You know I’m just going to keep reminding you, right? Please sign up to help at Lifewalk on Oct. 6th, 2019. This is an easy event you can use to begin your public service career, or a fun chance to see your friends and keep up your public service skills.

On the contest calendar, we’ve got several fun events in progress: There’s the ARRL September VHF Contest and the Alabama QSO Party, as well as a fun contest sponsored by the other DARC: the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club’s Worked All Europe DX Contest. But if you’re in Texas, you’ll be most interseted in the Texas QSO Party. Get on the air and say “Howdy!”

In ham news:

Sometimes the FCC has pretty goofy ideas, but this one is spot-on: they propose to do away with the last exemptions to electronic document filing for matters relating to the ULS.

The ARRL reports that nine schools and other groups have been approved for ARISS contacts. One of them is in Rockwall, TX.

In news from the world of science:

I went to elementary school in timber-rich Wisconsin, where grade school classes actually included taking tree cores and the importance of active forest management and selective cutting. So, it’s fun to learn that selective harvesting and careful management can benefit cool predators like jaguars.

The blackest night is still not as black as the blackest carbon nanotube, as reported by MIT.

Over the past few years, a lot of news stories have talked about the effects of pesticides on bees. Unfortunately, it looks like common pesticides can have surprisingly bad effects on birds, too: they make them loose their appetite.