IN-Newsletter Vol. 27, No.25 June 23, 2004 Upcoming Meetings July 15th in Newington, CT at 8:30am Programs & Services Committee July 15th in Newington, CT at 8:30am A & F Committee July 16-17, 2004 in Windsor, CT Board Meeting Development This week we received the bad news that our application for a Learn and Serve America grant for our Education & Technology Program has been declined. We had high hopes, but will proceed to seek grant funding from other sources. The 2004 Defense Fund has topped the $209,000 mark with contributions averaging $51,880 from more than 4000 donors. The targeted Education & Technology Fund campaign is reaching 55,000 homes this week. Discussions are underway to evaluate an increase in our financial request for year three of the CNCS Emergency Communications grant. A concept paper has been prepared that will be forwarded to our program officer who is willing to work with us on a new EmComm initiative. Our request for an extension of the current grant for two years was denied as a matter of CNCS policy. Media Relations Jennifer prepared and distributed this year's Field Day release via PR Newswire. Additional help has been offered to individuals with Field Day PR requests, including one member who needed a press release for his a TV station in Palm Beach, Florida. "Media Hits" were submitted for the August issue of QST. The June issue of Contact! will be posted to the PR Pages shortly. Production/Editorial The August issue of QST will be released to the printer June 24. The 2nd edition of the ARRL Instructor's Manual has been released to the printer, and we've ordered a new pressing of the 2000 Periodicals CD. Rick Lindquist reports The ARRL Letter, Vol 23, No 25, circulated to 66,781 members on June 18. Rick prepared (ie, wrote and/or edited) articles about: ARRL BPL interference complaint to FCC on behalf of WØSR; ARRL, FCC substantially agree on "omnibus" Part 97 changes; NA1SS Field Day operation possible; Pending 40-meter changes benefit spectrum efficiency, FCC says; ARES/RACES team assists with Reagan funeral cortege; Broadband over Power Line video available and several Web news briefs. With voiceover assistance from Jennifer Hagy, Rick voiced, edited and produced ARRL Audio News for June 18. Lab and station testing for the September Product Review column are under way, with the writeup in process. Joel Hallas has written and submitted an article for QST entitled "Achieving Near Perfection with the Imperfect Rhombic." Vintage/AM enthusiasts Joel Hallas and Stu Cohen were among the greeters this past Friday for the crew that installed the vintage/AM station at W1AW. Sales and Marketing The 2004/2005 edition of TravelPlus for Repeaters(tm) CD-ROM is off on a running start, largely due to the direct marketing attention its been given. The first two months of sales have exceeded those of the same period last year by a couple hundred units. An email solicitation was sent to 47,000 subscribers of the "Publication Announcements and Special Offers" list on Tuesday. The message included a last-chance offer for Field Day T-shirts and pins, and a free T-shirt promotion for orders of combination book packages. The promotion contributed to sales of several thousands dollars of the Handbook, Antenna Book and Operating Manual. An email solicitation for NCJ and QEX subscriptions was sent on Wednesday. Within a week, online subscription transactions totaled 200 for QEX and 14 for NCJ. Steve Capodicasa over at the Warehouse happily reports that all is going well with using FedEx instead of UPS for our product deliveries. We are realizing the projected cost savings. ARRL is very pleased with the professional level of service that our members are receiving while at the same time cutting cost by about $500 a week. Although on personal travel and not "official" ARRL business, Dennis Motschenbacher traveled to HamCom in Dallas, TX last week, visiting advertisers and publications dealers. Dennis was an invited guest of the Lone Star DX Society and presented a special program titled "6 meters for HF DXer's" at a well attended session. Membership Services Awards Branch WAS QSL Cards Checked 200 A-1 Op. Noms. 1 LTMA Inquiries 2 25-Year Member Awards 31 40-Year Member Awards 14 VUCC Plaques 3 Awards Mailed 32 Also completed report for BOD. Processing Status: Current or up to three weeks. For the coming week-WAC QSL card checking, WAS in the 90th, WAS Specialty, and VUCC awards, and package/mail the LTMAs processed this week. DXCC Branch For the week of: June 20, 2004 Beginning Cards 