We’ve received several emails, phone calls and letters illustrating your frustration. If you’ve submitted a new coordination request, you need to check the web site from time to time. We will update our progress regularly. Many of you have exercised professional courtesy and patience. Others… well not so much. The goal of the web site is to communicate more often with Wisconsin hams looking for updates.
If you take a moment and read some of the additional “news” items, you will see that WAR Inc. has been challenged with many different issues in 2015. The ARRL no longer was allowing electronic submissions of coordination data, they also decided to publish Wisconsin data without a contract in place. While the League has been trying to develop a new method for data submission, our efforts to help them have gone largely ignored, wasting time and energy.
Our web server got hacked this summer and it took a couple of months to regain access and control. Our hosting company did a fantastic job of dealing with the issues and we believe the site is stable once again.
Our Chairman and Vice-Chairman had to resign this year due to personal and professional reasons.
A major upgrade to our coordination software, CTK was developed. This took an enormous amount of time by our Frequency Coordinator Dave Karr KA9FUR as he’s the author of the program. Any updates he accomplished affected not only WAR Inc., but several other coordination councils around the U.S. Dave has a “real” job as well which demands a lot of time and resources. Remember, we’re all volunteers and have a finite amount of time to devote to WAR Inc.
Our Secretary Greg Braun N9CHA suffered a personal loss this year. His father, Chuck WD9GWG became a silent key in April 2015. As you can understand, it took several weeks of his time to deal with family matters, not to mention the deep grief of his fathers loss adding to his personal stress. This stress prompted additional chronic health issues to become serious which demanded time for stabilization and recovery.
As hard as he tried, our former Assistant Frequency Coordinator, Travis Augustine W9HDG encountered several issues trying to maintain the WAR Inc. database. He was able to complete the annual coordination updates while attending college, looking after his family and finally landing a very demanding job.. Unfortunately, some of the issues included current coordination data to become suspect, prompting an audit. Former Chairman Dave Schank KA9WXN decided the best course of action was to halt all coordination requests and allow time for our Frequency Coordinator to review the situation. This has taken several months and will continue to provide a challenge through the end of the year (at least).
You have every right to be frustrated since you know nothing about the challenges the volunteers who make up WAR Inc. have suffered this year. If you’re interested in becoming a WAR Inc. contributor, perhaps you’d like to run for an officer position? Please email our Secretary Greg Braun N9CHA and let him know of your willingness to help.