As many of you may know, I ran for the ARRL Southeastern Division Director last year. I ran against the incumbent Mickey Baker N4MB. My primary motivation for running was simply that Mickey stopped communicating with us—the ARRL members in the Southeastern Division. While I lost that election, the goal of more communication from our director was not lost. Unfortunately, it has not improved. So that leaves us with few alternatives.

Let me just say that as a leader in many ham radio clubs over the last 46 years, I get it. If the extent of your communication is only hearing about member complaints and such, it can be draining. But it is the job. The fact that it is a volunteer position is immaterial. Mickey just ran for re-election last year, so if he did not want to do the job, that would have been the time to bow out. By not adequately representing our division, Mickey Baker has marginalized our representation with the ARRL.

To set the stage, please allow me to say that I am a fervent supporter of the ARRL. I wholeheartedly believe in its goals. I am a life member and an ambassador class member of the ARRL Maxim Society. That means I have donated what some would call a decent chunk of money to the ARRL. I do this as I strongly believe in the goals of the ARRL. I continue my annual donations which I split my donations between the Education and Technology Fund for the Teachers Institute and the general Diamond Club. While I rarely discuss the details of my financial support the ARRL, it is important for the reader to understand that I am not one of the omnipresent ARRL bashers that are still mad about the ARRL’s support of incentive licensing (or some other perceived slight) that happened 50+ years ago.

Recalls are a terrible thing for any organization. I sincerely wish we did not have to go through this process. Greg Williams N4JGW of Georgia started this process to initiate a recall petition of Mickey Baker and it is one I support. More on those details, including Greg’s letter to the ARRL are below.  It is not a great look to be airing the “dirty laundry” for the world to see in what is basically a hobby/service. However as members of the ARRL, we are left with few choices when a Director becomes non-communicative and non-performing. Even after being asked to resign by his fellow Directors and ARRL board members, Mickey has clearly not received the message to do the job to which he was elected. Sadly that leaves us with this terrible recourse.

The remainder of this post will be about the case for recall but you can ask yourself one simple question: Have you seen a single email or other communication from Mickey Baker in the past 12 months? While I do hope you all read what follows and make an informed decision, if you agree we need to recall Mickey Baker N4MB to allow our very-capable Vice-Director Andy Milluzzi KK4LWR to take the reins, we need your signature. We have forms that you can sign, but we have to bring the form to you. The ARRL process does not allow for an electronic petition in any way, so the actual paper form it is. I have the forms here in the Tampa Bay area for 60 signatures.

You must be an active ARRL member in the Southeastern Division to sign the petition.

In Florida, there are opportunities to sign the form in Orlando too. I am able to come to any club meetings in West Central Florida or other nearby counties. If you want to sign the petition, please let me know and I will be there. And to be clear, by signing the petition, it does not recall Mickey Baker directly. It simply starts the process to have the ARRL send out a ballot to all members of the Southeastern Division asking if the current Director should be recalled.

Logistically, if the members agree that Mickey should be recalled, then Andy assumes the position of Director (Andy was re-elected last year unopposed). The ARRL President, Rick Roderick K5UR will then appoint a new Vice-Director. Personally I hope the vice-director is appointed from Georgia or elsewhere in the division as having a wider geographic representation would be good for the Southeastern division. It is also notable that ARRL By-Law 24 requires 10% of the members that voted in the last election to sign the petition to initiate the recall vote. Because the total votes cast in the last election were 3827, 10% of that equals at least 383 signatures of current ARRL members.  It is not 10% of the total members in the division. I included the verbatim text of By-Law 24 at the bottom of this post and you can find the entire PDF of the ARRL By-Laws here.

We need your signature

I will be at the meetings below with the petition if you would like to sign. Note: my attendance at any meetings should not be read as a club endorsement of this process. I am doing this as an individual. In this process, I do not speak for any organization. Equally, your club inviting me to your meeting to offer your members the chance to sign the form is not an endorsement of the process by your club. Here are the upcoming meeting locations:

• St. Petersburg Amateur Radio Club on Friday, September 4th, 2026 at 7:00 PM
• Upper Pinellas Amateur Radio Club on Saturday, September 5th, 2026 at 10:00 AM
• Clearwater Amateur Radio Society on Thursday, September 10th, 2026 at 7:00 PM (Forms will be there).

I am glad to attend other meetings if invited.

The start of the process

Apparently, I am not the only one that feels this way. As I mentioned, Greg Williams N4JGW sent the ARRL a request to start the recall process of Mickey Baker. As this aligns with my views on Mickey’s failure to perform the job, our goals for a better Southeastern Division are aligned.

The specific reasons Greg states are as follows:

• A failure to communicate with division members regarding critical policy votes.
• Actions or votes that are contrary to the express interests of the members in this division.
• Failure to solicit input from the ARRL field organization.
• Slander of state and club leadership at the 2025 Huntsville Hamfest and outright hostility at the same.
• Dereliction of duty to approve ARRL hamfests in a timely manner.
• Dereliction of duties and non-participation of committee duties

Allow me to preface the remainder of this post by stating emphatically this is not about sour grapes. I lost that election fair and square. But we need to do something. Our division will be in very good hands under our Vice-Director Andy Milluzzi KK4LWR.  As Greg echoed in his letter, Mickey has stopped communicating with the members of the Southeastern Division. The story of Mickey’s questionable approach to the president of the Atlanta Radio Club has also been documented.

If you would like to sign the petition and can make one of the meetings above, please do. If you cannot make a meeting, contact me and I will come to you. I committed to Greg that I would obtain 60 signatures and I am confident we can meet that objective. Ultimately this is about improving both the ARRL and the Southeastern Division. We are the largest division in the ARRL. We deserve leadership that represents us.

ARRL By-Law concerning recalls:

24. In accordance with the provisions of Article 7 of the Articles of Association, members of a
territorial division may petition for recall of the Director or Vice Director of their division. Any League member may give notice of proposed recall by mailing to the Secretary by certified mail a letter to that effect. The fact of receipt will be communicated only to Officers, the Director and Vice Director of the division concerned, the sender and the Ethics and Elections Committee. The recall petition shall be presented to the Secretary not later than 75 days after the mailing of the notice of recall and not later than June 1st of the final year of the term of office. A valid petition shall contain the dated signatures obtained on or after the date of mailing of the notice to the Secretary and will include not less than 10 percent of the number of Full members voting in the election at which the Director or Vice Director was elected, or not less than 10 percent of the Full members resident in the division on the preceding December 31st if the Director or Vice Director was elected without membership balloting. Upon certification by the Ethics and Elections Committee that the petition is valid, the Secretary shall prepare a ballot asking the single question, either “Shall the Director be recalled, yes or no.” Or, “Shall the Vice Director be recalled, yes or no.” If a majority of the votes cast are for recall, then the office of Director or Vice Director shall be declared vacant. No Director or Vice Director shall be subject to more than one recall election during a single term in office. A person removed from office by recall, shall not be eligible to be a candidate for Director or Vice Director for three years following removal from office.