The ARRL Club News
ARRL Club News for March 2007
ARRL Club Newsletter
March 9, 2007
____________________________________________________________________
Norm Fusaro, W3IZ, Editor
IN THIS ISSUE:
+Meeting Program
+Ten Meter Activity
+Ten Steps
+Picking Up The Tab
_______________________________________________________________________
Are you looking for a good meeting topic?
Band Edges and Good Operating Practices
In the last edition of the ARRL Club News we pointed out the
importance of staying within the band limits. There is a good
discussion of these limits in the article written by H. Ward Silver,
N0AX and published in QST:
http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/fmt/0210051.pdf
This can be part of an overall discussion about good operating
practices.
Another activity that can be run each meeting is one that tests voice
mode operating skills. There has been much written and discussed
over the last couple of years about emergency communications
training. What has not been as frequently discussed is actual on-air
oeprating techniques and procedures. One of the problems experienced
during the Gulf Coast response after the hurricanes of 2005 was some
operators' inability to handle tactical voice traffic. Well, it was
handled, but it was handled incorrectly. If either operator on the
ends of the voice circuit do not know phonetics well enough (or at
all), that alone can really stymie tactical message handling.
Successfully using phonetics in voice communications is something
that can only be achieved with practice.
In addition to operating contests, participating in nets and making
everyday on-air activity part of an operator's lifestyle, clubs might
consider running "phonetics tests" at their meetings. This might be
done by simply having an experienced operator read a list of
callsigns, or text, or mixed text, tactical messages etc. Read these
phonetically (or in a method that would actually be used on-site in a
drill or real event) for about five minutes and have the participants
submit their text for grading. Repeat these tests with different
messages or text monthly and track improvement. The same can be done
via on-air nets with participants using email to immediately submit
their transcriptions. Just performing these fun voice tests will
probably build confidence among inexperienced ops and make them want
to pursue greater on-air activity on the bands too.
_______________________________________________________________________
Increased Activity
Augusta County Radio Club, Virginia, will be holding a 10-meter Net,
Friday evenings at 7:00 pm EST (local time) on 28.490 MHz SSB Phone.
On the first Net held February 23, 2007 we had 14 check-ins with
three Technicians experiencing their first QSOs on HF. With limited
propagation at the moment, contact was limited to the local area
Hams, but we're looking forward to conditions improving and having
others check-in to the Net.
Darrell
KI4LLA
Augusta County is just one of many clubs that have increased 10m
activity to accommodate new operators. Has your club noticed an
increase in HF activity among your members?
_______________________________________________________________________
Ten Steps toward a Healthier Radio Club
By Phil Temples, K9HI
With our busy schedules, sometimes going to your local radio club
meeting is just one of those things that gets put off. But what if
your club meetings were fun? What if everyone came to the meetings?
What would it take for that to happen? The author has a few ideas how
to make this a reality.
http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2007/03/05/1/?nc=1
_______________________________________________________________________
This One's On The House
By Kay Craigie, N3KN, ARRL Vice President
The Mid-Atlantic Amateur Radio Club was founded 30 years ago, in
November, 1976, by users of the privately-owned 147.060 repeater then
located at Villanova University on the Philadelphia Main Line.
Eventually, ownership of the repeater was transferred to the club.
Over the next decade, MARC evolved from a small repeater association
to a large general-interest Amateur Radio club affiliated with the
ARRL.
In 1986, our tenth anniversary year, MARC became an ARRL Special
Service Club, and we were eager to get involved with the brand-new
Volunteer Examiner program. Since then we have offered exams every
quarter, the only regularly-scheduled exam sessions on the
Philadelphia Main Line.
In 1996, the MARC board of directors wanted to do something special
as a membership benefit to mark the club's 20th anniversary year. We
decided to offer all paid-up members the chance to take exams at one
club-sponsored VE test session during the year at club expense. We
wanted to encourage licensed members to upgrade, and our associate
(unlicensed) members could use the benefit to get their first
tickets. Club members could take as many exam elements at the session
as they wanted to -- remember there were three Morse code tests and
five theory elements back then -- and pass or fail, the club picked
up the $6.05 tab.
Although there wasn't exactly a stampede to take advantage of the
offer, members liked the idea of our club putting our money where our
mouths were about upgrading. Instead of nagging people about
upgrading and making them feel defensive, we offered them a "What
have I got to lose?" scenario. It played well to hams' legendary
thriftiness! At the same time, the club purchased a full set of ARRL
license prep materials for loan to members and distributed free
diskettes (remember diskettes?) containing shareware Morse code
training software.
At the end of the 20th anniversary year, our board decided the free
test session membership benefit was good for ham radio in general and
good for MARC in particular. It gave us a little boost in the
friendly rivalry with other clubs. We voted to continue the practice
in 1997.
A few years later, the club's board voted to make the free test
session a permanent benefit of membership. This decision was
financially responsible because relatively few members had taken
advantage of the offer each year up to that point, and because our
annual hamfest provided a nice cushion of dollars in the treasury
beyond dues revenue.
That cushion was comforting in 2000, when license restructuring
spurred an unprecedented number of members to upgrade under the new
rules. Yes, we covered the fees for members' doing paperwork-only
upgrades from Technician to General, along with the fees for members
taking actual examinations.
Now celebrating our 30th year as a club and our 20th year of offering
tests through ARRL/VEC, MARC hopes to be able to maintain our free
test benefit even when fees eventually equal or exceed a person's
annual $15 dues. We continue to have profitable hamfests, and sixty
percent of our members are not Extras yet. There are now four fewer
exam elements than when we began the benefit, meaning that members
who are well-prepared for their exams are able to reach Extra in
fewer years than was often the case in the old days of five theory
tests and three Morse code tests. We really don't think this benefit
is going to be a financial problem for the club in the foreseeable
future.
Some other clubs in the Eastern PA Section have adopted MARC's
test-session benefit. However, not every club has the financial
resources to let members take tests at one club-sponsored test
session each year. If that's true of your group, perhaps you could
pay a percentage of the fee. Or you could subsidize all or part of
the test fee during a limited time period such as an anniversary
year. Then see how it works out before making the benefit permanent.
In the long run, it's not so much the precise dollar amount involved
as it is the clear message that a club will do something concrete and
positive to support members' upgrades. Talk is cheap, about upgrading
as about anything else and sometimes the talk comes off as
browbeating or license-class snobbery -- bad karma in any ham radio
club! MARC's membership benefit, which you can tweak to fit your
club's financial situation, appeals to the bargain-lover in every ham
and pulls rather than pushes members up the license-class ladder.
_______________________________________________________________________
ARRL Affiliation Milestones for March 2007
25 Years
*W2
ENY Mount Beacon Arc WR2ABB
*W3
EPA South Mountain Repeater Assn N3TWT
MDC The Foundation for Amateur Radio, INC W3FAR
*W5
MS St Stanislaus HS ARC WD5IAD
STX Tidelands ARS K5BS
*W6
SJV Central California DX Club W6MEL
*W0
KS Boeing Employees ARS KG0WA
-----
50 Years
*W3
EPA Mt. Airy VHF Radio Club Inc. W3CCX
*W4
KY Kentucky Colonel ARC KY4BG
KY Mammoth Cave ARC KY4X
*W5
LA Jefferson ARC Inc W5GAD
OK Chisholm Trail ARC Inc WD5IYF
*W6
ORG Victor Valley ARC K6QWR
*W8
MI Chain O' Lakes ARC W8COL
MI Thumb ARC W8AX
*W0
KS Smoky Valley Arc Inc K0AAC
MO Univ. of Missouri at Rolla ARC W0EEE
-----
75 Years
*W7
WY Shy-WY Radio Club KC7SNO
*W9
IL Tri-Town Radio Amateur Club W9VT
=============================================================================
The ARRL Club News is published on the first Wednesday of each month by
the American Radio Relay League--The National Association For Amateur
Radio--225 Main St, Newington, CT 06111; tel 860-594-0200; fax
860-594-0259; www.arrl.org. Joel Harrison, W5ZN, President.
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Page last modified: 03:09 PM, 15 Nov 2006 ET
Page author: clubs@arrl.org
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