IN-Newsletter Vol. 25, No. 29 July 22, 2002 CEO Office The Board of Directors meeting this past weekend in Windsor went very smoothly, thanks to those individuals around the building who helped with various tasks. A special thanks to Diana Lamson-Lucas and Sharon Taratula for helping Lisa put together all the Board books, to Penny for making sure that the ODV coffee and pastries table was kept neat and clean throughout the day, and to those of you that volunteered to pick people up at the hotel if necessary. The Directors dinner Thursday night turned out very well. Staff seem to enjoy the evening that was topped off by the invitation inside the Board room to hear Riley Hollingsworth presentation. Media Relations The announcement of the federal grant caused a whirlwind of media attention on Friday, and it hasn't slowed down yet. So far, Jennifer has been interviewed by five Connecticut newspapers, the Associated Press, our local CBS TV affiliate and Connecticut Radio Networks. That interview led to a story on WTIC-AM the following morning. The AP and the local CBS affiliate visited HQ on Friday and both stories ran. The AP story has been picked up by at least one more Connecticut newspaper and the TV story ran several times over the weekend. The federal grant story also ran on National Public Radio and was picked up by the United Press International wire. A reporter from the Hartford Courant will be meeting with Jennifer and Mary on Tuesday, and additional press inquiries may come in. Jennifer is working on a national press release to be distributed via PR Newswire. My thanks to Dan Miller for being an excellent resource during the media frenzy. Thanks to Dan, Joe Carcia and Rick Lindquist for agreeing to appear in the television piece. We were fortunate to have Riley Hollingsworth at HQ on Friday. He agreed to be interviewed by the Associated Press and he was quoted in story. Jennifer is handling a few Washington requests on the CC&R issue. Some may need input from Derek Riker. Jennifer briefly sat in on the VRC meeting and presented the PR Committee's recommendation for the 2002 McGan award. She also discussed the committee's recommendation to award Dave Bell, W6AQ, with a lifetime achievement award. Discussions about that will be ongoing. So far, 63 requests for the 2001 Annual Report have come in. Jennifer will work to fulfill those this week. That figure is more than 20 requests over what we had received last year when the announcement was first made on the Web. Sales & Marketing Marketing Bob Inderbitzen provided new product descriptions and images for the online sportswear catalog. Joe Bottiglieri photographed staff models for the project. Bob placed orders to re-stock our supply of non-ARRL publications. These products make up an increasingly successful portion of our sales effort. The ARRL Book Team regularly identifies and suggests non-ARRL titles for our consideration among ARRL publication offerings. Bob added two new offerings from Noble Publishing: Q from A to Z, and Filter Design by Transmission Zeros. Both products are courses distributed on CD-ROM. He also added a new book from Joseph J. Carr, titled RF Components and Circuits, published by Elsevier Science Ltd. Bob worked with staff from Web Services, Graphics, and W1AW to give the W1AW web page a facelift, anticipating that the station will enjoy some attention during its endowment campaign. The revised page can be viewed at http://www.arrl.org/w1aw.html. Links to W1AW page have been added some of the menus available from the main page. We have sold out of Practical Packet Radio, written by Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU (first published by ARRL in 1995). The book will not be reprinted. We've also sold out of Ride the Airwaves with ALFA & ZULU, by John Abbott, K6YB (SK). ARRL's newest book has been added to the ARRLWeb catalog: The ARRL Image Communications Handbook, by Dr. Ralph E. Taggart, WB8DQT [ARRL Order No. 8616, retail $25.95]. The book will begin shipping in mid-August. Sales Now that we have a new advertising insertion order and business practice documents for advertisers and dealers, we have a new user-friendly rate card in the works. It should be completed by the end of the week. Deb Jahnke handled several member/advertisers issues and filled in for Lisa Tardette with sales calls during her vacation. Deb Jahnke and Kathy Capodicasa met with Alan Cohen about several computer related items and Deb participated in a Director Orientation presentation with Bob Inderbitzen and Dennis Motschenbacher. In addition, the Sales & Marketing crew was present at a Directors Membership Recruitment brainstorming session during the Board meeting. Joe Bottiglieri lead an effort to jazz up a new advertiser's ad with better formatting and more sales oriented text. In addition to those reported in the last In News, our advertising staff are pleased to welcome several more new advertisers to QST: Memphis Amateur Electronics; Radiodaze; B&D Enterprises; and DX Engineering (they have been an NCJ advertiser in the past and now have been persuaded to try out QST). The latest issue of "Advertising Matters" has been mailed out. Hanan and Joe have already received requests from Advertisers to be added to our Advertisers Links page on the web. Production/Editorial The September issue of QST will be released to