IN-Newsletter Vol. 27, No.39 September 29, 2004 Upcoming Meetings Executive Committee October 16th in Dallas, TX at 8:30am United States Telecommunications Training Institute Course: Amateur Radio Administration October 18-22 in Newington, CT Ballot Counting, Director/Vice Director Elections November 19th in Newington, CT A & F Committee November 20th in Newington, CT at 8:30am CEO Dave Sumner joined Paul Rinaldo, International Affairs Vice President Stafford, President Haynie, and Vice President Harrison in Trinidad for the IARU Region 2 conference. Dave Patton and Allen Pitts provided an interview for USA Today which published a story about BPL on Tuesday, September 28. Patton also was interviewed by National Public Radio for a story on BPL that will air on NPR's Marketplace program. He reports that responses to the proposed bandwidth petition have tapered off over the last week, recording an additional 25 comments. Still supporting Logbook of the World with various customer service and internal operations, Patton sent out approximately two-hundred email notices to participants who have not completed their application process. The notices do occasionally draw enough attention to compel users to send the required documentation and/or provide missing passwords to gain use of the system. The most common customer service issues with LoTW over the last few weeks include questions about multiple user accounts, and certificate renewal problems. Patton and Wayne Mills conferred over a couple of Colvin Grant award applications, and decided, along with Dave Sumner, to offer grants to upcoming DXpeditions to Peter the First Island, and the Chesterfield Islands. Patton also hosted an after-hours tour for longtime member W7LKG and his wife. This week Patton is working to resurrect a Project Goodwill equipment grant to the Calcutta VHF Amateur Radio Society to help them get a long awaited repeater on the air. Lisa Kustosik reports that Director/Vice Directors Ballots have been mailed and would like to thank the computer department and the mailroom for making that happen. Development The final report for Year Two of the CNCS grant is complete and has been submitted. The ARECC program enrolled 2595 hams in its second year and certified 1936 volunteers -- nearly 300 more than projected. CNCS approved a budget revision mid-year that enabled ARRL to increase the number of hams enrolled in the ARECC program. Data from the EMCOMM Survey sent to all course graduates, and data from the public service database provided vital information to document the profile of the program and the extraordinary number of volunteer hours contributed by the ham community -- over 42,000 hours in the last 12 months. The value of the time and equipment that radio amateurs donated to disaster preparedness and response in the last 12 months exceeds $3.9 million! The 2005 Spectrum Defense campaign is beginning to see responses with nearly $4000 in receipts in the last week mostly via the web. The 2005 budget has been submitted for revenue and expense. The Member Awards program is ready to recognize members of 50 years or more pending updating to the membership data. Media and Public Relations In between sorting out items in his office and learning our procedures, Allen Pitts has begun meetings/calls with key people throughout the organization to learn their ideas, hopes and concepts of the organization. These insights are expected to become the background for a proactive strategy in public relations. In addition Allen is getting himself "up to speed" on BPL and other current, critical issues as quickly as possible. He also has evaluated the ARRL Web pages under his purview and provided recommended changes to Jon Bloom for his consideration. Production/Editorial The Microwave Update 2004 Conference Proceedings has been released to the printer. Rick Lindquist reports The ARRL Letter, Vol 23, No 38, distributed to 66,956 members on Sep 24--up by 145 from a week earlier. Rick filed (and augmented) his "Happenings" column (7 pages) for November QST. He also prepared/edited stories re BPL Report and Order imminent, Amateur Radio's hurricane response in Florida (and elsewhere), FCC enforcement, ARDF Team USA (thanks to Joe Moell, K0OV), ARISS contacts in Japan and Germany, Allen Pitts arrival at HQ, and several news briefs. Rick voiced, edited and produced ARRL Audio News for Sep 24. Bob Schetgen, Joel Hallas and the Production staff are wrapping up work on the November/December issue of QEX. Sales and Marketing The fall/winter ARRL Publications catalog is completed. Thanks go to Sue Fagan for her excellent design contributions to this edition. A large catalog mailing is planned for mid/late October--the beginning of our holiday shopping season. New product features include: The ARRL Handbook for Radio Communications--2005; ARRL's RF Amplifier Classics; Ham Radio for Dummies; Passport to World Band Radio--2005; Radio Amateur Callbook CD-ROM and Buckmaster's HamCall(tm) CD-ROM; The Secret Wireless War; International Antenna Collection--Volume 2; LF Today; Radio Frequency Propagation online course; Practical Digital Signal Processing; VHF Propagation; Build Your Own Low-Power Transmitters; and a handful of new conference proceedings. 