Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2558 for Friday, November 6th, 2026 Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2558 with a release date of Friday, November 6th, 2026 to follow in 5-4-3-2-1. The following is a QST. The FCC schedules a vote on legalized cell phone jamming for prisons. Ham radio attracts a crowd at a tech fair in Chile -- and students in Kazakhstan get their own personal satellite. All this and more as Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2558 comes your way right now. ** BILLBOARD CART ** FCC TO VOTE ON LEGALIZED PHONE JAMMING AT PRISONS JIM/ANCHOR: The FCC is preparing to vote on a measure to give state and federal prisons the right to jam signals from cellphones that are smuggled into prisoners, as we hear from Kent Peterson KCØDGY. KENT: Although deliberately jamming radio signals is illegal in the United States, state and federal prison authorities could soon be granted an exception, allowing them to disrupt cellular signals inside correctional facilities. That is, if the Federal Communications Commission votes to approve a new set of rules later this month. The proposed rules are aimed at curbing inmates' use of contraband mobile phones. The FCC reports that prison authorities recovered more than 25,000 cell phones from inmates across the country in 2024, with more than 6,000 devices reportedly seized at just two facilities. Under the proposal, prisons would be required to establish and test designated areas known as jamming containment areas. These zones would be designed to prevent signal disruption from extending beyond prison grounds and interfering with surrounding communities. Mobile carriers and other relevant parties, including nearby residents, would also be notified ahead of on-site testing. The FCC and prison authorities say blocking unauthorized cell phones could help disrupt criminal activity coordinated from behind bars, including illicit transactions and other operations carried out by inmates while incarcerated. The commission is scheduled to consider the proposed rules at its open meeting on November 19. This is Kent Peterson KCØDGY. (FCC) ** CHANGES AT 2 US SHORTWAVE STATIONS JIM/ANCHOR: The presence of shortwave broadcasting has been shrinking in Europe and the UK - and the US isn't far behind, as we hear from Kevin Trotman N5PRE. KEVIN: After 34 years of being on the air from Shelby County, Alabama, the EWTN Global Catholic Network has said it is taking WEWN off the air, saying listenership had diminished and the costs were too high to keep the station going with its aging equipment. The Radio World website carried news of the announcement made on the 31st of October. The station has been heard on 12.050 MHz and 15.610 MHz but has reduced its operating hours recently. It provided programs in English for listeners mainly in the Middle East and Africa and programs in Spanish to Latin America. Meanwhile in Maine, the assets of the shortwave superstation WBCQ-The Planet are being offered for lease or for sale. Those assets include a 500-kilowatt Continental transmitter, a 360-degree rotatable antenna, a 2-megawatt generator and 3,000 square foot transmitter and studio building, according to a report in DX World. The station transmits on 7.490 MHz, 9.330 MHz, 5.130 MHz, and 3.265 MHz, offering brokered programming in the spirit of supporting free speech. This is Kevin Trotman N5PRE. (DX WORLD, RADIO WORLD) ** HAMS SHOWCASE RADIO'S ROLE AT MAJOR TECH FAIR JIM/ANCHOR: In Chile, ham radio operators were proud to be included in the mix of attractions during a major festival celebrating hobbies that provide vibrant and engaging experiences through technology. Graham Kemp VK4BB tells us about this two-day extravaganza. GRAHAM: The event in the Chilean municipality of Villa Alemana was heralded as two days of "geek culture," a festival of sorts for nerds and hobbyists. Radio-controlled cars, action figures and musicians were among those stealing the scene at the popular Hobby Planet fair, where admission was free and imaginations could go wild. Mingling in the family-friendly environment rich with pop culture and technology was the Radio Club Los Molinos CE2CQ, whose members exhibited high tech systems used to track the International Space Station - but also demonstrated vintage vacuum-tube radios, providing a history lesson for the youngsters. Visitors also learned how amateur radio works a communications lifeline in emergencies. The club's vice president, Álvaro Torres Allen CE2WJ, was pleased that the hams could be present for the second consecutive year at this major event. He said: [quote] "Our goal is to continue bringing technology, science and amateur radio closer to the entire community."