IN-Newsletter

Vol 26, No. 15

April 16, 2003

Upcoming Meetings

April 26^th in Kansas City, MO at 8:30am

A&F Committee

Development

The final touches and edits are being made to the new Development Section of the ARRL website.  This comprehensive site includes information and donation forms for all Development programs.  The creativity and energy of Sue Fagan, Tom Hogerty, Debra Johnson and Jon Bloom made this possible.  The site went public the week of April 14.

The next Development fund raising campaign will be a test for Historic Preservation.  Sue Fagan has designed a stunning new graphic for the campaign, which will be used in the 10,000 piece test mailing and on the web.  The campaign is scheduled for early May 2003.

The special Defense of Frequencies for WRC-03 is in the mail and on the web.  Returns have just begun coming in with $1,800 so far.

The 2003 Spectrum Defense Fund campaign launched last fall has reached $289,000 from 6,500 donors.

The 2003 Education & Technology campaign is coming in slowly.  Returns from 1,143 donors total $52,523 against a budgeted goal of $200,000 this year.  So we have a long way to go. 

Plans for the Major Donor Recognition event at Dayton are progressing.  Attendance is expected to reach about 50 people, though invitees have until April 30 to respond. 

The final major donor list of individuals and organizations that $1000 donated or more donated in 2002 plus Maxim Society and Legacy Circle is nearly complete for the Annual Report.

Media Relations

This report covers two weeks of highlights from the Media Relations Department.

Jennifer finished writing the 2002 Annual Report, and the text is in the editing phase.  Layout will begin during the week of April 21^st.

Jennifer fielded calls from reporters with Metrowest Daily News (Framingham, MA) and The New York Times regarding MARS activity in or near Iraq.  Those with close connections to the MARS program were offered as possible interviewees.

The hometowner news releases distributed by United Technologies Corporation garnered two Connecticut newspaper articles so far.  The (New Britain) Herald and the Greenwich Time ran stories featuring local residents who completed ARRL’s emergency course training under the UTC grant.

Upon request, Jennifer sent pictures of Joe Walsh, Patty Loveless, Barry Goldwater (SK) and Jordan’s King Hussein (SK) to the photo editor of The New York Times.  An article on the new ham radio book “Hello World, A Life in Ham Radio” will be featured in the Arts & Leisure section later this month.  The photo editor wanted to include a few pictures of famous ham radio operators.

A New Yorker magazine writer is working on a story about Morse code.  Thanks to Dave Patton for doing the interview.

Jennifer provided photos and ham contacts for an upcoming article in Responder Safety magazine.  The magazine is geared toward fire, police and EMT professionals.  The article on “unknown responders,” will highlight the work of volunteers who play a critical role during disasters.

A sub-committee of four PR committee members, including chairman Jeff Reinhardt, AA6JR, has done an excellent job putting together a first-rate PR forum for Hamvention in May. Last minute details will be worked out during the group’s next conference call, scheduled for later this month. Jennifer submitted speaker and forum description information for inclusion in the printed Hamvention program. It doesn’t appear that forum details will be listed on the Web site this year.  Jennifer made arrangements for the annual PRC breakfast meeting at the Dayton Marriott.

Thanks to a lot of help from Lisa Kustosik, newspaper “clip reports” will again be distributed to Directors on a monthly basis.  Reports from January and February are ready to go, and the March report will follow shortly thereafter. 

Production/Editorial

The May/June issue of NCJ and the 2003 DXCC Yearbook have been released to the printer.

We checked printer’s proofs for the new edition of the Tech Q&A and YASME: The Danny Weil and Colvin Radio Expeditions.

Sales & Marketing

The much-anticipated new editions of the 2003-2004 Repeater Directory and Now You’re Talking! have been promoted heavily to our publication Dealers.  Lisa Tardette, who has been handling the coordination of the Repeater Directory Dealer sales and fulfillment, completed the paperwork needed by our printer to drop ship 4,700 Directories direct to stores.  The Fulfillment and Warehouse crew is also been preparing to deal with a very large backorder situation waiting the arrival of Now You’re Talking!

After much groundwork by Deb Jahnke, we were delighted to receive a very large Now Your Talking! order from Ingram for their business arm that serves libraries around the nation. Deb also managed to convince this important client to place a sizable order for the new Experimental Methods in RF Design publication.

