BOARD CONFIDENTIAL: There are some sensitive comments below Dick Thanks for your creative input. My comments are below: ARDC, with its $100M+ assets We have met with ARDC to discuss opportunities. I have 2 grant proposals I would like see submitted on behalf of ARRL that involve support of clubs and our blind/visually impaired initiative. The club grant I am collaborating with Dr Woolweaver on who is taking the lead. The other I am waiting for feedback from ARDC before putting the work into writing the proposal. That number will likely double in the next year or two so ARDC will be able to fund some huge initiatives. 1a) Financial assistance to conventions and hamfests This has been discussed with respect to the Dallas area, where HAMCOM has ceased. Director Stratton and I have discussed this on a few occasions. It is more complicated than just dollars, as it was also impacted by the age, health, and ability of the core team to support HAMCOM going forward. I am a big believer that ARRL needs to engage the larger event teams, help them share best practices (and failures), to evolve as an event. I also agree that there are ways ARRL can help on the financial side. 1b) Literature and distribution form assistance for widows and families with radio equipment This, to me, is a sensitive subject having dealt with 2 estates personally. What I observed was local hams trying to get in first with very lowball offers, at a delicate time, and take advantage of the situation. I believe our clubs can be a tremendous resource here. In both estates I was involved with, the widows wanted absolutely nothing to do with the ham shack. Both chose not to be home when I brought in the buyers to take out the equipment. Any document they might have had, short of a name and a phone number, would have meant nothing to them. Both of my friends told their wives to call me to deal with the shack and no one else. Today when we get calls from families, we direct them to contact the President of a local club for assistance. We could also direct them to their Section Manager. We’ve talked about this in the past and we’re really not clear where to post something like this or how to address it – or even to what detail. What can be helpful are those SKs who took out ARRL Insurance as they had to detail and value everything being covered in their shack. I have also noted the increase in the number of auctions being handled by Schulman. They’re about to launch another auction that is loaded with Collins equipment. We’re open to ideas and suggestions. It is a sensitive subject. 1c) Accepting and processing donations of equipment and parts As I understand it, Norm used to handle this. He’d work with the Lab to fix the radios and then he’d sell them on eBay – for a fee. Over time it was discovered that this was taking up precious resource time in the Lab and Norm grew tired of boxing and shipping radios, so the program ended. As a matter of course, we get very few donations of equipment. We have received donations of equipment towards the auction. In fact, we received two absolutely amazing restored radios from the 1960+/- vintage the member wants us to auction off. These are very special radios. I went to see them just today and the Valiant II is absolutely museum quality. 2) POTENTIAL PROJECTS DIRECTED AT POSSIBLE NEW MEMBERS Please suggest something. Item 3a) has some connection to this category. I know there was some heat to this item during A&F, but we have been selling the EFHW Antenna kit at an unbelievable clip. Sales believes it is the most successful kit we’ve ever sold. We sold 3 rounds of 250 kits in a matter of days each time it went into the store. YouTubers have done build videos which drove sales wild. These are not directed at members. The kit is directed at hams to get them to build something and get on the air. And they are. We are currently looking to source 2-3 more kits for the holidays to give hams a reason to build something for their station and get radio active. We will be following those up with communications to convert the non-members into members. If you have any ideas, please let us know. One idea we have for Fall is an Anderson PowerPole power strip kit sold by K9JEB. He’s assembled some really nice kits and they’re practical to build and to use. The other area where we see a lot of activity is in portable operation including POTA and SOTA. I am looking into working with a YouTube creator who has a channel called TheOutdoorGearReview (TOGR). I’d like to get him to get licensed and integrate some ham operating into all of his outdoor activities. The guy is prolific. 3) POTENTIAL PROJECTS DIRECTED AT PUBLIC AND AMATEUR RADIO TECHNICIAL EDUCATION 3a) Producing books, videos, and convention talks on modern communications, explained from the viewpoint of ham radio. modes and schemes such as CDMA, GSM, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, WiFi, Bluetooth, and others. We could look into finding an author to take this subject matter on. I think that WiFi and Bluetooth would have specific interest to hams. Especially if there are projects related to them like what Green Heron is doing with their GH Everywhere line. I have always thought about a Bluetooth adapter for paddles so there’s no cables laying on the desktop. Other than a primer on the other modes, there are probably existing texts that one could purchase that cover the material better than we could from scratch. 3b) Amateur Radio Museum Another item, discussed in the past, would be to establish ad maintain a substantial Amateur Radio museum, possibly in conjunction with another organization. One of your ideas Diane and I have continued to pursue: the acquisition of our own building for warehousing. We have also been looking at opportunities for mixed-use facilities that could possibly house a museum and an area where equipment could be maintained. We did find a building very close by that would fit the bill, but at $1.5MM it comes with a steep price tag. The search continues. I think there’s a ton of work to be done in the historical aspect of our business. I cannot push the idea hard enough that we need a digital museum. We have approached Universal Radio about acquiring their website, which happens to be one of the very best resources for amateur radio equipment and publication data on the Internet today. (They are continuing to sell off their inventory and have told us that 3 different retailers have approached them about buying the business) We could curate a historical collection and move it around the country to events or to be displayed in other radio museums, but that is very expensive and we run the risk of needing to constantly repair radios post-shipping. Here’s another item worth considering: PRESERVATION OF AMATEUR RADIO RESOURCES There are considerable threats to hams losing access to precious resources. Examples? MFJ – Martin is aging out, has no one from the family interested in running the business, he has an extremely low cost base due to geography and a local flexible workforce, and it isn’t obvious that anyone would step in to try to buy the business post-Martin. A few of the brands? Maybe. Scott Robbins has built out Vibroplex doing that, but he has a bandwidth problem. I’m not sure what we could do here, but MFJ has been an important resource – maybe one of the most important – to amateur radio. AMSAT – Sadly, it appears they are tearing themselves apart from within. What would we do if they implode? Should we look to acquire(?) them and integrate them into ARRL? ARISS is off on their own now but also very dependent on money from AMSAT. CQ Magazine – They were saved once before. It is likely they’ll lose steam again at some point. Is that good for ham radio? Nope. Do we acquire them before they’re neck deep in red and going down for the last time? Do we get out ahead of that? QRZ.com – A huge resource for amateur radio. One guy. A few helpers. If he’s gone, so is QRZ. That’s very fragile. Do we acquire that? Somehow integrate it into our member services? ExamTools – VEC groups including us rely on them. One guy. One helper. When he’s gone because it was too much work for no money, so is ExamTools. We are looking at moving on this to add into our licensing ecosystem now. We’ve begun the dialog. It is the next step, now that we have the Dave Cassler licensing videos to supplement our books. I could keep going. The point is: Are we the caretakers of amateur radio? Is that one of the jobs our members expect us to take on? Are we the ones who should recognize the importance of these and other resources and take steps to ensure that they don’t go away? Where do we draw the line? CLOSING I could spend millions. At the moment, I am trying to build a team and create a culture where we can step up and be counted on to do real work. We also have at least 2 projects, LoTW and ARRL.org, which could easily cost more than $1MM each. We are at a pivotal time, we need to prioritize, and we need to determine where and how we need to spend money for real impact. Thanks for spurring on the discussion Dick! David