On March 12, 2016, the ARRL Executive Committee met in Texas. They recently published the meeting minutes. I found a couple items of interest:
- Enforcement. The ARRL got Rep. Peter King of New York to bring up the issue of repeater jamming with the FCC. It was noted during the discussion that the closure of some FCC field offices has led to the retirement of several experienced engineers who have been helpful to amateur radio in the past. This led to a discussion of how the Official Observer program could be repositioned to provide more assistance to the FCC, and efforts are already underway to do that.
- Emcomm. FirstNet is an organization created by the U.S. Congress whose mission is “to build, operate and maintain the first high-speed, nationwide wireless broadband network dedicated to public safety.” The ARRL hopes to be able to participate in this somehow, but it sounds to me like this might be yet another effort to cut amateur radio out of emergency communications.
- HandiHam. I didn’t know this, but apparently the ARRL is trying to take over the HandiHam program. There are some legal hurdles that they have to jump before this can occur.
- Podcasting. At its January meeting, the ARRL Board requested that ARRL staff establish a “Digital Media Content Channel.” Apparently, they produced a pilot podcast, so all you ham radio podcasters out there should be looking for some ARRL competition soon.
Dave New, N8SBE says
ARRL has already started an Instagram account, and has been posting pictures there on a pretty regular basis. Throwback Thursday usually has a picture of some classic radio gear. Today they posted a short video of a walk-around the outgoing QSL bureau.