IN-Newsletter Vol. 28, No. 31 August 3, 2005 CEO IARU President Larry Price, W4RA, IARU Vice President Tim Ellam, VE6SH, and Chief Technology Officer Paul Rinaldo, W4RI, spent the first part of this week with Dave Sumner preparing for upcoming ITU/IARU meetings and projects. John Hennessee answered a broad range of regulatory questions including questions on the ARRL draft bandwidth petition and the FCC restructuring NPRM. He assisted the non-amateur ZBA head in Bethlehem, PA with local government zoning ordinance questions about Amateur Radio. John also gave a layman's review of the Dripping Springs, TX proposed ordinance to KB3R. He also assisted an amateur in Saw Creek, PA (KB2QEI) with questions about covenants (after he had just signed a purchase agreement in a "gated community," the realtor said it was "no problem" (it was). Development The summer Spectrum Defense Fund has topped $88,000 from more than 1950 donors. With a goal of $230,000 this campaign has a long way to go. A follow up solicitation was mailed at the end of July and a third letter will be mailed to selected prior donors in an effort to reach the goal and learn what areas of Spectrum Defense matter most to our key donors. The special letter from Life Member Gene McPherson is attracting new Diamond Club members from the Life Member group. More details will be available next week. A progress report has been submitted to United Technologies on Emcomm training activity for the first have of the year. The grant ends December 31, 2005. ARRL is on track to reach the goal of training 3000 hams under this grant. The total certified to date is more than 2800. A new Legacy Circle commitment was received on August 3. Media & Public Relations CONTACT! was posted on the PIO website, the Fred Friendly/Preparedness information was sent out on the PR list. Interviews were done with Network World and NPR regarding BPL, Boston Globe about the use of electronic kits, Times Union about CW and the Hartford Courant about the Teachers' Institute. I observed Bill Barrett's presentation on Emergency Communications. While the "Swiss Army Knife '05" continues to be requested, we received an unusual donation of $150 from the New England Division Cabinet for its continued production and promotion. (Thank you!!) Video clips to be used in the Hello Campaign PSA have started to be filmed and collected from many locations around the USA and world. Production/Editorial After nearly three years on the HQ staff, QST Technical Editor Stu Cohen, N1SC, will be leaving August 19 to return to Oregon. Congratulations to Joel Hallas, W1ZR, who will take-over Stu's position effective August 22. Rick Lindquist reports The ARRL Letter, Vol. 24, No. 29, distributed to 65,266 ARRL members on July 29. Rick prepared/edited stories on the NCVEC meeting in Gettysburg (thanks, Perry, WY1O), Canada's decision to drop the Morse requirement, use of VoIP modes at WX4NHC at the Nat'l Hurricane Center, Ham-volunteers help in ValuJet 592 memorial cleanup, Oklahoma hams take part in bioterrorism exercise, WG4Y wins Young Ham of the Year Award, plus news briefs and announcements. Rick voiced, edited and produced ARRL Audio News for July 29. The list of repeaters and stations indicating they use all or part of ARRL Audio News now exceeds 200! Lab BPL Ed Hare and Dave Sumner met with Joe Ballantine from United Illuminating. They met together at UI's BPL site in Shelton, CT. After a brief discussion about BPL in general, Ed and Dave started Joe on a tour of the BPL area, demonstrating the interference. Unfortunately, just as Joe was starting to "get it," his alarm beeper went off, calling him away for a critical power emergency. Ed and Dave will follow up with Joe at the earliest opportunity. TIS Zack Lau recruited a volunteer to maintain the TIS Satellite page on the ARRL web site -- Emily Clarke, W0EEC. She provides content to the AMSAT-NA web page, and pointed out that our web page referred to many outdated AMSAT web pages. Fourteen hours of membership contact, including a dozen phone calls and 43 email requests. QST Mike Tracy unpacked a very large homebrew receiver for lab evaluation-the latest trend seems to be "bigger is better." RFI Mike Gruber visited Ken Klimasewski, N1KK, at EMC Labs, a testing facility for both conducted and radiated emissions. Mike got a tour of the facilities. W1AW Mike Tracy and Mike Gruber helped Joe Carcia find a nearby power-line noise