Northwestern News Volume one, August 2024

***NOTE This letter is being sent direct from ARRL HQ, not out of our normal email system. Michael and I have been posting to the NW Division website during this system disruption and past issues of the newsletter are available there. Or here: https://arrlnwdiv.org/arrl-news/ see links on the right hand side.***

Hello Northwestern Division and welcome to August. Well, it is still July as I write this, but close enough.

Last month (July) was busy and hectic with preparations for the ARRL Board of Directors meeting, committee meetings, and airline travel. Who would have thought a rogue line of code could disrupt almost the entire airline system. Getting to the East coast was easy enough, however coming home was a real mess. We managed to squeeze everything into Friday for the board meeting, mostly due to collaboration in the halls of the hotel, and some preliminary work before the meeting, which made it all flow very smooth. Unfortunately, by the time the closing bell was rung, it was too late to make flight changes and we were too far into the weekend Crowdstrike/Microsoft mess. My return flight Sunday morning was cancelled at 7:30 Saturday night with a next available flight home not showing until Wednesday. Long story short, by booking individual flights on other airlines, I managed to get home at 8 pm Monday night. I went through security in CT Sunday morning about 8 am and aside from three hours at a hotel in Minneapolis it was a 34 hour stay inside the airports. Finally arriving into Pasco at 6 PM for a two-hour drive back to Yakima. Vice Director Sterba unfortunately did not make it as his Thursday flight out of Seattle was scrubbed and the next available option was Friday afternoon. That would have been after most of the board meeting had concluded as Saturday sessions are normally short days. He and I talked about it and decided it was best to just stay home. That turned out to be a good call as he would have been smack dab in the middle of the airline delays on Friday.

A brief member bulletin went out after the meeting with a summary of what took place. For those who may have missed that, the highlights are here:

Strategy

The Board unanimously accepted a report establishing a 3-year strategy for ARRL, and recognized the efforts of the Strategy Working Group. They authorized CEO David A. Minster, NA2AA, to proceed with further planning.

The report included a revised mission statement: ARRL’s mission is to promote and protect the art, science, and enjoyment of amateur radio, and to develop the next generation of radio amateurs.

The strategy articulates continued commitment and enhancements to our existing advocacies:

o Promoting Amateur Radio

o Protecting Amateur Radio

A new advocacy is being created, committing ARRL to develop the next generation of radio amateurs through the expansion of existing programs and the creation of curriculum-based initiatives targeted at middle and high school STEM education programs:

o Inspiring and Educating Youth

The strategy calls for investments in Information Technology to continue along the path of ARRL’s Digital Transformation. This will include evaluating membership models, content delivery methods, and next generation software products along with the infrastructure improvements required to support them:

o Serving Members and Driving Growth Through Technology

In committing to dramatically expanding our capabilities and activities in the STEM education space and investing in upgrades and additions to our Information Technology platform, we recognize that revenue from membership dues is insufficient to fund these initiatives. In fact, dues contribute less than half the revenue required to operate ARRL. Efforts are required to develop new sources of revenue and seek support from donors and grants from both public and private organizations:

o Expanding Our Means and Financial Capability

The Board requested the President establish the ARRL Information Technology Advisory Committee (ITAC), acknowledging the importance of providing information technology-based services to ARRL members, and to improve and protect ARRL systems. The ITAC will engage experts in the field of IT to help oversee the development, operations, and evolution of the ARRL IT system infrastructure and applications.
The Board reassigned the Logbook of The World® (LoTW®) Maintenance Committee to the newly established Information Technology Advisory Committee (ITAC). ITAC will support the Maintenance Committee’s responsibilities with LoTW® development, including technical changes and future upgrades to the system.

Advocacy

The Board recommended and authorized the creation of additional publications, including books and online resources, and products, such as antenna kits, to help expand ARRL’s commitment to help hams who are faced with limits on station building capabilities due to space limitations and/or limited resources.

Governance

The Board requested that the President appoint a study group to review the current structure of ARRL governance and the Field Organization and suggest changes that would improve the organization and better support the membership.
The Board requested that the President establish an ad hoc committee to review the ARRL Director’s Workbook and establish an annual review process to keep the document up to date with Board practice and procedure.
The Board approved expanding the policy for recording roll call votes to being required for any pending motions pertaining to ARRL governance documents.

