November 2010 - arrl-odv - reflector.arrl.org

IN-News
by Kustosik, Lisa, KA1UFZ 30 Nov '10

30 Nov '10

<<112410.doc>> IN-Newsletter <<Microsoft Word Picture>> Vol. 33, No. 47 November 24, 2010 -- Covers the period November 14-20. Production/Editorial Reported by Joel Kleinman, N1BKE Khrystyne Keane wrote and distributed The ARRL Letter and voiced and produced ARRL Audio News for November 18, 2010. Membership & Volunteer Programs Reported by Dave Patton, NN1N W1AW Thanks to Northwestern Division Director Jim Fenstermaker, K9JF, and Pacific Division Vice-Director Jim Tiemstra, K6JAT, for operating W1AW in the ARRL November SSB Sweepstakes. They made 506 QSOs, with all 80 ARRL sections, for an initial claimed score of 80,960. Joe updated the web code practice files. He also processed regular QSL card requests and four (4) W1AW Qualifying Run certificates. He replaced the flashing around the rear door and began to prep it for the installation of molding. He temporarily installed a Yaesu FTdx5000 in Studio Three for evaluation. Joe also readied the equipment in the first studio for Sweepstakes operation. Scott worked on fast and slow code practice files for the latter part of the month of November. Field Organization/Public Service Team On Tuesday, November 23, Membership and Volunteer Program staff members Leona Adams, Gail Iannone, Norm Fusaro and Steve Ewald worked on counting Section Manager election ballots and the tasks related to the conclusion of this election cycle. Incumbent Section Managers John Rodgers, N3MSE (Western Pennsylvania), Dale Bagley, K0KY (Missouri), and Marc Tarplee, N4UFP (South Carolina) won their re-election bids. Their new terms of office begin on January 1, 2011. The following incumbent ARRL Section Managers did not face opposition and were declared elected for their upcoming terms of office beginning January 1, 2011: Art Zygielbaum, K0AIZ, Nebraska; Mike Lisenco, N2YBB, New York City-Long Island; Thomas Dick, KF2GC, Northern New York; George Strayline, W2GSS, Southern New Jersey; and Dee Turner, N4GD, West Central Florida. In Eastern Massachusetts, Phil Temples, K9HI, will become the Section Manager on January 1. Phil has served previously as the Eastern Massachusetts Section Manager for terms from 1994 through 1996 and again from 2001 through 2004. He was the only nominee for the position when current Section Manager Mike Neilsen, W1MPN, decided not to run for another term of office. Iowa Section Manager Tom Brehmer, N0LOH, and Montana Section Manager Doug Dunn, K7YD, have been nominated to run for new terms of office (in their respective sections) that begin April 1, 2011. The receipt deadline for these sections' nominating petitions is Friday, December 10. Chuck Skolaut compiled and sent the monthly Official Observer Summary to all OOs, OOCs, and Section Managers. A South Dakota station reported hearing "SOS Sahara, help" one time on 18070 kHz, and there were no other reports regarding this. We were able to forward an advisory that had been returned for an invalid address and reminded the recipient to update his address information. To help project a friendly tone, one OO suggests hi-lighting the words, "simply alerting you" on advisories. Several reports of on-going interference on the same 75 meter frequency were forwarded to the FCC. The "gurgle" jamming signal was reported both on 6030 kHz and the 3rd harmonic of 18090 kHz. Inquiries this week were about the 70 MHz band, assisting a Finnish station locate licensing information, FCC fines, lab equipment, and operating overseas. Sincerely Compiled by, Lisa Kustosik, KA1UFZ Assistant to the CEO Staff Absentee List All Staff 11/25-11/26 Holiday All Staff 12/24 Holiday All Staff 12/31 Holiday Leona Adams 12/3pm Vacation Margie Bourgoin 12/20-12/24 Vacation Hugh Brower 11/22-11/24 Vacation Steve Ewald 11/29-12/3 Vacation Jackie Ferreira 12/23 Vacation `` 12/30 Vacation Steve Ford 12/23-12/31 Vacation Scott Gee 12/6-12/7 Vacation `` 12/23-12/27 Vacation Joel Hallas 12/22-12/29 Vacation Dan Henderson 12/20-1/5 Vacation Mary Hobart 12/27-12/28 Vacation Bob Inderbitzen 12/27-12/30 Vacation Sabrina Jackson 12/6-12/7 Vacation Maryann Macdonald 12/27-12/31 Vacation Diane Petrilli 11/22-11/24 Vacation `` 12/20-12/22 Vacation `` 12/27-12/29 Vacation Allen Pitts 12/17 Vacation `` 12/24-12/31 vacation Steve Sant Andrea 11/29 Vacation Barry Shelley 11/23-11/24 Vacation `` 12/16-12/23 Vacation Chuck Skolaut 11/22-11/24 Vacation Hamfest/Member Contact/ARRL Representative Joel Hallas 12/3-12/4 W. Central Florida Section Convention, Palmetto, FL Brennan Price 11/1-11/24 SCRPM, SG5 & subsidiary Working Parties, Geneva

