In the log this week * AMSAT Space Symposium Live Streaming Friday and Saturday * Contest Spotlight: Scandinavian Activity Contest * WRTC Announces Croatia as 2030 Location * MVARC Nets on the Air * What’s happening with DX? * Solar Activity Update * Upcoming Contests * Interesting Online Radio Content As always, links to all referenced content can be found in the show notes, or at our Substack at mvarc.substack.com. Thanks for reading Amateur Radio News and Notes. Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. AMSAT Space Symposium Live Streaming Friday and Saturday Image Courtesy https://www.amsat.org/ This weekend brings the 44th Annual AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting in Jacksonville, Florida. This year, AMSAT is streaming all the presentations on their YouTube Channel, so even if you’re not in Jacksonville this year, you can join in the fun. The presentations start on Friday, October 9, 2026 at 1 PM Eastern Time (1700 UTC) with presentations on the CubeSat Simulator project, teaching technology to middle and high school students, and a celebration of 25 years of Amateur Radio on the International Space Station. The presentations continue on Saturday morning at 9 AM Eastern Time (1300 UTC) with presentations on tracking amateur satellites, updates on AMSAT’s operations and initiatives, modernizing AMSAT satellite command and control, SDR-Gen2 Status updates, and an AMSAT engineering update. If you’re interested in satellites in amateur radio, this promises to be a very informative set of talks. For more information visit AMSAT’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@amsatna and their web site at https://www.amsat.org/. Contest Spotlight: Scandinavian Activity Contest Image Courtesy https://www.sactest.net/blog/ This weekend brings this year’s edition of the SSB portion of the Scandinavian Activity Contest. The aim of the contest is to promote amateur radio activity in Scandinavia and communications between the region and the rest of the world. For the purposes of the contest call signs from Svalbard and Bear Island, Jan Mayen, Norway, Finland, Aland Islands, Market Reef, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Denmark, Sweden, and Iceland are considered to be part of Scandinavia. The fun starts at 1200 UTC (8 AM Eastern Time) on Saturday, October 10, 2026 and continues until 1159 UTC (7:59 AM Eastern Time) Sunday. Bands include 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meters. Entry categories include Single Operator, Multi-Operator Single Transmitter (MULTI-ONE), and Multi-Operator Multi-Transmitter (MULTI-MULTI). For Single Ops there is also a choice of power level of High (1500 Watts or less), Low (100 Watts or less), and QRP (5 Watts or less). Scandinavian Single Ops also may enter as single band and International Single Ops can do a “low band” entry using only 80 and 40 meters. The exchange is signal report plus a serial number starting at 001. Stations may be worked 1 time per band. QSO points for Scandinavian stations are 2 for every European station (outside Scandinavia) and 3 points for Non-European stations. For non-Scandinavian stations European stations get 1 point per Scandinavian QSO and non-European stations get 1 point for Scandinavian QSOs on 20, 15, and 10 meters and 3 points for Scandinavian QSOs on 80 and 40 meters. Multipliers are each DXCC entity for Scandinavian stations and each worked prefix number (0-9) in each Scandinavian DXCC entity. Those without a prefix number count as the 0 call prefix. Multipliers count for each band. Final score is QSO points multiplied by the sum of multipliers worked on all bands. Logs must be submitted in Cabrillo format and they ask you to keep all QSOs including dupes in your logs to facilitate log checking. Electronic submission is required no later than 5 days after the end of the contest. More information about the contest and links to the rules and log submissions can be found at https://www.sactest.net/. This promises to be a fun way to work the Scandinavian countries on the bands. Good luck. WRTC Announces Croatia as 2030 Location Image Courtesy https://www.wrtc2030.hr/ On October 3, 2026 the World Radiosport Team Championship Sanctioning Committee announced that it had accepted the application from the Croatian Amateur Radio Association to host the 2030 edition of WRTC. The event will be held in the Slavonia region of Croatia which is bordered by the Danube, Drava, and Sava rivers. Accordingly, the first qualifying event for WRTC 2030 will be the 2026 9A DX Contest. Congratulations to the Croatian Amateur Radio Association for their selection. For more information visit https://www.wrtc2030.hr/. MVARC Nets on the Air * 2 Meter FM Net: Tuesdays at 7 PM [146.655/- MHz (141.3 Hz PL Tone) ] * 2 Meter Digital Net: Immediately Follows 2 Meter FM Net [146.655/- MHz C4FM] * MVARC Slow Speed CW Roundtable: Saturday