Aussie telco Vertel and NSW-based two-way radio specialists Combined Communication have teamed up to install Push-to-Talk over Cellular (PoC) devices across Dyson Group’s 650 buses and coaches. The devices come with covert push-to-video duress features to improve safety for Dyson’s drivers, many of which operate in remote areas of NSW and Victoria that are not effectively supported by mobile service or traditional radio communications. The company’s 1,300 staff previously relied on a hodgepodge of different communications systems that had been inherited from its acquisitions.  The privately-listed, carrier and its premium channel partner Combined Communications deployed a platform that includes both the features of traditional two-way radio and the data functionality of smartphones, including underlying GPS tracking capabilities.  The device looks like a traditional two-way radio and is attached to the driver’s dashboard with double-sided, heat-activated 3M tape.  It also features a built-in camera and a covert push-to-video duress feature that lets Dyson Group’s drivers alert head office to an incident while generating real-time video footage without alerting perpetrators. Vertel commercial director Tony Hudson said, “The Vertel PoC solution helps keep mobile workforces safe, in touch, and productive, and is ideal for life- and mission-critical applications.” “Driver safety is of the utmost importance to Dyson Group and the Vertel PoC solution with built-in covert duress features was especially customised to meet the company’s unique requirements in ensuring driver safety while not alerting potential perpetrators and giving dispatchers and emergency services real-time vision of what is happening on the bus.” “Without reliable communication, our drivers could be put at risk in regional areas without being able to communicate their location or request assistance in the event of an incident or emergency.” 

An small team of EURAO members from Romania, with the financial support of a local foundation in Buzau City that started in April a program dedicated to the children and young people in order to experience applied science with the help of amateur radio. The project aims to create an educational space and apply in practice the phenomena that accompany the interaction between people using radio waves. The program, which began in April, is scheduled to last until November 2022, when we will be able to offer a more exhaustive report of the activities carried out. So far, during the summer holidays, more than 5000 children have attended demonstrations of what amateur radio means. The program Radio Science 2.0 assumes an educational role to help kids to understand a lot of things regarding to the life and how we can use the ham radio to keep away the virtual life of them. The initiative was welcomed by the parents too. The team of Radio Science 2.0 started to make basic activities to bring up kids interests to the practical things direction, ease to do for them and full of knowledge and science. In this manner we started to teach them the phonetic alphabet, about how is working Frs walkie talkie, how we can find directions on the ground to toward our antennas, what a transceiver is and other elementary things from ham radio biology and emergency situation domains. We continued to teach them about how to solder and during the meetings they made their first FM radio. We did a lot of long range communication with radios and had lots of fun and a lot of knowledge we finally gatheried! Anyway, we discovered the kids are attracted by the ham radio just if we can proof the necessity of it and for this new situation two hours became three or four hours of workshops every weekend. Actually, the kids didn't want to go home after the educational time was spent. We did a lot of work for the wonderful kids. Our scope to show them what means ham radio for more than 5000 kids during the summer vacation was easy touch and now we have invitation to continue the activities as long as we want and can. As the result of our activities we received an invitation to participate in the summer school, for three months long, organized by Cultural and Educational Center Alexandru Marghiloman in each Thursday of the week.We recorded a lot of testimonials and also an interesting conclusion: how we can improve the ham radio with the new generation!

The following two rescue stories are great examples of why amateur radio is important. The first story occurred in Wisconsin and is told by ARRL member Scott Strecker, KG9IV. In his own words, Strecker shares how he was able to help a ham in distress. Thanks to the Chippewa Valley Amateur Radio Club in Wisconsin, an ARRL Affiliated Club, for this information. "It was Friday, which meant I worked from my home office. I have the VHF radios on low to monitor them in the background. Recently, I got into the Allstar node with a hotspot. I use it to monitor the FM38 systems. At about 7:45 AM, I heard the Allstar node come up. An individual in distress was asking for assistance to get an ambulance to him. It was a ham in Brown Deer, Wisconsin. He had slipped on his bathroom floor and went down so hard he could not get up, but he happened to have his handheld with him. He did not have access to the phone, and he lived alone. I called the Brown Deer police call center. The dispatcher got the fire department rolling and then started asking me for more details. I had the dispatcher on speaker phone, and he could hear the hams' responses to the questions. It felt good to help out. I also realized it was due to my monitoring that I was able to hear his call. In addition to Strecker's story, newly licensed amateur radio operators Shannon Vore, KK7GVG, also shared a rescue story. On September 13, 2022, in the Rocky Mountains in northwest Idaho, they were out for a weekend of four-wheeling in their Jeep. The area is an extremely mountainous region with no towns, very few people, no facilities, and no cell phone coverage. The nearest airfield is Horse Haven Trail, an unimproved dirt strip that's severely eroded and covered with rocks and debris. At about 4:30 PM, Vore and Bouchard were taking a break when an approaching truck notified them of an ATV accident involving two teenage girls. The accident scene was just a few miles away, and when they arrived it was clear the teenagers were critically injured. Bouchard was unable to contact several local repeaters, but was finally able to make contact using a simplex frequency (146.420 MHz) that's popular with the hams in Coeur d'Alene, 20 miles from the accident site. For nearly 2 hours, Vore and Tappero provided relay between the 911 dispatcher, advising the condition of the injured and the approaching weather. Life Flight Network was unable to respond because of a severe thunderstorm immediately over the rescue site. Tappero continued to provide relay information for all parties until 6:00 PM, when the EMT's arrived. The teenagers were in stable condition and immediately transported to the nearest hospital. Today, they're in good condition and recovering. "It took us about 2 days to wind down from the experience," said Vore. "We are both glad we had our amateur radio licenses and were able to help." Bouchard said that they had been using radios on the General Mobile Radio System (GMRS), but have since upgraded their...