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BPL Ex Parte Filing Regarding Full Time Amateur Band Notching and Notch Depth
by Chris Imlay 30 Nov '10

30 Nov '10

Greetings. At the instruction of the Executive Committee, and following helpful edits from Kay Craigie, Dave Sumner, Tom Frenaye, and Ed Hare, we filed today the first of several Ex Parte written submissions in an effort to complete a favorable record in the BPL Docket proceeding. The EC at its last meeting expressed dissatisfaction at the FCC's neglect of this Docket and its failure to fix the defective BPL rules following the Court of Appeals' remand and the FCC's issuance of its Further Notice of Proposed Rule Making. The EC ordered the scheduling of a series of further filings with FCC including an interference complaint involving IBEC BPL systems which are not using full-time notching of Amateur allocations. Recall that it was necessary for ARRL to file a Petition for a Writ of Mandamus just to get the FCC to issue the Further Notice following the Court of Appeals remand. A copy of the cover pleading and Exhibit A of this voluminous filing are attached for your review. However, there were seven exhibits in all, the last of which is a very persuasive OFCOM report that is quite favorable to our position in this matter. Please don't just read the cover pleading and exhibit A. You will find the remaining Exhibits at the following URL: http://p1k.arrl.org/~ehare/temp/justification/exhibits.htm As is obvious from reading this, the vast bulk of the work on this was that of Ed Hare. This is in my view one of Ed's finest efforts, and we should be quite satisfied with this filing. Of course, the FCC has been stonewalling us since the beginning in this case and it remains to be seen whether they will ultimately do the "right thing" here and modify the rules to require full time Amateur band notching to notch depths of 35 dB. As I have noted to the EC several times, the favorable results we obtained in the Court of Appeals, and the expenditure of a lot of the members' money in the effort is meaningless unless we are ultimately able to obtain rules which protect the Amateur HF and VHF allocations from BPL interference. The Executive Committee essentially ordered the continuation of the "full court press" on this matter so we are doing that now. Let me know if you have any questions. There is more coming up soon on the BPL issue, so QRX. 73, Chris W3KD Christopher D. Imlay Booth, Freret, Imlay & Tepper. P.C. 14356 Cape May Road Silver Spring, Maryland 20904-6011 (301) 384-5525 telephone (301) 384-6384 facsimile W3KD(a)ARRL.ORG

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Rep. Walden on NPR
by Bruce Frahm 30 Nov '10

30 Nov '10

Weekend Edition Saturday had an interesting story on Greg Walden W7EQI. It talks about his roots in all aspects of radio broadcasting, but no mention of ham radio. Unfortunately at the time I got the URL below for this email, the link to the audio leads to a different story but the text is correct. Bruce http://www.npr.org/2010/11/26/131615963/oregon-rep-walden-the-gop-s-go-to-g…

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IN-News
by Kustosik, Lisa, KA1UFZ 29 Nov '10

