The biggest radio-regulatory story of the week landed in Washington on Wednesday. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr published the agenda for the Commission's October 29 open meeting, and two items touch the spectrum world we live in every day. The Commission will vote on advancing a new spectrum auction for direct-to-device satellite services — the technology linking ordinary smartphones straight to satellites — and on finalizing rules to open roughly 50 MHz of low-band spectrum, including the 800 MHz cellular band, for commercial drone operations. For hams and GMRS licensees alike, every spectrum proceeding is worth watching: today's auction item can be tomorrow's neighbor-band fight.
Overhead, the sun kept the ionosphere busy all weekend. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center shows the 10.7 cm solar flux holding in the upper 120s to low 130s on October 10 and 11, with unsettled geomagnetics — the Boulder A index ran near 30 to 33, and the K index hit 6 on October 10 before settling back to the 2-to-4 range on Saturday. This Week in Amateur Radio's newest bulletin even reports that heightened solar activity is taking a toll on Starlink satellites. Expect punchy higher bands, but watch for fading and auroral flutter on polar paths.
The GMRS community lost one of its earliest champions. Amateur Radio Newsline's Report 2554 marks the passing of Randy Knowles, a Chicago attorney said to hold the country's oldest GMRS callsign, KAA8142. Knowles helped found the North Shore Emergency Association in Chicago's northern suburbs and set up one of the first GMRS repeater systems. From 1976 to 1978 he served as task chairman of the congressionally chartered Personal Use Radio Advisory Committee to the FCC, where he argued for GMRS as a family and community service — and fought successfully to keep GMRS licenses affordable. He died August 21 from complications of diabetes at age 79.
On the DX side, the ARRL W1AW bulletin for October 8 lists several operations on the air right now. 5W0AF in Samoa is QRV through October 12, 8R1TM in Guyana through October 12, and FW1P on Wallis Island through October 16, while VK9WX on Willis Island and HF0PAS run through month's end. Today is the final day for the Lesotho trio 7P8JL, 7P8LZ and 7P8TR and for 9T0MD in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, reported on 160 through 6 meters, QO-100 and even EME. Also active: C5R in The Gambia through November 4, Z81Q in South Sudan on CW, and ZA/AE5X running QRP from Albania. Ahead: 3DA0GY from Eswatini starts October 15, S9R from Sao Tome on October 17, and a 14-operator Andaman Islands team (VU4) fires up October 19. Mark October 24 too, when Sweden's historic SAQ Grimeton alternator sends its annual UN Day peace message in CW on 17.2 kHz at 12:20 UTC.
Next weekend is one of the busiest of the fall. Jamboree on the Air runs October 16 through 18 — get on the air with Scouts under this year's theme of a peaceful and inclusive world. Hamfest Chattanooga, an ARRL-sanctioned event that runs October 16-17 in Ringgold, Georgia with vendors, forums and FCC testing. The Zero Retries Digital Conference meets Friday, October 16 in San Ramon, California. The Chasing Cornwallis Challenge wraps with special event station K4Y on the air October 18-20 for the Battle of Yorktown. And the contest calendar is stacked: the JARL WW RTTY Contest, the New York QSO Party, the Worked All Germany Contest, the Stew Perry Topband Challenge, the Illinois QSO Party on Sunday, the Asia-Pacific CW Sprint and the Run for the Bacon QRP contest.