RADIOACTIVITIES Newsletter of the Argonne Amateur Radio Club
Volume XL, Number 2	February, 1999

The meeting will be our annual Skywarn severe weather and tornado training session at 7 pm Wednesday, February 24, at the Argonne Park clubhouse. A meteorologist from the National Weather Service will present the training. Guests and family members are welcome to attend this important educational program.

The new, personalized League e-mail addresses consists of the member's call sign @arrl.net. Electronic mail sent to the address automatically will be forwarded to any e-mail account you choose.

As long as you remain an ARRL member, you'll never have to notify people of an address change — even if you change Internet service providers.

Members can sign up quickly and easily through the ARRL Members Only Web Site. If you are not already registered for the Members Only Web Site, you can do so at http://www.arrl.org/members.

It would be nice to have a permanent e-mail address. Such things have been available for some time. There are several web-based free e-mail accounts, and free services that automatically forward your e-mail to whatever address you specify. The concept is attractive, because it gives you a "permanent" e-mail address, no matter how many times you change your ISP. But the free web-based services sometimes are limited in, for example, the size of attachments they will handle, and they often append advertising to messages you send (you didn't think they were totally free, did you?). And Internet companies come and go. There's no guarantee that any of the free services will be around forever. If they go belly-up, there goes your "permanent" address.

The story on page 1 describes the ARRL's new free e-mail forwarding service, to give you an e-mail address of yourcallsign@arrl.net. The ARRL is likely to be around for a long time, forever as far as any of us are concerned, so that e-mail address is very likely to be permanent. And it appears not to have any of the limitations of other free services. I'm now using it.

Think of it — not only free and permanent, but simple. A ham (or anyone) who wants to send me e-mail doesn't have to remember my username or ISP, or wonder if I've changed ISP since the last e-mail he sent me months ago. He simply sends it to k9czb@arrl.net and I'll get it, no matter what. This should be a boon to ARRL members.

If there's a downside to this, I think it may be spam. This also could be a boon to spammers. A callsign database will yield every callsign, in electronic form. All a spammer needs to do is to merge this with "@arrl.net," and he has a comprehensive mailing list. Sure, not every ham is an ARRL member, and not all ARRL members will use this service. But the spammer won't care if most of the messages bounce — they cost nothing to send! So, use the ARRL forwarding service as a convenience to yourself and everyone who wants to e-mail you. But be prepared for spam.

There will be an X on your mailing label if you haven't signed up for 1999 and there should be another 1999 membership application form included with this newsletter. For those who have not signed up for 1999 by the publication time of the March newsletter, this will be your last newsletter. The March newsletter will contain a membership list sorted by call and a rerun of the access codes for the repeater. The membership list will consist of the names of the members who have signed up for 1999 at the time that I print the list, which will be about February 18.

I hope they can keep the 'arrl' domain, or there goes my "permanent" e-mail address! —K9CZB

"A couple of them were pretty shocked," he said. "This has never been tried before," Hollingsworth said the next morning. He said he broke in on an argument that was growing increasingly nasty in an effort to settle things down, then stayed to discuss enforcement with the hams on frequency.

Hollingsworth says he thinks one key to compliance is just getting people to listen to what he has to say. "Most people, if you can just get to them on a one-to-one basis, they'll listen," he said, reflecting his overall enforcement approach to attempt to reason violators into voluntary compliance rather than writing them up. During his time on the air, Hollinsgsworth confronted one individual he'd already been in touch with about alleged on-air misbehavior.

Among other things, he told those on hand that noncompliance and inappropriate on-air behavior could even threaten the hobby's HF allocations. Hollingsworth advised hams to be more tolerant and patient and to avoid confrontation or retaliation.

"We all have to realize we're on a mission here—to save Amateur Radio," he said the day after his 75-meter appearance. "There are going to be licenses lost and fines owed." The jammers already are well on their way to "hanging themselves" right now, he said.

Even as he preached better behavior, Hollingsworth says he understood from the others on frequency that someone was attempting to jam his signal. "I hope the monitoring folks were on the frequency too," he said.