29 Nov '10

Sorry this one is late. <<111710.doc>> IN-Newsletter <<Microsoft Word Picture>> Vol. 33, No. 46 November 17, 2010 -- Covers the period November 7-13. Media & Public Relations Reported by Allen Pitts, W1AGP While there continue to be regular media hits in the newspapers and calls asking for presentation materials, things in general have quieted down lately. Work on the 2011 tech video continues and a weekend talk with Mark Severance of NASA was most promising in getting video of a special ARISS contact as part of that project. The public service flier is now being worked on in Graphics and a special letter mailed to ARRL PIOs is being drafted. Production/Editorial Reported by Joel Kleinman, N1BKE Khrystyne Keane wrote and distributed The ARRL Letter and voiced and produced ARRL Audio News for November 11, 2010. There will be no ARRL Audio News during Thanksgiving week. Sales and Marketing Reported by Bob Inderbitzen, NQ1R October ended with 155,977 members, a gain of 303 members over September (year-to-date goal: 157,394). 73% of October expirees paid on time, compared to 72% in October 2009. Two large membership campaigns, sent by mail, contributed to this month's membership figures. Month-end email to lapsed members returned 283 applications, spurred on by a bonus offer featuring the 2011 ARRL Calendar. We are very pleased with the high response rate to email sent to international hams with ARRL Web site "guest" accounts. The combination of these positive gains helped to offset the lower acquisition resulting from fewer new licensees. October product sales were $351,700, falling short of the sales forecast of $451,579. Direct sales were $175,025.54; dealer sales were $176,675.25. Contributing to the shortfall was lower than predicted sales of the new edition ARRL Handbook, and author's delays completing the 5th edition of ON4UN's Low-Band DXing (now coming in December). 2011 Handbook sales were $193,402.12, falling short of the $240,000 forecast for the debut month of this new edition. We expect, however, that some of this shortfall may be recovered with higher-than-predicted sales in November and December. The Member Services team reports that the holiday shopping season is upon us! We processed over 1200 orders last week, and we are sustaining higher-than-usual daily levels of online orders, phone calls and mail. Handbook sales have been brisk during these first 2 weeks of November-resulting from a solicitation that was mailed to all domestic members in late October, and to international members as a ride-along insertion with their December issue of QST. During these first 2 weeks of November, the warehouse crew fulfilled 2,098 packages for publication and product orders, 797 membership premiums, and QST mailing supplements. The warehouse also completed fulfilling items from the 2010 ARRL On-line Auction. The ARRL Ham Radio License Manual, 2nd edition, was re-released with new practice exam software: ARRL Exam Review on CD-ROM. We hope the new software feature will be a helpful addition for students preparing for their first license. Additional versions of the software will soon be introduced in the ARRL General and Extra Class License Manuals. Membership mailings are being prepared for a couple of smaller, targeted groups including prospective hams (individuals that have requested information about getting started in Amateur Radio), and NCJ and QEX subscribers. The last large membership campaign of the year mails on November 15. Ads were prepared for Trailer Life magazine and Public Safety Communications (APCO). Both ads direct readers to special landing pages on the ARRL Web site tailored to their likely Amateur Radio interest areas. Special ARRL membership applications, produced as tear-off sheets, have been completed for ARRL VEC use. These application pads will be distributed with exam session materials sent to Volunteer Examiners. The sliding carousel on the ARRL Web site homepage was updated to include features for the ARRL VEC and ARRL November Sweepstakes (CW and Phone). A new page summarizing ARRL membership benefits will debut in January's issue of QST (page 14). Now Shipping: ARRL Morse Code Oscillator Kit and Morse Code Key. Membership & Volunteer Programs Reported by Dave Patton, NN1N Field Organization/Public Service Team Incumbent Wyoming Section Manager Garth Crowe, N7XKT, has been nominated to run for a new term of office (starting in April 2011). Leona Adams submitted the Section Manager Nomination notice for January's QST for the election cycle that concludes with new terms of office starting in July 2011. Section Manager election ballots in Missouri, South Carolina, and Western Pennsylvania are due at Headquarters by Friday, November 19 and the ballots will be counted on November 23. Steve Ewald gathered and submitted the nominations for the 2011 George Hart Distinguished Service Award to Dave Patton. He, in turn, shared them with the Programs and Services Committee members for their study and consideration. Editorial work on January QST submissions continued through the week. Chuck Skolaut compiled and sent the monthly ARRL monitoring report to the Region 2 coordinator. With more openings occurring on 10 meters, more reports of Spanish-speaking stations on the CW portion of the band have been received. Also, greater activity on the bands during recent contests have generated more advisories to stations operating outside of the bands or their license class. As a good result, though, several notes of thanks were received by Official Observers for their reminders regarding that. We also received a report of an unidentified signal in North Texas that was heard on several bands. This problem was resolved when the reporting station discovered that the noise originated from a local Electrostatic Air Cleaner. Sincerely Compiled by, Lisa Kustosik, KA1UFZ Assistant to the CEO Staff Absentee List All Staff 11/25-11/26 Holiday All Staff 12/24 Holiday All Staff 12/31 Holiday Leona Adams 11/19 Vacation `` 12/3pm Vacation Margie Bourgoin 12/20-12/24 Vacation Hugh Brower 11/22-11/24 Vacation Steve Ewald 11/29-12/3 Vacation Jackie Ferreira 12/23 Vacation `` 12/30 Vacation Steve Ford 12/23-12/31 Vacation Scott Gee 12/6-12/7 Vacation `` 12/23-12/27 Vacation Joel Hallas 12/22-12/29 Vacation Dan Henderson 12/20-1/5 Vacation Mary Hobart 12/27-12/28 Vacation Bob Inderbitzen 12/27-12/30 Vacation Sabrina Jackson 12/6-12/7 Vacation Sean Kutzko 11/19-11/22am Vacation Rose-Anne Lawrence 11/19 Vacation Maryann Macdonald 12/27-12/31 Vacation Diane Petrilli 11/22-11/24 Vacation `` 12/20-12/22 Vacation `` 12/27-12/29 Vacation Steve Sant Andrea 11/29 Vacation Barry Shelley 11/23-11/24 Vacation `` 12/16-12/23 Vacation Chuck Skolaut 11/22-11/24 Vacation Hamfest/Member Contact/ARRL Representative Joel Hallas 12/3-12/4 W. Central Florida Section Convention, Palmetto, FL Brennan Price 11/1-11/24 SCRPM, SG5 & subsidiary Working Parties, Geneva

