IN-Newsletter Vol. 27, No. 45 November 10, 2004 Upcoming Meetings Ballot Counting, Director/Vice Director Elections November 19th in Newington, CT A & F Committee November 20th in Newington, CT at 8:30am Board Meeting January 21-22, 2005 in Windsor, CT CEO Dave Sumner, Paul Rinaldo and Chris Imlay met in Washington D.C. with the FCC's Deputy Chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology Bruce Franca to talk about BPL issues. Dave also met with John Chwat to discuss legislative topics. Dave Patton talked with Hudson Division Director Fallon about an upcoming project working with the Ad-hoc Committee for Grassroots Lobbying Campaign. He also sent Amateur Radio World to Joel Kleinman for January QST. Development The 2005 Spectrum Defense Fund has exceeded $129,000 from more than 2600 donors. In order to boost revenues a third message will be mailed to a segment of donors. The Year-End campaign will mail just before Thanksgiving. Final plans are being made for the mailing of Member Award certificates to members of 50 years or more. Development received a verbal commitment for $10,000 to the Education & Technology Program within the next two weeks, with a potential corporate match of $10,000. Media & Public Relations The Toy Drive continues to go well and has "awed" the staff at the United Way. I have secured permission to hold Field Day 05 activities at the CT capitol and have begun working jointly with CERT PR staff to secure permission to have a similar operation for Field Day at the White House. Production/Editorial Rick Lindquist reports that The ARRL Letter, Vol. 23, No. 44, went out to 67,446 members on Thursday, Nov 4--a day early because of convention travel. Rick prepared/edited news items on ARRL's reaction to the BPL Report and Order, progress report on the ARRL toy drive, Spectrum Defense Fund 2005, fourth anniversary of first permanent ham station in space, DERA ham radio relief project in Haiti (update), UO-22 appears to have quacked out, ARRL 2004 FMT, several news briefs, and the Web youth column by Andrea Hartlage, KG4IUM, whom Rick got to finally meet over the weekend at the Georgia Section Convention in the Atlanta area to present her with the 2003 HPM Award plaque. Rick voiced, edited and produced ARRL Audio News with sound bite contributions from Pres Jim Haynie, W5JBP, and ARRL CDO Mary Hobart, K1MMH. Joel Hallas reports that the January Product Review and New Product Announcements are in Production. Testing for the February Product Review column is well under way. He refined his earlier presentation on ARRL with emphasis on publications and product review and delivered it to about 25 members of the Stamford Amateur Radio Association on Thursday evening. It was well received. Annual indexes available: PDF files of the QST annual index for the years 2002 and 2003, in the format used in the December issues before 2002, are now available. The 2004 index will be posted as soon as it's ready. See http://www.arrl.org/members-only/qst/Annual-Index/ Thanks to Maty Weinberg, who compiled all the data, and to Tom Hogerty, who posted it. Sales & Marketing Work has commenced on advertising procurement for January QST. We have also obtained our first insertion for the next edition of the New Ham Express (expected in June 2005) from Alinco. They have reserved Cover 2. We're pleased to announce that the W5YI group has increased their ad size to 1/2 page (broken into 2 1/4 page ads) per month and have committed to a full twelve issues in 2005. In this first week of November, approximately 20% of the month's sales forecast was achieved. Handbook sales, as a portion of November's total sales forecast, are showing some return to more typical sales levels. We completed a new brochure, "Ham Radio. Welcome Aboard!" which was introduced at a United States Power Squadrons district conference this past weekend. One of the organizers called the brochure "well done" and remarked that those who he talked to liked the material. Our energy on this front is moving forward. We are now preparing an exhibit for the national 2005 USPS EXPO. In the week following an email solicitation for ARRL subscriptions, we saw 134 sign-ups for QEX and 24 for NCJ. A couple of popular ARRLWeb links are shorter now! When directing folks to join ARRL via the web, you can direct them to www.arrl.org/join. When directing newcomers to the web for more information about ham radio (getting started), please send them to www.arrl.org/hamradio. Early returns from the recent membership mailing have produced some promising results. The mailing was sent late last month, and has already brought back 233 lapsed members (a little over 1%)-a very good start this early in the cycle. Membership Services Awards Branch WAS QSL Cards Checked 250 WAS Certs. (350 QSLs F/C) 7 WAS Certs. (350 QSLs ES/C) 7 WAS End. (50 QSLs F/C) 1 WAS End. (50 QSLs ES/C) 1 WAS/90th Certs. 