Lawrence Statton posted on Sat, Mar 21 2009 6:46 am

"Unca Pete" writes:

I'll join the ARRL the day I can choose QEX over the QST
forced subscription that comes with the membership.

Pete k1zjh

Have you ever thought of JOINING ARRL, and using your position as
a member to petition for this change?

Change is made by those who participate.

--N1GAK

CHANGE is made by those who cozy up to the Old Boys Network of the
League. The arch-conservatives there want only ONE thing: Preservation
of their rank/status/title and the ability to Rule. The rest is just
PR BS to convince members that They are 'for' members. As a voting
member of the ARRL (until end of March) for two years, I've gotten a
chance to 'vote' just once and then only for lower positions;
candidacy for Director was unopposed so the incumbent was
'automatically' elevated to another term. Some 'voting,' not.

As one who has been around the electronics industry for over a half
century, I KNOW all the styles of writing that are acceptable in
written correspondence. After three such carefully-structured
correspondences FAILED to get an answer (one Form Letter reply is not
counted as any sort of real reply), there wasn't any point of wasting
my time with them.

The Editor of QST seems technically inept but appears to have the
'company man.' The Editor of QEX is technically better but could spend
more time going over manuscripts to 'tighten up' some text and yield
more technical explanations in the same amount of pages. QST's flavor
of presentation is getting more and more like 'Ham Radio for Dummies.'
Ohm's Law of Resistance is apparently 'rocket science' according to
QST pages...if there is any in between the blitz of self-important PR
BS there. Bear in mind I've been (first) a contributor to, then
Associate Editor (for two years) at Ham Radio magazine back before
1990 and when I did not have any amateur radio license (just a First
'Phone granted in 1956).

Yes, if one wants (marginal quality) PDF downloads from QST since the
year dot, membership might be worth something. Most of those PDFs come
with an inserted first page of copyright warnings which is about 450
KB size all by itself, always the same page. Makes a lot of
difference in downloading over a dial-up connection. It is better to
just plain BUY a CD of selected years rather than download the same
thing over and over again. That has the advantage of greater monetary
revenue for the League...something They NEED to keep the paid high-
level staff in 6-figure annual incomes.

With paid membership (and its 'voting rights') comes a 3:1 ratio of
surface mail spam to BUY BUY BUY this and that as compared to actual
worthwhile news/information. Good copy, cleverly misinforms the
'lowered cost of shipping' (on 'specials') as 'member money savings.'
Never mind that I can go to HRO or AES outlets and get the SAME
product over the couner at the SAME price with NO shipping charges.
Shipping direct from Newington Hq means they are pocketing the
difference local stores make as profit for reselling, another small
revenue booster for the League. Not much, to be sure, but it denies
any real savings to paid members.

The usual rejoinder from League sycophants is "members get QST free!"
as if that were an excuse. Hello? The paid advertising space in ANY
hobby magazine pays the staff and most overhead (except fulfillment
services, aka mail subscription delivery) to keep everyone working.
CQ works that way, 73 and Ham Radio magazines worked that way as
Independent periodical publishers for years until the advertisers had
to tighten their economic belts. By virtue of being a virtual monopoly
on amateur radio publications, the ARRL can offer the widest exposure
to advertisers so, when economic chips started to deplete beginning
around 1990, advertisers gravitated to QST with its demographic
guarantee of about 120K 'sales' per issue back then.

Just WHAT has the ARRL gotten for YOU in the past decades? Their
influence with the FCC is dropping, witness all the Report and Orders
footnotes and denials on dockets 98-143, 05-235, and at least three of
the 18 Petitions for change in between those two landmark regulation
changes. The ARRL hasn't achieved any new bands on HF except for 5
channels at '60m.' They never got a whole band to play hams-are-vital-
and-important to the nation in times of crises. Five CHANNELS. As if
the 'technical experts' there had never seen the giant frequency
allocation chart in Part 2, Title 47 C.F.R. that shows where everyone
is allowed from 9 KHz to 300 GHz...nor did they seem to have a handle
on government radio use in HF. The 'WARC' bands came about in 1979
(at WARC-79) by the ITU, not the ARRL. ARRL has yet to join the rest
of the IARU in going for any LF bands for amateurs as they do in
Europe.

For an excellent peek into thinking of the higher-ups in the League,
just read their Minutes of Regional meetings. Most of it is just self-
congratulary high-fives among the insiders praising each other. WE
don't get to see any talks of 'change' (horrors!) in much of
anything. You might say the Spirit of AIG had invaded the ARRL long
ago. In between asking for More Money for the 'Spectrum Defense Fund'
and the 'Foundation' and 'Buying a Brick for the Diamond Terrace,'
Will the League soon be asking for 'bail-out money' from ongress? :-(

Len Anderson, AF6AY
Life Member, IEEE (a Professional Association)