IN-Newsletter
Vol 26, No. 15
April 16, 2003
Upcoming Meetings
April 26th in Kansas City, MO at 8:30am
A&F Committee
Development
The final touches and edits are being made to the new Development
Section of the ARRL website. This comprehensive site includes
information and donation forms for all Development programs. The
creativity and energy of Sue Fagan, Tom Hogerty, Debra Johnson and Jon
Bloom made this possible. The site went public the week of April 14.
The next Development fund raising campaign will be a test for Historic
Preservation. Sue Fagan has designed a stunning new graphic for the
campaign, which will be used in the 10,000 piece test mailing and on the
web. The campaign is scheduled for early May 2003.
The special Defense of Frequencies for WRC-03 is in the mail and on the
web. Returns have just begun coming in with $1,800 so far.
The 2003 Spectrum Defense Fund campaign launched last fall has reached
$289,000 from 6,500 donors.
The 2003 Education & Technology campaign is coming in slowly. Returns
from 1,143 donors total $52,523 against a budgeted goal of $200,000 this
year. So we have a long way to go.
Plans for the Major Donor Recognition event at Dayton are progressing.
Attendance is expected to reach about 50 people, though invitees have
until April 30 to respond.
The final major donor list of individuals and organizations that $1000
donated or more donated in 2002 plus Maxim Society and Legacy Circle is
nearly complete for the Annual Report.
Media Relations
This report covers two weeks of highlights from the Media Relations
Department.
Jennifer finished writing the 2002 Annual Report, and the text is in the
editing phase. Layout will begin during the week of April 21st.
Jennifer fielded calls from reporters with Metrowest Daily News
(Framingham, MA) and The New York Times regarding MARS activity in or
near Iraq. Those with close connections to the MARS program were
offered as possible interviewees.
The hometowner news releases distributed by United Technologies
Corporation garnered two Connecticut newspaper articles so far. The
(New Britain) Herald and the Greenwich Time ran stories featuring local
residents who completed ARRL's emergency course training under the UTC
grant.
Upon request, Jennifer sent pictures of Joe Walsh, Patty Loveless, Barry
Goldwater (SK) and Jordan's King Hussein (SK) to the photo editor of The
New York Times. An article on the new ham radio book "Hello World, A
Life in Ham Radio" will be featured in the Arts & Leisure section later
this month. The photo editor wanted to include a few pictures of famous
ham radio operators.
A New Yorker magazine writer is working on a story about Morse code.
Thanks to Dave Patton for doing the interview.
Jennifer provided photos and ham contacts for an upcoming article in
Responder Safety magazine. The magazine is geared toward fire, police
and EMT professionals. The article on "unknown responders," will
highlight the work of volunteers who play a critical role during
disasters.
A sub-committee of four PR committee members, including chairman Jeff
Reinhardt, AA6JR, has done an excellent job putting together a
first-rate PR forum for Hamvention in May. Last minute details will be
worked out during the group's next conference call, scheduled for later
this month. Jennifer submitted speaker and forum description information
for inclusion in the printed Hamvention program. It doesn't appear that
forum details will be listed on the Web site this year. Jennifer made
arrangements for the annual PRC breakfast meeting at the Dayton
Marriott.
Thanks to a lot of help from Lisa Kustosik, newspaper "clip reports"
will again be distributed to Directors on a monthly basis. Reports from
January and February are ready to go, and the March report will follow
shortly thereafter.
Production/Editorial
The May/June issue of NCJ and the 2003 DXCC Yearbook have been released
to the printer.
We checked printer's proofs for the new edition of the Tech Q&A and
YASME: The Danny Weil and Colvin Radio Expeditions.
Sales & Marketing
The much-anticipated new editions of the 2003-2004 Repeater Directory
and Now You're Talking! have been promoted heavily to our publication
Dealers. Lisa Tardette, who has been handling the coordination of the
Repeater Directory Dealer sales and fulfillment, completed the paperwork
needed by our printer to drop ship 4,700 Directories direct to stores.
The Fulfillment and Warehouse crew is also been preparing to deal with a
very large backorder situation waiting the arrival of Now You're
Talking!
After much groundwork by Deb Jahnke, we were delighted to receive a very
large Now Your Talking! order from Ingram for their business arm that
serves libraries around the nation. Deb also managed to convince this
important client to place a sizable order for the new Experimental
Methods in RF Design publication.
