All Directors:

At Minute 9.3 of the October 5 EC meeting I reported on a plan developed by Steve Ford, WB8IMY to improve the accuracy of listings in the ARRL Repeater Directory. The new procedure for collecting and maintaining repeater data is explained in the attachment, which will be going out to frequency coordinators next week.

Until now, repeater coordinators have provided all of the information for the Repeater Directory listings. While the data is in a common database, we regard each coordinator’s data as “their” data and allow them to manage it. The degree to which the coordinators do so varies widely. As a result we receive complaints about the accuracy of the listings and are at somewhat of a competitive disadvantage to other published repeater listings.

The new procedure allows data to be received directly from repeater operators. However, coordinators will still have ample opportunity to “vet” the data for their areas and to make changes, for example to delete uncoordinated repeaters.

73,

Dave Sumner, K1ZZ

Chief Executive Officer