The ARRL Annual Report for 2008, now available online and in print, reviews the major events of the year and documents the renewed growth of both the ARRL and the activities of the Amateur Radio Service. In 2008, the ARRL experienced a growth in membership, ending the year with 154,627 members, an increase of 0.7 percent from 2007. The growth was the greatest among International members and in the League’s Northwestern, Rocky Mountain and Delta Divisions.

“As ARRL began 2008, the main question facing us was whether the growth spurt that the Amateur Radio Service had enjoyed the previous year would continue,” said ARRL Chief Executive Officer David Sumner, K1ZZ. “It did, with the number of new amateur licenses issued by the FCC rising to 28,066 — a 5 percent increase over 2007. The ten-year license term makes the total number of licensees a poor indicator of current trends, but after a period of annual declines beginning in 2003 this figure also increased by 1.2 percent during the year. Thus it appears that the regulatory changes that took effect in February 2007 [[meaning the complete elimination of the code test.....Dan]] are having more than a short-term impact.”

ARRL President Joel Harrison, W5ZN, said that through the ARRL’s history, the League’s strength has come from “the fact that its leaders have always had a clear understanding of our association’s mission. Our mission has been expressed in different words by different generations, but has remained fundamentally the same. Our current strategic plan states it in just six words: To advance and advocate Amateur Radio.”

Harrison further defined this strength, recalling that in 2005, “we identified four ‘pillars’ of our association: Public Service, Advocacy, Education, and Membership. Technology supports virtually everything we do, and as time went on we realized that it deserved its own pillar. So, with a bit of fanfare we unveiled technology as the ‘fifth pillar’ at the ARRL EXPO area of the 2008 Dayton Hamvention.”

Sumner said that 2008’s “most gratifying development” was the April decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in the ARRL’s appeal of the FCC’s Broadband over Power Line (BPL) rules. “The Court panel found that FCC prejudice had tainted the rulemaking process and that the Commission had violated the Administrative Procedure Act by not disclosing in full the staff studies on which the Commission relied,” he said. “The judges also found that the Commission had failed to justify its decision to apply to BPL systems an extrapolation factor that was designed for entirely different technologies and had summarily dismissed empirical data — submitted at the Commission’s invitation — that supported a different conclusion. The Court even awarded the ARRL some of our costs; this reimbursed only a small fraction of the total cost of the appeal, but it was a moral victory and underscored the fact that we had substantially prevailed in our appeal. Remarkably, at yearend the FCC still had done nothing to comply with the Court’s decision. Perhaps the change in administration will cause the FCC finally to meet its obligations.”

According to ARRL Media and Public Relations Manager Allen Pitts, W1AGP, “The Annual Report is not only useful for showing members the strength of the organization, but it is also a valuable tool in presentations to major public officials. At times they may know little about Amateur Radio, but when they see the quality of the annual report, even before they open it up, they know this is an organization to be taken very seriously. We are indeed a national association and very active.”

I haven’t been on the air much of late; busy sailing my little sloop, playing the viola I bought with the proceeds of most of my ham-pelf, parenting my three lively and lovely children, fishing, doing yardwork, doing work-work…you get the picture.

But this past FD, I found myself once again driving to where the local club had set up, to offer my services as a CW op, which are generally well-received. This time was no different; they set me up with a Kenwood 570 @ 20 times the reasonable amount of power any sane person would want, and I set to work. Had a lot of fun for a few hours.

There I met the new club president, a ham who’s been licensed for only six-eight years or so, who got his General ticket as a no-coder.

BUT!

He LOVES CW. He was working a straight key at about 18 wpm when I got there, said paddles were too much of a challenge, but that he learned code to get on HF when he was still a Tech. There was an old chrome Bencher paddle there, which I adjusted as well as I could – and then I sent some test code to try it out, a CQ at about 25 wpm. He was very quiet, and I said, “See? you need to do this – what would you have to do with your entire arm to get these results, and how about the fact that I’m just moving one finger and one thumb, ever so slightly?”

He got it! He’ll be going there – and so will his wife, a newly-licensed Tech, and I offered to provide whatever elmering I can. It was heartwarming to this old CW hand to be around these folks who didn’t care that CW was “dead,” and who so obviously “get it!”

73/88 & cheers!

LL/K3ESE

Governors Show Support for Amateur Radio as ARRL Field Day Approaches
Governors across the United States have shown their support for Amateur Radio, with many proclaiming Amateur Radio Week in their states. Coinciding with ARRL Field Day, these proclamations show citizens that these states value the contributions made by radio amateurs.

A radio dish at Stanford is powerful enough to bounce signals off the moon, a tricky endeavor.

A Ham Radio Weekend for Talking to the Moon
In a worldwide event, amateur radio operators will talk to each other by bouncing their messages off the craggy face of the moon.

Amateur radio operators sharpen emergency skills
For 24 straight hours on Saturday and Sunday, local ham radio operators are putting their skills on display by communicating with others across the nation under basic emergency type conditions.

