The semi-annual newsletter for The Radio Club of America members 2021 V. 1
FROM YOUR PRESIDENT Greetings to all of our RCA members as we begin a new year! 2021 will surely prove to be an exciting one as we return to live activities. First, some exciting news about this year's Technical Symposium and Awards Banquet. We plan to have an in-person Technical Symposium and Awards Banquet on Saturday November 20th. We plan to live-broadcast and video-record these events to allow participation for those who are unable to travel. Both events will be held in Denver, Colorado. As in past years, we want to move the meeting locations around the country to provide greater local access for our members to participate in RCA's premier annual event. In this case, that will be from the Rocky Mountain area and the west coast. More details about the hotel, etc. will be provided in the coming months. • We are especially excited to confirm that our keynote speaker at the Awards Banquet will be Dr. Marty Cooper, inventor of the first handheld portable cell phone. Marty Cooper is a long time RCA member, and we are honored to have him present this year at the Awards Banquet in conjunction with the publication of his new book Cutting The Cord. • I want to remind all our members that it is time again to submit nominations for Awards and Fellows. The nominations process closes on May 15. Our members have many connections in wireless, and the Awards and Fellow Committee relies on your nominations of deserving people in wireless. Most of the awards do not require the awardee to be an RCA member, but some do. Full details and forms are on the RCA Website. RCA is undertaking several New Initiatives This Year, some of which build upon work that President Emeritus Carroll Hollingsworth started. • Our Scholarship Committee, ably led by member Alan Spindel, has been hard at work re-crafting our scholarship program to be more responsive to the needs of the 21st century. This the committee has created two new scholarship funds. You will hear more about that soon. • Last year President Hollingsworth started looking into the future for RCA. To continue that effort, this year I stood up a new temporary committee chaired by Vice President David Bart to do strategic planning for the Club. The wireless world is changing, and we need to examine how the Club can prepare itself better for the future. • RCA is increasing its outreach to our members, especially in developing new ways that RCA can add value to your wireless careers. As a result, we inaugurated several new committees who are looking at specific groups within our membership ranks to see how we can better serve those members. To increase participation in these committees, I have asked several non-Board RCA members to work with or chair these committees including Keith Kaczmarek, Denis Marin, Stephanie McCall, and David Witkowski. If other members are interested in helping us please contact our Executive Secretary Amy. • With so much going on, I have asked Executive Vice President Chip Cohen to help me in working with these committees. RCA launched a New Regional Chapter this year! A group of RCA members has been meeting in the Rocky Mountain area for the past few years. That group is now formalized into an official RCA Section, and Director Charles Kirmuss is leading that effort. We will get to meet these section members at our meeting in Denver this November! RCA continues to be active at Trade Shows despite the pandemic, and we plan to begin undertaking live activities this summer. RCA is exhibiting at several trade shows this year, including APCO in August in San Antonio, IWCE in September in Las Vegas, and at least one other trade show. We hope to see our members at these events and network with them after a long hiatus due to the pandemic. RCA is launching a New RCA Website, which has been in the works for the past year. The new website will feature easier navigation, more information, improved visibility for our sponsors and advertisers, and better emphasis on our organizational partners. Also, I want to encourage all our members to join us for RCA’s Virtual Events on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at 9 PM ET, hosted by President Emeritus Tim Duffy. Each month we alternate between an interview with a notable wireless person, and an RCA member only networking event. We will continue these virtual events for the foreseeable future as another way for members to connect or learn something new. Check the website www.radioclubofamerica.org for details. We have already started Planning for 2022. Our Technical Symposium and Awards Banquet will be in the southern U.S. that year. More information about that will be provided early next year. Finally, if you are interested in learning a bit more about my vision for RCA, and about some of our future plans, please see my video on the home page of the RCA Website “A Chat with RCA’s New President John Facella”. Please stay safe. JOHN FACELLA, P.E., President The Radio Club of America, Inc. The World’s Oldest Wireless Society | Edition 1 2021 | 1