January 2005 - arrl-odv - reflector.arrl.org

[ARRL-ODV:11706] Re: FCC Final Decision on BPL
by dick＠pobox.com 07 Jan '05

07 Jan '05

7 JAN, 2005 - 1515 CST WARNING: Flame thrower now turned on! Inquiring minds want to know... 1. Has Jay Kolinsky, NE2Q been hibernating the last two or more years? 2. Is Jay Kolinski, NE2Q afflicted with some form of dementia? 3. Is Jay Kolinski, NE2Q a <gasp> long-time League basher? 4. Is Jay Kolinsky, NE2Q one of those persons who does not want to be confused by the facts because his mind is already made up? 5. Does Jay Kolinsky, NE2Q have his head so far into his anal opening that he does not know up from down? 6. Is Jay Kolinsky, NE2Q afflicted with a combination of any or all of the conditions described in #1 thru #5 above? - Dick, W9GIG

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[ARRL-ODV:11705] Briarcliff Manor BPL interference case
by W3KD＠aol.com 07 Jan '05

07 Jan '05

Greetings. The following was just sent to FCC and to the attorney for Ambient Corporation, the BPL provider at Briarcliff Manor, NY. For your eyes only, the "FCC Enforcement Bureau staff member" referred to here is Riley Hollingsworth. Ambient has taken a decidedly hard line most recently, since they can't effectively notch out the amateur interference from its BPL system. 20 meters is a mess in large parts of Briarcliff Manor. This is now the poster child case for our reconsideration petition, and Ambient is now in full denial mode. 73, Chris W3KD

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[ARRL-ODV:11704] Clock running for BPL reconsideration
by Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ 07 Jan '05

07 Jan '05

The BPL Report and Order is in today's Federal Register at: http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20051800/edocket.access.gpo.go… So the window for reconsideration is now open for 30 days. I leave it to General Counsel Imlay to determine whether this is February 4 (the Friday before) or February 7 (the Monday after). 73, Dave Sumner, K1ZZ

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[ARRL-ODV:11703] W9GIG Email Interruption
by dick＠pobox.com 06 Jan '05

06 Jan '05

6 JAN, 2005 - 1645 CST I will not be able to receive or transmit any email from 8:00 PM PST (11:00 PM EST), Wednesday, 12 JAN until 4:00 AM PST (7:00 AM EST), Thursday, 13 JAN. My ISP, Speakeasy, is shifting its mail servers to a new data center during this period. All incoming email messages will be held for later distribution. You should not see any bounce messages. The details are spelled out in the appended message from Speakeasy. This service interruption affects all Speakeasy customers, though the exact outage on specific accounts may vary. 73 - Dick, W9GIG ========================================================================= From: Speakeasy <support(a)speakeasy.net> Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 10:41:12 -0800 (PST) To: Speakeasy Members <members-all(a)speakeasy.net> Subject: [ Speakeasy ] Network Maintenance Event - 1/12/05 Dear Speakeasy Member, We wanted to let you know about an upcoming maintenance event which will impact your Speakeasy email services (all @speakeasy.net/org email addresses and Speakeasy-hosted domain email addresses). Next Wednesday, 1/12/05, beginning at 8PM PST (11PM EST) and concluding at 4AM PST (7AM EST) on Thursday, 1/13/05, we will be transitioning our mail servers to a new data center. You may experience a brief interruption in your Speakeasy email services during the maintenance window, and any email sent during the previous 24 hours will be unavailable for the duration of the maintenance while our mail servers sync. You will have access to all email older than 24 hours and any new email received after the maintenance commences will be available by 9PM PST (12AM EST). Our mail servers will continue to accept email and no email will be lost during this transition. This transition is necessary to improve overall mail service reliability and performance and the lengthy maintenance window is necessary to complete this upgrade. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause you and we appreciate your patience as we work to improve our services to you. The Speakeasy Crew Toll Free > 800.556.5829 Local > 206.728.9770 Email > support(a)speakeasy.net http://www.speakeasy.net/myspeak/create_ticket.mpl [login required] Broadband For Open Minds

