<<022410.doc>> IN-Newsletter <<Microsoft Word Picture>> Vol. 33, No. 8 February 24, 2010 -- Covers the period February 14-20. Upcoming Meetings and Events Executive Committee: March 13, 2010 @ 8:30am in Denver, CO Technical Relations Reported by Brennan Price, N4QX Brennan Price is working on a 135.7-137.8 kHz presentation to eventually be used in an effort to adopt the international allocation domestically. He is also engaged with the Coast Guard and NTIA on the United States position on 500 kHz. Jon Siverling is preparing for an up coming round of CITEL meetings. Regulatory Information Reported by Dan Henderson, N1ND State legislation and local ordinances appear to be on the front burner at this time. We worked with IL amateurs providing information for their state legislature's Speaker of the House concerning a proposed bill exempting amateur radio from cell phone legislation (IL HB 5761). Dubuque, IA passed a cell-phone bill that exempts PTT technology. Ann Arbor, MI has initially passed an ordinance that has some significant problems. It applies not only to motor vehicles but to bicycles as well. Among other things, the Ann Arbor ordinance prohibits devices that allow you to "talk or listen to another person" as well as use of GPS units, but does not address two-way radio use (though there is phraseology in the ordinance that could allow it to be used to include radios). We are also aware of ongoing cell phone legislation in MA, PA and VT. We have begun working with Ron, K5CFR, who has been denied a conditional use permit for a 60' tower in the town of Olive Branch, MS. We will continue to work with him as he appeals the decision. With the upcoming launch of the new website, we spent time reviewing and editing some migrated pages, as well as finalizing some database work in the VC/VCE areas. Field Day questions continue in on a regular basis as well. We also continue to work on finalizing the new web site content. Media & Public Relations Reported by Allen Pitts, W1AGP The annual request for reports to be included in the Annual Report for 2009 has gone out amidst the work being done to finalize and polish content for the new website. The PR Committee held their monthly conference call on Feb 17 and began laying plans for 2010, including a Field Day webinar in April and looking at September's 75th anniversary of ARES. CONTACT! for March 1st is being written and should go out on time. It will include information on the new promotional materials for contacting schools about Amateur Radio programs. Crisis level Amateur Radio events in Haiti are almost over now. While the repeaters erected by the Dominican hams are still in heavy use, no significant new actions have occurred and the Univ. of Miami hospital teams are wrapping up deployment. Development Reported by Mary Hobart, K1MMH The mailing to over 8000 diamond Club current and lapsed donors has produced a boost in revenue during February so far with responses $18,972 from 156 donors with an average contribution to the mailing of $121.62. The mailing promoted the monthly giving option to all Diamond Club participants and 10 donors took advantage of that option. So far in 2010 Diamond Club revenues have topped $42,000 from 290 donors with an average contribution of $145.42. The bound volumes of 2009 publications have been ordered for Maxim Society and Diamond Club Director Level donors. 15 sets have been requested and 36 sets of CDs of the publications. The biennial campaign for the W1AW Endowment is in the planning process. Production/Editorial Reported by Joel Kleinman, N1BKE The March/April 2010 issues of QEX and NCJ have been released to the printer. Thanks to Steve Sant Andrea, Khrystyne Keane, Joel Hallas, Steve Ford - and the QST production staff - for pinch-hitting for me when I was out last week as the April issue of QST was being put to bed. That issue includes an article summarizing the ham radio involvement in the Haiti earthquake relief - thanks to Allen Pitts for pulling it together. Khrystyne Keane wrote and distributed The ARRL Letter for February 18, 2010. Membership & Volunteer Programs Reported by Dave Patton, NN1N Field Organization/Public Service Team Chuck Skolaut compiled and sent the monthly Official Observer summary to all OOs, OOCs, and Section Managers. In addition, the monthly ARRL Monitoring System report was sent to the IARU Region 2 coordinator. Intruder reports this week included an update on the 5 -letter coded groups that's has been heard on 3549.6 MHz, foreign broadcast stations on 7176 kHz and 7185 kHz, and a bubble jammer on 18091 kHz. An Ohio Official Observer was able to help the un-licensed family of a radio amateur who had just become a Silent Key the previous night. The operator's transmitter, apparently, was left in transmission mode on 10 meters SSB. The OO heard a random announcement on the air with voices saying that they were looking for friends of the radio amateur. Luckily, the Silent Key's call sign was mentioned during one of these conversations or announcements. The OO found the location of the station by looking up his call sign on the data base, and it was local to this Official Observer. The OO paid a visit to the family at the station location and turned off the radio equipment that had been left on. Illinois Section Manager Tom Ciciora, KA9QPN, has been nominated for a new term of office starting in July, 2010. Nominations for Section Manager Candidates for new terms starting in July are due at Headquarters by March 5. Leona Adams and the Field Organization Team are prepared to count the Virginia Section Manager election ballots on Tuesday, February 23. Steve Ewald and the Field Organization Team (among many others) are continuing to work toward the transition to the new ARRL Web site. Education Services Reported by Debra Johnson, K1DMJ ARISS The Riley Avenue Elementary School, a rural school in Calverton, NY, has 600 students in grades K-4. The school science coordinator networks with the Brookhaven National Lab where many parents work, and the community heavily supports science education. Third and fourth graders did an ARISS interview with Astronaut