42 A-1 Op. Noms. 2 LTMA Inquires 2 Awards Mailed 152 HF Awards Mgr. Appt.: Larry Melby, KA5TXL, Dallas, TX.; VHF Awards Mgr. Appt.: Jim Sanford, K8ZZU, Clarkston, MI. Processing Status: Current or up to three weeks. For the coming week-WAC QSL card checking, VUCC and (U.S.) WAC awards, Extra Class certificates, and mail out all awards processed this week. Contest Branch We received additional sidebar material for the August UHF contest results article, which was processed for the web. The complete web results were sent to Web Services for initial layout. Data entry for the 2004 10 GHz contest continued. Plaque solicitation letters for the 2005 RTTY Round Up were mailed. The robot preparations were finished for Sweepstakes. Mailing of DX certificates began. DXCC Branch For the week of: November 7, 2004 Beginning Cards 58,236 Cards Received 11,999 Cards Processed 15,134 Ending Cards 55,101 Applications Pending 463 Processing Time 4.5 Weeks Year-to-date (2004) Cards Received 497,219 Cards Returned 499,370 DXCC is currently mailing applications received on October 4, 2004. DXCC is currently entering cards received on October 4, 2004. Logbook of the World QSO records entered into the system 54,549,252 QSL records have resulted 1,994,963 Logs Processed 77,989 Active Certificates 11,861 Users registered in the system 8,725 Current Applications 171 Ready Applications 69 Applications Awaiting Mail 102 QSL Bureau Processing time is 3 days. This week 92 pounds of cards were received from members. Cards mailed as of 11/07/04: 882,310. No cards were mailed this week. W1AW Special thanks goes out to Dick Dievendorff, K6KR, Mike Mraz, N6MZ (of Icom), Ward Silver, N0AX and Dan Henderson, N1ND for participating in the ARRL November CW Sweepstakes. In addition to working a "Clean Sweep," they worked 1144 stations, on 80 to 10 meters, for a claimed score of 183,040. As part of this operation, Icom has temporarily "loaned" to W1AW the new IC-7800 and IC-756ProIII HF transceivers. This equipment will also be used when this "Icom Group" operates in ARRL Phone Sweepstakes. Joe uploaded W1AW/90 logs to LoTW. He began to work with the W1AW/90 logs to start the QSL'ing process. Joe also installed the Icom radios, and updated log files for the contest. Scott worked on fast and slow code practice files for the month of November. He also handled some evening phone sales calls in the daily 5 PM to 8 PM time slots. Field & Educational Services Rosalie met with Dan Miller and Mary Hobart to review Emcomm graduate numbers under the two grants. Rosalie moderated an F&ES Meeting with Allen Pitts speaking on his future plans, some involving F&ES interaction, and Jean Wolfgang describing her recent publicity for online technical courses and exchanging ideas with staff about new ways to get the courses noticed. F&ES welcomes back Margie Bourgoin, KB1DCO, who is filling in for Linda Mullally who has taken a good job opportunity elsewhere; Norm Fusaro will be Margie's supervisor. Rosalie aided with a letter going to clubs soliciting dollars for the Defense Fund. Amateur Radio Education & Technology Program Mark Spencer gave a luncheon speech at a local Rotary Club meeting. The topic was changing literacy requirements. A few grant applications arrived late, and Mark's recommendations for all applications will go to the committee next week. His work on the Basic Electronics curriculum is ongoing; word of the concept has spread somehow, and he has requests for it already. First presentation will be 6 Dec. Field Organization/Public Service Team Chuck Skolaut received yet another report (from Oklahoma, this time) on CODAR-type interference on 12 meters. One monitoring station in California heard a CW beacon on 1814 kHz, and it is likely a fish-net beacon. Radio amateurs in the U.S. northeast observed a wide-band buzzing noise on 75 meters, plus more unlicensed activity on the 10-meter band has been documented. Chuck welcomed four new Official Observers this week after they passed their training program examination. Leona Adams is preparing to send out the monthly Field Organization Appointment listings to each Section Manager. This enables the