IN-Newsletter Vol. 26, No. 34 August 27, 2003 Development The special Spectrum Defense campaign against BPL has reached $252,749 from 4768 donors. The average donation has reached $53.01. A special letter has been emailed to more than 2100 clubs nationwide to encourage their consideration of a club contribution to the fund at their next meeting. Initial response to the letter has been positive. The Education & Technology Fun has reached $81,461 from 1467 donors. The Historic Preservation Fund test mailing has raised $2665 from 73 donors. The Diamond Club continues to attract donors daily. Participation is now up to 791 members contributing $108,012. Two new planned gift commitments were received during the past week. The announcement on year two funding of the CNCS Emergency Communications grant is expected on Friday, August 29. Production/Editorial The October issue of QST has been released to the printer. Rick Lindquist reports that The ARRL Letter circulation continues to creep upward: The Aug 22 edition (Vol 22, No 33) distributed to a record 67,532 members--about 44 percent of our membership. In addition to compiling the "Happenings" column for October QST, Rick wrote/edited news stories on ARRL's reply comments and NTIA's late-hour comments in the BPL proceeding, the completion of the 880-mile charity marathon of pianist Martin Berkofsky, KC3RE (who also put in an appearance on ARRL Audio News for Aug 22--take a listen <http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter/audio/>), and a followup story on the passing of Roy Neal, K6DUE. He also wrote/edited several Web briefs including items on the UO-14 shutdown, ARRL Contest Committee decision on the Timor-Leste petition, hams injured in the Baghdad explosion, spam not coming from ARRL HQ, and additional countries deleting their Morse exam requirement for HF access. Rick produced the weekly edition of ARRL Audio News with voiceover assistance from Brennan Price, N4QX, and Jennifer Hagy, N1TDY. We checked printer's proofs for The 2004 ARRL Handbook and ordered a new printing of Experimental Methods in RF Design. In addition, the 22nd TAPR/ARRL Digital Conference Proceedings has been released to the printer. Dean Straw, N6BV, is working at HQ this week, wrapping up work on the new 20th edition of The ARRL Antenna Book. Stu Cohen, N1SC, attended the Eastern VHF/UHF Conference in Enfield, Connecticut. Sales & Marketing Product Fulfillment Supervisor, Zoe Belliveau, reports that Rhode Island Section Manager, Bob Beaudet, W1YRC, will be stopping by ARRL later this week to pick up a number of titles he will be donating to the RI FM Repeater group. Bob will also be picking up eight library sets to donate to affiliated clubs who will then donate these titles to their local school or library. October QST will include a new ad from RSGB offering subscriptions to RadCom magazine (and including RSGB membership). New subscribers can contact ARRL to sign-up. The new rate of $69 USD reflects RSGB's July 1st dues increase. Diane Szlachetka is finalizing a new membership certificate to replace the present print-it-yourself certificate on the ARRLWeb. Along with preparing advertising for October QST, Di supported a number of other graphic design projects this month including a membership solicitation, applications and signs for a test membership program, and a revised membership brochure. She also continues to support the graphic designer at MFJ as their catalog is readied for printing and to ride-along with November QST. Di attended a free seminar sponsored by Adobe. Among the products featured was a demonstration of Adobe InDesign. InDesign provides new ways to manage graphic design and layout, including pre-media (pre-press) support -- subjects quite important to our group. Bob Inderbitzen worked with Sue Fagan to complete a draft of the ARRL Antenna Book cover. The design will be finalized during editor Dean Straw's visit at the end of the month. Bob provided new product information and images to Amateur Electronic Supply (AES) and Ham Radio Outlet (HRO) supporting their upcoming Fall/Winter catalogs. Thanks to all HQ hams who completed the draft version of the National Amateur Radio Survey. Janet Rocco compiled all of the feedback and write-in responses. The exercise helped identify some areas requiring additional revision. The solicitation and leads were finalized for the large Fall Membership mailing campaign. It will mail in early September. The new editions of The ARRL Handbook and The ARRL Antenna Book will debut in October QST. The Advertising staff worked to track down straggler advertisers for October QST. Work also continues on "inside page" advertising for the Antenna Book. Although flyers, emails, and faxes were sent, final follow-up calls continue. Finishing touches were put on our latest membership Recruitment Pilot Program, which commences on Monday August 24. For a limited time, HRO's Anaheim store will offer visitors a special ARRL membership application that entitles any brand new or returning (after a lapse of 1 year) ARRL member a $5 gift coupon that may be redeemed with their next purchase at any HRO location. The new member receives the HRO coupon from ARRL with their membership package. Custom membership applications and store promotion signs were prepared for this promotion. Membership Services Awards Branch WAS QSL Cards Checked 450 WAS Certs. (700 QSLs F/C) 14 WAS Certs. (250 QSLs ES/C) 5 WAC QSL Cards Checked 84 A-1 Operator Noms. 8 A-1 Operator Certs. 6 25-Year Member Awards 45 40-Year Member Awards 12 50-Year Member Award 1 RCC Awards 8 OTC Awards 3 Friendship Awards 6 Awards Mailed 25 Processing Status: Current or up to three weeks. For the coming week-WAS Specialty, U.S. WAC, and VUCC awards, Extra Class certificates, mail out all awards processed this week, and work on budget matters. DXCC Branch For the week of: August 24, 2003 Beginning Cards 100,019 Cards Received 15,780 Cards Processed 6,593 Ending Cards 109,206 Applications Pending 811 Processing Time 5.5 Weeks Year-to-date (2003) Cards Received 393,935 Cards Returned 492,740 DXCC is currently mailing applications received on July 16, 2003. DXCC is currently entering cards received on July 21, 2003. One (1) DXCC card checker was appointed this week. Wayne Mills, N7NG, attended the Tokyo Hamfair this past weekend. He reports about 228 applications checked. Contest Branch We finished data entry for all paper logs for Field Day and began the process of dealing with the over 1000 Field Day emails (some are duplicate submissions). The final work on the DX Phone article was completed and the web results opened to the membership. A full day was spent Tuesday with W3ZZ, who was visiting HQ. Gene has been working with us on the VHF contest write-ups and we spent the day looking at additional options that might be included in the write-ups, working out ways to coordinate with additional authors, and discussing ways to get some of the write-ups on to a more regional basis. Problem logs for the IARU HF Championships continued to come in and be manually processed by HQ Staff. QSL Bureau QSL Service Status: Current. Cards mailed as of 08/24/003: 1,001,475. Cards mailed on 08/22/2003: 85,750. Heather Dzamba spent 4 hours conducting tours around HQ. W1AW Members of the New England QRP Club were on hand over the weekend to operate W1AW during their meeting at HQ. They made about 20 QSOs on 30 and 20 meters. Scott worked on fast and slow code practice files for the latter part of the month of August and early September. He handled some evening phone sales calls in the 5 PM to 8 PM time slot and completed work on the Elecraft K2 QRP transceiver in time for a debut during the meeting of the NE QRP Club. Joe processed regular W1AW QSL card requests and installed repaired equipment returned from Harris Corporation. He also made a few repairs to the Harris keying matrix. W1AW Telephone Sales year to date (2003): $19,217. Field & Educational Services Rosalie gave comments to Mary Hobart about a BPL solicitation for clubs, interviewed possible candidates for retiring SMs, and looked in to how to memorialize Roy Neal's call sign at the request of his family. She reviewed business cards from First Responders collected after her talk at the APCO international conference -- some wanted further information. Regulatory Information John Hennessee assisted amateurs in Roper, NC (KF4OTN) and Paulding County, GA (W3CH) with questions on local government zoning, and an amateur in Hesston, KS (KD5HGS) with a covenant inquiry. He heard from an amateur in Pennsylvania (N3NBT) on a possible PRB-1 statute, and the ham was referred to the SMs. LGLs have been invited to subscribe to the SGL Reflector. Steve sent a message to 116 LGLs inviting them to subscribe and John is implementing this. He reports 20 responses thus far, after less than a day. Field Organization/Public Service Team Steve Ewald received additional reports on Amateur Radio support of served agencies in the power-outage areas. The outage sparked post-event discussions on the SEC Reflector, and several SECs shared their Section Emergency Plans with one another. Steve is staying in touch with Montana Section officials who are reporting on ARES response to fires there. Chuck Skolaut represented HQ at the ARRL Kansas State Convention, which had a