Advertising received a very good response from a June 2003 QST reminder
card that sent out last week to current and past advertisers. The card
-- designed by Deb Jahnke and Di Szlachetka -- features our new Field
Day logo and extolled the virtues of exploiting this extremely popular
operating event for their own personal gains.
New advertisers Electric Radio magazine and Cellular Specialties Inc.
joined the growing number of companies using QST to bring their product
to the Amateur Radio market. These companies will be placing display
ads beginning with our June issue.
Carol Patton completed billing for advertising that appeared in the May
issue of QST. Invoicing for 2003-2004 Repeater Directory and Now You're
Talking! ads have been completed, and will be sent out as soon as copies
of these publications are available. (We will be sending samples of
these publications with the invoices.)
April is historically a challenging month for soliciting QST advertising
(June issue) so our crew decided to begin the uphill climb earlier than
normal this month. Initial results suggest that they will be successful
in meeting predicted revenue levels. Carol is also collecting "Ham Ad"
classified ads and beginning the ad layout process for the June issue.
Dennis Motschenbacher traveled to Austin, TX to meet with a diverse
group of dealers who buy equipment and advertise as a consortium. It
appeared that they were considering dropping their QST advertising in
favor of testing other methods of going to market. Dennis was able to
convince them to continue advertising and, even more importantly, to
allow ARRL staff to begin working closely with them providing
professionally developed advertising content and production work.
Membership Services
Awards Branch
WAS QSL cards checked (5B for W-I) 250
WAS Ends. (50 QSLs ES/C) 1
WAC QSL Cards Checked 174
Extra Class Certificates 8
RCC Awards 6
OTC Awards 5
L/T Member Inquiries 2
A-1 Operator Nominations 2
VUCC Initial Apps. 2
Grids 302
VUCC End. App. 1
Grids 200
VUCC Certs. Processed 10
Awards Mailed 54
HF Awards Mgr. Appt.: Maurice Schietecatte, W9CEO, Sandwich, IL; HF/VHF
Awards Mgr. Appt.: Steve Suess, KC8CCD, Lebanon, OH. Also compiled the
latest VUCC award recipient list for June QST. Processing Status:
Current or up to four weeks. For the coming week-Specialty WAS, US WAC,
Code Proficiency, and Friendship awards, continued VUCC awards
processing/mailing, and ship 5BWAS plaques.
DXCC Branch
Weekly Report
April 13, 2003
Beginning Cards 125,272
Cards Received 481
Cards Processed 15,194
Ending Cards 110,559
Applications Pending 996
Processing Time 7.7 Weeks
Year-to-date (2003)
Cards Received 140,990
Cards Returned 237,852
QRPs Issued this week 1
QRP's Issued total 291
DXCC is currently mailing applications received on February 18, 2003.
DXCC is currently entering cards received on February 26, 2003.
Contest Branch
Data entry for DX Contest paper logs continued. Some miscellaneous
plaques were mailed. DX 2003 Plaque sponsor letters were also mailed.
Plaque inventory was completed. Field Day questions continue to come in.
QSL Branch
QSL service status: There is a delay of one week due to staff absence.
Cards mailed year to date as of 04/13/03 - 411,900. No cards were
mailed this week. Thanks to HQ Staffers who filled in as Tour Guide in
Heather Dzamba's absence. Heather has returned to work on light duties
only.
W1AW
Matt Strelow, KC1XX and Andrew Toth, of XX Towers Inc., were on hand to
perform some much needed antenna repairs. Repairs were made to the upper
40-meter and 30-meter rotatable antennas, and the fixed upper 15-meter
and 10-meter bulletin antennas. Worked ranged from the replacement of
coaxial pigtails, hardware replacement and removal of corrosion on the
30-meter coil traps.
Scott Gee worked on fast and slow code practice files for the latter
part of the month of April. He continues with assembly of the donated
Elecraft K2 QRP transceiver. Scott also handled some evening phone
sales calls in the 5 PM to 8 PM time slot.
Joe Carcia updated the web code practice files. He also worked with Matt
and Andrew on the antenna repairs. W1AW telephone sales year to date
(2003): $4,682.
Field & Educational Services
The European Space Agency (ESA) created a Web page for details on ARISS
QSOs for ESA astronaut Pedro Duque, KC5RGG. Spain's IARU society, URE,
worked to get ED4ISS, a special ham license for Pedro's time on the ISS
in October. ESA is launching a competition for all of Spain's schools;
winning students will speak to Pedro. ESA's school Web page lists the
URL for ARISS and URE. Rosalie moderated the ARISS-international
education telecon and prepared minutes. She proposed, and the group
voted, to have meetings every 2 months, not monthly. At NASA's request,
she and Frank Bauer composed a spread sheet and Word file of ARISS
stats. She prepared items for the VRC Meeting.