source hidden in a tree. Sales and Marketing Advertising for September/October NCJ and QEX has been completed, exceeding dollar targets on each publication by a small amount. The advertising staff is currently wrapping up the advertising section of the 2006 ARRL Handbook. Dollar target has been exceeded by $7,500. The Dealer Newsline featuring Amateur Radio on the Move and the 2006 Handbook was mailed early in the week. Pre-orders from dealers are already coming in. The fulfillment and warehouse teams enjoyed a busy week, processing over 600 orders resulting from the weeklong publications summer sale. The promotion helped narrow an expected gap in July's sales vs forecast, largely attributed to the early stock-out of the 2005 Handbook and to a handful of new titles that didn't make publication as planned. The group is gearing-up for the arrival of the 2006 ARRL Handbook in October. Our top publication dealers have already placed substantial pre-orders--and all have included the "1926 Handbook" reproduction in their orders. We have partnered with ItsURCall.com in a simple joint marketing agreement, permitting the company to use ARRL logos on its brass belt buckle designs, and in exchange for some cross promotion through our various marketing channels. ARRL will receive a commission for every ARRL-themed product the company sells. Dennis was the League representative over the weekend at the Rocky Mountain Division Convention at their wonderful Bryce Canyon venue. The weekend turned into quite an unusual action packed time for all...far more than anyone would ask for. More details will appear on the ARRL website! Online Courses Course administrator Jean Wolfgang spoke with CTDLC, beginning discussions to find ways to revitalize and update the courses, find accreditation (CEUs, etc.) by various organizations, and for ideas for adding more multimedia features to the courses. ON-LINE COURSES Registrations During this week Graduations Antenna Modeling (EC-004) 0 1 HF Digital (EC-005) 2 0 RFI (EC-006) 0 0 VHF/UHF (EC-008) 1 0 Ant. Design and Construction (EC-009) 1 0 Technician Licensing (EC-010) 1 1 Propagation (EC-011) 1 0 Analog Electronics (EC-012) 4 0 Digital Electronics (EC-013) 3 0 Emergency Comm. Level 1 (EC-001) Not open 5 by US mail 27 Emergency Comm. Level 2 (EC-002) Not open 1 by US mail 28 Emergency Comm. Level 3 (EC-003) Not open by US mail 12 Membership Services Awards Branch WAC Certs. (48 QSLs F/C) 8 5BWAC Cert. (30 QSLs F/C) 1 Extra Class Certs. 2 Replacement Awards 1 A-1 Op. Noms. 4 A-1 Op. Certs 4 VUCC Certs. Processed 5 VUCC Initial Apps. 5 Grids 322 VUCC End. Apps. 5 Grids 273 Awards Mailed 34 Processing Status: Current or up to three weeks. For the coming week-WAS and WAC QSL card checking, Basic WAS awards for July, VUCC awards, plus mail out the processed awards. Contest Branch Data entry for 2005 Field Day continued. New email submissions in the Field Day queue were each reviewed daily to verify if they were already submitted via the web applet. If they were not, the summary sheet was printed for manual data entry. The ARRL International EME Competition rules change implementing Single Operator Assisted categories was finalized, announced and posted. In addition the PDF summary sheet to include the new categories was created. Certificates for the 2005 January VHF Sweepstakes contest were printed and will begin mailing the week of August 1. DXCC Branch For the week of: July 31, 2005 Beginning Credits 104,937 Credits Received 1,990 Credits Processed 15,384 Ending Credits 91,543 Applications Pending 808 Processing Time (Conventional) 9.4 Weeks Year-to-date (2005) Credits Received 387,225 Credits Returned 366,656 DXCC is currently mailing applications received on May 26, 2005. DXCC is currently entering credits received on June 7, 2005. Logbook of the World QSO records entered into the system 76,160,093 QSL records have resulted 3,560,790 Logs Processed 134,760 Active Certificates 15,247 Users registered in the system 10,095 Hybrids Pending Mail 50 QSL Bureau There is a 6 day processing time delay. This week, 167 pounds of cards were received from members. No cards were mailed this week. Field & Educational Services Rosalie received a number of phone calls regarding the successful space shuttle launch, and she handled a few items for Norm while he was on vacation. She touched base with Chris Imlay on a NPSTC issue. She was invited to take part in a telecon next week to