Thanks Jim:  it would make sense to John to distribute the new program to the ODV.  73, Jim

From: arrl-odv [mailto:arrl-odv-bounces@reflector.arrl.org] On Behalf Of James F. Boehner, MD via arrl-odv
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2015 7:43 AM
To: 'G Widin' <gpwidin@comcast.net>; 'Marty Woll' <n6vi@socal.rr.com>
Cc: 'ODV Reflector' <arrl-odv@arrl.org>
Subject: [arrl-odv:24677] Caution When Using Letter Generator

To All,

John Proctor at ARRL HQ has an updated file.  Greg, prior to your Hamfest, ask him to send you an updated copy.

Some of the divisions had faulty programs on the memory stick.  My full database worked, but the division specific one did exactly what was discussed below.

May we change our way of distributing this letter writing  file?  Restricting it to directors is ridiculous. Dave, can we just ask John proctor to post the file on the ODV page (as well as updates) so then when an update is released, it is available to all of us?  We could then plan to download the updated file prior to each event.

If Directors consent is needed to release the file to Vice Directors, I’m sure we can easily do an e-mail vote.

All of us should receive the full database file, not a division specific.  It has saved us a lot of time to have the full database, so that when we get an out of division member, we do not have to type in all their information.

The program has worked well for us in the Roanoke Division.

’73 de JIM N2ZZ

Director – Roanoke Division

Serving ARRL members in the Virginia, West Virginia, South Carolina and North Carolina sections

ARRL – The National Association for Amateur Radio™

From: arrl-odv [mailto:arrl-odv-bounces@reflector.arrl.org] On Behalf Of G Widin
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2015 10:01 AM
To: Marty Woll
Cc: ODV Reflector
Subject: [arrl-odv:24674] Caution When Using Letter Generator

I plan to be running such letters next Saturday at a hamfest.  Getting our Senate letters right is of great importance because one of our Senators is on the relevant committee.

If anyone knows how to fix or work around this issue, a quick response would be most appreciated.

Tnx es 73,

      Greg, K0GW

On Sunday, September 13, 2015, Marty Woll <n6vi@socal.rr.com> wrote:

We're just back from the Southwestern Division Convention, having sent over
400 letters back with Ed Hare to HQ.  Unfortunately, over 160 of them may be
unusable.  It turns out that our Access database, which worked well for
House letters, was generating senate letters containing the house-bill
information.  We discovered this late Saturday morning after having already
put in eight hours at the booth since Friday afternoon.  Reinstalling the
database from the flash drive given to Directors did not fix the problem.
I'm glad I was not near a live mic at the time!  My work-around was to print
stacks of form letters I had previously created for our two California
senators and have people manually add their own address below their
signature.  That was, of course, a much slower process.

It had been made clear to me that changing the content of the
Access-generated letters requires considerable Access expertise, which I do
not possess.

I hope Dan and crew can figure out a way to make use of all those signatures
on the faulty letters.

73,

Marty N6VI


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