<<051210.doc>> IN-Newsletter <<Microsoft Word Picture>> Vol. 33, No. 19 May 12, 2010 -- Covers the period May 2-8. Upcoming Meetings and Events Dayton Hamvention: May 14-16, 2010 in Dayton, OH Second Board Meeting: July 16-17, 2010 @ 9:00am in Windsor, CT Media & Public Relations Reported by Allen Pitts, W1AGP Final arrangements made and materials for Dayton were collected. Confirmation done for appearances in 3 forums and other activities while there. Re-pointed hello-radio.org and emergency-radio.org to pages on main ARRL website until Fathom is able to bring these campaign sites under ARRL hosting as planned. There's only 2.5 weeks left for nominations for the McGan Award. Development Reported by Mary Hobart, K1MMH Plans are complete for the annual Donor Reception at the Meadowbrook Country Club in Dayton on May 13. This event promises to be the largest reception since it was first held in 2002 with more than 130- attendees. Thanks to Maryann Macdonald for making all the arrangements for this special evening for ARRL and our major donors. The Diamond Club has reached net revenues of $104, 810 through April 30. The W1AW Endowment campaign has reached $59,559 from 986 donors toward the campaign goal of $65,000. Development has received $3000 as proceeds from the estate of David Maier, W1BAT. Production/Editorial Reported by Joel Kleinman, N1BKE Khrystyne Keane wrote and distributed The ARRL Letter for May 6, 2010. Lab Reported by Ed Hare, W1RFI RFI The 3rd Edition of the new RFI Book is now available. The EMC Chapter for the 2011 Handbook should be completed next week. Based on the increasing number of Pacific Gas & Electric power line noise complaints, Garry Shapiro, NI6T, has offered to collect a list of complainants. Preliminary estimates on the number of complainants range 10 to 25. Laura Smith at the FCC has agreed to a telephone conference with Garry, Ed Hare and me to discuss these cases. Jeff Butler, a former VP at PG&E, personally handled most power line noise complaints until he left about a year or two ago. Now that Mr. Butler is gone, the number of unresolved power line noise complaints has been increasing. Product Review Testing Bob Allison prepared product review equipment for Steve Ford's monthly photography shoot. Steve Ford and Bob Allison produced the monthly "What's New in Product Review" video clip for June's QST. This month, this video clip appears on both You-Tube AND on our own Multi-media page on our website. Travel Bob Allison has signed up to represent the ARRL at the Knoxville Tennessee Hamfest. Bob will be representing the ARRL, meeting, greeting and assisting with membership enrollment/renewal. He will also be holding a forum on the Product Review Process. D Star Repeater We will be getting a D-Star repeater at HQ. A meeting was held last Wednesday with Bill Unghire, N1CNV, who will be assisting us to get the repeater up and running. We have all the equipment except for the antennas and transmission line. The repeater will be an active display that will show visitors and staff members how this relatively new technology works. The antennas a transmission line will be ordered soon. A big job was accomplished Thursday by the removal of all old catalogs and redundant data books from the shelves in the Lab. Two of the three shelving units were moved to the shop for storage, the third moved to the corner of the Lab near the front entrance. This freed up space for moving the display cabinet to where the catalogs were once stored. The move of the display cabinet took place Friday. With the cabinet in its new location a repeater rack was rolled into the cabinet's old position. Ed Hare, Mike Gruber and Bob Allison removed one workbench, shuffled a couple others around and created an open space as you walk into the Lab. This work was done in preparation for the installation of a brand new D-Star Repeater. Work is progressing quickly; antennas and coax will be purchased by the time this In-News is published. Greg Kwasowski, as always, was a big help with moving the very heavy display cabinet. He'll be playing an instrumental role with running the feedline from the roof to the Lab, as well as providing the necessary electricity and phone connections. Sales and Marketing Reported by Bob Inderbitzen, NQ1R Bob Inderbitzen met with a MetLife representative to review upcoming plans to help promote the group auto insurance affinity benefit. This planning includes a mailing to members in June, a new MetLife