[SFDXA] Fwd: The ARRL Letter for July 25, 2013

[Bill Marx]

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> If you are having trouble reading this message, you can see the original at:
> http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter/?issue=2013-07-25
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> July 25, 2013Editor: Rick Lindquist, WW1ME
> ARRL Home Page		ARRL Letter Archive		Audio News
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> Your League: ARRL Board Names Award Winners, Okays LoTW Initiatives
> FCC: Receiver Immunity Standards Unnecessary, Impractical for Amateur Service, ARRL Says
> Ham Radio in Space: Boy Scout Jamboree Hosts Space Station Ham Radio Contact
> Radiosport: WRTC 2014 Station Test "A Valuable Experience," Organizers Say
> DX: Wake Atoll K9W DXpedition Preparations On Track
> People: Hams Win International Association of Emergency Managers Awards
> Conferences: Papers Due July 31 for 32nd Digital Communications Conference
> Public Service: More Than 400 Attend 2013 ARRL Hurricane Webinar
> Youth: BSA Troop Club Station KT5BSA Achieves DXCC
> Solar Update
> Getting It Right
> This Week in Radiosport
> Upcoming ARRL Section, State and Division Conventions and Events
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> Your League: ARRL Board Names Award Winners, Okays LoTW Initiatives
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> ARRL President Kay Craigie, N3KN, opens the July Board meeting. ARRL First Vice President Rick Roderick, K5UR, is to her right.
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> At its second meeting of the year, July 19 and 20 in Windsor, Connecticut, the ARRL Board of Directors confronted a broad agenda that included the naming of ARRL award winners, the efforts of the Ad Hoc LoTW (Logbook of The World) and Symbol Rate Rule Modernization committees, creation of a new field appointment for youth, and the procedure for eventual ARRL CEO succession.
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> LoTW
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> ARRL Dakota Division Director Greg Widin, KØGW, reported on the work of the Ad Hoc LoTW Committee. The Board resolved, on Widin's motion, to authorize $75,000 in order to procure outside professional services with the goal of improving LoTW's database implementation. The Board also okayed the hiring of a full-time Headquarters staff member with "strong IT development and architectural skills" to address LoTW improvements.
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> Symbol Rate Rule Modernization
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> On the motion of ARRL West Gulf Division Director Dr David Woolweaver, K5RAV, on behalf of the Ad Hoc Symbol Rate Rule Modernization Committee, the Board directed ARRL General Counsel Chris Imlay, W3KD, to prepare a Petition for Rule Making with the FCC seeking to modify §97.307(f) to delete all references to "symbol rate." The Petition would ask the FCC "to apply to all amateur data emissions below 29.7 MHz the existing bandwidth limit, per §97.303(h), of 2.8 kHz."
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> The committee determined that the current symbol rate restrictions in §97.307(f) "no longer reflect the state of the art of digital telecommunications technology," and that the proposed rule change would "encourage both flexibility and efficiency in the employment of digital emissions by amateur stations." The committee was dissolved with the thanks of the Board. (In his September 2013 QST "It Seems to Us" editorial, ARRL CEO David Sumner, K1ZZ, explains the Board's action on symbol rate regulation.)
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> New Section Level Youth Field Appointment
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> ARRL Rocky Mountain Division Vice Director Dwayne Allen, WY7FD, acting on behalf of Director Brian Mileshosky, N5ZGT, who was unable to attend, presented the report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Youth in the Second Century. A highlight of the report was the proposed creation of a Section Youth Coordinator as a section level appointment in the ARRL Field Organization.
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> The Board subsequently resolved, on Allen's motion, to adopt the committee's recommendation to establish the Section Youth Coordinator (SYC) position, to replace the current Assistant SM for Youth. The Board further resolved to have the Program and Services Committee and ARRL staff define the roles and responsibilities of the SYC, considering the recommendations in the Ad Hoc Committee on Youth in the Second Century's report to the Board.
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> CEO Succession
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> No immediate retirement plans: ARRL CEO David Sumner, K1ZZ, calls the roll at the July ARRL Board meeting.
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> The Board devoted considerable time and discussion throughout the meeting to the issue of CEO (chief executive officer) succession. While current CEO David Sumner, K1ZZ, has no immediate plans to retire, he is approaching his normal retirement age. That prompted the Board to put in place a procedure for naming a new CEO when the time comes. The Board agreed to establish a CEO Candidate Screening Committee consisting of five directors and elected an initial committee. Among its first responsibilities, the new committee will establish CEO search criteria. The committee may employ an independent management consultant and is to recommend at least three CEO candidates to the Board for consideration at the appropriate time.
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> Award Winners
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> The Board named the winners of two prestigious awards. Dr Robert S. Dixon, W8ERD, of Delaware, Ohio, was awarded the 2013 ARRL Technical Service Award. He was recognized "for numerous technical contributions" to Amateur Radio and for sharing "his abilities and enthusiasm" for Amateur Radio. A QST author, Dixon designed and created one of the first tactical communications bridge systems for his local ARES team.
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> Well-known microwave experimenter Brian D. Justin, WA1ZMS, of Forest, Virginia, is the winner of the ARRL Doug DeMaw, W1FB, Technical Excellence Award. The Board recognized Justin for his "distinguished lifelong Amateur Radio career," which has included expeditions that garnered Justin the first VUCC Award on 47, 76, 122, 145 and 241 GHz. Justin was further commended for developing and building several millimeter-wave stations and for operating several repeaters, from 146 to 1200 MHz. Read more.
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> FCC: Receiver Immunity Standards Unnecessary, Impractical for Amateur Service, ARRL Says
> Responding to an FCC call for comments based in part on recommendations in a Technological Advisory Council (TAC) white paper, the ARRL this week told the Commission that establishing so-called "harm claim threshold" (HCT) standards for receivers would not work in the Amateur Service. HCTs, expressed in field strength or power flux density, would specify the level of radio interference that receivers should be expected to tolerate before a radio service could claim harmful interference. Limits would be established throughout a service's assigned frequency range as well as within certain frequencies outside that range. The ARRL argued that there is a need for minimum, perhaps even mandatory, receiver performance standards for home electronic devices, but the Amateur Service should not be subject to receiver immunity standards.
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> "Any performance standards for Amateur receivers would be purely arbitrary, and would compromise the experimental purposes of the Service," the ARRL told the Commission. "Amateurs have the technical knowledge to differentiate between interference from spurious or out-of-band emissions from nearby transmitters and that caused by receiver deficiencies."
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> In the Amateur Service, the League continued, station-to-station interference issues are typically resolved cooperatively without FCC intervention and are "essentially not a problem." The issue for radio amateurs, the League said, is "protection from spurious and out-of-band emissions from other services."
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> Early last year then-FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski tasked the TAC with studying the role of receivers "in ensuring the efficient use of spectrum and to provide recommendations on avoiding obstacles posed by receiver performance to making spectrum available for new services." In late April, the FCC released a Public Notice (ET Docket 13-101), detailing the recommendations of the TAC's working group on receivers and spectrum in a white paper called Interference Limits Policy -- The use of harm claim thresholds to improve the interference tolerance of wireless systems. A General Accountability Office report in February recommended that the FCC "consider small-scale pilot tests and other methods to collect information on the practical effects of various options for improving receiver performance." The FCC accepted comments on both the TAC white paper an