June 2015 - arrl-odv - reflector.arrl.org

[arrl-odv:24365] IN-News
by Kustosik, Lisa, KA1UFZ 18 Jun '15

18 Jun '15

IN-Newsletter Vol. 40, No. 21 June 17, 2015 - Covers the period June 7-13. Upcoming In-Person Meetings and Events LoTW Study Committee July 15 @ 9:00am in Newington, CT Administration & Finance Committee July 16 @ 8:30am in Newington, CT Programs & Services Committee July 16 @ 8:30am in Newington, CT Second Board Meeting July 17-18 @ 9:00am in Windsor, CT Lab Reported by Ed Hare, W1RFI Product Review Bob Allison completed testing of a software defined HF transceiver. Data was compiled into a form of a data table. The data table and all other test information were passed along to the Product Review Editor, Mark Wilson, K1RO and to the manufacturer. Additional Eaton AFCI breaker testing is still being planned at W1AW. Lab Testing for Advertising Acceptance Bob is currently reviewing the handheld emission test results taken at Dayton last month. A total of 265 handhelds were tested by Bob, Mike Gruber and a team of volunteer engineers. Troublesome brands and model numbers are being identified. The test data will also be presented in the form of a Technical Correspondence article for QST. Lab Volunteers Pete Turbide, W1PT, cleaned up and tested a Collins S-Line that was recently donated to the Lab. The S-Line will eventually be placed in the lobby for a month as part of the ARRL's "Evolution of Amateur Radio Equipment" exhibit. After its display, it will be place in our main exhibit and will be made available to operate by staff and visitors. The Collins S-Line was the "Cadillac" of all Amateur Radio equipment from 1959 to 1978 and was very expensive to purchase; most Radio Amateurs could only dream of owning a set. Radio Frequency Interference Mike Gruber's report on the April power line noise case has now been sent to PG&E's attorney Jonathon Pendleton, EMC Committee Chairman Kermit Carlson, and Ed Hare. So far, there hasn't been a response from PG&E. Mike Gruber helped investigate the noise from the new HVAC system that has been plaguing W1HQ. At this point, the noise has been determined to be associated with the fan motors. Representatives from the contractor and manufacturer have looked at the problem, and Mike has made some suggestions as to how the problem might be further investigated and corrected. They will continue to investigate. Mike Gruber has had several complaints of RFI from Enphase inverters used in solar generating systems. One is in nearby Farmington. He expects to make a personal visit in the near future. Electronic Publication Support Zack Lau has been helping folks download TravelPlus GPS. Many people have to change their security settings to allow the Garmin Communicator plugin to be recognized by the browser-otherwise they get into a loop where the browser tells them to install the plugin that they just installed! Google Chrome now blocks the use of plugins. Sales and Marketing Reported by Bob Inderbitzen, NQ1R We conducted a final bulk-emailing promoting the West Gulf Division Convention, Ham-Com, encouraging traffic to the ARRL booth. The convention was held June 12-13. We completed a review of the department's year to date results as part of the mid-year reforecast exercise. Yvette Vinci prepared the email notification for the July 2015 digital edition of QST, distributed to ARRL members on Wednesday, June 10. The distribution list included 120, 591 members. Yvette completed "reminder letters" to 413 members making quarterly payments toward Life Membership. And, in June, we processed 22 paid-in-full Life Memberships and 20 Life Membership pledges. Jackie Ferreira reports that a flyer promoting the new version of our "TravelPlus for Repeaters(tm)" Windows-based software mailed to 7,000 past purchasers. Email solicitations were also distributed promoting the software and TravelPlus Mobile GPS for Garmin devices. The ARRL Extra Class License Manual is now available from Amazon as an e-book in the Kindle format. This completes our plan to offer all 3 ARRL License Manuals for Kindle. Amazon also carries the print editions-permitting their customers to choose either format. A handful of additional marketing tactics have been planned to help improve publication sales results during the