Greetings,
This past weekend I participated in the Emcomm West conference in Reno,
Nevada. For those who don't know, this is an amateur radio
conference focused on emergency communications. There were about
200 attendees this year (we fear fuel prices kept a lot of amateurs
away). Here are some notes from the event:
1. I must have been asked about the PAVE PAWS issue 50 times.
With repeaters that are 100 miles from Beale AFB appearing on the list,
all of the attendees from Northern California were very concerned.
The Reno area hams also expressed concern that the Air Force might claim
they need an even wider area shutdown, and at a 135 miles, it would
include Reno -- and none of them was willing to trust the Air Force to
understand that the Sierra Nevada mountains would shield their system
from any UHF signal generated in the Reno area. One California
amateur knew a lot about the system, having once worked at Beale and
having once been involved in resolving an interference complaint with one
of the California repeaters. I have sent Don Henderson, Ed Hare,
and others his name and call in hopes they will contact him.
2. In the ARRL forum, I was asked about the regulation by bandwidth
proposal. I asked if any of them (about 50 in the room) knew the
reasoning behind our proposal, and none did. That speaks volumes
for our failure to market the idea to our membership. Once I
explained it, I asked who would favor such a petition and who would
oppose it. 100% would support it (or perhaps were afraid to voice
their minority opinion).
3. The Section Managers attending (Nevada, East Bay, Sacramento
Valley, San Francisco, and Idaho {yes, I know Idaho is not in my
Division, but he was there for the 3rd year in a row which I think is
great}) had a meeting with their leaders who were present and invited me
to sit in. (Mr. Vallio was on Scarborough Reef at the time).
Aside from discussion of PAVE PAWS (it came up in just about every
conversation I had there) and the bandwidth proposal (which also came up
frequently), there were two other items:
a. HQ Staff made a decision sometime back to restrict
the use of Section budget funds for purchasing publications. The
rule now is that no more than 10% of the budget can be so spent.
Also, they cannot get publications at cost even if they pay with their
own personal funds. They believe (probably correctly) that this was
in response to SMs dumping the remainder of their budgets into
publications at the end of the budget year. Suffice it to say that
they are most unhappy with the decision and cited their inability to buy
enough publications to cover recruiting efforts, event door prizes,
etc. They were unhappy enough that I wishing Mr. Vallio and I were
in reverse roles and that I was the one on a tiny platform in 100 degree
heat surrounded by ocean. At least he wasn't being chewed at by
sharks (har har). I'm not taking sides here (don't yell at me --
I've been yelled at enough lately) -- just passing along what I heard in
no uncertain terms.
b. Several SMs have received complaints that the ARRL
is asking members for donations too frequently. Two of the SMs
cited cases where members too offense and decided not to give anything to
the ARRL from here on out. In particular, mailings to Diamond Club
members who had already donated this year seemed to be a hot
button.
73,
Andy Oppel, N6AJO
Vice Director, Pacific Division
American Radio Relay League (ARRL)
The National Association for Amateur Radio
n6ajo@arrl.org
home: (510) 864-2299
cell: (510) 851-6214