April 2007 - arrl-odv - reflector.arrl.org

RE: [arrl-odv:15489] WRC-07 Update 7 Report in July
by Jim Weaver 28 Apr '07

28 Apr '07

Excellent, Joel. Jim Weaver, K8JE, Director ARRL Great Lakes Division 5065 Bethany Rd. Mason, OH 45040 E-mail: <mailto:k8je@arrl.org> k8je(a)arrl.org; Tel.: 513-459-0142 ARRL - The Reason Amateur Radio Is! Members - The Reason ARRL Is! -----Original Message----- From: Joel Harrison [mailto:w5zn@arrl.org] Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2007 4:13 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: [arrl-odv:15489] WRC-07 Update 7 Report in July I have invited IARU Vice President Tim Ellam, VE6SH, to our board meeting in July to give us an update on WRC-07 preparations and progress. WRC-07 will take place later this year. 73 Joel W5ZN

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[arrl-odv:15489] WRC-07 Update 7 Report in July
by Joel Harrison 28 Apr '07

28 Apr '07

I have invited IARU Vice President Tim Ellam, VE6SH, to our board meeting in July to give us an update on WRC-07 preparations and progress. WRC-07 will take place later this year. 73 Joel W5ZN

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RE: [arrl-odv:15485] Interesting Poll on 11306
by Joel Harrison 28 Apr '07

28 Apr '07

I believe the support is there as well, Karl. I base that on the fact that it is not an issue (or at least hasn't been yet to date) at hamfests, conventions and club meetings where you can talk to people face to face about it. It will be interesting to see the comments at Dayton in a few weeks. There are only a handful of agitators that hide in a dark corner in their house behind their computer screen that are League bashers and opposed to anything we propose, regardless of the topic, that have an avenue via the chat rooms to spew their venom. I have no problem whatsoever with people offering different opinions or suggestions. I welcome it. It provides healthy debate and makes our proposals better. The group I'm referring to, unfortunately, does not want to provide anything constructive and in no way can we obtain any positive results by debating them via the chat rooms. During the recent ODV emails about "communicating better" with our members this was suggested, but it just won't work. It would require a full time effort and would do no good. I can relate several examples over the past few weeks of hams I've engaged with email discussion from the chat rooms and it turned in to an endless loop and a couple have even turned vicious. Dave is still engaged with one guy that just won't accept there is a difference of opinion. Someone suggested that Jim Haynie had productively engaged the chat rooms, but that sure wasn't Jim's assessment of the effort. Jim concluded it was wasted time because the group did not want to reach any conclusions whatsoever, they just wanted to argue. Jim felt it was much better to use or own media to get our message out effectively to our members and non-members alike. I agree with him. Our website alone averages 500,000 unique visitors per month.....that's huge and tells us something about the power of our website! I know there has been some comment from within that we do not do a good job of communicating with our members. I will be the first to say we can always do better and should strive to that end. That just doesn't fall on the HQ staff via QST, ARRLWeb, the ARRL Letter, etc, but with each and every one of us as well. Each of the Officers, Directors and Vice Directors is required and has an obligation to stay in touch with the members in their division. Some do an outstanding job, some do a good job but unfortunately there are a few who don't communicate with the members at all. The process of doing better has to start with us. I look forward to working with each of you in the coming months to improve this process. On May 9 Dave, Chris, Paul and I will meet to put together a draft plan for moving forward with this matter. I then want the Officer's to review the plan and make any revisions, etc. We will then forward it to the Directors and Vice Directors for review several weeks before the July board meeting for discussion leading into the board meeting where we will decide our next move. As we move forward with this process, please engage your members and educate them about this topic. You can't commit to any specific course of future action obviously, as that won't be decided until July when the Directors will make the final decision, but you obviously can express your own position. More later as we move forward. 73 Joel W5ZN -----Original Message----- From: Karl Bullock [mailto:karl@bullock.org] Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2007 11:12 AM To: arrl-odv Subject: [arrl-odv:15485] Interesting Poll on 11306 There's an interesting poll on arnewsline.org where visitors are asked to vote in favor of or in opposition to Regulation by Bandwidth. Currently it's running nearly 2:1 in favor with nearly 1100 voting. Scientific? No. Interesting? I thought so. I think the support is there once we redo this proposal and keep it, this time, from being demagogued to death! 73, Karl, WA5TMC -------------------------------------- "Of, By, and For..." - Not just words! Karl Bullock, WA5TMC ARRL Vice Director - Delta Division 321 CR 458 Ripley, MS 38663 662 512-8053

