 December 20, 2022 Editor: Michael Walters, W8ZY | ||
Time to Update Club Info The first of the year is just around the corner, and many ham clubs across the country are electing new officers and making changes. For ARRL Affiliated Clubs, this is 1. You must be logged in to the ARRL website as a member. 2. To make changes to the club listing, you must be listed as a club Officer or the club contact. Only these folks can make changes. 3. If you meet the two requirements above, you should see the EDIT button in the upper right corner of the club listing web page. 4. All Affiliated Clubs and Special Service Clubs need to do annual updates to maintain their status. If no updates are made for 2 years, you run the risk of being listed as an inactive club and not being showing in the club listings. 5. If you are not listed as a club Officer or the club contact, you can contact your Section Manager, your Affiliated Club Coordinator, or send an email to clubs@arrl.org and ask for help. Some clubs make no changes, while others change everything. No matter what the situation with your club, checking your listing and making sure that contact information is up to date is never a bad idea. Volunteers On The Air As announced in the January 2023 issue of QST, ARRL is holding the year-long operating event, Volunteers On The Air (VOTA), honoring all ARRL volunteers. In similar fashion to the 2014 ARRL Centennial QSO Party and the 2018 International Grid Chase, this event will be exclusively driven by contacts uploaded to Logbook of The World (LoTW). Highlights of the event include: Earning points for contacting W1AW portable stations: There will be week-long activations of portable W1AW/# stations in all 50 states, and in several US possessions/territories, which will generate on-air activity to earn points. Each state will be activated twice. The schedule of when each state will be activated will be updated as changes and additions occur. See the Points Table at www.arrl.org/volunteers-on-the-air for the full list of points. Contacting ARRL volunteers or members on the air: ARRL Officers, Directors, Section Managers (and their appointees), staff, and even domestic and DX members, can be contacted for points. Using LoTW (http://www.arrl.org/logbook-of-the-world) as the contacts data source, the Volunteers On The Air event features W1AW activations from all 50 states (twice) and several territories during 2023. Weeks will begin on a Wednesday and end on a Tuesday. Some weeks will be shown as off weeks to avoid other major operating events. Participants will work W1AW portable stations and ARRL volunteers to earn contact points. Participants do not need to upload to, or participate in, LoTW. Uploads to LoTW by W1AW portable stations and by the volunteers will feed the points scoring system. A leaderboard will be activated after the event ramps up, and certificates will be available during and after the event concludes. Once the year is completed, an annual summary will be released. If you review the state activations list and notice your state is not yet indicating a host, and you have interest in activating your state, consider reaching out to your Division Director to express your club's interest. For information and continued updates, visit the VOTA website at www.arrl.org/vota. Santa Is on the Air via Ham Radio As Christmas approaches, many amateur radio clubs carry out an annual tradition of helping kids talk directly to Santa Claus while he is still at the North Pole before his big ride. Ham Radio is Alive and Well at Arizona State University Stuart Lindsay, AC7FL The Arizona State University (ASU) Amateur Radio Club, W7ASU, is back on the air after a pandemic-imposed hiatus and major antenna repairs. The club has a shack and maker-workspace at ASU's Community Services Building, about a mile and a half off Tempe campus. With a new Icom IC-7300,
an EA4TX antenna controller, and software donated by Ham Radio Deluxe, we have automated the station for remote operation. Hams with General or Amateur Extra-class licenses among the 90,000 online student body are invited to take advantage of this facility, as well as those among the 80,000 students on campus who cannot make it out to the shack. Many of our members are interested but do not yet hold licenses, so we hold weekly licensing classes on campus with a Zoom link for off-campus participants. These classes are currently taught by one of ASU's remote students, George Blake, W6BDD, via Zoom from his Kansas location. Handheld transceivers are available for loan to students with a Technician-class or higher license, and we hope to establish a regular net. If you are an ASU Sun Devil interested in the club, you can join via Sun Devil Sync (https://asu.campuslabs.com/engage/organization/amateur-radio-society-at-asu), or contact club President Nabhan Fakrudin, VU3FPX (nfakrudi@asu.edu), or Faculty Advisor Stuart Lindsay, AC7FL (Stuart.Lindsay@asu.edu). Schoharie County ARA Receives Funding The Schoharie County Amateur Radio Association (SCARA) was one of 27 agencies awarded funding from the Schoharie County Board of Supervisors Flood Committee at the end of November as part of money received from the New York Power Authority (NYPA). The $15,000 received by the club will begin the process of linking each of the 16 municipalities with the county Emergency Operatons Center (EOC) using a standard kit of radio equipment for use by Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) and Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) operators. Equipment will include an HF/VHF/UHF base station, antennas, and a computer dedicated to radio communications. A club priority for a number of years, this project helps to standardize the equipment used in an emergency and present a professional image to served agencies. Numerous floods in the Schoharie Valley, due to excessive snow melt and (more recently) post-tropical cyclones, have demonstrated the need and value of a backup communications strategy. There have been documented instances of radio operators passing official messages between affected municipalities and the county EOC when all other means of communications (mobile phones, landlines, etc.) had failed. NYPA, as part of its relicensing agreement for the Blenheim-Gilboa Pumped Storage Power Project, provides annual payments to the county, which are then distributed by the Flood Committee. This is one of the first years that these grants have gone to individual agencies; past distributions were used to help establish a county ambulance service and provide infrastructure improvements for the county sheriff's office. Club Station Update "Club Station," QST's newest column, continues to grow. In the coming months, clubs from around the country will share stories about their activities and programs, and an Ohio club will offer advice and recommendations on how to successfully put together a club newsletter, among others. "Club Station" is intended to show the successes and contributions of clubs by highlighting how many of them are overcoming the challenges of an ever-changing world, in an effort to help other clubs do the same. All clubs are invited to submit their story. The details on how and where to submit are located on the Affiliated Club Resources web page, under Club Station Author's Guide and Form. You do not have to be a professional writer to submit your club's story, and QST editors will be happy to work with you. We look forward to hearing from your club! Submitting Info for this Newsletter ARRL Club News is for radio clubs to show how they are working in the community and the hobby to advance amateur radio. If your club completes a project, supports an event, does an EmComm activation, or activates a park, we want to hear about it. You can submit your newsletter article to us at clubs@arrl.org. We like to get them as text or Word files instead of PDFs. If you have pictures, please submit them with caption information, as well as the name and call sign of the photographer. We want to highlight the good work being done by the clubs and show others in the community. Think of this as a chance to show off your club and your programs. How to Plan and Apply for an ARRL Hamfest or Convention If your amateur radio club is planning to host a convention, hamfest, tailgate, or swapfest, please consider applying for it to be an ARRL-sanctioned event. To learn what it means to be an ARRL-sanctioned event, and to get some ideas on how to prepare for and conduct a hamfest or convention, visit www.arrl.org/arrl-sanctioned-events. To have your event sanctioned, complete the online application at www.arrl.org/hamfest-convention-application. The ARRL Hamfests and Conventions Calendar can be found online at www.arrl.org/hamfests. In addition, the Convention and Hamfest Calendar that runs in QST each month also presents information about upcoming events. Important Links ARRL Home: www.arrl.org Find an ARRL Affiliated Club: www.arrl.org/clubs Find your ARRL Section: www.arrl.org/sections Find a license class in your area: www.arrl.org/class Find a license exam in your area: www.arrl.org/exam Find a hamfest or convention: www.arrl.org/hamfests Email ARRL Clubs: clubs@arrl.org | ||
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a good time to check your listing on 