2005 Handbook pre-orders continue to be received. These advance orders have just passed the 5,000-units mark, well in excess of planning estimates. Results from a recent membership test mailing have provided some insight into planning the larger fall campaign. A 20,000 piece mailing is now in the works, and should mail to lapsed members within the next two weeks. Advertising and graphics staff finished up November QST advertising and the magazine left for press on Friday. We're pleased to report that a number of advertisers who had not appeared in QST for quite awhile returned to place ads in the November Holiday Tear-out. Work on a new edition of Advertising Matters is wrapping up, and we will be sending this issue to approximately 175 prospective advertisers as well as our current ones. This issue features selected data from the QST Readership Survey. Prospective advertisers will also receive a current issue of QST and an introductory letter. Membership Services Awards Branch WAS QSL Cards Checked 350 WAS Ends (150 QSLs F/C) 3 WAS Ends (100 QSLs ES/C) 2 LTMA Inquires 3 75-Year Member Award 1 A-1 Op. Noms 3 A-1 Op. Cert. 1 VUCC Certs. Processed 9 VUCC Initial Apps. 7 Grids 507 VUCC End Apps. 5 Grids 149 Awards Mailed 40 Also, worked on budget matters. Processing Status: Current or up to three weeks. For the coming week- WAC QSL card checking, foreign WAC and WAS/90th awards, and VUCC awards processing/mailing. Contest Branch The June VHF results article was received from the author. The QST version was sent to production and the on-line version was sent to Web Services for layout. Data entry for the September VHF paper logs began. Budget work was done for MSD. Work on the Field Day write-up continued. Dan continued work to streamline and simplify line score reporting for web presentation. DXCC Branch For the week of: September 26, 2004 Beginning Cards 68,786 Cards Received 23,145 Cards Processed 9,000 Ending Cards 82,931 Applications Pending 717 Processing Time 4.8 Weeks Year-to-date (2004) Cards Received 419,720 Cards Returned 411,173 DXCC is currently mailing applications received on August 24, 2004. DXCC is currently entering cards received on August 25, 2004. LoTW fees collected in DXCC this week: $162.20 Last weekend Wayne Mills attended the W9DXCC convention. Work related to that convention is: 43 DXCC Apps/5,392 QSOs Bill Moore attended the Virginia Beach convention. Work related to that convention is: 17 DXCC Apps/914 QSOs 1 WAS/50 QSOs 2 VUCC/56 QSOs Logbook of the World QSO records entered into the system 50,786,294 QSL records have resulted 1,772,418 Logs Processed 68,496 Active Certificates 11,190 Users registered in the system 7,990 Current Applications 141 Ready Applications 45 Applications Awaiting Mail 96 QSL Bureau QSL Service Status: Processing time is approximately 4 days from receipt. This week 72 pounds of cards were received from members. Approximately 70 pounds of cards are waiting to be processed. Cards mailed as of 09/26/2004----801,460 Cards mailed on 09/24/2004--100,975 In this mailing cards were sent to the bureaus that receive smaller quantities than other bureaus. This task is done every 90 days. W1AW W1AW received as a donation a Hamtronics R139 satellite weather receiver. It had already come in handy, producing pictures of the current set of Hurricanes (Ivan and Jeanne) that were affecting the US. Scott worked on fast and slow code practice files for the latter part of the month of September and early October. He worked the early afternoon shift on Friday for a vacationing Joe Carcia and also handled some evening phone sales calls in the daily 5 PM to 8 PM time slots. Joe uploaded regular W1AW/90 and W1AW/90 "Awareness Day" logs to LoTW. He created the text files for the October W1AW Qualifying Runs, and processed a few W1AW Qualifying Run certificates and endorsements. He also quickly re-created a simple Hamfest/Convention database (in MS Access) for Gail Iannone to replace the database that was lost in a PC conversion. Steve Ford and Joe also conducted a Ham Dream (digital voice) experiment. Field & Educational Services A successful ARISS QSO was done by Investigator Science & Technology Centre, in Australia, with iRLP experiments being tried. German and Japanese schools also had successful QSOs. The ARISS PR Committee posts news items about USA ARISS QSOs on the LM Net, a school library media listserv. Rosalie took part in a PSC telecon and an international ARISS telecon, preparing the minutes for the latter. She supported a department meeting, and worked on the budget. She okayed Norm joining the QST feature article review committee; Rosalie submits comments on submissions, but doesn't attend meetings, as he will do. Field & Education Support Gail Iannone sent 7 hamfest approval letters and 1 convention approval letter to sponsoring committees confirming the Division Director's approval of the events as ARRL-sanctioned, and processed 8 hamfest/convention material orders and 6 label requests for upcoming events. She sent 3 new clubs applying for ARRL-affiliation to the Division Directors and Section Managers for their approval in addition to acknowledgement letters to the club officials, and sent 1 SSC approval letter and certificate to the Starved Rock Radio Club in IL. Linda Mullally updated 75 