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[arrl-odv:15487] RM-11306 News Story
by Joel Harrison 28 Apr '07

28 Apr '07

Friday morning I sent you a copy of the news release that had been prepared for posting on our web site regarding withdrawal of RM-11306. In that email, I stated that we would be posting the story on ARRLWeb at the end of the day. This time was intended to give each of you an opportunity to see it first. While it certainly was not confidential, I did not expect any public distribution until AFTER we first published it on our website. I was quite dismayed to receive a phone call mid-day yesterday advising me that it had already been posted on QRZ.com, thus robbing us of the opportunity to post our news story on our website first. When I sent our plan for the withdrawal to you, I emphasized the importance of ARRL posting the news story first, but obviously someone among us decided to work contrary to that plan. I don't know who forwarded the release, but it was posted on QRZ.com by Don Chester, K4KYV in Tennessee. Again, I did not mark the item confidential and it was our news story, but it was quite disheartening for this to be distributed before we posted it. 73 Joel W5ZN

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Chris Imlay's Brother
by Joel Harrison 28 Apr '07

28 Apr '07

Chris Imlay's brother was killed in an automobile accident last night. Chris will be out of the office and out of pocket for the next few days. Joel W5ZN

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[arrl-odv:15485] Interesting Poll on 11306
by Karl Bullock 28 Apr '07

28 Apr '07

There's an interesting poll on arnewsline.org where visitors are asked to vote in favor of or in opposition to Regulation by Bandwidth. Currently it's running nearly 2:1 in favor with nearly 1100 voting. Scientific? No. Interesting? I thought so. I think the support is there once we redo this proposal and keep it, this time, from being demagogued to death! 73, Karl, WA5TMC -------------------------------------- "Of, By, and For..." - Not just words! Karl Bullock, WA5TMC ARRL Vice Director - Delta Division 321 CR 458 Ripley, MS 38663 662 512-8053

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[arrl-odv:15484] Re:RE: IRTS TRip Report
by Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ 28 Apr '07

