Greetings, welcome to "Dale's Tales" for June, 2023.
Hamvention® and the ARRL Great Lakes Convention. The ARRL Member Forum was the wonderful
opportunity to present the Great Lakes Division Young Radio Amateur of the Year
award to a very deserving Katherine Campbell KE8LQR. Katie has been a driving force in getting
other youth licensed.
She was licensed in 2019 at age 10 and within 3 months had progressed to extra class. She has been the president of her school club for 4 years. During the pandemic she learned CW from the Long Island CW club kids classes. Katie is now a youth instructor for their intermediate and advanced youth classes, volunteering a few hours a week since August of 2021.
She was a 2022 YLRL presenter at Hamvention, attended Youth On The Air (YOTA) Camp at the Voice of America Museum in June of 2022. She attended Huntsville Hamfest in 2022, and was a Carole Perry youth forum presenter in February 2023 at Hamcation. She was also a Carole Perry Youth forum presenter at Hamvention in 2023.
Katie is an active member of LAARA, a local club where she attends meetings, participates in fox hunts and field day operations. Being the president of our school club, K8LPS, she teaches and encourages other students to earn their license, and is directly responsible for four new student licensees. She mentors students in school club roundups and has lead her school club to high scores in that over the 2019-2022 school years. You can also find her active on 20 M, adding to logbook and QSL card collection. Katie is looking forward to attending YOTA camp in Ottawa this summer and teaching a CW session to fellow campers! Katie is also a 5 year member of Young Amateur Communication Ham Team (YACHT) youth net that meets nightly on Echolink. Katie attends as many hamfests as she can trying to recruit other licensed youth to YOTA and YACHT, where they will find other kids who can mentor them in any area of amateur radio they may have an interest.
In addition to the Young Radio Amateur of the Year award presented to Katie, our Hamvention ARRL Member Forum included keynote talks from our CEO David Minster NA2AA, and President Rick Roderick K5UR. ARRL Director of Operations Bob Naumann W5OV, covered recent updates to Radiosport and LoTW, and ARRL Treasurer John Sager WJ7S, spoke regarding ARRL's current financial position and why we must consider a change to the dues structure.
Our Division Hamvention booth, located again at the ARRL Expo area, welcomed visitors, and we had many. In addition to Director Williams WA8EFK and Vice Director Yonally N8SY, our Section Managers were in attendance to greet visitors, answer questions and collect member comments. Our thanks go out to KY SM Charlie O'Neal KE4AIE, MI SM Larry Camp WB8R and OH SM Tom Sly WB8LCD. Special thanks to Janie Yonally KB8YPW and Paul Trouten W8PI for covering the booth while the rest of us were at forums.
The booth poster board was well covered with visitor QSL cards and our sign-in sheet included many more call signs. Here is the list (any errors are mine): AE8FP, AE8JF, AK9TX, K3GP, K3RC, K4ZLE, K8BF, K8CLP, K8CWC, K8CX, K8DP, K8DV, K8JH, K8JTK, K8NU, K8PD, K8QKY, K8SRB, K8TB, K8TS, K8VQC, K8VSY, KA8AOB, KB8RW, KB8UUZ, KC3GFU, KC8RSA, KD8VFE, KE4AIE, KE8FMJ, KE8RJU, KE8XH, KG9Z, KI8AF, KM4FO, KU4UV, KV8P, KY4EOC, N2XW, N8BZN, N8LE, N8NAV, N8QHV, N8RNK, N8SY, N8XKZ, N9CWU, NC8V, NJ2R, NK8D, NX8G, PA0GJV, PA3DZF, VA3GD, W3SML, W4FR, W8A, W8CJA, W8CTF, W8EXV, W8IJN, W8IZC, W8IZC, W8KNO, W8KOU, W8LX, W8MHB, W8MSC, W8MW, W8PT, W8RPM, W8SHF, W9TOC, WA2DHG, WA4MOM, WA8EFK, WB4ZDU, WB8FSV, WB8LCD, WB8NUT, WB8VNH, WD4FJF, WD8NVN, WE8TOM, WM8G, WW8PT.
Last month I posed the question: "Shall we consider
holding a 'Great Lakes VOTA Night' where we can all get on the air and share
some of our VOTA points?" I did get
a favorable response, so we are targeting Saturday July, 1st. VOTA Night has grown into "Great Lakes
VOTA Day".
We intend to have your Director, Vice Director and all three of our Section Managers on the air that day, to hand out points. Operations will include CW, phone and digital, focused on 80, 40 and 20 meter bands. No skeds, it is all random, no one will have any idea of the bands or time any given person will be on. By the way, we found out that the five of us all need to work one another to collect some points ourselves, so the plan for random operation seems most fair to all.
