QRZ! Ham Radio 1/QRZ Ham Radio Callsign Database - December 1993.iso/arrl/arrl_t.our

Text File | 1993-11-21 | 27KB | 598 lines

>From the files of the ARRL Automated Mail Server, ([e-mail]):

Prepared as a membership service by the American Radio Relay
League, Inc., Technical Information Service, 225 Main St.,
Newington, CT 06111 [phone]. Email: [e-mail]
(Internet).

file: \public\info\msd\tours.txt updated: June 16, 1993

Thank you for requesting the following information from the ARRL
Technical Information Service or the ARRL Automated Mail Server
([e-mail]). ARRL HQ is glad to provide this information free
of charge as a service to League members and affiliated clubs.

For your convenience, you may reproduce this information,
electronically or on paper, and distribute it to anyone who needs
it, provided that you reproduce it in its entirety and do so free
of charge.

If you have any questions concerning the reproduction or
distribution of this material, please contact Michael Tracy,
American Radio Relay League, 225 Main St., Newington, CT 06111
(email: [e-mail]).

An Electronic Tour of ARRL Headquarters.

This is the electronic tour of ARRL Headquarters.  If you are in
the area, we would love to have you stop by for an in-person
visit.  Tours of the Headquarters building are given on the hour,
from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, Monday through Friday.  In addition, once
a year we open the building on Saturday for our annual Open House,
usually held the first full weekend in June.

Either during our regular business hours, or our annual Open House,
one of our staff will give you a personal, one-hour tour of the main
building, followed by a visit to W1AW.  (Bring a copy of your license
with you; from 1:00 to 4:00 in the afternoon you can operate from
W1AW!)

Tour-guide guidelines:

1. Visitors are our customers.  (Without members there would be no
ARRL, and we would not be here.)  Staff will treat visitors with
respect and patience.  Visitor tours are not an interruption to
staff activity -- they're part of our jobs.  We give tours to our
visitors so that they will have a pleasant experience, and view us
in a positive way.

2. Tour guides will introduce themselves to visitors and explain
that a normal tour takes about an hour.  Next, visitors will be
asked if this is okay.  If not, a shorter tour will be given with
emphasis on the visitor's area(s) of special interest.  We will do
our best to accommodate visitors requests to meet a specific staff
member or see a particular area.

3. In case a visitor asks a question that the tour guide can't
answer, the tour guide should ask a staff member that knows the
answer.  (All staff members should be prepared to talk with
visitors.)

4. Tour are given starting between 8:00AM and 5:00PM.  (This
includes "lunch hour."  Tours that start after 4:00PM may be
shortened so that they conclude by 5:00PM -- see no. 3.)

Field Services Department

The American Radio Relay League was created in large part because
of a need to organize and support volunteers who handle formal
message traffic.  Today, the number of ARRL volunteers has
increased to where we need a whole department at ARRL HQ to
support them.

Field Services provides the services and support that the ARRL
Field Organization requires.  By the names of the volunteer
positions -- Official Relay stations, Technical Specialists and
Official Observers, Emergency Coordinators, State Government
Liaisons, etc. you can get an idea of the services that are
provided by the volunteers, in addition to the support that we
must provide to them.

Field Services employees produce:  many book, position guidelines,
memoranda of understanding and other publications in support of
the ARRL Field Organization, coordinate the activities and provide
support to the many hamfests and amateur radio conventions around
the country and throughout the year, produce QST columns and
articles, newsletters in support of the Field Organization
efforts.

Many amateurs enjoy amateur radio clubs.  There are approximately
1,700 clubs nationwide that have affiliated themselves with the
ARRL, and it's the Field Services Department that provides support
to affiliated and Special Service clubs.

Volunteers make up the lifeblood of the American Radio Relay
League and Field Services is proud to be able to support this
vibrant and active aspect of the Amateur Radio Service.

Regulatory Information Branch

RIB is responsible for editing the top-selling ARRL Repeater
Directory.  The National Repeater Data Base is also housed in RIB.
This on-line BBS system is for the exclusive use of Frequency
Coordinators to share coordination data with their fellows.  The
Repeater Directory Editor is responsible for SysOp duties.

Additionally, RIB is responsible for Part 97 rule interpretations,
providing forms for reciprocal licensing in foreign countries,
antenna zoning ordinance questions, the Volunteer Counsel and
Volunteer Consulting Engineer programs, the ARRL program for the
disabled, the ARRL Insurance programs, the International Travel
Host Exchange program, RFI regulatory issues, updating the PRB-1
package, writing the popular Washington Mailbox column in QST and
updating the FCC Rule Book.