28 Apr '07

Henry, I was referring to Debbie Norman, VA3RGM. You may recall that we included her in the moment of silence at the beginning of the January Board Meeting. RAC in this case is Radio Amateurs of Canada. 73, Dave K1ZZ/6 in Visalia ________________________________ From: Henry R. Leggette [mailto:wd4q@bellsouth.net] Sent: Sat 4/28/2007 3:12 AM To: arrl-odv Subject: [arrl-odv:15483] Re: IRTS TRip Report Dave, Thanks for the excellent IRTS Trip report. It appeared that the trip was a very busy one. I noticed you said RAC recently lost their General Manager to cancer, can I assume he held that position from his country and not IRTS? Thanks for the report. 73, Henry - WD4Q ----- Original Message ----- From: Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ <mailto:dsumner@arrl.org> To: arrl-odv <mailto:arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 6:33 PM Subject: [arrl-odv:15478] IRTS TRip Report Trip Report Irish Radio Transmitters Society (IRTS) 75th Anniversary and AGM Cork, Ireland April 21-22, 2007 IRTS Secretary Dave Moore, EI4BZ invited Linda and me to attend a dinner marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the IRTS in 1932. It was very economical for me to do so because I was able to arrange my flights to Dubrovnik for the IARU Region 1 Executive Committee meeting in Cavtat, Croatia the previous weekend through Dublin - at an overall cost about $400 less than alternative routings to Dubrovnik alone. I arrived in Dublin Tuesday night; Linda traveled from California at personal expense and arrived on Wednesday morning. We took three days of vacation on the Dingle Peninsula before arriving at the Vienna Woods Hotel, Glanmire, Cork on Saturday afternoon. Ole Garpestad, LA2RR attended with his wife Karin, LA8UW on behalf of IARU Region 1; the RSGB was represented by President Angus Annan, MM1CCR, who - despite his Scottish call sign - is from Belfast. The IRTS President is Fr. Finnbarr Buckley, EI1CS, a Catholic priest. He attended the 2005 Region 1 Conference in Davos. Needless to say, Finnbarr gave the invocation at the banquet. Later he told of receiving an invitation from the RSGB to attend their Annual General Meeting "with his wife" and said he had looked for one to bring, but "all those on offer were past their sell-by date." There were about 130 in attendance at the dinner including representatives of the administration, ComReg, including our friend John Breen, EI7BV, who headed the Irish delegation to WRC-03 and did some good work for us there. Linda happened to be seated at the head table next to a young economist Ph.D. from ComReg who spent a few years in New Haven, CT and has a lively interest in American politics. When invited to speak he said some nice words about the need for access to spectrum for amateur endeavors, which were good to hear from an economist. Eight of the nine living Past Presidents of the IRTS were present (the ninth lives nearby but was in London for his son's wedding) and were given special recognition. I was asked to give one of the toasts and presented gifts to IRTS from the ARRL (an engraved clock) and IARU (an engraved stand-alone plaque). Ole gave the reply to Finnbarr's toast on behalf of the foreign guests and presented them with a Norwegian "ice bear" which to Irish ears sounded like "ice beer" (it was actually what we would call a polar bear). Several amateurs from Northern Ireland had come all the way to Cork, which is in the southern part of the Irish Republic, for the event. Relations appear to be totally amicable between the EI and GI amateurs. Several radio clubs in Northern Ireland are affiliated with IRTS. Indeed, even outside of Amateur Radio circles I heard considerable optimism expressed that "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland are over and peace is taking hold, with great economic benefits. It was almost midnight by the time the banquet was over, but a number of us stayed on to talk about Amateur Radio over a few pints of Guinness. In the course of this I was invited to visit the nearby contest station, EI7M, on Sunday morning. It was interesting to see the rather modest station that is by far the most consistent signal from Ireland during HF contests. They have a great site and are working on antenna improvements that should make them more competitive in the future. Speaking of contests, IRTS is sponsoring a very interesting one-off event on the last weekend of September this year as a part of their 75th anniversary celebrations. "CQ IR" is a 24-hour, single-operator, HF CW/SSB contest in which everybody works everybody, with Irish counties (in both Northern Ireland and the Republic) on each band and mode as the multipliers. Anyone who operates from Ireland (either part) or who has a direct ancestral link to Ireland, or a spouse with such a link, can supply the county multiplier. For example, as far as I know my most recent Irish ancestor emigrated from County Tyrone in 1885. So instead of a serial number I would send "1885 TYR" and anyone working me could claim the County Tyrone multiplier, even though I'm operating from Connecticut. It's an interesting wrinkle that should unearth quite a few North American contesters with Irish roots. The rules are at http://irts.ie/cgi/showrules.cgi?cqir Two grand prizes will be awarded, but on the basis of lottery rather than score. For stations operating from Ireland the grand prize is a weekend for two in New York City. On behalf of the ARRL I offered to throw in a side trip to visit Newington, which Finnbarr immediately accepted. I was given a copy of a report dated October 2006 of a technical trial of two BPL systems conducted by the Electricity Supply Board, the Irish power utility. The bottom line of the study is, "Despite significant hype and R&D spending by vendors and certain utilities, Broadband Power Line Technology is nowhere near an appropriate state of development required for commercial 'mass market' rollout." The presentation is currently available at <http://www.engineersireland.ie/sectorpapers/GetSectorPaperDetails.pasp?Sect…> A rally (the equivalent of a US flea market) was held in the banquet room of the hotel on Sunday morning and early afternoon, after which the Annual General Meeting was called to order in another part of the hotel. There were almost 100 IRTS members present. IRTS is operated entirely by volunteers; they have about 1,000 members and an annual budget of about $35,000. However, licensing is showing signs of growth and membership is holding reasonably steady despite a dues increase, thanks to a strong economy and immigration from other parts of the EU (I was told Ireland is the only country in Europe in which the average age is decreasing). On the other hand, IRTS officials reported relatively low activity among existing licensees and difficulty recruiting new ones. The Amateur Radio tradition in Ireland is experimental, but current interest is in public service and emergency communications on the one hand and competitive operating on the other with little overlap (and possibly a bit of tension) between the two groups. Ole and I were asked to offer some remarks, and we agreed to a division of labor whereby I would provide an update on recent happenings in North America and he would provide the international overview. I began with Canada, reporting that Canada had experienced about a 3% growth in licensing following the dropping of the Morse requirement (this figure came from Earle Smith) and that RAC had recently lost its General Manager to cancer. Then I told them about the expansion of the US phone bands on 80 and 40 meters and said that if they were hearing US stations in parts of those bands where they hadn't been heard previously, it wasn't because people were operating out of band. I reminded them that unlike most countries, in the US the phone bands are established by regulation and not simply by voluntary band plan. I then advised them of the dropping of the Morse code requirement as of February 23, and mentioned in passing that the ARRL would have preferred to retain the requirement for the Extra Class license. (In Ireland they have retained a code test, but all you get if you pass is the opportunity to obtain a two-letter call.) I described briefly our three license classes and reported that not only had interest in upgrading to Extra and especially to General increased dramatically, but that applications for the Technician license also had increased. I told them that while total licenses were continuing to decline because of the effect of the 10-year license term - we were "losing" people who in fact had lost interest years ago but were just now falling out of the statistics - both activity and membership are beginning to trend upward. Linda and I were excused before the end of the meeting since we had to drive back to Dublin. It was a most enjoyable experience. Ireland is lovely, and the people - not just the hams - are very friendly, especially to Americans. IRTS officials and members alike appeared to be very appreciative of the IARU, to a greater extent than I typically encounter. I believe this stems in large part from what John Breen has told them of the IARU's efforts on their behalf in the ITU and CEPT. As for the ARRL, many of those present told me with obvious pride that they were longtime ARRL members.

