<<062310.doc>> IN-Newsletter <<Microsoft Word Picture>> Vol. 33, No. 25 June 23, 2010 -- Covers the period June 13-19. Upcoming Meetings and Events Programs & Services Committee: July 15, 2010 @ 8:30am - ARRL HQ Administration & Finance Committee: July 15, 2010 @ 8:30am - ARRL HQ Second Board Meeting: July 16-17, 2010 @ 9:00am in Windsor, CT Media & Public Relations Reported by Allen Pitts, W1AGP The annual report is at the printer and may be available in hardcopy by the end of the week. The web version is up. Results of the wire releases are mixed, but seeing once again heavy use of parts and quotes from the releases rather than the whole document. Lots of club and group media hits also. 18 state level proclamations so far, almost 300 now following on Twitter and a number of major hits. Amateur Radio was also portrayed in a good way on History Detectives this past week. This was pleasant to see as their initial plan when they first contacted us in doing their research was to show us as still being in the 1960-70 era. But it all came out well. QST article for 75th anniversary of ARES is in final editing. Development Reported by Mary Hobart, K1MMH The new Spectrum Defense newsletter is in final stages. ARRL received a $10,000 irrevocable planned gift commitment for the Spectrum Defense Fund of the ARRL Endowment. The W1AW Endowment Campaign has reached $71,367. The Diamond Club gross revenue has topped $135,000 through 6/22/2010. CDO Hobart will visit the Town Council of West Hartford CT to accept the town's Field Day Proclamation on community television. Development submitted the departmental reforecast of revenues and expenses for 2010. Production/Editorial Reported by Joel Kleinman, N1BKE The August 2010 issue of QST was released to the printer June 22. The July/August issue of QEX and the Central States VHF Conference Proceedings were also released to the printer. Steve Sant Andrea reports that he's had a positive response to his article, "When Should I Operate?" in the July issue of QST. Khrystyne Keane wrote and distributed The ARRL Letter and voiced and produced ARRL Audio News for June 17, 2010. Lab Reported by Ed Hare, W1RFI D Star Repeater Bob Allison formally requested frequency coordination of our new D-Star repeater, which is located in the Lab here at HQ. The formal letter and the proper forms were submitted to the Connecticut Spectrum Management Association. It is hoped they will grant us temporary coordination on the frequencies 147.390/147990 MHz, for a period of 6 months. During this period, it is hoped that we will not cause interference to co-channel and adjacent channel repeaters. If we do, all complaints must be addressed before permanent coordination is granted. Initial testing of our coverage suggests there will be no interference issues with co-channel repeaters. TIS Anthony Nesta returned this week from a long medical leave of absence. Product Review Bob Allison tested two handheld transceivers and a kit transceiver. Sales and Marketing Reported by Bob Inderbitzen, NQ1R A large membership campaign that mailed during the second week of June has returned 55 members in the first 5 days. Additionally, a couple of targeted email messages promoting membership were sent to lapsed members. A direct mail test is underway, comparing the response rate of two different membership mailings to new hams. Response rates will be measured for 3 months. We continue to test and report-on web site development issues requiring further attention, particularly those involving the new e-store and Guest Accounts. Diane Petrilli is coordinating tour guide volunteers for the upcoming ARRL Teachers Institute. Tour guides will be available during the session lunch breaks to help teachers get on the air from W1AW. Also, Diane is arranging to have tour guides come in on August 6 to learn more about the Education & Technology Program so they can help explain the program to visitors. Good progress is being made on the development of new ARRL practice exam software for the Amateur Radio license exams. The developers held a webinar during the week to review the first iteration of the software build. A beta version will be delivered to our evaluation team within the next 2 weeks. The software will be completed during the summer, in time to introduce it into license manuals by the fall. During the last week 2 weeks, the warehouse crew fulfilled 1,906 packages for publication and product orders, 809 membership premiums, and QST mailing supplements. We have decided to offer a Touch Paddle Keyer Kit as an ARRL product offering. This is the same kit used by Bob Allison to support the "Project Building" activity in Dayton. The kits will be supplied