Ham operators hone their skills in nationwide radio event
The veteran CBS audio engineer was hunched over a ham radio for hours yesterday, beating out regular rhythms on a Morse code transmitter, trying to help his team win a contest that was more about practice than taking home a trophy.

PRC Radio Club hosts Field Day
HENLEYFIELD — The Pearl River County Amateur Radio Club hosted their annual field day event over the weekend demonstrating their abilities …

Ham radio operators communicate with world
Belen At 17 years old, Phil Shaw of Tierra Grande already has a sprawling network of contacts around the world. Shaw isn’t your typical teenager who is always on his cell phone texting his friends, or on the Internet using Facebook or MySpace to contact his “network.” He’s one of many amateur radio operators, also known as hams, who participated in this year’s National Field Day for Amateur Radio on Saturday.

Ham radio comes to Riverfront Park for a day
For 24 hours at Riverfront Park in River Grove, the gazebo, which normally hosts concerts, resembled an electronics sale. People sat at wood picnic benches speaking into microphones, adjusting dials and writing down codes.

There are many, many more. Go to Google News and search for ‘Field Day.’ You’ll find lots of good PR for ham radio. Thanks to all the PIOs out there that worked so hard to get us in the news.

K0GQ–Raytown Amateur Radio Club–on Fox4 Kansas City
A compilation of various short TV spots on Fox4 News, Kansas City.

Story #1 starts about 1:30 pm on Saturday. I was at my post at the public information table/GOTA station. We had been ready to rock and roll for at least a half hour, so a group of us were just sitting around chewing the fat when Stuart and his mother strolled up to the table.

Her son was a little on the shy side, so his mother explained that Stuart had seen a listing of our Field Day site on the Internet and had asked her to bring him out to see us. She mentioned that Stuart had been listening to ham radio operators on his little Yaesu handheld scanner for several years and was very excited to actually meet some ham radio operators and see ham radio in action.

Not only that, she said that he had taught himself Morse Code. A kid after my own heart! I quickly volunteered to give them a tour of our Field Day site. First, I showed him our VHF/UHF station, and he seemed really impressed with the five single-band radios.

Next, I took him into the 40m phone station. I asked how fast he could copy Morse Code, and he said 30 words per minute. I cranked the receiver down into the CW portion of the band, and sure enough, he could copy anything that I tuned in.

At this point, it was still only 1:45 pm, so I told him, “Let’s go over to one of the CW stations, and we’ll see if we can make a contact.” We marched over to the CW #2 station, and after getting clearance from the station captain, I tuned around for a clear frequency, then called CQ. Immediately, N5VV, replied.

At this point, Stuart was so excited, he was shaking a little bit. Since the contest was just about ready to start, I kept the contact short, but that didn’t matter. Stuart had finally gotten to see ham radio in action.

Stuart’s mother then inquired about taking the test. I explained that our Volunteer Examiners give the test every second Saturday of the month and gave her the URL of our website. She said that Stuart had been studying and was ready to take the test.

Unfortunately, they had to leave at that point. I told Stuart’s mother that we’d be there through 2pm Sunday and to come back any time. She said that they’d definitely be back the next day.

Stuart Makes His First Contact
Stuart and his mother returned about 1:30 pm on Sunday. He wanted to see the VHF/UHF station again, so that was our first stop. He took a couple of photos of the setup, and then I suggested we go over to the GOTA station. When we first got there, someone was at the mike, but shortly afterwards, they got up, and Stuart and I took the controls.

When we first sat down, I made a few contacts using my call to show him how to use the paddle. I noted that holding the levers down produces a series of dits or dahs, and that by tapping the other lever while holding down the first, you can produce a dit between dahs or a dah between dits.

Then, I asked him if he’d like to try it. He said yes, so just to see how it would go, I tuned up to above 7100 kHz. There was no activity up there, so I set the keyer speed to 15 wpm and told him to send my callsign a few times. He reached over with his left hand and sent it perfectly. Now, remember, this is someone who’d never touched a paddle of any kind before. Not only that, he even sent the K (dah-di-dah) iambically! That is to say that he held the dah paddle while tapping the dit paddle to slip in a dit between the two dahs.

Then, I asked if he’d like to make some contacts. He said yes, so I said, “Let’s switch seats.” We switched seats, and I said, “OK, tune around a little and find a strong station calling CQ.” We found K2ZR, and I coached him a little on how to reply. “Now, remember,” I said, “we’re going to use the W8PGW callsign.” When I gave him the nod to send, he reached over with his RIGHT hand and sent W8PGW perfectly! When K2ZR replied with our call and the exchange, I coached him to reply with “4A MI.” Not only did he do that, but he slipped in a “R” to denote that we’d copied the exchange. When K2ZR replied with a “TU,” I showed him how to log the contact.

That’s all the coaching I needed to do. After the first contact, I said, “OK. Now, tune around for another station calling CQ, and we’ll make another contact.” He was off to the races. As soon as he made a contact, he jumped up to type it into the log. His arms weren’t long enough to reach the computer from where he was seated.

