Subj : Amateur Radio Newsline (A) To : All From : Daryl Stout Date : Fri Jan 24 2020 11:36:50 Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2204, for Friday, January 24th, 2020 Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2204, with a release date of Friday, January 24th, 2020, to follow in 5-4-3-2-1. The following is a QST. There's a new CEO at the ARRL. An antenna deal goes bad for the U.S. military -- and software-defined radio and AM radio get their own tributes on the air. All this and more, as Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2204, comes your way right now. ** BILLBOARD CART ** ARRL VOTE OUSTS CEO HOWARD MICHEL WB2ITX STEPHEN/ANCHOR: In our top story this week, a new chief executive is in place at the American Radio Relay League. Ralph Squillace, KK6ITB, has that report. RALPH: In a move that has generated a buzz throughout some of the amateur community, the board of the American Radio Relay League voted against re-electing Howard Michel, WB2ITX, as chief executive officer. Effective Monday, January 20th, Barry Shelley, N1VXY, became interim CEO of the league. This is Barry Shelley's second tour as interim CEO. The league's chief financial officer for 28 years, he was also chosen as interim CEO following the retirement of Tom Gallagher, NY2RF, in 2018. Howard Michel's short tenure as CEO began in October of 2018. As speculation continues on a successor, a search committee has been created to review candidates. For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Ralph Squillace, KK6ITB. (ARRL) ** U.S. MILITARY REPORTEDLY SCAMMED BY ANTENNA DEAL STEPHEN/ANCHOR: If you've ever bought a piece of radio equipment that turned out NOT to be quite what you'd ordered, you're in good company with some folks at the Pentagon. Kent Peterson, KC0DGY, has that story. KENT: The United States Navy's Special Warfare Command thought it was buying 450 VHF/UHF ultra-light wearable body antennas, for use by its elite Navy SEAL teams. Instead, it got scammed by a delivery of cheap knockoff antennas, according to federal officials quoted in a recent report on the website Quartz. The Navy had been shopping last year, specifically for antennas made by the New York-based company, Mastodon Design. The antennas were to be delivered by a small business authorized to be a dealer or reseller of Mastodon products. The winning bid was submitted by California-based Vizocom which -- according to the Navy's account of the deal -- instead delivered lower-cost substitutes that had been provided with fake spec sheets and serial numbers identifying them as Mastodon products. It cost the Pentagon $165,000, but according to investigators' review of the company's purchase order, Vizocom paid little more than $12,000 for the antennas. Details in a government search warrant of Vizocom's premises in December said that when the special operations force received the antennas, their poor quality was evident, and they looked different from previous Mastodon products used by the SEALs. According to Quartz, the investigation is still under way. No official charges have been filed. Vizocom has done more than $30 million in recent business with the U.S. government, much of it with the military. For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Kent Peterson, KC0DGY. (QUARTZ) ** YEAR-LONG EVENT CELEBRATES THE DAWN OF SDR STEPHEN/ANCHOR: For most of 2020, hams will be marking the anniversary of a groundbreaking development more than 3 decades ago. Ed Durrant, DD5LP, has the details. ED: What began in a lecture given in 1985 by Ulrich L. Rohde, DJ2LR / N1UL, has since transformed much of the amateur radio landscape. His talk came at the dawn of digital signal processing via Software Defined Radio, or SDR. SDR is now considered the standard when it comes to generating or decoding radio signals - and Ulrich Rohde is considered a pioneer. In 1982, he was part of a team working at RCA under a U.S. Department of Defense Contract, which led to the first software-defined radio's development. Special event station DL35SDR, which began activity this month, is marking the 35 years since he delivered his lecture in London at a conference on HF communications. The special event station will be on the air throughout much of the year, operating from the greater Munich area where Ulrich's family busines, the test-equipment company Rohde and Schwartz, is based. For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Ed Durrant, DD5LP. (SOUTHGATE) --- SBBSecho 3.10-Win32 * Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (454:1/33) .