Hey Everyone, Just found this out tonight…. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/arrl-cyberattack-takes-logbook-of-the-world-offline/ American Radio Relay League cyberattack takes Logbook of the World offline The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) warns it suffered a cyberattack, which disrupted its IT systems and online operations, including email and the Logbook of the World. ARRL is the national association for amateur radio in the United States, representing amateur radio interests to government regulatory bodies, providing technical advice, and promoting events and educational programs for enthusiasts around the country. On Thursday, the ARRL announced that it suffered a cyberattack that disrupted its network and systems, including various online services hosted by the organization. "We are in the process of responding to a serious incident involving access to our network and headquarters-based systems. Several services, such as Logbook of The World and the ARRL Learning Center, are affected," explained ARRL in a press release. Amateur radio enthusiasts use three-letter codes that start with the letter Q, which are called "Q" signals, and they act as abbreviations for commonly used phrases in ham radio. For example, the code QSO is shorthand for "I can communicate with _________ direct," and is used to denote a direct conversation between two stations. At the same time, QSL means "I am acknowledging receipt," meaning that contact is confirmed. Logbook of The World (LoTW) is an online database that allows amateur radio enthusiasts to submit electronic logs of successful contacts (QSO) and confirmations (QSL) between other users worldwide. Enthusiasts can use these logs of successful communication on LoTW towards operator awards. In a Friday update, the ARRL took steps to allay members' concerns about the security of their data, confirming that they do not store credit card information or collect social security numbers. However, the organization confirmed that its member database contains some private information, including names, addresses, and call signs. While they do not specifically state email addresses are stored in the database, one is required to become a member of the organization. It is unknown if the organization suffered a ransomware attack or another cybersecurity incident. BleepingComputer contacted the ARRL with further questions, but a reply was not immediately received. KBØDCO Thomas Gagnon Sent from my IPAD 4th Gen. Air Touch On Sun, May 19, 2024 at 11:02 AM KBØDCO Thomas via groups.io <Kb0dco@...> wrote: Hello Everyone, During the WØCRC Club Picnic… I was having issues logging into LOTW. I tried again today to log in there, but I’m still unsuccessful in doing so. If you’re doing FT8 or having auto updates to LOTW… I would double check that you most recent contacts got uploaded after LOTW has been restored to normal operation. Here is what I found on the ARRL website: https://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-systems-service-disruption ARRL Systems Service Disruption 05/17/2024 Updated 5/17/2024 Some members have asked whether their personal information has been compromised in some way. ARRL does not store credit card information anywhere on our systems, and we do not collect social security numbers. Our member database only contains publicly available information like name, address, and call sign along with ARRL specific data like email preferences and membership dates. Original story below: 5/16/2024 We are in the process of responding to a serious incident involving access to our network and headquarters-based systems. Several services, such as Logbook of The World® and the ARRL Learning Center, are affected. Please know that restoring access is our highest priority, and we are expeditiously working with outside industry experts to address the issue. We appreciate your patience. KBØDCO Thomas Gagnon Sent from my IPAD 4th Gen. Air Touch

Hello Everyone, During the WØCRC Club Picnic… I was having issues logging into LOTW. I tried again today to log in there, but I’m still unsuccessful in doing so. If you’re doing FT8 or having auto updates to LOTW… I would double check that you most recent contacts got uploaded after LOTW has been restored to normal operation. Here is what I found on the ARRL website: https://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-systems-service-disruption ARRL Systems Service Disruption 05/17/2024 Updated 5/17/2024 Some members have asked whether their personal information has been compromised in some way. ARRL does not store credit card information anywhere on our systems, and we do not collect social security numbers. Our member database only contains publicly available information like name, address, and call sign along with ARRL specific data like email preferences and membership dates. Original story below: 5/16/2024 We are in the process of responding to a serious incident involving access to our network and headquarters-based systems. Several services, such as Logbook of The World® and the ARRL Learning Center, are affected. Please know that restoring access is our highest priority, and we are expeditiously working with outside industry experts to address the issue. We appreciate your patience. KBØDCO Thomas Gagnon Sent from my IPAD 4th Gen. Air Touch

