Minutes
TASMA Board Meeting
Sunday, 9 February 2003
Mel’s Sewing Service
947 N. Euclid Street
Anaheim, CA 92801
These minutes were approved at the July 7, 2003, TASMA Board Meeting.
Mr. Joe Macera called the meeting to order on Sunday, February 9, 2003, at 1:11 p.m.
Old Business:
A typo was found in the Summary of Motions and was corrected. Mr. Macera asked if the Summary would be incorporated into the actual minutes. Mr. Fukushima replied yes. Mr. Marin asked if the minutes would contain a list of materials given by Mr. Jim Fortney at the January Board meeting, as well as other materials transferred to the new Board members.
Mr. Fukushima informed the Board that the minutes maybe pages long and that he is working on the December, 2002, General Meeting minutes and that an audio CD is available of both the General and January, 2003, Board meetings.
Mr. Macera noted a typo in the comments for the income section and would be corrected. Mr. Brown believes the income from the Directory Listing will be below $300 because the ARRL pays on a line item basis and that there were few entries in the last submittal.
Mr. Marin noted that income should be about the same compared to last year. Mr. Marin noted that the expenses would be a little higher with the revised cost to mail out the newsletter ($1.06) and the number of members and non-members who would receive a newsletter (244). Label costs would be the same. Printing costs was reduced to bring the cost of the newsletter below $350 for the 1st through 3rd Quarters and $400 for the 4th Quarter. Mr. Marin hoped that the newsletter’s printing costs could be reduced with a smaller newsletter.
Mr. Marin noted another major change was the cost in the Mail Forwarding Service. Mr. Brown noted that the Mail Forwarding Service is paid once a year and should be noted only in the quarter that it is paid in, not across all four quarters. Mr. Brown noted that the mileage under Mail Service only occurs once a year, when someone drives to the mail service and picks up the ballots the day before the December elections; therefore, reducing the costs from $60 to $15 which is paid in January.
Mr. Marin noted Travel Expenses and Bank Fees was zero. Internet expenses went down. The projected budget shows a loss of $824.00.
A motion was made by Ms. Finke to accept the proposed 2003 budget including the adjustments mentioned at the Board meeting. Mr. Brown seconded the motion. (4-0-0)
Mr. Macera asked if an updated budget report would be provided at each quarter. Mr. Marin replied that he would like to update the report with the actual number of memberships in each quarter.
Mr. Brown used the Tax-Identification number that was used by Jim on last year’s report. Mr. Macera noted that TASMA does have a new Tax-Identification number. Mr. Macera also commented that the Technical Committee has found some repeaters that are off the air.
Mr. Brown noted that the database lists 500 to 600 entries. Approximately 270 are fully coordinated repeaters; they are not in test phase. About 220 had date of last update before the year 2000, giving a temporal idea of what is recent and what is old. Assuming that the data was halfway decent, the suggestion was to look at the oldest entries first, then migrate forward. Mr. Brown assumes that TASMA resources can process 50 entries per year and six years to complete the process. Mr. Brown noted that it is consistent with the timetable of SMA220, which was estimated at a couple of years and actually took seven years. Mr. Brown noted that the hard part was not in setting up the letter, but with dealing with all the mail.
Mr. Brown describes the process by taking the oldest 50 entries, using five analysts from either the Technical Committee or other people, and assigning a senior analyst to supervise the process. The Database Manager will generate the initial request and maintain a progress record of when it was mailed, if a reply was received, if a follow-up was sent, if an answer was received, etc.
The mail P.O. box will receive replies and Mr. Brown would scan and forward the replies to the appropriate analyst. Mr. Brown used the word "analyst" because they would be analyzing the data for changes in Trustee, location, or changes in call sign.
The responses will be analyzed and reported to the Technical Committee. Any changes will be scheduled for Technical Committee action and would require an updated RFC be obtained. New Trustees would not be changed until a release from the old Trustee is obtained. All actions would be recorded in the Technical Committee minutes. The database would be updated in accordance with the Technical Committee minutes. The Senior Analyst will report to the Board the general progress.
The letter will be initially sent to the Trustee of record. Usually there are two names, the trustee and contact. The contact is typically the sponsor or the trustee. So, the trustee would be used. Mr. Brown assumes a 75% response level and 70 follow-up letters would be sent to those would did not respond. Mr. Brown is not expecting a high degree of cooperation. He has been told that some people will just throw the letter in the trash because, in the opinions he heard, that TASMA over the years has lost track of the coordinations for the older trustees as that TASMA should not have to ask them to provide the records or that an awful lot of people that is maintaining repeaters doesn’t have any idea what the underlying part of a trustee is because of where they got it, the original trustee or paper records are long gone, changes in the physical equipment or repeater site, so they don’t know what they got or what they are running since there are no records.
With the numbers that Mr. Brown pulled from the air, Mr. Brown expects a 50% response from the follow-up letters, leaving 35 letters with no responses. Letters would then be sent to the contact or owner. So, for the estimation of labor and costs, there would be a total of 375 letters sent for 270 responses.