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New Amateurs Report / Membership Applications
by James F. Boehner MD 27 Nov '10

27 Nov '10

Interesting article about prosecution and sentencing of an individual causing interference to amateur radio transmissions across the pond. RSGB volunteers assisted in gathering evidence! http://www.rsgb.org/news/newsitem.php?id=1 Bravo! '73 de JIM N2ZZ ARRL Vice Director Roanoke Division ARRL, the national association for Amateur RadioT

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Re: Happy Thanksgiving -- promo glitch
by Bob Vallio 24 Nov '10

24 Nov '10

In words of one syllable: Good grief; what next; when does it stop? Bob Vallio, W6RGG On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 8:57 AM, Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ <dsumner(a)arrl.org>wrote: > I wish I could use this message simply to wish everyone a happy > Thanksgiving and a pleasant long weekend to those to whom it applies. > However, I must add a heads-up about a bulk emailing glitch that you may > hear about. No action on your part is required, but if a member inquires > at least you will know what happened. > > Marketing staff prepared a Thanksgiving weekend promotion to be sent to > members who are willing to receive special offers by email. It looked fine > on the preview screen, but the emails that were actually sent consisted > only of images without text. We caught it before most of the messages went > out, but not before about 12,000 had escaped. > > The bulk email was prepared using the same internal tool that has been used > for months without difficulty, and we don’t yet know what caused the > problem. That’s being researched even as we work on getting the correct > message out to stimulate orders over the long holiday weekend. > > 73, > > Dave K1ZZ > >

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Re: New Amateurs Report / Membership Applications
by Marty Woll 24 Nov '10

24 Nov '10

Hi, Dave. Thanks; I had tried only HTML, since I figured it would be the easiest way to get a quick look at the volume involved. I was able to get a delimited file and import it into Excel. By checking current member records on the Web, I found some listed lapses had subsequently renewed. Thus, it would appear that using this output for a to-contact list is not feasible unless one first uses the member search to look for subsequent renewals (a cumbersome process). Does the Membership Manager have a cumulative, aged list of lapses? As to year vs. birth date, perhaps we should look into changing the master record structure so that year only is accepted. The forms themselves are easy to change if we decide this is a worthwhile modification. On a related subject, the membership forms no longer ask for telephone number. Are we relying on members to add that when updating their profiles? If they don't does that mean that they won't get any telemarketing calls such as from the proposed test program, or is someone looking up their numbers independent of the member record? 73, Marty N6VI ----- Original Message ----- From: Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ To: arrl-odv Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 11:46 AM Subject: RE: New Amateurs Report / Membership Applications Marty, http://www.arrl.org/new-amateur-reports works fine for CSV and tab-limited reports. The link to download the report appears at the top of the page, which is easy to overlook. I don't know what the story is with the HTML report - until just now I hadn't tried it myself since I had no reason to want a listing in that format. I understand the desirability of having better demographic data. The online membership application has an optional field for date of birth as does the form in QST, e.g. page 126 of the December issue. I believe our other membership application forms do as well. We have a field in the master record for date of birth and we fill that in when we have the information but it's up to the member, by editing their profile, to determine whether it is displayed. Siebel only accepts complete information for the master record, i.e. if you enter the month and day but not the year, or the year but not the month and day, the entry is not accepted. Dave From: Marty Woll [mailto:n6vi@socal.rr.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 1:58 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: New Amateurs Report / Membership Applications Sorry if this has recently been reported on already, but I couldn't find any discussion as to the status of the New Amateur Reports portion of the ODV Web pages. No matter what period or listing type (e.g., lapsed members) I request, I get an empty report. Is this a recent problem or one continuing from last spring? Where is it priority-wise on the punch list, and is there an estimated fix-it date? I wanted to look through the list of recently lapsed members in our Division and possibly make some calls myself. Separately, has any thought been given to requesting year of birth rather than birth date on our membership applications? Given our obligations re. privacy of personal data, related member reluctance to share such data and the fact that (AFAIK) we have no use for exact birth dates, we might get better compliance with a year-only request and, thus, more data with which to monitor our membership demographics with less private data exposed to possible leaks. In the case of life memberships, providing year of birth should be mandatory, since having year of birth would reduce the guesswork and improve the quality of the actuarial data we pay for concerning the life-member fund. As I recall, we're missing birth information for a significant portion of our life-member group. Clara and I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. Marty N6VI