Skywarn Training in Cosmos, MN (Meeker County). The class will be held in the Cosmos Community Center. The address for the location is 220 Milky Way St S. Cosmos, MN The class will begin at 6:00 PM Central Daylight Saving Time. For additional information, contact Stephanie Johnson at 320-693-5420 or Stephanie.Johnson@... https://www.weather.gov/mpx/skywarnSchedule

Hey Gang, I just saw this email from Ben WØAYE. And forwarding it to WØCRC & KØMCR email reflectors. I will try to start a discussion on the topic of the National Traffic System at our November club meeting this Friday evening. KBØDCO Thomas Gagnon Sent from my IPAD 4th Gen. Air Touch

Hello Gang, I came across this important article about the National Traffic System. Which we really should all be familiar with in our amateur radio hobby. It looks like they are making some changes/updates this year in 2023 with this system NTS 2.0. https://tinyurl.com/NTS20VIDEO (The Video) https://tinyurl.com/NationalTrafficSystem (The Article) https://tinyurl.com/ARRL-NTS-20 (The Website) So please let us have a discussion about this subject at our next radio club meetings. On what we can do to practice and get familiar with on how to use this system. (Including when and where these nets are to pass traffic on.) Especially for emergency communications. And also our clubs can benefit with some points during field day too. And “REPLY ALL” so everyone within our 3 clubs can see your comments on this topic after everyone has a chance to discuss this topic in your respective club meetings. I am looking forward in finding out how many people are interested in the National Traffic System. And how we all can participate in it. DE KBØDCO Thomas Gagnon Cell: 320-552-0859 P.O. Box 4 Stewart, MN 55385

Hello Everyone, I received this email from https://DXMAPS.com I don't know if any of you have used this website in the past. I have used it many times years ago and I think it is a very good website for spotting current DX activities. Especially 6 meters for example. The way it works is for people to post their spotting reports on the site. Can be after working another ham on the band, or just receiving stations you heard. It covers all amateur bands. The email I am forwarding is a request for financial help. DXMaps are looking for supporters... Maybe someone here might have resources for them to move to and continue their operations elsewhere where it would be more affordable for them. If you've never been to their website before... I highly recommend it. KBØDCO Thomas Gagnon ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: DXMAPS support <service@...> Date: Sun, Aug 20, 2023, 6:01 AM Subject: DXMAPS needs your support To: <kb0dco@...> Dear Thomas (KB0DCO), You receive this one-time email as a registered user of DXMAPS.COM. If you already are a Supporter User and you have received it by mistake please disregard it and accept my apologies. DXMAPS requires a powerful dedicated server and a fast dedicated connection to Internet in order to offer a good response time and also to avoid service disruptions when there are many users connected simultaneously. Currently it is running on a server with two Xeon E5-2620 v2 sockets (12 cores and 24 logical processors), 64 GB of RAM and an ultrafast solid state disk, hosted in the datacenter of a well known hosting provider. You can get an idea of the workload of DXMAPS on the page https://dxmaps.com/sitestats.html Unfortunately, due to the decline of online advertising and the reduction in the number of radio amateurs, the yearly cost of renting and maintaining it has not been covered yet, so I have no choice but to ask all users who regularly use DXMAPS services and who can afford it, to voluntarily collaborate with some kind of donation, preferably becoming Supporter Users. If you want to become a Supporter User and thus collaborate so that DXMAPS can continue giving service in the coming months, please visit https://dxmaps.com/supporter.html Some of the benefits of being a Supporter User are: · No advertising will be shown to you. · Your callsign will appear highlighted on a yellow background on the maps. · Your callsign will have priority and will be shown on the maps on top of other stations in your own grid square. · Up to 50 queries per day to the DX database. · Unlimited number of queries to the Callbook and locator database. · Unlimited number of E-Mails with propagation alerts. · Unlimited number of DX spots sent. · Unlimited number of queries to the HF and VHF DX news. · Unlimited use of the DX Atlas and the online EME calculator. · Furthermore, you will be making possible the maintenance of the server and the implementation of new features in the future! I know these are hard times for everyone, so if your situation does not allow you to financially support DXMAPS, do not worry, you can continue using the service as until now, at least until we run out of funds. If at the time you registered as a DXMAPS user, but you are no longer interested in continuing to be one, login yourself at https://dxmaps.com/login.html and in the account details click 'Cancel account'. Many thanks in advance for your possible help! Gabriel - EA6VQ