Technical Editors

Technical Editors work closely with authors on preparing their
material for publication in a League book or in QST.  Authors are
compensated by the published page; an Author's Guide is available
from ARRL HQ to potential authors.

The QST editors are responsible for the technical articles and
columns in each month's issue.  The book editors are responsible
for most new books and licensing material, as well as revisions
and updates to existing titles.

Technical Editors ensure that the material the League publishes is
technically accurate, grammatically correct and in the proper
format for typesetting and layout in the Production Department.
The editors meet regularly to review manuscripts and make
recommendations as to how best to use the material.

If editors are looking for an article, book or book chapter on a
specific subject, they may approach a Technical Advisor or solicit
the material through a "call for papers" in QST.  (Technical
Advisors are volunteers who are employed in a field that relates
to articles and books we publish.)

Technical LAB

[NOTE: Tour guides should feel free to ask Lab staff to tell about
current projects.]

INTRO

The Lab, which is part of the Technical Department, is responsible
for providing technical support to HQ.  One of the best-known
functions of the Lab is that of testing commercial amateur
equipment. Equipment testing is done for two reasons: first, for
ad acceptance -- all ads appearing in a League publication must
receive Technical Department approval.  Not all products that are
advertised have to be tested first, but any new advertiser, or a
company advertising a class of products they haven't sold before,
can expect to have to supply a sample of their product for
testing.

The other type of testing of commercial equipment done by
the Lab is for the "Product Review" column in QST.  Items to be
reviewed are bought on the open market.  The Lab then performs a
complete battery of tests to determine the performance of the
product. The most critical results of these tests appear in the
"Product Review" column in a side-by-side comparison with the
manufacturer's claimed performance.  The on-the-air review is done
by a HQ staffer (not usually a Lab person) or one of the
League's Technical Advisors.

The Lab also performs original design for publication and for
special projects; Lab engineers often review and test submitted
QST articles; and when an ARRL filing before the FCC or other
regulatory agency requires a technical report, Lab engineers will
gather the data and write the report.

Machine shop/chemical room

Our machine shop gives us basic sheet-metal working capabilities,
including cutting, bending, grinding and drilling. We use the
equipment in this room for prototypes and special fabrications but
prefer to use commercially available cabinets for published
projects. We can produce single- sided circuit boards using the
system in the chemical room. The display on the wall next to the
door shows the process, which takes only about a half hour from
the time an engineer enters the room with a circuit transparency
until he walks out with a circuit board ready to be drilled.

Screen room

The bulk of our testing of radio receivers and transmitters is
done in this room. In here, we are shielded from radio signals by
the metal walls, floor and ceiling of the room. With over 110
decibels of isolation, you wouldn't be able to hear a single
station on a transistor radio in here if the door was closed. We
need this capability so that we may test sensitive equipment at
the same time that W1AW is transmitting strong signals from just a
few hundred feet away. Some of the test equipment you see here was
donated to ARRL by the Hewlett Packard Corporation. The custom-
made test benches were supplied by our good friend Fred Hammond,
VE3HC, who also supplied the new equipment racks and console at
W1AW.

W1INF

W1INF is the HQ "club" station, available to licensed staff
members who want to get on the air. (W1AW isn't available -- even to
staff -- most of the time.) The call sign dates from the 1930's when
ARRL HQ wasn't on the same property as W1AW so a separate callsign
was needed. (The Lab staff has dubbed the off-the-air phonetics
as Whisky-One-It's-Never-Finished, to indicate that we are always
changing things around.) Our latest addition is some fast-scan ATV
equipment.

Most of the antennas atop the HQ building itself are connected to
W1INF, which has HF and VHF capability, including operation through
most of the amateur radio satellites. We also use this area for testing.

Production Department

The Production Department is one of the most visible departments
at ARRL HQ, as all members receive QST and many hams read our
license manuals, the ARRL Handbook, the ARRL Operating Manual, and
many other books. This department includes the Editorial, Graphics
and Typesetting/Layout staff. All ARRL printed matter is prepared
by our editors, graphic artists, typesetters and layout
specialists.

Production

This department is responsible for production of all League
printed matter, such as QST, all of our books, manuals, handbooks,
brochures, pamphlets and handouts. The Typesetting, Graphics and
Layout staff make up the actual artwork and typeset pages used for
these.

The editorial staff is responsible for editing all nontechnical
general-interest articles and features for QST magazine, and they
edit the regular columns submitted by outside authors.

Graphics

All ARRL publications have their artwork prepared by the Graphic
Department Staff. They put together covers and all the
illustration used in QST, books, brochures, certificates, awards
and advertisements printed in QST and other magazines. Schematics
and technical drawings are done by computer using a Sun
workstation, running autoCAD and Adobe Illustrator on Macintosh
computers.

