In-Newsletter Vol. 25, No. 4 January 28, 2002 Development Department The job posting for the open Development Associate position is complete and resumes are being accepted. ARRL's application to participate in the Combined Federal Campaign will be complete and on it's way to Washington by the January 31st deadline. Thanks to all who helped collect the required information for this application. Development convened a meeting to discuss ARRL's application to receive a portion of the Federal government's $5,000,000 allocation to fund Volunteers in Homeland Security. Consensus is to build on our successful history of training volunteers in emergency services by expanding our on-line certification and training more of our field appointments to conduct classes across the country. After Jim Haynie, Steve Mansifeld and Mary Hobart visit Washington for a meeting of government agencies and non-profits, a working group will prepare a budget and proposal outline well before the 9/30/2002 deadline. Items which may require funding include a review and revision of the curriculum, evaluation of computer capabilities, student materials and heavy promotion. Our target grant will be in the $150,000 - $250,000 range. The 2002 Defense of Frequencies Fund will conclude its formal 90-day campaign period on January 31. While we will always accept contributions, final reports will be prepared at the end of the week. All gifts and certificates for contributions received have been mailed. Media Relations The Professional Media Award winner has been notified and his plaque is in production. Jennifer is working out the details on a possible in-person presentation. The winner's newspaper, The Jersey Journal, ran a nice piece on the award and the local club featured in the winning article. You can view it at http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/index.ssf?/news/jjournal/mike25.html. Jennifer submitted a write-up about the award for the Web and the March QST Board article. Jennifer was interviewed for a piece on Field Day for the Environmental News Network, which produces Earth News Radio, an Internet radio program with a focus on science and technology. The interviewer, Michael Ham, WA6LCN, indicated that he may be interested in future stories about ham radio and the ISS, along with another piece on Field Day closer to the event. The URL for the Environmental News Network is www.enn.com. Circulation and Publication Sales Bob Inderbitzen conducted an email solicitation on Monday morning, January 21, to 39,000 ARRL members who have voluntarily subscribed to receive publication announcements and offers. The email included an offer for a free keychain lanyard for any order placed on the ARRL Web site. A free Repeater Directory was also offered for any order that included an ARRL Handbook or Handbook CD. The special offers expired on Wednesday at 2400 UTC. A followup email was sent Wednesday morning -- helping to keep volume high during the entire promotion. This email campaign marked the first time we have sent an HTML solicitation with photos, rather than plain text. We conduct these email promotions about once a month, but this one worked particularly well. Results for the 3-day period: Number of orders: 550 Average order amount: $42.77 Handbooks sold: 151 Handbook CDs sold: 60 Gross sales (less shipping): $23,500 Pub sales, Circulation and warehouse staff have been busy handling the large volume of orders received in only 3 days. In late November, we sent a promotion to the 336 US and Canadian subscribers to the now-defunct CQ Contest magazine who don't already subscribe to NCJ. That promotion ended with 51 NCJ subscriptions (51% response). Field & Educational Services Hearty congratulations to F&ES's Linda Mullally, who is now KB1HSV. She's already made her first QSOs, handling a pile up of HQ hams! She passed her exam after taking Dan's HQ Tech class. Also licensed through Dan Miller's latest HQ Tech class are members of Mark Simcik's family -- wife Loris, KB1HTB; daughters Linnea, 7, KB1HTA; Kerstin, 9, KB1HSW; Brita, 12, KB1HTF; plus Bob Lucas, KB1HTD, husband of Diana in DXCC. CNN.com and NASA-TV covered the installation of our second ARISS antenna during a spacewalk by Dan Bursh, KD5PNU, and Yuri Onufrienko, RK3DUO. The crew installed the antenna, routed the cable and mated connectors. MSNBC has set up an audio archive of the educational events of previous ARISS QSOs on the Web at www.msnbc.com/news/505064.asp. The MSNBC rep said, "I'm hoping this will be an enduring resource for folks who want to get a taste of what these are about. Thanks much to ARISS for all your good work." Steve Ewald and Rosalie released news to Section Leaders and NTS leaders from the Board Meeting about the new Public Service Honor Roll criteria. The new criteria will take effect May 1; Steve has already fielded many questions on interpretations. Jay Ferron, N4GAA, a volunteer associate for American Red Cross Disaster Services, stopped by. He proposes that ARRL might join the national Red Cross in sending a thank you letter to all Amateur Radio operators that assisted Red Cross in the aftermath of the September 11th tragedies. Rosalie and Steve are looking at assisting with an ARES/RACES anniversary operating event for 2002. Rosalie and Steve provided quantities of text to Mary Hobart for possible funding on emergency communications; they and Mary Lau met on other possible funding avenues. Rosalie developed a list of ARISS officers and volunteers to invite to the next meeting, at the Canadian Space Agency in April. The Reflector for School Club Roundup participants has been busy with activity as the SCR nears; N2WG reports his group is putting 5 middle schools on the air for SCR. Jean Wolfgang prepared information on the ARRL International Humanitarian Award winner for our editors, arranged for the engraved plaque, and wrote the congratulations letter. Deadline for receipt of nominations for ARRL's annual educator awards is January 31. Jean continues to receive and acknowledge Kid's Day information and logs. Mary Lau took part in the ARRL Foundation Annual Meeting teleconference Tuesday night; all officers from the previous year were re-elected to new terms, and will hold the same offices as in 2001. Highlights from the meeting will