IN-Newsletter Vol. 28, No. 34 August 24, 2005 Upcoming Meetings and Events ARRL Section Manager Training. ARRL Headquarters. 23-25 September, 2005. United States Telecommunications Training Institute-Amateur Radio Administration for Regulators Module. ARRL Headquarters. 26-30 September, 2005. CEO Staff stayed abreast of the current Director/Vice Director nomination proceedings. August 26 is the deadline for determination of candidate eligibility. With regard to the latest FCC NPRM, John Hennessee continues to receive comments from amateurs, now, primarily from the QST articles. At this point, comments seem to be from amateurs who haven't been following the issue closely and who don't have Internet access. Their opinions seem to be mixed. He answered over 130 regulatory questions on a range of topics. He processed one VC application (Brennan Price, N4QX) and several others are pending. He assisted amateurs with local government zoning concerns in Haddam, CT, (W1FK) about a 100 foot proposed tower and from an amateur in Phoenix, MD (W3LL) on problems with a variance for a 100+ tower. He also reviewed proposed antenna ordinances for a town in Maryland. Production/Editorial The October issue of QST will be released to the printer August 26. Rick Lindquist reports The ARRL Letter, Vol. 24, No. 32, distributed to 65,647 members on August 19. That's up slightly from a week earlier. Rick prepared/edited stories on Texas towns and BPL, CW subbands and privileges unaffected by any FCC Morse decision, next space tourist is KC2ONX (Greg Olsen), U5MIR sets space endurance record, plus several news briefs and announcements. Rick also compiled "Happenings" for October QST, and he voiced, edited and produced (with soundbite help from John Hennessee) ARRL Audio News for August 19. Lab EMC Mike Gruber added a new ARRL Web page for reporting the FCC enforcement of Part 15 Devices. See http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/FCC_enforcement/part-15/ Mike Gruber added a new ARRL Web page for identifying RFI via recorded sounds. The page is maintained by Ken Alexander, VE3HLS. See http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/rfi-noise/ TIS 21.5 hours of membership contact. Sales and Marketing The advertising department has been working on display advertising for October QST. Communications Electronics has placed a full page ad for October. They advertise scanners and typically place a full page ad once each year. Two advertisers have informed us that they will each be placing a two page spread in the November issue. One will feature a new Heil Sound product. With the recent departure of Roseanne Lawrence from our group, Jean Wolfgang has assumed duties for the prospective ham fulfillment program. Phone calls to the New Ham Hotline, 1-800-326-3942 (800 32 NEW HAM) and email sent to newham@arrl.org <mailto:newham@arrl.org> are routed to Jean. She'll fulfill requests for the prospective ham information package (requests of about 50 to 100 per month), and populate the Siebel database with the names and addresses of prospective hams. Jean will also begin to evaluate the effectiveness of ARRL's contact with prospects. If you have suggestions or ideas--please share them with Jean! Online Courses Two new mentors have been added to the program. Thanks go to ARRL RFI engineer, Mike Gruber, who has agreed to monitor the "course conference" of the RFI course that will begin on October 14. Students will be assigned a mentor as usual but they will be able to ask Mike questions that may not be covered in the course. A special "Early Bird" registration ($10 off regular price) is being offered for this course. Terry Dettmann contributed some information about the course that is being used for a news release to solicit enrollments for this upcoming course section. We're hopeful that all of this additional attention to the upcoming course will boost enrollments. ON-LINE COURSES Registrations During this week Graduations Antenna Modeling (EC-004) 1 0 HF Digital (EC-005) 0 1 RFI (EC-006) 0 0 VHF/UHF (EC-008) 1 0 Antenna Design and Construction (EC-009) 0 1 Technician Licensing (EC-010) 2 3 Propagation (EC-011) 0 