Web landing page for ARRL members, and ARRL-generated email promoting the benefit. During the last week, the warehouse crew fulfilled 963 packages for publication and product orders, 261 membership premiums, and QST mailing supplements. All systems are GO for Dayton Hamvention, May 14-16. The ARRL "Dayton Team" includes 26 staff and another 100+ volunteers including many ARRL officials. Khrystyne Keane has kept this planning in the top of the news-with Dayton-themed postings made throughout the weeks leading-up to the event. Additional information can be found at www.arrl.org/expo, including a timely blog to be posted throughout the event by QST Columnist Ward Silver, N0AX. Now Shipping! Storm Spotting and Amateur Radio by Michael Corey, W5MPC and Victor Morris, AH6WX; ARRL's PIC Programming for Beginners by Mark Spencer, WA8SME; TravelPlus for Repeaters 2010-2011 on CD-ROM. Diane Petrilli reports that, following 3 months of testing, a new renewal notice has outperformed the previous design. The changes are subtle, but help simplify the application. The new renewal application will be adopted very soon. Membership & Volunteer Programs Reported by Dave Patton, NN1N W1AW Joe updated the web code practice files and their archives. He also made a few minor changes to other W1AW web pages. Joe readied a UPS (universal power supply) and installed it on the PC used for the EchoLink client that connects to the EchoLink conference server. He also cobbled together a PC to be used with the D-Star controller that will eventually be installed in the ARRL Lab. Scott worked on fast and slow code practice files for the mid-part of the month of May. He also assisted the DXCC department with the editing of applications. Field Organization/Public Service Team One radio amateur from Santa Barbara completed certification to join the ranks of the Official Observers this pat week. Intruder Watch reports this week included a "growling" type signal on 3975 kHz in the Denver area and a constant carrier on 21051.8 kHz reported from an Ohio station which are being followed up on. Chuck Skolaut fielded several questions from members who were looking for items and information on our new web site. Clarifying a club donation, researching a repeater system, the upcoming Field Day webinar, HR2160 were also questions asked. A report of an invalid call sign that was spotted on APRS in Texas was resolved when further checking revealed a bad setting on a node. Steve Ewald prepared and edited the Public Service column and the 2009 Simulated Emergency Test results article for July QST. For July QST, Leona Adams contributed the "Happenings" column that announces the nomination notice for Section Managers for terms of office beginning in January, 2011. The Illinois Section Manager election ballots are due at Headquarters by Friday, May 14. These ballots will be counted on Tuesday, May 18. Education Services Reported by Debra Johnson, K1DMJ Education & Technology Program Teachers Institute applications are coming in at a rapid pace. The NM and SC sections are filled, as is the TI-2s on Space in the Classroom. Application deadline is May 15 for the remaining seats. We still have openings in the California session planned for Parallax, and for the TI-2 on Basic Electronics. Jennifer is managing the hotel reservations and resource ordering for the upcoming sessions, along with the host of questions generated from enrolled teachers. Mark Spencer WA8SME attended a stimulating conference on the CubeSat program hosted by California Polytechnic April 21-23. He will be formulating some suggestions for AMSAT to integrate educational objectives on the K-12 level to position potential CubeSat projects with an educational continuum at all grade levels, integrating those ideas with planning for the ETP curriculum. Nathan McCray K9CPO gives an enthusiastic report on the CubeSat simulator and Mars Rover used for Space Week exposition at his school, West Elementary in Zion, IL. Students used the CubeSat simulator as part of their mission control. One exercise was graphing battery power when the CubeSat was taken out of sunlight. The Mars Rover was renamed the "Lunar Rover" as students used it to replicate how a lunar rover would be used by the astronauts on a mission. The only visuals the student could use were with the attached camera that was linked to an LCD projector in the lunar capsule. The Space Week program was really well received by parents and district