<<011409.doc>>
IN-Newsletter
Vol. 32, No. 2
January 14, 2009 -- Covers the period January 4-10.
Upcoming Meetings and Events
Administration &Finance Committee
January 15 @ 9:00am in Newington, CT
Programs & Services Committee
January 15 @ 9:00am in Newington, CT
Annual Board Meeting
January 16-17, 2009 @ 9:00am in Windsor, CT
Technical Relations
Reported by Brennan Price, N4QX
Brennan Price is in the Fairfax Office until the Board meeting. He will represent the ARRL at the FCC's WRC-11 Advisory Committee meeting on January 13.
Regulatory Information
Reported by Dan Henderson, N1ND
It was a busy week with my return from vacation. The early part of the week was spent catch up on several under emails and about one dozen phone calls that had accumulated over the holidays. Queries ranged from CEPT operating and beacon operations to several CC&R questions, with a smattering of other topics in between (status of novice license, a couple of “pirating” of callsigns, and 4 updates to information on various state amateur callsign automobile license plates.)
Early in the week we received 4 sets of callsign ID recordings from the Air Force relating to repeater IDs and the third round of PAVE PAWS testing. Of the 45 recordings received Monday all but 4 seem to have correctly been correlated to an involved repeater. There were several which were received but did not appear on the Air Force’s mitigation request list, so we assume they were cleared by Air Force testing. This still left approximately 24 involved stations where there is no recorded ID. The Air Force stated there were 12 recorded repeaters that did not ID, leaving twelve. Late Friday afternoon a fifth email was received from the Air Force with 27 additional recordings. These will be processed early next week.
VC and VCE updates continued to come in via email and through the mail over the holidays. We will begin processing these, applying any changes and making deletions as necessary beginning the week of January 12th. Finally, we continue to monitor the ongoing situation in Palmdale. A group of amateurs, including Southwest Division Vice-Director Marty Woll, met with town officials on January 7th. The consensus from those attending the meeting appears to be that the city is determined to continue on its current course of action of implementing a very amateur-unfriendly ordinance. This situation will continue to have to be monitored.
Media & Public Relations
Reported by Allen Pitts, W1AGP
The January issue of CONTACT! has been posted on the web. The department Board Report is done. HD Video clips were sent to Matt Aaron for editing and Don Carlson has completed the audio track for the coming video PSA. Sections of the PR-101 course have been delegated to appropriate volunteer authors with the deadline of Jan 26. George Dillon, the FCC contact for aiding with their DTV conversion, retired earlier than expected and Chris Imlay is seeking information on who now will fulfill his role in the plan which was agreed upon in the FCC request for aid.
Media Hits for QST and an update for the /PIO page have been completed. Three sections of the PR-101 course were drafted and “encouragement” of the volunteer authors to meet deadlines continues. The video PSA is in the process of being edited. In line with the plan agreed upon, FCC field staff have been working with hams in the eastern Pennsylvania area and also in Hawaii, but I am awaiting information regarding FCC staff contacts with any other Section Managers and areas of the country. Meanwhile, some groups that have already started providing information to their communities have gotten positive coverage in the papers and on TV.
Development
Reported by Mary Hobart, K1MMH
Plans are already in place for the Donor Reception in Dayton in Mary, including identification of the Guest of Honor.
CDO Hobart traveled to Dayton to make a presentation to DARA - a tour of ARRL HQ - and to discuss DARA's continuing role and funding for a Teachers Institute. There is interest at DARA in funding the "graduate" Teachers Institute II (TI-II) if the pilot TI-II is successful.
Development was notified that the final distribution from the Stoner estate will be $993.
The Development report to the Board has been completed and distributed via email.
Adjustments have been made to the 2009 Development revenue and expense budgets.
A $20,000 contributions was received in January in support of the Education & Technology Program's Teachers Institute.
The ARRL Foundation Board of Directors Annual Meeting will take place by Conference Call on Thursday, January 22 at 9 pm.
Lab
Reported by Ed Hare, W1RFI
Web
Alan Applegate, K0BG, as agreed to update and maintain the Automotive RFI pages. He maintains a site with extensive information on RFI—its URL is www.k0gb.com
RFI
Mike Gruber agreed to do a power line noise presentation at the Vermont State Convention (Ham-Com) in February.
RFI-Digital TV
Bob Allison tested Zenith Converter box, identical to the Insignia brand. It was “bulletproof,” offering very good performance, and only encountering problems when an interfering signal was increased to roughly 10 milliwatts (a very strong signal at a receiver.)
Electronic Product Support
Zack Lau took a call from a member who found that 64 bit Vista is not compatible with AVIEW, used to view multi-year periodical sets. This new operating system is not compatible with old software that would work under Windows 3.1.