Typesetting/Layout

The typesetting staff operates the machines that generate the
finished layouts used to assemble QST and League books. About 90%
of our pages are assembled on Macintosh computers using Pagemaker
and QuarkXpress. These are photocopied and reviewed by the editors
and other departments for proofreading, corrections and final
approval, and then sent to the printers who manufacture the
publications offsite. For example, QST is printed by the R. R.
Donnelley Company in Glasgow, Kentucky, one of the largest
magazine printers in the country. Donnelley's presses turn out 122
major magazines each month (including PC Magazine, Parents, etc).
QST is mailed to members directly from Donnelley. We use other
printing firms to make up other League books and publications.

Educational Activities Department

Educational Activities Department handles 5 programs which
include:

Recruitment - We send out responses to 12,000 people per year who
write to us or call, wanting information about Amateur Radio. We
keep a list of approximately 2,000 registered instructors to refer
these people to. We send quantities of brochures and posters to
people and clubs who want to do displays or demonstrations to
nonhams.

Instructor and School Teacher Support - We have materials for
volunteer evening instructors and school teachers who want to use
Amateur Radio in the classroom. We print quarterly newsletters for
both sets of hams. We coordinate the school contacts for the
Shuttle Amateur Radio EXperiment, and provide teacher lesson
plans, sample news releases, student activity sheets, and resource
materials for the missions.

Audiovisual Library - We ship videotapes to schools, people who
will do presentations about Amateur Radio, and to affiliated clubs
for club programs. We also have public service announcements about
Amateur Radio for TV stations.

Elmer program - We coordinate new hams who need assistance to
people who want to help them. Whether it be with their first QSO
or their first dipole, their CW or anything else they may have
trouble with.

Novice Testing - We provide valid exams, 610s and instructions for
giving exams to qualified Novice examiners. We also match up those
people who are ready to take exams to those who can give them.
Advertising Department

The ARRL Advertising Department

The ARRL advertising department accepts advertising for QST, NCJ,
QEX, Repeater Directory and a few specialed publications. At the
present time, advertising accounts for approximately 1/3 of the
ARRL revenue. 3 million a year.

In addition to gathering all advertising film for placement in the
advertising sections of our publications, the department also
enforces the Advertising Acceptance Policy. When a new or existing
advertiser wants to advertise a new product, they must first
supply us with specifications or a product sample for testing.
Products are reviewed for safety, quality and adherence to
advertised claims. Transceivers and amplifiers must meet FCC
specifications. This Policy also has provisions for assisting our
members with compliants against advertiser. The Advertising
Acceptance Policy has been in place since the mid 1930's.

After the product and ad film has been reviewed, it is pasted and
positioned by the advertising staff. QST ads are then sent to our
printer, R. R. Donnelley, in Glasgow, Kentucky.

EVP Offices

These are the offices of the ARRL EVP Corporate Secretary Dave
Sumner, K1ZZ. Dave Sumner is employed by the Board of Directors to
manage the non-business Amateur Radio side of HQ. The activities
of most staff who are involved with membership contact other than
publication sales report to him.

There are also several specialists who work in this suite of
offices. Perry Williams, W1UED, who handles the legislative
relations in Washington. (FCC relations are now handled by Paul
Rinaldo, W4RI, out of a separate office in Washington.) The
League's Public Relations program is managed by Steve Mansfield,
N1MZA. Steve's job is to see that Amateur Radio receives the
favorable press it deserves. Our International Programs Manager is
Nao Akiyama, NX1L. Nao is mainly concerned with ARRL's relations
with its sister societies in other countries. He also does some
work for the International Amateur Radio Union. IARU is a
federation of national Amateur Radio societies from nearly 130
countries. The League serves as the International Secretariat for
the IARU. IARU is the framework through which Amateur Radio is
represented at international frequency allocation conferences.

Building Manager's Department

The Building Manager is responsible for all building and grounds
maintenance and supervision of the cleaning staff. Climate control
and other equipment maintenance is also his responsibility. The HQ
Building is 40,000 sq. feet, sits on 7 acres and has a staff of
approximately 120 employees.

The Outgoing Mailroom

The Outgoing Mailroom handles all outgoing correspondence
mailings, newletters, renewal notices and other misc. mailings. In
1991, the Outgoing Mailroom processed over 1,000,000 pieces of
mail. The Special Request desk is located here as well as the
Printing Department which allows for in-house, economical printing
of ARRL forms, etc. The Printing Department printed over 3,000,000
impressions in 1991.

