In-Newsletter Vol. 25, No. 10 March 11, 2002 Upcoming Meetings April 20th in Ft. Worth, TX at 8:00am A&F Committee Development Development met with the leaders of the United Technologies' (UTC) contribution team last week. The meeting was a positive and laid solid groundwork for the meeting with the full committee on March 19. The situation looks good to receive funding for the ARECC expansion in CT. The national rollout will be submitted for UTC's 2003 contributions budget, and may depend on how well we do in CT. The first 16,000 letters and brochures promoting estate planning have been mailed. The Education and Technology Program campaign letter is under revision. The campaign will mail on March 25 to active members and about 20,000 lapsed members. Follow up letters will be mailed in April to prior donors, Life Members and the special research files that were compared to a national non-profit giving database. Look for the first campaign ad in the April QST. A follow up memorandum to the 9900 donors to the 2002 Defense Fund is being revised and will mail before the Education campaign. Look for the Thank You ad in April's QST. Thanks to Tom Hogerty and Jon Bloom, there is now a permanent contribution form on the website. Look for the link "Make a contribution to ARRL". This link will remain active even as we establish special links for individual campaigns. Circulation Department A big "Thank You!" goes to Bob Inderbitzen, NQ1R, for giving such a great tour of League Headquarters to the Den 9 Cub Scout Troop from Newington. Thanks also to Joe Carcia, NJ1Q, for his time and patience when showing the group around W1AW. Membership Services Awards Branch WAS QSL Cards Checked 400 WAS Endorsements 7 WAC QSLs 144 A-1 Operator Nominations 3 A-1 Operator Awards 17 Long Term Member Inquiries 3 VUCC Initial Awards 10 VUCC Grids (Data Entry) 1394 VUCC Endorsements 5 VUCC Grids (Data Entry) 710 Processed and mailed 30 WAS Specialty awards and nine 5-Band WAS awards. For the coming week-Basic WAS awards for February, U.S. WAC and Code Proficiency awards, VUCC data entry, processing, and mailing out awards. DXCC Branch Weekly Report March 10, 2002 Beginning Cards 34,330 Cards Received 15,307 Cards Processed 7,325 Ending Cards 42,213 Applications Pending 301 Backlog Time 1Week Year-to-date Cards Received 90,049 Cards Returned 167,508 QRP Issued this week 1 QRP YTD 148 Card Return: DXCC is currently mailing applications received on February 28, 2002. There are approximately 100 applications containing about 12,000 cards waiting to be mailed in the mailroom. Card Processing: We are entering cards received on March 7, 2002. Renewal notices went out to 65 card checkers to renew their appointments. This is the first group since the new program started. Renewals will be done quarterly and will involve anyone in the 3 month period. Since we started, the card checkers have checked just over 3,000 applications. A job well done considering in the old program, a total of only about 800 applications were checked over the approximately 10 years it existed. There are currently 147 card checkers in the program. QSL Branch QSL Service Status: Current. Cards mailed as of 03/10/2002: 427,750. Cards mailed on 03/08/2002: 77,525. Janet spent 6 hours conducting tours around HQ. W1AW Joe worked the late afternoon/evening shift Wednesday through Friday for a vacationing Scott Gee. Joe also answered regular W1AW QSL card requests, and began tracking down a problem with the 2-meter amplifier. Thanks to Al, AA1DO, for his assistance in clearing up a problem with the Harris 10-meter exciter. W1AW Telephone Sales year to date (2002): $2,261 Field & Educational Services Field Organization/Public Service Team Steve Ewald reports over 280 responses received on the ARES garment questionnaire. Several ECs responded with additional comments; all responses will be compiled. More correspondence has been arriving about the new Public Service Honor Roll criteria; Steve is collecting all comments. Leona Adams reports that March 8 was the deadline for SM nomination petitions for terms beginning July 1, 2002. Elections will be held in Illinois and Oregon. Illinois candidates are: Bruce Boston, KF9UL, and Sharon Harlan, N9SH. For Oregon: Marshall Johnson, KK7CW, and Lewis N. Williams, WB7NML. Sections that sent nominations only from incumbents are: Santa Clara Valley, Northern Florida, Wisconsin and Maine. One nomination each arrived for Indiana: James S. Sellers, K9ZBM, and for Vermont: Paul N. Gayet, AA1SU. Regulatory Team John Hennessee assisted amateurs with covenant problems in Lyndon, KY (KG4LRU) and Panama City, FL (WA4EWV). An application for new Volunteer Counsel Jenks