[endquote] This is Graham Kemp VK4BB. (QRZ.COM FORUMS) ** SECONDARY STUDENTS IN PAKISTAN CALL CQ FOR 1ST TIME JIM DAMRON/ANCHOR: In most classrooms, the teachers are the ones responsible for transmitting knowledge -- but at one secondary school in Pakistan, the students got to do some transmitting of their own, as we hear from Jim Meachen ZL2BHF. JIM: Never mind textbooks and lectures. Muhammad Salman. AP2MS, and his colleagues in the Pakistan Amateur Radio Society let the amateur radio equipment help them deliver the lessons to the 50 students at NJV Higher Secondary School in the city of Karachi. Muhammad discussed radio's involvement in disaster response, emergency preparedness and global friendship. This program on October 17th was no passive exercise, however. When the listening was over for the students, it was time to transmit. They went outside for field activities with Muhammad, Kashif Mukhtar AP2KM, Rehan Ali AP2DDC and shortwave listeners Ali Raza Butt, Ahmad Feroz, Inam Ellahi and Dewan Shahid. With the club members' help, the students built simple 2-meter ham radio antennas and learned the correct protocol for making a QSO. Muhammad told Newsline afterward: [quote] "One of the most encouraging outcomes of the visit was the interest shown by NJV School's management in establishing a dedicated amateur radio room at the school and obtaining a club callsign." [endquote] It seems that the school learned a valuable lesson too: Youngsters' enthusiasm can be boundless when it comes to learning radio science and making connections with others over the air. This is Jim Meachen ZL2BHF. (MUHAMMAD SALMAN, AP2MS; QRZ.COM FORUMS) ** STUDENTS IN KAZAKHSTAN GET MESSAGES FROM 'THEIR' SATELLITE JIM/ANCHOR: If you've ever wondered what it's like to have your own personal satellite, just ask some teenagers in Kazakhstan, who communicate with theirs on a regular basis, as we hear from Dave Lee M9TLB. DAVE: The teenage students at the Nazarbayev Intellectual School in Astana, Kazakhstan are going to get plenty of lessons through the data they receive from a QUBIK ("Cube-ick") satellite which downlinks telemetry via FSK on 435.240 MHz. The satellite, NIS-PQ was built for them, with their long-distance participation, by the nonprofit Libre Space Foundation in Athens, Greece which specialises in microsatellites, nanosatellites and picosatellites. The students' tiny satellite was one of eight that was launched in October aboard a SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Seventeen students and some graduates of the school were actively involved in providing input for the creation of the 260-gram satellite. With the encouragement of the Kazakhstan Space Agency, KazCosmos, Libre Space provided the students with a model so they could be thoroughly trained on using the satellite and, based on that model, built the so-called "pocket-class" satellite. SatNOGS, the Libre Space Foundation's open source satellite tracking network, reported that by the 12th of October, 51 stations had logged a total of more than 100 observations of the tiny student satellite. This is Dave Lee M9TLB. (LIBRE SPACE FOUNDATION, AMSAT NEWS) ** POLDHU COVE'S MARCONI CENTRE RECEIVES WORLD ORIGIN SITE AWARD JIM/ANCHOR: The groundbreaking role the Marconi Centre at Poldhu Cove played in the emergence of wireless communications has been recognized by the UK government. Jeremy Boot G4NJH has the details. JEREMY: One hundred and twenty-five years after the Italian inventor and experimenter Guglielmo Marconi sent the first wireless signals across the Atlantic Ocean from the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall, the site is being honoured with the government's World Origin Site Award. The award formally acknowledges landmarks of significant events. On 17th October, a plaque was unveiled at the centre by Lord Robert Teverson and Carolyn Rule, MØADA, president of the Poldhu Amateur Radio Club GB2GM. The Marconi site is one of the recognised sites such as London St. Mary's Hospital, where penicillin was discovered in 1928 by Dr. Alexander Fleming. This is Jeremy Boot G4NJH. (WORLD ORIGIN SITE.ORG, WIA) ** BREAK HERE: Time for you to identify your station. We are the Amateur Radio Newsline heard on bulletin stations around the world including the K2ADA 2 meter repeater in Ocala Florida on Friday and Saturday nights at 7. ** HEDY LAMARR DAY ON THE AIR MONDAY, NOV. 9 JIM/ANCHOR: Monday, November 9th marks the 112th anniversary of the birth of the actress Hedy Lamarr, in Vienna. Known for her glamour, she is less famous for the role she played in developing designs for spread-spectrum technology that was patented in 1942. Listen for a special four-hour net starting at 1400 UTC on ALLSTAR, DMR and elsewhere on VOIP modes. Callsign N9H will also be calling CQ on HF, including 20 and 40 meters. See QRZ.com for additional operating details and QSL information. ** NEW FUNDING BOLSTERS 3YØL DXPEDITION to SUB-ANTARCTIC JIM/ANCHOR: New funding for the DXpedition to Peter the First Island has been announced. John Williams VK4JJW has more on that. JOHN: Three years since the start of their planning, the Delta Xray Group is now two months away from a trip to the sub-Antarctic where a team of 11 operators will use the callsign 3YØL to activate Peter the First Island for the first time since 2006. The remote island is one of Norway's Antarctic dependencies. The trip is going forward with two recently announced grants in support of its $3.7 million