September 2005 - arrl-odv - reflector.arrl.org

[arrl-odv:13046] Re: Katrina Service expense reimbursement
by dick＠pobox.com 12 Sep '05

12 Sep '05

12 SEP, 2005 - 1645 CDT Better a small stipend than none at all. Hopefully the $100 will pay for at least part of the fuel costs. - Dick, W9GIG

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RE: [arrl-odv:13036] Web Search Update and Plan
by Dennis Bodson 12 Sep '05

12 Sep '05

Harold: Why do we want to reinvent the wheel. Why not use the GOOGLE search engine? What does it cost? Why not go to a possible permanent solution rather than continue to add improvements which may be far inferior to the GOOGLE engine? Dennis _____ From: Kramer, Harold, WJ1B [mailto:wj1b@arrl.org] Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 10:40 AM To: arrl-odv Cc: Bloom, Jon, KE3Z Subject: [arrl-odv:13036] Web Search Update and Plan To: ODV At the July Board meeting, the Board requested some better options for the search functions on the ARRL Web Site. Jon Bloom, Hugh Brower and Tom Hogerty have recommended the option outlined below which we plan to implement by mid-November. Here is the Executive Summary of that report along with the complete document from Jon and his staff. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Providing a robust search capability on a corporate website is a major undertaking, according to several major research organizations. ARRL has in the past used a number of free 'shareware' search tools to provide search capabilities on ARRLWeb. As presently configured these are not well suited to such a large site as ARRL's (11,000+ documents, one million hits per day). Sites with a large number of content pages typically require specialized search tools from commercial vendors. Vendor solutions come as either software which runs on a customer's servers, or as an all-in-one hardware + software package. Because of the overhead that a search engine requires, we recommend that the search function be separated from the physical ARRLWeb server. ARRL Web/Software Development Department has identified the Google Mini "appliance" as the best overall solution to the limitations of the current search tool. Sold by Google, the most popular search engine on the Internet, the Mini will allow the ARRL site to be indexed and searchable in the same manner as the current Google.com site searches the entire Internet. The cost of this appliance is $3,000 to purchase and it will require external web hosting at an approximate cost of $100 per month. We will implement this solution with a target completion date of November 11, 2005. The attached document describes the background and analysis that led us to this conclusion. Harold Kramer, WJ1B Chief Operating Officer ARRL - The National Association for Amateur Radio 225 Main Street Newington, CT 06111 860 594 0220 www.arrl.org/

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[arrl-odv:13044] Katrina Service expense reimbursement
by Hobart, Mary K1MMH 12 Sep '05

12 Sep '05

Good afternoon, We got the official word from Washington this weekend with approval of the $100,000 grant from CNCS to reimburse some expenses incurred by volunteer radio operators who have been in the field supporting response and recovery from Hurrican Katrina. While the grant limits ARRL to modest awards, it is a clear recognition by CNCS of the value of ham radio when all else fails. At this point we have $107,000 to disburse and additional contributions to this Ham Aid Fund may come in and will be added to the coffers. We are not conducting a full public campaign, since this is the time of year that we seek contributions for Spectrum Defense....and Katrina has certainly highlighted the value of our frequencies like never before! Those who inquire may send a contribution payable to ARRL and earmarked for Ham Aid. Rick Lindquist will post a story with the details of the rant and how these grant awards will be made, but I wanted you to read the procedures and view the form in advance of that. (See attached) We are trying to keep this process as simple as possible, and our Finance staff will handle these disbursements. I explained the process at the SW Division convention this past weekend and no serious questions arose. I hope that is an indicator that our procedures and goals are clear. Any questions or comments about the grant or the process should come to me. My only regret is that we cannot cover all expenses for all hams who have given so much....no only in this crisis, but for so many other disasters over the decades. So those who apply for and receive a per diem expense reimbursement, approved by their SM or SEC, receive it for themselves and for so many ham volutneers who have gone before. This is one small way we - and the federal government - can say thank you. 73, Mary K1MMH

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[arrl-odv:13043] FW: Motorola Apology: ARRL Board of Directors
by Kramer, Harold, WJ1B 12 Sep '05