SMs to conveniently monitor the status of their appointment rosters and to keep each appointee's contact information up to date. Steve Ewald continued to aid Bill Barrett in identifying Field Organization and ARES leaders in the areas where the Community Education Program will focus. Steve was invited to a conference in New York where ARES and RACES leaders will discuss interoperability with the Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS) during emergencies and simulated tests. Steve heard from some Section leaders who are changing their ARES districts to match Homeland Security districts. Wisconsin SM Don Michalski says this weekend's Section annual ARES leadership conference has over 90 Wisconsin ECs and DECs attending. Regulatory Information John Hennessee reviewed the galleys of the next printing of the FCC Rule Book. He corresponded with a NASA official on the process for a German amateur and future ISS astronaut to operate his ham station in the US while training. John made various Web corrections to the Regulatory pages. He assisted amateurs with local government ordinances in Boise, ID (N7UD) and Reno, NV (N7GXI ), and corresponded with an amateur in Fort Meyers, FL (KC8GM) about covenant restrictions. Volunteer Instructor/Club/Mentor Program Norm Fusaro compiled information and interesting comments from the 300 responses to his hamfest survey and submitted a report for this week's Web club story. While speaking at the Framingham (MA) ARC meeting, he presented Donna LaRoche with a certificate of appreciation for her support of the ARRL toy drive -- her First Grade Hamsters collected and donated toys. Her kids made their own QSL cards (adding information about themselves and thoughtful messages) to attach to toys. Donna is working on getting her Amateur Radio license. At the meeting, Norm signed up a new ham for ARRL membership, and had a lot of member interaction, helping them with various issues. Certification & Continuing Education Jean Wolfgang quickly set up a new class for 23 students when their session had been lost because a server crashed over two weeks ago. She sent November's online technical class announcements to Rick for the Web. Jean has been working with our Web host, CTDLC, trying to understand why some students are not able to enter an online course using their assigned passwords and ID numbers. She is also reviewing past class sections in an effort to clean out the CTDLC site. She found it necessary to reassign four students this week due to hospitalization of their mentor. Field & Education Support Gail Iannone sent six hamfest approval letters and four convention approval letters to the sponsoring committees confirming the Division Director's approval of their events as ARRL-sanctioned, sent paperwork for one new club seeking ARRL-affiliation and one new SSC application to the Division Director, SM, and ACC for their approvals. She sent the SSC approval letter and certificate to the new SSC (Arrow Communications Assn. in Ann Arbor, MI). She also sent Charter of Affiliation certificates to six new ARRL-affiliated clubs. Community Education Program After receiving background information from the F&ES staff and studying Citizen Corps Councils and CERT websites, Bill Barrett finalized the list of 12 cities where he will visit in order to give a presentation with help from area hams. He wrote an email for the 12 SMs and SECs so as to introduce the program, ask for their help and support, and alert them about his upcoming phone calls. He received two more requests from areas that aren't being considered; these folks will get some of our materials once these are completed. He is working on what text should be in the leave-behind booklet. EmComm Grants Dan Miller has a heavy travel schedule in November, and continues to handle correspondence in between trips and to do trip preparation. 73, Sincerely, Dave Patton, NN1N Special Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer DCP: lk Staff Absentee List All Staff 11/25-11/26 Holiday Lisa Kustosik 11/12pm-11/15 Vacation Mary Hobart 11/29-11/30 Vacation Robert Inderbitzen 12/2-12/3 Vacation Dan Miller 11/7-11/10 IAEM, Dallas, TX `` 11/11-11/12 Vacation `` 11/14-11/17 IACP, Los Angeles, CA Kathy Capodicasa 11/11-11/15 Vacation Scott Gee 11/8-11/10 Vacation Bill Moore 11/12 Ft. Wayne Indiana Convention Joe Carcia 11/19 Vacation Rick Lindquist 11/22-11/24 Vacation Mark Dzamba 12/24-12/30 Vacation Pam Dzamba 12/24-12/30 Vacation Eileen Sapko 11/12 Vacation Jean Wolfgang 11/9-11/17 Vacation