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ARRL Club News

Published by the American Radio Relay League ********************************************

August 16, 2022

Editor: Michael Walters, W8ZY <clubs@arrl.org>

IN THIS ISSUE

- Club Grant Program Update
- New ARRL Radio Lab Inspires Innovation in the Ham Shack
- JOTA 2022 is Coming
- Portage County Race Coverage
- Submitting Info for this Newsletter
- How to Plan and Apply for an ARRL Hamfest or Convention
- Important Links

CLUB GRANT PROGRAM UPDATE

The applications are in for the first round of the ARRL Club Grant
Program. The ARRL Foundation received 128 applications with projects
ranging from an antenna for a school to large station builds. As this newsletter goes to press, the final decisions are being made on
awarding the grants. With so many applications, the decisions are
challenging. The Grant Review Committee is made up of ARRL Foundation
members, Headquarters staff, and hams from across the country. The
diverse background of the committee allows them to have a variety of
viewpoints on each grant application. Grant awards are planned to be
announced as soon as possible. Each applicant will be contacted.

NEW ARRL RADIO LAB INSPIRES INNOVATION IN THE HAM SHACK

ARRL has unveiled its new Radio Laboratory, W1HQ. In a new YouTube
video <https://youtu.be/68BJxGHg74Y>, Jherica Goodgame, KI5HTA, a
summer intern at ARRL Headquarters, takes viewers on a tour of the
station.

"The ARRL Radio Lab is an innovative test space designed to reshape the
way we imagine and build a ham radio shack," said Goodgame. The station
is intended to inspire members to build, organize, and equip their own
stations in innovative ways. "From a decluttered workspace and a
digital user interface, to being able to remote into the equipment from anywhere, W1HQ is a step towards the future of amateur radio stations," Goodgame added.

The W1HQ station includes a new tower and antennas atop the main
administrative building at ARRL Headquarters in Newington, Connecticut.
Inside the station, three operating positions provide an interface to rack-mounted and computer-controlled transceivers, amplifiers, antenna switches, and rotators.

Goodgame said that the Radio Lab will also support equipment testing,
including those done for QST "Product Review." She continued to explain
that "An extension of product reviews in the future will be to take
that piece of gear that we're testing, put it on this test bench, and
see how it integrates with a station that's already under full
automation and control."

The video is published on ARRL's YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/68BJxGHg74Y <https://youtu.be/68BJxGHg74Y%20>.

JOTA 2022 IS COMING

When Boy Scouts want to meet young people from another country, they
usually think of attending a World Scout Jamboree. But few people
realize that each year more than a million Scouts and Guides get
together over the airwaves for the annual Jamboree-on-the-Air <http://arrl.org/jamboree-on-the-air-jota> (JOTA). During the 2014
event, worldwide Scouting participation included 1.1 million Boy Scouts
and 200,000 Girl Guides/Girl Scouts, for a total participation of over
1.3 million, making it the largest Scouting event in the world.

There is nothing as rewarding as seeing Scouts get excited after an
on-the-air experience and begin resonating with the idea of becoming a
licensed ham.

Additional information on JOTA can be found at JOTA-JOTI 2022 |
JOTA-JOTI 2022 - The world's largest digital Scout event
(jotajoti.info) <https://www.jotajoti.info/>

PORTAGE COUNTY RACE COVERAGE

The Portage Park District conducts an event every July in northern
Portage County, Ohio, called the Headwaters Adventure Race. This event
helps raise money for the district and serves to introduce race
participants to Headwaters Trail and the rural character of the
surrounding area in Mantua Village and Township, Hiram Township, and
the Cuyahoga River. The event consists of a 2-mile foot race, a 10-mile
bicycle race, and a 5-mile canoe race. This year's event took place on Saturday, July 9.

Since the race's inception, amateur radio communicators have been
providing communications support on the course to the race director in
order to provide real-time information and requests for emergency
services, if necessary. The race director has a communicator assigned
directly to them, and a net control operator is assigned for the radio
net. Communicators are assigned to key points on the course, as a sweep
for the bicycle race, and in a canoe on the river for a river sweep.
The Communications Unit Leader (COML) is responsible for writing a plan
for the event and recruiting communicators to staff it. After the event
has concluded, the COML solicits input from communicators and publishes
an after-action review to help with improvements for the following
year's race.

