David, I think your spirit is really helping. It's been calculated by an acquaintance at JPL that we are only 10 db away from being able to do Venus-bounce using the digital techniques that are available to ham radio. Whether a refurbished and much simpler Arecibo or an array of phased antennas, a Venus-bounce QSO would be a new adventure. Happy Holidays to the Board and your families and all the best in the New Year. 73, Art K0AIZ Arthur I. Zygielbaum, K0AIZ ARRL Midwest Division Vice Director ARRL Midwest Division Director-elect On 12/24/2020 11:01 AM, Minster, David NA2AA (CEO) wrote:
It occurs to me that with COVID as a backdrop, our community has been facing some additional sad events over the past couple of months that has been further bringing things down.
We lost Universal Radio.
We watched the untimely collapse of Arecibo.
We read about the demise of Ham-Com.
Even at HQ things have been pretty low. There’s little to no ‘Christmas spirit’ amongst the team. Luci distinguished herself in not giving into it by holding an ‘Ugly Sweater’ contest. Frankly, it was poorly participated in. She didn’t give up though, and wound up with 3 sweater models and 50 virtual judges – so pretty good!
These times *require* us to take on these challenges as leadership moments for ARRL.
In the spirit of more updates:
We have approached Universal Radio about taking over the radio archive part of their website – that people still actively refer to today – and building an access path to that content through our website as a digital historical archive. If we don’t do it, it will die.
Director Stratton and I had – I think – a fabulous brainstorming session on how ARRL could approach the community in north TX to rehabilitate the Ham-Com event by providing marketing and branded content support – like an NCJ Contest Forum. We must reach beyond that commercial line and take the lead on nurturing this event back to life. My understanding is that they had nearly 3500 people preregistered for the 2021 event!
Not so sure what we can do about Arecibo, but I sure wish we could get a High Earth Orbiting or Geosynchronous satellite over our side of the globe. We need Apple or Tesla to fund the ride!
It is an honor to work with all of you. 2021 will be a huge year for ARRL with many initiatives underway – like our 2023 /100^th Anniversary/ Handbook project – and many others to be discussed and implemented – like Project Eagle: The 5 Year ARRL Strategic Plan. People are watching me. People are watching you. People are expecting great things from us.
With the mood so low at the moment, I humbly send my holiday wishes onto all of you. This Christmas song, which is supposed to be happy, is sung by Judy Garland with the melancholy that many are feeling today.
https://youtu.be/jxxTHzERTsk <https://youtu.be/jxxTHzERTsk>
Very 73.
David
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