1. Introduction
As a club officer you have the privilege and responsibility to continue our proud tradition of service to the City of Alexandria and to the ham radio hobby in general. This guide is meant as an outline of things that should, or could, happen throughout the year. It also serves as a historical record of useful information. This is meant to be a living document; please update it at least annually before handing it over to next year’s officers.
2. Club Officers
The following people have had the privilege of serving as club officers in past years. The club By-Laws impose a two-year term limit on any one position. This is a very important aspect of the club’s rules as it prevents “dictatorships” and gets more people involved in club leadership.
Year / President / Vice-President / Treasurer / Secretary2014
2013 / KJ4FUU / KF7IJZ / W8RJH / KK4CKJ
2012 / KI4MWP / N8IK / W9TCE / KJ4FUU
2011 / KI4MWP / N8IK / W9TCE / KJ4FUU
2010 / K5OTZ / N4ASX / KI4MWQ / KV3W
2009 / K5OTZ / KI4MWP / KI4MWQ / KV3W
2008 / N4ASX / KI4MWP / N4CWP / N8OQ (ex-KG4QWC)
2007 / K7DID / KI4FON / N4CWP / KG4QWC
2006 / K7DID / KD4FBT / KB3IWA / KI4FON
2005 / WV8AA / KD4FBT / KB3IWA / N5LF (SK)
2004 / N8IK / WV8AA / K7DID / N5LF
2003 / N8IK / WV8AA / K7DID / Karen Bunn
2002 / AF2D / N8IK / KG4FSP, WV8AA / Karen Bunn
2001 / KA3RQR / AF2D
2000 / KA3RQR / AF2D
1999 / N4ASX / KA3RQR
1998 / N4ASX / KA3RQR
1997 / KA4GFY / N4ASX
1996 / KA4GFY / N4ASX
3. Articles of Incorporation and By-Laws
The Alexandria Radio Club, Inc. was founded in 1954 in Alexandria, Virginia. We are an American Radio Relay League (ARRL®) affiliated club. Our Articles of Incorporation were signed on January 26, 1970, filed with the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC), and officially incorporated on January 30, 1970. The Articles state that a quorum shall consist of 10 members present at a meeting. Revisions to the By-Laws require a 2/3 majority of the members in good standing in order to pass. A transcription of our Articles of Incorporation and the By-Laws are in Appendices 1 and 2.
4. Club Elections
The election of officers to serve for the following calendar year occurs at the November meeting. A nominating committee of two or three members is appointed by the President at the October meeting and they then solicit interested members. Sometimes this involves a little arm-twisting and negotiation. Usually the negotiation involves teaming a person experienced in club leadership with one less experienced for the President and Vice-President positions. The By-Laws require that all four officers be licensed amateurs and that the President be licensed for at least two years prior to taking office. We also ask for nominations from the floor at the November meeting. Typically no one throws their hat in the ring and we end up voting in the nominees for next year by acclamation. Following the election, results should be announced on the club’s email list.
5. ARRL®
As mentioned above, we are an ARRL affiliated club and have been so since July 23, 1966. Our ARRL Master ID number is 0004000791. There are some excellent resources at http://www.arrl.org/affiliated-club-resources and http://www.arrl.org/affiliated-club-benefits that are worth reviewing periodically. Club officers are expected, but not required, to be ARRL members. At least one officer must be a member in order to submit the annual report on the ARRL web site. Additionally, at least 51 percent of the voting membership must be ARRL members and at least 51 percent of the voting members must be licensed radio amateurs for the club to maintain its ARRL affiliation.
6. Club Programs
Historically, the Vice-President has been charged with developing meeting programs. Starting with 2012 we have an appointed Program Chairperson. Anything remotely related to ham radio is up for consideration. A survey of the membership in January can be useful for determining if there is broad interest in certain topics. Traditional meeting topics include the club’s annual budget in January, Virginia QSO Party in January or February, our Division Director (currently Dennis Bodson, W4PWF) in March or April, Field Day planning in May and June, elections in November, and the holiday party in December. The Vice-President distributes the meeting agenda to club officers 1-2 weeks prior to the meeting.
