At 03:29 PM 7/21/2011, Richard J Norton wrote:
I request that a few of the directors, that voted against the board motion to update the National Traffic System's Methods and Practices Guidelines, Chapter 6, give me some guidance concerning their votes, and what I should tell the NTS staff that wanted this update to occur.
Dick -
After explaining that I failed to get board support
Why are you acting as the interface to NTS?
for what I considered to be a trivial NTS staff request
Why would a trivial NTS request be brought to the Board? The motion didn't have any policy decision for the Board.
, I was asked today, "Do they have a problem with NTS?" "Do they want us to remove the NTS information from the ARRL web-site?" Should the existing traffic system operators divorce themselves from the ARRL?
That's the kind of over-reaction immature people always give if they don't get their way. See more comments below
You can find the requested update by entering "NTS winlink chapter 6" into Google. The new chapter is on the web in a number of places, such as http://www.armymars.net/ArmyMARS/DigitalOps/NTS-D/MPG6V08.htm
You can find the existing MPG document by entering "MPG" into the search window on the www.arrl.org site. For example, chapter 4 of the existing document is at http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Public%2520Service/MPG404A.pdf
The same person appears to have written the original MPG document that wrote the requested update. He appears to have put a substantial amount of work into these documents.
Note that the National Traffic System staff is the group that wants the changes made, not me.
Should any of you care to communicate with the NTS leadership directly, please feel free to contact Rob Griffin, K6YR, at k6yr@arrl.org or by telephone at (805) 543-3346. Rob also serves as ARRL's Santa Barbara Section Manager. He is as perplexed by this outcome as am I.
Seeing as how I had no background information available to me when the motion was introduced it was not easy to understand what was being requested. The motion appeared to me to be one of the typical motions that get introduced when someone gets pissed off at staff and wants the Board to yield the big hammer. This one directed staff to publish something on the web site. Think about it. It's nonsense for the Board to get involved in telling staff what to publish and where. Give us policy decisions to make, not trivial requests with little backup material. I spent some time today in Newington trying to find out what was really going on. Dave Patton was away on vacation or a hamfest visit so I talked to Harold and Dave Sumner, who said they had no idea why the motion was necessary and before the Board at all. Steve Ewald filled me in a little bit from his interaction with the PSC last week. Here's what I think is going on. Sometime last fall W3YVQ write an update to the chapter of the Public Service Communications Manual that he had previously authored. Since then the chapter was reviewed by someone or several people at HQ. During the review there was some question raised that the chapter referred to Winlink like it was endorsed by ARRL, rather than being one of many digital modes that might work. That sensitivity has a long history, and I think you know a lot about it since you and K4CKX have had lots of conversations about it. The chapter update was mentioned in the November 13, 2010 PSC meeting minutes, but no action was taken, it was to be discussed later. There was no mention in the January 14, 2010 PSC meeting minutes. There was no mention in the June 18, 2011 PSC meeting minutes. No minutes have been distributed from any other meetings or webinars. (i.e., the Board was been given no information before the meeting) As I understand it, the PSC had some discussion about the chapter in their July 14, 2011 meeting and recommended that the chapter be added to the PSCM but with a cover memo regarding digital technologies. That should have been enough for HQ to move ahead, there was no need to involve the full Board. The motion you presented was supported by four PSC members but not the PSC chairman when it came to a vote. It was not supported by any other Director. It was late in the day and came well after other PSC motions. The no vote leaves the HQ management in a difficult place, they now have a Board decision that does not give them a go ahead, when it could have been implemented if there had been no vote at all. This is a lesson in introducing Board motions, think about what happens when or if it fails, and don't introduce a motion if you don't need to. Lots of things can be done by working through Mr. Sumner or Mr. Kramer. They will tell you if they think a Board vote is necessary. Look back at the motion that was circulated to the Board as PSC-3. It only had the text of the motion, there was no explanation. Your long verbal explanation was not a good substitute for having a clear motion that asked the Board to make a decision regarding a policy matter, and the verbal explanation was not a good summary of the issues involved. The PSC has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Hope my explanation doesn't sound too cranky... I have to return a phone call from a PO'd NTS official in my Division now. The word out there is that the Board doesn't support NTS and this person is ready to "take NTS elsewhere, away from ARRL." Some people would say no great loss. My explanation is going to be that the Board was put in a position of micromanaging and decided not to. You're on the PSC so I'm sure you know there is a great deal of experience there - I'm sure the PSC can work with HQ to follow up and move forward. -- Tom ===== e-mail: k1ki@arrl.org ARRL New England Division Director http://www.arrl.org/ Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444