<<102809.doc>> IN-Newsletter <<Microsoft Word Picture>> Vol. 32, No. 43 October 28, 2009 -- Covers the period October 18-24. Upcoming Meetings and Events Ballot Counting for Director/Vice Director Elections November 20 -- ARRL HQ Ad Hoc Committee Meeting on Amateur Auxiliary November 20 -- ARRL HQ Administration &Finance Committee November 21 @ 8:30am - ARRL HQ Programs & Services Committee November 21 @ 8:30am - ARRL HQ COO We have almost completed the preliminary training for the Fathom Content Manager. One additional training session will be held next week. Team leaders and others have started adding actual content to the new Web site. Technical Relations Reported by Brennan Price, N4QX A planned United States contribution to Working Party 5A on WRC-12 Agenda Item 1.23 has been delayed with our consent at the request of the Coast Guard. We hope that this course of action will soften the Coast Guard's opposition to the item. Regulatory Information Reported by Dan Henderson, N1ND The FCC's release on October 20, 2009 of Public Notice DA 09-2259 "Amateur Service Communications during Government Disaster Drills" has generated a tremendous number of email and telephone queries. Bill Cross has been including the ARRL Regulatory Information Manager's office in responses that Bill has been sending to queries the FCC has received on the topic. These are giving the ARRL a good reference resource for handling the numerous questions we have coming into our office. We also worked with Becky Williams in the FCC's Gettysburg office as well as Bill Cross on getting details about the waiver process outlined in the PN. Related to DA 09-2259, I have been working with General Counsel Chris Imlay, W3KD, preparing a PowerPoint presentation which will be used as the focus of an online "webinar" hosted by Atlantic Division Director Bill Edgar, N3LLR, and scheduled for Wednesday October 28 from 9:00 - 10:30 PM. We are also aware of at least two petitions filed with the FCC which propose rule changes loosening the current 97.113 (a) (3) rules. At the request of Rosalie White, K1STO, we addressed a couple of questions posed by members of the ARISS team related to an upcoming "suit-sat" deployment. Since the deployment is under the control of the Russian Space Agency, the Russian amateur service rules apply. Several RFI cases were referred to the ARRL Lab, where Mike Gruber, W1MG, has provided information back to the amateurs involved. Media & Public Relations Reported by Allen Pitts, W1AGP More work was done in transferring materials to the new website following Fathom's training. The electric powerlines at Allen's home were used as a training example by the lab in powerline interference detection and location. An initial draft copy of a brochure targeted at educators was made up and is being circulated for comment. It will have accompanying information for amateurs on how to make a positive initial contact. The Public Relations Committee held its monthly conference call and discussion items included such topics as more easily identifying ARES members in deployments, upcoming TV and radio shows, RTNDA presentation in 2010, the two national PR awards and presentations to winners, JOTA and others. Development Reported by Mary Hobart, K1MMH We are awaiting responses to the fall spectrum Defense mailing that went out last week. Diamond Club revenues for October total more than $16,000 so far. Production/Editorial Reported by Joel Kleinman, N1BKE Khrystyne Keane wrote and distributed The ARRL Letter for October 22, 2009. She also voiced and produced ARRL Audio News for October 22. While editorial and production work moves forward on the January 2010 issue of QST, Joel Hallas has turned in the technical articles for the February issue. Lab Reported by Ed Hare, W1RFI RFI Mike Gruber has now received both the CATV and TVI chapters for the RFI Book 2nd printing from Ron Hranac and Bob Allison, respectively. As reported previously, the transition to DTV has forced a rewrite of both chapters. I hope to review both chapters next week. Mike Gruber met with Jerry Ramie and Brian Cramer over the weekend for a power line noise locating training session. A number of topics were discussed - including the development of an IEEE recommended practice for noise locating. Due to heavy rain, all of Saturday was devoted to classroom discussion. We finished up with classroom discussion on Sunday and continued with a field exercise with W1AW. A noisy pole was located at the corner of Starr and Main Street. After lunch, we went to see Allen Pitts in New Britain. He's been having noise issues for about 11 years. Although we found some unusual phenomena in one area, we were able to conclusively identify one pole in Allen's neighborhood as an offending noise source. Final discussions with Jerry included using my Power Point slides and other materials for other related purposes. Mike Gruber took both Jerry and Brian to New York for an IEEE meeting on Monday. Web Site Zack Lau and Mike Gruber attended the Content Management System seminar-the plan is to have all the new content transferred from the old system to the new by December 4th. Bob Allison worked with Steve Ford to help produce a tour of the Lab on video. This was by edited by Steve to be put up on our new website. USTTI Bob Allison, Mike Gruber, Ed Hare, and Zack Lau also participated in the Training Institute. Ed gave several presentations on RFI. Bob gave a tour and talk about the ARRL Lab. Zack gave his 10GHz demonstration. Mike