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[ARRL-ODV:11702] HQ Closing
by Hobart, Mary K1MMH 06 Jan '05

06 Jan '05

Good afternoon, Today we have experienced a snowy morning and freezing rain and ice this afternoon. Due to these weather conditions and the aniticpation of increased freezing roads, HQ will close at 3 pm today to ensure that our staff travel safely. 73, Mary K1MMH

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[ARRL-ODV:11701] IN-News
by Kustosik, Lisa, KA1UFZ 06 Jan '05

06 Jan '05

IN-Newsletter Vol. 28, No. 1 January 5, 2005 Upcoming Meetings A&F Committee January 20 in Newington, CT Programs & Services Committee January 20 in Newington, CT Board Meeting January 21-22 in Windsor, CT Development The 2005 Defense campaign topped $228,000 from more than 3900 donors by December 31. We will continue to log receipts as they arrive in 2005. The Year End campaign to close the Development fund raising gap raised more than $21,000 from 674 donors, just shy of its budgeted goal and far short of its "public" goal of $116,000. But this campaign was new this year and receipts continue to arrive. Our thanks to all donors who responded and helped Development maximize its fund raising support of ARRL programs not funded by member dues. The Development Report for the Annual Meeting has been submitted. Media & Public Relations CONTACT done for Jan 05. Allen's tsunami-related interview with MSNBC was bumped in favor of Charly Harpole, K4VUD/HS0ZCW, who did very well. Interviewed with NY Times but the story was dropped by editor due to Washington Post already doing coverage. Leonard Award votes coming in. Production/Editorial Although he was on vacation last week, Rick Lindquist handled considerable e-mail correspondence and prepared and posted four stories related to the tsunami disaster in South Asia. Technical Editor Stu Cohen is taking a leave of absence to deal with a family illness. He expects to return to the office January 31 or thereabouts. While he's out, anything that would have gone to Stu should be directed to Joel Kleinman. Sales & Marketing Steve Capodicasa (Warehouse Supervisor) reports that for the calendar year 2004, the warehouse crew shipped approximately 55,000 packages totaling approximately 400,000 lbs. December sales were $288,000, exceeding the month's forecast by over $5,000. It was another excellent month for the 2005 Handbook, with sales of $88,000. At the end of the year, the 2005 Handbook stands ahead of forecast by over $211,000. We are delighted to report that product sales ended the year ahead of plan, achieving sales of over $3,000,000. Two end-of-year publication solicitations were emailed this week, one featuring a selection of two-for-one promotions, and another featuring the ARRL Technician Class Video Course. Video course sales in December topped $9,000. Two membership solicitations have been mailed to a selection of lapsed members, testing the response to different free book offers. The results will also help identify portions of our mailing lists that yield higher responses. With some help from our group, Texas Towers has beefed-up its online presentation of ARRL publications, hoping to increase sales in 2005. The site is live at http://www.texastowers.com/arrl.htm Membership Services Awards Branch WAS End. (50 QSLs ES/C) 1 WAS End. (50 QSLs F/C) 1 WAS in the 90th Awards 41 Replacement Award 1 LTMA Inquiries 2 VUCC Initial Apps. 1 Grids 227 Awards Mailed 99 Processing Status: Current or up to three weeks. For the coming week-WAS QSL card checking, Basic WAS awards for December, foreign WAC and VUCC awards, order 5BWAS plates, mail out all awards processed this week, and work on some LTMA projects. DXCC Branch For the week of: January 2, 2005 Beginning Cards 60,390 Cards Received 2,331 Cards Processed 9,125 Ending Cards 53,596 Applications Pending 463 Processing Time 5.5 Weeks DXCC is currently mailing applications received on November 22, 2004. DXCC is currently entering cards received on November 25, 2004. Turnaround time for applications with just LoTW credits is 1 working day. One foreign nomination is in progress for Poland. Logbook of the World QSO records entered into the system 60,144,764 QSL records have resulted 2,386,281 Logs Processed 90,117 Active Certificates 12,672 Users registered in the system 8,575 Current Applications 59 Ready Applications 0 Applications Awaiting Mail 59 QSL Bureau Due to the holidays and staff vacations, processing time is 7 days. This week 86 pounds of cards were received from members. Cards mailed as of 12/30/04: 1,100,535. This compares to 1,358,474 cards mailed at the same time in 2003 (a decrease of 257,939). Cards mailed on 12/30/04: 80,675. W1AW As usual, the week between Christmas and New Years was quite busy. In addition to a higher than normal number of regular visitors operating W1AW (as opposed to other weeks during Autumn and early Winter), the station was also visited by scouts with Scout Troop DX (from Massachusetts). And, on Wednesday, the group of hams from the North Jersey DX Association (the group known as "3 Steves and a Kurt") visited as well. In their 2-3/4 hours of operating, they made 450+ QSOs using SSB and CW on 40, 30, 20, 17, 15 and 6 meters. Thanks to Mark Spencer, WA8SME for his activity in Straight Key Night and Kid's Day 2004. During the Kid's Day event, a number of "young adults" and their parents were on hand to put W1AW on the air. A news crew from local television station Fox 61 was on hand and filmed some of the activity. All total, they made 38 contacts, with 20 states and 3 DX