited to 9.15 watts ERP.

Phone, CW, RTTY, digital–seems like it’s all fair game. We just need to keep our bandwidth no wider than 2.8 kHz.

The ruling also notes power restrictions in the 70-centimeter band for operators in military coordination areas, but that’s outside the scope of the operations of most hams.

These changes will go into effect on January 8, 2026 (30 days after their December 9 publication in the Federal Register).

Superbolt

UPPER ATMOSPHERIC LIGHTNING OVER ITALY

There’s a famous scene in the movie Independence Day where the alien mothership deploys its lightning weapon over the White House. It looked something like the above pic.

This is not a scene from a movie. It’s a real photo of upper atmospheric lightning taken on Nov. 28th by Valter Binotto of Possagno, Italy. "This is a rare double formation of sprites and ELVEs," he says.

The sprites are the red, tentacled objects in the middle. The red 'flying saucer' surrounding them is the ELVE.

"Both were sparked by a single powerful lightning bolt over the Adriatic Sea," adds Binotto. "The positive lightning strike had a peak current of 387 kA, about ten times greater than a normal lightning bolt."

       The above map shows the location of the 387 kA lightning bolt.  Binotto was 350 km away.

Even professional monitoring stations rarely catch both phenomena at once. For example, a 2025 conference paper from the Pierre Auger Observatory describes their first clearly simultaneous observations using dedicated TLE cameras. The fact that they’re publishing "first observations" in 2024–2025 tells you this combination is noteworthy.

ELVEs are harder to catch than sprites in part because they require very strong lightning--the kind of bolt that generates an intense electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The red ring marks the spot where the EMP hit Earth's ionosphere, fading away after less than a millisecond.

"Thanks to the stars present, I was able to measure the altitude of the ELVE at about 85 km and its diameter at about 230 km," says Binotto.

For comparison, the mothership in Independence Day was 550 km in diameter, so this ELVE was a lesser but worthy rival.

The Toys of Sumner

I'm not much of a Morse Code guy, although from time to time I try to be, even though I'm continually challenged by it.

Morse Code is actually a language of dits and dah sounds that had its origins in the 19th century thanks to Samuel F.B. Morse and his partner Alfred Vail who together invented the system.  The Morse code that hams use (and until a few years ago, the maritime service, etc.) has a different "vocabulary" of dit and dah sounds than the old American Morse system which was used by the railroads in the early days.  

These days, many hams still use Morse (or as we call it, "CW", which stands for "continuous wave").  Why do hams use it?  (I'm sometimes guilty of asking that question myself, as I enjoy talking in plain vocal English) .  The answer has both practical and historical reasons though, even in today's digital age.  (Ironically, cw is a type of digital mode, in that it really utilizes a binary on/off state....which of course, is digital!)

Some advantages of using code:

Emergency Communication: Morse code can be transmitted using simple tools like flashlights or sound signals, making it effective when modern communication fails.

Universal Distress Signal: The SOS signal is widely recognized, allowing for quick communication in emergencies.

Cognitive Benefits:  Enhances Mental Skills: Learning Morse code improves concentration, memory, and listening abilities.

Fun and Challenging: It offers a unique skill that can be enjoyable to learn and master.

Historical and Cultural Significance: Understanding Morse code provides insight into the evolution of communication technologies and their impact on society.

Maritime Heritage: It played a crucial role in maritime safety and military operations, with ongoing relevance in some areas.

Multiple Transmission Methods: Morse code can be sent through sound, light, or touch, making it adaptable to various environments.

Efficiency: It allows for long-distance communication with minimal power, making it especially popular among hams..

Supports Communication for Disabled Individuals: Morse code can be used as an alternative communication method for those with limited motor skills, enabling them to convey messages effectively.

Effective in Noisy Environments: Morse code can cut through interference, making it a reliable option for communication in challenging conditions.

All that being said, I've been toying with the idea of (again) trying to restore some long lost code skills.  To this end, I dusted off a couple of old code paddles in addition to my straight key.  My favorite is an early model CW Touchkeyer which was designed and built by  Sumner Eagerman, WA1JOS, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in the early 80's.  Sumner was a super nice guy and very helpful to his customers.  Unfortunately Sumner has since passed on but his legacy lives on.