In order to support the continuous COVID-19 prevention and control work across the country, Fujian Juston Electronic Equipment Company Limited actively practiced its social corporate responsibility and urgently dispatched 300 walkie-talkies to Wuhan, Hubei for free use by hospitals and front-line COVID-19 prevention units. In the context of this respiratory infectious disease, distance is the best physical protection. The most common medical protective equipment, masks, are active distance separation. But this cannot stop the transmission of information. At this time, rugged, reliable and secure "black brick" ：two-way radio is used as an emergency communication tool. In previous news reports, we can see that medical staff in isolation areas and under lockdown, wearing protective clothing and gloves, are inconvenient to carry personal mobile phones, and can only communicate with the outside world through walkie-talkies. In the isolation ward, the walkie-talkie also plays an important role as a bridge, connecting the concerns of the outside world about epidemic control and prevention, and the voice of recovery in a race against time. Mobile phones are already a must-have communication item for everyone, but in some key occasions, the walkie-talkie's features such as "pick up and talk", "one-call answering", "passive answering" and "automatic hands-free" have become a significant advantage. For example, the walkie-talkie provided by Juston this time is Q608, which is a high-power analog radio. The rugged and durable body, large-capacity battery, and higher power are suitable for long-term and long-distance communication; the configuration of VOX, SOS and other functions can maintain contact with the outside world in emergency situations, efficiently dispatch medical resources, and carry out COVID-19 prevention rescue work.

The International Space Station ("ISS" for short) passed over the city of Guilin, Guangxi, at 9:27 a.m. The city's radio amateur (call sign: BG7SRC) successfully copied the APRS beacon (frequency 145.825Mhz) transmitted by the ISS. The Automatic Packet Report System (APRS) is a project in the amateur radio, which combines the amateur radio and the Global Positioning Satellite System (GPS) to achieve the purpose of real-time position transmission in the AFSK AX.25 communication mode. APRS receiving stations around the world can connect to the Internet to upload the APRS packet information received by the station to the APRS server, and finally compile the data for users to read. There is an APRS Digipeater in the amateur radio module of the International Space Station, which uses a frequency of 145.825Mhz (the VHF band amateur satellite frequency is 145.800-146.00Mhz). It can be used for APRS operations, not only to send location, but also to transmit text messages. Frequency information can be attached to APRS messages, making it easy for other hams to find out what frequencies you are using. Some hams plug their personal weather information (not weather forecasts) into the APRS system to provide real-time information on precipitation, wind, etc. There is also the short message protocol using APRS, in the case of being disconnected from the Internet, in emergency communication, the advantages of information release and location sharing APRS are much greater than voice communication. APRS can not only interact with stations on the ground, but also conduct satellite communication.

Ham radio is all about connections. Club members right here in Burlington connect to other operators all over the world and even to astronauts in the International Space Station. The technology, which continues to inspire a passionate group of users, has managed to remain relevant even in the era of email and cellphones due to its reliability. “When all else fails, ham radio doesn't, and we saw that just recently in this Rogers thing. What am I going to do? I haven't got a telephone. How am I going to talk? Well, ham radio people were still talking to each other,” said Tom Montgomery, a member of the Burlington Amateur Radio Club (BARC). Club member Yves Isabelle, who lives in Burlington, said he has made use of his radio on the other side of the world. “Just before COVID, like the month before we went into lockdown, my wife and I were travelling. We're in Australia, New Zealand. I had my little handheld radio with me. I was able to use handheld radio connect up to a repeater there that was connected to the internet, and I had a conversation with four guys from the club here in Burlington, from Sydney, Australia,” said Yves. BARC members say there’s a lot of different reasons to get into the hobby. Some people like tinkering with machines, while others like talking to people around the world. The group also supports local emergency services by providing equipment and expertise when called upon. Of course,NOAA（emergency weather）radios are being touted as a new tool for alerts and warnings during disasters. “As much as it sounds complicated, it's not. In this hobby, YouTube is your friend. There's always somebody who's done it from scratch and done it right. Everybody uses it — the technology keeps changing,” said Yves.

