News & Announcements

2008 Rocky Mountain Division Convention: Kudos!
The 2008 Rocky Mountain Division Convention (http://www.UtahHamfest.org) held at Ruby’s Inn at Bryce Canyon, Utah was a fantastic success. Attendees were greeted with dealers, a swapmeet, 15+ technical and non-technical forums, fun ham radio competitions, a special event station, plenty of prizes, VE exams, delicious food and – best of all – great company. Despite the cost of fuel, attendance was way up compared to the last time it was held in Bryce Canyon.

Katie Breen W1KRB, ARRL’s membership manager, was in attendance as the event’s special guest and keynote speaker. She provided hams with fantastic ideas to better promote ham radio and ARRL, and learned a lot about what the Division’s various local ham communities are involved in.

Another special guest decided to attend the event at the last minute, on her own dime: Andrea Hartlage KG4IUM of Grayson, Georgia. At 19 years of age, Andrea is a past Newsline Young Ham of the Year and ARRL Hiram Percy Maxim Memorial Award recipient, past ARRL web youth columnist, and is presently studying at Georgia Tech as one of ARRL’s recent Golfarb scholarship winners. Andrea enjoyed conferring with our Section Managers in attendance about youth involvement and promotion, and chatting with many other attendees about the same crucial subject.

A great, big “thank you” goes out to Ray Riding AC7RR, convention chairman, and his team of enthusiastic volunteers for a job well done. Thanks also to the members of the Utah Section, led by Section Manager Mel Parkes NM7P, for hosting this year’s Division convention. And thank you to all who traveled to enjoy this year’s convention.

2009 Rocky Mountain Division Convention
Mark your calendars now for next year’s fantastic convention! The 2009 Rocky Mountain Division Convention will be held May 29-31, 2009 in beautiful Estes Park, Colorado…gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. The fine folks of HamCon Colorado are hard at work planning a great event. Check out the convention’s website at http://www.hamconcolorado.org

Upcoming Division activities, programs
Several activities and programs were announced at the convention in Bryce Canyon that may be of interested to members of the Rocky Mountain Division:

DIVISION HF NET: Communications remains a challenge in a Division that spans nearly from the northern border of Mexico to southern border of Canada. Passing information by email and our Division website (www.RockyMountainDivision.org) is the easiest way to communicate to so many people in a quick fashion. But why not involve good ol’ ham radio? A monthly HF net – on either 80 meters or 40 meters – is being planned to disseminate information to you and give us a chance to meet you and your ideas in QSO. Once a frequency, day and time is decided we’ll promote the first ARRL Rocky Mountain Division HF net – most likely to take place sometime in the month of August. Stay tuned.

DIVISION AWARDS: Lots of people do so much for ham radio over any given year, and we’d like to recognize them. Several awards are being considered at present, though two will definitely be made available immediately: the Rocky Mountain Division Young Ham of the Year Award to recognize one of our deserving young hams; and the Rocky Mountain Division Technical Achievement Award to recognize a ham who has provided technical contributions for the betterment of our ham radio community. Specific judging criteria are in draft form at the present time and will be made public via email and the website soon. Recipients of these awards will be announced at the next Division Convention.

GRASSROOTS EFFORT: As much as we’d like to wave a wand and eliminate politics (legislation, for example) from our service, ham radio either needs to be a recipient of it or shielded from it, depending on the potential outcome. ARRL can – and does, as much as it’s able – get involved in these matters, but its efforts are ineffective to a degree without the assistance of those who politicians listen to best: their constituents, who hire or fire them. ARRL has a fledgling Legislative Action Program (LAP) that depends on members to contact their elected legislators about matters that may affect ham radio when needed. Director Mileshosky and Vice-Director Allen are setting up the framework for this program within the Division, and we hope to ‘field’ it within the next month or two. Stand by for specific details.

2007 Rocky Mountain Division member survey results
We are pleased to provide the results of the 2007 Division survey. Please click here (Adobe PDF format)

For ARRL members of Colorado Congressional District 7
Sample letter (Microsoft Word format)
Sample legislation (Adobe PDF format)