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RE: New Amateurs Report / Membership Applications
by Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ 24 Nov '10

24 Nov '10

Marty, http://www.arrl.org/new-amateur-reports <http://www.arrl.org/new-amateur-reports> works fine for CSV and tab-limited reports. The link to download the report appears at the top of the page, which is easy to overlook. I don't know what the story is with the HTML report - until just now I hadn't tried it myself since I had no reason to want a listing in that format. I understand the desirability of having better demographic data. The online membership application has an optional field for date of birth as does the form in QST, e.g. page 126 of the December issue. I believe our other membership application forms do as well. We have a field in the master record for date of birth and we fill that in when we have the information but it's up to the member, by editing their profile, to determine whether it is displayed. Siebel only accepts complete information for the master record, i.e. if you enter the month and day but not the year, or the year but not the month and day, the entry is not accepted. Dave From: Marty Woll [mailto:n6vi@socal.rr.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 1:58 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: New Amateurs Report / Membership Applications Sorry if this has recently been reported on already, but I couldn't find any discussion as to the status of the New Amateur Reports portion of the ODV Web pages. No matter what period or listing type (e.g., lapsed members) I request, I get an empty report. Is this a recent problem or one continuing from last spring? Where is it priority-wise on the punch list, and is there an estimated fix-it date? I wanted to look through the list of recently lapsed members in our Division and possibly make some calls myself. Separately, has any thought been given to requesting year of birth rather than birth date on our membership applications? Given our obligations re. privacy of personal data, related member reluctance to share such data and the fact that (AFAIK) we have no use for exact birth dates, we might get better compliance with a year-only request and, thus, more data with which to monitor our membership demographics with less private data exposed to possible leaks. In the case of life memberships, providing year of birth should be mandatory, since having year of birth would reduce the guesswork and improve the quality of the actuarial data we pay for concerning the life-member fund. As I recall, we're missing birth information for a significant portion of our life-member group. Clara and I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. Marty N6VI

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New Amateurs Report / Membership Applications
by Marty Woll 24 Nov '10

24 Nov '10

Sorry if this has recently been reported on already, but I couldn't find any discussion as to the status of the New Amateur Reports portion of the ODV Web pages. No matter what period or listing type (e.g., lapsed members) I request, I get an empty report. Is this a recent problem or one continuing from last spring? Where is it priority-wise on the punch list, and is there an estimated fix-it date? I wanted to look through the list of recently lapsed members in our Division and possibly make some calls myself. Separately, has any thought been given to requesting year of birth rather than birth date on our membership applications? Given our obligations re. privacy of personal data, related member reluctance to share such data and the fact that (AFAIK) we have no use for exact birth dates, we might get better compliance with a year-only request and, thus, more data with which to monitor our membership demographics with less private data exposed to possible leaks. In the case of life memberships, providing year of birth should be mandatory, since having year of birth would reduce the guesswork and improve the quality of the actuarial data we pay for concerning the life-member fund. As I recall, we're missing birth information for a significant portion of our life-member group. Clara and I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. Marty N6VI

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Happy Thanksgiving -- promo glitch
by Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ 24 Nov '10

24 Nov '10

I wish I could use this message simply to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving and a pleasant long weekend to those to whom it applies. However, I must add a heads-up about a bulk emailing glitch that you may hear about. No action on your part is required, but if a member inquires at least you will know what happened. Marketing staff prepared a Thanksgiving weekend promotion to be sent to members who are willing to receive special offers by email. It looked fine on the preview screen, but the emails that were actually sent consisted only of images without text. We caught it before most of the messages went out, but not before about 12,000 had escaped. The bulk email was prepared using the same internal tool that has been used for months without difficulty, and we don't yet know what caused the problem. That's being researched even as we work on getting the correct message out to stimulate orders over the long holiday weekend. 73, Dave K1ZZ

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