December 2010 - arrl-odv - reflector.arrl.org

[arrl-odv:19515] Re: Merry Christmas!
by Gary Johnston KI4LA 25 Dec '10

25 Dec '10

Wow! What a story. Glad you're safe!! Sent from Gary's iPhone 4. On Dec 25, 2010, at 5:02 PM, K6JAT(a)aol.com wrote: > Greetings all and Merry Christmas! > > There I was checking my antenna system to decipher all the movement I saw during the current storm. It was not cranked down and the gusts were getting severe across the top of the ridge. Maybe the missing eucalyptus trees removed some wind protection, but then the entire tower came crashing down on my shack with me in it! One of the 3 legs snapped just above the base bolts and the 2 others bent right over. What a noise and am I lucky! I'm looking at what's left of the PRO-67B right outside my hf operating position, 5 feet away from me. Only the top most vertical hit the roof, but did not penetrate it. I'm still a little shaky. The US Tower freestanding tower had been up for almost 17 years. > > I hope all of you and your loved ones are well and having a wonderful holiday. Be safe! > > K6JAT is now off the air. Back to the drawing board. . . . 73, Jim K6JAT

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[arrl-odv:19513] Re: Merry Christmas!
by JRS 25 Dec '10

25 Dec '10

Jim I am sorry to hear about the US Tower collapse, but tickled you are uninjured. Wasn't it Churchill who said, "Nothing is more exhilarating as to be shot at without result"? Look at the bright side - you have a Christmas present for your insurance company! :>) 73 *-----------------------------------------------------* ** John Robert Stratton N5AUS West Gulf Division Vice Director West Gulf Division Legislative Action Chair Office telephone: 512-445-6262 Cell: 512-426-2028 PO Box 2232 Austin, Texas 78768-2232 *-----------------------------------------------------* On 12/25/10 4:02 PM, K6JAT(a)aol.com wrote: > Greetings all and Merry Christmas! > There I was checking my antenna system to decipher all the movement I > saw during the current storm. It was not cranked down and the gusts > were getting severe across the top of the ridge. Maybe the missing > eucalyptus trees removed some wind protection, but then the entire > tower came crashing down on my shack with me in it! One of the 3 legs > snapped just above the base bolts and the 2 others bent right over. > What a noise and am I lucky! I'm looking at what's left of the > PRO-67B right outside my hf operating position, 5 feet away from me. > Only the top most vertical hit the roof, but did not penetrate it. I'm > still a little shaky. The US Tower freestanding tower had been up for > almost 17 years. > I hope all of you and your loved ones are well and having a wonderful > holiday. Be safe! > K6JAT is now off the air. Back to the drawing board. . . . 73, Jim > K6JAT

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[arrl-odv:19512] Merry Christmas!
by K6JAT＠aol.com 25 Dec '10

25 Dec '10

Greetings all and Merry Christmas! There I was checking my antenna system to decipher all the movement I saw during the current storm. It was not cranked down and the gusts were getting severe across the top of the ridge. Maybe the missing eucalyptus trees removed some wind protection, but then the entire tower came crashing down on my shack with me in it! One of the 3 legs snapped just above the base bolts and the 2 others bent right over. What a noise and am I lucky! I'm looking at what's left of the PRO-67B right outside my hf operating position, 5 feet away from me. Only the top most vertical hit the roof, but did not penetrate it. I'm still a little shaky. The US Tower freestanding tower had been up for almost 17 years. I hope all of you and your loved ones are well and having a wonderful holiday. Be safe! K6JAT is now off the air. Back to the drawing board. . . . 73, Jim K6JAT

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[arrl-odv:19511] Instructor and Mentor Qualifications for EC-001 Instruction
by Kramer, Harold, WJ1B 23 Dec '10