to ARRL by Mark Spencer, WA8SME, Education and Technology Program Coordinator. This new offering builds on other recent, successful ARRL ventures involving sales of hardware and kits. We have sold over 1,000 MFJ Cub transceiver kits, and many hundreds of the Kanga-supplied Hands-On Radio Parts Kit. We'll take delivery of the keyer kits in approximately 4 to 6 weeks. We are also investigating suppliers to help offer a kit associated with our newest book, ARRL's PIC Programming for Beginners. A new resource guide, titled the Quick Start Guide for All Hams, is being finalized. The guide will be included with a mailing sent to all new hams. It contains 4 new articles all geared toward new licensees, and includes several operating resources such as a frequency chart and other handy tables to encourage readers to retain the guide. This project is supported by advertising included throughout the guide, all coordinated by the ARRL Business Services team. Membership & Volunteer Programs Reported by Dave Patton, NN1N W1AW Joe updated the web code practice files. He also processed regular QSL card requests. Joe "went mobile" with the station's Icom IC-2820 D-Star radio to determine the western coverage of the W1HQ D-Star repeater system (2-meters). Scott worked on slow and fast code practice files for the latter part of the month of June. He also assisted the DXCC department with the editing of applications. Field Organization/Public Service Team The Tennessee Official Observer Coordinator was asked to have his Official Observers check out possible infractions occurring on a local repeater. Amateurs from Kentucky, Mississippi, and Michigan successfully completed certification to become Official Observers this week. The monthly Official Observer summary was compiled and forwarded to all OOs, OOCs, and Section Managers. The monthly ARRL Monitoring System/Intruder Watch report was also prepared and forwarded it to the IARU Region 2 coordinator. A radio amateur from Northern New Jersey was approved and added to our Intruder Watch group this past week. John Szwarc, N3SPW, of Kylertown, Pennsylvania, has been nominated to run for Section Manager of Western Pennsylvania for the next term of office that begins on January 1, 2011. Incumbent Section Manager John Rodgers, N3MSE, has already been nominated to run for a new term of office. Nominating petitions for Western Pennsylvania and eight other sections in the same election cycle are due at ARRL Headquarters on September 10. Education Services Reported by Debra Johnson, K1DMJ Education & Technology Program The May round of grant applications have been summarized and recommendations sent to the Executive Committee. Jennifer Knapp has coordinated hotel reservations for all remaining Teachers Institutes. She and Mark Spencer WA8SME have been coordinating resource orders for all of the sessions. All materials for the TI-2 Space in the Classroom from Yaesu and HRO have been delivered. Mark Spencer completed a Teachers Institute in Roswell, New Mexico May 24-27 with 13 teachers, and another session just last week in Walhalla, SC with 10 teachers. A representative from NASA Education participated in the SC session on behalf of the ARISS program. As part of research for future curriculum, Mark attended a CubeSat conference at California Polytechnic. He reports that the CubeSat community is doing some exciting things. One of his major observations was the lack of effort to include community college and below school programs in their efforts. He is looking at how to address that issue and continues dialog with AMSAT about their interest in the CubeSat program. After returning from three intense days fielding questions and providing demonstrations at the Dayton Hamvention, Miguel Enriquez KD7RPP returned home to attend a 24 hour curriculum-writing course presented by Pima County Joint Technical Education District. Miguel is part of the JTED team that will write the curriculum and lesson plans for Arizona Audio/Visual Program State Standards this summer. He will be working on adding communication and the use of radio-including Amateur Radio-and television to the Audio / Visual curriculum. Miguel is adding emergency communication activities to the existing program. The Arizona Spelunkers have requested use of the underwater robot that employs ATV which was developed by Miguel's Pueblo High School students to explore a second, much larger cave lake recently discovered in Northern Arizona. Recognizing the advancements and successes the radio club students are making, Miguel has been awarded grant resources to purchase equipment and supplies to expand technology and electronics education curriculum. Nathan McCray