Some keyer paddles run hundreds of dollars and are works of art (mechanically as well as artistically).  Not Sumner's keyer though.  It consists of a circuit board inside a black plastic box with two paddles sticking out the front.  What's different is that the paddles don't move.  There are no moving parts.  At all.  The Touchkeyer works by capacitive touch with  the thumb and index finger.  It works like a dream and is by far the best paddle that I've ever used.

Thank you Sumner.

Ring Of Fire

This one is a short one, but I think it's very cool (despite the obvious temperatures involved).  

My friend Ken spotted this in a group called The Brain Maze on Facebook.  

In zero gravity, a candle flame forms a small blue sphere instead of the familiar teardrop shape.

Without gravity, hot air doesn’t rise, so the flame no longer stretches upward.

Instead, gases spread evenly in all directions, creating a smooth, round flame.

This environment allows the fuel to burn more completely, which is why the flame appears blue and produces no soot.

The result is a calm, gentle orb of fire that behaves very differently from a candle flame on Earth.  

Just amazing.

Old School

My son Erik sent me a 1989 Falmouth Enterprise clipping  the other day which shows him and three other guys in their high school radio club.  What's really interesting is that almost 37 years later, Erik just happened to run into one of the guys, Larry Palmer, while Erik was on a layover in Denver last week.  

Amazingly, both Erik and Larry now fly for competing airlines!

In the photo, Larry is circled in red and Erik is on the far right seated at what appears to be a Kenwood TS-520 or one of its variants.  (Click on the photo to enlarge it.)

It's a small world, but flying and radio make it even smaller.

Eighty four years ago, Imperial Japan launched an unprovoked attack on the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, resulting in the deaths of more than 2,400 American service members and civilians and the destruction of much of America's Pacific Fleet.

This attack prompted President Roosevelt to call on Congress to declare war the following day, stating that December 7, 1941, would be a: "date which will live in infamy."

And so it has.

We honor those who defended Pearl Harbor and all the brave individuals who enlisted to serve our country in battlefields around the world (and continue to do so).

We recall the courage and sacrifice of the men and women of the Greatest Generation who faced the horrors of Pearl Harbor with unwavering resolve, and despite the darkness of that moment, their commitment to defending freedom against the forces of fascism became a guiding light for America.

We will never, ever, forget.

Captain My Captain

I've been trying to find historical information about my late grandfather, John Hanrahan, who died in 1948, about a year before I was born. Family legend has it that he captained the first tugboat to pass through the new Cape Cod Canal in the early 1900s — and that somewhere in the bowels ("bowels" is an apt term here) of the Massachusetts State House there's a plaque attesting to this. I've never been able to substantiate either rumor, but a trip to the Massachusetts Historical Society or the state archives is probably in order. One of these days.

Anyway, what I do know is that my grandfather was a master mariner who originated from Harbour Grace, a small town on Conception Bay in Newfoundland.  In his early years, John worked tugboats in the waters of Newfoundland and other areas, including Maine (where my father Bernie was born in Calais on the Canadian border), Boston Harbor, and presumably, the Cape Cod Canal. My father's older brother, also named John, also became a captain and worked the tugs and freighters. Bernie himself did a stint onboard one of the tugs as a hardhat diver and deckhand before the war.

Reportedly, my grandfather was something of a character, who was known to be able to hear for miles on the high seas, but suffered from significant hearing loss when around my grandmother. (While my wife Jane swears this trait must be genetic, it's interesting to note that the love of being in a boat on the sea most definitely did NOT filter down to me.)

I've been unable to obtain any further information on Captain John Hanrahan, and sadly, there's no one around to ask now. I believe part of his employment was with the old Boston Tug company (which I believe is a predecessor of Boston Towboat), so that might be an avenue worth exploring.

