Bill Sohl wrote:
"K=D8HB" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Dee Flint" wrote
In any activity it would be normal for the "beginners" group
group to be the largest segment. There are always a
lot of people who start activities but then drop out
for a wide variety of reasons.

Astute observation. It would be nice to find a way reduce that
"first
termer" attrition by promoting an atmosphere which reinforces the
reasons
they took the time and trouble to come aboard. To steal an idea
from
marketing, "It's usually a lot easier and cheaper to keep an old
customer
than to identify and recruit a new one."
73, de Hans, K0HB

From the different organizations I've been involved with, I think the
larger beginner "drop-out" is just a truth of human nature. I've
seen it
in scouting, college, classic car clubs, etc. Exactly why newcomers
move
on to other pursuits is one of life's mysteries in most cases.

It's a dirty job but somebody around here had to get to the bottom of
the bottom lines around here eventually.

You did, thankew for putting the cork in it William and g'nite.

.. . . dit dit . . .=20
=20

Cheers,
Bill K2UNK

w3rv

wrote:

As a prime example, look at QST. How much of it is devoted to purely
local stuff? Not much - the mag would have to be huge to cover ever
locality in any depth at all. So why should someone whose main interest
in amateur radio is the folks within, say, 50 miles, shell out $40/yr
for a membership?

I think that was a big part of Hans' point, Jim. 8^)

- MIke KB3EIA -

bb wrote:

Mike Coslo wrote:

KØHB wrote:

wrote in message
egroups.com...

KØHB wrote:



The growth in numbers of Amateurs over the past decade
has been overwhelmingly via the Technician license.


.... since about 1987 or so, most new hams
have started out as Technicians.


Jim, we can nit-pick the semantics if you really think that's

productive, but

the two statements above both seem to convey the same notion, which

we might

more clearly state "Most new hams since 1991 have entered via the

Technician

class which is now the largest single license class in the US,

comprising almost

half (47.7%) of the population of licensees in this country, nearly

equal to the

combined total population of the three higher classes.".

Even if we do pick the nits, you have a point that is valid. A lot

of

Technicians elect not to join the ARRL.

During the time that I was a Tech, I didn't think that the league

was

relevant to what I was doing in Ham radio.

You know, stuff like helping with walkathons, 4-H events, Bike

races....

Sound familiar to what you wrote? For about 2 years, the type of Ham


you spoke of was ME.

After I got my General license, I decided that ARRL was relevant to

my

new interests.


You echo Len's observation. The ARRL is about HF radio using Morse
Code.


And lots of other modes too.

- Mike KB3EIA -

Dave Heil wrote:

KØHB wrote:

"bb" wrote


The ARRL is about HF radio using Morse Code.


Bull****.


What Hans meant to convey, "bb", is that your guess is incorrect and
that the ARRL is a large organization which promotes any number of
operational modes and bands. Of course he cut to the chase and managed
to sum it up in one word.


Aside from the occasional article where a Ham speaks of the mode he/she
uses, I find very little in QST about Morse code. Ads for Keys are
there. But not a whole lot else.

- Mike KB3EIA -

The League is a *national* organization. Focused mostly on national,
international, and regional issues, and not so much local ones.

Now if a ham's focus and interest are national or international, the
League can have a lot to offer. But at the local level, how much the
ARRL can offer someone depends entirely on who the local folks are.

As a prime example, look at QST. How much of it is devoted to purely
local stuff? Not much - the mag would have to be huge to cover ever
locality in any depth at all. So why should someone whose main interest
in amateur radio is the folks within, say, 50 miles, shell out $40/yr
for a membership?


There is a lot of "generic" local stuff the ARRL could
deal in. Doing a parade or county fair in Cowville, North
Nebraska won't be that different than the parade or county
fair in Swampgulch, Alabama. Sure the names are different,
but organizational politics and technical issues with 2 meter
handhelds on the street would be quite similar.

From: "K=D8HB" on Tues,May 3 2005 5:59 pm

"bb" wrote

The ARRL is about HF radio using Morse Code.

Bull****.

In the face of REALITY of years of published fact
that Brian is right, I "hurl your opinion aside
with great force!"

From: on Tues,May 3 2005 12:04 pm

K=D8=88B wrote:

=2E . . .

Obviously a lot of this proposal needs a great deal of "fleshing
out" and
refinement, but I present it in the spirit of a "topic for
discussion". I'm
sure that the minds gathered here will not be bashful about
improving my PBI.

