After I sent this, I realized that I failed to underscore the fact that the attendees at this conference were largely ARES operators from areas where use of digital communications modes is common. So they were hardly representative of our overall membership, and there should be no surprise that they would support changes to Part 97 that would make advancement of digital communications easier. -- Andy, N6AJO

Date: Mon, 07 May 2007 17:10:37 -0700 To: ARRL ODV From: Andy Oppel <andy@andyoppel.com> Subject: Trip Report from Emcomm West

Greetings,

This past weekend I participated in the Emcomm West conference in Reno, Nevada. For those who don't know, this is an amateur radio conference focused on emergency communications. There were about 200 attendees this year (we fear fuel prices kept a lot of amateurs away). Here are some notes from the event:

1. I must have been asked about the PAVE PAWS issue 50 times. With repeaters that are 100 miles from Beale AFB appearing on the list, all of the attendees from Northern California were very concerned. The Reno area hams also expressed concern that the Air Force might claim they need an even wider area shutdown, and at a 135 miles, it would include Reno -- and none of them was willing to trust the Air Force to understand that the Sierra Nevada mountains would shield their system from any UHF signal generated in the Reno area. One California amateur knew a lot about the system, having once worked at Beale and having once been involved in resolving an interference complaint with one of the California repeaters. I have sent Don Henderson, Ed Hare, and others his name and call in hopes they will contact him.

2. In the ARRL forum, I was asked about the regulation by bandwidth proposal. I asked if any of them (about 50 in the room) knew the reasoning behind our proposal, and none did. That speaks volumes for our failure to market the idea to our membership. Once I explained it, I asked who would favor such a petition and who would oppose it. 100% would support it (or perhaps were afraid to voice their minority opinion).

3. The Section Managers attending (Nevada, East Bay, Sacramento Valley, San Francisco, and Idaho {yes, I know Idaho is not in my Division, but he was there for the 3rd year in a row which I think is great}) had a meeting with their leaders who were present and invited me to sit in. (Mr. Vallio was on Scarborough Reef at the time). Aside from discussion of PAVE PAWS (it came up in just about every conversation I had there) and the bandwidth proposal (which also came up frequently), there were two other items:

a. HQ Staff made a decision sometime back to restrict the use of Section budget funds for purchasing publications. The rule now is that no more than 10% of the budget can be so spent. Also, they cannot get publications at cost even if they pay with their own personal funds. They believe (probably correctly) that this was in response to SMs dumping the remainder of their budgets into publications at the end of the budget year. Suffice it to say that they are most unhappy with the decision and cited their inability to buy enough publications to cover recruiting efforts, event door prizes, etc. They were unhappy enough that I wishing Mr. Vallio and I were in reverse roles and that I was the one on a tiny platform in 100 degree heat surrounded by ocean. At least he wasn't being chewed at by sharks (har har). I'm not taking sides here (don't yell at me -- I've been yelled at enough lately) -- just passing along what I heard in no uncertain terms.

b. Several SMs have received complaints that the ARRL is asking members for donations too frequently. Two of the SMs cited cases where members too offense and decided not to give anything to the ARRL from here on out. In particular, mailings to Diamond Club members who had already donated this year seemed to be a hot button.

73, Andy Oppel, N6AJO Vice Director, Pacific Division American Radio Relay League (ARRL) The National Association for Amateur Radio

n6ajo@arrl.org home: (510) 864-2299 cell: (510) 851-6214

Andy Oppel andy@andyoppel.com andy_oppel@alamedanet.net