budget. The newest grants are from the Northern California DX Foundation and the International DX Association. The team continues to seek donations. Operators and the support team are scheduled to leave Chile in late January for the island, which is seventh on Club Log's list of most wanted DX entities. This is John Williams VK4JJW. (3YØL WEBSITE, QRZ.COM) ** ON-AIR CELEBRATION MARKS 40 YEARS OF EUROPEAN DX FOUNDATION JIM/ANCHOR: Remember the letters "E U D X F." These five letters form the suffix of a number of special callsigns that are on the air through to the 30th of November in recognition of the 40th anniversary of the European DX Foundation. So whether you've worked DL40EUDXF in Germany or DU40EUDXF in the Philippines - or even VI40EUDXF in Australia, you can be part of the celebration. The foundation was created four decades ago to provide support to activators on DXpeditions, especially those taking place in rare countries wanted by DX hunters. For details, visit the EUDXF dot EU website.". (EUROPEAN DX FOUNDATION) ** WORLD OF DX In the World of DX, Anders, SMØHPL will be on the air from Uganda with the callsign 5X7W from the 8th of November through to the 29th of December, operating QRP on 80-10 metres. Anders will be using CW and FT8/FT4. He will also be using the callsign 5X1Q when he is operating a vintage Atlas 350-XL transceiver. Listen for Rob, N7QT, on the air through to the 16th of November as E51MWA from Manihiki, IOTA Number OC-014, in the North Cook Islands. His main mode is CW. When he operates FT8 he uses Fox/Hound mode. Other operators will be operating the station remotely. Radio Club QRM Belgrano, LU4AAO, will be celebrating Argentine Tradition Day by calling QRZ on the HF bands using CW, SSB and FT 8. Listen for club members from the 7th through to the 15th of November. Nineteen teams of operators throughout Turkey are on the air with special callsigns through to the 11th of November. They are celebrating two occasions: the founding of the Republic of Turkey on the 29th of October, 1923 and the anniversary of the death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk on the 10th of November, 1938. Operators will be on various bands using CW, SSB and the digital modes. Callsigns include TCØATA, TC1ATA, TC2ATA sequentially up to TC9ATA, as well as TCØOTR, TC1TR sequentially up to TC9TR. (425 DX BULLETIN) ** KICKER: YOUNG VOICES AT VOICE OF AMERICA MUSEUM JIM/ANCHOR: Our final report tells the story of two very different chapters in history and how they converged on one October weekend in Ohio. Here to share it is Jim Davis W2JKD. JIM DAVIS: Two singular figures in history converged in Ohio on a recent October weekend. One was Daniel Carter Beard, a 19th century outdoorsman and Cincinnati native who helped shape America's national Scouting movement. The other is a prominent Art Deco style building just outside Cincinnati. It opened in 1944 as the Voice of America, a shortwave radio station created by the US government to transmit the message of freedom to countries overseas. On the weekend of scouting's annual Jamboree on the Air, the organization's largest event, 40 Ohio youngsters in the Scouting Council named for the pioneering advocate Daniel Beard visited that radio building, which is now a museum. There, inside the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting, the scouts called CQ, sending a message of friendship around the world using the callsign of the West Chester Amateur Radio Club, WC8VOA. Radio scouting is a big priority in the Scouting organization, which supplemented the weekend's on-air activities with classroom lessons on propagation, radio safety and related subjects. All of this - plus QSOs with fellow scouts in other countries - will help these youngsters satisfy requirements to earn a merit badge called Citizenship in the World. It's only fitting that the Voice of America building was where their message began. This is Jim Davis W2JKD. (AMATEUR RADIO DAILY, SHAWN GRUBB, KE8BBC) ** NEWSCAST CLOSE With thanks to AMSAT News; Amateur Radio Daily, David Behar, K7DB; DXWorld; European DX Foundation; FCC; 425 DX Bulletin; Libre Space Foundation; Muhammad Salman, AP2MS; QRZ.com; Radio World; Shawn Grubb, KE8BBC; 3YØL Website; Wireless Institute of Australia; WorldOriginSite.org; and you our listeners, that's all from the Amateur Radio Newsline. We remind our listeners that Amateur Radio Newsline is an all-volunteer non-profit organization that incurs expenses for its continued operation. If you wish to support us, please visit our website at arnewsline.org and know that we appreciate you all. We also remind our listeners that if you like our newscast, please leave us a 5-star rating wherever you subscribe to us. For now, with Caryn Eve Murray KD2GUT at the news desk in New York, and our news team worldwide, I'm Jim Damron N8TMW in Charleston West Virginia saying 73. As always, we thank you for listening. Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) is Copyright 2026. Amateur Radio Newsline retains ownership of its material even when retransmitted elsewhere. All rights are reserved.