Based on a reference I found to historical shipping reports, the motor vessel named the M.V. Saval had a documented history operating in the Newfoundland coastal trade in the late 1940s. The Saval's captain was consistently named Hanrahan in old Daily News reports out of St. John's.. The Saval was apparently a coastal freighter or cargo ship (not a tugboat) and worked the coastal routes around Newfoundland.  The vessel's movements frequently appeared in the St. John's Daily News waterfront directory, showing it taking on and discharging cargo for various Newfoundland coastal towns. By all records, the M.V. Saval was an important historical piece of the Newfoundland coastal shipping story, and was essential for supplying remote communities at that time.

As I raised my own kid on the Cape, I still like to think that Captain John preceded me in crossing the Canal.  While my son Erik is also a captain, John was the original.

I hope I can find out more.  

Crisis Averted

U.S. Airlines Avoid Major Impact From Airbus ELAC Issue

Since my son is an Airbus captain and as a private pilot myself, I was happy to see that U.S. airlines appear to have avoided major disruptions after the FAA required emergency modifications to about 545 Airbus A319, A320, and A321 models.

Airbus recently announced stated that after an A320 altitude-loss event in October, a preliminary analysis had found that “intense solar radiation” may have caused a malfunction of the aircraft’s elevator aileron computer (ELAC) system, which uses pilot commands to control elevators and ailerons. That prompted the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and FAA to issue emergency airworthiness directives (EADs) grounding certain A319, A320, and A321 models until carriers completed ELAC modifications.

On December 1, Airbus said that out of about 6,000 potentially affected aircraft, less than 100 are still awaiting modifications before returning to service. American Airlines and Delta Air Lines told FLYING they have met all requirements in the FAA’s EAD.

“Airbus apologizes for any challenges and delays caused to passengers and airlines by this event,” the manufacturer said Monday.

A few hours later, however, Reuters reported that Airbus identified a separate issue related to the quality of A320-family metal panels. The company blamed the problem on an unnamed partner. A320 components and parts are sourced from thousands of internal and external suppliers.

“Airbus confirms it has identified a quality issue affecting a limited number of A320 metal panels,” the manufacturer told Reuters. “The source of the issue has been identified, contained and all newly produced panels conform to all requirements.”

During the cruise portion of a trip from Cancún, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey, the Airbus A320 operating JetBlue Flight 1230 on October 30 suddenly pitched downward without pilot input.

Though the investigation is ongoing, Airbus identified the ELAC as a possible factor. Regulators determined the issue could impact other aircraft.

In response to the company’s alert operators transmission (AOT), EASA on Friday issued an EAD covering the A319, A320, and A321 families, requiring operators to install “serviceable” ELACs and prohibiting future installations of the affected system on new aircraft.

According to EASA, continuing operations with the faulty ELAC “could lead in the worst-case scenario to an uncommanded elevator movement that may result in exceeding the aircraft’s structural capability.”

The FAA in response issued its own EAD requiring U.S. operators of the affected models to comply with EASA’s directive by Sunday at 12:01 a.m. before further flight.

The EAD follows an FAA directive for major airlines to reduce operations during the federal government shutdown—which ended earlier this month—due to air traffic control (ATC) staffing issues. Limitations were swiftly lifted, though the FAA will reportedly probe airlines that did not comply with the order.

A320 and A321 aircraft comprise the bulk of JetBlue’s narrowbody fleet. It appears to have been hit harder than its competitors. Per an internal memo from chief operating officer Warren Christie, the airline as of Sunday afternoon still required modifications for 50 out of 150 affected aircraft, keeping them grounded.

Other airlines faced minimal disruptions.

American is among the world’s largest Airbus operators, with about 480 A320 family aircraft in its fleet. The carrier initially said 340 aircraft were affected, later revising that number down to 209. All American Airlines updates were completed recently, with no operational impacts since November 28.

Delta is another Airbus-heavy carrier. Per the airline’s latest SEC form 10-Q, it owns 59 A319s, 48 A320s, and 84 A321neos. It also operates 127 A321-200s, 50 of which are leased. The EAD affected about 50 A321neos.

