QRZ! Ham Radio 5/QRZ Ham Radio Callsign Database - Volume 5.iso/files/arrl/msd/tour.txt

Text File | 1994-11-27 | 30.3 KB | 660 lines

From the files of the ARRL Automated Mail Server, ([e-mail]):

Prepared as a membership service by the American Radio Relay
League, Inc., Technical Information Service, 225 Main St.,
Newington, CT 06111 [phone]. Email: [e-mail]
(Internet).

file: \public\info\msd\tours.txt updated: June 30, 1994

Thank you for requesting the following information from the ARRL
Technical Information Service or the ARRL Automated Mail Server
([e-mail]). 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: [e-mail]).

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.

Additionally, FSD 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.

Regulatory Information Branch

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.

The Publications Group
(Note:  The Publications Group consists of the Lab, the Book Team,
the QST Editors, the Production Department, and Educational
Activities.)

Book Editors

Book Editors work closely with authors on preparing their material
for publication.  Editors ensure that the material that appears in
ARRL books is technically accurate and easy to read and understand.
ARRL publishes several new books each year.  New editions of existing
books, such as the Handbook, the Antenna Book and the Operating
Manual, are published on a prearranged schedule.  New printings, with
only very minor updates and corrections, appear when the supply of
the book is depleted.

We also produce code tapes and a variety of computer programs.
Everything the League sells is presented in a catalog in each month's
QST.

We rely on readers to help us improve our books, so we ask for
corrections and comments on a Feedback form in the back of most ARRL
books.

An Author's Guide is available free of charge to anyone interested in
writing for the League.  Book authors are compensated either as a
percentage of each book sold or by the published page.

Technical LAB

[NOTE: Tour guides should feel free to ask Lab staff to tell about
current projects.]

INTRODUCTION

The Lab, which is part of the Technical Department, is responsible
for  providing technical support to the ARRL Headquarters staff,
Field  Organization and ARRL members. Currently, the Lab staff
consists of the  Lab Supervisor, two Lab Engineers and the Technical
Information Service  Coordinator. Each of these staff has a workbench
and an office. Zack  Lau, KH6CP, has a bench that has become almost
legendary in Amateur  Radio circles. His bench is usually littered
with small projects he is  in the midst of designing. We are not even
sure what they all are, but  have collectively called them
"Zacklets."

PUBLICATIONS

The Lab staff helps work on ARRL publications. 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,
will be asked to send 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
necessarily a Lab person) or one of the League's Technical Advisors.

The Lab also writes a number of articles each year, for QST, QEX, the
 ARRL Handbook or other publications as needed. They also participate
in  the review of incoming articles and offer the editors their
technical  comments on articles and books.

SPECIAL STUDIES

The Lab also supports our overall organizational objectives,
performing  engineering studies and writing special reports to help
our work before  the FCC and other regulatory agencies, representing
Amateur Radio in  professional societies and standards bodies and
maintaining regular  contact with amateur and
consumer-equipment manufacturers.

The Technical Information Service, TIS, is a valuable membership
benefit. The TIS staff supports the Technical Coordinators and
Technical  Specialists in the Field Organization, prepares TIS
information packages  to answer most common technical questions and
is available by telephone,  letter or electronic mail to research
individual technical questions.

MACHINE SHOP and CHEMICAL ROOM

Our machine shop gives us basic sheet-metal working capabilities.
The  Lab staff uses 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
printed-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 an 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. 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. The staff has  dubbed the phonetics "Whiskey
One It's Never Finished", because the HQ  staff is always adding new
equipment or operating ability. We recently  added fast-scan
television capability, through a local ATV repeater.

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 Graphics and Typesetting/Layout
staff.  All ARRL printed matter is prepared by our editors  and then
sent here for final preparation for publication by our graphic
artists, typesetters, and layout specialists.  The Production staff
is responsible for production of all League printed matter, including
QST, QEX, NCJ, books, brochures, pamphlets, and handouts.

Graphics

The Graphics staff prepares artwork for all ARRL publications.  They
put together covers for our periodicals and books, as well as
schematics and other illustrations.  In addition, they design
brochures, certificates, awards, pins, plaques, the ARRL Publications
Catalog, and other items.  Schematics and technical illustrations are
done using autoCAD.  Much of the design work is done with Adobe
Illustrator, Pagemaker and other programs running Macintosh
computers.