When we started, the keyer speed was set to 15 wpm. After a couple of contacts, I asked if he might want to send faster. When he said OK, I bumped it up to 18 wpm. After a few QSOs with only a couple of mistakes, he asked if we could go faster, so I set it at 20 wpm. Again, only a couple of mistakes, so we bumped it up to 22 wpm. There, he started making more mistakes, but let me repeat, he never touched any kind of key before in his life. I have no doubt that with a little practice, he could easily do 30 wpm.

Overall, he made 12 contacts in the 21 minutes he operated the station. Not a bad rate for someone who’d never sent a character of Morse Code in his life, don’t you think?

As it turns out, Stuart can’t take the test in July, but his mother said that they would definitely do it in August. He has even picked out a vanity callsign. The kid is going to make a great ham radio operator. I can’t wait to get him in the operator’s seat next Field Day.

Now there is a Wiki on connector pinouts [and cable wiring]. If you are into making cables to hook this to that and need pin numbers you may find this makes it quick and easy. There is a lot of obscure stuff out there and this is the place to find it. If you don’t, then add it.

Looks like a good resource, and because it’s a wiki, you can add connector pinouts and cable wiring lists that aren’t there. Shall we start a ham radio cable category?

Click image to view full-size image.

He writes:

Hello everyone!

I posted the image below as available after a fellow on the “boatanchors” listserver asked for a copy of it.

It’s from my 1957 copy of the League’s Learning The Radiotelegraph Code.

The League got it from earlier Signal Corps publications.

It shows the “right” way to form block capitals for speed and clarity when copying code.

Remember, military nets generally went at about 15 wpm since copy conditions were so variable, and so much of what was sent was cipher groups rather than “plain text.” Plus, other personnel had to be able to read the copy.

If you’re going to have any CW operation on any Field Day or other event you’ll be publicizing, a “blow-up” of this chart, a little text of explanation, and you’ll have an interesting, informative display piece.

My club something similar once, but it was less than successful. I think that the problem was that we asked people to fill out a form on our website if they needed any help. That information was e-mailed to one guy, who then forwarded it to the appropriate Elmer. There was just too much time lag between the time someone asked for help and when they got it. Or, it may have been that filling out the form was just too impersonal.

We are going to try it again, though, using the format that the Monroe club uses. I’m also going to give it more billing on our website, and push it more at meetings and other gatherings.

The topics the Monroe club lists on their website are:

• Antennas
• Buying First Radio
• Code Practice
• Computers
• Packet
• County Hunting
• DXCC Awards
• Rag Chewers Club
• Worked All States
• DX
• FM
• Homebrew
• Testing
• Public Service
• Technical Q&A
• Traffic
• Tube Radios

We already have Elmers for several of these topics. I, for example, would be more than happy to volunteer to be the Morse Code/CW Practice Elmer. We have one member who is an avid County Hunter, another who restores vintage gear, and yet another who’s been spearheading a statewide effort to set up a packet network throughout Michigan.

In addition, I think we should add or modify several of the categories. For example, Computers might become “Computers/Software” depending on who volunteers to be the Elmer. We should also have Elmers for VHF/UHF, Contesting, and possibly a bunch of other topics.

We’re now in the middle of discussing what topics we should add to the list and recruiting Elmers. I’ll update this topic when we’ve finalized our list.

Does your club have an Elmer list? If so, does it have topics that I haven’t thought of yet? How do you get newcomers to take advantage of the knowledge and experience of your Elmers? And, finally, what topics have you volunteered to be Elmer for?

The good news is that according to their measurements, the jet stream is now finally reaching the critical latitude of 22 degrees, meaning that conditions should return to normal. In other words, no Maunder Minimum, or prolonged period of low sunspot activity, this time around.

Another reason this is good news is that while all this blathering has made for good blog fodder, I’m getting tired of all the complaining. To paraphrase Mark Twain, “Hams like to complain about the solar weather, but nobody does anything about it”!

• On 6/12, I worked Roy, WA2SON. A day later, I heard WB4DAD calling CQ , but unfortunately, he couldn’t hear me. I have worked him before, though.
• On 6/13, I worked Chano, EA8UP, in the Canary Islands. I actually worked him on SSB. He was calling CQ in Spanish, or “say koo.” He called several times with no reply, perhaps because the stations here in the U.S. didn’t realize he was calling CQ. I even talked a little Spanish with him before signing.
• On 6/14, I worked Don, AA5AT. He becomes my third “AT,” joining AA4AT and N0AT.
• Just now, I worked Steve, KF2AX. Steve was running QRP with an attic antenna. Even so, he was Q5 here.

Now, to get the QSL cards.

UPDATE – 6/20/09:
This afternoon, while waiting a few minutes for my wife, I turned on the rig. In those few minutes, I happened to contact KD8ILL, who was working the WV QSO Party!

As I reported earlier, the ARRL began developing a guide to help new hams choose their first radio at the urging of licensing instructors generally, and with special impetus from David Haycock, KI6AWR and Greg Widin, K0GW. The guide was recently finalized, and will be included as a supplement in the next printing of the 1st edition of the Ham Radio License Manual that has just recently gone to press. It also has been posted on its own Web page, where it is accessible to any member. Check it out!