May brings Hamvention® and this year the ARRL Great Lakes Convention.
Our Division Hamvention booth, located again at the ARRL Expo area, will offer the opportunity for everyone to meet and greet our Division Officials and our Section Managers of Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan. Like last year, we are encouraging everyone to bring along one of your QSL cards for posting in the booth. We are doubling the size of our QSL bulletin board for 2023. Last year's QSL posting event was so successful we ran out of room! It was really interesting to see the wide variety of cards and some were from DX visitors.
Our Hamvention ARRL Member Forum will be held at 1:15 PM on Saturday and will include keynote talks from our CEO David Minster NA2AA, and President Rick Roderick K5UR. In addition, Director of Operations Bob Naumann W5OV, will cover recent updates to Radiosport and LoTW, and ARRL Treasurer John Sager WJ7S, will detail ARRL's current financial position and why we must consider a change to the dues structure. And on the really good side of the fence, the Division leadership team, your Section Managers, Director and Vice Director, will present our Great Lakes Division Young Amateur of the Year award to a very deserving amateur.
ARRL Members take note, ARRL Headquarters will be conducting a membership survey the entire month of May to gather your input about how our membership can be bundled. There are about 13 questions, covering what member services you and like, the value received from your membership, your favorite parts of ham radio, what you feel to be a reasonable annual dues rate, and how our monthly publications should be distributed. The survey also includes opportunities for members to offer additional thoughts that may not adequately covered by the survey questions.
In preparation for the survey, during April, ARRL HQ asked everyone to verify their ability to access their Personal Member page on the ARRL web site to insure the survey would be accessible. Those individuals having problems are to contact HQ for assistance in getting the connectivity resolved. Following the announcement, it was found that many members had not accessed their page since the server upgrade and more stringent password requirements went into place. Over the following days, ARRL HQ received more than 1000 requests for password assistance. Be sure to check your member page access soon and call HQ if you have any questions. 860-594-0200.
By the way, the Volunteers on the AIR (VOTA) has been going really well and I am having a great time giving out my 225 points as a Director. My effort has been to call "CQ VOTA" and make as many contacts as time allows. I think I surprised a few folks with the level of points they received. So if you are playing VOTA, I'll be glad to make a contact.
Look for me on the HF bands plus 6 and 2, both SSB and Digital. For complete details, including the listings for the number of contact points provided by each ARRL Volunteer, check https://www.arrl.org/volunteers-on-the-air. There is a Dashboard accessible that will show your current score based upon your request.
Shall we consider holding a "Great Lakes VOTA Night" where we can all get on the air and share some of our VOTA points? Let me know your thoughts. WA8EFK@ARRL.ORG.
SCOTT'S STUFF:
Comments from your ARRL Vice-Director Scott, N8SY. - May Edition
Spring has sprung and it is finally May. With it comes better weather and a whole plethora of hamfests springing up everywhere!! Hamvention is less than 3 weeks away, have you gotten your reservations locked in?
If you haven’t, you’re most likely too late to get anything closer than Columbus or Cincinnati to stay at.
Shifting gears... I’m sure by now you all have seen the ARRL membership notice about the questionnaire that has just come out.
What’s it all about? We want your thoughts on a number of questions that have come up over this past year that most likely will affect every ARRL member in one way or the other. Dues are always the most talked about subject, and we want your opinion on them. YES, this is your opportunity to tell us how you feel. So, take advantage of this opportunity and tell us what’s on your mind in responding to the questionnaire. Be honest answering these questions on how they already have or could affect you in the future.
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 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... For those of you who have just gotten licensed or even those of you who have been licensed for some time now but never used your privileges, here’s a really great webinar for you to sit in on... It’s the 2023 Online Ham Bootcamp - https://www.n1fd.org/
The Nashua Area Radio Society's spring 2023 online Ham Bootcamp will be held on Saturday, May 13, from 10 AM to 6 PM Eastern Time. Access to the session will be provided via Zoom.
Ham Bootcamp includes a series of demonstrations and tutorials designed to help newly licensed Technician-, General-, and Extra-class license holders get on the air. Ham Bootcamp is also a great opportunity for hams who are interested in seeing what the hobby has to offer.
The online Ham Bootcamp program is available to all licensed and prospective amateur radio operators. You can register for the next Ham Bootcamp session at: https://www.n1fd.org/register-ham-bootcamp/ For additional information, contact Anita Kemmerer, AB1QB, of the Nashua Area Radio Society at ab1qb@arrl.net
Whelp, that’s going to do it from here this month. Stay safe and "Catch Me On The Air" and don’t forget to "Catch me at the Dayton Hamvention" as well!!!
73,
Scott, N8SY@ARRL.ORG
Vice Director
Great Lakes Division
HAMFEST AND EVENT LISTING:
Here is the current listing of Great Lakes Division ARRL Sanctioned hamfests and Special Events through July of 2023.
05/06/23 - Wexaukee ARC Swap, Cadillac, MI
05/07/23 - Lucas County ARES Trunk Swap, Toledo, OH
05/13-17/23 - RV Radio Network Spring Rally (SP Event), Millersburg, OH
05/18-21/23 - ARCI Four Days in May, Fairborn, OH
05/19-21/23 - Dayton Hamvention & Great Lakes Convention, Xenia, OH
05/27/23 - Scioto Valley, Piketon, OH
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
07/8/23 - 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
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