and Sunday at 7:30 AM [3.565 MHz CW] * MVARC Cherry Tree Net: Saturday and Sunday at 8:30 AM [3.920 MHz LSB] What’s Happening with DX There will be a lot of DX on the air this week. Stations on the air include Namibia (V51WH), Maldives (8Q7JH), Samoa (5W0AF), Wallis and Futuna (FW1P), Democratic Republic of Congo (9T0MD), Lesotho (7P8LZ, 7P8JL, 7P8TR), Gambia (C5R), Dodecanese (SV5/TF1OL), Solomon Island (H44MS, H49A), Somalia (6O2M), Svalbard (JW5X), Iceland (TF/PD9DX), Albania (ZA/AE5X), Malta (9H/IQ8BBV), Montserrat (VP2MAW, VP2MBJ, VP2MBK, VP2MBN, VP2MBL, VP2MAU, VP2MBM), Fiji (3D2HM), Vanuatu (YJ1JXZ), Saint Kitts and Nevis (V47FWX), and Eswatini (3DA0GY). A calendar of DXpeditions can be found at NG3K’s Announced DX Operations List at https://www.ng3k.com/misc/adxo.html. Solar Activity Update As we go to press the Solar Flux Index (SFI) was 119 and the estimated sunspot number was 69 with 3 numbered sunspot regions visible from Earth. Over the last week the SFI has increased. Solar activity has been at high levels in the last 24 hours. The geomagnetic field has been at quiet levels in the last 24 hours and the Kp index reached 2 yesterday. The solar wind peaked at 396 km/s. Solar activity is predicted to be moderate with a slight chance of X-class flares today through Sunday. The geomagnetic field is forecast to be at quiet to major storm levels today, at quiet to active levels on Saturday, and at quiet to minor storm levels on Sunday. The chance of solar radiation storms at the S1 or greater level is at 10% today through Sunday. R1 to R2 radio blackouts are likely with a predicted probability of 55% today through Sunday. R3 or greater blackouts are possible with a 10% chance predicted today through Sunday. It remains a fantastic time for amateurs to get on the air and work the world. Good sources of real-time solar information include https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/ and https://solarham.com/. A good overview of conditions can be found at https://dx.qsl.net/propagation/. To see D-layer absorption data and associated radio blackouts, visit https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/d-region-absorption-predictions-d-rap. To see real-time Maximum Usable Frequency (MUF) and Critical Frequency (foF2) information from radiosonde data, visit https://prop.kc2g.com/. Upcoming Contests This weekend brings the Scandinavian Activity Contest we spotlighted earlier also on the air will be Oceania DX Contest on CW, the Makrothen RTTY Contest, the QRP ARCI Fall QSO Party, the 10-10 International 10-10 Day Sprint, the SKCC Weekend Sprintathon, the Arizona QSO Party, the Pennsylvania QSO Party, the South Dakota QSO Party, the PODXS 070 Club 160 meter Great Pumpkin Sprint, the UBA ON Contest on CW, and the 4 States QRP Second Sunday Sprint. As always the K1USN SSTs, the MSTs, and the CWTs will also be on the air. The full contest calendar with events and exchanges can be found at https://www.contestcalendar.com/weeklycont.php. Interesting Online Radio Content George VK2AOE shows his group's effort for the Oceania DX SSB Contest - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R519-GonRHw Ralph WA2PUX explains how a MOSFET works - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvA3OpML9WE Walt K4OGO uses a portable Moxon antenna to get DX - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McfJA-62Nfc Josh KI6NAZ sets up an M17 hotspot - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyiUrrL7zeE Dr. Tamitha Skov WX6SWW talks about solar storms that are going to make for a stormy weekend - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDhIs2WfZKc George VK2AOE explores listening to airband communications with an SDR - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfn1txuz1Mc Kevin W1DED talks to the VK9XY team about their upcoming Christmas Island DXpedition - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmBq9D8rKf8 Tim G5TM makes a multi-band vertical antenna - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36C8HkF6aM Tim K5OHY uses WSPR to compare antenna performance - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iznGtKa5NX4 Robert W5ITR takes a look at the new JTTY mode - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01AktAezqk Jim WT1W shows the tool he developed to do RF exposure calculations - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHj7-_bM34U Josh KI6NAZ sings the praises of the iFixit Soldering Station - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqm9LtPDF8A Walt K4OGO does a test run of his DX travel kit from the beach - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zlPCTxDbIs Steve KM9G looks at the Boondock Edge for offline transcription of radio signals - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZDKUySSCNA That’s it for this week. Best 73, Ed N2EC This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mvarc.substack.com