For most of the years that this event has been supported, the
communications plan has been followed as written with only minor
deviations. This year, the race director was notified on the evening
prior to the event that there was a major change in location and
circumstances with where race participants would terminate the bicycle
race and start the canoe race. The change in location, and safety
concerns to bicyclists that the new location presented, dictated that additional race personnel be stationed at the location to mitigate
problems. The race director contacted the COML to notify them about the
changes and discussed how the communications team might support the
changes. The COML amended to provide an additional communicator to that location, asked communicators assigned to that location to help race
personnel with duties not ordinarily performed by communicators, and
briefed the communications team Saturday morning prior to the start of
the event.

The communications team responded to these changes without any
concerns. The team provided communications throughout the event as
planned, and at the same time were able to help race personnel with
activities at the transition point. The ability of the communicators to
respond in the way they did was outstanding, and indicative of the professionalism we have come to expect of them. Supporting this event
would not have been possible without amateur radio communicators giving
their time and expertise to make it work. I want to offer my most
sincere thanks to these communicators for their help. Mike KB8TUY,
Andrew KE8BWA, Nick N8WLE, Rick KD8WCK, Paul KE8EGF, Brandon KE8ARB,
Bob N8KBX, Nick KE8JUJ, Ron W8AHC, Greg KA8TOA, Jim KC8YYS, and Norm
KE8HQK.

Richard J Kruis, K8CAV

SUBMITTING INFO FOR THIS NEWSLETTER

ARRL Club News is for radio clubs to show how they are working in the
community and the hobby to advance amateur radio. If your club
completes a project, supports an event, does an EmComm activation, or
activates a park, we want to hear about it. You can submit your
newsletter article to us at clubs@arrl.org. We like to get them as text
or Word files instead of PDFs. If you have pictures, please submit them
with caption information, as well as the name and call sign of the photographer. We want to highlight the good work being done by the
clubs and show others in the community. Think of this as a chance to
show off your club and your programs.

HOW TO PLAN AND APPLY FOR AN ARRL HAMFEST OR CONVENTION

If your amateur radio club is planning to host a convention, hamfest,
tailgate, or swapfest, please consider applying for it to be an
ARRL-sanctioned event. To learn what it means to be an ARRL-sanctioned
event, and to get some ideas on how to prepare for and conduct a
hamfest or convention, visit www.arrl.org/arrl-sanctioned-events <http://www.arrl.org/arrl-sanctioned-events>.

To have your event sanctioned, complete the online application at www.arrl.org/hamfest-convention-application <http://www.arrl.org/hamfest-convention-application>.

The ARRL Hamfests and Conventions Calendar can be found online at www.arrl.org/hamfests <http://www.arrl.org/hamfests>. In addition, the "Convention and Hamfest Calendar" that runs in QST each month also
presents information about upcoming events.

IMPORTANT LINKS

ARRL homepage: www.arrl.org <http://www.arrl.org/>

Find an ARRL Affiliated Club: www.arrl.org/clubs
<http://www.arrl.org/clubs>

Find your ARRL Section: www.arrl.org/sections
<http://www.arrl.org/sections>

Find a license class in your area: www.arrl.org/class <http://www.arrl.org/class>

Find a license exam in your area: www.arrl.org/exam
<http://www.arrl.org/exam>

Find a hamfest or convention: www.arrl.org/hamfests <http://www.arrl.org/hamfests>

Email ARRL Clubs: clubs@arrl.org

ARRL Club News is published every month (12 times each year). ARRL
members may subscribe at no cost or unsubscribe by editing their Member
Data Page as described at http://www.arrl.org/club-news.

Copyright (c) 2022 American Radio Relay League, Incorporated.
Use and distribution of this publication, or any portion thereof, is
permitted for non-commercial or educational purposes, with attribution.
All other purposes require written permission.

<http://www.arrl.org/>

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