ARRL Announces Logbook of The World Systems Upgrade

ARRL’s Logbook of The World® (LoTW®) is the 2nd most popular benefit among ARRL members. It is also an extremely popular service internationally for non-members, as it is the primary means for providing confirmations for ARRL Awards, such as DXCC and Worked All States.

As a part of the ongoing modernisation of the ARRL systems infrastructure, LoTW will be receiving major upgrades to the operating system it is running on, the relational database system it uses to store and access logbook and awards data, and server hosting, where it will be fully migrated to the cloud. These changes will, among other improvements, ensure LoTW performance needs can be better met based on user demand.

LoTW will be unavailable from 27th June to 2nd July 2025, to complete these upgrades. We will bring LoTW back online if it is available sooner than 2nd July 2025.

More Information - http://www.arrl.org/logbook-of-the-world

Exam Standards Committee Annual Report

The RSGB Examinations Standards Committee (ESC) has published its annual report, relating to activities in 2024.

The report shows that overall candidate numbers have increased to above pre-pandemic levels and are well above the extrapolation of the declining trend over the decade before the pandemic.

The ESC believes that this is probably due to the availability of remote invigilation online examinations taken at home and the increase in provision of distance learning courses, making the hobby much more accessible than in the past.

More information - https://rsgb.services/public/publications/esc/reports/2025/examinations_standards_committee_report_2025.pdf

Radio Signals Have 'Upward Propagation' Through Ice, Stone

Radio signals picked up by a NASA high-altitude balloon have been leaving scientists baffled. The balloon, part of NASA's experiment known as Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna, or ANITA, was floating 40 kilometres above the continent, in search of neutrinos and other particles when its sensitive radio antennas unexpectedly picked up signals that were coming from someplace below - way below - the Antarctic's frozen surface. Physicists say that for that kind of reception to occur the radio waves would have had to have penetrated 6,000 to 7,000 kilometres, or 3,700 to 4,300 miles, of solid ice and stone. 

Although the balloon project has since been retired, researchers continue to study these unexplained transmissions and recently published their findings in the journal, Physical Review Letters. The researchers say that by all models of physics, the signals should have been absorbed by the rock and gone undetected. 

Scientists know that these are not neutrinos - the particles that they had expected - but are still trying to narrow down what kind of radio signals they're dealing with. Meanwhile, with the ANITA project retired, the next instruments to have a go at the mystery will be on board a work in progress:  A Pennsylvania State University team is building something bigger and, they hope, better: The Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observation mission.

Source - ARNewsline