12 Sep '05

Per Motorola's request, I am forwarding you this email. Harold Kramer, WJ1B Chief Operating Officer ARRL - The National Association for Amateur Radio 860 594 0220 <http://www.arrl.org/> ________________________________ From: Madsen Jeffrey D.-QA9968 [mailto:Jeffrey.Madsen@motorola.com] Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 3:47 PM To: Kramer, Harold, WJ1B; Pitts, Allen W1AGP Cc: Illman Dick-CHAW03; BUCHWALD GREG-AGB002 Subject: Motorola Apology: ARRL Board of Directors September 12, 2005 Mr. Harold Kramer Chief OperatingOfficer c/o Board of Directors Amateur Radio Relay League 225 Main Street Newington, CT 06111-1494 To the ARRL Board of Directors: Motorola has been reading from several hundred amateur radio operators about their disappointment with a comment made in the Sept. 6 edition of the Wall Street Journal. We have already responded to many operators individually. Some operators have accepted it. Others have not. Today, we offer this public apology to the ARRL Board of Directors: Motorola apologizes for the way Jim Screeden's comments appeared in the story. His comments were quoted out of context. Jim was focusing on Motorola's massive public safety recovery effort in the Gulf Coast region. The quoted comments do not represent Motorola's view on amateur radio. Motorola fully recognizes the incredible work that the amateur radio operator community has voluntarily put forth during the Hurricane Katrina response efforts, as well as many past disasters around the globe. We have more than 100 of our own employees who are amateur radios operators. In our going-forward efforts , we will continue to highlight the unique capabilities that public safety communications and amateur radio operators bring to dealing with natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina: -- Public Safety communication solutions are designed and built to be robust and reliable in MOST circumstances. Katrina was so devastating that many of our customers' systems could not withstand the effects. Katrina now ranks as the single largest disaster recovery effort in Motorola's 77-year history. Motorola has more than 300 people working in the impacted areas, has shipped more than 22,000 pieces of equipment, and is working 24/7 to fully restore both public safety radio customers and even non-customers. Jim Screeden is directing much of our activity. We are keeping his efforts focused on Katrina. -- Amateur radio communications benefit us all by having a distributed architecture and frequency agility that enables you to set up faster in the early phases of disaster recovery and can provide flexible and diverse communications. The WSJ story did a wonderful job of depicting that. Motorola believes that the amateur radio spectrum provides valuable space for these important communications. Amateur radio operators have a long history of using our equipment, and our own amateur radio operators within Motorola have contributed many of our technical advances. As demonstrated our cooperation with amateur radio for the Powerline LV test at ARRL headquarters (http://www.arrl.org/pio/press_releases/2005/0523.html) Motorola values its relationship with amateur radio and respects the critical and unique work your community is doing to help with the Katrina recovery efforts. Motorola appreciates the work the amateur radio operator community is voluntarily putting forth during Katrina and the recovery efforts. We hope we can focus together on assisting those who presently need it most ... those impacted by Hurricane Katrina. We are sorry. Sincerely, Jeffrey D. Madsen Director, Communications & Public Affairs Motorola, Inc. Government & Enterprise Mobility Solutions Jeffrey.madsen(a)motorola.com

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[arrl-odv:13042] Katrina Update Sept 12
by Kramer, Harold, WJ1B 12 Sep '05