Question BA MG EFH ZL AN Totals
01 What rig is best? / Prod Rev 1 V 4 5
02 RFI/EMI/FCC issues 2 17 6 25
03 How to use equipment 2 3 5
04 Propagation
05 Antenna/Feed line/Tower questions 2 3 16 2 23
06 Locate companies, parts or services 1 6 1 8
07 Software problems 1 1 6 8
08 Regulatory questions 1 3 3 7
09 Operating / amateur exam questions 1 1 3 5
10 Article photocopies/archive corrections 2 4 21 27
11 Other 4 15 4 23
12 BPL 1 1
13 PAVE-PAWS
14 Misdirected 2 2
Sales and Marketing
Reported by Bob Inderbitzen, NQ1R
In November we conducted our first telemarketing campaign. We selected a local telemarketing firm. Data was provided for lapsed members. Phone numbers were appended to the list, scripts written, 1,047 “connected” phone calls were made, and 91 applications were taken. Connected calls yielded a return rate of 8.7% (higher than any of our direct mail acquisition), though the cost per acquisition is much higher than our typical direct marketing activities (mail, email). We continue to evaluate this recent trial, and we are preparing some additional trials involving multi-year membership appeals and calls to new licensees. Associations, organizations and subscription-based businesses commonly include telemarketing as part of their marketing mix.
Additional volunteer tour guides are being sought. An invitation to join the team of ARRL Volunteers was emailed to members in Connecticut, resulting in a handful of likely prospects.
A few targeted membership mailings and mail revisions are in-the-works. A membership appeal accompanying a congratulatory letter to licensees that have recently upgraded was updated. A second, follow-up mailing to recent upgrades has been added. A membership appeal is also being prepared for Volunteer Examiners. Over 7,000 ARRL VEs that have participated in at least one test session are not current members (some lapsed, some never).
Upon joining or renewing ARRL, a membership card is sent. Accompanying the card (behind it) is a “special offer” web address, leading to the e-store. Beginning each month, a special product or offer will be featured. For example, this month, the featured item is The ARRL Operating Manual, offered at a 15% discount. We hope this ongoing promotion encourages more traffic to the e-store, and contributes to the overall value and positive perception of being an ARRL member.
The 140,000 piece “new products” mailing, mailed in mid-December, has topped $52,000 in gross sales—achieving 89% of our goal with a few weeks to go.
The winter 2009 Publications and Products Catalog arrived last week at the warehouse. Member catalogs have shipped and Dealer catalogs will ship later this week.
Now Shipping: The 2008 ARRL Periodicals on CD-ROM (new retail price of $24.95; previous editions continue to be $19.95). This annually-produced CD-ROM will ship to 1,004 international members this week (924 in 2007)—about 2 weeks earlier than last year. These are members that opted for the annual CD, instead of monthly delivery of QST. A promotion will accompany the mailing, touting multi-year membership renewals.
The end of year annual inventory audit was completed in short time, and we resumed shipping on Tuesday, January 6. The Warehouse crew fulfilled 998 packages for publication and product orders, and QST mailing supplements.
Candidates are being interviewed for the Warehouse Clerk position opening.
Membership & Volunteer Programs
Reported by Dave Patton, NN1N
Contest Branch
We have received 1,254 logs for the 2009 RTTY Roundup; the contest ended only a week ago. This contest appears to have a surge in activity, most likely due to the new Triple Play award.
The Clean Sweep brooms and magnets for the 75th running of Sweepstakes have been ordered. Sue Fagan was busy this past week completing artwork and finalizing the proofs. Clean Sweep mug orders are still coming in at a good pace; nearly 180 mug orders have been made so far. The last day to order a mug is January 31.
EME Contest logs have been processed and are out to the results author.
W1AW
Joe created the texts for the January W1AW Qualifying Runs. He processed regular QSL card requests. He installed in the Harris racks the Hewlett Packard frequency counter that was returned from calibration and a “new” Hewlett Packard Frequency/Time analyzer. (This analyzer was previously an ARRL Lab instrument.) Joe also archived all the 2008 logs and LoTW files. He also made a repair to a 160-meter band pass filter (used in the broadest equipment).
Scott worked on fast and slow code practice files for the first part of the month of January.
Field Organization/Public Service Team
Chuck Skolaut compiled the monthly ARRL Monitoring System/Intruder Watch report, and forwarded it to the IARU Region 2 coordinator. A new Official Observer has joined the ranks from South Carolina. Also, an Official Observer Coordinator followed up of the constant carrier that had been reported on a 2 meter repeater in California, and the issue has been resolved. More documentation was received about unlicensed bear hunters using 2-meter simplex in West Virginia.
OOs are investigating several cases of broad signals interfering with nets on 75 and 20 meters. Chuck also compiled and sent nominations for the 2008 International Humanitarian Award to the Programs and Services Committee members.
Leona Adams continued to receive and process many 2008 expense reports from Section Managers as they turned in their reports by the January 7th receipt deadline. Steve Ewald and Dennis Dura worked on the Public Service column for March QST. Team members also prepared statistics for a project requested by the Programs and Services Committee.
Education Services
Reported by Debra Johnson, K1DMJ
Micah Murray KB1RPF completed the changes necessary to post price updates for online courses on the website. The price of enrollment for all online courses was raised $5 for members and $10 for non-members effective January 1. Revision of the RF Propagation course is complete and will be sent to CTDLC to update the course.
We recorded 30 new Instructors/Teacher registrations in December. Licensing class listings for January have been accumulating steadily. 56 classes are listed for January, 37 of them are for Technician, 13 for General, 4 for Extra and 2 for Code instruction.