Hello Willmar, Meeker Co. & Crow River Club Members, I am putting the word out for a new ham radio Satellite Facebook Group. My friend W8CPT, Don and myself have started to organizing this group together. I have invited some of you directly already. We also will be inviting other hams who we have been heard on the satellites via their emails posted on QRZ to get things rolling. This message is for the the rest of you for a place to discuss more about the ham radio satellite topic. And for those who would might like to possibly try working other hams stations through some of the FM satellites. Mainly the easiest satellite to use is the International Space Station. Here is the link for those of you that are on Facebook. We are looking forward in you in joining us there. https://m.facebook.com/groups/105323775840799/?ref=share I will also make the note here that…. All of you can do this right now with the equipment you already have! You can start with a simple 5/8th wave dual band mag mount antenna with a dual band vhf/uhf radio. The freqs are: 145.990 FM with a tone of 67.0 Hz for the uplink. And listen starting at 437.810 to 437.790 as it flys over you. Generally from the west towards the east. Looking forward in see all of you there! -- KBØDCO Thomas Gagnon Sent from my IPAD 4th Gen. Air Touch

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: KB0DCO Thomas <kb0dco@...> Date: Mon, Jul 24, 2023 at 9:21 PM Subject: Fwd: ARRL FD 2023 Entry - W0CRC To: <CrowRiverARC@groups.io>, Meeker Club Meeker <meekerradio@...>, <W0SW@groups.io> Hello Gang! I finally got everything submitted to the ARRL website tonight! Here is the confirmation email with the confirmation #25nd24yf. I want to thank Paul KCØHST for all those 54 PSK31 digital contacts! Don KCØQNA for jumping around the bands like myself. And to Dave KBØWJP, for his expertise in getting the digital logging to connect up to his laptop with internet access for us to check and verify callsigns. And everyone helping others setting up equipment. I know we had some bad weather, but we were in a good place… though I read in the field day packet… this might not be “In the spirt of FD.” But think any shelter is a good shelter. We used emergency generator power and not commercial power. Some hams even do field day from EOC which can be in a mobile home setup or in a building within the city. I had a hard time with setting up my big dipole due to the dew point and temps were a bad combination for me this year. But I persevered by resting and taking a few breaks. I would of liked to of been on the air more than I did. But I was very excited to work the South Cook Islands with a few other DX stations. I will try to get a QSL card for both me and the for the club callsign at some point. I will be logging that as our 1st contact in Logbook Of the World for the club! After doing field day again after a few years hiatus, It was both hard and still fun to do. Now with this experience of coordinating FD, I think I will be better prepared for next years FD event! Cause I will have reference material to fall back on. I hope we can get more people to volunteer to help us make a few more bonus points for next years event. The more we do it…. Hopefully the easier it gets! I would like to see us hams get more familiar with the NTS 2.0. (National Traffic System) For this being field day, sending messages should be apart of it too. And is something we should practice how to do. Myself… I’ve only forwarded one message some years ago. And to me, that is not enough. I ran across a YouTube zoom meeting video about it. I will post something about it to everyone at a later time. I know we did some traffic handling with help from Lee WBØTRA some years ago. I do not think it is that hard to do… but am willing to learn again as I hope most of you do to. So here’s our results from our attempt to get back in the swing of things in some time… I am proud that we were able to do field day this year and looking forward to next years! ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: ARRL <noreply@...> Date: Mon, Jul 24, 2023 at 8:36 PM Subject: ARRL FD 2023 Entry - W0CRC To: <kb0dco@...> Congratulations! You've successfully submitted your Field Day entry, as well as uploaded all required documentation. Your confirmation number is 25nd24yf. A summary of your submission is provided below for your review. If you have any questions about your log, please contact the Contest section at contests@.... If you need to update your entry, enter soapbox comments or upload photos of your Field Day activities, please use the appropriate link below. Links: Update entry/upload documents https://field-day.arrl.org/fdentry.php?call=w0crc&id=25nd24yf Soapbox comments/photos https://contests.arrl.org/contestsoapbox.php?call=w0crc&id=25nd24yf Summary: Entry received at: 2023-07-25 01:36:06 Call Used: W0CRC GOTA Station Call: (NONE) ARRL/RAC Section: MN Class: 3A Participants: 9 Club/Group Name: Crow River Amateur Radio Club Power Source(s): Generator Power Multiplier: 2X Preliminary Total Score: 1,242 Bonus Points: 100% emergency power 300 Media Publicity 100 - Documented by 2023 CRARC FD Press Release.pdf Public location 100 Formal messages handled (1 x 10, max of 100) 10 - Documented by 2023 FD NTS Message Received.png Site visit by invited served agency 100 Safety officer 100 - Documented by W0CRC FD Report 2023 (L).pdf Social media