1 Analog Electronics (EC-012) 2 2 Digital Electronics (EC-013) 3 0 Emergency Comm. Level 1 (EC-001) Not open 1 by US mail 49 Emergency Comm. Level 2 (EC-002) 60 online 1 by US mail 21 Emergency Comm. Level 3 (EC-003) 28 4 by US mail 19 Membership Services Awards Branch WAS QSL Cards Checked 50 WAC Certs. (36 QSLs ES/C) 6 WAC Ends. (12 QSLs ES/C) 2 Replacement Awards 3 A-1 Op. Noms. 1 VUCC End. Apps. 1 Grids 152 Awards Mailed 22 Processing Status: Current or up to three weeks. For the coming week- Foreign WAC, WAS Specialty, and VUCC awards, Extra Class certificates, and A-1 Operator awards. Contest Branch We have received several independent reports of possible "operational" abuses during the 2005 IARU HF Championship and significant time was spent sending emails to try and track down the problem. Data entry for the IARU paper logs continued. January 2005 VHF SS certs were addressed and mailed. We did a complete review of all Field Day email to try and ensure nothing was overlooked. DXCC Branch For the week of: August 21, 2005 Beginning Credits 87,213 Credits Received 6,559 Credits Processed 13,958 Ending Credits 79,814 Applications Pending 669 Processing Time (Conventional) 8.1 Weeks Year-to-date (2005) Credits Received 411,019 Credits Returned 408,634 DXCC is currently entering and mailing applications received on June 25, 2005. Bill Moore attended the Huntsville Hamfest this past weekend. Card checking stats are: 27 DXCC applications checked totaling 2,553 country credits; two VUCC applications and one WAS application. A forum was held on Saturday and the topic was DXCC and LoTW. Attendance was about 50 people and it went the full hour. Many questions were asked on the LoTW/DXCC process. Special thanks to our Huntsville card checker Mike Maples, K4ADK for his help! Logbook of the World QSO records entered into the system 77,497,457 QSL records have resulted 3,664,697 Logs Processed 138,918 Active Certificates 15,433 Users registered in the system 10,224 Hybrids Pending Mail 96 QSL Bureau There is a 13 day processing time delay. This week, 84 pounds of cards were received from members. No cards were mailed this week. W1AW W1AW received as a donation the 1.2 GHz D-Star repeater system from Icom. The basic components of this D-Star system include a repeater controller, a 1.2 GHz digital voice repeater and a 1.2 GHz digital data repeater. Although there is currently no equipment readily available to the average amateur, the repeater system will eventually be up and running nonetheless. Joe installed the initial components of the D-Star system. He also updated the web code practice files. Joe created the texts for the August W1AW Qualifying Runs. He also processed certificates and one endorsement for the Qualifying Run award. He also processed regular W1AW QSL card requests. Field & Educational Services Rosalie's last day at Headquarters was Friday, August 19. She will continue to work on several projects from Indiana. After 24 years working at HQ, Rosalie will be greatly missed. Dave Patton will work in an interim fashion in Rosalie's position and expects to need a little time to get up to speed. The Field & Educational Services Staff members organized a building-wide gathering to say good-bye and "very best wishes" to Rosalie as she prepared to move back to her home to Indiana. Department staff also extended a farewell to Mark Spencer who is returning to California. He will also continue his important League work in a part-time fashion. We all look forward staying in touch with them. Space tourist Greg Olsen earned his ham ticket, and is now KC2ONX; he wants to make ARISS QSOs. We've received tons of good words about the debut issue of the ARES E-Letter including some suggestions and a few questions on how to submit material. The PCSAT2 PSK-31 transponder on the ISS was turned on, its uplink is on 29.402 +/- 1 KHz and its downlink is on 435.275 +/- Doppler using FM -- for information go to: http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/pec/pc2ops.html Norm Fusaro updated clubs, registered instructors and fielded many call and questions form club. He spent time working with associates and met