<<092408.doc>> IN-Newsletter <<Microsoft Word Picture>> Vol. 31, No. 39 September 24, 2008 -- Covers the period September 14-20. Upcoming Meetings and Events Section Manager Workshop October 10-12 - ARRL HQ United States Telecommunications Training Institute (USTTI) October 13-17 - ARRL HQ Executive Committee Meeting October 18 @ 9:00am in Chicago, IL Ballot Counting for Director/Vice Director Elections November 21 in Newington, CT Administration &Finance Committee November 22 @ 8:30am in Newington, CT Media & Public Relations Reported by Allen Pitts, W1AGP A press release penned last week resulted in a small flurry of radio and a few more local newspaper reports including ham activities, but no major national coverage. AP released a story documenting the changes to emergency communications by responders since Katrina's debacle. So as Amateur Radio's response to Hurricane Ike slowly winds down, activities resume for "normal" work including meeting Barry Cohen, K2JV; and plans for upcoming events next week with Bob Josuweit, WA3PZO; and Bill Bennett KB2ZDZ regarding the NYC Marathon. Budget projections for 2009 are in progress as well as exploring the 2009 creation of an online PR 101 course for PIOs similar to EmComm 1 classes - hopefully also having similar positive results. Development Reported by Mary Hobart, K1MMH Development traveled to W9DXCC last weekend to connect with donors and prospects. The status of current campaigns is as follows: * W1AW Endowment has raised nearly $58,000 year-to-date from 990 donors. 324 contributions have come from the on-line membership form totaling $4399. The most productive mail segment was from prior donors to W1AW who responded with $21,762. Prior donors to any campaign produced $17,859. The campaign for Historic Preservation has raised $3784 from 96 donors. The Lab campaign has raised $3624 from 77 donors. The Education & Technology campaign has raised $18,926 from 398 donors. The follow up to the Education & Technology Fund campaign was mailed to major donors and major prospects. The 2009 Spectrum Defense campaign to all ARRL members is being produced with an expected mail date of October 6. The Diamond Club revenues have reached $189,000 from 1378 contributions. The program has attracted 260 new donors in 2008 and 85 members have upgraded with contributions over and above their membership dues. In October ARRL will extend the annual offer of an ARRL calendar for all renewal and new Diamond Club participation of $100 or more. Buck slips will be included with the first two member renewal notices and in Diamond Club renewal letters. 30 new bricks are ready to be installed in the diamond Terrace. Effective Feb 1, 2009, Diamond Club participants at Brass Level ($250 a year) and above will have access to the most recent four years of QST on-line as a new benefit. Production/Editorial Reported by Joel Kleinman, N1BKE Getting Started with Ham Radio is being reprinted. The November 2008 issue of QST was released to the printer September 24. Khrystyne Keane wrote and distributed The ARRL Letter, Vol. 27, No. 37, for September 19, 2008. It went out to more than 71,000 subscribers. She also voiced and produced ARRL Audio News for September 19. Sales and Marketing Reported by Bob Inderbitzen, NQ1R The recent membership solicitation has returned 803 applications, with 49% of those being multi-year terms. As we have seen in previous mailings where we split the mailing between former and never members, the return is again 60-40 with more former members responding. The latest MetLife direct mailing reached member mailboxes last week. This new campaign ties in with their national campaign seen on television. A new ad in November QST is planned. Marsh Affinity Group Services is preparing a mailing for the ARRL "Special Risk" Ham Radio Equipment Insurance Plan. The 2009 QST schedule has been committed. The "sworn circulation statements" for all three periodicals are due to the US Postal Service by October 1. The November issue of QST features two new ARRL publications: Basic Antennas--Understanding Practical Antennas and Design and The ARRL Satellite Handbook. Both are expected in-stock November 15. The 2009 ARRL Calendar is scheduled to arrive at the warehouse this week. The Warehouse crew fulfilled 711 packages for publication and product orders, shipped 402 free book membership premiums, and sent October QST mailing supplements Membership & Volunteer Programs Reported by Dave Patton, NN1N Contest Branch Reaction to the October Radiosport edition of QST continues to be overwhelmingly positive. I have yet to have a single email addressed to me complaining of the contesting content. Many are along a similar theme: "thanks for re-emphasizing contesting content in QST and please keep it coming." Certificates for the 2007 Sweepstakes went out the door last week. Plates for the Sweepstakes plaques should be here in the next couple weeks and we have committed to get those out as fast as humanly possible once the plates arrive. We've received 266 logs for the September VHF Contest so far. The log submission deadline is in three weeks. Sean made an announcement to the contesting community that the cost of contest plaques would be going up from $67 to $75, beginning with the 2009 ARRL RTTY Roundup. This is the first cost increase for contest plaques in several years. W1AW Joe conducted a frequency measuring test on all the broadcast transmitters to ensure they are still operating on W1AW's exact frequencies. He also processed regular QSL card requests. Joe processed one Qualifying Run endorsement. He also began processing the paper logs from the 2008 ARRL Southwestern Division Convention special event station W1AW/7. Throughout the week, Joe also hosted a number of amateurs who were participating in Mike Martin's, K3RFI, line-noise course being held at ARRL. (As part of the course, Mike and his group went to determine the sources of line-noise still plaguing W1AW.) Scott worked on slow and fast code practice files for the latter part of the month of September. Field Organization/Public Service Team Leona reports that she has prepared five Section Manager statement of candidates along with their photos and the SM ballot cards which were sent off for printing today. The following sections will have upcoming SM elections: Eastern Massachusetts, Indiana, New York City/Long Island, Nebraska and Southern New Jersey. Ballots and statements are scheduled to be mailed to members by October 1, 2008. Ballots are to be returned to HQ by Friday, November 14th and will be counted on the following Tuesday, November 19th. Leona reports that she has received an SM nomination petition for Tom Fagan, K7DF for the Arizona section for the term beginning April 1, 2009. Chuck reports amateurs from Michigan and South Carolina completed certification to become Official Observers this week. The monthly ARRL Monitoring System/Intruder Watch report was forwarded to the IARU Region 2 coordinator. Copy was prepared for the International Humanitarian Award announcement to be published in QST. Several OO issues were discussed with Bob Beaudet, W1YRC, the Section Manager from Rhode Island, during a recent visit to headquarters. Chuck assisted with monitoring activities associated with Hurricane Ike at W1AW this past weekend. Web/Software Development Reported by Jon Bloom, KE3Z Hugh Brower made additions to the online credit-card system which allow the Comptroller'sDept. to enter credit-card transactions via that mechanism rather than using the old NOVA system. He also dealt with a blockage of ARRL-sourced email by Outblaze. Activity in the online QST archive has settled down to a steady stream of users, in the neighborhood of a daily 200-300 members downloading 1000-2500 articles or so. Jon Bloom made some tweaks to the system as requested by Ed Hare to clarify points that were confusing to some users and to do some further database clean-up. With assistance from Hugh Brower, Jon also troubleshot and fixed a cookie-related problem with the service. Jon Bloom wrote a module that will allow Micah Murray to pull VE test session data from Siebel for the new VEC screens he's working on. What's particularly interesting about this is that the mechanism used is a server-to-server "Web services" interface (XML-RPC) that ties into the existing middleware code that was written during the past year to support processing membership applications directly into Siebel. That underlying code is being used by: the local program that processes incoming membership application records, by a client Javascript/AJAX program running in the Web browsers of our Customer Service representatives, and now by a server process that will be used to provide browser-based tools for VEC. We anticipate that the XML-RPC interface will also be the means for additional server applications to access the back-end systems, among them the new Web site being developed by Fathom. That hideously geeky explanation means only that the software we have previously written for integration of the Web and internal systems is being reused for new purposes as we expand the integration and add functionality. Micah continues to work on that VEC system, which is almost ready for VEC testing. Sincerely Compiled by, Lisa Kustosik, KA1UFZ Assistant to the CEO Staff Absentee List Kathy Allison 9/25 Vacation Jon Bloom 10/4-10/13 Vacation Katie Breen 9/26-9/29 Vacation Hugh Brower 9/29-10/3 Vacation Steve Capodicasa 9/26 Vacation Jackie Cornell 10/10-10/12 Florida State Convention, Melbourne, FL Dennis Dura 9/20 EmComm East, Rochester, NY - Dennis Dura Steve Ewald 9/12-9/24 Vacation Steve Ford 10/13 Vacation `` 10/31 Vacation Norm Fusaro 9/22-9/26 Vacation Scott Gee 10/3-10/6 Vacation `` 12/23-12/26 Vacation Dan Henderson 10/3-10/5 Western New York Section Convention, Buffalo, NY `` 10/10-10/13 Michigan Section Convention, Kalamazoo, MI Mary Hobart 10/3 Vacation Bob Inderbitzen 10/15-10/20 Pacific Division Convention Joel Kleinman 9/26-10/1 Washington State Convention, Spokane, Vacation `` 10/3 Vacation `` 10/9 Vacation Lisa Kustosik 9/26-10/10 Vacation Sean Kutzko 9/30-10/6 Pacific Northwest VHF Conference, Moses Lake, WA Zack Lau 9/20-9/26 Vacation Bill Moore 10/8-10/14 RSGB Convention, England Allen Pitts 10/6 Vacation `` 10/14 Vacation `` 10/31 Vacation `` 11/3 Vacation Brennan Price 9/23-9/25 Washington Dave Sumner 9/23-9/25 Washington `` 10/16pm-10/20 Executive Committee Meeting, Chicago, IL