T.J. Cramer on February 2, making ARISS part of their science unit on space and the solar system. ARISS touched all Riley Avenue students because of the school-wide program, "Parents as Reading Partners." This semester the program's theme was space, and the reading list contained non-fiction books about space. Teachers reported that the ARISS program piqued the interest of the students: they kept records of recent launches and showed great excitement in NASA science projects. The ARISS contact was a direct contact initiated by Jesse Greenberg, a fourth grader and newly licensed ham, W2EEO. Members of the Peconic Amateur Radio Club provided expertise, time, and radios for the contact, which was audible over the northeast part of the US. The school principal and the teacher, Rita Wright (KC9CDL), of Burbank School in Chicago that had the first-ever ARISS contact in 2000 were reminiscing recently about the learning activities and the impact of the event. The principal commented: "I continue to feel that the contact and the follow-up visit by Astronaut Bill Shepherd were, by far, my best experiences as an educator." Hams reported receiving SSTV images in early February from the Russian cosmonaut on board the ISS. Rosalie White K1STO reports that ARISS activity has recently been on standby while schedules have been in transition. Planning for the future, ARISS mentor, Kenneth Ransom, N5VHO, has been holding ham radio training sessions for astronauts scheduled for flight this year. NASA now has a Do-It-Yourself Podcast website for students whose classrooms are learning to build podcasts and is suggesting ARISS contacts as a topic students can work into their podcasts. Continuing Education Program Howard Robins W1HSR and I completed the final review edits on the new advanced EmComm course (including 5 pages of URLs to update the course to refer to new website URLs) and forwarded them to the instructional designer. I also supplied a separate list of URLs to CTDLC to update the EmComm Level 1 course on the Webmentor platform. I prepared the exam question pool to send to the online exam developer that will be developing the final assessment for the new advanced EmComm course and negotiated the final details of the services to be provided. The contract has been signed and the work will begin this week. Two hospital groups, one in the Chicago area, the other in Wisconsin, are reviving their efforts to license hospital employees using our online Ham Radio License Course. They first contacted us about their intentions last fall. We are currently enrolling over 100 people from these groups for our March course session. Education & Technology Program TI applications are coming in for both the introductory TI and the advanced TI-2s. The first Teachers Institute of 2010 opened on February 13 in Tucson AZ. This is an in-district TI with 21 participating teachers that is being led by Miguel Enriquez KD7RPP. It will be held over a series of four Saturdays during February and March at Jefferson Park Elementary School. Miguel has made this TI into a 45-hour program to include much more ham radio than there is time for in the other TIs. The teachers attending the TI will have near complete band coverage, using the equipment from last year's TI-2, along with the addition of a TS-2000, a R5 multi-band vertical antenna and a G5RV antenna. You-Tube videos of day one and day two of their activities are at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeGFCQD9EQQ&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEaVSEgFVak&feature=related Nathan McCray K9CPO has been very busy helping other teachers with glitches in their weather system and giving advice about various TI subjects. In preparation for upcoming TIs, he also has been testing Windows 7 interoperability with TI software. He reports that all of our TI software works with the program without any surprises. The SumoBot he is using in his advanced robotics program has been fun and interesting to teach. The students have learned about QTI sensors (an infrared emitter/receiver that is able to differentiate between a dark surface (with low reflectivity) and a light surface (with high reflectivity) and got to test them out-a big thrill for the students and instructor! Nathan plans to use the SumoBot for future TI's. Mark Spencer WA8SME reports good progress has been made in the execution of the November round of ETP grants. Shipping confirmation of one antenna and receipts from some special purchases for one Progress grant remains. The BOT Instructor's Board build for this year's TIs is complete. Curriculum development for TI-2s is a work in progress. Other activities I have started interviewing candidates for the part-time administrative position in the Department. I uploaded online course catalog information for online courses into the new website and continue editing and adding to other pages throughout the new site as time permits. Mark Spencer WA8SME has been working with Bob Allison WB1GCM on kits and producing kits for the Solder 101 booth at the Dayton Ham Expo. Sincerely Compiled by, Lisa Kustosik, KA1UFZ Assistant to the CEO Staff Absentee List All Staff 4/2 Holiday Leona Adams 2/26 Vacation Steve Capodicasa 3/1 Vacation `` 3/15 Vacation Steve Ford 3/5 Vacation `` 3/11 Seminar `` 3/22 Vacation `` 4/22-4/23 Vacation Scott Gee 3/8-3/10 Vacation `` 4/14-4/16 Vacation Mike Gruber 4/30 Vacation Joel Hallas 2/26 Jury Duty Ed Hare 2/26-2/27 VT Section Convention, Colchester, VT `` 3/10-3/12 IEEE Standards Dev. Committee meeting, San Diego, CA `` 3/15-3/19 Vacation `` 4/19-4/22 ANSI asc C63 EMC Comm. meeting, Piscataway, NJ Dan Henderson 3/5-3/7 S. Texas Section Convention/Greater Houston Hamfest Mary Hobart 3/11-3/12 Roanoke Division Convention, Charlotte NC `` 5/12-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton OH `` 6/10-6/11 HamCom, Dallas, TX Bob Inderbitzen 3/5 Atlantic Division Cabinet Meeting `` 4/8-4/9 AES Superfest, Milwaukee, WI Debra Johnson 2/26-3/1 Vacation Khrystyne Keane 3/5 Vacation Joel Kleinman 3/9-3/11 Vacation Amy Leary 2/26 Vacation Dave Sumner 3/12pm-3/14 Executive Committee Meeting, Denver, CO