IN-Newsletter Vol. 28, No. 4 January 26, 2005 CEO The Board of Directors meeting this past weekend in Windsor went smoothly despite the weather. A special thank you to Greg Kwasowski; to Maty Weinberg for helping with the Board books; to Penny Harts for helping with the goodie table in the lobby; to Debra Johnson for helping at the hotel and to those who made hotel runs during the day on Friday. Special acknowledgement and thanks to Andy Shefrin for working with the Marriott technicians in making all presentation and computer equipment run like a charm. Development Development is participating in the ARRL Foundation Annual meeting on January 25. Work continues on the 2005 Scholarship applications for the ARRL Foundation. The 2005 application for the Combined Federal campaign will be filed before the January 31 deadline. The next major projects are the recognition awards for 2005 for 40- 50- 60- 70- and 80-year members and the 2005 campaign for Education & Technology. Media & Public Relations Randall D Larson is the winner of the 2004 Bill Leonard, W2SKE <mailto:W@SKE> , Award for professional media. His six page article, "Ham Operator Assistance," appeared in the July 2004 issue of Homeland Protection Professional. The audio PSA's continue to show up on more and more radio stations. A video PSA is completed and expected to be available very soon. Production/Editorial The March 2005 issue of QST has been released to the printer. Rick Lindquist reports The ARRL Letter, Vol. 24, No. 03, distributed to 65,876 members--up 128 over the previous week. Rick this week completed work on "Happenings" for March QST. He also prepared/edited items on FCC chairman Powell's resignation/ARRL reaction, astronaut talks via ham radio with his primary school alma mater, Nevada ARES volunteers report for flood duty, consensus reported in Canada on Morse code requirement and League congratulates 100-year-old life member, plus several other news briefs and announcements. Rick voiced, edited and produced ARRL Audio News. More than 180 repeaters or individual stations, including a few outside the US, are airing all or part of our Webcast each week. Joel Hallas reports that equipment testing for April Product Review is well underway. Joel gave a talk about the ARRL with emphasis on the publications process to about 40 members of the Greater Norwalk ARC January 12. Sales & Marketing We have taken delivery of the 2004 ARRL Periodicals on CD-ROM. The product includes an entire year's worth of QST, NCJ, and QEX on a fully searchable CD-ROM. Over 1,000 copies have shipped this week, including copies to International members subscribing to the annual CD-ROM. Additional product details can be found at http://www.arrl.org/catalog/?item=9396. Winter-edition publication catalogs have been mailed to all publication dealers, and additional copies to storefronts. Sales of ARRL and ARES merchandise (sportswear, hats, ARES vests, and more) produced commissions that just exceeded the forecast for 2004. The merchandise offered through this program continues to be popular with members. We are regularly refining the program by working closely with our business partner, Barker Specialty, to identify new apparel and products, and to keep the offerings appealing to new and repeat customers. We are working with The National Association of Radio and Telecommunications Engineers (NARTE) as we manage to include them within our national convention planning. Through ARRL's assistance and partnership with Dayton Hamvention, NARTE will likely offer FCC testing for commercial license exams at the event. The monthly Publication Restocking report was compiled and distributed to appropriate personnel. Print-orders were set for several re-prints as well as upcoming new editions. March QST advertising was wrapped up on Friday, packed up, and sent off to the printer. Preliminary analysis indicates that revenue will exceed expectations by a small margin. Advertising efforts for March/April QEX and NCJ are also nearing completion. Insertions for the new edition of the ARRL Repeater Directory continue to be received and we will continue to make calls during next week Membership Services Awards Branch WAS QSL Cards Checked 500 WAS Certs. (350 QSLs F/C) 7 WAS Certs. (150 QSLs ES/C) 3 WAC QSL Cards Checked 156 WAC Certs. (324 QSLs F/C) 54 5BWAC Certs. (60 QSLs F/C) 2 Extra Class Certs. 12 Replacements Awards 2 A-1 Op. Noms. 4 A-1 Op. Certs. 6 LTMA Inquiries 5 Awards Mailed 116 HF Awards Manager Appt.: Chuck Ternes, N6OJ, Petaluma, CA. Processing Status: Current or up to three weeks. For the coming week-U.S. WAC, WAS in the 90th, and VUCC awards, complete some LTMA projects, and mail out all awards processed this week. DXCC Branch For the week of: January 23, 2005 Beginning Credits 48,221 Credits Received 5,935 Credits Processed 16,720 Ending Credits 37,436 Applications Pending 422 Processing Time (Conventional) 5.8 Weeks Processing Time (LoTW) 1 Working Day DXCC is currently mailing applications received on December 13, 2004. DXCC is currently entering credits received on December 13, 2004. Logbook of the World QSO records entered into the system 61,957,305 QSL records have resulted 2,512,480 Logs Processed 94,098 Active Certificates 12,967 Users registered in the system 8,772 Current Applications 83 Ready Applications 0 Applications Awaiting Mail 83 QSL Bureau Processing time is 7 days from receipt. This week 111 pounds of cards were received from members. Cards mailed on 01/21/05: 61,600. Field & Educational Services Field & Education Team Rosalie took part in the PSC meeting and Board Meetings. An ARISS school that had one of the first QSOs reports that many students now have licenses and do communications for local "fun runs" and work at exhibits. The ARISS Team trained astronauts Thomas Reiter, DF4TR, and Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, to