better turnout than last year, and forums were well attended. Upon receiving documentation and reports from IARU Region 2 monitoring coordinator Martin Potter, Chuck contacted Jim Ballis of the FCC International Bureau requesting their assistance on a continuing interference problem to Amateur beacons on 14100 kHz. Leona Adams is working on an increased number of Field Organization appointment changes, cancellations and data updates from SMs. This, likely, is in response to the new format for the monthly appointment files that were sent to SMs earlier this month. William Voedisch, W1UD, incumbent Western Massachusetts SM, has been nominated for another term of office. CCE Howard Robins says the new Antenna Design and Construction on-line course is positioned to beta test as soon as it is posted in September. We strongly recommend that students also have a copy of Simple and Fun Antennas for Hams for reference and will offer a special bundled price for those who do not have a copy. Jerry Ellis keeps up with student fulfillment -- printing ARECC graduate certificates and ID cards, and mailing these with reimbursement checks, and now surveys, sew-on patches, and decals. He opened Level 1 and Antenna Modeling classes this week, and made mentor-student assignments for other classes that start next week. Field & Education Support Team Margie Bourgoin processed one new SSC, one club renewal, and sent one new club application off for Director approval. Margie thanks Jean Wolfgang and Mark Spencer for their assistance with software and equipment for her convention presentation. Linda Mullally updated 30 club records and did 2 reactivations, registered 6 Volunteer Instructors and 1 Schoolteacher. She sent out 1 Exhibit kit and 2 JOTA Kits, and also 12 initial supply packages for new appointments. Gail Iannone sent 7 hamfest approval letters and 2 convention approval letters to the sponsoring committees confirming the Division Director's approval of events as ARRL-sanctioned, processed 2 label requests, 17 door prize orders and sent 19 handout packages for upcoming hamfests. She sent Wouff Hong supplies for the Southwestern Division Convention, and coordinated travel for Wayne Mills as HQ rep at the W0DXCC Convention in October in Bloomington, MN. Jean Wolfgang worked on fine tuning two short slide shows on the Harmonics web site under Ham-ster Adventures. She continues to learn more about graphic programs and the possibilities. She also suggested some new goals pertaining to her responsibilities in F&ES. Mary Lau forwarded a Big Project proposal to the ARRL Foundation's Proposal Committee and continued work on budget research. Amateur Radio Education & Technology Project Mark Spencer has had increased contact with schools and interested hams, which shows building enthusiasm for the Project as the opening of school approaches. When the activity is serious enough, he involves appropriate SMs, Directors and Vice Directors in the correspondence. For hams who want to give a talk to school administrators, Mark provides PowerPoint presentations targeted to administration for the ham to plagiarize, plus the first sections of the curriculum, which the administration needs to formulate a program. EmComm Grants Dan Miller prepared materials for, and then traveled to the ARRL Missouri State Convention where he was to present his seminars on emcomm grants. 73, Sincerely, Mark Wilson, K1RO Chief Operating Officer MW:lk Staff Absentee List All Staff 9/1 Holiday Dave Sumner 8/26-8/29 Vacation 9/4pm-9/9 Amsterdam, Administrative Council meeting 9/12 St Louis, strategic planning meeting 9/15 Washington DC donor reception 9/19-9/21 W9DXCC Convention Mark Wilson 8/28-29 & 9/2 Vacation 9/12 St Louis, strategic planning meeting Barry Shelley 9/12 St Louis, strategic planning meeting Mary Hobart 9/12 St Louis, strategic planning meeting Jennifer Hagy 8/25-8/29 Vacation Dennis Motschenbacher 9/6-9/9 WPA Section Convention 9/9-9/16 Vacation 9/19-9/21 W9DXCC Convention - personal 9/23-9/26 MFJ/ArraySol/TXTwr sales calls 10/2-10/6 Ten Tec Hamfest 10/10-10/12 NNY Section Convention 10/15-10/19 HRO, Pacificon Convention 11/6-11/7 Training Perry Williams 7/26-9/2 Vacation Wayne Mills 8/26-9/4 Vacation 9/19-9/21 W9DXCC Convention Heather Dzamba 8/25-8/27 Vacation Dan Henderson 8/28-8/29 Shelby Convention Margie Bourgoin 9/5 Vacation Mary Lau 9/4-9/5 Vacation `` 9/8pm & 9/9pm Vacation Joe Carcia 8/29pm Vacation `` 9/5 Vacation Joe Bottigieri 8/25-8/29 Vacation Deb Jahnke 8/27 Vacation Mark Dzamba 8/25-8/29 Vacation Pam Dzamba 8/25-8/29 Vacation Kathy Capodicasa 9/1-9/9 Vacation Steve Capodicasa 9/1-9/9 Vacation Rick Lindquist 10/30-11/7 Vacation