23 Dec '10

To: ARRL ODV and ARRL Department Heads FYI, this update on the upcoming EC-001 Course was just send out to the Instructors, Mentors, and Examiners for EmComm Level 1 as well as the SM List. Happy Holidays, everyone. Harold ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- To: Instructors, Mentors, Examiners for EmComm Level 1 (EC-001) cc: Section Managers A couple of weeks ago we sent a communication addressing some of the transition issues and how they will affect EC-001 being offered in the field. I would like to address another concern, instructor qualifications for teaching EC-001. As most of you are aware with the revised EC-001 there was also a raising of the bar on the qualifications to be a Field Instructor for the course. Adding the requirement to complete the new EmComm managers course (EC-016) also raised the bar for online mentors, who have in the past already had to meet more requirements than Field Instructors. This was done because of the amount of additional material added to EC-001. In particular, we have received a lot of feedback about the new requirements to teach EC-001 in the field. Based on the feedback received and discussion here at HQ it has been decided to make a revision to the instructor and mentor qualifications to instruct this course. While the bar is still being raised, we feel it is to an appropriate level for this course. New EC-001 Field Instructor and Mentor Qualifications - Completion of EC-001 (old or new version) - Completion of FEMA IS-100, 200, 700, and 800 - 18 years old or older - Technician class license or higher - ARRL member - Recommendation of Section Manager - Online mentors must complete a training course that orients them to giving instruction in the online environment I want to address two areas where we are raising the bar. First, the required FEMA courses; two of these courses, IS-100 and 700, are required for the new version of EC-001. These two represent additional content that has been added to the course. The other two courses, IS-200 and 800, round out the instruction on NIMS and the Incident Command System which we feel is important for the instructor to have. Second is the recommendation of the Section Manager. Doing this keeps the SM and SEC's in the loop on what is going on in their Section with ARRL EmComm training. It also provides an additional endorsement to the instructor. The qualifications listed above should be seen as a minimum standard. The process for SM recommendation will be similar to the process used to recommend folks for the EC-016 course. Specific details on this will be sent out once the online processes are in place. So what does this mean for our current instructors? You will still be able to teach the course in the field after December 31, 2010, but you will need to re-register as an instructor or a mentor and meet the qualifications specified above. We are in the process of developing a registration system that takes into account the new requirements. We will let you know when this registration system is available. You will have until June 30, 2011 to meet the new qualifications. Registered instructors and mentors who have met the specified qualifications will also be able to take the new online EC-001 at no charge. I strongly encourage all instructors to take the new course so they can see how the new material is presented. Here is a quick breakdown of what is coming in the next few months: - Beta testing of the new EC-001 will begin in February 2011, the goal is to have it out of the beta test and ready for release in March 2011 - Instructor supplements on new material - Starting in late January or early February 2011 - New EC-001 printed material - mid-2011 - New EC-001 instructor qualifications - must be met by June 30, 2011 - New EC-001 printed exams - Mar/Apr 2011 Throughout 2011 we will be making some changes to how EmComm courses and exams are offered in the field. The goal is to improve the quality of the courses and the consistency of the learning experience. This will require changes in procedures and roles as well as process changes at ARRL. I encourage you to offer feedback to us during this process. Your feedback is taken seriously and appreciated. As I've said before, I know transitions can be a pain but rest assured we're doing our best here at HQ to make this go as smoothly as possible. Thank you for your service. Happy Holidays and best wishes for a healthy and prosperous New Year! Mike Corey, W5MPC Emergency Preparedness and Response Manager ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio(tm) 225 Main Street Newington, CT 06111-1494 (860) 594-0222 mcorey(a)arrl.org <mailto:mcorey@arrl.org>

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[arrl-odv:19510] Formal call for Board Meeting in PDF
by Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ 21 Dec '10

21 Dec '10

I just realized that the Word document containing the formal call for the January Board Meeting was unnecessarily large. My apologies to anyone for whom this was a problem. Here's a smaller PDF version. Dave K1ZZ <<accommodation form.doc>> <<DirectorLetter#2-Jan11.pdf>>