12 Sep '05

To: ARRL ODV HQ Staff Katrina Update Sept. 12, 2005 This time I am including an actual email from Alabama: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------ 1. Message from Greg Saratt, SM (ARRL Section Manager) in Alabama at the Red Cross Emergency Operations Center in Montgomery: Hello guys, The latest SM/SEC e-mail and ARRL web call for amateurs are working. We are receiving many inquires from amateurs via e-mail and we are now processing them. The need is still great and we are finding ever changing requirements from the ARC and other served agencies. I have stories and pictures from our guys in the field but currently are working on other priorities. We received a shipment of equipment this morning. We are inventorying and sending some to the field asap. I want us, ARRL to conduct a large recognition/praise/thanks for all these amateurs that we are sending to work and serving in the field after this is over. I would like to be part of the planning/determining process. I have met and every guy and have a log of all of every one of them, that we have processed but think other areas will have to determine the amateurs that helped. Maybe we can devise a way for the affected area SM and SEC to compare their list after this is over. The ARC (American Red Cross) and other served agencies are very thankful and appreciative that we are helping them out. I have talked to several ARC folks that said that they could not operate without us! My ARC counterpart here has requested the he, I and ARRL HQ meet after this is over, update the MOU and plan for next time. This will also help us to improve a more workable joint partnership with ARC. In working this disaster closely with the ARC I have developed some processes and procedures that I think we should make into a ARRL National Model for medium and large scale disasters. This will help us deploy faster, coordinate and work better next time. There are hundreds of details and issues that is making this disaster relief support possible that we are learning and have dealt with during this process. Dennis has helped greatly in my communications with ARRL HQ. I definitely want to talk and review with you guys after this is over. We have deployed many great professional amateur operators to the field. Guys have traveled from all over the USA on their own dime to Do The Right Thing and help others. I'm very proud of them!! I have several shining stars in the field that have made this work well and kept amateur radio looking great. We have had several problems that we have worked and are currently working some as well. Thanks to ARRL for support and help! We are making a difference together!! More work to do and more to come. 73s, Greg Sarratt, W4OZK Alabama ARRL Section Manager ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---- 2. From: Rosalie White: Notes from the NVOAD telecon for Monday, Sept 12: * Hams are supporting the Southern Baptist debris-clearing teams * We're being asked to assist with communications for more evacuee sites, including working with CERT Computer Emergency Response Team teams for the Washington DC armory and WAMAC Red Cross offices. * There were the usual reports from many organizations, including: America's Harvest has delivered 550 truckloads of food, United Jewish Federation is raising $1 million to feed Houston evacuees, etc. * Also: The NC governor has declared a state of emergency although it's not clear where Ophelia will hit - Ocracoke Island residents were evacuated in anticipation of wind damage. The Raleigh EOC is activating, and asked VOAD to staff a desk along with served agencies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------- 3. Rick Palm working with Rosalie White sent out another special edition of the ARES Newsletter. We now have almost 11,000 subscribers.. More than 500 more folks opted-in last week alone. 4. More equipment is being sent to the Gulf Coast from the ARRL. These include 1,000 AA batteries, VHF Yagis, MFJ Power Supplies and Yaesu VHF Mobile radios. All of the ICOM HF Radios have been shipped out. Thanks to Wayne Mills and Janet Rocco for their help. 5. Allen Pitts has received over 600 "clippings" about Amateur Radio and Katrina and they continue to arrive. A major story appeared in The New York Times. From Allen: I got what has to be the very BEST COMPLAINT that I have received in a long, long time. BurrellsLuce, the clipping service I set up to replace Bacon's, called to complain that there were "TOO MANY PRESS CLIPPINGS for this month" !!!! Harold Kramer, WJ1B Chief Operating Officer ARRL - The National Association for Amateur Radio 225 Main Street Newington, CT 06111 860 594 0220 www.arrl.org/

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FW: LACK OF SUPPORT TO US BY OUR SERVED AGENCIES
by Jim K8JE 12 Sep '05