Education & Technology Program
Teachers Institute instructor Miguel Enriquez KD7RPP gave a presentation to several Pueblo, AZ teachers to explain how radio and wireless technologies will be designed into proposed math classes. He also used the opportunity to recruit teachers for the TI to be held in Tucson next summer.
In addition, some of Miguel’s students continue their exploration of wireless technology by building a storm warning tracker from a schematic that appeared in a 1988 article. The students had been wary of being in the radio shack when clouds were overhead because thunderstorms appear very quickly in the desert. They scavenged the necessary parts for the tracker from some of the equipment that has been donated to the club and put the tracker together. After repairing some cold solders, the tracker was tested and it worked! The students also continue construction on and underwater robot. They modified and experimented with some RF car transmitters to see if they could use RF instead of a tether to communicate with the robot underwater and find a way to receive audio and video data from the robot.
Mark Spencer WA8SME reports making a handful of kids day contacts during the event last Sunday. The date confusion didn’t seem to inhibit the event. The 5-building blocks activity board build is 75% complete. 21 of the 23 ETP grant applications were approved by the Executive Committee and Mark has begun the process of executing the ETP grants. The equipment listing is being finalized, but purchasing the station equipment will be on hold until the acceptance letters are received from the schools. The equipment for the progress grants do not require the receipt of acceptance letters. Orders l for these items are being issued and forwarded to HQ.
Jodi Morin KA1JPA completed the revised and redesigned Teachers Institute brochure including the dates for the 2009 workshops. The supporting web page was updated and the brochure and a 2009 application posted. Brennan Price N4QX reviewed the copyright restrictions we use with educational materials we provide through the ETP. This will accompany all materials we develop and provide to others for educational use.
ARISS
Mark Severance, N5XWF, of the Houston ARISS Team, and his boss met with Susan White, head of NASA Johnson Education Office, to brief her on ARISS. Susan is also the lead of the ISS National Lab team. Recently, Congress approved the ISS becoming a national lab, when the ISS in future years is no longer used by NASA. At that time it is likely that ARISS will be considered a formal payload. Ham radio would then be incorporated into the US segment, making it easier for the ARISS Team to manifest replacement equipment to be launched into space. Meanwhile, Mark Severance, has also been talking with the Amateur Radio Working Group (ARWG), made up of representatives from the world’s space agencies, about possibilities for ham equipment on the Columbus ISS module.
ARISS activities thus far for the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of ham radio in space have included Russian SSTV downlinks, 9600-baud packet activity, crossband repeater action, general QSOs with the ham community, and of course, school QSOs.
The ARISS Team is circulating information about Doppler correction for crossband repeater activity, which will be operational until January 17th. Goddard Space Flight Center will design and customize commemorative certificates to award hams for their activity.
From Richard Garriott’s short visit to the ISS, MVP has stockpiled QSL card requests from about 130 hams plus 4 schools whose students participated in ARISS activities.
An ARISS QSO was done by students at Scuola Elementare Faleriense in Italy on 18 December. Pupils studied the design and construction, and tested a model, of the coherer, the primitive radio signal detector invented by Temistocle Calzecchi Onesti, who demonstrated in 1884-1886 that iron filings contained in an insulating tube will conduct electrical current under the action of an electromagnetic wave. This discovery was important for later work of Oliver Lodge, Edouard Branly and Guglielmo Marconi in developing the radio. Onesti lived near the city where the school is located.
A staff member of the Ohio Department of Education wrote a great story for the agency’s main web page about ARISS educational activities in Ohio over the past few years. Rosalie White K1STO provided the story editor with support and received permission to post the article on ARRL’s web pages.
Sincerely Compiled by,
Lisa Kustosik, KA1UFZ
Assistant to the CEO
Staff Absentee List
Bob Allison 1/12-1/16 Vacation
Steve Capodicasa 1/16 Vacation
`` 1/23 Vacation
Norm Fusaro 1/13-1/14 Vacation
Scott Gee 1/16 Vacation
`` 3/4-3/6 Vacation
`` 4/15-4/16 Vacation
Mike Gruber 2/27-2/28 Vermont State Convention, Colchester VT
Joel Hallas 1/16-1/17 Southern Florida Section Convention, Ft Myers, FL
Mary Hobart 1/15-1/17 Committee Meeting/BOD Meeting
Harold Kramer 1/15-1/17 Committee Meeting/BOD Meeting
Lisa Kustosik 1/15-1/17 BOD Meeting
Dave Patton 1/15-1/17 Committee Meeting/BOD Meeting
Brennan Price 1/12-1/15 Fairfax Office
`` 1/15pm-1/17 BOD Meeting
`` 2/2-2/7 ITU Radiocomm. Advisory Group, Geneva
Barry Shelley 1/15-1/17 Committee Meeting/BOD Meeting
Dave Sumner 1/15-1/17 Committee Meeting/BOD Meeting
`` 1/29-2/2 Vacation
`` 2/6 Vacation
`` 2/27-3/3 IARU Reg.1 EC Meeting, London England