meet the new point of contact for ARISS at Johnson Space Center. She sat in on a few portions of Teachers Institute; this group of teachers was lively! Amateur Radio Education & Technology Program throughout the week, Mark Spencer hosted and taught the Teachers' Institute here at Headquarters. Field Education Team Gail Iannone sent six hamfest approval letters and one convention approval letter to the sponsoring committees confirming the Division Directors' approval of their events as "ARRL-sanctioned," processed 18 handout and door prize orders and three label requests for upcoming events. She also sent a Wouff Hong supply package for the ceremony to be performed at the Dakota Division Convention being held September 9th-11th in Fargo, ND. She sent four new Special Service Club applications to the Division Directors, SMs, and ACCs for their approval and Charter of Affiliation certificates to two newly-affiliated clubs. Field Organization/Public Service Team Leona Adams received and processed Section Manager and section-related expenses. Many of these expenses have resulted from the busy hamfest and convention season and related travel. SMs have appointed several new ECs, DECs, Net Managers, and Public Information Officers, along with current appointment data updates. With help from Allen Pitts, Steve Ewald has been spreading the word about ARRL's Amateur Radio Awareness Day (September 17) and National Preparedness Month (September). SMs have been asked to help relay the news to section members and clubs about these upcoming public events. Since National Preparedness Month is co-sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security and the organizations associated with Citizen Corps (like ARRL), Awareness Day participants are encouraged to invite local Citizen Corps representatives to their venues. Chuck Skolaut received and reviewed Official Observer documentation from two separate sources on a 2-meter repeater case in California. It has been forwarded to the FCC. In a different case, an OOC from California has thanked the FCC for its actions in resolving an issue created by unlicensed 2-meter operators. ARRL volunteers acting as part of the Monitoring Program are keeping ears tuned to an unidentified signal on 20 meters and a "woodpecker" -type signal on 40 meters. During a recent lunch break, Chuck listened for and contacted K2BSA, the Boy Scouts of America Amateur Radio Station that has been operating from the National Boy Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia. Jean, WB3IOS, also made contact during that same lunch break. Although he was not operating the radio at the time of those QSOs, Larry, WR1B, is at the National Scout Jamboree. Sincerely, Dave Patton, NN1N Special Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer DCP:lk Staff Absentee List Joel Kleinman 8/10 Vacation Harold Kramer 8/19-8/21 Southeast Division Convention, Huntsville, AL John Hennessee 8/1-8/12 Vacation Barry Shelley 8/4-8/5 Vacation `` 8/15-8/19 Vacation Monique Levesque 8/1-8/5 Vacation Joe Carcia 7/29-8/5 Vacation `` 8/12 Vacation `` 8/19 Vacation `` 8/26 Vacation Karen Isakson 8/6-8/15 Vacation Perry Williams 7/7-9/6 Vacation Dave Patton 8/10 Vacation 9/16-9/18 W9DXCC Pam Dzamba 8/1-8/5 Vacation Mark Dzamba 8/1-8/5 Vacation Janet Rocco 8/1-8/5 Vacation Allen Pitts 8/4-8/8 Texas State Convention Joel Hallas 8/12-8/26 Vacation Kathy Capodicasa 8/8-8/9 Vacation Steve Capodicasa 8/8-8/9 Vacation `` 9/5-9/12 Vacation Steve Capodicasa 9/5-9/12 Vacation Dan Henderson 8/1-8/5 Vacation Wayne Mills 8/5-8/7 Pacific Northwest Convention 8/8-8/12 Vacation Ed Hare 8/8-8/12 IEEE EMC Symposium, Chicago, IL `` 8/15-8/17 Vacation `` 8/25-9/2 Vacation `` 9/8-9/9 Club talk in Rochester, NY Steve Ford 8/30-9/5 Vacation Dan Miller 8/18-8/21 Southeast Division Convention, Huntsville, AL `` 8/21-8/25 APCO Conference, Denver, CO Joe Bottiglieri 8/26-9/6 Vacation Dave Sumner 8/22-9/8 Vacation 9/9-9/19 IARU R1 and AC meetings, Davos and Zurich 9/30 Vacation 10/3-10/9 IARU R3 Directors meeting and SEANET meeting, Bangalore Ann Marie Pinto 8/15-8/26 Vacation Bill Moore 8/16 Vacation Chuck Skolaut 8/5-8/9 WNY Section Convention & Vacation Stu Cohen 8/1-8/4 Vacation Steve Coffey 8/22-9/2 Vacation Bob Schetgen 8/8-8/19 Vacation Debra Johnson 8/8-8/12 Vacation Mary Hobart 8/9-8/10 Vacation `` 8/18-8/21 Huntsville & MFJ visit `` 9/8-9/11 SW Division -Riverside `` 9/15-9/16 Vacation `` 9/22-9/23 Vacation