A video of the January 5, 2019 Ham Radio University keynote address by ARRL CEO Howard Michel, WB2ITX, is available on the HRU web site: www.HamRadioUniversity.org Scroll down the home page and click on the HRU 2019 Keynote Address link on the right hand side of the page. The video runs just over 40-minutes. Note: Since the auditorium was not mic'd the audience queries during the Q&A cannot be heard.
IMO, Howard, while not sensationally motivational, certainly comes off as thoughtful and broadly analytical rather then prejudicial and dictatorial. Probably good traits for the ARRL CEO to have right now. Best of luck to him. Combined with the dramatic changes on the BoD it looks like a potentially wild ride ahead for the org. Fasten seat belts tightly. 73, John, WØPV
I am very encouraged by his ideas and vision. The critical part is the BoD meeting that happening right now and how much latitude they give him to implement these ideas. Then again the BoD hired him, so they should be receptive to his proposals. My hope is that within five years we'll be having far different conversations about ARRL than we've had in recent years.
Interesting speech... I'm concerned about the League’s emergency communications emphasis or direction. Today's interoperations with public safety organizations are practically nil. And, those interoperations are not improving. Since 9/11/2001 over 17 years ago, the federally downward-directed "interoperable communications" push is over. The past communications-related block grants provided to communities across the country are finished. For approximately 15 years, police and fire agencies across the Nation took advantage of those grants, installing modern reliable digital voice and data communications systems that greatly exceed all loosely organized amateur radio offerings. Moreover, those past grants provided the funds for most large to medium-sized cities to employ secondary radio networks on national or state interoperable channels, if desired. The reality stands thus: amateurs have very little to offer modern public safety agencies. Perhaps the League's focus will be local citizen-responders like CERT teams, to include those serving disaster relief agencies? It's plainly unclear if this is the League's future focus. I wonder. I remain incredulous as to the League's future focus. As a technical person working in the RF and telecommunications arena for the past 35 years, I’m baffled on how the League plans to incorporate those without the innate technical abilities that sparked past amateurs. I cannot fathom how the League plans to keep the attention of preparedness/survival and emergency communications folks. To me, their future usefulness appears limited at best. Though, perhaps that perceived endeavor is good enough. Perhaps that all we have to look forward to at the moment. Are these folks the future? Time will tell. I will be keeping tabs on the League into the future. 73, Steve Gehring, NL7W - One of mentioned Guardians
Good points, Steve. However, I question the desirability of "interoperating" with public safety organizations (police, fire, ambulance) as those organizations are quite insular in my limited experience and not open to communicating with $RANDOM_HAM. I'm not saying there are not roles for hams to fill along side such organizations as there are. Much depends on the local government emergency manager. Our county had an EM that was quite interested in what amateur radio could provide and we were moving in that direction. He then took a promotion at the state level. Our current EM doesn't have the same interest in we amateurs so we're back on the outside looking in. That said, we don't have whackers here trying to horn in on his job which is helpful. One thing we should be good at is communicating information even when not on amateur radio. Last year I finally obtained an NWS spotter registration and did call in some hail that otherwise might have gone unreported as it was a small cell that passed right over my house on the farm. I used my cell phone and I was able to provide timely, concise, and accurate information. I'm not saying the general public cannot do the same but years of traffic net participation with some traffic handled and contesting gives me a skill to pass information to others. This should be the hallmark of the radio amateur but ARRL has dropped the ball on NTS and now those operators interested in keeping it alive have taken over the region, area, and transcontinental corps outside of ARRL. I'm not sure ARRL HQ even knows, or cares. I'm going to give the new CEO and BoD at least couple of years to begin to turn the big ship ARRL around. The current state of ARRL has been decades in the making--there are a lot of good parts, mind, that must be kept--and it will take time for changes to be accepted and implemented. He mentioned he had 82 days on the job and in that short time had already developed several ideas. He doesn't appear to be the type to sit in the corner office and wait for the problems to come to him but has been active in examining the organization. So far, so good.