use the ARISS radios, including future ISS hardware. Gail Iannone sent 28 hamfest approval letters and five convention approval letters to sponsoring committees confirming the Division Director's approval of events as ARRL-sanctioned. She processed two label requests and nine handouts and door prize orders for upcoming events, and coordinated travel for Steve Ewald to be HQ Rep at the Tennessee State Convention on March 19-20. Gail sent 14 letters to ARRL newly-affiliated clubs stating the Executive Committee's approval Jean Wolfgang expects the new online Analog continuing education course to be ready to go very soon; final edits are at CTDLC. Jean assisted four people, whose course registrations were lost when two people registered from the same computer, but the first didn't log out, causing the second registration to override the first. Jean prepared and sent eight rosters to CTDLC, printed certificates/ID cards for graduates, and began preparations for three hybrid classes. One mentor has suddenly taken ill making it necessary for Jean to reassign eight students. Norm Fusaro worked with several clubs that had questions about becoming ARRL affiliates. He showed several members of Board of Directors about various aspects of the Mentor Program including new PowerPoint programs and other tools for clubs and mentors. Norm reviewed articles submitted for QST and material submitted by clubs for the multimedia library. Margie Bourgoin reports handling 63 updates to club records, plus she handled on club deactivation. She renewed two Special Service Clubs. Margie took several publications orders from instructors, along with some brochure orders, and she helped Rosalie with handling some material for the PSC meeting. Regulatory Information John Hennessee added two Frequently Asked Questions documents to the Regulatory Page at http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/regulations/faq.html. One is on station control, and the other is on how Part 97 affects RACES and ARES operations. He reports that there is slightly increased activity on the SGL Reflector. Community Education Program Bill Barrett prepared a number of last minute things prior to his trip to Maine next week. He will be speaking to members of the Citizen Corps Council in Saco, and area hams will assist him with a ham radio demonstration. EmComm Grants For the remainder of the 3rd and final year of the CNCS grant year, Dan Miller has seven ham-related and eight non-ham conventions on his schedule. These involve a mixture of seminars, forums and amateur radio emergency communications exhibits. Interest in the online EmComm courses continues to be good, especially for Level I. The January course registration window closed in 33 hours and 10 minutes. All Level II seats were filled, but it took until Sunday evening for that. Level III is open now and has a few seats left at this writing. Amateur Radio Education & Technology Program Mark Spencer received verbal confirmation from the final new project school saying their letter of acceptance is in the mail. Mark will be getting bids on the grant equipment, and go with the lowest bidder. Approval of the budget will allow Mark to finalize the next mini-grant offering of the Basic Electronics Course for teachers, and go forward with re-issuing the project activity board and OptaScope. One of Mark's articles was published in QRP's Homebrewer magazine. He finalized a prototype of an activity for demonstrating the complexity of wireless technology of handheld devices; an article and curriculum to accompany the prototype will be forthcoming. Field Organization/Public Service Team Leona Adams distributed the Field Organization Appointment Reports to all Section Managers, and has been assisting the three new SMs and their new Section Leader cabinet members who started their terms of office this month. Thirty supply packages for new Field appointees were sent out including four OO test packages. Quick responses by OOCs in Nebraska, Kentucky and Western New York allowed Chuck Skolaut to gather data and provide feedback for recent FCC monitoring requests concerning 20 and 40 meters. Several reports of a variation of the "Yosemite Sam" signal have been noted on WWV frequencies. However, after several days, the signal appears to have ceased. More reports about Jack Gerritsen and his on-air activities were received and forwarded to the FCC. Steve Ewald participated in the Citizen Corps Affiliates' monthly telecon, and submitted a report for the 2004 Citizen Corps Annual Report that highlights examples from 2004 of how ARRL worked with Citizen Corps. Steve served as HQ tour guide for Board guests RAC President Earle Smith, VE6NM, FMRE representative Oscar Oropeza, XE1O, and his wife Tina, XE1YQM. Sincerely, Dave Patton, NN1N Special Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer DCP: lk Staff Absentee List All Staff 2/21 Holiday Dave Sumner 2/3-2/11 Vacation Mary Hobart 2/11-2/13 Hamcation Orlando, FL `` 3/2-3/4 CNCS Meeting, Washington, DC Rick Lindquist 2/22 Vacation Stu Cohen 1/4-±1/28 Leave of absence Heather Cirigliano 2/1 Jury Duty Wayne Mills 2/4 South Florida Section Convention Bob Inderbitzen 3/21-3/23 National Postal Forum `` 3/24 & 3/28 Vacation `` 3/31-4/1 AES Superfest Roseanne Lawrence 2/7-2/18 Vacation Fatima Lorusso 3/7-3/11 Vacation Bill Moore 2/11-2/15 North Florida Section Convention/Vacation Mark Spencer 2/3-2/4 Indiana state science teacher's conference, Indianapolis Dan Miller 2/4-2/5 Hurricane Watch Net Conference, Miami, FL `` 2/11-2/15 Nat'l Emergency Mgt Association, Washington, DC Kathy Capodicasa 3/21-3/23 National Postal Forum `` 4/14-4/18 Vacation Mark Dzamba 2/14-2/16 Vacation Pam Dzamba 2/14-2/16 Vacation Chuck Skolaut 2/4-2/6 State Convention, Jackson, MS Joel Kleinman 2/11-2/15am Vacation Penny Harts 2/9-2/15 Vacation `` 2/24-2/25 Vacation