<<120507.doc>> IN-Newsletter <<Microsoft Word Picture>> Vol. 30, No. 49 December 5, 2007 -- Covers the period November 25-December 1. Upcoming Meetings and Events Programs & Services Committee December 8 in Newington, CT Administration &Finance Committee January 17 in Houston, TX Programs & Services Committee January 17 in Houston, TX Annual Board Meeting January 18-19, 2008 in Houston, TX Regulatory Information Reported by Dan Henderson, N1ND After returning to the office on Tuesday November 27, a full day plus was spent catching up with approximately 20 voice mail and 120 emails. They ranged from requests for information on third party and reciprocal operating questions to rules questions. Several phone calls and emails were handled regarding the continuing Palmdale, CA antenna restriction case, including discussions with the volunteer counsel working most prominently on the issue. On the PAVE PAWS front, an informal telephone call was made with David Pooley at Air Force Space Command regarding the status of re-testing at Beale AFB. They have completed the re-testing but have not completed the report. They did share that there will be repeaters added to the list. A more detailed report will be forthcoming after we receive the details from the DoD. Also, the DoD is trying to schedule a follow-up teleconference sometime before December 20th in order to assess the status of the repeaters on the original list as well as bring us up to speed on the additions made at both the Beale and Otis AFB sites. Riley Hollingsworth has shared that he has contacted all of the repeater owners from the initial list that had not been back in contact with the ARRL after the specific reduction notifications were sent in late August - early September. Most were contacted by phone, with about fifteen being contacted by mail/email where phone contact information was not available. Riley indicates that he has had good cooperation from those involved and should be sharing with ARRL within the next week a status list. Media & Public Relations Reported by Allen Pitts, W1AGP Work continued on the Swiss Army Knife and a proposal for the PSC. More ham promotional interviews were set up for KAIJ (Shortwave) Radio. The 2008 McGan announcement was done for QST. Linkage was arranged between Pontoon and Deck Boat Magazine and USPS for coming article promoting Amateur Radio on boats. Steve Friedman is producing a video program and collection about volunteer responders in Katrina and desires broadcast rights to Katrina- the Untold Story 5 min video given to ARRL for our use. As broadcast rights were not given, he has been put in contact with Richard Lubash directly. John Webb and ICOM have donated more video for use on the 2008 technology-promoting PR website. After meeting with the WalMart Manager for their national emergency operations center in Arkansas, and later receiving more information from them about their goals and location, a recommendation for an Amateur Radio component to their operations was prepared and sent to them with the help of Dennis Dura, Mike Tracy, Dave Patton and Harold Kramer. Their current plan is to implement this in January 2008. The December edition of CONTACT! has been done. Allen will be at the national FEMA PR classes Dec 16-23. Development Reported by Mary Hobart, K1MMH The 2008 Spectrum Defense Campaign has reached $195,103 from 3,945 donors. This total brings the year-to-date revenues to $349.070. This total is more than $100,000 short of the goal so we are hoping for a surge in the final weeks of the year. The Diamond Club experienced another strong month in November, receiving $42,736 in revenues form 198 contributions. Year-to-Date the Diamond Club has exceeded $363,571 in revenues with 671 new donors. The average contributions for new and renewing donors are nearly equal at $168 and $169 respectively. The Year End mailing to 75,000 members is arriving in homes this week. This campaign is designed to bring in more than $52,000 in revenues by the end of December. Reports on the 2007 Teachers Institutes in Wireless Technology are being mailed this week to 6 key donors and several prospects. The reports are intended to cultivate contributions for the expanded education program and especially the larger Teachers Institute program in 2008. Actual solicitations will be mailed in January. Production/Editorial Reported by Joel Kleinman, N1BKE Khrystyne Keane wrote and distributed The ARRL Letter, Vol. 26, No. 47, for November 30, 2007. It went out to 65,753 subscribers. She also voiced and produced ARRL Audio News for November 30. Lab Reported by Ed Hare, W1RFI W1HQ/W1INF There were extensive changes to the W1HQ club station this week. The old Force 12 beam has been replaced with a new StepIR beam, a 6M beam, and a 2M beam. All of the feedlines running through the building from the club station to the roof have been replaced. The 30-year old carpet has been replaced and the station has a fresh coat of paint. Further renovations to the room itself are in progress. Sales and Marketing Reported by Bob Inderbitzen, NQ1R Membership Update While we are still tallying the month, we predict that November's membership total will end higher than October-continuing the recent trend of climbing membership. Membership figures will be reported later this week. Sales Update We ended the month with publication and product sales of $313,018, exceeding the sales forecast of $296,217-and achieving the highest November sales total on recent record. November's gain helps offset some of the previous month's shortfall-largely associated with lower-than-predicted sales of the ARRL Handbook. We've Been Busy! Sales throughout the Thanksgiving holiday and into the last week of November were at peak-levels. The customer service team contributed some overtime. The Warehouse crew fulfilled 1,973 packages for publication and product orders-about 3-times more than typical. Trevor Morris helped us keep-up with free book membership premiums during the busy week. The Business Services Department also helped us process direct orders. Thanks to everyone that helped keep us above-water! An email solicitation was sent on "Cyber Monday," and touted the new 9th edition ARRL Operating Manual. Cyber Monday is the ceremonial kick-off of the holiday online shopping season in the US. A flurry of orders was received in just minutes of distributing the email-and resulted in one of the biggest daytime returns we've experienced in a long time. The new Operating Manual will contribute over $20,000 in sales for November. A direct mailing for TravelPlus is in-the-works. Two large membership mailings were released by the Post Office this week, on-schedule. The mailings were sent to 60,000 membership prospects. Amy is closely following news from the US Postal Service about a likely rate hike in early 2008. Katie attended the Tampa Bay Hamfest/ARRL West Central Florida Convention where she gave a virtual tour of HQ as well as a discussion on the new blog and youtube.com videos that have become very popular. She also returned with 33 memberships. We'll soon re-introduce the first edition of Gil - A Collection of Classic Cartoons from QST. The book was published in 1986, and had been discontinued many years ago. Our decision-making to reprint small-demand titles has been made easier since the production team developed a relationship with a print-on-demand service provider earlier this year. Congratulations to Katie-who has been elected by her peers as the 2009 President of the Greater Hartford Jaycees Foundation. Business Services Reported by Deb Jahnke, K1DAJ Dealer Publication Sales Staff members continue to call dealers for secondary Handbook orders. More and more dealers are reporting that they are finally running low on their initial orders. We sent an email solicitation to all ARRL publication dealers, offering a limited time discount on orders received during the next seven days that contains an order for one or more cases of the new Operating Manual. Follow-up phone calls are being made. We pleased to report that our newest ARRL Publications Dealer, Powerwerx is already reporting brisk walk-in sales at their new facility as well as web sales. Advertising Advertising for the February issue of QST is progressing very well and it appears that we will exceed our target by a small margin. Our 2008 Advertising Matters Ebook, containing advertising rates, important dates, editorial calendar and specialty advertising opportunities is being sent to current advertisers this week and then to a list of prospective advertisers. Membership & Volunteer Programs Reported by Dave Patton, NN1N Awards Branch Category Oct. 2007 Nov. 2007 Year-to-Date Year End Goal WAS Certificates (Manual) 20 24 260 282 WAS Certificates (LoTW) 4 3 178 295 A-1 Op Nominations 16 25 409 601 A-1 Op Certificates 