7. Meeting Locations & City Relationships
For 2012 the club meetings have moved to the City’s new Police Department and Department of Emergency Communications headquarters building just off Quaker Lane and Duke Street at 3600 Wheeler Avenue. Thanks to Eric Parker, KG4DZA, for arranging this new meeting place. Per the By-Laws, we meet on the 2nd Friday of each month. The monthly meeting starts at 7pm.
In 2010 and 2011 we met at the Inova Alexandria Hospital on N. Howard Street. From 1997 to 2009 we met at City’s Fire Training Center at the west end of Old Town on Jefferson Street behind the Nanny Lee Recreation Center. From 1954 to 1997 we met at the Red Cross Chapter House in Alexandria. The Chapter’s move from the old site on Royal Street to their current location created unacceptable antenna and parking problems.
We have repeaters at the hospital located in the elevator machinery room on the rooftop so it is very important to maintain good relations with the hospital administration. At the same time it’s also important to maintain our relationship with the City’s Fire Department and other emergency planners. Charlie McRorie had been our main contact until he retired in the Spring of 2011. Appendix 3 is a list of key contacts with the City.
8. Club Callsign - W4HFH
Rich Adamy, KA4GFY, has been the trustee of the club callsign for years. There are no term limits on the club callsign trustee. However, if the incumbent vacates the position, the successor trustee must be an Extra Class licensee so that the club has full Amateur spectrum privileges during contests and special events. We think W4HFH is the original club call. There are currently no “memorial/silent key” call signs used by the club. We also have a club call KK4GEI for use with a DSTAR hotspot which serves the Fairfax county area located around Fort Belvoir. This hotspot is maintained by that callsign’s trustee Cameron Mackenzie, K6CLM. Ian Keith, N8IK, is the callsign trustee for club call KJ4DLX which could also be used for W4HFH purposes.
9. Club Logbook & QSL Cards
Ian Keith, N8IK, is the club QSL manager and responds to requests for the club’s QSL cards. Our beautiful QSL cards were designed by Deanna Lutz, K9DID (ex-K7DID). We also have a Logbook of the World (LOTW) account at http://www.arrl.org/logbook-of-the-world. Rich Adamy, KA4GFY, has the LOTW credentials (certificate and password) as the club’s callsign trustee; Ian Keith, N8IK, also has a copy. We upload our master Field Day log and Virginia QSO Party log to LOTW each year. As of September 2012 we have 8,091 QSOs uploaded. We use http://www.win-eqf.com/ as our primary logging software. We have envelopes at the FISTS bureau and the ARRL incoming QSL bureau (for DX cards). Different club officers check our post office box regularly for U.S. cards and bureau envelopes. To encourage QSLing the QSL Manager shares any incoming cards at the following meeting. Our FISTS number for CW contacts is #2963 (http://www.fists.org/).
10. Field Day
Field Day is always held on the 4th full weekend in June. A Field Day chairman should be appointed in January or February. The location needs to be determined and reserved as early as possible. ARRL provides some useful planning tools at http://www.arrl.org/field-day. Other planning can generally wait until early May. Our category is usually 5A, 6A, or 7A. We debrief Field Day at the July meeting.
11. Repeaters
We have more repeaters than any other club in the National Capitol Region. Our analog repeaters are located on an apartment building at the west end of Alexandria. We do not advertise this location, even within the club, as we do not want other organizations learning the location through casual conversation. We have come close to losing this rooftop privilege in recent years. We now use the club callsign and a tone of 107.2 Hz for all of our analog repeaters. None of our repeaters have autopatch or Echolink capability. We’ve had issues with Echolink in the past and have determined that the problems and hassles with its availability have outweighed the benefits. We conduct a regular weekly FM net at 8pm on Thursday on the 147.315 repeater that is open to all amateurs. A net on some other frequency and/or mode follows if there is interest. The net is directed but is pretty casual. Net control operators are assigned/volunteer at the monthly club meeting for the upcoming nets.