summer months. Now shipping: The ARRL Centennial QSO Party 2014: The W1AW Portable Operations<http://www.arrl.org/shop/The-W1AW-Portable-Operations/> booklet. We continue to have an open position for the Front Desk Receptionist. An experienced radio amateur is preferred. Employment inquiries can be directed to Monique Levesque. Presently, the responsibilities are being covered by other staff from our Member Services team on a daily rotation. Logistics and materials were finalized for the shared ARRL and IARU exhibit space at the International Amateur Radio Exhibition, HAM RADIO 2015, to be held in Friedrichshafen, Germany June 26-28. The ARRL team includes Diane Petrilli (membership), Norm Fusaro (DXCC and awards), Dave Sumner, and Kay Craigie. The IARU contingent includes Tim Ellam, Ole Garpestad, and Rod Stafford. Bob Inderbitzen and Steve Ford reviewed the developer's drafts of Bob's suggested design enhancements to the online ARRL Exam Review<http://www.arrl.org/examreview> resource. The online browser-based program was introduced in May 2014 as a supplementary review and practice exam resource for the current editions of ARRL License Manuals. ARRL Exam Review already supports the new General Class question pool, for exams given on or after July 1. Summary of warehouse fulfillment activity, reported by Steve Capodicasa: Week ending Packages fulfilled Member Premiums 6/12/2015 810 410 6/5/2015 1,476 1,088 5/29/2015 1,018 376 5/22/2015 913 804 Field Services & Radiosport Reported by Dave Patton, NN1N DXCC Paper/Fieldcheck Processing Time 4 Weeks Logbook Processing Time 2-4 Business Days Number of Centennial applications processed: Centennial Challenge QSO 1971 W1AW/WAS 1523 W1AW Joe worked the early afternoon/night shifts on Thursday and Friday for the vacationing Scott Gee. He also updated the web code practice files and their archives. Joe assembled the TNC-Pi unit that will be used with the experimental Davis WX Station for EMCOMM use. The TNC-Pi will be connected to a Raspberry Pi. He updated the code practice QST source web page. He also processed two (2) Qualifying Run certificates regular W1AW QSL card requests. Field Organization/Public Service Team Ed James, KA8JMW, of Albuquerque, was named as New Mexico Section Manager on June 11 to succeed Bill Kauffman, W5YEJ, who resigned citing increased family responsibilities. Kauffman had served as New Mexico's SM since 2012, and was the Section Emergency Coordinator for many years prior to that. Ed, KA8JMW, will complete the remainder of the current term, which continues through the end of the year. Dave Patton, NN1N, made this Section Manager appointment after consulting with, and receiving the recommendation from, Brian Mileshosky, N5ZGT, and Vice Director Dwayne Allen, WY7FD. The Los Angeles Section Manager election ballots and candidate statements were sent to the printer this past week. Leona Adams has been in touch with all of the Section Managers who will be continuing with new terms of office this coming summer. Chuck Skolaut compiled and forwarded the monthly Official Observer Summary to all OOs, OOCs, and Section Managers. Questions received this past week included power limits on the bands, repeater users' identification, antenna zoning, operating overseas and HR 1301. Sincerely Compiled by, Lisa Kustosik, KA1UFZ Assistant to the CEO Hamfest/Member Contact/ARRL Representative/Meetings/Vacations All Staff 7/3 Holiday Lauren Clarke 6/26-6/29 PTO Jackie Ferreira 6/24-6/26 PTO Steve Ford 8/14-8/17 PTO `` 8/24-8/28 PTO Scott Gee 6/18-6/19 PTO Mike Gruber 7/20-7/24 PTO `` 8/24-8/28 PTO `` 9/28-10/2 PTO Dan Henderson 7/16-7/18 Board Meeting/Committee Meeting Bob Inderbitzen 6/25-7/1 PTO `` 7/27-7/31 PTO `` 8/6-8/9 Summerfest, Austin, TX `` 8/21-8/23 Boxboro, MA Harold Kramer 6/19-6/26 PTO `` 7/16-7/18 Board Meeting/Committee Meeting Dave Patton 7/24-7/26 Oklahoma Section Convention, Oklahoma City, OK Diane Petrilli 6/23-6/29 Friedrichshafen Convention, Germany `` 6/30-7/2 PTO `` 7/10 PTO `` 7/24 PTO `` 7/31 PTO `` 8/3-8/7 PTO Dave Pingree 8/19-9/22 PTO Barry Shelley 7/16-7/18 Board Meeting/Committee Meeting Chuck Skolaut 6/11-6/25 PTO Dave Sumner 6/23-6/29 Friedrichshafen Convention, Germany `` 7/16-7/18 Board Meeting/Committee Meeting Maty Weinberg 7/6-7/24 PTO

