IN-Newsletter
Vol. 26, No. 38
September 24, 2003
Development
The Special Defense Fund against BPL has reached $277,466 from 5,102 donors. The average contribution remains high at $54.38.
The Honor Roll of clubs, organizations and industry partners who have supported ARRL in 2003 has climbed to over 100. This list will appear in Nov QST and will be posted on the web. An email will go out to all clubs when the web Honor Roll is ready, with a renewed request for those who have not yet contributed to add their club's name to the list.
The Diamond Club renewals received in September total 74 donors contributing $13,125. The average Diamond Club renewal contribution is $177. The total Diamond Club enrollment has reached 816.
Stories of ham activity during the recent hurricane have been forwarded to contacts at UTC and CNCS.
Media Relations
Ham radio's role during Hurricane Isabel garnered a few media opportunities. Just as the storm was making landfall in North Carolina, a news planning editor from the NBC affiliate in Chicago contacted HQ looking for hams ready to assist with communications. A live television interview was set up with Bill Morine, N2COP, a PIO in Wilmington, NC. Other stories related to Hurricane Isabel and ham radio's role during hurricanes were covered by the Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, FL), the Associated Press in Raleigh, NC, The Pilot, also in NC, the CBS affiliate in Ft. Meyers, FL and the ABC affiliate in Lubbock, TX. Ham radio also got a good plug on CNN's Larry King Live, during an interview with a CBS network weather anchor Dave Price. Dave is the brother of Howard Price, KA2QPJ, an ARRL member who works for ABC in New York.
Jennifer continues to work with a reporter from The Morning Call in Allentown, PA, on a BPL story. The reporter has interviewed Jim Haynie for ARRL's position on the issue and Carl Stevenson, WK3C, who lives just outside Allentown and has spent a lot of time with the reporter talking about why BPL is bad for ham radio. The article, which we've learned has been bumped up to the front page should appear sometime next week.
Jennifer has been working on the 2004-2005 PR department budget.
Also underway is the ARRL bio project for the Web. When all is said and done, members and others will have access to bios and photos of ARRL Officers, Directors, Vice Directors and key HQ staff members who travel to conventions and other events on a fairly regular basis. The first round of surveys, designed to collect information for the bios, has been distributed to ARRL officers and lead Board officials. Key staff will be targeted in round two.
The PR Committee unanimously voted on the winner of the 2003 McGan Award. Three candidates were nominated after the re-solicitation announcement in July. The committee's recommendation is now being considered by the Volunteer Resources Committee. Jennifer and VRC chairman Director Walstrom agreed on a timetable for the remainder of the voting process.
Logbook of the World
The first digital certificates were emailed the afternoon of Monday, September 22. By the following morning, nearly 1,000,000 QSOs had been entered into the system. As of mid-day Friday, we are up to 4.3 million QSOs and nearly 1400 registered users, and the numbers are climbing with each passing hour. Dave Patton, Wayne Mills, and Jon Bloom have been busy this week handling the expected support questions, and we have been updating the Web support information as new questions arise. There have been two updates to the TQSL software to address bugs and to make it more difficult for users to delete certificates or keys that cannot be replicated. Overall, we are very happy with the progress and user acceptance. Several of the logging software providers
Production/Editorial
The November issue of QST will be released to the printer Wednesday.
Dan Wolfgang spent considerable time this week editing BPL video for the Lab.
Steve Ford, Chuck Hutchinson and Larry Wolfgang have finished the lesson-writing and review phase of the new Technician Online Course.
Maty Weinberg, Dave Hassler and Steve Ford represented Headquarters at the ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference at the Hartford/Windsor Marriott Hotel.
Congratulations to Dean Straw, Paul Lappen, Shelly Bloom, Dan Wolfgang, Sue Fagan and Dave Pingree on completion of the new 20th edition of The ARRL Antenna Book.
Sue Fagan finished a rush project to create brochures and pins for Telecom 2003.
Rick Lindquist reports that The ARRL Letter, Vol 22, No 37 (Sep 19) went out to 66,301 members. Rick prepared "Happenings" for November QST and wrote several stories for the Web and the ARRL Letter dealing with Amateur Radio's response to Hurricane Isabel, with assistance from Steve Ewald and Jennifer Hagy. He also put together stories on the opening of Logbook of the World and on another ARISS school group contact, plus several news briefs for the Web and the Letter. Rick voiced, edited and produced ARRL Audio News for Sep 19 with voiceover help from Jennifer Hagy.
