Document # 17
Report of the Membership Services Committee
July 2001
The MSC consists of Chairman Frank Fallon, N2FF; Tom Frenaye, K1KI; Dick Isley, W9GIG; John Kanode, N4MM; Greg Milnes, W7OZ; Rick Roderick, K5UR; and Bob Vallio, W6RGG.
The "old" MSC Committee met on January 18, 2001 at the Airport Marriott Hotel North in Dallas Texas, under the chairmanship of Rick Roderick. During the Board meeting President Jim Haynie announced the members of the present 2001 committee as show above.
The present committee subsequently met via teleconference on April 17th, 2001 and then again in
person on July 19 at The Rocky Hill Marriott in Connecticut. That meeting will be reported separately.
The new Card Checking program is now more than a year old now and appears to be functioning well. Perhaps you saw the checkers in action at the ARRL Booth at Dayton. As of June 20th, 2001, the Card Checking program has 136 checkers. These include 54 Section Manager nominations, 48 DX club nominations, 30 foreign society nominations (in 10 nations), and 4 Director nominations. As of this date, 1678 applications have been checked by Card Checkers. This represents well over 20% of the QSO records processed during this period.
Interest in contesting appears to be on the increasing. Dan Henderson, N1ND, ARRL Contest Branch Manager reported that the total logs received for all ARRL contests during the year 2000 now stands at 18,021. This is an all-time record, topping the previous record from 1999 by over 500 logs.
The CAC with Director Frenaye as liaison has been working on a revision the "club rules" for ARRL contests. The CAC was commended for their attention to detail and the amount of time spent on the task by Chairman Fallon at an informal meeting after the Contest Dinner in Dayton. Also at that meeting were Wayne Mills, Dan Henderson, and Dave Patton plus six of the fifteen CAC representatives. CAC members are working to come to a consensus on a number of major issues and concepts in club contesting which will result in eventual rule changes for all ARRL Contests.
The MSC is continuing to work with Wayne Mills and Dave Patton in developing the ARRL "Log Book of the World" which will allow those participating in the ARRL Awards programs to receive QSL credit for contacts without presenting paper QSL cards for credit. Staff is currently preparing to begin software development, which will enable Logbook. The processing software will be developed in-house, while a group of dedicated volunteers will develop a software library that will assist outside software developers to write the programs needed to submit data to Logbook. The project has been approved, and testing is expected to begin early in the first quarter of 2002.
We have also been discussing the possibility of establishing a QRP DXCC. The committee is coming closer to a consensus on the issue, i.e. the impossibility of verifying whether participants are actually operating QRP and the fact that this is one way award as both stations need not be using QRP power levels. A first step will be to announce a millennium-style QRP award, probably in January 2002.
The MSC wants to implement a DXCC Award for 30 Meters but feels it must first deal with Standing Order #18, which was put in place when the WARC bands first put in use. We need to clarify the rule or modify it. The award would be retroactive to include all contacts on this band. (But that is going to mean cards must be checked at HQ -- 10-year rule)
The MSC will also begin to look at making the incoming QSL Bureau more efficient and will seek ways to cut costs here. We may request that the DXAC look at the problem for us and begin developing a standard method of operation for all ARRL Incoming Bureaus. This may be accomplished by revising and clarifying the SOG (Standard Operating Guidelines) for the QSL Service.