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[arrl-odv:24363] HK Vacation Plans
by Kramer, Harold, WJ1B 18 Jun '15

18 Jun '15

Hi, Just wanted to let you know that I will be on vacation starting tomorrow (July 19) and I will return to the office on Monday July 29. 73, Harold Harold Kramer WJ1B Chief Operating Officer ARRL- the national association for Amateur Radio 225 Main Street Newington, CT 860 594 0220 hkramer(a)arrl.org www.arrrl.org

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[arrl-odv:24362] Update from the Strategic Planning Working Group - June 17, 2015
by k9jf＠arrl.org 18 Jun '15

18 Jun '15

Greetings to ARRL Officers, ARRL Directors, and Vice-Directors: This update is our periodic effort to inform you about the status of our project relating to the Strategic Planning from the Working Group. This is the third of these updates to ODV and is a summary of our actions and achievements during the past month and a half. In a previous message, a Mission Statement, revised Value Statement, and new Vision Statement were sent for your reading pleasure. Since the Working Group was established in February by President Craigie, we have met 11 times - mostly using the GoToMeeting software platform. Our meeting times ranged from one hour to over two hours per session as we discussed our assignment. May was a challenging month as we tried to meet every week along with some of us attending the Dayton Hamfest (TM) and other personal, professional and ARRL duties. At Dayton, I was asked to address an informal meeting of Section Managers on Friday afternoon. At that meeting, the assembled group of SMs (around 20) along with Director Greg Widin talked about the Strategic Planning process. A questionnaire was distributed to provide further input and comments from those assembled. Approximately 10 Section Managers replied to date. The overwhelming concern they had was the reporting structure between the Sections and the ARRL. This issue was repeated over and over. Club and volunteer issues were also noted. At the Northwestern Division Convention in Seaside, OR in early June, I also discussed Strategic Planning in a member seminar. As in Dayton, I distributed a questionnaire asking for attendee's comments. As of June 16, about 5 of the 30 attendees replied. At both events, the attendees were appreciative that their input was taken and considered. The Working Group is also planning to solicit feedback and opinions from other stakeholders as we continue to gather information prior to the completion our task later in 2015 and into 2016. We created a first draft of a revised Strategic Plan which should guide the ARRL looking forward 5-10 years. Prior to our presentation to the entire ODV on July 16, we will continue to tweak our recommendations and accept action items from the Board regarding priorities and additional information, programs, initiatives, and ideas to consider. Since the ARRL Budget process for 2016-17 will be starting soon, some activities and programs that have long timelines and may relate to activities that may need to begin in 2016 should be considered. My personal focus would be to begin to develop a process to develop outreach ideas that will better explain amateur radio and provide a plan to reach out to those not currently engaged in our avocation (see Shaun Kutzko's Outreach through Discovery proposal from 2014). There are other activities that fall into this category that require budget allocation in 2016. What we do not want to experience is the League start into a death spiral with more members passing away that new members joining. I truly believe this will not occur if we focus on the future and new ways of doing "business" will retaining the tried and true programs and services. Keep in mind that a Strategy should generally verbalize "what we want to do" while a Tactic or Lower Level Goal explains "how we will do it" and can usually be attached to some measurement criteria. Robert Kaplan's book, "The Strategy Focused Organization" is a sound reference guide to explaining the entire process. Our focus now is on the strategies. The tactics or actions needed to accomplish the strategies or goals will, in all likelihood, be the responsibility of ODV. We have a laundry list of ideas. Some will require budgetary consideration. We look forward to meeting with ODV in July and explaining our process and recommendations. Each team member will have a part in presenting a portion our the recommendation. Please pass along your comments and observations as we need to know if we are addressing your issues and/or concerns. 73 Jim Fenstermaker K9JF Chair, Strategic Planning Working Group and ARRL 2nd Vice President

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[arrl-odv:24361] LF and MF bands; the 2200 and 630 meter bands and 1900-2000 KHz; Docket 15-99
by Christopher Imlay 17 Jun '15

17 Jun '15

Greetings. President Craigie asked that I circulate the attached memo, which I sent to the Executive Committee on June 2, to the entire Board. Your input in this proceeding is most welcome. This NPRM, as you are doubtless aware by now, represents a major win for ARRL because we were earlier turned down by FCC for the 2200 meter allocation and because the WRC-07 allocation created no obligation on the part of FCC to grant us the allocation. Ironically, the LF and MF allocations were in large part the product of the FCC's new policy of calling for sharing of allocations among compatible sharing partners, which is FCC Chairman Wheeler's mantra now. Usually that is a liability for us. This time it worked in our favor. See Dave Sumner's editorial in the new QST as a primer for your review of this memo. As an update, through today, there still has been no publication of this NPRM in the Federal Register and so the 60-day comment window has not yet opened. Please let me know any questions you have about this. 73, Chris W3KD -- Christopher D. Imlay Booth, Freret & Imlay, LLC 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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[arrl-odv:24358] Re: FCC Docket 15-81, proposed deletion of historical license data from FCC ULS database
by nwdvd 17 Jun '15

