IN-Newsletter Vol. 25, No. 38 September 23, 2002 Development The 2003 Development budget and plan draft is complete. The Diamond Club....While the pins, decals and program brochures are in production, the finishing touches are being made to the 55,000 piece mailing which will mail as soon as the brochures are received on September 30. The Web site is almost ready and will go live to support the mailing. A new ad has been prepared for November QST. The 2003 Defense of Frequencies Fund. A new ad was prepared for November QST and the Web site is complete and active. The mail files and letter for the first mailing of 150,000 to active and some lapsed members. Follow up letters will go to major donors, prior donors and Life Members about two weeks after the initial mailing. The goal for the 2003 Defense Fund is $500,000. Debra Johnson has been hard at work to complete the donor/prospect database. This database will be used to promote the Diamond Club and to continue our planned giving education campaign. Development continues to respond to members who express interest in planned giving with information on wills, bequests and other giving opportunities. Media Relations Jennifer worked with a reporter from US Medicine, a monthly healthcare periodical. The article will focus on bringing more hams into veterans affairs hospitals to assist during times of emergency. She also worked with a reporter from Corporate Connecticut magazine, a new monthly periodical covering Connecticut business news. The reporter will be interviewing Dan Miller for a two (or more) page article on the federal grant. The reporter is already armed with our federal and UTC grant press releases and two contacts to interview in his area. Jennifer did a brief conference call with PRC members Rich Moseson and Jeff Reinhardt to clear up questions about the final edits to the new PIO Handbook. As soon as those edits can be made, the manual will be turned over to Tom Hogerty. This will no longer exist in printed form. Jennifer handled the usual amount of requests from members, including some from reporters needing nomination forms for the Bill Leonard, W2SKE, Professional Media Award. Sales & Marketing We are anxiously awaiting the Siebel conversion and training with live data for membership, publications, and advertising. Membership Staff is hard at work on their 2003/2004 Plan draft for new membership solicitation work. Kathy Capodicasa and Bob Inderbitzen continue to coordinate pieces for our Fall membership campaign, mailing in early October. Production has these materials now. Roseanne Lawrence, KB1DMW, assembled a prospective ham mailing for the young granddaughter of one of the US delegates meeting with Dave Sumner in Geneva. Product Sales Lisa Tardette's telemarketing efforts gleaned $5,498 in gross product sales. She continues to make follow-up calls to pre-sell the new edition of the Handbook. Between customer calls, Lisa, working with Bob Inderbitzen, finished a new Dealer NewsLine newsletter that will go to the printer soon. Deb Jahnke made contact with Ingram Publishing to insure they had all relevant information about the upcoming Handbook edition (both hard and soft cover). Ingram was the primary buyer of the hardcover edition last year. Deb also completed a report of year-to-date dealer sales totals. We are pleased to see that we now have 3 mainstream book sellers in our "Top 10 Dealers" list: Barnes and Noble, Baker and Taylor and now, because of steady purchases of a variety of titles, Ingram Publishing joins the group. Since Ingram sells a good portion of their titles to libraries, we are especially pleased, since one of our goals is to increase library sales. We continue to search out and approach other organizations that mirror Ingram's business profile in an attempt to bring them on board as well. The final edition of the Callbook CD-ROM, Winter 2003 edition, will be available in mid-November (ARRL Order No. 8794, Retail $49.95 plus shipping/handling). The Proceedings of the 21st ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference is now available for sale. The conference was held September 13-15, 2002 in Denver, CO (http://www.arrl.org/catalog/?item=8756. ARRL Order No. 8756 Retail $20 plus S&H). The Proceedings of the 8th Western States Weak Signal Society Conference will be available soon. The conference will be held October 11-13, 2002, in Cerritos, California (http://www.arrl.org/catalog/?item=8748. ARRL Order No. 8748 Retail $20 plus S&H). Bob placed orders for a handful of products carried by ARRL and produced by third parties. Bob met with Sue Fagan to provide design input for the cover of the upcoming Volume 7 of the ARRL Antenna Compendium. The new book will be available later this Fall. Mandatory USPS Statement of Ownership forms documenting all magazine distribution for a one year period were prepared by Deb acting in her dual capacity as Circulation Manager. Advertising Holiday theme advertising reminder cards will reach advertisers this week. Follow-up calls by our staff will further enhance the impact of the mailing that is being made to reinforce the importance of advertising in November QST. The new QST Business Guide idea created by Hanan Rayyashi and fine-tuned by the Sales & Marketing team has signed its first client - only two days after the introductory mailing went out. We are expecting this new QST advertising product to become a regular feature appearing in the magazine at appropriate times throughout the year. We are working on QST advertising proposal with a new client. The ad employed entirely new concepts introduced by