United Airlines, which had six impacted aircraft, said on November 29 that only “minor disruption to a few flights” is anticipated. Allegiant Airlines, which operates a majority-Airbus fleet of A319s and A320s, similarly said only a handful of aircraft were affected and that there would be “minimal to no impact on our operations or customers’ travel plans.”

Frontier Airlines, one of America’s largest A320 operators reported that it successfully modified 144 impacted aircraft over last weekend, with no cancellations due to the ELAC update.

Drone On

The U.S. State Department could commit up to $150 million in taxpayer money toward an American drone delivery provider’s ambitions to expand globally.

Zipline delivers blood, vaccines, and other medical supplies to hospitals and health facilities in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, and Rwanda, where it made its first delivery in 2016. According to the company, its drones fly four to five times as many daily flights as Ethiopian Airlines, the continent’s largest commercial airline.

Under the full scope of its agreement with the State Department, Zipline said it could reach as many as 130 million people and triple the number of facilities it serves, from 5,000 to 15,000. Jeremy Lewin, undersecretary of state for foreign assistance, humanitarian affairs and religious freedom, said the deal is intended to “catalyze private capital, incentivize local buy-in, and champion American businesses.”

“With modest U.S. capital investment support, these five countries will become responsible for maintaining and continuing to invest in a transformative American-built health commodities supply chain network,” Lewin said in a statement.

The State Department money will fund the expansion of Zipline’s artificial intelligence and robotics infrastructure but only after the company secures long-term commitments from African nations. Countries will pay Zipline up to $400 million in utilization fees. Rwanda is expected to be the first.

According to Zipline, the pay-for-performance structure is “designed to be easily replicated,” implying this won’t be the only such deal the State Department pursues.

Zipline owns the world’s largest autonomous drone delivery network. Its drones have completed more than 1.8 million on-demand deliveries since debuting in 2016.

The drones are designed to cut down delivery times, particularly in rural areas. Per Zipline, in some locations it serves in Africa, health facilities receive deliveries on average 13 days after ordering. With drones, it said, that can fall to just 30 minutes.

Zipline’s Platform 1 (P1) system is optimized for long-range deliveries, with Zips—the company’s term for its drones—capable of flying 120 miles roundtrip. P1 Zips can carry up to 4 pounds and cruise at about 60 mph. Deliveries are floated to the ground from about 60-80 feet up using a parachute mechanism, with accuracy down to about two parking spaces.

Research has shown that the drones can help lower maternal death rates, increase stocks of medicine and vaccines, and raise immunization rates.

The State Department may envision Zipline’s services as a partial substitute for programs previously administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which was dismantled in July.

“Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies—and which advance American interests—will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy, and efficiency,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a July blog post.

Other drone delivery providers that are exploring humanitarian or medical delivery—including Wing and Amazon Prime Air—may be candidates to receive similar deals. Those companies also stand to benefit from a June executive order that directs federal agencies to add manufacturing and export protections for U.S. drone manufacturers.

 The flight hours these providers accumulate abroad could translate to more robust operations domestically.

Zipline, for example, is growing a commercial U.S. business in partnership with Walmart and others.

The company’s core U.S. operations are in Texas, where it is among the drone delivery providers pioneering the use of non crewed aircraft system (UAS) traffic management (UTM)—essentially, air traffic control for autonomous drones. It also has smaller operations in Arkansas and Washington state.

For home delivery, Zipline deploys a different system, Platform 2 (P2), that uses a tether to deposit orders in spaces as small as a patio table. P2 Zips can carry up to 8 pounds flying as fast as 70 mph, with a service radius of 10 miles. Unlike P1, which operates as a hub-and-spoke model, P2 drones can fly between docks in response to demand, forming a network.

Meshtastic: A Tale of Two Cities

             Originally published by Tom Nardi on Hackaday 

"If I’m honest with myself, I don’t really need access to an off-grid, fault-tolerant, mesh network like Meshtastic. The weather here in New Jersey isn’t quite so dynamic that there’s any great chance the local infrastructure will be knocked offline, and while I do value my privacy as much as any other self-respecting hacker, there’s nothing in my chats that’s sensitive enough that it needs to be done off the Internet.