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[arrl-odv:15483] Re: IRTS TRip Report
by Henry R. Leggette 28 Apr '07

28 Apr '07

IRTS TRip ReportDave, Thanks for the excellent IRTS Trip report. It appeared that the trip was a very busy one. I noticed you said RAC recently lost their General Manager to cancer, can I assume he held that position from his country and not IRTS? Thanks for the report. 73, Henry - WD4Q ----- Original Message ----- From: Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ To: arrl-odv Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 6:33 PM Subject: [arrl-odv:15478] IRTS TRip Report Trip Report Irish Radio Transmitters Society (IRTS) 75th Anniversary and AGM Cork, Ireland April 21-22, 2007 IRTS Secretary Dave Moore, EI4BZ invited Linda and me to attend a dinner marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the IRTS in 1932. It was very economical for me to do so because I was able to arrange my flights to Dubrovnik for the IARU Region 1 Executive Committee meeting in Cavtat, Croatia the previous weekend through Dublin - at an overall cost about $400 less than alternative routings to Dubrovnik alone. I arrived in Dublin Tuesday night; Linda traveled from California at personal expense and arrived on Wednesday morning. We took three days of vacation on the Dingle Peninsula before arriving at the Vienna Woods Hotel, Glanmire, Cork on Saturday afternoon. Ole Garpestad, LA2RR attended with his wife Karin, LA8UW on behalf of IARU Region 1; the RSGB was represented by President Angus Annan, MM1CCR, who - despite his Scottish call sign - is from Belfast. The IRTS President is Fr. Finnbarr Buckley, EI1CS, a Catholic priest. He attended the 2005 Region 1 Conference in Davos. Needless to say, Finnbarr gave the invocation at the banquet. Later he told of receiving an invitation from the RSGB to attend their Annual General Meeting "with his wife" and said he had looked for one to bring, but "all those on offer were past their sell-by date." There were about 130 in attendance at the dinner including representatives of the administration, ComReg, including our friend John Breen, EI7BV, who headed the Irish delegation to WRC-03 and did some good work for us there. Linda happened to be seated at the head table next to a young economist Ph.D. from ComReg who spent a few years in New Haven, CT and has a lively interest in American politics. When invited to speak he said some nice words about the need for access to spectrum for amateur endeavors, which were good to hear from an economist. Eight of the nine living Past Presidents of the IRTS were present (the ninth lives nearby but was in London for his son's wedding) and were given special recognition. I was asked to give one of the toasts and presented gifts to IRTS from the ARRL (an engraved clock) and IARU (an engraved stand-alone plaque). Ole gave the reply to Finnbarr's toast on behalf of the foreign guests and presented them with a Norwegian "ice bear" which to Irish ears sounded like "ice beer" (it was actually what we would call a polar bear). Several amateurs from Northern Ireland had come all the way to Cork, which is in the southern part of the Irish Republic, for the event. Relations appear to be totally amicable between the EI and GI amateurs. Several radio clubs in Northern Ireland are affiliated with IRTS. Indeed, even outside of Amateur Radio circles I heard considerable optimism expressed that "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland are over and peace is taking hold, with great economic benefits. It was almost midnight by the time the banquet was over, but a number of us stayed on to talk about Amateur Radio over a few pints of Guinness. In the course of this I was invited to visit the nearby contest station, EI7M, on Sunday morning. It was interesting to see the rather modest station that is by far the most consistent signal from Ireland during HF contests. They have a great site and are working on antenna improvements that should make them more competitive in the future. Speaking of contests, IRTS is sponsoring a very interesting one-off event on the last weekend of September this year as a part of their 75th anniversary celebrations. "CQ IR" is a 24-hour, single-operator, HF CW/SSB contest in which everybody works everybody, with Irish counties (in both Northern Ireland and the Republic) on each band and mode as the multipliers. Anyone who operates from Ireland (either part) or who has a direct ancestral link to Ireland, or a spouse with such a link, can supply the county multiplier. For example, as far as I know my most recent Irish ancestor emigrated from County Tyrone in 1885. So instead of a serial number I would send "1885 TYR" and anyone working me could claim the County Tyrone multiplier, even though I'm operating from Connecticut. It's an interesting wrinkle that should unearth quite a few North American contesters with Irish roots. The rules are at