affiliated club records with 3 reactivations. She renewed 2 SSC clubs, and entered data for 12 new clubs into the database. She merged 3 club records and handled 2 Vanity E-mail requests. She registered 10 Volunteer Instructors and 2 Teachers. She sent 2347 brochures, 12 Exhibit Kits and 15 JOTA Kits, updated the So You Want to Be flyers, and re-ordered more. She put together a large order for the New England Eastern States Exposition (similar to state fair). She compiled the statistics for QST's Public Service column -- PSHR, BPL, STM, SEC. She fulfilled requests for 34 ARISS QSL cards. Club/Mentor Program Norm Fusaro interviewed a woman in Kansas and then wrote a story about her mentor and the good things they have accomplished, particularly with ARES. He worked with hams interested in NVIS, which they learned about from our multimedia library, but wanted additional information on this operating technique. He met with marketing to finish the $2 rebate program for clubs when they work with their members to renew ARRL memberships. Norm and Linda aided a gentleman in Delaware organizing a ham radio awareness event for youngsters. Certification-Continuing Education Jean Wolfgang sent 8 online class sections to CTDLC, our Web host, which reflected a total of 239 students. She processed 96 EmComm graduates -- this includes preparation for checks, certificates, and ID cards. Jean opened our newest on-line course, RF Propagation, last week, and has received 34 registrations to date. She also received several registrations for other technical on-line courses. Thanks goes to Jon Bloom for making changes to the CCE Web site, some of which makes adding mentors to the database a much less time-consuming job. Amateur Radio Education & Technology Project Mark Spencer spent the majority of time on budget issues and planning for possible grant opportunities. The receiver kits arrived, and the associated curriculum that he is developing is about 50% complete. There will be no problem meeting the January 2005 availability date. Field Organization/Public Service Team Leona Adams completed the preparatory work on three separate SM-election candidate statements and ballots. These went to the printer, and the Mailroom is scheduled to mail ballots to members in NLI, WCF and Nebraska by October 1. Leona and Steve Ewald were in touch with newly-appointed SCV SM Kit Blanke, WA6PWW, as he begins his term on October 1. At the monthly Citizen Corps Affiliates' Teleconference, Steve Ewald was asked to highlight ARRL because of hurricane activity. He discussed ARRL's and Amateur Radio's involvement in National Preparedness Month and the work hams have been doing for communication support during this active hurricane season. Steve continued to be in touch with hams doing hurricane relief efforts. At week's end, the focus turned to reconstituted Ivan, a tropical storm that affected Louisiana and Texas, plus preparations for Hurricane Jeanne. Steve took part in an ARESCOM teleconference. He wrote a story for the Web about the SM Workshop. Chuck Skolaut has been keeping tabs on the Hurricane Watch Net frequency. As a follow up on the unidentified signal on 7240 kHz (thought to be from the Prescott, AZ area) -- it left the air before the source was found. New reports this week include two different types of unidentified signals heard on 20 meters, one on 17 meters, and one on 15 meters that sounded like encrypted voice with no identification. EmComm Grants To better assure compliance with our CNCS Year 3 grant guidelines, our goal for seniors to fill 75% of new volunteer seats, Dan Miller is working with Jon Bloom to streamline on-line registrations, report formats, and to maintain close monitoring of all classes and courses. He has provided additional input for grant reports and for the upcoming budget items. The final total for our CNCS Year 2 graduates was 1,936. Regulatory Information John Hennessee is working on a new printing of the FCC Rule Book. He made a presentation on Regulatory topics at the SM Workshop. He worked with Joe Carcia at W1AW where the SMs operated during Amateur Radio Awareness Day and National Preparedness Month; he also invited Newington Amateur Radio League members plus HQ staff to operate. Thanks to everyone who operated. John also attended a planning meeting as an observer, where the goal is to codify PRB-1 in Connecticut as a state statute. John assisted an amateur with a local government zoning problem in Hampton Township, PA (W3UX) and with covenant restrictions in Oceanside, CA (KB2EBC--presently living in Texas); Friendswood, TX (W5ZAF) and San Antonio, TX (W5JLR). 73, Sincerely, Dave Patton, NN1N Special Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer DCP: lk Staff Absentee List Dave Sumner 9/27-10/5 IARU Reg.2 Conference & AC meeting. Trinidad `` 10/15pm Executive Committee Meeting, Dallas, TX Dave Patton 10/20-10/25 FMRE Convention, Queretaro, Mexico Rick Lindquist 10/8-10/14 AMSAT Symposium/ARISS Int'l Meeting Dennis Motschenbacher 9/27-9/30 West Coast Sales Calls 10/1-10/2 PNW VHF Conference Robert Inderbitzen 10/15 Vacation Joe Carcia 10/1pm Vacation Sharon Taratula 9/24-10/1 Vacation Dan Miller 10/8 Vacation Joel Kleinman 10/7-10/12 Vacation Sharon Taratula 9/24-10/1 Vacation Scott Gee 10/8 Vacation