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[arrl-odv:19509] Formal call for Board Meeting
by Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ 21 Dec '10

21 Dec '10

<<accommodation form.doc>> <<DirectorLetter#2-Jan11.doc>>

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[arrl-odv:19508] RE: Telephones
by Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ 21 Dec '10

21 Dec '10

Bob, to close the loop on this, according to our rep we will save $4,800/year under the new AT&T agreement compared to the prior one. That's not quite as much as with Verizon. On the other hand, with AT&T we expect better service than we experienced during the three week attempted transition to Verizon. Dave K1ZZ From: Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ [mailto:dsumner@arrl.org] Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2010 4:29 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: RE: Telephones Bob, as I recall Barry said they were projected to be in the vicinity of $7,000 to $8,000 annually. The savings opportunity may not be lost by reverting to AT&T; that will be subject to negotiation. Right now our priority is to restore reliable service. Dave From: Bob Vallio [mailto:rbvallio@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2010 4:21 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: Re: Telephones What were the annual savings going to be? Bob -- W6RGG On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 12:10 PM, Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ <dsumner(a)arrl.org> wrote: Some of you are aware that recently we have had some problems with people being unable to connect to the in-house telephone conference bridge. Unfortunately, that was just the tip of the iceberg. We have had, and continue to have, a variety of ongoing problems with both outgoing and incoming calls. This came about because three weeks ago, in a good-faith effort to reduce the telephone bill and on the recommendation of the company that maintains our office telephones, Barry switched our service from AT&T to Verizon. It was supposed to be a seamless transition, but it turned out to be anything but. The last straw came today when Verizon provided conflicting information and gave us no reason to believe they would EVER get it right - or for that matter, that they would be responsive to problems in the future. The switch was based entirely on cost savings; we have not had service problems with AT&T. So we are going back to AT&T. I don't know how smoothly the transition back will go - at this point I have no expectation that any technology company can get it right the first time - but at least with AT&T (unlike Verizon) we have the phone numbers of people who will actually talk to us and know how to solve problems. I'm beginning to think the Luddites may have a point. Dave K1ZZ

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BART
by Bob Vallio 18 Dec '10

18 Dec '10

Shrek is at the Orpheum. Shall we go on BART again? Sounds good to us. Bob

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RE: LoTW is off-line
by Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ 17 Dec '10

17 Dec '10

Ah, computers. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. Jon Bloom has warned me that while VUCC is in the process of being implemented on LoTW there will be some temporary impact on performance. Fortunately, it should be possible to avoid impacting the periods of heaviest use. Dave K1ZZ From: John Bellows [mailto:jbellows@skypoint.com] Sent: Friday, December 17, 2010 11:03 AM To: arrl-odv Subject: RE: LoTW is off-line I accessed LoTW last evening with no problem. Just for giggles I just tried again, same result. Even with collapsing stadium roofs and enough snow to be called a "white wall of wonder" by a local paper, I still got through to LoTW. 73, Jay, KØQB -----Original Message----- From: Frank Fallon [mailto:n2ff@optonline.net] Sent: Friday, December 17, 2010 9:35 AM To: arrl-odv Subject: LoTW is off-line Apparently some time yesterday problems began to occur with LoTW. I began getting error message that there were too many users about 3 PM Eastern. By early evening I started to see messages that there was an error with VUCC and later a different message that LoTW was not available. As of a few minutes ago there is a note on the entrance page of the ARRL web page which is run on a different server and system: Please Note We're sorry, but the LoTW system is off-line for maintenance at present. Service will be restored as soon as possible. I have already had a few members let me know that they are seeing problems. As they say in the movies,the plot thickens. Frank .....N2FF.......

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Rep. Greg Walden
by David Woolweaver 17 Dec '10

17 Dec '10

Great news, Dave. David, K5RAV

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