Birds, Benches, and Band Plans

This week’s program is pure amateur radio: Field Day prep, working the satellites, and the new wave of local AI showing up on the bench. A companion to the broadcast, with the dates, frequencies, and links you can verify yourself.

Field Day is next weekend

ARRL Field Day 2026 runs June 27 and 28, 1800 UTC Saturday through 2059 UTC Sunday, the same fourth-weekend-of-June ritual the hobby has kept since 1933. This year’s theme is “Amateur Radio, A National Resource,” paired with the Year of the Club push. Treat it as antenna practice, logging practice, emergency-power practice, and the social glue that keeps clubs alive, not just a score. New to it? Use the ARRL Field Day site locator to find a club near you. Been doing it forever? Mentor someone who looks nervous near the coax, and make sure your GOTA (Get On The Air) station is ready. Entries are due by the Tuesday, July 28 deadline.

One hard-won lesson from the show: demonstrate the whole chain before the public arrives, generator, transfer switch, and logging laptop included. Politics and newcomers both watch the chain, not just the radio.

Work a bird this week

The amateur satellites are not a side quest for people with acreage and giant rotators. More than ten transponders and repeaters are alive right now. AMSAT Field Day runs concurrent with ARRL Field Day (1800 UTC June 27 to 2100 UTC June 28) and counts by mode: one QSO per FM bird such as SO-50 (and ISS voice when active), and multiple SSB and CW contacts on linear transponders like AO-7, RS-44, AO-73, FO-29, and JO-97. Working at least one satellite during Field Day earns ARRL bonus points. Two new designations to add to your tracker: SO-127 (HADES-SA / SpinnyOne, carrying SSDV and CODEC 2) and FO-126 (OrigamiSat-2).

First-bird checklist for mortals: install a pass-prediction app, start with FM before linear, plan for Doppler (high on the uplink early in the pass, low on the downlink), practice with a handheld and a whip before blaming a rotator you do not own, listen to a full pass before you transmit, then call once, clearly, and log it like any other QSO. You do not need a tower farm.

Software heads-up: AMSAT is retiring classic Two Line Element distribution because the five-digit catalog numbers are running out. General Perturbations data (JSON, XML, KVN) is in beta now, with production migration expected July 2026. Test your tracking stack before Field Day, not during it. Also note that ARISS radios power down for a spacewalk from June 29 to July 1, so plan any ISS voice attempts around that window.

The AI bench, with the license intact

Artificial intelligence is finally useful on the radio side where it stays local, auditable, and subordinate to a licensed operator who can still explain what happened on frequency. Three projects worth a look: RFWhisper, fully local, open-source ML noise reduction (DeepFilterNet 3 with an RNNoise fallback in a GNU Radio, SoapySDR, and ONNX pipeline) that helps you tell a closed band from a noisy shack without streaming your audio to anyone; SmartSDR MCP, which lets an AI assistant control a FlexRadio through a strict propose, approve, transmit loop so the human stays legally responsible for every emission; and a FreeDV Reporter edge setup that summarizes DX opportunities with a local LLM and no cloud fees. The rule of the whole segment: local ears, approved transmit, human responsibility, club education.

Also on the calendar

  • ARRL Kids Day is today, June 20, 1800 to 2359 UTC. Slow down, use plain phonetics, celebrate the contact, skip the lecture unless they ask for it.
  • HAM RADIO Friedrichshafen, Europe’s largest amateur radio exhibition, June 26 to 28, meeting the ASTRO astronomy fair for the first time.
  • The 13 Colonies Special Event, July 1 to 7, a friendly on-ramp for newer operators chasing a clean sweep.
  • Solar weather is politely boring (low activity, C-class only), so conditions are not the excuse this week. Shack discipline and operating skill win.

Your seven-day challenge

Small and honest: write one Field Day purpose sentence tonight, listen to one complete satellite pass without transmitting, and label one unknown power brick in your go-kit. If Field Day weekend beats you to it, do all three anyway between setup and tear-down, then teach the method to someone in your club. Next week: a club-culture deep dive on turning “Year of the Club” talk into real membership, real training calendars, and a real public face.

Clear, clean, curious. This is Echos in the Ether.