http://irts.ie/cgi/showrules.cgi?cqir Two grand prizes will be awarded, but on the basis of lottery rather than score. For stations operating from Ireland the grand prize is a weekend for two in New York City. On behalf of the ARRL I offered to throw in a side trip to visit Newington, which Finnbarr immediately accepted. I was given a copy of a report dated October 2006 of a technical trial of two BPL systems conducted by the Electricity Supply Board, the Irish power utility. The bottom line of the study is, "Despite significant hype and R&D spending by vendors and certain utilities, Broadband Power Line Technology is nowhere near an appropriate state of development required for commercial 'mass market' rollout." The presentation is currently available at <http://www.engineersireland.ie/sectorpapers/GetSectorPaperDetails.pasp?Sect…> A rally (the equivalent of a US flea market) was held in the banquet room of the hotel on Sunday morning and early afternoon, after which the Annual General Meeting was called to order in another part of the hotel. There were almost 100 IRTS members present. IRTS is operated entirely by volunteers; they have about 1,000 members and an annual budget of about $35,000. However, licensing is showing signs of growth and membership is holding reasonably steady despite a dues increase, thanks to a strong economy and immigration from other parts of the EU (I was told Ireland is the only country in Europe in which the average age is decreasing). On the other hand, IRTS officials reported relatively low activity among existing licensees and difficulty recruiting new ones. The Amateur Radio tradition in Ireland is experimental, but current interest is in public service and emergency communications on the one hand and competitive operating on the other with little overlap (and possibly a bit of tension) between the two groups. Ole and I were asked to offer some remarks, and we agreed to a division of labor whereby I would provide an update on recent happenings in North America and he would provide the international overview. I began with Canada, reporting that Canada had experienced about a 3% growth in licensing following the dropping of the Morse requirement (this figure came from Earle Smith) and that RAC had recently lost its General Manager to cancer. Then I told them about the expansion of the US phone bands on 80 and 40 meters and said that if they were hearing US stations in parts of those bands where they hadn't been heard previously, it wasn't because people were operating out of band. I reminded them that unlike most countries, in the US the phone bands are established by regulation and not simply by voluntary band plan. I then advised them of the dropping of the Morse code requirement as of February 23, and mentioned in passing that the ARRL would have preferred to retain the requirement for the Extra Class license. (In Ireland they have retained a code test, but all you get if you pass is the opportunity to obtain a two-letter call.) I described briefly our three license classes and reported that not only had interest in upgrading to Extra and especially to General increased dramatically, but that applications for the Technician license also had increased. I told them that while total licenses were continuing to decline because of the effect of the 10-year license term - we were "losing" people who in fact had lost interest years ago but were just now falling out of the statistics - both activity and membership are beginning to trend upward. Linda and I were excused before the end of the meeting since we had to drive back to Dublin. It was a most enjoyable experience. Ireland is lovely, and the people - not just the hams - are very friendly, especially to Americans. IRTS officials and members alike appeared to be very appreciative of the IARU, to a greater extent than I typically encounter. I believe this stems in large part from what John Breen has told them of the IARU's efforts on their behalf in the ITU and CEPT. As for the ARRL, many of those present told me with obvious pride that they were longtime ARRL members.

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[arrl-odv:15482] Withdrawal of RM-11306
by w3kd＠aol.com 27 Apr '07

27 Apr '07

Attached is a copy of the short Withdrawal I filed just now in RM-11306, asking that the Petition for Rule Making be dismissed without prejudice. I will send copies of that to Scot Stone and Bill Cross at FCC, who knew this was coming. 73, Chris W3KD ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com.

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[arrl-odv:15481] Re:RM-11306 Withdrawal News Story
by dick＠pobox.com 27 Apr '07

27 Apr '07

27 APR 2007 - 1315 CDT It looks like a good presentation of the facts and rationale leading up to our withdrawal of RM-11306. However, the story says the full board voted by mail, not email. Is this an error? 73 - Dick, W9GIG

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