the printer on Wednesday, 7/24. We checked printer's proofs for The Image Communications Handbook. Membership Services Awards Branch WAC QSL Checked 18 WAC Certificates 3 Long Term Member Inquiries 4 70-Year Member Award 1 60-Year Member Awards 9 50-Year Member Awards 26 A-1 Operator Nominations 1 A-1 Operator Certificates 1 VUCC QSL Cards Checked 99 VUCC Initial Apps 4 Grids (Data Entry) 567 VUCC Endorsement Apps 3 Grids (Data Entry) 127 Processing Status: Current or within two weeks. For the coming week-Long term member awards, WAS and WAC QSL card checking, Friendship awards, and VUCC awards processing and mailing. DXCC Branch Weekly Report July 21, 2002 Beginning Cards 81,070 Cards Received 8,757 Cards Processed 15,052 Ending Cards 74,787 Applications Pending 556 Processing Time 3 Weeks Year-to-date Cards Received 355,471 Cards Returned 390,079 QRP Issued this week 0 QRP YTD 215 DXCC is currently mailing applications received on June 29, 2002. DXCC is currently entering cards received on June 29, 2002. DXCC is currently auditing 2 applications. Contest Branch Final proofs for the 2001 Ten Meter Contest and RTTY Roundup were checked for production and the Web. Data entry of June 2002 VHF QSO Party paper logs was continued, and data entry for 2002 Field Day logs began. Shipping of 2001 November Sweepstakes Plaques was done Tuesday July 16 and the plaque materials for 2002 were ordered. The Online Soapbox feature continues to be a popular addition to the ARRL Contest Branch program. Within the first 72 hours after last weekend's IARU HF World Championships, over a dozen online comments (most with pictures) had been posted. Sixty-three entries, with numerous photos have been posted since Field Day. This feature was not available when the rules announcements for these events were published, so there is considerable interest and participation based on "word on mouth". With normal publicity in the future, this segment of the contest program should continue to flourish. QSL Bureau QSL service status: Current. Cards mailed year to date as of 07/21/2002 - 1,178,875. No cards were mailed this week. Janet Rocco spent 11 hours conducting tours around HQ & will be on vacation from 07/22 through 07/26. W1AW W1AW has finally QSOed on AO-40! It took some time, but contacts were made on satellite AO-40. It appears that earlier attempts were not very successful given that the 70cm crossed-yagi satellite antenna is not functioning properly. And while a few QSOs were pulled out of the mud with the station's antenna, better results were had with a 70cm antenna on loan from Steve Ford, WB8IMY. The station's antenna contractor will repair the crossed-yagi antenna during the next visit. Scott Gee worked on slow and fast code practice runs for the latter part of the month of July. He also handled some evening phone sales in the 5 PM to 8 PM time slot. Joe Carcia updated the web code practice files. He spent some time tracking down a problem with the satellite antennas, as well as uploading new logging software to the various PCs in each Visitor Operating Studio. W1AW telephone sales year to date (2002): $5,834. Lab Development of equipment to conduct field tests of the interference potential of 5.8 GHz wireless LAN devices continues. The IEEE 802.11a 5.2 GHz networking between the Lab laptop and a newer 400-MHz Pentium borrowed from Al Alvareztorres is working at full speed. Zack Lau has designed and built a 100-milliwatt 5.2-to-5.76 GHz transverter to tap into one of the network cards and duplicate the 802.11a signal on 5.76 GHz. A separate 5.8 GHz transverter borrowed from Zack is being used with the Lab Mihuzo 2-meter SSB/CW HT to listen to the 5.76 GHz signal. Next week, the hardware will be mounted to 10-foot masts and initial over-the-air testing will begin. Ed Hare and John Phillips met with Riley Hollingsworth here at ARRL HQ to discuss several EMC issues. As a result, several changes are going to be made in the way ARRL and the FCC work together on power-line cases. The initial letters from ARRL and the FCC are going to have a shorter time frame for compliance. Riley intends to make the language of the FCC letter more firm. In addition, a follow-up letter from the Commission will be sent to utility companies that do not respond appropriately to the initial FCC letter. Any remaining problems are going to be referred to the FCC field offices for additional investigation and appropriate enforcement. Riley is going to work with John Phillips to prepare information that will help ensure that the field offices respond to these referrals in a way consistent with the FCC policy and rules about incidental emitters. ARRL has been collecting reports of transmitters operating on amateur frequencies that do not appear to be FCC Certificated or to be legitimate Amateur equipment. At an earlier EMC Committee teleconference call, Chris Imlay recommended that ARRL report these devices to the FCC, through Ray LaForge at the FCC Lab. Riley agreed that this was the best way for ARRL to handle this, and he will help us interface with Ray, if needed. He also told us that Daryl Duckworth, a ham who works at the FCC Call Center, has been working with eBay on several issues related to sales of illegal equipment, and suggested that we send any reports involving individual sales through eBay to Daryl. Mike Tracy has been