7 15 194 288 Extra Class Certificates 8 6 172 194 WAC Certificates 30 21 291 313 VUCC New / Grids 14/1,664 10 / 1,234 96 / 12,341 144 / 13,581 VUCC Endorsement / Grids 9 / 648 9 / 430 90 / 5,635 109 / 6,533 Processing Time Current Current Current 2 Weeks DXCC Branch Category Oct. 2007 Nov. 2007 Year-to-Date Year End Goal Credits Processed 47,465 52,106 569,163 622,215 Credits Received 61,581 43,530 572,252 622,342 Applications Returned 515 521 5,258 5,643 Applications Received 572 462 5,830 5,643 Applications Pending 1,340 1,313 599 Processing Time 11 Weeks 12 Weeks 3 Weeks Contest Branch 160 meter Contest logs are rolling in at an amazing pace; we've already received 500 logs since the contest ended on Sunday. Sean KX9X, activated W1AW for the 160 meter contest and made over 500 QSOs in 66 sections and 8 DX countries in just over 7 hours of operating time. We are getting a fair amount of email reporting confusion with the way the Contest Robot is processing logs. Sean is handing them on a case-by-case basis and providing exemplary customer service to our members. Dave Patton NN1N, Dan Henderson N1ND and Sean Kutzko KX9X are looking into solutions to permanently alleviate some of the confusion. The deadline for Sweepstakes CW logs was December 5. We've received over 1250 logs for SS CW. The deadline for Sweepstakes Phone logs is December 19, 2007. Logbook of the World Category Oct. 2007 Nov. 2007 2006 Year End QSO Records Entered Into System 144,643,143 148,252,022 116,730,953 QSL Record Matches 10,232,360 10,625,182 7,193,911 Logs Processed 457,489 475,231 305,569 Active Certificates 27,197 27,681 21,889 Registered Users in System 17,839 18,165 14,474 Logbook (Email Only) Inquiries Oct. 2007 Nov. 2007 Lost Certificate 107 133 DXCC Status Inquiries 56 54 Data Not Shown 11 23 No TQ6 File Received from LoTW 4 6 Additional Certificate Requests 42 40 Cannot Log on to LoTW User Page 12 15 Cannot Upload Log to LoTW User Page 9 20 No TQ5 File Received by LoTW 15 21 Incorrect Date Range 18 33 Lost Personal Password 13 11 User Email Problems 14 10 WAS Status Inquiries 6 15 Club Inquiries 6 16 New Callsign Changes 7 8 Cannot Understand Error Messages 11 19 Logbook Startup Inquiries 17 34 Cannot Activate/Load TQ6 Certificate 15 17 Logbook Suggestions 3 16 QSO Downloaded 9 23 Additional Documents Needed 7 17 Need Postcard 3 11 VISTA Inquiries 0 10 Other Inquiries 23 57 Total Inquiries 408 609 QSL Branch Oct. 2007 Nov. 2007 Year-to-Date 2006 Year End Cards Received 76,500 75,000 906,900 924,900 Cards Mailed 78,000 132,900 950,650 1,000,475 W1AW Matt Strelow, KC1XX and Andrew Toth (both of XX Towers, Inc.) were on hand Tuesday to perform the bi-annual antenna/tower inspections and to perform some antenna work. They removed the 23cm vertical antennas and cable (on the Satellite tower) that were once used for D-Star work. They also installed a turnstile antenna/preamp for the NOAA-x satellite receiver. The rotator cable on the 120' center tower was tied back into place. The MFJ Pulsar (2m/70cm/23cm) vertical was also moved higher up the North tower to improve coverage. In addition to W1AW's work, Matt and Andrew also removed the old antennas off the tall W1HQ tower (located atop ARRL HQ). They also installed new beam antennas for 6 meters, 2 meters and a new SteppIR beam. Thanks to Sean Kutzko, KX9X for operating W1AW in the ARRL 160-Meter contest. He made 503 contacts, with 66 sections, for an initial claimed score of 68,178. The last day for 2007 FMT data entry has passed and the results are now available at http://www.b4h.net/fmt/fmtresults.php . Joe worked the early afternoon/night shifts on Thursday and Friday for the vacationing Scott Gee. In addition to the work at W1AW, he also assisted Matt and Andrew with the antenna work for W1HQ. Joe finished some pigtail work for a switch box used at the Digital station. He also set up a PC that will be used in W1HQ/W1INF. Joe also met at W1AW with Bill Unghire, N1CNV for nearly two hours on Friday. Bill is the sysop for the W1IXU-x D-Star repeaters in Bristol, CT. Joe and Bill worked on setting up the station's new Icom IC-2820H for D-Star repeater use. Since the plan is for there to eventually be a W1AW D-Star repeater system operating in Connecticut, the D-Star radio (used at W1AW) cannot use the call "W1AW." Therefore, permission has been granted for W1AW to use W1HQ for all its D-Star activity. Hams using D-Star will now be