Mr. Brown assumes that the termination of coordination process would be turned over to the Technical Committee to those coordinations without a response from either the trustee or contact/owner. Estimated costs for mailing the request and including a stamped return envelope at $535. Additional costs for mailing between the analysts and trustees or contact/owners. Labor is estimated at:
Total number of hours, 417 hours. Over 6 years, the project will be 70 hours per year. With five persons, it would be 14 hours per year per person or about an hour and a half per month.
Mr. Marin asked for clarification of processing and evaluating responses. Mr. Brown replied that process return mail would involve scanning responses, forwarding and distributing them and logging all actions. Evaluating responses would be the Senior Analyst deciding what to do with each response.
Mr. Brown said to skip to the page with the draft letter that would be sent. The letter describes what the project is doing and why the recipient should fill it in. The letter should not contain any threatening tones.
The back page contains the field in the database. The information from the database should be filled in automatically and be sent with the letter. So the recipient knows what the database shows as their coordination. The recipient would then mark the form with the corrected data. Then, depending on the correction, a decision for a new RFC would be made.
Mr. Brown notes the next step should be the approval of the process, approval for the costs, approve the number analysts, assign the analysts and Senior Analyst, develop schedule, initiate the process and report back to the Board and general membership.
Mr. Macera asked how the Technical Committee could be used. Since the Technical Committee is currently checking on the presence of repeaters and does not want to overburden the committee. Mr. Brown replied that the Technical Committee would be involved with any changes in the end of the process since the Technical Committee could only approve all changes. Mr. Brown suggests adding three more members to the Technical Committee and assigns five of them to handle the re-validatation project and changing them every year, so no one person is saddled with the project for the whole six years or decide that the project is not worth the effort and extra time and hope that the database will straighten itself out in a couple of years.
Mr. Macera believes that the project is worth the time and effort to ensure that TASMA has the most accurate and up-to-date records.
Mr. Brown also noted that Northern California did their re-validation by de-coordinating everybody and have everybody re-coordinate.
Mr. Marin suggested putting the database on-line, so coordinees could look up their coordination and make corrections via e-mail cutting down on costs of mailing and making it easier. Mr. Brown replied despite the reduction in cost of mailing, control would be an issue. Keeping track of the process with electronic e-mail versus a physical piece of paper or folder would be harder.
Mr. Macera asked how many trustees had e-mail addresses. Mr. Brown replied that he got some of the address from the QRZ web site. Mr. Marin suggested getting the address for all the trustees from QRZ. Mr. Brown replied that it may be possible, but be very difficult and time consuming, and that more help would be needed in this area. Mr. Brown has thought of dropping out of the process because of the workload.
Mr. Macera wished there was a way to reduce costs without adding more overhead to the process. Mr. Macera asked how hard it would be to generate the letters from the database and then send them.
Mr. Fukushima asked that if the Technical Committee was doing a binary test verifying repeaters, it would determine which repeaters was on frequency, which ones were not, to start with only the ones not working. Mr. Macera replied that the Technical Committee found that there were a lot not on the air. Mr. Brown also replied that some were not on the air because they were back-up systems to existing repeaters on the same frequency or for other legitimate reasons. Mr. Brown explained that the check only determines if there was a repeater on the air or not. Mr. Fukushima then asked what timeframe would the project be over in checking over 270 repeaters. Mr. Macera and Mr. Brown replied that it should be finished by March. Mr. Fukushima then asked how many was found not working. Mr. Brown replied that out of the 28 he checked, 3 was not working and 6 was unresolved. Mr. Fukushima then asked if a letter from the Technical Committee would be sent to ask about the repeaters, so it would make sense that they would be the first in line to be re-validated, since the Technical Committee is already working on re-validating them right now. Mr. Macera notes that even if the repeater in on the air, TASMA may not have the right information. Mr. Brown notes that when the Technical Committee updates the record, the record date would change and move them lower on the list to be re-validated.
Mr. Macera asked if TASMA is willing to embark on a six-year project. Mr. Marin was concerned about having enough people to work on it for six years. Mr. Fukushima noted that doing the re-validation was not an issue because the General membership has asked once or twice to do it. The issue is the logistics of the re-validation. Who is going to do it, how it is going to be done, and the actual process. Mr. Fukushima asked that if the Technical Committee would be finished with the binary test in March, how they would feel about taking the next step in re-validating the coordination or should TASMA be looking for other people beside the Technical Committee to do the re-validation.
Mr. Fukushima asked the question of if the re-validation would take six years. Mr. Fukushima made the suggestion to try it for a year and see how long it would really take to re-validate and to see if the Technical Committee would want to continue the responsibility of re-validation next year, or to assign it to other people. Mr. Brown replied that it shouldn’t be too short, for it would be too much work over the short term, but that it could be a continuous process spread out over time, so every six years there would be a re-validation of the database. Mr. Brown does not want to overload the Technical Committee since they are responsible for 1.) Coordination, 2.) Interference Claims, 3.) Spectrum Band Plan that everyone sat on for two years and to burden the 8 members with the re-validation project would be too much. So, it would be nice to spread out the workload.