Our four D-STAR repeaters and the transmitter of our 6-meter repeater are located in the elevator machinery room on the rooftop of the Inova Alexandria Hospital on N. Howard Street. Marshall DeBerry, KI4MWP, is our D-STAR coordinator and the gateway administrator. We have always used the club callsign for all of our D-STAR repeaters. For many years Jim Schwitz, WA4CCF (SK), was the repeater technician. Tim O’Neill, KT4MV, and Mike Washall (no call yet) are the current repeater technicians.
12. Social Media
Social media on the internet has grown immensely in the past few years with no end in sight. Some will say it’s a distraction and “not real ham radio”. However, social media is here to stay and is a valuable tool for recruiting a younger generation to ham radio.
a. Our web site is http://w4hfh.org/. The webmaster is Roy Wright, K4AXQ. We have a variety of email aliases through this URL. The first four can change annually with the election of new officers. The remainder of these aliases stay relatively unchanged as they are appointed positions.
b. Ian Keith, N8IK, is the administrator of our Facebook page located at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alexandria-Radio-Club/182350465118565. We also upload pictures taken at club events for safekeeping here.
c. Our QTH.net mailing list is administered by Ian Keith, N8IK, Harry Jones, N4CWP, and Roy Wright, K4AXQ. There are a lot of hams and non-hams on this list who are not members of the club, and not local for that matter. When a person signs up for the list an administrator will immediately set the “moderation bit”. This eliminates spam altogether unless someone who is unmoderated has their email address hijacked (it’s happened). The only people with immediate posting privileges are the list administrators and current office holders (elected or appointed).
d. We are in the process of setting up and migrating our QTH.net mailing list to Google Groups at . Ian Keith, N8IK, is the owner. This new list will also be moderated. The only people with immediate posting privileges are the list administrators (owner and managers) and current office holders (elected or appointed).
e. Our gmail account is linked to our blog http://w4hfh.blogspot.com.
f. We have a Yahoo Group that originally had an ARES function. Ian Keith, N8IK, is the administrator. We don’t currently use this group for anything except sending out an automated monthly meeting announcement. The group members are fewer in number and are not the same as the QTH.net mailing list. This list needs to be retired.
g. We have a QRZ.com page at http://www.qrz.com/db/w4hfh maintained by Ian Keith, N8IK. This page changes very infrequently.
h. We have a Twitter account and we’re @W4HFH. Cameron Mackenzie, K6CLM, is our “Chief Tweeter”. The email address used to establish the Twitter account is . Ian Keith, N8IK, is also an administrator for this account.
i. We have a LinkedIn account at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alexandria-radio-club/11/7b5/971. The email address was used to establish the account.
j. Passwords for each of the above accounts are maintained by Ian Keith, N8IK, in a separate document.
k. Our D-STAR website is https://www.w4hfhdstar.org/, which brings up the current status of the various linked DPlus reflectors and those users who last transmitted on the W4HFH D-STAR repeater system. The direct registration page for users desiring to register their callsigns on the W4HFH D-STAR system is https://www.w4hfhdstar.org/Dstar.do. The domain registration for this site is done through www.dyndns.com, as they have the infrastructure to handle the dynamic IP address that Verizon provides, and includes the following services: domain registration (www.w4hfhdstar.org), custom/private registration, email forwarding/relay, and annual SSL certificate provisioning. The domain registration/email forwarding is currently set to expire in July 2012; the email relay in January 2014; and renewal of the SSL certificate in November 2013. The two year cost of the domain registration (w4hfhdstar.org), email, and “private” registration has been $209.70. SMTP email forwarding to receive system messages from the site for two years has been $39.90 and a one year renewal of the SSL certificate (https://) has been $195.00. Marshall DeBerry, KI4MWP, maintains the status of the w4hfhdstar.org site. Users who request a D-STAR registration generate an email that is forwarded to Marshall who in turn checks the user’s status (valid callsign, already registered elsewhere, etc.). If the user passes this check, Marshall starts the approval process by allowing the user into the W4HFH D-STAR system. He then sends an email back to the user that outlines the next steps that the user must do in order to be fully registered into the global D-STAR network. A sample email is shown in Appendix 4 to this document.