17 Jun '15

Good catch, Greg 73, Jim Sent from Jim's Samsung Galaxy Tab®4 -------- Original message -------- From: G Widin <gpwidin(a)comcast.net> Date:06/17/2015 6:51 AM (GMT-08:00) To: Christopher Imlay <w3kd.arrl(a)gmail.com> Cc: "Somma, Maria, AB1FM" <msomma(a)arrl.org>, arrl-odv <arrl-odv(a)arrl.org> Subject: [arrl-odv:24357] Re: FCC Docket 15-81, proposed deletion of historical license data from FCC ULS database Chris, FYI, the authentication process for LoTW uses the current address of the applicant as a way of ensuring that the request has in fact come from the licensee and not someone purporting to be the licensee. I didn't find any mention of this in the Comments, though perhaps you intended to include LoTW under the discussion of obtaining licensee information for QSLing purposes. 73, Greg, K0GW On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 3:27 PM, Christopher Imlay <w3kd.arrl(a)gmail.com> wrote: Greetings. With the approval of the Executive Committee and with helpful edits provided by Dave Sumner, Kay Craigie, Tom Frenaye, Dale Williams, and especially Maria Somma, the attached comments were filed just now electronically. FCC proposed to delete historical license data (addresses basically) from its database, due to privacy concerns. It also asked for comment on the concept of eliminating current license data from the database as well. Fortunately, there is an FCC decision that is very close to being on point on the issue of privacy of licensee data as you will see from the discussion in the comments. We will report back on the thrust of other comments filed in the docket. There are only six comments filed at the moment (ARRL comments have not yet been logged) so this is not a momentous proceeding, but the due date is today. Let me know any questions you have. 73, Chris W3KD -- Christopher D. Imlay Booth, Freret & Imlay, LLC 14356 Cape May Road Silver Spring, Maryland 20904-6011 (301) 384-5525 telephone (301) 384-6384 facsimile W3KD(a)ARRL.ORG _______________________________________________ arrl-odv mailing list arrl-odv(a)reflector.arrl.org https://reflector.arrl.org/mailman/listinfo/arrl-odv

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[arrl-odv:24355] FCC Docket 15-81, proposed deletion of historical license data from FCC ULS database
by Christopher Imlay 17 Jun '15

17 Jun '15

Greetings. With the approval of the Executive Committee and with helpful edits provided by Dave Sumner, Kay Craigie, Tom Frenaye, Dale Williams, and especially Maria Somma, the attached comments were filed just now electronically. FCC proposed to delete historical license data (addresses basically) from its database, due to privacy concerns. It also asked for comment on the concept of eliminating current license data from the database as well. Fortunately, there is an FCC decision that is very close to being on point on the issue of privacy of licensee data as you will see from the discussion in the comments. We will report back on the thrust of other comments filed in the docket. There are only six comments filed at the moment (ARRL comments have not yet been logged) so this is not a momentous proceeding, but the due date is today. Let me know any questions you have. 73, Chris W3KD -- Christopher D. Imlay Booth, Freret & Imlay, LLC 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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[arrl-odv:24356] 3 more
by Kay Craigie 17 Jun '15

17 Jun '15

Representatives Smith TX-21, Royce CA-39, and Yoder KS-3 are co-sponsors as of yesterday, for a total of 77. Expressions of thanks from members in their districts would be excellent. Thanks & 73, Kay N3KN Sent from my iPhone

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[arrl-odv:24354] GoToMeeting Scheduling
by Kramer, Harold, WJ1B 16 Jun '15

16 Jun '15

Hi, GoToMeeting, our in-house Webinar platform, is getting a lot of use lately and we have run into some conflicts over time slots. Please try to book your Webinars as far in advance as you can, particularly recurrent ones. Please contact Ken Bailey, K1FUG, kbailey(a)arrl.org<mailto:kbailey@arrl.org> to reserve any time slots that you require. Ken manages the GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar platforms for us. 73, Harold Harold Kramer WJ1B Chief Operating Officer ARRL- the national association for Amateur Radio 225 Main Street Newington, CT 860 594 0220 hkramer(a)arrl.org www.arrrl.org

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[arrl-odv:24352] Proposed By-Law Amendment
by Doug Rehman 16 Jun '15

16 Jun '15

Add a new item after #29 in "Meetings" that would: Make the audio recordings of the Board of Directors Meetings available. The recordings would be made available at the same time the Minutes are made available. Any closed session (personnel matters, attorney-client, confidential financial, etc.) would be redacted from the audio recordings made available. ***************************** The additional cost of implementation would be minimal as we already record the meetings. Some limited staff time would be required to digitize the tapes, redact closed sessions (although this could be done "live" by switching tapes to record the "closed sessions"), and post the content. Doug K4AC

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[arrl-odv:24348] Sad news from West Virginia
by Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ 15 Jun '15

15 Jun '15

We have received word that West Virginia Section Manager Charles Hardy, WV8CH, was electrocuted yesterday (Sunday) evening while putting up a new antenna. Dave K1ZZ

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