Highlights of ARRL Executive Committee Meeting

December 6, 2025The following are summaries and excerpts from the minutes of the November 2025 ARRL Executive Committee Meeting. The purpose of this post is to highlight in-progress items that ARRL might not normally promote through marketing channels, but hams might be interested in learning more about. Readers are encouraged to view the entire document for additional context.

Pass the Bill
Pass the Bill has generated significantly more activity compared to previous efforts to pass HOA/antenna related legislation. https://send-a-letter.org/hoa/ has seen over 44,000 sign-ups with the strongest support coming from Texas, California, Florida, Ohio, Missouri, and Michigan. [Page 1,9,10]

Membership

• Membership was at 130,240 for October. [Page 1]
• ARRL has targeted 50,000 lapsed members with 1,500 people engaging. [Page 2]
• It’s believed the ARRL Sweepstakes has generated a 60% increase in Diamond Club membership. [Page 2]
• The Collegiate Amateur Radio Program now features 40 participating universities, a record high participation rate. [Page 2]

Products & Outreach

• ARRL has had success selling their end-fed half wave antenna and plan to offer additional antenna products. “Success” was not defined. [Page 3]
• ARRL may create a coding competition which is expected to kick off in early 2026. It’s expected that participants must be less than 22 years of age. [Page 2,4]
• Due to continued decrease in participation in the ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, the contest may be shortened to accommodate younger operators who typically only operate for 6-8 hours within the current 24-48 hour contest period. [Pages 8,9]

IARU Restructuring
It appears the IARU restructuring plan that made headlines earlier this year may not materialize as originally proposed.

…after getting feedback from the regions, the Administrative Council announced that under a revised restructuring plan, the regional organizations would not be eliminated.

The previous proposal would have eliminated ARRL’s power to nominate the IARU President and Vice President, leaving the task to the individual member societies.

ARRL is expected to retain nomination authority, but consult with a new nomination committee made up of regional society members.

As the International Secretariat, ARRL provides support to the International Amateur Radio Union through financial contributions and covering travel and administrative expenses within the six-figure range. With this financial support, ARRL retains the authority to select the president and vice president of the IARU. [Page 12,13]

Additional Topics
Additional items in the minutes include:

• Establish permanent program for ARES
• Directors Workbook
• Three-year Strategy Communication to Members
• Develop and implement 10 Band DXCC Award
• Apply digital contest frequencies for Field Day
• Create lifestyle book on high-performance clubs
• FCC Counsel’s update
• Recognition of new Life Members

Source: ARRL open_in_new ARRL

ARISS SSTV Event is Active via RS-38S Satellite

December 5, 2025ARISS has announced an SSTV event that will be active through December 13th. Rather than transmitting images via the International Space Station, this event’s SSTV images will transmit from the RS-38S satellite, also known as VIZARD-meteo.

Images will utilize the Robot 36 SSTV mode and transmit on 437.825 MHz. The series will contain 12 different images and run from December 4th through December 13th.

Certificates will be available from the ARISS website.

RS-38S is a 3U CubeSat created in part by students in Russia and was launched in 2023.

Source: ARISS open_in_new SSTV ARISS Satellite