Brian, et al, Carl Yaffey, K8NU or Columbus, OH has two Amateur Radio apps avail. These are a frequency chart at http://www.carl-yaffey.com/hambands.html and a gridsquare map at http://www.carl-yaffey.com/igridsquare.html. He is interested in developing still more apps, but says he has no good ideas for these at this time. If anyone has ideas about apps he might make -- including any that could be used to promote hamming to members of the public -- give me a call and I'll be happy to make a contact that would open the door to Carl. 73, Jim Jim Weaver, K8JE, Director ARRL Great Lakes Division 5065 Bethany Rd. Mason, OH 45040 E-mail: k8je@arrl.org, Tel.: 513-459-1661 ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio -----Original Message----- From: Brian Mileshosky [mailto:n5zgt@swcp.com] Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2009 9:32 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: [arrl-odv:17960] Another idea All -- It was great to work with you this weekend. The strategic planning bit has a couple gears in my head turning. Tonight I had dinner with New Mexico's Technical Coordinator Scott Westerman W9WSW, who's a great friend of mine. We were playing with his iPhone and thought that ARRL should have an app -- or multiple apps -- of some kind. Be it a hook into a DX Cluster, an application to search and view our QST archive (without requiring the use of the website), whatever. What if it already exists? We find a way to make it better, add more features, etc. Some of these apps sell for 99 cents or up to 5 bucks. As more hams get iPhones, they will naturally look for apps (even ham related apps) since that's a main attribute of the iPhone. A few bucks times 10,000 people downloading ARRL's cool app equals revenue we didn't have before. Going along with the idea of hosting technical design challenges (which we talked about during strategic planning), we could either develop an app in-house which would take time and money -- but may well pay for itself and then some -- or we could come up with a set of parameters and challenge ARRL members to develop some cool app for us. Some thought would have to be given to crediting the winning developer in some way since ARRL would begin making money off the app but, again, this is a way to (a) show the world that the National Association for Amateur Radio is indeed thinking and playing on the forefront of technology, even if not ham related, (b) demonstrate to its membership that we value their input and ingenuity and want to use it to make their ARRL better, (c) grow into another market that has the potential for generating revenue, and (d) equip hams, in this case those who use iPhones, with a great tool to use which they may impress their ham friends with...which equates to some extent as free marketing in an untapped area. Thoughts? 73, Brian N5ZGT