ARRL Outgoing QSL Service

The ARRL Outgoing Overseas QSL Service is a Membership Service
which forwards Members' QSL cards to Foreign Incoming QSL Bureaus.
The fee is $2.00 per pound (a pound of cards is about 150 QSL
cards), or $1.00 for 10 cards or less.

When Members send their cards, they should include the White
Address Label from their QST plastic wrapper. The label is for
proof of Membership.

Their QSL cards should also be sorted alphabetically by Country
Prefix. The DXCC Countries List can be used as a reference for the
sorting.

When the Members' QSL cards are received at ARRL HQ, they are
sorted into the sections. Each section has bins which hold cards
going to particular Foreign countries.

Once the country bin is filled with QSL cards, the cards are then
boxed up and addressed to that particular Foreign country. Every
week (on Friday), the Service will have a mailing of QSL cards
going to these Foreign countries.

The Service forwards over two million cards to Foreign countries
every year.

Business Manager

The Position of Business Manager/Chief Financial Officer is
relatively new to the League having been created in 1990. He's
responsible for most business/administrative functions of the
League and reports to the Board of Directors in his role of Chief
Financial Officer. Responsibilities include all financial matters,
sales of advertising and publications, membership solicitation,
and overseeing Comptroller's, data processing, personnel and other
building administrative functions.

The ARRL Foundation, Inc.

Although a distinct organization legally separate from the League
but nonetheless associated, the ARRL Foundation, located here in
the Business Manager's office area maintains an active
scholarships program for licensed student-Amateurs and grants
program for clubs and other Amateur Radio groups. Information and
applications can be picked up here should you know of an
interested student or group.

Office Manager's Department

Located here in the Comptroller's area, the Office Manager is
responsible for purchasing, personnel and management of the
outgoing mailroom, printing, building maintenance and
lobby/receptionist functions. Review bids from QST are also
handled through the Office Manager's Department.

Comptroller's Department

The Comptroller's Department is where all the League's daily
accounting/reporting functions are performed including accounts
payable and receivable, billing, payroll and other financial
reports. Also, all incoming mail to HQs is opened, processed and
distributed from this point as much of the mail contains moneys
for membership, QST ad sales, booksales, DXCC/QSL fees, etc. All
money received here is deposited daily.

Information Services Department

Information Services is located in two areas. The Administration
and programming office and the computer room.

The Information Services staff maintain the software and hardware
for the League's on-line databases. The on-line databases include:
Accounting, DXCC, Educational Activities, FCC, Field Services,
Membership, Publications Sales, and Volunteer Examiners. These
systems reside on an IBM System/38 (midrange) computer. The
System/38 was recently upgraded to a Model 700 doubling its
processing power. Disk storage was increased to 3.32 Gigabytes. We
have five staff members of which two are programmers. The
programming language used is RPG III. Our peripheral equipment
includes a 2000 line per minute IBM printer and an IBM reel tape
drive. There are 63 display terminals and 3 printers connected. We
print about 56,000 pages of reports, labels, renewal notices and
membership certificates each month.

Circulation Department

The Circulation Department maintains the ARRL membership database
and processes all membership transactions (renewals, new
memberships, address changes, etc). We also handle data processing
for the National Contest Journal, QEX, and the ARRL Letter. In the
course of a routine day, we will receive over 200 inquiry
telephone calls and process over 600 pieces of written
correspondence. It is also the duty of this department to
administer the Silent Key column.

All sales orders from individuals and radio stores for our
numerous publications are processed in Circulation and shipped
from our Shipping and Receiving branch. In 1990, 375,530 units
(including publications and membership supply items) were
processed and shipped.

ARRL / VEC
(Volunteer Examiner Coordinator - Office)

The ARRL/VEC is one of the 18 current VECs. (Other highly active
VECs include the W5YI-VEC in Texas and the DeVry VEC in Illinois.)
The ARRL/VEC coordinates over one half of all VEC exams. VECs
oversee the activities of volunteer examiners or VEs; perhaps you
used the services of a VEC to upgrade to the class of license you
now hold (if licensed).The ARRL/VEC began its operations in July
of 1984. Prior to 1983-84 the FCC did all the testing, however,
due to budget cutbacks the FCC reduced their services to Amateur
Radio--so as a result the ARRL sought the appropriate Legislation
to permit the FCC to use volunteers in conducting the
examinations.

Since that time, the ARRL/VEC has:

Accredited over 20,000 VEs; Served more than 248,000 individuals
at more than 20,872 test sessions; We have submitted more than
135,000 applications to the FCC for initial licenses or upgrades.