our team to expand our ad product offerings. Unfortunately, the ad challenged the capabilities of our magazine printer, and we are working with all parties to work out the details in time for December. We are certain that the effort we are putting into this ad and others with similar unique approaches to advertising will provide us with the knowledge and experience needed to use these products to expand our future advertising revenues. Hanan Rayyashi and Joe Bottiglieri made telephone contacts with potential advertisers last week focused particularly on companies who were mailed a Prospect Media Kit the week before. Two of the above contacts successfully brought Toronto Surplus & Scientific and AEA Wireless back as QST advertisers starting with the November issue. Although recruiting advertisers for QEX and Web banner ads has been challenging, National RF decided to give QEX a try in the next issue and Solder-It is nearing a commitment for a banner ad. Radio City, a QST advertiser and publication dealer, expressed interest in exploring a more visible advertising layout. The Sales and Marketing team will conduct a joint development effort with them to discover how best to use our ad products to accomplish their goal. Deb and Bob teleconferenced with a publications advertiser seeking details about the Amateur Radio market. Our client is at a critical stage in his business development, and the information we provided will help him complete a proposal for prospective investors. Carol Patton updated the Advertising database for November insertions and has been working on the actual layout and paste-up. The classified ads have been submitted to production for output. A new Sworn Circulation Statement was prepared by Deb for distribution to our advertisers. Production/Editorial The November issue of QST will be released to the printer September 25. We have ordered new printings of Now You're Talking!, Stealth Amateur Radio and Emergency Communications Course Level 1. Field & Educational Services The Big Project Jerry Hill met with ISD about setting up a reflector for the Big Project schools and reports that all Big Project schools were in favor of setting up the reflector. Jerry also had a sked with Winchell Elementary School in MI. The contact was part of a kick off at the school for their Amateur Radio Club. He talked with 4 students and welcomed them to the "world of amateur radio." Jerry will be going on the air Tuesday's and Thursday's at lunch, to contact as many of the Big Project Schools as possible. CCE, CNCS/UTC Grants Jerry Ellis is preparing to open registration for a Satellite Communications course for next Monday, and has assigned mentors to Level 3 and HF Digital classes also starting on Monday. Howard Robins continues to work with Jon Bloom and Tom Hogerty to incorporate changes to the on-line CCE course information and registration system. The RFI course is a little closer to becoming a reality, and the wheels are in motion toward promoting our products a little better with the aim of increasing course registrations. As preparations are made to rollout the next phase of CNCS Level I classes--for ARRL members who hold Field Appointments--Dan Miller says progress is being made on other fronts as well. In addition to online graduations, the number of field sessions being received is beginning to increase. This week, Level I emergency communications certifications issued for field sessions include: 13 in West Chester, PA; 2 in Sioux Falls, SD; 1 each in Columbia, MO and Massilon, OH. Field & Educational Support Team Jo-Ann Arel updated 28 Clubs, 14 Instructors, 4 Teachers, and mailed 4 videos, 6 JOTA kits, 40 Brochures, 3 ExamWins disks and 7 Graduation Kits. She also entered OO reports, mailed our ARES report forms to the EC, and assisted in MSD. Jean Wolfgang spoke with a fellow who was writing an article for the local paper in WA. The article will be on William Dumond, W7QT who won the 2001 ARRL Professional Educator Award. Scouting activity continues to increase as measured by greater email and phone calls. Margie Bourgoin reports 8 new Clubs were just approved by the EC and she entered on to TASS. She also processed 3 SSC renewals. Teacher update replies have been streaming-in, nicely - 126 to date. Gail Iannone sent 8 convention applications to the Executive Committee for their approval and notified the sponsoring committees that they were approved. She also sent 2 hamfest approval letters and 3 convention approval letters to the sponsoring clubs, processed 10 door prize orders, 2 label requests and sent 12 handout packages for upcoming events. She also coordinated travel for Dan Henderson, N1ND, to be the HQ rep at the Indiana State Convention to be held on November 16-17, 2002 in Fort Wayne. Mary Lau researched club histories for two once identically-named clubs located in Ventura County, California. She also prepared annual filing documents for the Secretary of State-CT Dept. of Public Charities. Section/Divisions with relays this week included: PAC=3; SDG=2; AR, OR, WVA, NNT, and SW Div, CEN Div=1 each. Regulatory Information John assisted amateurs with local government zoning concerns in Fort Myers, FL (KF4UTH), Phoenix, AZ (KJ7E), Clinton, TN (KD4MEX) Missouri City, TX (KB5F), Medford, NJ (K2UT) and Los Angles, CA (KG6GIL). The amateur in Missouri City, TX is scheduled to go to Federal court in two weeks. He also worked with the ARRL equipment insurance administrator who was very prompt in resolving several pending insurance concerns. Field Organization/ Public Service Team Steve and Leona worked with Section Manager