administration, and generated numerous questions about the robotics program and the CubeSat technology. Two employees from Abbott Laboratories in the audience were very interested - which might bear fruit for some funding for the school's science and space program. Nathan is writing an article about the program developed for Space Week, including curriculum to share with other teachers and photos to bring the story to life. Miguel Enriquez KD7RPP made three CubeSat and TI presentations to parent /teacher groups in April. These groups are from other Tucson Unified School District schools interested in creating similar programs for their school. A major concern at this time is the limited resources available because of the tremendous cuts to education in Arizona. Miguel promised to share Pueblo ARC resources to get the groups started, and to teach ham radio classes for Tech licenses for students, teachers and parents. He offered to assist them in acquiring used radios for their schools and the assistance of the Pueblo ARC to build the antennas. The high school club is also assisting members of the Green Valley ARC as they build an ATV system for an elementary school in the Continental School District south of Tucson. Some of Pueblo's portable ATV units are on loan to them until they can purchase their own equipment. Miguel continues to work with Jefferson Park Elementary School group that just recently completed Teachers Institute training to help them plan for next year's activities. Presently ETP resources are supporting activities of 27 Pueblo ARC kids, 133 Jefferson Park Elementary School kids, 37 Continental School District kids and 119 Tucson Unified School District kids. Sincerely Compiled by, Lisa Kustosik, KA1UFZ Assistant to the CEO Staff Absentee List All Staff 5/31 Holiday Bob Allison 5/13-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH `` 5/19pm-5/21 Vacation `` 5/28 Vacation `` 6/11-6/13 Tennessee State Convention, Knoxville, TN Jon Bloom 5/10-5/17 Vacation Margie Bourgoin 5/31-6/8 Vacation Steve Capodicasa 5/10-5/14 Vacation Joe Carcia 5/21pm Vacation `` 5/28 Vacation `` 6/18 Vacation `` 7/2-7/9 Vacation `` 7/16 Vacation `` 7/23 Vacation `` 7/30 Vacation `` 8/9 Vacation Jackie Cornell 5/12-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH `` 6/3-6/14 Vacation Steve Ewald 5/13-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH Norm Fusaro 5/13-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH Scott Gee 5/13-5/14 Vacation `` 8/30-8/31 Vacation Katie Glass 5/13-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH Mike Gruber 5/25-5/28 Vacation `` 6/1-6/4 Vacation `` 8/23-8/27 Vacation Joel Hallas 5/11-5/17 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH/Vacation Ed Hare 6/4-6/6 Northwestern Division Convention, Seaside, OR Dan Henderson 6/22-7/5 Friedrichshafen/Vacation Mary Hobart 5/12-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton OH `` 5/21 Vacation `` 6/10-6/13 HamCom, Dallas, TX Amy Hurtado 5/12-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH Bob Inderbitzen 5/12-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH `` 6/9-6/12 West Gulf Division Convention, Plano TX `` 6/22-6/30 Friedrichshafen, Germany / Vacation Debra Johnson 5/12-5/18 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH Khrystyne Keane 5/13-5/16 Contest University/Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH Joel Kleinman 5/25-5/28 Vacation Harold Kramer 5/13-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH Lisa Kustosik 5/17 Vacation Sean Kutzko 5/12-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH `` 5/28-5/30 Rocky Mountain Division Convention, Casper, WY Rose-Ann Lawrence 5/12 Vacation Zac Lau 5/19 Vacation Amy Leary 5/13-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH `` 5/17 Vacation Maryann Macdonald 5/12-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH Bill Moore 5/13-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH Dave Patton 8/6-8/7 Texas State Convention, Austin, TX Diane Petrilli 5/13-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH `` 5/21 Vacation `` 5/27-6/4 Vacation Kim Piatek 5/12-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH Allen Pitts 5/13-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH `` 5/24-5/28 Vacation Brennan Price 5/8-5/21 ITU-R Working Party 5A&5B, Geneva Chuck Skolaut 5/12-5/18 Vacation Dave Sumner 5/13-5/16 Dayton Hamvention, Dayton, OH `` 6/23-6/28 Friedrichshafen, Germany `` 6/29-7/13 Vacation