Dave Hassler completed work on two items for QST: an overview of ARRL's Emergency Communications Courses, offered through C-CE, and his monthly column, "ARRL in Action." He also edited a couple of features for the ARRLWeb and on 9/19, he attended the Digital Communications Conference, primarily as operator of W1AW/1.
QEX Editor Doug Smith, KF6DX, met with ARRL Lab staff and QEX managing editor Bob Schetgen on Monday.
Sales & Marketing
The Publisher's Sworn Circulation Statement for the period of January through June 2003 has been completed. The Statement provides advertisers with QST circulation information.
Fulfillment staffer Janie Foy will be leaving us at the end of this week for a new job. Janie has worked at ARRL for three and one half years. We wish her well.
The Advertising staff has wrapped up work on November QST and is finishing up NCJ and QEX ads. With the 2004 QST to-printer dates in hand, we are also working on 2004 QST advertising reservation and materials due dates in order to provide advertisers with a complete list much earlier than in the past. Diane Szlachetka and Joe Bottiglieri will be collaborating on several sample ads to present to advertisers in an attempt to persuade them to increase the size of their ads. This approach has been successful with several advertisers.
We are beginning to see returns from the 140,000 BPL theme membership mailing. Over 560 individuals have joined or renewed during the first 15 days that the piece has been in circulation.
Kathy Capodicasa and Mark Wilson met with Alan Cohen to work on developing the final set of requirements for the E-Service component of the computer system.
Bob produced sales projections for non-ARRL publications to support the budget planning for 2004. Deb and Kathy Capodicasa completed projections on the remainder of title categories.
We're delighted with the large number of customer feedback cards being returned. Comments are largely excellent. Specific write-in comments are helping us identify ways we can improve individual customer relationships. For example, one customer was disappointed that a book had recently gone out of print. We quickly located and shipped the customer a used staff copy--which thoroughly impressed him.
Bob attended a skills training course at the American Management Association offices in New York City this week.
Membership Services
Awards Branch
WAS QSL Cards Checked 600
LTMA Inquiries 4
Code Prof. Certs. 2
Code Prof. Ends. 3
Code Prof. Returns 1
A-1 Op. Noms. 5
VUCC Initial Apps. 6
Grids 634
VUCC End. Apps. 9
Grids 503
VUCC Certs. Processed 10
Awards Mailed 40
Processing Status: Current or up to four weeks. For the coming week-Foreign WAC, RCC, OTC, Friendship, and VUCC awards processing/mailing, and continued work on budget-related matters.
DXCC Branch
For the week of:
September 21, 2003
Beginning Cards 118,233
Cards Received 24,895
Cards Processed 12,544
Ending Cards 130,584
Applications Pending 1,199
Processing Time 5.3 Weeks
Year-to-date (2003)
Cards Received 454,346
Cards Returned 532,516
DXCC is currently mailing applications received on August 15, 2003. DXCC is currently entering cards received on August 15, 2003.
Wayne Mills attended the W9DXCC convention over the weekend. He brought back 48 DXCC applications with 4,606 QSOs.
Contest Branch
Data entry for IARU was completed and the complete list of Logs Received was posted to the web. A review of the data for Field Day was done. A few problem entries for Field Day 2003 were also addressed. The June VHF database was received from the log processor, merged into the master database and the various reports generated. These reports were forwarded to W3IY, who is authoring that write-up. A small problem with the September VHF robot was corrected and early log submissions for that event re-processed manually through the robot. January VHF Sweepstakes certificates were printed and mailed. Data entry for the August UHF Contest paper logs began.
QSL Bureau
QSL Service Status: Current. Cards mailed as of 09/21/2003: 1,087,050. Cards mailed on 09/19/03: 85,575. Heather Dzamba spent 11 hours conducting tours around HQ.
Field & Educational Services
Rosalie reviewed another proof of the NASA lithograph on ARISS, worked with Brazilian hams on getting a Brazilian astronaut licensed (he flies in April 2004), and forwarded a list of ARISS weekly highlights to NASA HQ, at their request. Budget work continues.
EmComm Grants
Dan Miller prepared workshops with Georgia hams for this past weekend's FEMA Region IV conference near Augusta. For Year 1 of the UTC grant, registrations now total: 610 for Level I, 614 for Level II, 377 for Level III. For Year 2 of the CNCS grant, registrants now total 198. The Level II course revisions are being tested.
Amateur Radio Education & Technology
Mark Spencer has been getting reports from schools on their activities, and from hams reporting results of their campaigns to gain support for a Project school. Mark has made some QSOs with schools during lunch breaks. There has been a total of 850 downloads of the curriculum.
