New Government Issues First Amateur Radio Licence

Antonio, EA5RM, member of the Intrepid-DX/DX Friends Group planning a multi-national DXpedition to Southern Sudan, sent out the following press release this past week:

"After a long way, a lot of hard work and several successful meetings with Southern Sudan Government officials of various Ministries,just today,the first amateur radio
license has been issued by the new government.

"Southern Sudan Government officials now understand amateur radio, and they are ready to change the actual rules and regulations as soon as possible.....

Southern Sudan Radio Hams

Early Australian Amateur Radio Callsigns

Ever wondered how the Australian amateur radio prefix VK came about?

According to "History of Australian Radio Callsigns" by K3HZ, Dave, it came from a block of prefixes beginning with the letter V, assigned to British Commonwealth countries in 1912 to commemorate the death of Queen Victoria.

The block VH - VK was allocated to Australia but these were not assigned to Australian amateurs until 1928.

1910, after representations by the WIA, the then Postmaster General's Department began issuing experimental licenses. These used a three letter call beginning with X and did not differentiate between states until 1912 when these three
letter calls were broken up into blocks according to state.

VK Callsigns

The 'Spirit' of Amateur Radio

Moray Firth Amateur Radio Society is celebrating the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival by running three Special Event stations, one located at Strathisla distillery in Keith (callsign GB3SWF) another located at the Craigellachie Distillery (callsign GB2SWF) and a third at Glenfarclas Distillery (probably GB4SWF).

The objective of this exercise is to contact as many amateur radio stations as possible, worldwide, to promote Scotland’s iconic dram – malt whisky. Each station will operate on the Shortwave (HF) bands, principally 80m, 40m and 20m SSB, and also on VHF when possible.

Ham Radio at Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival