IN-Newsletter Vol. 27, No.14 April 7, 2004 Upcoming Meeting April 24th in Newington, CT at 8:30am A & F Committee Meeting Development The W1AW Endowment follow up letter is yielding results. The campaign has now reached $119,762 in contributions from 1,595 donors. Over the course of the campaign about a dozen multi-year pledges have been received. The 2004 Defense Campaign spillover has reached $64,247 from 906 donors. The new campaign is expected mail by mid-April to all ARRL members. The Brandenburg Life Foundation has committed $25,000 to sponsor the August 2004 Teachers Institute training program of the Education & Technology Program. Follow up letters have been mailed to four individuals seeking the balance of the funding needed for this project. Dave Sumner held a successful first meeting with a New England donor who is considering a substantial estate gift to ARRL. Plans for the Donor Recognition Reception in Dayton at the Air Force Museum are nearing completion. So far we are expecting 35 attendees, but the deadline for RSVPs is April 30 so that number is expected to grow. With assistance from MaryAnn Macdonald, work on the Donor List for the Annual Report is nearly complete. Any donors who have not responded by the April 13 deadline will be listed as anonymous. Media Relations Jennifer worked with a reporter (also a ham and ARRL member) with The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tennessee. She pointed him to Web resources for FCC stats and a listing of famous hams for a lengthy feature article that may appear in an annual magazine published by the newspaper. The March issue of Contact! was posted to the PR pages. This issue includes two special BPL-related contributions by Rich Moseson, W2VU, sample letter to the editor and a comprehensive list of talking points. Jen posted a note to the PR reflector about the availability of these items, along with a link to the new ARRL handout on BPL. One ARRL member already used Rich's sample letter, and got it printed in The Huntsville (Alabama) Times. A reminder about the McGan Award nomination deadline (May 21) ran in the Contact! newsletter, was prepared for the Web news crawl and was posted to the PR reflector. Jim Haynie agreed to do an interview on BPL with KHWB, a Warner Brothers station affiliate in Houston. Jennifer is reviewing work from the Public Relations Committee on the Speakers Bureau Project, designed to help Public Information Coordinators set up their own section-wide speakers bureaus. Production/Editorial The May/June 2004 issues of both QEX and NCJ have been released to the printer. After wrapping up work on QEX, Bob Schetgen turned in the June QST Digital Dimension, Technical Correspondence and Hints & Kinks columns. Rick Lindquist reports that The ARRL Letter, Vol 23, No 14, went out to 66,662 members Apr 2. Rick prepared news stories on FEMA's letter to FCC backing away from its earlier BPL stance, ARES assistance in CO wildfire, Dave Sumner's letter to the mayor of Penn Yan, New York, In Brief (12 items), Spectrum Protection Act cosponsor list grows, New amateur world LF QSO record, and several Web news briefs. He also edited the K7RA Solar Update and the news feature "What's Really Happening in Penn Yan," by Gary Pearce, KN4AQ. With voiceover assistance from Jennifer Hagy, Rick voiced, edited and produced ARRL Audio News for Friday, Apr 2. Joel Hallas has turned in the June QST Product Review column as well as several items for New Products. He has wrapped up work on the May/June 2004 issue of NCJ. Product Review testing is well underway for July's column. Dave Hassler's monthly Web version of "ARRL-in-Action" has been posted. He also edited several feature stories for the Web site, wrote up several small news items and reviewed submitted general interest manuscripts. Sales & Marketing With the arrival of all sizes of Field Day shirts, Fatima Lorusso, Danny Sayad, and the warehouse crew processed all back orders containing multiple sized shirts. Back orders are processed this way so only one package will ship to recipients instead of one separate order for every shirt size requested. Field Day shirt back orders are processed this way as Seibel splits all back orders into separate orders. For the last six business days of March, Fulfillment staff participated in a promotion of the 2004 ARRL Handbook to telephone customers. In addition to any $15 order, staff was allowed to offer the title for $25 instead of the regular price of $34.95. This was presented as a challenge. Bob Inderbitzen offered staff tips for phone up-selling. Our top seller was Danny Sayad with a total of 17 copies. Following Danny, were Cathy Stepina and Fatima Lorusso with 10 copies each. Congratulations are in order to all participants who helped us achieve our March sales goals. Deb Jahnke completed end of March Publication Sales preliminary detail reports and arranged for royalty payments to be issued. Since we have recently had a number of QST tear-out advertising sections in a row, we queried advertisers to check on perceived value. Several of our advertisers felt that the tear-out did increase their visibility and were pleased with the final outcome of the pieces. Bob Inderbitzen organized an ARRL exhibit for Superfest, held annually at the Amateur Electronic Supply headquarters store in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He attended the event on April 2nd and 3rd. He also conducted a forum, "Planning for Ham Radio's Future: ARRL's License Restructuring Proposal," drawing from the presentation prepared by Joel Harrison. 75 attended. 60 membership applications were taken at the event--a healthy increase over previous years (41 in 2003; 24 in 2002). 26 of these were new or lapsed sign-ups, the balance renewals. For their big help staffing the ARRL exhibit, special thanks goes to Dick Isely, W9GIG--Central Div. Director, Don Michalski, W9IXG--SM Wisconsin, and Richard Polivka, N6NKO--Central Div. Assistant Director Wisconsin. Work is underway on the spring/summer edition of the ARRL Publications catalog. A handful of Section Managers have made a compelling case for extending the free Repeater Directory membership incentive to renewals they administer. For an undetermined trial period, we have agreed to extend the free book premium to lapsed (or previous members) and membership renewals. While HQ administers most membership renewals without offering a free book premium, we're hopeful that Section Managers will effectively handle more brand new memberships and multi-year renewals as an incident of administering more membership transactions. A copy of the membership application (for distribution by Section Managers) and a handy sign-up poster are available to SMs via their area of the ARRLWeb site. Printed application forms are also available. Questions about this service should be directed to the Sales & Marketing Department or email circulation@arrl.org. Membership Services Awards Branch WAS QSL Cards Checked 350 WAS Certs. (1200 QSLs F/C) 24 WAS Certs. (1050 QSLs ES/C) 21 WAS End. (50 QSLs F/C) 1 WAC Certs. (234 QSLs ES/C) 39 WAC Certs. (42 QSLs F/C) 7 5BWAC Certs. (60 QSLs ES/C) 2 A-1 Op. Noms. 5 LTMA Inquiries 5 VUCC Certs. Processed 12 VUCC Initial Apps. 2 Grids 204 VUCC End. Apps. 1 Grids 75 Awards Mailed 39 Processing Status: Current or up to four weeks. For the coming week-WAS Specialty and VUCC awards, compile the latest list of VUCC award recipients for June QST, mail out all awards processed this week, and enter the latest batch of LTMAs into the members' Siebel records. DXCC Branch For the week of: April 4, 2004 Beginning Cards 56,131 Cards Received 11,717 Cards Processed 14,059 Ending Cards 53,789 Applications Pending 417 Processing Time 2.4 Weeks Year-to-date (2004) Cards Received 109,585 Cards Returned 182,437 DXCC is currently mailing applications received on March 15, 2004. DXCC is currently entering cards received on March 18, 2004. Contest Branch Preliminary scores for the RTTY Roundup were reviewed and a request to check on several areas was sent to the log checker. As this is the first time he has done RTTY logs we are doing more than the usual "reality checks" on the scores. Shipping of 2003 SS pins was completed. Discussions were held with other designated HQ staff on the board directive of looking into a youth component for future Field Days. Several investigations regarding possible rules violations were reviewed and letters sent to the parties in question. A PowerPoint presentation for the NC State Convention was edited and finalized. Data entry for paper 2003 DX CW Contest logs was started. QSL Bureau There is a delay of 8 days. This week 170 pounds of cards were received from members. Approximately 180 pounds of cards are waiting to be processed. Cards mailed as of 04/04/04: 308,175. No cards were mailed this week Field & Educational Services Another ISS "tourist," who may fly late this year or next, is interested in getting his ham license; the ARISS team is working with him. In coordination with Rev Morton and Walt Stinson, Rosalie named Bill Edwards, WU7Y, as Wyoming SM, after Jay Ostrem moved from the Section. Rosalie edited the QST article on the International Humanitarian Award, edited the minutes she took at the three days of ARISS meetings held in Holland, debriefed Rick on news from the meeting, wrote her trip report, and began handling action items from the meeting. Gail Iannone sent 12 convention applications to the Executive Committee and notified the sponsoring committees confirming the EC's approval of their events as ARRL-sanctioned. She also sent 5 hamfest and 2 convention approval letters to the sponsoring committees confirming the Division Director's approval of the events as ARRL-sanctioned, processed 2 label requests, and sent 8 handout packages for upcoming events. Linda Mullally updated 49 club records and did 5 club reactivations. She