The ARRL/VEC has a staff of 9 individuals who accredit VEs,
register and coordinate test sessions, process the results of test
sessions and submit them to the FCC and respond to the many
inquiries of VEs and examinees. The ARRL/VEC fields hundreds of
inquiries each month from prospective examinees who wish to know
where our sessions are being held; with many of them being sent
printouts of tests in their area. Some others with limited time
prior to the session choose to receive similar information
directly over the telephone.

The room off to the side -- with its chinese wall sign -- is our
secure materials area. As required by the FCC, VECs are required
to maintain test session files, including the actual exams (or
exam designs - which specifies the questions asked), for 15
months. Also, summary information regarding each test session must
be kept by the VEC in perpetuity (forever).

Once a test has been conducted, VE Teams have 10 days to process
the test session prior to mailing it to the VEC. Once received by
the ARRL/VEC, the VEC also has up to 10 days to process the
session and place it in the mail to the FCC. Feel free to ask me
any questions you may have about the ARRL/VEC program. [Feel free
to field any questions you cannot answer through a VEC staff
member.]

[Advanced and Extra class licensees (older than 18) may be
eligible to be VEs. If any of your tour'ees would like to become a
volunteer examiner, ask a staff member for a Prospective VE
Package and a VEC Brochure for each interested individual.]

Membership Services Department

Contest Branch

The Contest Branch administers the ARRL Contest Program from
publishing the contest rules in QST, receiving the entries and
checking them for accuracy and writing the results of the
individual contest which appear in QST. We also print and send
hundreds of contest certificates and contest plaques to the
winners of the contests. The Contest Branch processes about 16,000
contest logs from 16 different ARRL sponsored contests a year. A
large number of these contest entries are received on computer
disks or via the ARRL telephone BBS. The Contest Branch is totally
computerized. The storing of data, processing and checking entries
for accuracy are all done on computers within the Contest Branch.
Our log checking software was written here at HQ by staff members.
We also use large databases to store, manipulate and number crunch
the contest data. The Contest Branch is also responsible for the
Contest Corral and Special Events columns in QST.

DX Century Club (DXCC)

DXCC is the premier operating award in Amateur Radio. The DXCC
certificate is available to ARRL and CRRL members and all amateurs
in the rest of the world.

There are several separate DXCC awards available, the most popular
being the Mixed, Phone and CW awards. Since the award program's
beginning in 1945, over 65,000 certificates have been issued.

Confirmations (QSL cards) are usually submitted directly to ARRL
HQ for all countries claimed. Confirmations for a total of 100 or
more countries must be included with the first application.
Contacts may be made on all amateur bands.

Endorsements to most of the DXCC awards are made in multiples of
25, 10, and 5 countries as the DXer's country counts rise. Those
DXers reaching between 1 and 9 countries from the highest DXCC
country count are qualified for the DXCC Honor Roll. Those DXers
who have all of the current DXCC countries are qualified for the
DXCC Top of the Honor Roll or #1 Honor Roll. These DXers are
specially noted in the Monthly, Annual and Honor Roll Listings in
QST.

During the course of more than 45 years of DXCC administration,
standards have evolved in the acceptance of confirmations for DXCC
credit. The intent is to assure that DXCC credit is given only for
contacts with operations that are conducted appropriately in two
respects: (1) properly licensed, and (2) physically and legally
present in the country to be credited.

The purpose of these accreditation requirements is to: preserve
the program's continued integrity; and ensure that the DXCC
program does not encouraged amateurs "to bend the rules" in their
enthusiasm, thus jeopardizing the future development of Amateur
Radio. Every effort is made in the DXCC branch to apply these
criteria in a uniform manner in conformity with these objectives.

Awards Branch

The ARRL Awards Program includes 31 different awards and
endorsements. Some of the more popular awards are W.A.S. with
nearly 55,000 issued to date, W.A.C., Rag Chewers Club, Old Timers
Club, and VUCC. Also, the one-time awards (We the people WAS,
Diamond Jubilee, and the Samuel F. B. Morse certificates) proved
to be very popular with many thousands issued.

The Awards Branch also issues the long-term ARRL membership awards
for 25, 40, 50, 60, and 70 year memberships.

In 1990, a total of nearly 8,000 awards and endorsements were
issued.

W1AW

The Maxim Memorial Station is the on-the-air voice of the
Membership Services Department of ARRL Hq. Seven days a week W1AW
transmits Morse code practice as well as news bulletins in Morse
code, radioteletype, and voice. Visisting amateurs have the
opportunity to operate and sign W1AW. The station is a living
tribute to the founding father of ARRL, Hiram Percy Maxim, the
real W1AW.