and Bob ran the receiver kit building class-there were five students this year. Looks of terror turned to beaming smiles within a few hours. Sales and Marketing Reported by Bob Inderbitzen, NQ1R ARRL has awarded the new QST contract to R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company. The company has been the ongoing printer of QST for (approximately) 23 years. The contract planning team included Amy Hurtado, Deb Jahnke, Shelly Bloom, Steve Ford and Harold Kramer. The negotiations included competitive bids from a handful of printers. Their good work will mean a substantial savings to the remainder of this year's production and throughout the 2 year contract period. Sales of the 2010 ARRL Handbook continue to be overwhelmingly strong. Distribution has exceeded the first month's forecast. During the last 2 weeks, the warehouse crew fulfilled 3,174 packages for publication and product orders, shipped 778 member premiums, and completed 4 QST mailing supplements. Warehouse clerks Paul Cuppini and Alan Gosselin have worked on a couple of Saturdays this month to help keep-up with demand for the 2010 Handbook. We started receiving applications responding to a large membership campaign which mailed 2 weeks ago. A membership "test" mailing to Technician class licensees is scheduled for mailing on Oct 27. Beginning in November, an additional e-mail renewal notice will be sent to upcoming expirees, and sent prior to the second mailed notice. Planning is underway to test a new version of a "second" renewal notice. Diane Petrilli met with Dennis Dura to explore ways to more closely associate membership with an affinity for EmComm and public service. (If you have a suggestion on this matter, please share it with us!) Diane Petrilli is working with a long-time ARRL member and volunteer on a film tour of ARRL-for possible use on the new ARRL web site. A luncheon is planned to help recognize the volunteer ARRL Tour Guides and other HQ volunteers. Visitors to Newington regularly compliment their efforts. Members of our group attended the new web site content management training sessions held throughout the week. The winter 2009/2010 publications catalog has been received. A mailing to previous purchasers has been completed. Last week we said goodbye to Member Services Representative Mindy Lajoie, who has decided to leave ARRL to pursue other endeavors. The full-time position opening has been posted. ARRL Conventions Date Name Division City State ARRL HQ Representative Nov 7-8 Georgia Section SE Lawrenceville GA Allen Pitts Nov 14 Alabama State SE Montgomery AL Nov 14-15 Indiana State CL Fort Wayne IN Ward Silver Dec 5-6 Florida State SE Palmetto FL Dennis Dura Membership & Volunteer Programs Reported by Dave Patton, NN1N Contest Branch Certificates for the 2008 ARRL 160 Meter Contest went out last week as expected. I hope to get the 2008 10 Meter certificates out this week. Last week I reported that the 10 GHz contest had only received just over 60 logs and was in danger of having the lowest turnout since 1989. We did in fact receive an influx of over 30 logs, bringing the official count up to 95. This is on the low side of average, but still within the bell curve of average participation. Field Organization/Public Service Team Leona has been updating the Field Service database with new appointments, cancellations and changes and communicating with EC's via email and Pub Sales via their EC supplies. She wants to thank Pub Sales for getting these requests out via warehouse. She has been sending out OO test packets to new applicants as well. She reports that ballots continue to come in for upcoming Section Manager Elections in Alaska, Alabama and Kansas. Ballots are to be returned to ARRL HQ by Friday, November 20, 2009 and counted on Tuesday, November 24, 2009. Chuck compiled and forwarded the monthly ARRL Monitoring System report to the IARU Region 2 Coordinator. One Amateur from Indiana successful completed certification to join the Official Observer program this week. The FCC DFing station is assisting in investigating an unidentified signal on 7251. Questions and reports this week included felons with amateur licenses, indecent pictures on SSTV, a bootlegged call, NOAA weather reports, and a carrier on 14000. Emergency Preparedness & Response Reported by Dennis Dura, K2DCD Presented at the Missouri State Emergency Management Agency/Department of Public Safety 2009 Crisis Communications Conference in St. Charles, Missouri. Event had over 200 participants from all sectors of public safety-emergency communications. By a hand count at that beginning of my presentation-almost all attending indicated they were Hams. Education Services Reported by Debra Johnson, K1DMJ IEEE requested a story about our education outreach efforts with schools for its Web publication Today's Engineer. We provided the story which is published at: http://www.todaysengineer.org/2009/Sep/Ham-Radio.asp We provided a letter of introduction and some brochures and a CD of sample resources to ARISS mentors for the ARISS meeting at the recent AMSAT annual meeting. This is part of our effort to acquaint ARISS Mentors with the resources the ETP offers so they can refer teachers they work with in preparation for an ARISS QSO to us. We want to offer our help to explain amateur radio and help them take advantage of the ARISS contact to talk about radio science as part of the learning activities surrounding the event. Education & Technology Program We held a planning session