Tropical Storm Isaias is the story every ham along the Gulf Coast should be watching. The National Hurricane Center named the storm early Wednesday in the Bay of Campeche, and forecasters expect it to become the first hurricane of the 2026 Atlantic season by Thursday, strengthening to a Category 2 with 109-mph winds before a Friday landfall along the northern Gulf Coast. A hurricane watch runs from Bay St. Louis, Mississippi to Indian Pass, Florida, with a storm surge watch from the Mississippi River mouth to Yankeetown, Florida; Governor DeSantis has declared a state of emergency in 25 North Florida counties. The Hurricane Watch Net is at Alert Level 2, monitoring mode, and had not activated as of Tuesday evening — watch hwn.org for activation announcements, and keep HF gear and go-kit batteries ready if you are anywhere near the cone.
The 44th AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting opens tomorrow, October 8, at the Wyndham Jacksonville Hotel & Conference Center in Jacksonville, Florida, running through the 11th, with presentations beginning Friday and live streaming available for those who cannot make it to Florida. The satellite crowd also has fresh hardware on orbit: the ERMINAZ-2 PocketQube trio from AMSAT-DL rode SpaceX's Transporter-18 into space on October 1, and AMSAT-EA's HADES-L and UNNE-1B are slated for an October launch as well.
On the regulatory front, two federal proceedings have put RF exposure back under the microscope. The FCC opened a narrow public notice on issues remanded by the 2021 appeals court decision, and the Department of Health and Human Services issued a broader request for information covering EMFs and wireless technology; both comment windows opened September 17, with HHS comments due October 21 and FCC comments due October 22. Nothing changes for amateur operations today, but the proceedings could drive future rule changes — worth a few minutes of your time to read and file a comment.
DX hunters have a rare one on the air: 9T0MD from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a brand-new 9T prefix, is on 160 through 6 meters on CW, SSB, FT8, and RTTY through October 10. Also active: C5R from The Gambia through November 4, JW6VM/JW7XK/JW9DL from Svalbard through October 12, and the Calabria DX Team's 9H6C from Malta October 10–12. The XR0Z effort to Alexander Selkirk Island in the Juan Fernandez group is fundraising to complete logistics for an October operation on 160 through 10.
The weekend contest lineup is stacked: the Scandinavian Activity Contest on SSB, the SKCC Weekend Sprintathon on CW, the Arizona, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota QSO parties, and the 10-10 International 10-10 Day Sprint on 10 meters all run over October 10–11. Hamfest season is rolling too — SPARK-CON in Sedalia, Missouri October 9–10, the North Star Radio Convention in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota on October 10, and the Nutmeg Hamfest in Meriden, Connecticut on October 11, with Pacificon in San Ramon, California following October 16–18.
On the GMRS side, the Southwest Community Radio System opened four Arizona repeaters — Heliograph 700, Guthrie 600, Alpine 725, and Nutrioso 550 — to all licensed GMRS users, no club membership required. And a heads-up from NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center: the solar flux index sat at 92 on October 4, and active region 4549 fired off M1.4 and M1.8 flares on October 6, prompting a G2 moderate geomagnetic storm watch for October 9. Aurora may be visible as far south as New York, Wisconsin, and Washington — if the bands get rough on Friday, that is why.