[RFI] Why we badly need 'party line' materials for all hams

[Hare,Ed, W1RFI]

> Since PR is not your bag, who do you suggest we contact at HQ?

Not being entirely sure what type of "PR" was being discussed, I cc'ed Jen Hagy, ARRL's Media Public Relations person and Mary Hobart, ARRL's Development Officer, who could address some of your concerns about the way ARRL is spending the $300k it took in for BPL defense.  They normally do not reply to informational cc's of posts to the various reflectors, so if you want to talk with them, you should do so directly.

> I never said the engineering work was not worth doing. However, diverting some of that money 
> to PR would probably be a better use of funds. 

You didn't say that the engineering work wasn't worth doing, but you said that you didn't want to contribute to it until ARRL hired a public-relations firm.  I took that to mean that you didn't feel it was all that important. Jen has helped orchestrate a number of media contacts wrt BPL. 

Which of the engineering studies that ARRL has done do you think should not have been done so that resources could be diverted to public relations? I disagree with you that such work should be diverted at all; the engineering studies, filings, industry contact, standards meetings, organizational contact, congressional contact and the like are too important not to do.  So is the media contact, although the majority of that has been done by HQ staff and not an outside public relations firm.  

I have a feeling that the type of media blitz you have in mind could cost millions. :-)

Ed Hare, W1RFI
ARRL Laboratory Manager
225 Main St
Newington, CT 06013
Tel: 860-594-0318
Internet: W1RFI at arrl.org
Web: http://www.arrl.org/tis
Member: ASC C63 EMC Committee
   Chairman: Subcommittee 5, Immunity
   Chairman: Ad hoc BPL Working Group
Member: IEEE SCC-28 RF Safety
Member: Society of Automotive Engineers EMC/EMR Committee
Member: IEEE 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rick Karlquist [mailto:richard at karlquist.com]
> Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 1:13 PM
> To: Hare,Ed, W1RFI
> Cc: Richard Karlquist; aa6yq at ambersoft.com; 
> rfi at contesting.com; Hobart,
> Mary K1MMH; Hagy Jennifer, N1TDY
> Subject: RE: [RFI] Why we badly need 'party line' materials 
> for all hams
> 
> 
> Hare,Ed, W1RFI said:
> >> I posted a request for a press kit on this
> >> reflector a couple of days ago specifically
> >> for this kind of situation and got no response
> >> whatsoever.
> >
> > If you mean that you got no response from ARRL, posting a 
> request to ARRL
> > on a reflector is not a good way to get an answer.
> 
> Since PR is not your bag, who do you suggest we
> contact at HQ?
> 
> > and interests in the BPL problem. Its overall expenditures 
> for spectrum
> > advocacy annually are over a million dollars. Do you think 
> that the work
> > ARRL has done so far was not worth doing?
> 
> I never said the engineering work was not worth doing.
> However, diverting some of that money to PR would probably
> be a better use of funds.  The BPL companies and media
> are running nearly open loop now as far as PR is concerned.
> The current policy of letting the locals handle PR has failed
> IMHO, due to either apathy or lack of PR skills. (Also, cyber
> media has no "location").
> 
> Rick N6RK
> 
>