52,943 Cards Received 8,580 Cards Processed 10,735 Ending Cards 50,788 Applications Pending 388 Processing Time 3.4 Weeks Year-to-date (2004) Cards Received 228,281 Cards Returned 302,914 DXCC is currently mailing applications received on May 26, 2004. DXCC is currently entering cards received on May 27, 2004. Wayne Mills attended Hamcom (Dallas, TX) and returned with 42 DXCC Applications containing 3,227 QSOs. One new offshore card checker was appointed this week for Czech Republic. Logbook of the World QSO records entered into the system 45,301,007 QSL records have resulted 1,491,113 Logs Processed 54,960 Active Certificates 10,190 Users registered in the system 7,172 Current Applications 104 Ready Applications 53 Applications Awaiting Mail 51 Contest Branch A problem with the June VHF robot meant that it was not ready to accept entries over the weekend. As soon as this was corrected, we manually processed through approximately 170 emailed entries in the contest email box. After doing that, we then manually forward the robot messages to the original log submitters. Things at HQ worked properly, so logs were not in jeopardy of going missing. Late in the week the Aptos server in California that houses the robot blew its power supply, but messages were being held for when it was returned to service. The 2004 November Sweepstakes certificates were printed and mailing begun. An unusually large number of Field Day queries are coming in (as compared to previous years). These are taking a significant amount of staff time to handle. A couple of small corrections were made to the upcoming DX CW databases and several items were sent to the author for research as he does the write-up for that piece. The January VHF Sweepstakes article was received from Production, reviewed and forwarded to the author for his changes. QSL Bureau Processing time is approximately 4 days from receipt. This week 93 pounds of cards were received from members. Approximately 100 pounds of cards are waiting to be processed. Cards mailed as of 06/20/04: 523,775. No cards were mailed this week. Field & Educational Services Astronaut Leroy Chiao is now KE5BRW; he's part of the next Expedition. NASA has cancelled ARISS QSOs to schedule a spacewalk (3 walks will be done this Expedition), only to cancel the spacewalk, but not in time to reschedule the schools. The ARISS Team supported a NASA Explorer School workshop at Johnson Space Center. Rosalie took part in an ARISS-international telecon and a PSC telecon and supported an F&ES monthly meeting. Mark Spencer and Rosalie handled final details of getting packages on ARRL Hiram Percy Maxim Award nominees to the PSC. Rosalie networked with an American Disaster Reserve representative; the response was their newsletter highlighting a volunteer who'd gotten a ham license. Gail Iannone sent 1 hamfest approval letter to sponsoring committees confirming the Division Director's approval of the events as ARRL-sanctioned, processed 2 label requests for upcoming events, and sent 15 letters confirming the EC's approval for conventions. She submitted QST column announcements for 36 hamfests and 9 conventions. She coordinated travel for Chuck Skolaut to be the HQ rep at the ARRL Kansas State Convention on August 15 in Salina. Linda Mullally learned about the template for 50-year affiliated club certificates, and will handle these requests from now on. Her email address is now listed on our club Web pages for clubs interested in getting information on becoming affiliated, updating their affiliation record or SSC record, and for a number of other club-related items. Amateur Radio Education & Technology Program Mark Spencer did final preparations for going to HamCom in Dallas to give four talks, one talk was on "Space in the Classroom at Low or No Cost;" a side benefit of this project is that we now have very reliable ATP WX capability at W1AW. The latest round of school grant equipment is being shipped. Mark verified the circuit board and ordered them for his next kit. Mark will visit Parallax, our partner in our upcoming teacher's institute, to finalize arrangements for robotics portion of the institute. EmComm Grants Dan Miller caught up on work after being away for a lengthy time on vacation and business travel. He prepared for his seminar at the ARRL Northwest Division Convention in Seaside, Oregon. CCE Jean Wolfgang sent email to recent graduates of the Technician online course encouraging them to locate local VE sessions and clubs using the ARRL search sites. She asked them to notify us