12 Sep '05

Dick, W98GIG, First, I saw a number of your constituents from throughout the Central Division at Shepherdsville, KY and Findlay, OH this weekend. From brief discussions and comments, they all seem to be very pleased with your leadership - as well they should be, I'm sure. I'm forwarding Allen's reply to my note about getting something useful out of served agencies. I'm sure he won't mind my sharing this with the Board. I am pleased he, too, feels we ought to evaluate the issue. I do have a couple of fuzzy ideas and have contacts that I am sure would be happy to help formulate further, more definitive thoughts, but I'd like first to hear any relevant thinking Allen has developed from his TDY in the Gulf (of Mexico, this is) region. I also thought the comment from the news clipping service was more than amusing. I believe it testifies not only to the job Allen has been heading directly with the media, but also the fact that he is driving home the critical concept to our club PIOs that we need to get our hands dirty in the PUBLIC relations trenches to be successful. Prior to Allen, my take-away has been that we were pretty good at telling our story to ourselves, but were generally poorly successful at getting it told to the public. Thanks to Allen's leadership as well as to the cooperation and support of others at HQ and in the professional media, I believe much progress has been made toward educating PIOs. Much remains to be done, as Allen suggests. Finally, rest assured that anything that begin to evolve from Allen's and my (and others) discussions will be worked fully through appropriate channels. My objective is to stimulate the initiation of progress and then to allow this progress to develop and mature as it goes through any established normal channels. Jim Jim Weaver, K8JE Director, Great Lakes Division ARRL; http://www.arrl.org/ 5065 Bethany Rd., Mason, OH 45040 Tel.: 513-459-0142; E-mail: k8je(a)arrl.org ARRL: The reason Amateur Radio Is! MEMBERS: The reason ARRL Is! -----Original Message----- From: Pitts, Allen W1AGP [mailto:w1agp@arrl.org] Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 1:00 PM To: Weaver, Jim K8JE (DIR, GL) Subject: RE: LACK OF SUPPORT TO US BY OUR SERVED AGENCIES Thank you! When the dust starts to settle out, and that may be a while yet, I agree with you that this should be looked at. We are learning many, many important lessons from this here at HQ. But there also is a wonderful shift that has happened - the "big fish/small pond" mentality is being openly derided and shown to be the impediment that it is. That goes for agencies as well as local potentates. Meanwhile, we keep plugging as best we can - together! OH...BTW - I got what has to be the very BEST COMPLAINT that I have received in a long, long time. BurrellsLuce, the clipping service I set up to replace Bacon's, called to complain that there were "TOO MANY PRESS CLIPPINGS for this month" !!!! They wanted to know what to do about it as it was screwing up their systems. I said to just put them all in a big box and send them to me anyway. :-) Allen _____ From: Jim K8JE [mailto:K8JE@arrl.org] Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 11:51 AM To: Pitts, Allen W1AGP; arrl-odv Subject: LACK OF SUPPORT TO US BY OUR SERVED AGENCIES Allen, First: Congratulations on the tremendous press you gained for Amateur Radio. When I view the great results you obtained relative to my limited knowledge of how you went about doing your job (so well), I can only conclude you are the best Public Information guru the League has had - ever! I also congratulate Dave and others who were responsible for bringing you on board. It may be a premature to work through the following; therefore, at your convenience and pending your personal recovery from Katrina, I'd like to speak with you about how we (the Amateur Radio Service) can get much greater PR assistance as a result of critical work we provide through "served agencies." It may be partly out of ignorance that I sense that we (the ARS) continue very deliberately to receive the royal shaft from the ANC and others who are too mentally-small and childish to be able to share that which should legitimately be shared. This, of course, rankles me --- not merely because the ARS typically receives negligible or no billing. Having worked very closely for many years with two such served agencies, I attribute this to their callous, selfish and myopic failure to recognize that their continued reluctance to point out the great good we do will ultimately lead to a dearth of skilled operators needed to carry out the very communication that allows them to perform their work. I am unwilling to sit back and accept a priori that we have no viable options to pursue in rectifying this problem. I am equally willing to accept that a mutually-acceptable, mutually-beneficial solution to this problem can be found. I will appreciate it if you let me know of a couple of times during which I could telephone you to discuss this subject. Obviously, your perspective is very important to understanding the situation. Tnx, 73, Jim Jim Weaver, K8JE Director, Great Lakes Division ARRL; http://www.arrl.org/ 5065 Bethany Rd., Mason, OH 45040 Tel.: 513-459-0142; E-mail: k8je(a)arrl.org ARRL: The reason Amateur Radio Is! MEMBERS: The reason ARRL Is!

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LACK OF SUPPORT TO US BY OUR SERVED AGENCIES
by Jim K8JE 12 Sep '05

12 Sep '05

Allen, First: Congratulations on the tremendous press you gained for Amateur Radio. When I view the great results you obtained relative to my limited knowledge of how you went about doing your job (so well), I can only conclude you are the best Public Information guru the League has had - ever! I also congratulate Dave and others who were responsible for bringing you on board. It may be a premature to work through the following; therefore, at your convenience and pending your personal recovery from Katrina, I'd like to speak with you about how we (the Amateur Radio Service) can get much greater PR assistance as a result of critical work we provide through "served agencies." It may be partly out of ignorance that I sense that we (the ARS) continue very deliberately to receive the royal shaft from the ANC and others who are too mentally-small and childish to be able to share that which should legitimately be shared. This, of course, rankles me --- not merely because the ARS typically receives negligible or no billing. Having worked very closely for many years with two such served agencies, I attribute this to their callous, selfish and myopic failure to recognize that their continued reluctance to point out the great good we do will ultimately lead to a dearth of skilled operators needed to carry out the very communication that allows them to perform their work. I am unwilling to sit back and accept a priori that we have no viable options to pursue in rectifying this problem. I am equally willing to accept that a mutually-acceptable, mutually-beneficial solution to this problem can be found. I will appreciate it if you let me know of a couple of times during which I could telephone you to discuss this subject. Obviously, your perspective is very important to understanding the situation. Tnx, 73, Jim Jim Weaver, K8JE Director, Great Lakes Division ARRL; http://www.arrl.org/ 5065 Bethany Rd., Mason, OH 45040 Tel.: 513-459-0142; E-mail: k8je(a)arrl.org ARRL: The reason Amateur Radio Is! MEMBERS: The reason ARRL Is!