stations. Scott worked on fast and slow code practice files for the month of January. He also handled some evening phone sales calls in the daily 5 PM to 8 PM time slots. Joe processed two Code Proficiency certificates and one endorsement. He made some quick repairs to an 80-meter Harris amplifier power supply and to the 40-meter Command Technologies amplifier. He processed regular W1AW/90 QSL card requests and began processing the entries for the 2004 FMT. Joe upgraded two old 166 MHz PCs to "faster" machines. He also uploaded /90 logs to LoTW. Joe also installed on the Yaesu FT-1000 one of the donated AOR ARD-9800 digital modems. W1AW Nightly Telephone Sales year to date (for all of 2004): $45,023 W1AW Nightly Telephone Sales (since assuming the responsibility in 1998): $237,396 Field & Educational Services On December 22, 3rd through 12th grade students at the Tulsa Air and Space Museum had an ARISS QSO. Students had attended space camp there last July. A ham station was set up for the museum's Space Colonization Exhibit, and was run by the Tulsa Repeater Organization. Fox, ABC and CBS TV stations, two newspapers and CQ VHF reported the event. During another QSO, with Brazilian girl and boy scouts, the president of LABRE-RJ, handled the radios, and two Army colonels attended the event. Rosalie worked with Bill Barrett to ensure his three handouts were ready for the upcoming 12 Citizen Corps Council meetings. She revised standard text on licensure and copyright for the CD Bill designed for program; it is ready for duplication, thanks to Dan Wolfgang. Club/Mentor/Volunteer Instructor Programs Norm Fusaro wrote a story for the web about the Austin ARC and their 85th anniversary of affiliation where West Gulf Director Day presented a charter of affiliation that Norm had prepared for the occasion. Norm assisted ARRL members and prospective hams in finding local clubs and getting information on licensing or upgrading. He interviewed a new ham and his mentors in New Mexico for an upcoming web story, plus put finishing touches on a potential article for QST. Margie Bourgoin reports doing 41 affiliated club updates, including one reactivation, plus renewals for 3 Special Service Clubs. She re-formatted the SSC Certificate for preparation using the computer rather than a typewriter. She finished tallying the results of the Instructor Surveys, and she and Norm compiled those results. She has fielded some phone calls and emails for Gail, while Gail is on vacation. EmComm Grants Dan Miller reported early this week that with a few days to go, we had almost met the Year 2 UTC grant requirements with 991 graduates of the Emcomm courses. Then on December 31, the end of the grant year, the total went to 1004, putting us slightly over the top of the 1000 grad goal. Congratulations! Field Organization/Public Service Team After the earthquake and resulting tsunamis in Southeast Asia, HQ staff began gathering news. Steve Ewald and Chuck Skolaut kept tabs on hams' responses, and answered other hams' questions. Chuck got a clarification from the FCC on emergency-related third-party traffic into and out of stricken countries -- this information was incorporated into ARRL Web articles. Steve also participated in an ARESCOM telecon, and learned that hams are using Winlink 2000 as part of their tools to get communications in and out of Southeast Asia. Chuck Skolaut learned that the "Yosemite Sam" signal heard on 3700 KHz went silent on December 23, although no source was located. Information regarding interference to a Ft Worth (TX) repeater was reviewed and forwarded to the FCC. Documentation concerning the unlicensed use of 2-meters by hunters in West Virginia has been reviewed. Four amateurs became new Official Observers this week. Leona Adams reports that, thanks to the Mailroom Staff, the ballots and candidate statements for Arkansas and North Texas SM elections have been sent ahead of the January 3rd deadline. In response to reminders sent to them, SMs have been submitting their year-end expense reports and receipts to Leona for processing. Certification-Continuing Education Jean Wolfgang produced the monthly report for producing mentor stipend checks. For the month of December, 83 mentors participated in helping students with courses. Jean assigned mentors to students, and processed four class sections that are to begin on January 7. She reassigned two students to new mentors, and handled several student withdrawals from courses. Amateur Radio Education & Technology Program Mark Spencer says schools are obviously out for the holidays, but numerous calls for assistance with ham classes were serviced. The Basic Electronics curriculum is complete, and will be ready for distribution when the budget is finalized. He received a number of requests for the receiver kit and curriculum materials. A few more grant acceptance letters were received; it is a little disappointing that others are not being immediately returned. Regulatory Information John Hennessee thanks Chuck Skolaut for his help with urgent regulatory messages while John was on vacation. He has received an increase of inquiries about Restructuring 2. Rick's Web crawl messages have kept the number lower than it might be otherwise. John also received questions on the regulatory aspects of the Asian disaster. Sincerely, Dave Patton, NN1N Special Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer DCP: lk Staff Absentee List Dave Sumner 1/13-1/14 Washington Monique Levesque 12/31-1/7 Vacation Stu Cohen 1/4-±1/28 Leave of absence Heather Cirigliano 1/10 Vacation `` 1/17 Vacation