Garrett, K5YNZ, of Weatherford, TX was processed, and John updated the letter for new VCs. He also submitted updates to the regulatory Web page updating the reciprocal operating requirements for Jamaica. Brennan Price continued work on the Repeater Directory, checking integrity of submitted listings and coordinator contact data, and negotiating the remaining license agreements. The repeater database was locked and sent to the programmers of TravelPlus for Repeaters. At Paul Rinaldo's request, Brennan collected data from coordination bodies regarding use of 433-435 MHz to support ARRL's reply comments in the SAVI matter. Field & Educational Support Team As a result of recent e-mail messages Jean Wolfgang sent to Section Managers and others, she has received four new nominations for the ARRL Hiram Percy Maxim Memorial Award. This is our annual award for outstanding young people. The deadline is March 31. Margie Bourgoin added eight new ARRL-affiliated clubs to TASS. She sent a message to all the Affiliated Club Coordinators (ACCs) asking them to remind their Section's clubs about the Vanity Email service available to all ARRL-affiliated clubs. She updated TASS with all e-mail addresses or changes she got for ACCs. She also posted a URL to the e-mailed Teacher Newsletter showing teachers where they can find an archive of ARISS school contacts. Linda Mullally updated the records for 62 ARRL-affiliated clubs and for 8 ARRL-registered instructors and 1 ARRL-registered schoolteacher. She upgraded 24 students from the C-CE courses to a status of "passed," and sent out graduation letters. Linda completed the F&ES Monthly revenue and inventory reports, noting monthly revenue to be $3,989.36 for such things as shipping reimbursement, videolibrary tapes, publications and memberships. Gail Iannone sent 13 hamfest and 5 convention approval letters to sponsoring committees, and notified 8 committees of the EC's approval of conventions. She coordinated travel for Jean Wolfgang, WB3IOS, to be HQ rep at the Delaware State Convention, April 28 in New Castle, and Wayne Mills, N7NG, to be HQ rep at the Missouri State Convention, May 3-4 in Lebanon. March 15th is the deadline for your Dayton Marriott room reservation forms! Mary Lau prepared and distributed to the ARRL Foundation a new grant proposal from a natural science museum and wildlife sanctuary located outside of Dallas, Texas. The facility has a special Tech Camp that uses Amateur Radio to help young women explore the natural sciences. The Big Project Jerry Hill worked with Mary Hobart on an information package to be used for lobbying. He also prepared a response for President Haynie to an on-line newspaper article from Senator Kay Hutchinson about how to get kids involved in science. He continues to spend time developing curriculum. Jerry gave a talk at the Candlelight Amateur Radio Association meeting. C-CE Team Steven Blair has completed preparing the next on-line course for beta-testing and will send it to our Web host, CTDLC, on Monday. He is also preparing the HF Digital Course material for a printed version. Dan Miller and Mark Wilson met with CTDLC, our Web host, about several issues for improvement of how our on-line courses run. CTDLC, a state-sponsored consortium, is pleased with ARRL because we are their third largest customer. Registration for the second running of the Antenna Modeling course opens on Monday. This month's registration for Level 1 Emergency Communications course totaled 122, and registration stays open through the weekend. Rosalie is working with NASA on a talk for the upcoming World Space Congress 2002 (expected 10,000 attendance). Two ARISS school QSOs were successful this week, one with students in Deep Creek, Oregon, and one in England. For Deep Creek, the NBC Nightly News Show was to air footage; the Oregonian newspaper ran a story. The first PR event for the new IMAX film debuting in April (ARISS schools are included) is scheduled. Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, and a Franklin Institute astronomer (who's a ham) will be interviewed on a WXPN radio program. 73, Sincerely, Mark Wilson, K1RO Chief Operating Officer Staff Absentee List Name Date(s) Reason All Staff 3/29 Holiday Dave Sumner 3/13-3/20 Geneva `` 3/21-3/27 Vacation Mary Hobart 4/6-4/7 MD State Convention, Timonium Mark Wilson 4/1-4/3 Vacation Dan Miller 3/11 Vacation `` 3/28-4/1 Vacation Joel Kleinman 3/7-3/12 Vacation Rosalie White 3/15-3/18 Natn'l Vol. Active in Disasters conference, Oklahoma City Brennan Price 3/13-3/18 Vacation Steve Ewald 3/22-3/23 Nebraska State Convention, Norfolk Jerry Hill 3/26-3/31 National Science Teacher Association conference, San Diego