ARRLWeb: Contact! - August, 2005

The ARRL will be among dozens of organizations and agencies participating in National Preparedness Month. The campaign, headed by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is aimed at making citizen preparedness "a priority for every city, every neighborhood and every home" in the US. The League will combine its role in National Preparedness Month with its own "Amateur Radio Awareness Day" on September 17.

"The two events offer great opportunities for Amateur Radio to showcase its valued service to the nation," said ARRL Field and Educational Services Manager Rosalie White, K1STO. She encouraged ARRL-affiliated clubs and Field Organization volunteers to take advantage of the occasion to set up public demonstrations of Amateur Radio and to present or even demonstrate--under the banner of National Preparedness Month--the free services Amateur Radio provides to the community.

"This is also an excellent opportunity to recruit prospective hams for licensing classes that clubs may be forming for the fall," ARRL Club/Mentor Program Manager Norm Fusaro, W3IZ, added. In addition, ARRL encourages all Amateur Radio operators to have a family emergency communication plan in place in case of an emergency, such as a severe weather event. Visit the Ready.gov Web site for more information.

The ARRL has printed materials available for ARRL-affiliated clubs, ARES groups and others to use for public exhibits and ham radio demonstrations. Brochures may be downloaded free of charge from the ARRL Web site. For a small shipping fee, exhibit kits also are available from the ARRL's F&ES department.

A unique opportunity exists for promoting Amateur Radio in September. PBS, the national Public Broadcasting Service, is hosting two special shows on Sept 12 and 19. These will be "Fred Friendly Seminars" which are tied to the Dept. of Homeland Defense Preparedness Month. As part of these special presentations, local PBS stations are being encouraged to have live, on-air panel discussions and other activities featuring their area's emergency responders and organizations. That's where YOU come in.

I have been in contact with Barbara Margolis, CEO of the Fred Friendly Seminars. They are willing to push Amateur Radio in their promotions of the shows. While your local PBS station may not have decided just what they will do yet (each local station can act independently but most usually follow the national format), this is a chance for *SELECTED* ARRL/ARES/RACES leaders to contact their local stations and have an Amateur Radio representative in the local station discussions.

Because we would not want competing clubs or inappropriate people contacting the stations and confusing them, I believe that the Section Managers should be the ones to "appoint" good, sharp, literate, camera friendly people who are familiar with ARES type activities in their section. These "appointees" should be the ones making contact with the local TV stations. You may have more than one PBS station in your section (there are approximately 350 of them in the country). Please DO NOT contact your local station until you talk to your SM or their designate about this! A special message was sent to Section Managers on July 20 informing them of this and alerting them to this opportunity. Please give your section manager your full aid and cooperation in this great PR opportunity.

I hope that leaders will take this opportunity to have someone from your section approach each of the PBS stations and become part of the local dialog and activities that are planned around these shows. Please also let me know how things are developing so that I can hopefully put out more press about this in early September.

Many PIO's are unaware that you can post your own Field Day press, pictures, events and activities for others to see on the ARRL Soapbox. Take a look!

Many well meaning hams are writing magazine and newspaper publishers about BPL issues. In the beginning, they were correct when they lumped BPL systems all into the same potential interference threat. But some BPL manufacturers have been looking to address interference to Amateur Radio, so that's no longer truthful.

The Motorola LV systems design looks very promising and is not expected to cause us any real interference problems. Current Communications, Corridor Systems and IBEC have designed their equipment not to use the Amateur bands. In areas where these systems are deployed, they do not seem to have significant interference potential to our bands at this time. Be careful that you don't paint all BPL with the same brush, hurting those companies that have tried to help Amateur Radio. At this point, only Motorola has a complete interference solution, but at least one other company is working with ARRL on additional solutions.

Then there are other BPL systems that continue to interfere with Amateur Radio to this day. These are the ones which we need to be most concerned about, so make sure that when you write letters, you are clear that you are against interference from BPL, not BPL itself. If your local system is one of the "better" guys, don't blame them for the interference being caused by other companies.

Just as we want reporters to present a fair and balanced picture of the BPL dilemmas, let's be sure that we too are being fair and accurate.

Another problem is that reporters themselves are confused. Hybrid systems which use fiber, cable or WiFi signals as part of the design are being reported as BPL, or BPL systems that use wireless as part of their link are being reported as wireless. Check to see just what the system really is, get the facts, then write. "Ready, FIRE, Aim," is not a good way to win media to see our side of the problem. We need your continuing activity and support, but we also need to be clear and correct.

Bill Morine, N2COP, pointed out a survey done recently by the ARRL showed that the "average ham" has an equipment inventory worth just over $4000. If we multiply that by just one-half of the total hams licensed, that's $1.28 Billion.

That's not a bad number to bring to the table for emergency communications by an all volunteer, trained force whose only request for payback is some spectrum space, lack of interference by BPL and the ability to raise an antenna at their home.