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[ARRL-ODV:11700] What do 20-somethings think about ham radio?
by Tom Frenaye 06 Jan '05

06 Jan '05

Interesting conversations between hams and non-ham geeks - one audience we need to appeal to more. http://science.slashdot.org/science/05/01/05/2246205.shtml?tid=215&tid=193&… -- Tom ===== e-mail: k1ki(a)arrl.org ARRL New England Division Director http://www.arrl.org/ Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444

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[ARRL-ODV:11699] Yearend state legislative report
by Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ 04 Jan '05

04 Jan '05

The state legislative report for yearend 2004 (including some information on prefiled legislation for 2005) is available to officers, directors, and vice directors at http://www.arrl.org/members-only/ODV/docs/Legislative/2004/1204.doc Dave Sumner, K1ZZ

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[ARRL-ODV:11698] Washington Post article about VU4 expedition and tsunami relief
by W3KD＠aol.com 04 Jan '05

04 Jan '05

Here's the link to the Washington Post article on Sunday last about the VU4 expedition and its relief efforts. Good ink! Chris W3KD http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41861-2005Jan2.html

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[ARRL-ODV:11697] Re: FW: [NJDXA-L] (Fwd) December 29th, 2004 - Great Day at W...
by KA2ANF＠aol.com 03 Jan '05

03 Jan '05

All - I had a conversation on Saturday with the "Kurt" in the "Three Steve's and a Kurt operation. From the looks of the scores they sent me, they had very good time and created a lot activity on the bands. The son of one of the Steve's, is only 17 and got some good operating experience! They even reported a guy stopping in during their operation from W1AW...and his name was Steve as well. ....and no, I haven't even worked the infamous, Three Steve's and a Kurt from W1AW...just worked them on local repeaters when passing thru their area. 73, Joyce KA2ANF

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