To answer Art's questions:

1) 21st Century Novice License, what key characteristics would make the exam not too daunting in your view? By current Part 97.523, an exam of 25 questions would require a question pool of at least 250 questions. Is some other approach needed?

My principal concern is with the RF safety questions, which involve a vocabulary that is not well understood even by longtime amateurs. By setting power limits at or below the levels that trigger the need for a station evaluation it should be possible to avoid much (not all -- some safety questions obviously should be retained) of what is now in Subelement T0 of the Technician exam. Questions about EME and other specialized operations could also be dropped. I'm not too concerned about 250 questions as long as the scope is limited to what someone needs to know at the entry level. 2) BPL, no mention of an independent technical measurement activity. Are we going to sponsor such an activity and how much is it going to cost? How will it add value to what we're already doing? The report includes the following: · We have contracted with Metavox, Inc. to conduct independent measurements of interaction between BPL and Amateur Radio stations in the Washington, DC vicinity. We anticipate that much of their work will be done in Manassas. The contract is for a not-to-exceed price of $17,000, which includes certification be Professional Engineers. What it gives us is a study we can cite that was not done by ARRL staff. We would like to contract for another study, an independent analysis of existing data on BPL/amateur radio compatibility. Paul has had some discussions with potential contractors but hasn't found one he's comfortable with. 3) American Samoa, we should revise the DXCC rule - but what persuades us that will solve the JA1BK problem? Even with the DXCC rule change, there still could be a push for independent IARU status as "payback" for past perceived slights. Just causing ARRL "to blink" on a DXCC rule may not be enough. Changing the rule removes the rational motivation for creating IARU member-societies where none need exist. There's not much to be done about irrational motivations. Yes, Kan could continue to push, but at the cost of his credibility -- which is already shaky after East Timor, where practically no one agreed with his rationale for removing one DXCC entity and replacing it with another, identical entity. 4) Do you recommend the creation of a staff position of Chief Technology Officer? Yes. Joel explained the rationale for his proposal to A&F, and I hope he will repeat it for the rest of the Board. 5) What should we expect regarding implementation priorities and timelines for our strategic plan? The strategies selected by the Executive Committee are included in the 2004 operational plan. The additional strategy recommended by A&F is: D1. Develop a system for allocating all relevant expenses (both direct and indirect) to specific programs and services. As I understand it, A&F regards this as an essential element in our being able to evaluate and prioritize existing and potential future programs and services. In other words, we can't do D5 (which was selected by the EC for 2004 implementation) unless we also do D1, nor can we conduct the strategic program assessment (B4) which was not selected for 2004 implementation but might be selected in a future year. 6) What changes in priorities and service responsiveness will our members experience as a result of balancing the budget? Will our Members notice any difference at all? Most members will not notice any difference. Exam processing might take an extra day. Dave K1ZZ