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Authorities trying to curb the flow of illegally obtained two-way radio devices have charged a Northland man with importing them without a licence. The man, who has interim name suppression, recently appeared in Whangārei District Court, pleading guilty to breaching the Radio Communications Act 1989 by importing the devices without a licence. Scheduled for sentence later this year, he faces a fine of up to $30,000. The charge is related to a consignment of 50 dual band radios and 2 long range radios, which was addressed to the man's home and intercepted by Customs at Auckland airport on December 23 last year. A summary of facts released by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's Radio Spectrum Management (RSM) unit, said the illegal supply of these two-way radios had become a serious problem for police in the Northland region. The RSM is the authority that allocates rights for the use of the radio spectrum, enforces compliance with licensing requirements, and administers the Radio Communications Act 1989 and the Radiocommunications Regulations 2001. Records were not available to determine how many of the radios he sold through Facebook. On January 21 last year, RSM saw a photo he posted on his North Comms page showing 47 of the devices for sale. It indicated he had likely sold a significant volume, RSM said. At that stage, RSM was unable to link the profile to the man.By December 7 last year, RSM became aware he had resumed listing two-way radios on Trade Me. He was issued an infringement notice and told to take the corrective actions stipulated by the Act but he failed to do either. Interim suppression was imposed on the basis that publicity could cause the man extreme hardship, including by affecting his current job search.

Eight-year-old Isabella Payne spoke to Astronaut Kjell Lindgren via amateur radio as the International Space Station  flew overhead. The 8-year-old girl has always been keen on the exploration and operation of radio. Of course, this is thanks to the father Matthew who is a license holding amateur radio enthusiast and tutor. They are both members of Hilderstone Radio Society. Matthew said with great pride:"Isabella has been a member of the radio club ever since she was born and has been playing with the radio since she was six. I teach her how to use the long distance walkie-talkies when we go hiking. I have the full licence so that she can sit on my knee and use the radio to speak to people as long as I am controlling it. Everyone at the club can do that. She has been involved in a few radio events, Children On The Air events, and will hopefully go for her own licence soon." On the other hand, astronaut Kjell Lindgren also has a radio licence. They have to do it as part of astronaut training as they have amateur radio equipment on the station. Although the equipment is not usually used to chat to the public, while Kjell is an active radio user and has been using it to chat to “lucky ham”, something that has rarely happened over the past decade. Talking about what happened that night, father Matthew got excited. They had to get the timing just right to catch the ISS as it was overhead. Matthew said: “Isabella had just gone to bed so I had to wake her up quickly and she had only been awake for about 30 seconds when she spoke to him.” The astronaut tweeted to say the chat with Isabella had been his favourite of the day. The family then received an email from NASA to ask if the recording and a picture of Isabella could be used on its website. Isabella was very happy to talk about it. "It's really special to be able to talk to the astronauts on the space station. I was woken up by my dad and looked out the window through the amateur radio house. It was pitch black. But after a few minutes, I became super happy because I also got a photo of him floating on the ISS!"

Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) has awarded a grant to the Sangamon Valley Radio Club (SVRC) in Springfield, Illinois for a new project to introduce youth, outdoor enthusiasts, and members of the public to amateur radio. The grant is for Radio Orienteering activities, also known as Amateur Radio Direction Finding (ARDF). SVRC will purchase transmitters, controllers, receivers, maps, and other items needed to conduct successful Radio Orienteering events. In addition, there will be several events for SVRC members and local youth groups such as Boy Scouts of America and Civil Air Patrol.  The events will allow participants to learn the technical and outdoor skills needed to succeed in Radio Orienteering. Radio Orienteering is an international sport. Participants use handheld radios, compasses, maps, and radio-direction finding skills to search for transmitters operating in the 2-meter and 80-meter bands. They use their athletic, orienteering, and technical skills, attempting to locate low-power transmitters and get to the finish line first. The 20th IARU World Championships in Amateur Radio Direction Finding will be held in Borovets, Bulgaria, August 28 - September 3, 2022. The 22nd USA Radio Orienteering Championships will be held April 19 - 23, 2023, near Dallas, Texas. The Sangamon Valley Radio Club plans to share their experiences and equipment requirements to help other amateur radio clubs who may be considering similar events and programs.