SCOTT'S STUFF: Comments from your ARRL Vice-Director
Scott, N8SY. - June Edition
Hamvention has come and gone and if you didn’t go this year, you really missed a spectacular event for sure. I can’t EVER remember better weather for the biggest get together of hams in the world. It was sunny, and the temperatures on all 3 days were on the mild side. Most importantly of all was that there was no humidity! It was perfect. The crowds were 6-8 deep at the Great Lakes Division booth all day Friday and Saturday. Sunday was much lighter, but we still had a lot of activity all the way to the end of the show. Everyone seemed happy and excited to be there.
The ARRL Forum on Saturday was highlighted with talks
from the President, the CEO and the Director of Operations for ARRL, speaking
about the on-going survey and many of the concerns that have been the topics of
discussion on the various Social Media outlets recently. All of that seemed overshadowed however with
the presentation of the Great Lakes Division Young Radio Amateur of the Year
Award. Dale bestowed this award to Katie
Campbell, KE8LQR. Now, don’t let her 2 x
3 call sign fool you, she’s got her Amateur Extra Class License. As I’m sure you got the idea, she is a very
talented and gifted young lady that will go far in the years to come. We are so very proud to have been able to recognize
her with this award. Congrats Katie!!!!
Keeping with the Convention theme just a bit more... Our Division’s Brag Board got quite a few QSL
cards pinned on it. Thank you to those
who dropped by with their cards to post.
We enjoyed posting them and they got a lot of attention from everyone
that walked past for sure.
For those of you who didn’t get a chance to drop by, we also had a rolling photo gallery with over 1,200 pictures of hams in action from the Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky Sections. I can’t tell you how many folks just casually walking by and looking yelled out "hey, I know that guy, it’s me..!!" It was a blast for sure.
Shifting Gears again... Field Day is fast approaching (June 24/25). Is your club making plans to have Field Day this year? If they are, don’t let them forget to get signed up on the Field Day locator http://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator Hey, if you can, meet with your local government officials and ask them for a Proclamation for Amateur Radio that weekend. Most local governments will be happy to do this and don’t forget to invite the news media to be there as well. Amateur radio groups are encouraged to share a copy of their proclamations with ARRL via pr@arrl.org so don’t be lazy, send it to them! ARRL will often share these proclamations to advance legislative efforts, creating additional support of awareness for amateur radio among lawmakers... This is great PR for everyone.
Oh, and one more thing... This isn’t mentioned much but is so very important to make sure you do. Have someone assigned to take pictures!! Lots of them. Just about everyone nowadays has a phone with a camera built into it, so there’s really no excuse anymore for not taking pictures, and.... send them to me at: n8sy@n8sy.com I will add them to the gallery that we already have started. And, like Alan Funt used to say... "Smile, you’re on Candid Camera!"
I will be out and about again this year visiting as many of the Field Day sites as I can get to on Saturday and Sunday. There are a lot of great sites to visit and I’ll do my best to try to get to yours!
Shifting gears to come into the pits... Whelp, that’s going to do it from here this month. Stay safe and "Catch Me On The Air" and don’t forget to participate in your local club’s Field Day!!!!
73,
Scott, N8SY@ARRL.ORGVice Director
Great Lakes Division
HAMFEST AND EVENT LISTING:
Here is the current listing of Great Lakes Division ARRL Sanctioned hamfests and Special Events through August of 2023.
06/03/23 - Fulton County, Wauseon, OH
06/03/23 - IRA, Hudsonville, MI
06/04/23 - Chelsea, Chelsea, MI
06/10/23 - Luce County, Newberry, MI
06/17/23 - Midland Hamfest, Midland, MI
06/18/23 - Monroe Hamfest, Monroe, MI
070/8/23 - Mansfield Mid Summer Trunkfest, Mansfield, OH
07/15/23 - GM ARC Trunk Swap, Shelby Twp, MI
07/15/23 - NOARS Fest, Elyria, OH
07/16/23 - Van Wert, Van Wert, OH
07/22/23 - Ashtabula County Hamfest, Pierpont, OH
08/05/23 - Columbus Hamfest, Grove City, OH
08/12/23 - Cincinnati Hamfest, Owensville, OH
08/20/23 - WARA Tailgate Swap, Cortland, OH
Please post this listing in your club's newsletter and announce the swaps on your local nets. Talk them up. Let's fully support all of our hamfests in every way possible. It means success for everyone. Be sure to invite your ARRL Officials as soon as your date is set.
If your ARRL Affiliated club plans to request Hamfest Sanctioning, you should make that request well in advance of the scheduled Hamfest date, as this allows adequate time for QST Listings. QST announcements require a 3 month lead time. To be fair to our Division's clubs, the Great Lakes Division policy is to offer a club ARRL Sanctioning for a limit of two hamfests/swaps in any given calendar year, and they must be four months apart. If your swap is cancelled or the date is going to change, please notify ARRL HQ.
For the latest detail on regional hamfests, check the ARRL web page at:
http://www.arrl.org/hamfests-and-conventions-calendar.
73,
Dale Williams WA8EFK
Director
Great Lakes Division
wa8efk@arrl.org