tapped to help with some of the work on the 5.7 GHz testing project, but has also been continuing on the tuner testing for Product Review. Next week, Mike and Brennan Price are going to firm up the deliverable date of this project. Al added 7 new articles to the ARRL TIS web pages. Prior to the Board meeting, Ed Hare met with Dennis Bodson, W4PWF, the Chairman of the ARRL EMC Committee and with Howard Huntington, K9KM, the Chairman of the ARRL Technology Task Force. Ed helped write the committee reports. Field & Educational Services Regulatory Information John Hennessee assisted amateurs with a covenant problem in Victorville, CA K6RIH and W7JM) and local government zoning problems in St. Cloud, MI (KC8FUV), Langhorne, PA (N2RHY), Shelter Island, NY (KB2IXT) and Pownal, VT (KB1HKE). Gail Farret, the Account Representative for the ARRL Equipment Insurance and Club Liability Plans visited HQ July 22. She recently replaced Flo Hayes. F&ES will soon welcome Chuck Skolaut, K0BOG, from Great Bend, Kansas to handle the OO program, the Volunteer Monitoring program, and certain aspects of the Field Organization. His supervisor will be Steve Ewald. Chuck was an engineer at KSNC TV for 34 years, was licensed as a teen, is a VE, and a member of the Golden Belt Amateur Radio Club. Field and Educational Support Team Gail Iannone co-ordinated travel for HQ reps for the following conventions: Brennan Price, N4QX, Georgia Section to be held on November 2 -3 in Lawrenceville and for Ed Hare, W1RFI, West Virginia State to be held on August 24 in Weston. She also sent 11 hamfest and 5 convention approval letters to the sponsoring committees confirming the Division Director's approval of the events to be "ARRL-sanctioned", processed 20 door prize orders, and sent 9 handout packages for upcoming events. Jean Wolfgang prepared to present the recommended award winners to the VRC. She helped coordinate a donation of several publications to Courage HandiHam. These publications will be put on audiotape for visually impaired individuals and made available through HandiHams. Margie Bourgoin reports good results to her mailing of SSC renewal reminder notices and Club Update reminders. She handled approximately a dozen SSC renewals this week. She also spoke with Art Goddard while he was at HQ to discuss the SW Division SSC numbers and explained to him what she is doing to bring them up. Jo-Ann Arel produced new Phone Order sheets to assign a new color (blue) to help Controllers distinguish F&ES phone orders from other departments orders. She also assisted with front desk coverage for Penny, and helped in the Contest and Controllers Departments this week. She also updated 10 clubs, 6 instructors, 2 teachers, and mailed out 148 brochures, 2 videos, and 7 Exhibit kits, plus the last 350 Archie comics (That's All of 'em, Folks!). Mary Lau prepared scholarship checks for signatures, reviewed the applications documents of one Category 1 club from Arkansas, and met with Jean and Margie to discuss Youth and Club promotional enhancements. Mary also relayed messages for the following Sections: KY = 4; OH =2; and 1 each for NE, EMA, LA, WV, and, NTX, plus 1 HU Division message. C-CE Jerry Ellis has handled 9 enrollments for the Boxboro ARECC and is formatting the RFI course in preparation for beta-testing. He continues to manage daily CCE duties of processing graduations and handle routine email sent to CCE. Dan Miller says all courses are currently running smoothly. He was involved in handling the interest and activity the Federal grant announcement sparked. Field and Public Service Team Leona Adams received a Section Manager nomination petition from Dr. James Boehner, N2ZZ, from South Carolina for the term beginning January 1, 2003. Presently, we are awaiting petitions from Eastern Massachusetts, Southern New Jersey and Western Pennsylvania. Puerto Rico SM ballots are now starting to be returned. This week, Leona sent out the monthly current and expired appointment listings to the Section Managers via email. In addition to appointment record keeping, she handled 23 SM expense reports. Steve Ewald continued editing/proofreading Section News, Public Service column and the SET announcement for September QST. He presented a summary at the Volunteer Resources Committee meeting about the recent Section Manager evaluations of the SGL and LGL positions. So far, ten new (and fairly new) Section Managers are making firm plans to attend the SM Workshop at ARRL HQ in September 7 and 8. A few more may be joining as the event gets closer. Oklahoma's SM Charlie Cahoun has responded to HQ encouragement by adding several features to his Oklahoma Section ARRL Web page. 73, Sincerely, Mark Wilson, K1RO Chief Operating Officer MW:lk Staff Absentee List Name Date(s) Reason Dave Sumner 7/25-8/1 RAC National Convention & vacation Lisa Kustosik 7/24-7/26 Vacation Mark Wilson 7/29-8/2 Vacation Ed Hare 7/24-8/2 Arizona Section Convention & Vacation 8/23-8/25 West Virginia State Convention John Phillips 8/2 Vacation Janet Rocco 7/22-7/26 Vacation Joe Carcia 7/26 Vacation Rosalie White 7/22-7/24 Vacation LouAnn Campanello 7/22-7/26 Vacation Karen Isakson 8/5-8/12 Vacation `` 8/16 Vacation AnnMarie Pinto 8/12-8/23 Vacation MaryAnn Macdonald 8/12-8/14 Vacation Joel Kleinman 7/30 Vacation Brennan Price 7/26 Vacation Bob Inderbitzen 8/19-8/23 Vacation