FYI * changes for the W0SW, Willmar 146.910 - repeater * You will need to ADD a PL/CTCSS tone of 100.0 hz to access the repeater. For now it does work without or with the tone. But in the near future you will need the tone enabled on your radio to access the repeater. There is also a voice announcement on the repeater as well. If you need help with programming let me know. Dan - KC0CAP

Hello Willmar, Meeker Co., & Crow River Ham Radio Clubs, I have invited all of you on your Facebook pages, and your local nets, to the WØCRC club field day event this year. I volunteered to coordinate the WØCRC club’s FD. I was made aware that the Willmar Club W0SW, and the Meeker County Club K0MCR, did not have any plans for doing field day this year. So members of the WØCRC club wanted me to invite all of you that were interested in joining our event this year. As of this time, I have not seen or heard from anyone from either club yet by phone or email that said they were coming with any radio equipment. And if anyone was bringing anything for potluck. (Thomas Gagnon KBØDCO Cell Phone: 320-552-0859 or KB0DCO@...) People just wanting to come visit us, do not need to signup on the signup sheet. Here is the address for you to put in your phone to find us: 1700 Butler Field Dr, Hutchinson, MN 55350 Or with this link from Google Maps: (Dropped pin) https://maps.app.goo.gl/sbsU7y7atgDQr8QJ7?g_st=ic The link for the Signup Sheet for the WØCRC Field Day 2023 is below. It is open to edit to add your info. there. We will decide what class level we will be at FD. It currently looks like we will be at least 3A. But we might increase it by one number, to cover if someone who has not had the chance to inform us that they were bringing their radio equipment to operate on. https://docs.google.com/document/d/11sYbB4zkf7TPIyqcIAO5siJpbF-xQ9IAfmHEvMk5Bjk/edit Here is the 2023 rules for field day. (Edited down for use by WØCRC.) https://docs.google.com/document/d/11MGPKLWmJwainiDFCB4HZQv7KADfDp5goe_bPR6KFeI/edit The Club and I are looking forward to all of you joining us at Field Day! -- KBØDCO Thomas Gagnon Sent from my IPAD 4th Gen. Air Touch

FYI if anyone is interested https://groups.io/g/W0SW/message/6 https://www.facebook.com/WillmarAreaEAR Join us on Saturday, May 20th, 2023 for a casual get-together of the Willmar Emergency Amateur Radio Club. Willmar E.A.R. Coffee Saturday, May 20, 2023 10:00am Perkins Restaurant 2645 First Street South, Willmar MN Everyone is welcome!

https://www.weather.gov/mpx/skywarnschedule Monday, May 15 6:00pm Skywarn Training - Meeker County, MN WhenMon, May 15, 6:00pm – 8:30pm Where210 Atlantic Ave W, Grove City, MN 56243, USA (map) DescriptionSkywarn Training in Grove City, MN (Meeker County). The class will be held in the Community Center. The address for the location is 210 Atlantic Ave W. For additional information, contact Stephanie Johnson at 320-693-5420 or Stephanie.Johnson@...

FYI the Willmar club WOSW will be hosting a Fox Hunt Saturday, May 10th. Meet at Robbins Island 09:30. 10am start. Details in the file attached....

https://www.weather.gov/mpx/skywarnschedule FYI RSVP info below... Skywarn Training - Meeker County, MN When: Tue, March 15, 18:00 – 20:30 Where: Meeker County Courthouse, 325 N Sibley Ave, Litchfield, MN 55355, USA (map) Description: Skywarn Training Class in Litchfield, MN (Meeker County). The class will be held in Community Rooms A & B of the Courthouse basement. The Courthouse is located at 325 N Sibley Ave. An RSVP is requested. Contact Stephanie Johnson at 320-693-5420 or Stephanie.Johnson@...