If you're going to be stranded on the side of a Canadian highway, and you happen to find yourself sliding down a 150-foot embankment while you're there, it's helpful to have a ham radio operator along.

Central New York's amateur radio community welcomes the area's latest club, the Central New York Amateur Radio Association (CNYARA), Inc.

CNYARA primarily serves the Mohawk Valley.

For most people, a hobby is a leisure activity. If you walked into the lighthouse at Mahabalipuram on Saturday, you would have thought that the ten-member team of Ham Radio, who had assembled there, were just pursuing their hobby.

He Was hailed a hero of seafaring 100 years ago and received a New York ticker tape reception - and was born in a workhouse in Brigg.

John Binns achieved fame in the dawning of radio aged 24, for directing the rescue of 1,500 people off the American coast when he sent out the first radio distress call and guided nearby ships over the airwaves on January 24, 1909.

His memory is being rekindled by a group of radio enthusiasts who will mark the centenary of his feat with a worldwide broadcast.

Interest in the radioman's life has been sparked again many years after he was a worldwide hero.

Radio ham John Allen, of Spa Hill, Kirton in Lindsey, was given a cigarette card showing John Binns, known commonly as Jack, by someone who thought he might be interested, and Mr Allen (63) started research.

"It started out as a bit of a project for myself because I am interested in old systems, but I soon thought he deserved more attention than this," he said.

Within a short time Mr Allen and colleagues in the Scunthorpe Steel Amateur Radio Club had contacted descendants in New York and Lincoln and learnt more about his life.

For a former Lincoln couple, their acreage northwest of town was a heavenly place to live.

On a huge prairie-grass lot at a gravel intersection, Carolyn Baily (N0LAL) built a one-acre fenced dog run for her energetic boxers. Steven Baily (N0US), a whiz with computers and electronics, erected a tall metal transmission tower for his ham radio calls.

The Bailys' bodies were found shortly after noon Sunday in their rural home. Brandon C. Crago, a 34-year-old transient with a history of methamphetamine dealing, was in custody on suspicion of murder.

On August 11, the FCC announced that the cost of an Amateur Radio vanity call sign will increase 60 cents, from $11.70 to $12.30. The fee will increase 30 days after notice of the increase is published in the Federal Register; no date has yet been set for publication. The FCC is authorized by the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, to collect vanity call sign fees to recover the costs associated with that program. The vanity call sign regulatory fee is payable not only when applying for a new vanity call sign, but also upon renewing a vanity call sign for a new 10 year term.

Harry Judd Mills, K4HU, passed away Saturday, August 9 at the Cardinal Care Center in Hendersonville, North Carolina after a period of declining health. He was 100. Mills was a resident of Hendersonville since his retirement in 1971 after a 30 year worldwide career with RCA as an engineer and manager. First licensed in 1922 as 8VHX, he was a 72 year member of the ARRL, a founder and past president of the Quarter Century Wireless Association (QCWA) Chapter 76 of Hendersonville and a fellow of the Radio Club of America (RCA).

Mount Olive Township Administrator Bill Sohl, who is also a longtime Mount Olive resident, has mastered the art of talking to people all over America and the world from the comfort of his home or car.

What's amazing is that he does it without a telephone, a Blackberry, or the Internet.

Instead he uses a desktop amateur radio set, also known as a ham radio.

Since 2004, Amateur Radio operators in Bangladesh have not been able to get an Amateur Radio license or sit for an examination. But thanks to the efforts of the Bangladesh Amateur Radio League (BARL) -- that country's IARU Member-Society -- the Bangladeshi government will once again issue ham licenses; exams will also be given on a monthly basis beginning August 13, 2008.

Anyone who watches anything on cable television has Tom Whitehead to thank.

Clay T. "Tom" Whitehead (W6WW) graduated from Columbus (Kan.) High School in 1956. It was then called Cherokee County Community High School. He died of prostate cancer in July at age 69. He was living in McLean, Va., at the time of his death.

Whitehead, during the administration of President Richard Nixon, became the country's first telecommunications policy adviser, according to his obituary in The Washington Post and other national papers.