As I have done in the past, I am
forwarding Steve Ewald’s notes from last week’s SM Teleconference
to the ODV list.
73,
Harold
Harold Kramer, WJ1B
Chief Operating Officer
ARRL - The national association for
Amateur Radio
860 594 0220
hkramer@arrl.org
From: Ewald, Steve, WV1X [mailto:wv1x@arrl.org]
Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2008
4:22 PM
To:
Subject: [
Hello, Section Managers.
I have prepared a summary of highlights from the March 2008
Teleconference with Section Managers.
On Wednesday evening, March 26, the Membership and Volunteer Programs
hosted an ARRL telebridge teleconference with the Section Managers of the
Central Division and Dakota Division.
We welcomed Section Managers Skip Jackson, KS0J (
All Section Managers and Affiliated Club Coordinators recently received
a request from HQ to name a few top clubs in their sections that do an
outstanding job of recruiting, training and mentoring new licensees.
The plan is for ARRL HQ to contact these suggested clubs to find
out more about what they do and how they do it so well -- and then to share
some of their success stories.
The teleconference participants discussed how clubs in their sections
are successfully recruiting and training new radio amateurs. Some clubs
are associated with a school, and others clubs help sponsor a state wide QSO
Party. These kinds of club commitments help foster the growth and
activity levels of Amateur Radio.
ARRL Field Day is also an active time of the year for recruiting new
radio amateurs and mentoring new operators to get involved in various Amateur
Radio activities. Call participants talked about the strategies that they
employ to visit Field Day camps around their respective sections.
When representing ARRL at a hamfest, convention or club meeting, it
would be helpful for SMs to have access to a summarized list of “talking
points” on various subjects in order to help answer questions or to
appropriately make referrals. The ARRL Web’s news articles, QST,
and Web pages are good, timely resources to study and refer to when preparing
for a meeting or hamfest.
Over the years, several net frequencies – such as 14.300 MHz,
14.325 MHz, 21.360 MHz, 3.760 MHz – have also become well known and
established frequencies for handling emergency traffic and situations.
Teleconference participants discussed the scenario that could happen if a
radio amateur with a true emergency were to call for help on those frequencies
during a heavily populated contest weekend. The fear was that a
station in distress would not be heard.
In order to help alleviate this scenario, the group wondered if it
would possible to ask contest organizers/sponsors to better promote the
emergency frequencies and to ask contest participants to avoid those
frequencies.
One potential operating activity came to mind. How about a QSO
party that promoted the Field Organization? This idea was reminiscent of
the ARRL Communications Department contests of several decades ago and of the
Hiram Percy Maxim birthday celebrations in the 1990s.
73,
Steve Ewald, WV1X
Supervisor, Field Organization Team
ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio
860-594-0265