C-CE
Edits to the VHF/UHF course were transmitted to our Web host. The first
learning unit of the RF Propagation course has been proofread. Howard
extracted data for, and requested, 34 CNCS and 18 UTC reimbursement
checks, and he prepared and sent reminders to 35 people interested in
registering for the Level 2 class that opens the next 2 weeks.
Jerry processed results from several field exam sessions. He compiled
exam kits and answer templates for Certification Examiners for Level II
and III courses. He mailed printed certificates, ID cards and refund
checks to UTC graduates, and began experimenting with Microsoft Access.
Field & Education Support Team
Jean Wolfgang continues to work on the process for our annual awards.
Since all the award material is sent out by US mail to the people who
will review it, Jean is trying to combine some of the supporting remarks
to make a smaller package.
Gail Iannone sent 6 convention applications to the Executive Committee
for approval and notified the sponsoring committees that they were
approved. She sent 8 hamfest approval letters to sponsoring committees
confirming the Division Director's approval for the events as
ARRL-sanctioned, processed 15 door prize orders, 2 label requests, and
sent 26 hamfest handout packages for upcoming events. She coordinated
travel for Dan Miller to be the HQ rep at the Southeastern Division
Convention on July 12-13 in Gainesville, GA.
Margie Bourgoin sent 3 new club applications on for Director approval.
She reports 2 renewed SSCs and an increase in volunteer instructor
activity. She also continues to fill in for Linda Mullally in her
absence.
Mary Lau updated the records of the Baltimore County Public Library's
regional registry for scholarship, disabled, and hobby organization
listings. She also reviewed a Category 1 contest club application from
Texas comprised of just 4 members -- from two very competitive families!
Field Organization/Public Service Team
SM ballots have begun to arrive at HQ for Maryland/DC, New Hampshire and
San Joaquin Valley. Leona Adams added over 50 Field Organization
appointments the past week, and initial supply packages for these are
going out.
Chuck Skolaut received a tape recording concerning the previously
reported 2-meter interference case by the Niagara Falls Air National
Guard Base. He is also keeping track of ongoing interference cases on
20 and 17 meters.
In preparation for the VRC meeting this weekend in St Louis that Steve
Ewald will attend, Steve and Rosalie were both on hand for the Monday
VRC teleconference. Steve and Rosalie compiled results for our assigned
portions of the VRC's SM Survey.
EmComm Grants
According to Dan Miller, 230 people signed up this week for the EmComm
Level I online course which begins April 22. More than 2000
CNCS-sponsored Level I seats have been filled, and this week 40
graduated, making the total of grads now at 1,081. States with new
Level I Hybrid classes beginning in April include ME, MA, MS and OH.
Regulatory Information
John Hennessee assisted amateurs with local government zoning problems
in Irvine, CA (NA1A) and Brevard County, FL (WB2GGP), and with a
covenant problem in San Jose, CA (AD6SL). He was in contact with Derek
Riker of our congressional relations firm concerning the ARRL CC&R page
and some messages received concerning the Amateur Radio initiative in
Congress. John received inquiries about ham communications from
military personnel in or on their way to Iraq.
Amateur Radio Education & Technology Project
Jerry Hill prepared for, and travelled to the third of three national
teachers conferences for this year -- the National Council of Teachers
of Mathematics. NASA paid for our booth space, electricity, furniture,
registrations, which Jerry set up and staffed.
73,
Sincerely,
Mark Wilson, K1RO
Chief Operating Officer
MW: lk
Staff Absentee List
Name Date(s) Reason
All Staff 4/18 Holiday
Dave Sumner 5/1pm-5/6 Vacation
Dan Miller 4/17-4/21 Vacation
`` 5/1-5/4 ARRL Midwest Convention,
Lebanon, MO
Howard Robbins 4/11-4/21 Vacation
John Proctor 5/1-5/12 Vacation
Steve Ford 4/14-4/18 Vacation
Bob Boucher 4/11-4/18 Vacation
Rick Lindquist 4/25-4/28 Vacation
Jon Bloom 4/21-4/25 Vacation
Shelly Bloom 4/21-4/25 Vacation