Field & Education Support Team
Margie Bourgoin reports 9 new clubs' paperwork sent on for EC vote. Clubs were sent our monthly reports (electronically) of contact information for new hams. Margie also added one new SSC and did two SSC renewals. She has worked with John Proctor to oversee the set-up of reports run from Siebel information.
Jean Wolfgang has designed a new front page for the ARRL Scout page of ARRLWeb. She has included a few new articles and additional information. She is in the process of creating a new JOTA report form which will be helpful to both BSA headquarters and ARRL.
Linda Mullally updated 25 club records with 1 reactivation, registered 13 Volunteer Instructors, plus 2 Teachers, and sent out 7¼ Exhibit kits and 13½ JOTA Kits. She compiled statistics for QST's Field Organization Reports (PSHR-BPL-SEC-STM).
Gail Iannone sent 5 hamfest approval letters and 1 convention approval letter to the sponsoring committees confirming the Division Director's approval of the events as ARRL-sanctioned; she also processed 15 door prize orders and sent 16 handout packages for upcoming events.
Mary Lau is preparing the next batch of CDs and videos to be reviewed by staff reviewers for our multimedia library. The first batch submitted and reviewed covered submissions through July, and we netted 4 keepers! Mary also notes that the ARRL Foundation is studying assuming the administration of a scholarship currently managed by a FL group.
Field Organization/Public Service Team
In preparation for Hurricane Isabel, Steve Ewald checked with SMs, SECs and NTS officials along the projected path to gather information on ham operators' readiness to respond. As reports are received from ARES, RACES, Hurricane Watch Net, WX4NHC at the Hurricane Center, SATERN (Salvation Army) and other response groups, the information is shared with Rick Lindquist, Jennifer Hagy and others. Steve updated the Emergency Communications chapter of the Operating Manual.
Leona Adams worked with SM candidates in Kansas and Tennessee to prepare statements that accompany their election ballot; ballots will be mailed by October 1. She handled 25 new appointments and supply packages. Many appointee records were updated as SMs have had a chance to review and reply to the monthly Field Appointment lists sent out earlier.
Chuck Skolaut recruited and added a new member to the ARRL Monitoring System. He reminded SMs and OOCs about the FCC's 10-meter monitoring request that continues through October. Chuck received thanks from an East Bay radio amateur for the attention that area Official Observers paid to his QRM report on a local repeater.
Regulatory Information
John Hennessee assisted amateurs with local government zoning problems in Taylor, MI (KB9DBJ) and Halifax, VT (N2JFS). He assisted an amateur with a covenant problem in St. Charles, MO (KG0HP). John spoke with Colorado hams who are in the planning stages of possible PRB-1 legislation (KG0PA). He is revising ARRL regulatory pages to make them more easily accessible.
CCE
Topics for potential new courses have been identified and transmitted by Howard Robins to Jon to post an online member survey. Due to the loss of several satellites, the Satellite Communications course has been discontinued. Such a course will be revisited in a couple of years, when it is expected that a couple of new birds will be launched. The new Antenna Design and Construction course is still awaiting posting by CTDLC.
Jerry Ellis helped with budget costing for CCE shipping expenses. He processed Level 1 and Antenna Modeling class openings, and mentor-student assignments for the Level 2 class that starts next week. He issued requests for volunteers for the HF Digital and VHF/UHF classes that start next week. He printed ARECC graduate certificates and ID cards for students, and mailed these with reimbursement checks.
73,
Sincerely,
Mark Wilson, K1RO
Chief Operating Officer
MW:lk
Staff Absentee List
Mark Wilson 10/8-10/9 Vacation
Dave Hassler 10/2-10/13 Vacation
`` 10/17-10/19 AMSAT Space Symposium Annual Meeting, Toronto
Dennis Motschenbacher 9/23-9/26 MFJ/ArraySol/TXTwr sales calls
10/2-10/6 Ten Tec Hamfest
10/10-10/12 NNY Section Convention
10/15-10/19 HRO, Pacificon Convention
11/6-11/7 Training
Joe Carcia 9/19pm-9/26 Vacation
Rick Lindquist 10/30-11/7 Vacation
Mary Lau 9/29-10/3 Vacation
Zack Lau 9/29-10/3 Vacation
Chuck Skolaut 9/26-9/27 Eastern WA Section Convention
John Hennessee 9/26 Vacation
Dan Miller 10/9-10/10 Vacation
Bob Schetgen 10/3-10/10 Vacation
Joel Kleinman 10/6 Vacation
Stu Cohen 10/6 Vacation
Bob Inderbitzen 10/5 Jury Duty
10/17 Vacation
