09/09/2021

The ARRL Board granted several awards at its July 2021 meeting.

o The ARRL Doug DeMaw, W1FB Technical Excellence Award went to Steve
Franke, K9AN; Bill Somerville, G4WJS, and Joe Taylor, K1JT for their
July/August 2020 QEX article, "The FT4 and FT8 Communications Protocols." The
DeMaw award honors the author of an article or article series judged to possess
the highest degree of technical merit in ARRL periodicals for the past year.

o John Levo, W8KIW, of Hillsboro, Ohio, was designated as the recipient of
the 2021 ARRL Philip J. McGan Memorial Silver Antenna Award. This award honors
a Public Information Officer who successfully promotes all aspects of Amateur
Radio that enhance the understanding of Amateur Radio's contributions to
education, public safety, and recreation. The Board said Levo's efforts over
time have captured "the many avenues of opportunities of Amateur Radio as a
hobby, an education tool, and a service for public safety."

o The 2021 ARRL Technical Service Award 2021 award recipient is James
Baxter, KOUA, of Branson, Missouri. The Board said Baxter "exemplifies the
spirit of this award due to his diligent work assisting hundreds of hams get on
the air, particularly with FT8, and by spending countless hours on web sessions
with them to work out their configuration issues, show them best practices, and
to help track down RFI issues."

o The Board bestowed the 2021 ARRL Technical Innovation Award on Steve
Haynal, KF7O; Wojciech Kaczmarski, SP5WWP, and Roger Clark, VK3KYY. Haynal was
cited as the instrumental and driving force behind the Hermes Lite 5 W HF SDR
transceiver as a fully open-source hardware and software project. Kaczmarski
was recognized for developing the open-source digital radio communication
protocol M17, leading to the development of DroidStar (an Android application)
by Doug McLain, AD8DP. Clark was cited for spearheading a successful effort to
augment a low-cost handheld radio for use by visually impaired operators,
significantly lowering the cost of entry for such amateurs.

o The 2021 Herb S. Brier Instructor of the Year Award went to David Ritter,
ND4MR. ARRL sponsors this award in conjunction with the Lake County Indiana
Amateur Radio Club in Brier's memory to recognize superior Amateur Radio
instruction and recruitment. An ARRL Member for nearly 40 years, Ritter is an
ARRL Registered Instructor and a full-time faculty member at Wilkes Community
College in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, where he's been the lead - and
sole - Technician licensing course instructor since 2010.

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