Typesetting/Layout

The Typesetting staff operates the machines that generate the
finished layouts used to assemble QST and League books.  Virtually
all of our pages are assembled on Macintosh computers using Pagemaker
software.  We assemble pages using text files generated by the
editors and illustration files generated by the Graphics staff.
Proofs of these pages are reviewed by the editors and authors,
corrected 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 Glasgow plant turns out more
than q00 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 4 programs which include:

1.   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.

2.   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.

3.   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.

4.   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.

We now have a 1-800 number for unlicensed folks to use in order to
call to get free material on how to proceed in getting started.
1-800-32-NEW-HAM.

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.

Editorium

The Editorium is a suite of offices where the QST editors work.
These editors edit and prepare manuscripts for Production, then
proof-read the typeset pages and the graphics that are prepared by
Graphics personnel and, finally, check corrections to the text and
figures for accuracy and completeness.  The editors also coordinate
technical reviews of their articles by ARRL Lab personnel and by
volunteer Technical Advisors.  The aim of the editorial process is to
produce finished QST articles that are informative, interesting, and
technically accurate.

The manuscripts handled by the QST editors include both technical
articles and general-interest articles, as well as the regular
special-interest columns that appear in QST.

In addition to acting as handling editors for articles written by
others, the editors often write articles for QST.

The editors communicate with authors, columnists, and reviewers via
mail, FAX, and telephone during the editorial process.

In addition to their basic editing duties, most of the editors serve
on committees that review incoming manuscripts to be either accepted
or returned to the author, with thanks.

One of the editors in the Editorium is also the editor of the ARRL Letter.

Advertising Department

The ARRL advertising department accepts advertising for QST, NCJ,
QEX, Repeater Directory and a few specialized publications.  At the
present time, advertising accounts for approximately 3.2 million
dollars in revenue.

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 complaints
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

Dave Sumner is employed by the Board of Directors to managers the
Amateur Radio side of Headquarters.  Staff members in the major
membership services departments report to him.

Several other managers also work in this suite of offices.  Steve
Mansfield, N1MZA, handles legislative relations in Washington, and
oversees the League's public relations effort on behalf of Amateur
Radio with the help of Jennifer Hagy, Media Relations Assistant.
Steve spends approximately a third of his time in Washington.  The
League has another office in Washington, staffed by Paul Rinaldo,
W4RI, to handle our relations with the executive branch of the
federal government, including the FCC.  Nao Akiyama, NX1L, is
International Programs Manager.  Nao is responsible for ARRL's
relations with sister societies in other nations.  He also works with
the International Amateur Radio Union, a federation of Amateur Radio
societies, like ARRL, from about 140 countries.  ARRL service as
International Secretariat for IARU, through which Amateur Radio is
represented at international frequency allocation conferences.

Administrative Services

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,
newsletters, 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.

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 are responsible for maintaining the
software and hardware that provides access to 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.  Currently disk storage capacity is 5
gigabytes (5 billion bytes).  We have five staff members of which two
are programmers.  The department prints about 56,000 pages of
reports, labels, renewal notices and membership certificates each
month.

We recently installed a Novell local area network.  There are about
80 people connected.  Via the network, we are able to share a suite
of Microsoft software programs, including Word for Windows.  We are
also able to share printers between many users.

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)

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.

The ARRL/VEC is one of the 18 current VECs.  (Other highly active
VECs include the W5YI-VEC in Texas and the Great Lakes (formerly
DeVry) VEC in Illinois, the Western Carolina VEC in Tennessee and the
Central Alabama VEC.)   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.  This July is/was
our tenth anniversary.

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 30,000 VEs;
Served more than 330,000 individuals at more than 30,000 test sessions;
We have submitted more than 190,000 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 providing any materials needed by the
VEs, 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. Only VEC staff have authorized access to this
room.

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░it must be place into the
mail by the 10th day.  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.]

[General, 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, via the Internet, 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 RAC 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 WAS with  nearly
58,000 issued to date, WAC., 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 1993, a total of nearly 6,000 awards and endorsements were  issued.

W1AW

Please have all visitors in your group sign the guest register in the
station lobby.

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.  A packet radio "bulletin forwarding robot"
gets the bulletins out on AX.25 packet, and a tcp/ip set-up does the
same on the ip circuit.  Visting amateurs have  the opportunity to
operate and sign W1AW between 1 and 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

The station is a  living tribute to the founding father of ARRL,
Hiram Percy Maxim, the real W1AW.

940701