But damn it, do I want it. The idea that everyday citizens of all walks of life are organizing and building out their own communications network with DIY hardware and open source software is incredibly exciting to me. It’s like the best parts of a cyberpunk novel, without all the cybernetic implants, pollution, and over-reaching megacorps. Well, we’ve got those last two, but you know what I mean.

Even though I found the Meshtastic concept appealing, my seemingly infinite backlog of projects kept me from getting involved until relatively recently. It wasn’t until I got my hands on the Hacker Pager that my passing interest turned into a full blown obsession. But it’s perhaps not for the reason you might think. Traveling around to different East Coast events with the device in my bag, it would happily chirp away when within range of Philadelphia or New York, but then fall silent again once I got home. While I’d get the occasional notification of a nearby node, my area had nothing like the robust and active mesh networks found in those cities.

Well, they say you should be the change you want to see in the world, so I decided to do something about it. Obviously I wouldn’t be able to build up an entire network by myself, but I figured that if I started standing up some nodes, others might notice and follow suit. It was around this time that Seeed Studio introduced the SenseCAP Solar node, which looked like a good way to get started. So I bought two of them with the idea of putting one on my house and the other on my parent’s place down the shore.

The results weren’t quite what I expected, but it’s certainly been an interesting experience so far, and today I’m even more eager to build up the mesh than I was in the beginning.

Starting on Easy Mode

I didn’t make a conscious decision to start my experiment at my parent’s house. Indeed, located some 60 miles (96 km) from where I live, any progress in building out a mesh network over there wouldn’t benefit me back home. But it was the beginning of summer, they have a pool, and my daughters love to swim. As such, we spent nearly every weekend there which gave me plenty of time to tinker.

For those unfamiliar with New Jersey’s Southern Shore area, the coastline itself is dotted with vacation spots such as Wildwood, Atlantic City, and Long Beach Island. This is where the tourists go to enjoy the beaches, boardwalks, cotton candy, and expensive rental homes. But move slightly inland, and you’ll find a marshland permeated with a vast network of bays, creeks, and tributaries. For each body of water large enough to get a boat through, you’ll find a small town or even an unincorporated community that in the early 1900s would have been bustling with oyster houses and hunting shacks, but today might only be notable for having their own Wawa.

My parents are in one of those towns that doesn’t have a Wawa. Its very quiet, the skies are dark, and there’s not much more than marsh and water all around. So when I ran the SenseCAP Solar up their 20 foot (6 m) flagpole, which in a former life was actually the mast from a sailing catamaran, the results were extremely impressive.

I hadn’t had the radio up for more than a few hours before my phone pinged with a message. We chatted back and forth a bit, and I found that my new mesh friend was an amateur radio operator living on Long Beach Island, and that he too had just recently started experimenting with Meshtastic. He was also, incidentally, a fan of Hackaday. (Hi, Leon!) He mentioned that his setup was no more advanced than an ESP32 dev board sitting in his window, and yet we were reliably communicating at a range of approximately 6 miles (9 km).

Encouraged, I decided to leave the radio online all night. In the morning, I was shocked to find it had picked up more than a dozen new nodes. Incredibly, it was even able to sniff out a few nodes that I recognized from Philadelphia, 50 miles (80 km) to the west. I started to wonder if it was possible that I might actually be able to reach my own home, potentially establishing a link clear across the state.

Later that day, somebody on an airplane fired off a few messages on the way out of Philadelphia International Airport. Seeing the messages was exciting enough, but through the magic of mesh networking, it allowed my node to temporarily see networks at an even greater distance. I picked up one node that was more than 100 miles (160 km) away in Aberdeen, Maryland.

I was exhilarated by these results, and eager to get back home and install the second SenseCAP Solar node installed. If these were the kind of results I was getting in the middle of nowhere, surely I’d make even more contacts in a dense urban area.

Reality Comes Crashing Home

You see, at this point I had convinced myself that the reason I wasn’t getting any results back at home was the relatively meager antenna built into the Hacker Pager. Now that I had a proper node with an antenna bigger than my pinkie finger, I was sure I’d get better results. Especially since I’d be placing the radio even higher this time — with a military surplus fiberglass mast clamped into the old TV antenna mount on my three story house, the node would be around 40 feet (12 m) above the ground.

