Greetings everyone, welcome to "Dale's Tales"
for March 2018.
"So close and yet so far" as the 3Y0Z effort to
put Bouvet on the air again has been delayed.
The
other interesting news is that the 3Y0I team who also has plans to activate Bouvet is continuing
that effort. 3Y0I had delayed their schedule to allow 3Y0Z the earlier
opportunity to activate. This may get
very interesting as the 3Y0Y team turned down the offer from 3Y0I to
collaborate for the effort.
A word about our QSL Bureaus. Two Bureaus serve the Great Lakes division as
we fall into two different call areas, 4-Land and 8-Land. Each bureau operates slightly differently, but each
provided the same service, getting our foreign QLS delivered to us. NO, it is not totally automatic; you must provide the bureaus with
postage and/or envelopes to get your cards delivered. Each group will let you know the method they
prefer. Still it all works very well and
we owe a debt of gratitude to the many folks that work together to make this
happen.
Basically, it typically works like this: the incoming cards are received at a central
point for the respective call areas and are then sorted and bulk shipped to
"Letter Managers". The Letter
Manager completes the sorting process and stuffs the cards into individual
envelopes we supply and mails them to us when enough cards have been accumulated.
Sounds simple but keep in mind that there is an individual letter manager for the first letter in the
suffix of the recipient's call. Mine is
the "E" manager for example. 10 call areas times 26 letters means as
many as 260 people sorting across the USA and each Letter Manager may have a
couple hundred envelopes on hand. They
really do deserve some thanks, don't they?
To learn more about the QSL Bureau service in the Great
Lakes Division check out the following URLs.
The 8th Bureau has its own web page and the 4th is linked to the ARRL
page.
TOM'S COMMENTS:
Comments from our Vice Director Tom Delaney W8WTD
February saw me attending more club meetings than
normal. I was trying to get around and
discuss some of the changes at ARRL.
Thank you all for your hospitality and your willingness to discuss
issues of importance to you and the League.
I was especially pleased to get your reactions on some of
the work the various committees are doing on advancing education, both for our
newest hams, and for all of us.
I’d say more, but for the past several days I have been
working mostly full-time with the Red Cross on the Disaster Relief operation
for the Ohio River flooding.
So these brief remarks will have to do for this month.
A quick note on ham radio communications. There has been no communication outage, so
ham radio has not played a role in this effort. But I was
impressed with the preparation and coordination of the ARES teams locally and
at the state level to make sure they were ready to respond if necessary. There will be communications needs in some
future disaster. We just don’t know
where or when. So keep your batteries
charged.
--73, Tom W8WTD Vice Director, Great Lakes Division
CONVENTIONS:
Hamvention® will host the ARRL Great Lakes Division Convention this
year, by Be
sure to get it on your calendar.
Hamvention's new venue in Xenia worked well last year and another building has been added for vendor use. Check out their special request, website for the latest information. http://hamvention.org/ May 18-20.
In even numbered years, the Great Lakes Division's three
Sections normally host their individual State Conventions. Kentucky's ARRL State Convention will be
hosted by the Greater Louisville Hamfest in Shepherdsville, KY on September 8,
2018. See http://louisvillehamfest.com/ Michigan's State ARRL Convention will be held at HamCon Brooklyn, MI on October 6-7. http://glhamcon.org/.
While not a state convention, Ohio will be holding the
Ohio Section Conference in conjunction with the Columbus Hamfest on August 4,
2018. See http://columbushamfest.com/
3/3/18 Cave
City Hamfest Cave
City, KY
3/4/18 NOARS
Hamfest Elyria,
OH
3/17/18 Crossroads
Hamfest Kalamazoo, MI
3/17/18 MOVARC
Hamfest Gallipolis,
OH
3/18/18 Toledo
Mobile R.A. Perrysburg, OH
4/7/18 Lincoln
Trail Elizabethtown,
KY
4/14/18 Cuyahoga
Falls Cuyahoga Falls, OH
4/21/18 Portsmouth Portsmouth, OH
4/28/18 RCARA
Tailgate Ashland, KY
4/28/18 Chassell
Hamfest Chassell, MI
4/29/18 GMARC
Hamfest Madison
Hgts, MI
4/29/18 Athens
Hamfest Athens, OH
Be sure to check your Section's news pages for the latest
local happenings, club and net information.
73,
Dale Williams WA8EFK
Director
Great Lakes Division