appear in the "At the Foundation" QST column. Mary is also at work on updates to the Officers and Directors List in both print and Web versions. Dan Miller says 31 students registered for the January Level II Emergency Communications on-line class; 34 students enrolled in this month's Level III Emergency Communications on-line class, with registration remaining open through the weekend. Margie Bourgoin reports an increase in the number of affiliated clubs signing up for vanity e-mail service; this is because of a reminder she recently posted on the Web and sent to clubs. She also reports receiving more responses to the 2002 survey on our ARRL Club Web page, asking clubs how we might help them. John Hennessee learned that Wisconsin AB-368 was passed by the Senate, and now goes to the Governor. The bill codifies PRB-1; a great deal of work on it was done by SM Michalski and others. John assisted hams with zoning problems in San Clemente, CA; Orange County, VA; Upton, MA; East Aurora, NY; Amenia, NY and Pequanock, NJ. He assisted hams with covenant problems in Georgia, VT and Los Angeles. He keeps records on hams who've called with CC&R problems. Leona Adams sent all Section Managers their 2002 reimbursable fund information. She sent confirmation letters to first signers of nomination petitions for the July 2002 term for: Glenn Thomas, Santa Clara Valley; James Sellers, Indiana; and Donald Michalski, Wisconsin. Leona saw an increase in the number of Technical Specialist appointments being made recently. Jerry Hill prepared a plaque to be presented by Director Isely to Chris Cieslak, KC9L at the Chicago Hamfest, as winner of The Big Project Logo Contest. Staff is putting the finishing touches on the logo, which will be unveiled soon. Jerry is developing a sample lesson unit and corresponding lesson plans for curriculum development. As an example, the sample unit on propagation will consist of three individual lesson plans, aligned with National Science Standards. Volunteer schoolteachers will design other lessons based on this model. Gail Iannone sent 9 convention applications to the Executive Committee for approval. She also sent 10 hamfest approval letters and 5 convention approval letters to the sponsoring committees. She sent 21 handout packages to upcoming events, processed 8 door prize orders and 4 label requests. Linda Mullally updated 82 affiliated clubs records, and 5 reactivations and 1 deactivation. She entered 110 OO reports into the Amateur Auxiliary database, and assisted with 18 graduating students from C-CE courses. Linda reports that Exhibit Kit orders have picked up again this week with 14 kits requested. Steven Blair completed the formatting for the HF Digital Course and sent this to CTDLC. He has also been keeping up with editing the lessons received on Satellite Operating. Brennan Price reports that materials in two enforcement cases were forwarded to the FCC. The January Monitoring System report was filed with IARU and the FCC. Intrusions included a military transmission at 148.000 MHz near Buffalo, NY, and at 144.100 MHz and 436.075 MHz apparently originating from the Moroccan MAROC-TUBSAT, launched last month. Brennan is contacting frequency coordinating bodies to verify they have what's needed to submit data for the Repeater Directory for the February 15 deadline. Membership Services Awards Branch WAS QSL Cards Checked 550 WAS Certificates 32 WAS Endorsements 21 5 Band WAS Certificates 2 WAC QSL Cards Checked 12 WAC Certificates 2 WAC Endorsements 1 RCC Awards 14 OTC Awards 6 Extra Class Certificates 38 A-1 Operator Nominations 8 A-1 Operator Certificates 1 Long Term Member Inquiries 3 QRP DXCC Certificates 73 HF Awards Manager Appt.: Paul K. Smith, Paducah, KY. HF/VHF Awards Manager Appt.: Joe Barry, K7SQ, Bend, OR. For the coming week-WAS Specialty awards, WAS and WAC QSL card checking, and VUCC training and awards processing. DXCC Branch Week Ending January 27, 2002 Beginning Cards 81,385 Cards Received 61 Cards Processed 24,414 Ending Cards 57,012 Applications Pending 412 Backlog Time 4 weeks Year-to-date Cards Received 20,093* Cards Returned 305* * - Numbers only represent YTD 2002. Since we are still mailing applications received in 2001, the "returned" numbers will be low and only represent in person applications and some received at the 2002 Board meeting. This will increase once we start the mailing of 2002 applications. Outgoing Mail - We are mailing applications received on December 26, 2001. Card Processing: We are entering cards received on January 8, 2002. QSL Branch QSL service status: Current. Cards mailed year to date as of 01/25/2002 - 183,450. Cards mailed on 01/25/2002 - 94,500. Janet Rocco spent 2 hours conducting tours around HQ. Contest Branch The final drafts of the September VHF QSO party article were completed. The first shipment of 2001 International DX Contest plaques was verified and shipped. Data entry of logs for the 2001 10 Meter Contest continued. Again, significant time has been spent handling member queries in regards to log format problems. The first logs for the January VHF Sweepstakes began arriving. A problem with the robot for VHF contests has been discovered, and will be corrected as soon as possible. It is not causing entries to be rejected if they have complete and correct information in the file headers. W1AW Joe continues to process W1AW/80 card requests. He also generated the February W1AW Qualifying Run text files. He has also isolated the problem in the Alpha 87A amplifier to a short in the high voltage board, and is taking steps to correct it. Scott worked on slow and fast code practice runs for the latter part of the month of January and early February. He handled evening phone sales calls in the 5 PM to 8 PM time slot. W1AW telephone sales year to date (2002): $1,145. 73, Sincerely, Mark Wilson, K1RO Chief Operating Officer MW:lk Staff Absentee List Name Date(s) Reason Steve Mansfield 1/29-1/31 Washington Mary Hobart 1/31-2/1 Seminar, Boston Steve Ewald 2/1-2/3 Hurricane Conference, Tropical Hamboree Dan Miller 2/9-2/10 VA State Convention, Richmond Martin Cook 2/1-2/3 MS State Convention, Jackson Dan Henderson 2/1-2/3 FL State Convention, Miami `` 2/4 Vacation John Bee 2/1-2/11 Miami and Orlando conventions, and advertiser visits