when they got licensed. Jean added details to a Web FAQ on Hybrid classes to help with members' questions. She handled logistics for getting graduation materials, and did database work for 61 graduates of the emcomm courses. Jean hopes to increase technical course registrations by having added extra information about these to our Web pages. She and Rosalie discussed other ways to increase registration and to make registration easier for some courses. After running Access queries of the last six months of technical course registrations, she learned that 50% of the Technician online course students are ARRL members and almost 100% of the other technical course students are members. Regulatory Information John Hennessee reports an increased number of regulatory questions on Field Day operation. He processed a new Volunteer Counsel application. He assisted amateurs with local government zoning problems in Salt Lake City, UT (K7AJ), and Hancock County, IN (W9DEW). John has now become the tertiary contact for the FCC Comm Center in the event of an emergency communications declaration. Field Organization/Public Service Team Chuck Skolaut received taped documentation from an OO (and forwarded it to the FCC) as a direct response to an FCC monitoring request on 20 meters. More information was collected concerning interference between an uncoordinated and a coordinated repeater in Northern New Jersey. Chuck also heard that interference to Sonoma County's (CA) airport by a 2-meter repeater is under investigation and being handled by the locals. We are keeping tabs on unidentified CW transmissions on 14.070 MHz and Russian beacon stations on 7.039 MHz. Leona Adams reports that Minnesota SM election candidate statements are at the printer, and election ballots are ready and scheduled to be mailed by July 1. Northern New York SM Tom Dick, KF2GC, has been nominated for another term of office beginning in January 2005. SMs are making good use of their monthly Field Appointment Reports that Leona sends to them, resulting in many updates made to existing appointments. Steve Ewald's Field Organization/Public Service Team will take over administration for the ARRL International Humanitarian Award. Steve updated contact information for the FCC Comm Center, and worked on the Public Service column for QST. With assistance from Dan Miller, Steve sent invitations to ARRL Section Leaders who haven't yet signed up for ARRL Emcomm Courses, reminding them of summertime opportunities to get involved. SMs have been promoting Field Day preparations through their Monthly Section News Summaries, Section Web pages and section wide e-mail messages. Club/Mentor Program Norm Fusaro handled customer service work, what with Field Day approaching -- helping many clubs with exhibit materials and other issues. He interviewed a mentor and the student, then wrote an article for our enhanced Elmer Web page. Norm also wrote a piece for the Club Companion Web page, including a beginners' operating guide that clubs can download and use for the Field Day GOTA station. He's received positive response to his "Welcoming New Hams" PowerPoint presentation. The New Amateur Page averaged 22 hits per day, and still results in good feedback. This week's club mailing featured NARL's "Quick Connect" approach to solving members' problems via other club members' answers. 73, Sincerely, Mark Wilson, K1RO Chief Operating Officer MW:lk Staff Absentee List All Staff 7/5 Holiday Dave Sumner 6/23-6/28 Convention, Friedrichshafen, Germany Jennifer Hagy 6/28-7/6 Vacation Barry Shelley 6/28-7/2 Vacation Dave Patton 6/22-6/28 Convention, Friedrichshafen, Germany `` 7/8-7/13 Vacation `` 7/16-7/17 Board Meeting, Windsor, CT Perry Williams 7/1-7/14 Vacation `` 7/16-9/7 Vacation Dennis Motschenbacher 7/23-7/25 Central States VHF, Toronto, Canada `` 8/20-8/21 Convention, Albuquerque, NM `` 8/27-8/29 SW Division Convention, Phoenix, AZ Rick Lindquist 7/2-7/9 Vacation Robert Inderbitzen 6/25 Vacation `` 7/19-7/30 Vacation Fatima Lorusso 7/6-7/9 Vacation Janet Rocco 6/29 Jury duty `` 7/26-7/30 Vacation `` 8/9-8/13 Vacation Zoe Belliveau 6/21-6/25 Vacation Jon Bloom 6/14-7/2 Vacation Mark Spencer 6/23-7/4 Vacation Wayne Mills 6/23-6/28 Convention, Friedrichshafen, Germany Debra Jahnke 7/5-7/9 Vacation Zack Lau 6/28-7/2 Vacation Ed Hare 6/30-7/14 AZ State Convention/Vacation Rosalie White 6/25 Vacation Lisa Tardette 6/28-7/2 Vacation Scott Gee 6/25 Vacation Joel Kleinman 7/9-7/13 Vacation Danny Sayad 7/2 Vacation Mark Dzamba 8/23-8/27 Vacation Pam Dzamba 8/23-8/27 Vacation