On 4-16-2011 00:31, Joe from Kokomo wrote:

On 4/15/2011 6:41 PM, Scott wrote:

Why? If every ham just wrote to their elected officials (for the cost of
a stamp, or free by email), they would get the message just as well, if
not better than, if they got 1 letter or a personal visit from the ARRL
"lobbyist".

Just my personal opinion, but I believe it is quite naive to think that
if "every ham just wrote". Extremely unlikely...and oh, if not the ARRL,
just who do you think is going to tell the hams to write and what to
write about?

Well, if hams won't take any initiative to write their Congressmen, then
they probably don't give two craps enough to really care if we lose
bandwidth. All proposed NPRMs are published in the Federal Register and
a simple search on their website for "FCC" will list them.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/multidb.cgi


Finally, it's quite naive to think that a national lobbying organization
is not helpful -- just look at how successful the NRA is.

So, the ARRL is donating how much to political parties?

The NRA has donated a bit over $18 million from 1989-2010. They were
number 39 of the top 140 donors...
39 National Rifle Assn $18,209,746 17%(To Dems) 82% (To Repubs)
THAT'S probably why they are so successful. Money talks, BS Walks...

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php

Didn't see the ARRL in the top 140. Searched and didn't find them on
the list at all. #140 donated about $4.7 million over the same period.

If the ARRL is so successful at lobbying, why did BPL go through even
though they begged members to send more money to fight against it and
lost the battle anyway? Remember when the 13cm band used to be
2300-2450 MHz? I do. Remember when the 1.25M band used to be 220-225
MHz. I do. Remember when a lot of foreign countries had no code
requirement for HF and we did? I do.

I'm not saying they aren't worth something, but why won't they give a
guy a choice about which magazine he wants with his membership?
Probably because QEX doesn't have so many ads as QST and they want the
advertisers to get more bang for their buck (understandably, since they
can charge more for ad space based on the number of magazine "subscribers")