Without question, the website of the month has to be Mother Earth News.com and its "New Directions Radio" column by Copthorne Macdonald. His informative, accurate and truly interesting writing about Amateur Radio topics, human interactions and using ham radio in unusual ways is a delight. While few of us will ever live in remote areas, it sure is fun to read about it and get other ideas in the process.

Remember your high school chemistry class and the "Periodic Chart of the Elements"? As you went down the chart, the elements got heavier, until at the bottom you were radioactive. Here's a chart of media effectiveness.

Texts	Lectures	Photos
Videos	Tours	Open houses
Exhibits	Simulations	Plays

Use time with a ham radio operator and the offer of talking around the country or worldwide as the prizes in local broadcast radio call-in contests.

Your local radio stations are always looking for freebies to give away. It's good for their ratings and something to talk about. Instead of dinner for two at the local hot dog stand, why not a couple hours talking on the radio around the country -- or around the world?

As long as there is an appropriately licensed Amateur Operator right there managing things as control operator, and you stay within the 3^rd party agreements (remember those from the license tests?) then there is no problem with this. It makes an unusual prize and an experience that many people would like to try out --if only to say they did it once.

The bottom line is the commercial station gets a prize to give away, the winner gets an unusual experience, your club gets free publicity -and everyone can win.

Want another one?

Most small to medium sized towns have a couple of key coffee shops where people gather. Town leaders often have regular, informal gatherings once a week or more frequently in a coffee shop. By simply purchasing NAPKINS and having them printed with your group's message you have a great way to cheaply reach many people. Just give the napkins freely to the coffee shop for use.

VIDEO WANTED -- You can do it!

For several months now I have been planning for 2006, contacting critical people, looking at what has worked in the past, what has not worked, and plotting out a comprehensive PR campaign. It is about done. But I need your help.

A critical piece in the campaign is the production of a 30 second video which can be shown on television. A "storyboard" for this has been drafted. The video will show several Amateur Radio operators saying "hello" to the world. In the background behind them must be buildings or other settings which can be easily recognized by people all over the world. In just 30 seconds there is not time to give a lot of information, so the picture itself must tell us where we are.

I am seeking DVD quality video clips of Amateur Radio operators standing before easily recognized locations in their own country. The video should be about 20 seconds long. The actual video clip should be one 20 second long continuous shot...

10 seconds of the person silently smiling pleasantly or waving hello, the person enthusiastically says "hello!" and 10 more seconds of smiling into the camera in a friendly way.

That's it. One 20 second long, DVD video with this specific one word greeting in the middle of it. I prefer that you do NOT move or zoom the camera during the shot. Just hold steady. Be sure that the recognizable landmark is in the frame.

The person can be male or female. For publicity purposes it would be nice to have both plus some young folks. You can have 2 people in the picture, both saying hello together if they talk fast....30 seconds is not long!

Please do not say more than Hello (or its equivalent in your language) as we will just have to edit it out or it may be unusable.

When you have the picture, send the video and the name(s) and callsign(s) of the people in it to:

We cannot guarantee which videos we will eventually use, but the more we get the better. I hope to have a series of PSA's made up from different regions. _____________________________________________________________

WEBSITE IDEAS WANTED for NON-Hams

We hear you! PIO's and Members have been asking for a greatly simplified website for NON-hams to look at when they first are in the "thinking about it" stages of Amateur Radio. While the regular ARRL website has an incredible wealth of information on it, the site can also be very confusing to the non-ham beginner who does not even know what questions to ask.

So.... Please let me know

What should be on a GREATLY simplified, easy to use and navigate website meant just for non-hams who got curious?

Please send your list of topics to me at APitts@arrl.org with the subject line of "WEBSITE IDEAS"

I am also looking for volunteer website developers who can do excellent work. I will need help in October. Because of the importance of this, samples of previous works will need to be screened in choosing the team.

The term goes back to the telegraph days preceding radio. Around 1903, ships in the trans-Atlantic trade were starting to be equipped with wireless telegraphy. The operators were usually transposed landline telegraphers who went to sea with the new field of radio. Morse code and many of their telegraphic abbreviations came with them including "CQ", which had been used to attract attention of all the operators along a wire.

CQ seems to have first been used immediately before the official time signal at 10 a.m. and also notices of general importance. This use continued at sea and it became a general call to all ships.

Not long after, the Marconi Company recognized the need for a universal distress signal and issued the following general order: "It has been brought to our notice that the call CQ (All Stations) while being satisfactory for general purposes, does not sufficiently express the urgency required in a signal of distress. Therefore, on and after the 1st of February, 1904, the call to be given by ships in distress, or in any way requiring assistance, shall be CQD."

Unfortunately, no one seems to know which ship had apparently been in distress and had been ignored when it just sent "CQ". But why the letters CQ? -They're from the French, sécurité, (safety or, as intended here, pay attention). French still is the official language for international postal services, and the word sécurité is used to mean 'pay attention'. "CQ" said in French sounds like sécurité.

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