Advertising received a very good response from a June 2003 QST reminder card that sent out last week to current and past advertisers.  The card -- designed by Deb Jahnke and Di Szlachetka -- features our new Field Day logo and extolled the virtues of exploiting this extremely popular operating event for their own personal gains.

New advertisers Electric Radio magazine and Cellular Specialties Inc. joined the growing number of companies using QST to bring their product to the Amateur Radio market.  These companies will be placing display ads beginning with our June issue.

Carol Patton completed billing for advertising that appeared in the May issue of QST. Invoicing for 2003-2004 Repeater Directory and Now You’re Talking! ads have been completed, and will be sent out as soon as copies of these publications are available.  (We will be sending samples of these publications with the invoices.)

April is historically a challenging month for soliciting QST advertising (June issue) so our crew decided to begin the uphill climb earlier than normal this month.  Initial results suggest that they will be successful in meeting predicted revenue levels.  Carol is also collecting “Ham Ad” classified ads and beginning the ad layout process for the June issue.

Dennis Motschenbacher traveled to Austin, TX to meet with a diverse group of dealers who buy equipment and advertise as a consortium.  It appeared that they were considering dropping their QST advertising in favor of testing other methods of going to market.  Dennis was able to convince them to continue advertising and, even more importantly, to allow ARRL staff to begin working closely with them providing professionally developed advertising content and production work.

Membership Services

Awards Branch

WAS QSL cards checked (5B for W-I)      250    
WAS Ends. (50 QSLs ES/C)        1      
WAC QSL Cards Checked   174    
Extra Class Certificates        8      
RCC Awards      6      
OTC Awards      5      
L/T Member Inquiries            2      
A-1 Operator Nominations        2      
VUCC Initial Apps.      2      
Grids   302    
VUCC End. App.  1      
Grids   200    
VUCC Certs. Processed   10     
Awards Mailed   54     
 

HF Awards Mgr. Appt.: Maurice Schietecatte, W9CEO, Sandwich, IL; HF/VHF Awards Mgr. Appt.: Steve Suess, KC8CCD, Lebanon, OH.  Also compiled the latest VUCC award recipient list for June QST.   Processing Status: Current or up to four weeks.  For the coming week—Specialty WAS, US WAC, Code Proficiency, and Friendship awards, continued VUCC awards processing/mailing, and ship 5BWAS plaques.

DXCC Branch

Weekly Report 

April 13, 2003         
Beginning Cards 125,272
Cards Received  481    
Cards Processed 15,194 
Ending Cards    110,559

Applications Pending    996    
Processing Time 7.7 Weeks      

Year-to-date (2003)

Cards Received  140,990
Cards Returned  237,852

QRPs Issued this week   1      
QRP’s Issued total      291    

DXCC is currently mailing applications received on February 18, 2003.  DXCC is currently entering cards received on February 26, 2003.

Contest Branch

Data entry for DX Contest paper logs continued.  Some miscellaneous plaques were mailed. DX 2003 Plaque sponsor letters were also mailed.  Plaque inventory was completed. Field Day questions continue to come in.

QSL Branch

QSL service status: There is a delay of one week due to staff absence.  Cards mailed year to date as of 04/13/03  - 411,900.  No cards were mailed this week.  Thanks to HQ Staffers who filled in as Tour Guide in Heather Dzamba's absence.  Heather has returned to work on light duties only.

W1AW

Matt Strelow, KC1XX and Andrew Toth, of XX Towers Inc., were on hand to perform some much needed antenna repairs. Repairs were made to the upper 40-meter and 30-meter rotatable antennas, and the fixed upper 15-meter and 10-meter bulletin antennas. Worked ranged from the replacement of coaxial pigtails, hardware replacement and removal of corrosion on the 30-meter coil traps.

Scott Gee worked on fast and slow code practice files for the latter part of the month of April. He continues with assembly of the donated Elecraft K2 QRP transceiver.  Scott also handled some evening phone sales calls in the 5 PM to 8 PM time slot.

Joe Carcia updated the web code practice files. He also worked with Matt and Andrew on the antenna repairs.  W1AW telephone sales year to date (2003): $4,682.