with various departments to discuss club and membership activities. The new class registration page is being well received with over 100 classes already posted to the database. Norm will be attending the WV State Convention next week. This week Rosanne Lawrence started training in her new position as Club Assistant. She hit the ground running and immediately started updating clubs and registering instructors. She also processed some telephone orders for materials and handouts and helped a club with publicity for their 50th anniversary. Rosanne thanks everyone for welcoming her and "making me feel like a valued member of the department so quickly!" Gail Iannone sent nine hamfest approval letters to the sponsoring committees confirming the Division Directors' approval of their events as "ARRL-sanctioned," processed 17 handout and door prize material orders and two label requests for upcoming events. She also coordinated travel for Bill Moore to be the HQ Rep at the Roanoke Division Convention to be held September 17th-18th in Virginia Beach, VA and for Dave Patton to be the HQ Rep at the W9DXCC Convention to be held September 16th-17th in Elk Grove Village, IL. Bill Barrett is finishing up reports for the CEP project and is in New Hampshire for a meeting with local hams, served agencies and the local Citizens Corps Council. Field Organization/Public Service Team The ARES E-Letter debuted this past week when the first issue was e-mailed to Field Organization leaders and Field appointees with a public service mission. The E-Letter was also posted on the ARRL Web page. Initial comments received have been very positive, and the ARRL Web's news page as well as Section Leaders are helping to encourage ARRL members and ARES participants to subscribe. Steve continued to work on the Public Service column, and he helped get the word out to Section Leaders about Amateur Radio Awareness Day and the Emergency Power Operating Event that are scheduled for September 17. The Section Leaders, in turn, are using their electronic Monthly Section News and Section Web pages to help spread these announcements. As reported earlier, the recent interference to an FAA frequency in Eastern Massachusetts has been quickly resolved. Chuck Skolaut also learned that interference on 2 meters that had been originating from a high-power cordless phone in Michigan was successfully tracked by several radio amateurs in the vicinity. This information was forwarded to the FCC. Various intruders have been reported on 20, 40, and 75 meters and are under investigation. One of our Section Managers has successfully completed his training exam to become an Official Observer. Chuck prepared to travel to and attend ARRL conventions in Missouri and Kansas over the August 19-21 weekend. Leona Adams received a nomination petition from incumbent Alabama Section Manager Greg Sarratt, W4OZK, for another term beginning January 1, 2006. SM election ballots for Los Angeles and Wyoming will be counted at Headquarters on Tuesday, August 23. Sincerely, Dave Patton, NN1N Special Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer DCP: lk Staff Absentee List All Staff 9/5 Holiday Joe Carcia 8/26 Vacation Steve Capodicasa 9/5-9/12 Vacation Joe Bottiglieri 8/26-9/6 Vacation Steve Coffey 8/22-9/2 Vacation Perry Williams 8/17-9/6 Vacation Steve Ewald 9/2 Vacation Mark Spencer 8/18-8/31 Vacation Dave Patton 9/16-9/18 W9DXCC Convention, Elk Grove, IL 10/20-10/24 Vera Cruz, Mexico (FMRE Convention) 11/21-11/28 Cartagena, Colombia (CQWW CW) Joel Hallas 8/17-8/26 Vacation Ed Hare 8/25-9/2 Vacation `` 9/8-9/9 Club talk in Rochester, NY Steve Ford 8/30-9/5 Vacation Dan Miller 8/21-8/26 APCO Conference, Denver, CO Dave Sumner 8/22-9/8 Vacation `` 9/9-9/19 IARU R1 and AC meetings, Davos and Zurich 9/30 Vacation 10/3-10/9 IARU R3 Directors meeting and SEANET meeting, Bangalore Ann Marie Pinto 8/17-8/26 Vacation Mary Hobart 9/8-9/11 SW Division - Riverside `` 9/15-9/16 Vacation `` 9/22-9/23 Vacation Rick Lindquist 9/19-9/20 Vacation Scott Gee 8/29-8/30 Vacation `` 9/29-9/30 Vacation Sharon Taratula 8/26 Vacation Eileen Sapko 8/25 - 8/26 Vacation Mike Gruber 8/22-8/26 Vacation