candidate statements, and Leona continued to prepare for SM elections in WPA, WCF, and SC. The ballots and statements will be printed this coming week and mailed to members by October 1. There has also been an increase in Field appointments this week because of the upcoming October class of the Amateur Radio Emergency Communication Course, Level I. Membership Services Awards Branch WAS QSL Cards Checked 350 WAS Certificates 8 5 Band WAS Certificates 2 Long Term Member Inquiries 1 WAS Certificates Mailed 25 VUCC Backfill Applications 2 Grids (Data Entry) 435 VUCC Endorsement Applications 6 Grids (Data Entry) 785 VUCC Initial Applications 6 Grids (Data Entry) 795 Processing Status: Current or within three weeks. For the coming week-WAC QSL card checking, Code Proficiency awards, Extra Class certificates, RCC, OTC, and Friendship awards, VUCC awards processing and mailing, and enter the latest long term member award recipients' records into TASS. DXCC Branch Weekly Report September 22, 2002 Beginning Cards 134,250 Cards Received 16,943 Cards Processed 10,854 Ending Cards 140,339 Applications Pending 1,556 Processing Time 4 Weeks Year-to-date Cards Received 434,412 Cards Returned 454,095 QRPs issued this week 0 QRPs YTD 231 DXCC is currently mailing applications received on August 19, 2002. DXCC is currently entering cards received on August 22, 2002. Contest Branch Editing of the 2002 DX Phone article continued and the web results were made available to the preview group. The QST version of the DX Phone article was received back from the production and necessary cuts were made to accommodate the available space. We continued work with the June VHF log processors on debugging the electronic results for that event. The article for the November QST contest on Q&A and changes to the General Rules was finalized, sent to production, reviewed and returned for final processing. We are still discussing the possible changes in contest announcements and rules presentations for QST. We experienced problems with both the in-house email system and the Aptos robot for the 2002 September VHF QSO Party submissions. These were corrected and both systems now appear to be working. Sponsor solicitation letters for the 2002 November Sweepstakes plaques were printed and mailed. We ordered plaques for the 2002 RTTY Roundup, as well as several miscellaneous special order plaques for several events. We are waiting the proof of the newly designed June VHF plaque. Once approved we will order the backlogged shipments and do the solicitation for the next year's VHF plaque sponsorships. We are also waiting for the shipment of newly designed contest certificates, so they can be printed and shipment begun. JPGs of the new certificates were received from Graphics and a brief article for the Web has done with N1RL. QSL Bureau QSL service status: Current. Cards mailed year to date as of 09/22/2002-1,473,050. No cards were mailed this week. Janet Rocco spent 5 hours conducting tours around HQ. W1AW Scott Gee worked on fast and slow code practice runs for the month of September. He also handled some evening phone sales calls in the 5 PM to 8 PM time slot. Joe Carcia repaired the 15-meter Harris amplifier. He also constructed another FSK/AFSK interface to be used on the Icom IC-756Pro and installed another soundcard in the SSTV PC (in Studio One). W1AW telephone sales year to date (2002): $8,182. VEC Department HQ welcomes Perry Green WY1O, in his new position as Assistant to the ARRL VEC Manager. Perry, is a life long native of Connecticut, the last 25 years living in Winsted Connecticut with his wife Margaret. Perry is president of the Wireless Operators of Winsted, and the CQ Club (the oldest continuous running ARRL amateur radio club in the US) and was an active VE until his acceptance of this position. He serves in various local community organizations and projects. In the past working at Waring Blender Products (Div of DCA) for 23 years, and more recently he was employed in church administration, and other varied social service activities, plus teaching computer night classes, now brings him to an administration position in the headquarters of his hobby. Other interests: (when time allows) motorcycling, computers, photography and genealogy. VEC Stats: FCC has supplied data for the 12 month periods of July 15, 1999 through July 15, 2000; and July 15, 2000 through July 15, 2001. For the period 1999-2000, the FCC indicates that 114,347 persons were tested (ARRL served 69.7%), to which 123,463 exam elements were administered (of which ARRL administered 66.2%--our market share). For the period 2000-2001, the FCC indicates that 52,807 persons were served (of which ARRL served 70.4%), to which 60,693 exam elements were administered (of which ARRL administered 69.5%--our market share). On the VEC burner: Technician Question Pool review continues for the December 1, 2002, public release of a revised Technician question pool. 73, Sincerely, Mark Wilson, K1RO Chief Operating Officer MW:lk Staff Absentee List Name Date(s) Reason Jennifer Hagy 10/11-10/14 Vacation Dennis Motschenbacher 9/26-9/28 Ten-Tec Show/Sales Presentation 9/29-10/3 Advertiser and pub dealer visits in Texas `` 10/4-10/5 MFJ/ARRL Days Mary Lau 9/27 Vacation Margie Bourgoin 9/25 Vacation Steve Ewald 9/25(AM) Seminar `` 9/30-10/4 Vacation Bill Moore 9/18-9/25 Vacation `` 9/27 VA Beach Convention Howard Robins 9/24 Vacation Scott Gee 9/26-9/27 Vacation Wayne Mills 9/27 Omaha Convention Brennan Price 10/11-10/13 Eastern Washington Section Convention, Spokane `` 11/1-11/3 Georgia Section Convention, Lawrenceville