From an earlier announcement from YI9PSE:

The YI9PSE team has received the approval and blessing of the Kurdistan Regional Government to conduct the first DXpedition from Kurdistan. The YI9PSE team has been invited to demonstrate amateur radio to the Kurdistan Regional Government Ministry of Interior officials, who will visit and observe the YI9PSE DXpedition team in action.

We hope to have a signal on the air late in the evening of the 2nd, and we must tear down our station on the evening of April 11th. We will have ten day visas issued by the Kurdistan Regional Government.

The Kurdistan Regional Government officials are very excited to learn more about amateur radio and see the first DXpedition from Kurdistan take place. They have reviewed, approved of our plans and blessed our operation.

YI9PSE has assembled a very impressive team that has extensive experience in DX operation and DXpeditions. Members of the team come from all over the world — the United States, Japan, Iraq, Martinique, Serbia, and a staff member from Spain. The professions of these operators range from retired workers to nuclear operators, and teachers to executives.

Their website, located at YI9PSE.com, allows you to learn more about the operators, details about their operating stations, QSO log (once activated), propagation forecasts for Iraq, and a poll where you can vote which band and mode you would like to work YI9PSE on. Their website and their Twitter feed will be updated throughout the event.

I wish them the best of luck from the heartland and hope they stay safe (although Kurdistan is relatively less-violent than southern Iraq).

From YouTube:

Just after FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski delivered his agency’s National Broadband Plan to the public, we sat down with him for an exclusive YouTube Interview, in which he answered questions submitted and voted on by people on Citizentube.

Listen to the Chairman answer your questions, including a couple of rounds of “F-C-Caesar” in which he gives simple thumbs up/down answers to your questions.

Do you think Genachowski’s words on broadband internet in America are satisfactory? Do you think the United States is heading in the right direction on this issue?

Ill. Rep. Dan Brady

Synopsis As Introduced
Amends the State Police Radio Act. Provides that a person receiving public safety voice or data communication transmitted via the facilities of the State’s public safety radio system by wire or radio shall not, without the written authority of the originator of the communication, rebroadcast the communication via any means, including radio or Internet, or otherwise divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning thereof. Provides that this provision does not apply to the public safety radio communication transmitted by any system station for the use of the general public, including Amber Alerts and other communications specifically intended for rebroadcast to the public. Provides that radio access to the public safety radio system within the State may only be accomplished upon receipt of written authorization granted by the appropriately licensed authority. Provides that a violation of these provisions is a Class A misdemeanor. Effective immediately.

The bill is proposed by Rep. Dan Brady, R-Bloomington, who has served in the assembly since 2001. He was instrumental in procuring funding for the StarCom 21 state radio system, and named named Public Official of the Year by the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police in 2004.

Two bills, House File 2020, and Senate File 190, both aim to restrict the use of cell phones unless they are used in conjunction with hands-free devices.

Gov. Chet Culver, during a taping of Iowa Press today in Johnston, said he believes legislators will be able to compromise and get a bill on his desk restricting use of cell phones. Culver also said he would sign the bill into law, but doesn’t support a full-on ban on cell phones use while driving.

Only one of the bills, SF 190 authored by Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, explicitly excludes FCC-licensed amateur radio operators:

1 14 c. This subsection does not apply to the use of an amateur
1 15 radio by a federally licensed amateur radio operator.

HF 2020, co-authored by Reps. Ako Abdul-Samad, D-Des Moines, and Curt Hanson, D-Fairfield, does not explicitly mention amateur radio, but instead mentions “cellular telephones,” “wireless handset” and “text messaging” instead of a broader restriction on all two-way half- and full-duplex radio devices.

Last fall, the National Safety Council declared that there are no “significant crash risks” while operating mobile radios.

“We also have no evidence that using two-way radios while driving poses significant crash risks. Until such time as compelling, peer-reviewed scientific research is presented that denotes significant risks associated with the use of Amateur Radios, two-way radios or other communication devices, the NSC does not support legislative bans or prohibition on their use,” NSC President Janet Froetscher said in a letter to the American Radio Relay League.

Towers, who beat four other candidates that were on the ballot, won with 57 percent of voters, according to unofficial tallies. He currently serves as a city councilman in the town of 336 residents and has previously served as the mayor of Sheldahl.

Click here to read more from the Des Moines Register.