From the files of the ARRL Automated Mail Server, (info@arrl.org): Prepared as a membership service by the American Radio Relay League, Inc., Technical Information Service, 225 Main St., Newington, CT 06111 (203) 666-1541. Email: tis@arrl.org (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 (info@arrl.org). 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: mtracy@arrl.org). 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.