Field & Educational Services

The European Space Agency (ESA) created a Web page for details on ARISS QSOs for ESA astronaut Pedro Duque, KC5RGG. Spain's IARU society, URE, worked to get ED4ISS, a special ham license for Pedro's time on the ISS in October. ESA is launching a competition for all of Spain's schools; winning students will speak to Pedro. ESA's school Web page lists the URL for ARISS and URE. Rosalie moderated the ARISS-international education telecon and prepared minutes. She proposed, and the group voted, to have meetings every 2 months, not monthly. At NASA's request, she and Frank Bauer composed a spread sheet and Word file of ARISS stats. She prepared items for the VRC Meeting. 

C-CE

Edits to the VHF/UHF course were transmitted to our Web host.  The first learning unit of the RF Propagation course has been proofread.  Howard extracted data for, and requested, 34 CNCS and 18 UTC reimbursement checks, and he prepared and sent reminders to 35 people interested in registering for the Level 2 class that opens the next 2 weeks. 

Jerry processed results from several field exam sessions. He compiled exam kits and answer templates for Certification Examiners for Level II and III courses.  He mailed printed certificates, ID cards and refund checks to UTC graduates, and began experimenting with Microsoft Access.

Field & Education Support Team

Jean Wolfgang continues to work on the process for our annual awards.  Since all the award material is sent out by US mail to the people who will review it, Jean is trying to combine some of the supporting remarks to make a smaller package.

Gail Iannone sent 6 convention applications to the Executive Committee for approval and notified the sponsoring committees that they were approved.  She sent 8 hamfest approval letters to sponsoring committees confirming the Division Director’s approval for the events as ARRL-sanctioned, processed 15 door prize orders, 2 label requests, and sent 26 hamfest handout packages for upcoming events.  She coordinated travel for Dan Miller to be the HQ rep at the Southeastern Division Convention on July 12-13 in Gainesville, GA. 

Margie Bourgoin sent 3 new club applications on for Director approval.  She reports 2 renewed SSCs and an increase in volunteer instructor activity.  She also continues to fill in for Linda Mullally in her absence.

Mary Lau updated the records of the Baltimore County Public Library’s regional registry for scholarship, disabled, and hobby organization listings.  She also reviewed a Category 1 contest club application from Texas comprised of just 4 members -- from two very competitive families!

Field Organization/Public Service Team

SM ballots have begun to arrive at HQ for Maryland/DC, New Hampshire and San Joaquin Valley.  Leona Adams added over 50 Field Organization appointments the past week, and initial supply packages for these are going out. 

Chuck Skolaut received a tape recording concerning the previously reported 2-meter interference case by the Niagara Falls Air National Guard Base.  He is also keeping track of ongoing interference cases on 20 and 17 meters.

In preparation for the VRC meeting this weekend in St Louis that Steve Ewald will attend, Steve and Rosalie were both on hand for the Monday VRC teleconference.  Steve and Rosalie compiled results for our assigned portions of the VRC's SM Survey.

EmComm Grants 

According to Dan Miller, 230 people signed up this week for the EmComm Level I online course which begins April 22.  More than 2000 CNCS-sponsored Level I seats have been filled, and this week 40 graduated, making the total of grads now at 1,081.  States with new Level I Hybrid classes beginning in April include ME, MA, MS and OH.

Regulatory Information

John Hennessee assisted amateurs with local government zoning problems in Irvine, CA (NA1A) and Brevard County, FL (WB2GGP), and with a covenant problem in San Jose, CA (AD6SL).  He was in contact with Derek Riker of our congressional relations firm concerning the ARRL CC&R page and some messages received concerning the Amateur Radio initiative in Congress.  John received inquiries about ham communications from military personnel in or on their way to Iraq. 

Amateur Radio Education & Technology Project

Jerry Hill prepared for, and travelled to the third of three national teachers conferences for this year -- the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.  NASA paid for our booth space, electricity, furniture, registrations, which Jerry set up and staffed.

73,

        Sincerely,

        Mark Wilson, K1RO

        Chief Operating Officer

MW: lk

Staff Absentee List

Name                    Date(s)         Reason

All Staff                       4/18            Holiday

Dave Sumner             5/1pm-5/6       Vacation

Dan Miller              4/17-4/21       Vacation

     ``                 5/1-5/4         ARRL Midwest Convention, Lebanon, MO

Howard Robbins          4/11-4/21       Vacation

John Proctor            5/1-5/12                Vacation

Steve Ford              4/14-4/18       Vacation

Bob Boucher             4/11-4/18       Vacation

Rick Lindquist          4/25-4/28       Vacation

Jon Bloom               4/21-4/25       Vacation

Shelly Bloom            4/21-4/25       Vacation