to discuss lessons learned from this year's Teachers Institutes and plans for next year. We discussed two possible concepts for future TI-2s, another one on Satellite Communications to be reconfigured as a 4-day session, and one on Basis Electronics. We'll conduct a survey to determine the interest level in each topic to determine which we will offer in 2010. There have been a couple of schools and interested hams who have requested to be considered to host at TI in their areas in 2010 and 2011. There appears to be an upswing in interest for hosting a TI. We have evaluated these requests and have proposed a plan for 2010. We have been receiving quite a few reports from schools on their activities. Some of the requests for information and assistance are in support of some innovative projects being contemplated from the schools...they are thinking outside the box. These correspondences are primarily from Teachers Institute graduates. Mark Spencer WA8SME has started building the modulation boards for next year's TIs and has been servicing the requests from interested hams for the Radio Telescope boards and programmed PICs. In response to a school request, he has completed an interesting study on the use of the ISS and NO-44 APRS packet systems in relaying data from a proposed sea borne buoy. He has also completed the design and prototype of a universal data link system planned for use with various ETP projects. An article about the data link has been submitted to the editors of QST and QEX, along with an article on a Fox Transmitter designed for the ETP. Nathan McCray K9CPO has been guiding many teachers participating in the Teachers Institute on the setup and operation of their weather stations. He also has been fielding questions from TI participants about setting up radio stations and becoming an ETP school, as well as discussing a potential 2010 TI location in South Carolina in the school district of one of last summer's Michigan TI participants. Nathan reports that he is adding to the robotics program in his school that he initiated last year. This year he will have a basic robotics course for first year students or students that want to continue to work with the Boe-Bot. This class will be taught by two teachers who participated in the Teachers Institute this past summer. Nathan has plans to develop a second, advanced class that he will lead. E-mail contact notes went out to potential ARISS contact teachers as well as teachers who recently registered as ARRL instructors. The grant deadline of 1 November is one month away, the number of applications this round is down from previous rounds. ARISS Rosalie is gathering information for a Web story about a recent ARISS contact in Boise Idaho at the Idaho Historical Museum. This contact was scheduled in connection with NASA's WHEELs program, which is a professional development program for teachers through which local teachers receive hands-on training in science and technology projects. Local hams assisted in teaching lessons about ham radio to both the teachers and the students. Rosalie also prepared a story on the new antennas to be installed in the ISS Columbus module that was published on our website on October 5 at http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2009/10/05/11110/ The ARISS program has been very active this fall. There have been 26 ARISS QSOs thus far through September and October, with 8 more scheduled before the end of the month. Many of these contacts have been coordinated with wide-ranging educational integration with student science and technology projects such as designing and building model rockets, and student preparation on topics such as communications and scientific communication, technology employment, intellectual property, as well as radio waves and how amateur radio works. At one location in Brasschaat, Belgium, students helped to assemble a station and build homemade tracking antennas. Locations of recent ARISS QSOs include: Cedarview Middle School, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Idaho Historical Museum, Boise, Idaho R.T. Alderman Middle School, Calgary, Alberta, Canada University of Liege, Belgium Scuola Secondaria, in Casale Monferrato, Italy St Michiels College, Brasschaat, Belgium National Planetarium Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Belmont Elementary School, Langley, BC, Canada Boundary Beach Elementary School, Delta, BC, Canada Astronaut Gennady Padalka, RN3DT activated a slow-scan experiment onboard the ISS on September 24 and 25 for 6 hours. Slow Scan TV images of Earth were downlinked to ground stations. Sincerely Compiled by, Lisa Kustosik, KA1UFZ Assistant to the CEO Staff Absentee List All Staff 11/26-11/27 Holiday `` 12/25 Holiday Leona Adams 11/6 Vacation Steve Capodicasa 11/13 Vacation `` 11/23-11/25 Vacation Steve Ford 11/2 Vacation `` 11/13 Vacation Scott Gee 12/7-12/8 Vacation `` 12/23-12/24 Vacation `` 12/31 Vacation Alan Gosselin 11/6 Vacation Joel Hallas 11/19-11/20 North Fulton ARL, Atlanta, GA `` 11/30 Vacation Ed Hare 10/28-10/29 IEEE Standards Meeting, White Plains, NY `` 11/11-11/13 Standards Development Committee, Huntsville, AL Dan Henderson 11/23-11/25 Vacation `` 12/21-12/31 Vacation Gail Iannone 12/21-12/31 Vacation Joel Kleinman 11/11 Vacation `` 11/24 Vacation Rose-Anne Lawrence 11/13 Vacation Diane Petrilli 10/29 Training `` 10/30 Vacation `` 12/21-12/28 Vacation Brennan Price 11/4-11/13 Vacation Ashley Rakus 10/30 Vacation Dave Sumner 11/2 FCC Office, Washington, DC