Trademarks

Following recent review of ARRL’s trademarks and the completion of related registrations and trademark renewals, the Board requested the CEO to provide a report at its next meeting consisting of efforts and actions taken during 2024 to identify, remedy, and protect the use of its trademarks by other parties.

Other items were recognition of award recipients, updates from the ARRL Foundation, updates from IARU, and updates from RAC, Radio Amateurs of Canada. We have always welcomed a representative to these meetings from RAC.

The full minutes will be posted after final approval by the board soon.

HAMFEST APPLICATIONS:

As a result of the recent IT system disruption, the process for ARRL sanctioning of a Hamfest or Convention applications is in a state of limbo, meaning, if you apply, it will look like it worked, however, nothing comes back out of the system to HQ staff and they do not have the ability to look inside the program at this time. The MARA hamfest in Big Lake AK on September 7th and Swaptoberfest in Rickreall OR on October 19th were both stuck. They have since been processed and are indeed sanctioned events. The other component here is the online listing of hamfests and convention on the ARRL webpage. It is not currently accessible to be updated. The N7CFO events calendar is up to date and the link is at the bottom of this letter. If your club or group has applied for sanctioning and not seen a reply from HQ, this is why. Have your event coordinator send me an email or call, and we can work around the non-functioning system.

DXCC and LoTW

As noted last month, LoTW is back up and working as it should, DXCC however is still offline. The online application page is still being worked on at HQ and the although the application process within LoTW looks like it’s doing its job, no DXCC applications are able to be processed at HQ. I would encourage anyone with recent matches on LoTW to hold off making an award application until the backlog is worked through and in a normal state. Paper DXCC applications can be checked by a ARRL card checker; however, those paper applications will also go into a growing larger by the day backlog. As of this writing, I do not have a return to service date for DXCC.

We do have DXCC card checking scheduled for the upcoming PNW DXConvention in Everett on the weekend of the 9th and 10th August and would like to ask those who would like to have cards checked, to understand the situation.

Confirmed ARRL sanctioned Hamfests and Conventions: (that we know of, see above):

August 3rd KARS, ARRL Idaho State Convention http://k7id.org
August 9 -11th Pacific Northwest DX Convention https://pacificnwdxconvention.com
September 7th, MARA 2024 Hamfest in Bik Lake AK. http://kl7jfu.com
October 19th, Swaptoberfest 2024 at Polk Co. Fairgrounds, Rickreall OR. https://swaptoberfest.org

Check the N7CFO Pacific Northwest Hamfairs & Events webpage often for the most up to date information. http://www.n7cfo.com/amradio/hf/hf.htm or https://arrlnwdiv.org/ and click “PNW Events”

73..

Mark J. Tharp – KB7HDX

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From the shack of Vice Director Sterba:

Hello Northwestern Division and welcome to the month of August!

As of this writing I’m getting prepared to attend the Idaho State Convention in Post Falls and the following weekend at the Pacific Northwest DX Convention. If you are planning on attending either event, please reach out and say hello. These events are excellent opportunities

to meet and gain better understandings.

Due to events that unfolded impacting the airlines, I unfortunately was not able to attend the last board meeting in Newington. This was a great disappointment for me as I was looking forward to working one on one with the greater team. In lieu of my attendance I communicated inputs to various leaders to ensure your voices were heard. Also, a quick shout out to Director Tharp for his guidance on how to best handle situations like this.

In addition to the above, I did have the opportunity to attend the Oregon Section Meeting and it was great seeing many who I known for years. During this, I was reminded of the complexities of providing communication services in the Pacific Northwest with our volatile fire conditions. Over the years each state has faced intensifying challenges thus making our service as communication volunteers increasingly difficult. Please keep yourselves safe while serving and volunteering.

Populations at the time of this writing (Lagging Indicators):

Northwestern Division Membership:

Reporting paused for system restoration

National Membership:

Reporting paused for system restoration

License Counts:

• 71,981 (Division total)
• 744,685 (National total)

Director Tharp and I are always open to input, good and bad, (we prefer good) from members. If you have anything you would like to talk about, shoot us an email or call on the phone. In addition, we are always looking for information to share with the Division. If you have a news

item you would like to offer, please send us a note and we would be glad to include it here. It is always great to hear from members.

Enjoy Amateur Radio… Be Safe, Be Positive, as your voice carries

73,

Michael A. Sterba, KG7HQ
ARRL Vice Director

Mark J. Tharp, KB7HDX
ARRL Director
Northwestern Division
kb7hdx@arrl.org