Dan KB6NU, earlier this month, commented on the ARRL's lackluster ability to attract new members. Dan doesn't speculate on why the ARRL didn't even keep up with population growth and has a smaller percentage of all US hams than it did a year ago.
I'm one of the relatively small number of hams first licensed in the past year who did join the ARRL. I did so for a specific reason: I was tempted to join by the addition of electronic access to the QST archives as a member benefit. Although this was fun at first, I haven't used it in a while, nor have I read the new issues of QST that come to me in the mail for a while now; they come in and landed in some stack or another and promptly disappeared. The way things are going, I'm not really sure if I'll renew when the time comes later this year; I'm not convinced I'm getting anything out of it.
Frankly, I think it's because the ARRL is out of touch with the people who are becoming hams today. The era of the communicator is ending, but there's still a lot of communicators in the old fogies that largely make up ARRL's leadership. If the ARRL wants to remain relevant with today's hams, it needs to understand what their interests are today (and not merely those of hams who happen to be over 60), how they differ from what hams' interests were 30 years ago, and change their strategies to be more responsive. Unfortunately, I don't see this happening, at least not yet.
My renewal isn't up for several more months. I shall have to keep a close eye on this between now and then.
I'm one of the relatively small number of hams first licensed in the past year who did join the ARRL. I did so for a specific reason: I was tempted to join by the addition of electronic access to the QST archives as a member benefit. Although this was fun at first, I haven't used it in a while, nor have I read the new issues of QST that come to me in the mail for a while now; they come in and landed in some stack or another and promptly disappeared. The way things are going, I'm not really sure if I'll renew when the time comes later this year; I'm not convinced I'm getting anything out of it.
Frankly, I think it's because the ARRL is out of touch with the people who are becoming hams today. The era of the communicator is ending, but there's still a lot of communicators in the old fogies that largely make up ARRL's leadership. If the ARRL wants to remain relevant with today's hams, it needs to understand what their interests are today (and not merely those of hams who happen to be over 60), how they differ from what hams' interests were 30 years ago, and change their strategies to be more responsive. Unfortunately, I don't see this happening, at least not yet.
My renewal isn't up for several more months. I shall have to keep a close eye on this between now and then.
I'm remaining a member for a few reasons-- the QST benefit being one of them, but also, I find QEX to be very educational.
ReplyDeleteLike it or not, they're the most visible amateur radio organization as far as DC is concerned, so I feel it's important to pay dues to help them defend our spectrum-- even if they put more emphasis on contests than experimentation, it seems...
Oh well. I don't *regret* renewing, is probably a better way to look at it.
The ARRL is completely irrelevant to amateur radio today. I try not to be a "single-issue guy", but my biggest frustration was their inability to even ENGAGE on an issue like regulation by bandwidth. It was either irrelevant to them, or "just too difficult".
ReplyDeleteMany of their ARES programs are running out of control with disappointed public-safety wannabes trying to "run" their counties/districts/sections. If we saw ourselves as public safety sees many of us, we'd go find something else to do...
I agree, ARES is out of control and growing less relevant to today's EMCOMM needs-- but I have to say, the BPL win was HUGE.
ReplyDeleteARRL didn't engage on Regulation by Bandwidth? I don't understand that comment...please see http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2007/04/27/101/?nc=1
ReplyDeleteThey proposed it, got tons of negative feedback and then withdrew the proposal.
Mega-dittos on the wannabes comment. I would also like the ARRL to get busy on the extension of PRB-1 to include private covenants. Perhaps its time to diversify our Board members and not just have the oldest ham in the area represent us.
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly
ReplyDeleteThanks for the follow on twitter.
Your post hit the target. In my view the ARRL has missed the times we live in. I remember when they fought the FCC on dropping the code, they have a hard time changing.
However just stay in contact with the ham commuinty at large, and join your local Ecomm group, this is still a fun hobby.
We keep it fun even in NYC.
www.nyc-arecs.org
www.n2nov.net
All the best
n2umc
www.twitter.com/frankat
Hi, Kelley, I have just responded to your kind suggestion on my blog regarding my deceased Dad's call letters and thought I'd come and visit.
ReplyDeleteI am not a ham operator but having had a parent who was and seeing stacks of QST growing up, it brings a smile to eavesdrop on your ARRL discussions.
ARRL has certainly lost touch with their new members, I haven't seen any compelling reason to spend $39 a year. The availability of the internet and information contained therein made much of the ARRL publications I was looking at obsolete.
ReplyDeleteAbout the only thing that has any kind of bearing on my joining is the QEX magazine discount for ARRL members. Though from what I hear, QST used to have all of those type articles within its pages. So in my mind that means I'm a little too late for joining the ARRL, besides the fact that the rest of the services don't seem to make up the difference in the $12 discount.
I do think they are doing much better in the last year with HAM-evangelism, see wedothat-radio.org. I can't tell you how many people I've directed to that blog/site.
The ARRL is lost in a mix of old times and doing everything it can to be the only large, nationwide ham radio organization. It holds itself out as THE representative of the highly-diverse Amateur Radio community. Its chief objective is to maintain its empire and to deter others from building organizations that might reduce its memberships and dollars.
ReplyDeleteIt's high time for hams with interests and views not promoted by the ARRL to form their own national organizations. The ARRL can continue to exist and promote itself and the issues it decides is important. Other organizations can form, build membership and focus on the issues they believe to be important. There's more than one view on issues affecting Amateur Radio and we need more than one voice.
About the ARES and RACES wannabees - some of these old farts who get appointed to these positions become totally full of themselves and think that somehow they have some sort of power over others and the right to jump on people's frames. I call people like this as being afflicted with a HITLER COMPLEX.
ReplyDeleteIts really getting a little disturbing. We are talking about angry, grouchy, senile old men wearing their glory jackets covered with Kudo patches running around amok verbally abusing people at various ham related events.
Not a good way to encourage newcomers to become Hams. These jokers are an embarrassment and a disgrace to the ham radio hobby.
They call these misfits WHACKERS - I ran into one of these Neanderthal's at the Monroe County Indiana Field day 2012 and he was so intense and so rude I was forced to leave. I almost quit ham radio over that event. I think people like this originally came from CB radio.