Mr. Finke is concerned that there wouldn’t be a person to push the project along for six years and to keep it focus and on going, but six years is reasonable. Mr. Brown replied that SMA220 had to change from their plans of two to three years to seven. Mr. Macera asked what kind of turnover in information would there be in six years. Mr. Brown replied that there are probably some systems that haven’t been visited in six years. Mostly there would be changes in clubs or trustees.
Mr. Macera asked if there should be a committee to do the re-validation that would contact the Technical Committee, or does the Technical Committee need to do it. Mr. Brown believes that it should work either way. Mr. Marin asked about using the advisors in the process. Mr. Marin suggested assigning four advisors and giving them the task. Mr. Fukushima asked about forming a sub-committee for the re-validation, appointed by the Chairperson, and letting members of the Technical Committee serve in the sub-committee if they wish to.
Mr. Brown suggested first committing to doing the project, then finding somebody to lead it, then committing the funds for it.
A motion was made by Ms. Finke to create a committee to re-validate the TASMA database. The TASMA Chairman will appoint the committee chairperson and members of the re-validation committee, to be approved by the Board at the next regularly scheduled Board meeting. Mr. Brown seconded the motion. (4-0-0)
Mr. Brown asked about Trustee, Owner and Technical Contact information. Since the owner information is usually a club, should the name be changed to "sponsor," which matches the ARRL submittal field. The Technical contact field should be dropped, since all correspondences go to either the Trustee or Owner. Also, the database only currently maintains two names.
The Technical Committee Chairman submitted two versions for approval. Mr. Marin notes that one problem with the original forms is that most of the time most submittals don’t have all the forms.
Mr. Marin and Mr. Brown made some minor changes to the form.
Mr. Fukushima was concerned about the disclaimer on the bottom of the form, especially the part about operating within TASMA specifications. Mr. Brown made the comment that true, a repeater maybe coordinated today, but it may need to tighten its operation if TASMA changes its specifications later.
Mr. Fukushima suggested that the RFC to be returned to the Technical Committee to review the changes recommended by the Board and to present the new version at the next Board meeting.
Mr. Fukushima was concerned about directing that the Band Plan changes be presented at the August General meeting and for voting at the December meeting before the plan is presented to the Board or Technical Committee may be premature.
Mr. Macera felt that TASMA has delayed action on the Band Plan changes for over 1 1/2 years and that TASMA needs to act on it. The directive will setup objectives and goals for the Band Plan changes this year.
Ms. Finke made a motion to establish a Band Plan Committee with Bob Dengler (NO6B) as chairman. The committee will recommend a new Band Plan to be presented to the Board at the July 13, 2003, Board meeting for discussion. If the Board approves the recommendations at the July meeting, the Band Plan Committee will then present it to the membership at the August, 2003, General Meeting. Mr. Brown seconded the motion. (3-1-0, Mr. Fukushima voted against.)
Mr. Marin was concerned about the number of pages listed in the planned newsletter. Mr. Brown replied that there were 34 pages in the previous newsletter and that his rough number puts the cost close to the budgeted $100 printing cost.
With three Board meeting and one General meeting minutes planned for the newsletter, Mr. Macera recommended that a summary of the minutes for the General and Board meetings would be published in the newsletter to save printing costs and that the full minutes would be posted on the web.
Mr. Brown feels that the full minutes should be in the newsletter for reference at meetings. Mr. Brown feels that the membership should feel that they are getting their dues worth in the newsletter, so Mr. Brown adds pictures and tries to spruce it up. Mr. Brown feels that the minutes for the Technical Committee and the General meeting is important. The minutes of the Board meetings are not as important.
Mr. Macera asked if the minutes for the General and Technical Committees and summaries of the Board meetings would be enough for the newsletter.
Mr. Marin asked about the question of having the budget information in the newsletter was needed. Mr. Fukushima asked if there was a legal requirement to publish the data. Mr. Macera feels that it was important to show the membership how TASMA was performing financially against its budget.
Mr. Marin asked if a membership report was needed in his report. Mr. Macera said to place whatever data he wishes to present within his allotted three pages in the newsletter.
On the agenda for the next meeting would have discussion on the Band Plan, RFC form, and newsletter. A request for agenda items for the General meeting will be made for publication in the newsletter.
The Technical Committee will meet on the last Saturday of the month at the Community Center in Mission Viejo.
Mr. Brown would place new mail in a new mail folder. The RFC’s are placed in a folder for Technical Committee. Mail that is processed would be placed in the processed folder.
Mr. Marin proposes folders for sent mail, repeater information, and documents.
Ms. Finke made a motion to adjourn. Mr. Brown seconded the motion. (4-0-0)
The meeting adjourned at 3:13 p.m.
Ted Fukushima (N6ZZK)
2003 TASMA Board Secretary
e-mail n6zzk@arrl.net
E-mail TASMA