But when I opened the Meshtastic app the day after getting my home node installed, I was greeted with….nothing. Not a single node was detected in a 24 hour period. This seemed very odd given my experience down the shore, but I brushed it off. After all, Meshtastic nodes only occasionally announce their presence when they aren’t actively transmitting.

Undaunted, I made plans with a nearby friend to install a node at his place. His home is just 1.2 miles (1.9 km) from mine, and given the 6 mile (9 km) contact I had made down the shore, it seemed like this would be an easy first leg of our fledgling network.

Yet when we stood up a temporary node in his front yard, messages between it and my house were only occasionally making it through. Worse, the signal strength displayed in the application was abysmal. It was clear that, even at such a short range, an intermediary node would be necessary to get our homes reliably connected.

At this point, I was feeling pretty dejected. The incredible results I got when using Meshtastic in the sticks had clearly given me a false sense of what the technology was capable of in an urban environment. To make matters even worse, some further investigation found that my house was about the worst possible place to try and mount a node.

For one thing, until I bothered to look it up, I never realized my house was located in a small valley. According to online line-of-sight tools, I’m essentially at the bottom of a bowl. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I noted that the Meshtastic application was showing an inordinate number of bad packets. After consulting with those more experienced with the project, I now know this to be an indicator of a noisy RF environment. Which may also explain the exceptionally poor reception I get when trying to fly my FPV drone around the neighborhood, but that’s a story for another day.

A More Pragmatic Approach

While I was disappointed that I couldn’t replicate my seaside Meshtastic successes at home, I’m not discouraged. I’ve learned a great deal about the technology, especially its limitations. Besides, the solution is simple enough — we need more nodes, and so the campaign to get nearby friends and family interested in the project has begun. We’ve already found another person in a geographically strategic position who’s willing to host a node on their roof, and as I write this a third Seeed SenseCAP Solar sits ready for installation.

At the same time, the performance of Meshtastic in a more rural setting has inspired me to push further in that region. I’m in the process of designing a custom node specifically tailored for the harsh marine environment, and have identified several potential locations where I can deploy them in the Spring. With just a handful of well-placed nodes, I believe it should be possible to cover literally hundreds of square miles.

I’m now fighting a battle on two fronts, but thankfully, I’m not alone. In the months since I’ve started this project, I’ve noticed a steady uptick in the number of detected nodes. Even here at home, I’ve finally started to pick up some chatter from nearby nodes. There’s no denying it, the mesh is growing everyday.

My advice to anyone looking to get into Meshtastic is simple. Whether you’re in the boonies, or stuck in the middle of a metropolis, pick up some compatible hardware, mount it as high as you can manage, and wait. It might not happen overnight, but eventually your device is going to ping with that first message — and that’s when the real obsession starts."

Another Tough Irish Kid

My namesake, Brooklyn middleweight fighter "Wild Bill" Hanrahan, had a 26 bout career from 1899-1902, resulting in a record of 10 wins, 13 losses and 3 draws.  All of the fights ended in KOs.

Guys were tough back then.  

No disrespect to Bill, but I think Bernie would have stood a fair chance against him back in the day.

Buckle Up Buttercup

We may be in for a December surprise.

The Sun just rotated four giant sunspot regions into Earth-facing view: AR4287, AR4288, AR4289, and AR4290.  All rotated into earth-view at the same time.

Here’s why this matters:

Multiple sunspots facing Earth increases the chance of flares.

Chain reactions become more likely when the surface is this active

Any strong flare from these regions would send energy right at us

Solar wind is already elevated

And geomagnetic conditions have been unstable the past 48 hours

When several Earth-facing regions line up like this, the Sun tends to get noisy — fast.  

Among other tings, this could mean:

HF radio blackouts and disruptions from M-class flares.

Potential X-class activity.

GPS irregularities.

Auroras showing up in unusual places.

Impact on the electrical grid.

The Sun is waking back up… again.  Buckle up.