able to contact W1AW (using W1HQ). In addition to W1HQ, the call W1INF has also been added to the D-Star IP lookup tables. This will allow either call to be used for D-Star from the HQ station. Scott worked on slow and fast code practice files for the early part of the month of December. Field Organization/Public Service Team Leona reports that she has received an SM nomination petition from Rich Beebe, NØPV of South Dakota section for the term beginning April 1, 2008. She expects to receive an SM nomination petition from Tim Slay, N4IB of North Carolina shortly. All other sections have been heard from. The deadline to receive all SM nomination petitions for this term is Friday, December 7th by 4 p.m. Leona also sent out first signer letters in receipt of those SM nomination petitions that have been received thusfar. Leona has been in touch with SM's and OOC's regarding recommendations for OO. She sent out three OO tests and will be sending out three others next week for Illinois. She has also been updating the Field Service database with new appointments, cancellations and changes. Leona has been communicating with SM's regarding their section budgets and updating those with new expenses and or book orders. Chuck reports that after receiving a report from a ham in Kansas regarding continuous "dits" being heard on 7006, he asked for assistance from the FCC DFing station, they quickly determined it was originating in Canada and are following up on it. Another similar report of a single letter "M" beacon being observed in Washington and Michigan intermittently on 3593.78 was referred to the FCC. Information regarding several major truck stops selling uncertified "CB" type equipment was forwarded to the FCC. Several complaints regarding high power CB operation causing interference to neighbors were referred to the FCC. Interference to an Eastern Massachusetts 2 meter repeater is being investigated by OOs. Questions this week dealt with repeater control, antenna restrictions, baud rate on 10 meters, fines for various infractions, and several old call sign look ups. Chuck filled in at W1AW for two morning code practice sessions. Education Services Reported by Debra Johnson, K1DMJ Jackie Cornell compiled the results from our survey to Extra class license manual users for our review. The survey indicated interest in a mentored on-line forum and CD software for exam practice. A significant percentage (40%) of the 584 respondents have been licensed in the last 5 years. Last week, a newsletter to instructors and teachers was sent to 4,999 recipients including registered instructors, teachers and others who have signed up for the distribution list. Education & Technology Program Twelve grant applications for station equipment and instructional materials were sent to the Executive Committee for approval. We have received more than 30 responses to our position posting in the ARRL Letter for additional Teachers Institute instructors for 2008. The posting also appears in January QST. ARISS Rosalie White has been corresponding with 10 Section Managers about ARRL Affiliated Clubs and schools in their Sections that might be interested in ARISS educational activities and a QSO. ARISS team members Frank Bauer and Mark Steiner met with staff at NASA HQ about ARISS and "informal education" (QSOs and related educational activities with scouts, science museums, etc). NASA hopes ARISS will become more involved with informal education. To view a video clip of first Brazilian astronaut Marcos Pontes, PY0AEB, making a contact with PY5RX go to website: http://iss.ontwikkel.nl <http://mymail.arrl.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://iss.ontwikkel.nl> . Sincerely Compiled by, Lisa Kustosik, KA1UFZ Assistant to the CEO Staff Absentee List All Staff 12/24-12/25 Holiday 12/31-1/1 Holiday Leona Adams 12/7pm Vacation Steve Ford 12/11 Vacation `` 12/22-1/2 Vacation Scott Gee 12/10-12/12 Vacation `` 12/26 Vacation Dan Henderson 12/20-1/4 Vacation Gail Iannone 12/19-1/4 Vacation Debra Johnson 12/7-12/10 Vacation Khrystyne Keane 12/10 Vacation Joel Kleinman 12/4-12/7 Vacation Lisa Kustosik 12/20 Vacation Zack Lau 12/21 Vacation Bill Moore 12/26-12/31 Vacation Dave Patton 12/26-12/28 Vacation Allen Pitts 12/16-12/22 FEMA PR Training, Emmitsburg, MD Dave Sumner 12/12 Vacation `` 12/15-12/19am Meeting w/Minister of Communications, Sarajevo Mike Tracy 12/12 Jury Duty `` 12/26 Vacation