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[arrl-odv:13038] Re: Web Search Update and Plan
by dick＠pobox.com 12 Sep '05

12 Sep '05

12 SEP, 2005 - 1125 CDT Harold, it looks to me that staff has come up with the best near-term solution. Yes, there are some costs involved, but I believe they are necessary in order to provide a quality service to both our members and non-members who need to locate information on our web site. While a 100,000 document search capacity sounds like a lot, it's a bit like hard drive capacity. Today's over-capacity becomes tomorrow's under-capacity. This is why I used the phrase "near-term" in the above paragraph. - Dick, W9GIG

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[arrl-odv:13039] Re: Web Search Update and Plan
by Brian Mileshosky 12 Sep '05

12 Sep '05

Wonderful! This will be a huge improvement. 73, Brian, N5ZGT On Mon, 12 Sep 2005, Kramer, Harold, WJ1B wrote: > To: ODV > > > > At the July Board meeting, the Board requested some better options for > the search functions on the ARRL Web Site. Jon Bloom, Hugh Brower and > Tom Hogerty have recommended the option outlined below which we plan to > implement by mid-November. > > > > Here is the Executive Summary of that report along with the complete > document from Jon and his staff. > > > > > > EXECUTIVE SUMMARY > > > > Providing a robust search capability on a corporate website is a major > undertaking, according to several major research organizations. ARRL > has in the past used a number of free 'shareware' search tools to > provide search capabilities on ARRLWeb. As presently configured these > are not well suited to such a large site as ARRL's (11,000+ documents, > one million hits per day). > > > > Sites with a large number of content pages typically require specialized > search tools from commercial vendors. Vendor solutions come as either > software which runs on a customer's servers, or as an all-in-one > hardware + software package. Because of the overhead that a search > engine requires, we recommend that the search function be separated from > the physical ARRLWeb server. > > > > ARRL Web/Software Development Department has identified the Google Mini > "appliance" as the best overall solution to the limitations of the > current search tool. Sold by Google, the most popular search engine on > the Internet, the Mini will allow the ARRL site to be indexed and > searchable in the same manner as the current Google.com site searches > the entire Internet. > > > > The cost of this appliance is $3,000 to purchase and it will require > external web hosting at an approximate cost of $100 per month. > > > > We will implement this solution with a target completion date of > November 11, 2005. > > > > The attached document describes the background and analysis that led us > to this conclusion. > > > > > > > > Harold Kramer, WJ1B > > Chief Operating Officer > > ARRL - The National Association for Amateur Radio > > 225 Main Street > > Newington, CT 06111 > > 860 594 0220 > > www.arrl.org/ > > > > ARRL Vice-Director, Rocky Mountain Division

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[arrl-odv:13037] Hello from IARU Region 1 Conference
by Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ 12 Sep '05

12 Sep '05

Hello All, Obviously, a great deal happened while I was on vacation! I have been keeping track via Internet cafes, but it was not possible to read (much less respond to) everything that hit my inbox while Linda and I were touring Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Serbia. Staff has been able to reach me by telephone, but we have the right people in the right positions and it hasn't been necessary to consult me except by email. I arrived in Davos, Switzerland on Friday and (in between and sometimes during IARU Region 1 Conference meetings) have been trying to get up to speed on email ever since. My unread inbox is more or less under control at this point, and I hope to keep it that way at least until Friday. Paul Rinaldo is here at the conference as well as Frank Butler, who is attending at his own expense. Rod Stafford arrived today and is attending in his role as Region 2 President. Larry Price is here as IARU President, and Vice President Tim Ellam was here briefly before heading to Geneva for an ITU meeting. After the conference we will be going to Zurich for the IARU Administrative Council meeting this weekend. I return to the US on Monday and will be in the office next Tuesday. As for the conference itself, there are about 160 delegates here from 47 countries in Region 1. They are plowing through hundreds of pages of documents and proposals submitted in advance. The working language is English, although it is the native language of very few of the delegates. I want to thank the Election and Ethics Committee and the Executive Committee, in particular, for handling a difficult issue while I was away. I have already thanked staff for their incredible (and ongoing) performance during the Katrina emergency, but I want you Board members to know how proud I am of their work and that of the field organization. 73, Dave Sumner, HB9/K1ZZ

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