registered 9 Instructors, and checked membership rosters for 11 clubs. She handled 5 Special Service Club renewals, 2 label requests, 4 Club Vanity email requests, and sent out 4 Exhibit Kits and 1 JOTA Kit. Linda assisted Rosalie by getting 17 new affiliated clubs' records into the Siebel database, and mailing out 9 Charter of Affiliation certificates and 3 Special Service Club certificates. She also assisted by filling out ARISS QSL cards to 35 students from one school -- they had SWLed Mike Foale's QSOs. CCE Jean Wolfgang has assigned mentors for the first online Technician License Course. On Tuesday this course opens with 13 students. The second class for the same course will open on Tuesday April 20. We already have a few students registered in that class, also. Several mentors have expressed an interest in mentoring this class, however, Jean chose to assign 7 mentors who also participated in the beta test of this course, since it's the first section. Other mentors who expressed an interest will be included for the following course sections. Jean continues to learn the Access program and apply it to her duties. She is reviewing the tables containing the mentors' names and the courses they are qualified to mentor, and looking at the registration numbers for non-grant-funded classes. Amateur Radio Education & Technology Project Mark Spencer set up and staffed a booth at the National Science Teachers Association national conference. He took handout materials and hands-on items to attract the attention of teachers. NASA provided financial support for this booth. Regulatory Information John Hennessee reports that there has been some discussion on the SGL Reflector in response to his inquiry about SGLs working together in multi-section states. John assisted amateurs with local government zoning problems in San Jose, CA (N6KJ); Groveland, MA (KD1NA) and with covenant problems in Hoschton, GA (N3UJ) and Morrisville, NC (WD1H). EmComm Grants Dan Miller prepared for a ham radio forum and exhibit for the National Hurricane Conference next week. He and some of our Section Leaders will participate in the forum and round-table discussion. This is the first year, thanks to our grants, that we have had an exhibit at this conference. Field Organization/Public Service Team Leona Adams and Steve assisted our new Wyoming and San Diego SMs as they get started with their terms of office. Leona also reports that, thanks to the Mailroom Staff, the Oregon SM election ballots were shipped out. Thanks to Chuck, Steve and Leona, she is sending even more of our field appointee initial supplies via electronic means. She also sent Section budget activity reports to SMs for their information. Steve Ewald participated in a telecon of the Ad-Hoc Committee on ARES Communications (ARESCOM). He is preparing to e-mail, for ARESCOM, their "Interim Progress Report" (shared at January's Board Meeting) to SMs, SECs, STMs and NTS Area Staff, soliciting comments. The package includes the NTS Area Chairs' "proposal in progress" on best meeting present and future emcomm-response needs, and an FAQ about Winlink 2000 as it relates to emcomm. Steve is getting some good responses from SMs to his inquiry about finding and keeping good Section Leaders. Chuck Skolaut received an OO-monitoring request from Riley Hollingsworth concerning 3808 kHz and 7295 kHz, and forwarded it to the OOCs in appropriate areas. He reviewed taped documentation about AM operation on 75 meters, and a tape recording of interference on a net on 14308 MHz. This was in direct response to an FCC monitoring request. Chuck is also studying audio tapes from South Texas dealing with long-standing problems on a 2-meter repeater. 73, Sincerely, Mark Wilson, K1RO Chief Operating Officer MW:lk Staff Absentee List All Staff 4/9 Holiday Dave Sumner 4/12-4/21 IARU Reg.1 EC Meeting, & Vacation `` 4/27-5/6 Geneva, ITU working party 6E Meeting `` 5/12-5/16 Vacation Dennis Motschenbacher 4/22 Sales meeting GA `` 4/23-4/24 SVHFC Technical & Banquet Speaker `` 5/13-5/17 Vacation `` 6/4-6/5 Georgia Section Convention Deb Jahnke 4/15 Sales call-Baker & Taylor - NJ `` 4/20-4/21 Vacation `` 4/23 Vacation Kathy Capodicasa 4/15 Sales call-Baker & Taylor - NJ `` 4/13-5/16 Dayton Hamvention Scott Gee 4/8 Vacation Danny Sayad 4/15-4/19 Vacation `` 5/13-5/16 Dayton Hamvention Dan Miller 4/5-4/8 National Hurricane Conference `` 4/12-4/14 Vacation `` 4/29-5/2 SJV Section Convention Steve Ford 4/19-4/23 Vacation Stu Cohen 4/8-4/13 Vacation Scott Gee 4/8 Vacation Dean Straw 4/23 International DX Convention/Visalia Dave Hassler 4/15-4/16 Vacation Judy Miller 4/12-4/14 Vacation Bill Moore 4/12 Vacation Eileen Sapko 412 Vacation Wayne Mills 4/22-4/26 Visalia Convention `` 4/30 Lebanon MO Convention Dan Henderson 4/30 Greenville SC Convention Lisa Tardette 4/12 Vacation Robert Inderbitzen 5/13-5/16 Dayton Hamvention Roseanne Lawrence 5/13-5/16 Vacation Fatima Lorusso 5/17-5/19 Vacation