Hollingsworth advised the hams on 75 to contact him with enforcement problems, and he gave out his e-mail address and telephone number (rholling@fcc.gov; 717-338-2502). "I don't know what effect it will have," he said of his on-air foray. Hollingsworth says he'll "do what it takes" to improve amateur compliance, and that could include future on-air visits with amateurs.

"I've gotten a lot of feedback this morning by phone and e-mail asking me to do it more often," he said. "We'll be listening more and asking to be allowed in QSOs more."

"We have been cutting bait a while, now it's time for us to fish," said Hollingsworth, the legal advisor for enforcement within the FCC's Compliance and Information Bureau.

The FCC did not make the names or call signs public, but Hollingsworth said all those who received the letters were put on the FCC's Alert List with FCC field offices. "The Alert List is the FCC equivalent of an all-points bulletin," Hollingsworth explained. He said Field Office monitors would be making a special effort to listen for further violations by stations on the Alert List.

Since taking over Amateur Radio enforcement within the CIB last fall, Hollingsworth says he's sent out dozens of warning letters of a much milder nature. "Now, we're distilling that activity to the worst offenders," he said of the latest epistles. Hollingsworth indicated that similar actions were imminent in other major cases of alleged amateur rules infractions. He also said he has sent out another three dozen or so routine warning letters "generally based on a collection of complaints received over the holidays."

The letters sent out January 7 and 8 spell out the agency's expectations in no uncertain terms. In the case of the alleged HF offenders, Hollingsworth's letters state that the Commission "has additional evidence that you have been deliberately and maliciously interfering with the operations of other licensed amateurs," primarily a 75-meter net. Both hams—whose cases are related—already had received official Notices of Violation last fall for similar conduct, and the FCC had imposed restricted operating hours on one of them. But the FCC says that the troublesome behavior has continued.

Hollingsworth said the alleged illegal activities not only put the hams' licenses in jeopardy but open them up to possible fines and even put transmitting equipment at risk of seizure. He said he also has cautioned the controllers of the net involved to not engage hecklers or those attempting to harass or interfere, nor to call up the net on a busy frequency. "One thing these nets have to understand is that the nets don't own the frequency," he said.

The case of the alleged VHF offender had a similar pattern. The amateur license of the ham in question already had been suspended at one point, but violations are said to have continued, even during the suspension period. Beyond amateur violations, Hollingsworth said that the FCC's evidence indicated the amateur had threatened FCC employees and others. He told the ARRL that additional warning letters went out to eight other individuals whom he described as "cohorts" to the alleged prime VHF offender.

Hollingsworth requested that all of the amateurs contact him immediately to discuss the allegations. After a lengthy telephone conversation with one of them, Hollingsworth expressed optimism that the situation would be resolved.

In an unrelated case, Hollingsworth recently mailed warning letters to six individuals in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area regarding alleged malicious interference on VHF.

The January regular meeting will be held on January 19 and will be just a general discussion session.

The February regular meeting will be the annual Skywarn meeting. It will be held on February 24. Dick will ask Stan to reserve the building for the meeting.

The board approved a motion to offer free membership to members who meet all three of these criteria:

• retire from ANL
• were a member of the AARC when they retired
• continue to complete and sign an annual renewal form

The cable on the antenna tower is still loose. Once the weather improves, Dick will make arrangements to have it fixed.

We decided to not accept a vertical antenna that Dennis Kelly was willing to donate to the club. We recommend that Dennis sell it personally instead.

This issue has several articles on e-mail, so the following story seems appropriate.

DEAREST WIFE: JUST GOT CHECKED IN. EVERYTHING PREPARED FOR YOUR ARRIVAL TOMORROW. P.S. SURE IS HOT DOWN HERE.

A man has reached middle age when he is cautioned to slow down by his doctor instead of by the police.

1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.
2. They have a lot of data, but are still clueless.
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they are the problem.
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that, if you had waited a little longer you could have had a better model.

1. No one but their Creator understands their internal logic.
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.
3. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.