Maine – Letter to Hams

K1VR on the radio

K1VR Operating 2018 CQ WW SSB at K1LZ
#1 USA (Multi-Single High Power)
Team:  W1UE, NN1C, N1RR, K3JO, YT6W, K1VR

Why I Seek Re-election as Your New England Director

Fred Hopengarten, K1VR

I don’t know what is best for every ARRL member, because we have many hobbies within Amateur Radio. Last time, I was an unlikely candidate – but was convinced by many that change was urgently needed.  So my first 2.5 years as a Board member taught me a few things: about how the League is run, about serious problems caused by earlier Boards, and about things that needed to be done where I could help.  I accepted the challenge when you asked me to serve.

Dare Northward

But first an anecdote. I put out a note that I’d be coming to Maine in July, and would like to meet up – in Greenville, then Boothbay Harbor. From Caribou, Roy Woods, KB1WGN, replied:

KB1WGN: “Wish you were coming to Northern Maine.”

K1VR:  “What’s the problem, Greenville not North enough for ya?” 

KB1WGN: “Hell no.  Greenville is Southern Maine.”

Story: I became a Maine lawyer after taking the winter bar exam in Bangor on two so bleeping cold that my engine block froze. It took an AAA garage overnight before I could head South. Contrast that with a trip to Houlton, a few years back, to watch a July 4th parade. Nice. But without an engine block heater, I’m not going North of Bangor again, except in warm weather!

I know Maine and love it.  My commercial tower (250’) in Wales (near Lewiston) supports the W1PIG repeater – for free, of course.  Ham radio is my way of life, like yours.  

Why do I care about Maine?

Well, I went to Colby, in Waterville, as did my aunt, mother, daughter, and cousin. My sister and brother-in-law taught there for 25 years (living mostly in China), and I taught there.

Here I am in my Waterville dorm room, just before the start of the phone Sweepstakes – and using a random wire out the window to a tree. I was #2 in Maine. 

K1VR at Colby College

Random facts: My daughter went to Camp Waziyatah in Waterford. She was featured in the Disney series, “Bug Juice.” I’m Maine lawyer, and a firm believer that Maine is “The Way Life Should Be.”  Long before I ever ran for Director, I was accepting invitations from Ivan Lazure, N1OXA, to speak at the Androscoggin ARC ARRL Convention in Lewiston. And I’ve operated Field Day with the Kennebec County ARES (which seems like a weekend with the entire Augusta Fire Department). By the way, my law school classmate, Joe Kozak, W1AO, of Manchester, endorses me. Ask me to come, I’ll stay at his place, and I’ll really try to show up!

And Now, Some ARRL Topics


Here are some topics raised in the last election, and what happened since.

  • The Amateur Radio Parity Act. In the last election, this issue was very much alive. My position was that this bill was a giant mistake. And I worked very hard to get the Board to withdraw support for this proposed federal law. I published articles and lobbied other Board members. They agreed, and the bill was pulled by its sponsor.  As drafted, if you have a camp near a lake and you’re a member of a road association (an organization formed only to plow the roads and collect garbage) you’d have been forced to get prior approval from the road association before you could erect an antenna. I’ve spent hundreds of hours as a co-author of a replacement bill. The bill should be “dropped” (introduced) any day now, but until then the language is being withheld, until we know what the appropriate Congressional committee will approve. Can help get support from Pingree or Golden, King or Collins? Please let me know.  We are on this.
Fred K1VR at the Capitol
  • My ARRL Voice. As a founder of MAV, I worked to change the composition of the Board. Of five candidates we put forward in 2018, we elected four – ending a period of infighting and retribution by replacing four “old school” Board Members.
  • Elections Rules. Matters concerning candidates for director or vice-director of the ARRL have been considered “personnel matters” and are discussed behind closed doors. The result is that candidates have been wrongly censured or disqualified.  And in the past it has been almost impossible to understand what really happened and why. Do you think candidates for office should be disqualified for reasons we may never know? Or do you think the voters should decide?
  • Standing Orders. The ARRL Board of Directors Standing Orders have been secret for decades. I figured out that each one of them was created by a Board meeting minute, subsequently published, and that there was therefore no reason at all for them to be hidden behind a secrecy wall, available only to officers, directors, and vice directors. So I published them, after deleting the 119 standing Orders that had been withdrawn by subsequent Board action. They were still in chronological order, and hard to figure out. So, with the help of K1DCA, I published them a second time, but this time grouped by subject. They can now be found at https://nediv.arrl.org/2021/07/21/arrl-board-of-directors-standing-orders-organized-by-subject/
  • Life Long Learning. This summer, I contributed to the ARRL LLL program by recording a six-part series on antenna zoning. Here’s what the start of Part One looks like:

You may access the series starting at

https://www.gotostage.com/channel/d8ea15d6ea99464e8ec08c33d7e1e3e5/recording/989509baacfc4ff3b14d38c915d9e17e/watch?source=CHANNEL

  • Teleconferencing. Last time around I wrote: “In this modern day, when teleconferencing is easy and inexpensive, should teleconferencing be used in-between full Board meetings?” That query sort of fell into the Board’s lap. When Covid-19 appeared, as I was ahead of the curve, I suggested we should buy Zoom licenses, as did others, and it was done. That was easy.
  • The CAC. Last time around, I suggested that we need to examine why some advisory committee decisions were being rejected. Today, the new Board members have agreed that more deference should be given to advisory committee opinions. When W1UE resigned, I appointed N2WQ, of Westport, CT. He is also VE3EAD and HQ9X. He will be a great addition. 
  • DC Lunch Bunch. On behalf of the ARRL Legislative Action Committee, I created the DC Lunch Bunch, a private lunch with influential Washington types who work at Wiley Rein, NTIA, DHS, FEMA, FCC and so forth. Unfortunately, after meeting in 2019, Covid-19 cut off meetings scheduled to occur in 2020 and 2021. As these are “listening sessions,” designed to open up lines of communications with friends and allies, we intend to resume them as soon as possible.
  • ARRL Dues. Before my time on the Board, the ARRL raised dues and raised some fees. I asked: “Are there other strategies that should be tried?” Since I’ve been on the Board, we kept the annual dues constant, and you now get four magazines instead of one – a terrific value. I banded together with a few other Board members to create a motion that instructs staff to consider more sources of advertising (think: Harbor Freight, but not Depends). Plus, my plan to raise money with better management of our endowment should further delay any dues increase. 
  • ARRL Membership. Since I joined the Board, the decline in ARRL membership has been reduced. I introduced a motion to examine member benefits, a process that is underway now. And I’ve introduced the idea that the problem is not encouraging more folks to get an amateur radio license, but rather the problem is “conversion,” converting more new hams into members, and getting them on the air.
  • Investment Management Committee. Reading the back pages of the ARRL Annual report, I discovered that the ARRL has an endowment of ~$40 million, and it has been managed for at least 40 years by ONE GUY, basically unsupervised. We’ve been lucky. They were good, honest, CPAs. But the supervision by the ARRL Board’s Administration & Finance Committee was superficial, because Board members generally have little or no experience in investment management. I created a position paper that convinced the Board to create an Investment Management Committee (IMC). The IMC will recommend a professional money management team to the full Board in January 2022. It’s your money, and we’re supposed to take care of it. I’m making that happen. The result?  We will be able to afford to what we need to do to advance Amateur Radio for us and the next generation.

As you can learn from my views about various issues, I have opinions about how things are working at the ARRL Board level. What’s important to understand is that the ARRL is not a larger version of a local club. It has governance, money, personnel, and all sorts of issues with 157,000 members that you don’t have at 50-300 members. 

You can learn more on my campaign web page, www.Hams4NewEngland.org . I hope you have the confidence to vote from me again.  Seek me out at NEAR-fest, if you’d like to chat. I’ll have a table.

The previous Director was in office for just short of forever (it was over 20 years), and I thought it was time for a change. By contrast, I promise that I won’t hold the office for 20 years.

Please cast your vote when the paper ballot arrives for Fred Hopengarten, K1VR.

73,

Fred K1VR and wife Betty at LobsterCon

Photo with my wife, Betty.
Taken at LobsterCon, Brunswick, ME, July 10, 2021