K9CPO worked the VEC booth at the Dayton Hamvention but was also able to take time out to provide a demonstration of the classroom CubeSat simulator for the AMSAT group. Nathan returned home to gear up for the Teachers Institutes he will be leading in June and July at Parallax and HQ, contacting teachers and fine-tuning his instruction. He reports that he has been collecting data from his robotics students to see how well they did on the Illinois state tests as compared to all of the students in the state and reports that they did not disappoint. "They all blew the doors off the test, just like last year, and finished in the top 10% of the state." With the objective of getting ham radio back into the picture, next year Nathan plans to start a Morse code class to go along with robotics. ARISS Astronaut Kevin Ford, who is in training for a future ISS mission, and Astronaut Ron Garan, who is slated for Expedition 27, worked with the ARISS Houston Team and received their amateur radio licenses. Expedition 27 now has a licensed crew member. An ARISS contact was a highlight for the Nippon Boy Scout Amateur Radio Club in Mitaka-shi, Japan on May 4. The scouts have been studying Amateur Radio station operations and spoke with Astronaut Soichi Noguchi, a former Boy Scout. Students at the Pita Kallak School in Kuujjuaq, Quebec, have been learning about the ISS and radio protocol, and have had guest speakers talking about these subjects. Students created materials and exhibits that tell the story of what they learned, and these items were displayed in the school's "Mission Control" (set up in the gymnasium). The highlight of their studies was an ARISS QSO on May 20. The school plans to form a space club with participants from all grade levels. Licensing Support and Continuing Education Program Jennifer Knapp is doing a great job as CEP administrator and has been challenged to fill the gap managing CEP processes formerly available to students and mentors for "self-service" through the website. Jon Bloom recently restored our ability to retrieve data from the main database to print certificates so Jennifer was able to catch up on the backlog of student course completion certificates and get those in the mail last week. We are in the process of retiring online courses on the current platform and are responding to many inquiries about the future of online courses. We have worked out a plan for revision of the Basic EmComm (Level 1) course, which will be redeveloped for a new online course platform. Allen Pitts W1AGP will be the content editor and will work closely with Mike Corey W5MPC who will be content handling editor. We continue to receive applications for the final assessment for the new EmComm managers course (EC-106). Feedback about the course has been consistently positive. The documentation and recommendation process for the final assessment application has been running smoothly. There have been over 35 completions of the final assessment so far. We are in process of negotiating a contract with an author for revision of the Technician Instructor Manual which will be published in late 2010. Jenny Hawran has resigned for health reasons after only three months with us but contributed a great deal to communications about education department programs and development of information on our web pages. We will sorely miss her! We have posted her position and are looking for a capable replacement. Sincerely Compiled by, Lisa Kustosik, KA1UFZ Assistant to the CEO Staff Absentee List All Staff 7/5 Holiday Kathy Allison 7/6-7/9 Vacation Bob Allison 7/6-7/9 Vacation Joe Carcia 7/2-7/9 Vacation `` 7/16 Vacation `` 7/23 Vacation `` 7/30 Vacation `` 8/6-8/13 Vacation `` 8/20 Vacation Michael Cory 7/30-8/6 APCO Conference, Houston, TX `` 8/20-8/22 Southeastern Division Convention, Huntsville, AL Steve Ewald 6/24 Vacation Steve Ford 6/25 Vacation `` 7/6-7/9 Vacation Norm Fusaro 6/23-7/2 Vacation Scott Gee 8/30-8/31 Vacation Katie Glass 6/28-7/7 Vacation Mike Gruber 6/19-6/26 Vacation `` 8/23-8/27 Vacation Joel Hallas 7/14-7/20 Vacation Penny Harts 6/30-7/2 Vacation Dan Henderson 6/22-7/5 Friedrichshafen/Vacation Amy Hurtado 7/14-7/26 Vacation Bob Inderbitzen 6/22-6/30 Friedrichshafen, Germany / Vacation `` 8/23-8/27 Vacation Joel Kleinman 6/29 Vacation Linda Kleinschmidt 6/28-6/29 Vacation Harold Kramer 7/29-8/6 Vacation Zack Lau 7/12-7/23 Vacation Dave Patton 8/6-8/7 Texas State Convention, Austin, TX Diane Petrilli 8/23-8/27 Vacation Allen Pitts 6/30-7/2 Vacation `` 7/26-7/28 Vacation Steve Sant Andrea 6/23 Vacation `` 8/30 Vacation Barry Shelley 8/9-8/20 Vacation `` 8/26-8/27 Vacation Dave Sumner 6/23-6/28 Friedrichshafen, Germany `` 6/29-7/13 Vacation