All warm and fuzzy good Hans but it's another OF's top-down
"reorganizational solution" which I don't see would work any better
than it's predecessors.

The League needs to recognize/concede that it has a serious marketing
problem and address the problem the same way other businesses do in
these situations. They have a product line which isn't selling to a
large sector of their potential buyers. Why? Nobody actually knows.
And
nobody will know until the League finds out why the Techs aren't
buying
their wares.

Well-run businesses tackle this problem via market research and the
League needs to do a bunch of long-overdue bottom-up market research
as
a first step if they expect to get any more real penetration into
their
Tech market.

I'm in complete agreement with Brian Kelly on that.

ARRL budgetarily exists on SALES OF PUBLICATIONS, not the
annual dues. Figuring $30 x 170 thousand members (allowing
for all the "Life" memberships done once) yields only a
%5.1 million per year. That's about the cost to produce
(and stay afloat) QST, the "membership magazine," to pay
the printers, the fullfillment enablers, QST staff, all
the magazine ancilliary costs - provided - they ALSO have
revenue from advertising sales. Without that advertising
sales income, QST will dry up and become just a newsletter
printed on newsprint.

The IRS forms (available on another website) show that
the ARRL monetary income for 2002 was about $12.5 million.
Even if all members paid $40/year dues, the total dues
income would be only $6.8 million. The rest of that income
came from PUBLICATIONS and RESALE of other goods...all
pushed on the ARRL website.

The League should go out into the trenches in volume and, for openers,
start asking all the Techs who are not ARRL members why they aren't
members and what the League needs to do to pry the forty bucks a year
out of them. Then properly analyze the results of the surveys and make
the appropriate changes in their product line. Shuffling SM's duties
around and talking up ham radio to the town burghers, etc., etc. as
"potential solutions" would drive a real marketeer to tears of
laughter.

Quite so. :-) But that CANNOT be explained to the
entrenched, we-know-what-is-best-for-everybody, old-
school thinking of the "leaders" at the ARRL. They
seem to want to run a little clubhouse of the BoD and
Hq staff, keeping things nice and cozy for themselves.

The psychological term is "conditioned thinking" by
the League. The leadership seems stuck in the way
things were done a half century ago...plus the rah-rah
self-promotion of the "ideals" of their elders of that
long-ago period. Their conditioning is almost absolute.
They just don't seem to understand that their cozy
existance-in-the-clubhouse is NOT what the newcomers
want to preserve. Newcomers, already exposed to the
wonders of worldwide webbing (no ionospheric
propagation problems), aren't interested in being
the epitome of morsemen as they were in the 1930s.

Yes, the ARRL plays to "high-technology" on things
such as satellite communications and "talking with
astronauts on the International Space Station" (all
three of them sometimes) and has a lot of books
(shipping cost extra if mail-ordered, no shipping
cost if purchased at ham stores) on a few things
which are state-of-the-art, sort-of. Lots of style,
plenty of gloss, little substance in general.

The vast majority of ARRL concentration in
publications is on the HF ham bands...where no-code
test Technicians are still forbidden - by law - to
operate. VHF and above is still treated "different"
something to be shunned by "real" hams...now as it
was a half century ago. Too many oldsters are still
conditioned to that time and to "working DX with CW
on HF," collecting "wallpaper" (QSL cards) to show
their "prowess" as "radio operators." OK, that was
FB in the 1950s when all the League "leaders" were
young. Times have changed, the "leadership" hasn't.

"Marketing" research by the League? Don't bet on it.
The "leadership" is still inclined to have their
"burghers" their way...emphasizing, of course, "CW"
skills as the epitome of all "real" radio amateurs.
It worked for them when they were young, and, by
T.O.M., it MUST apply to newcomers of today! :-)

League business as usual...as it was then, so shall
it be now...

wrote in message
ups.com...

I "hurl your opinion aside with great force!"

As WA6AUD is oft heard to say --- "Sunuvagun!" or "ZUE ZBM2"

dit dit

de Hans, K0HB

K=D8HB wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

K=D8HB wrote:

The growth in numbers of Amateurs over the past decade
has been overwhelmingly via the Technician license.

.... since about 1987 or so, most new hams
have started out as Technicians.

Jim, we can nit-pick the semantics if you really think that's
productive, but
the two statements above both seem to convey the same notion, which
we might
more clearly state "Most new hams since 1991 have entered via the
Technician
class which is now the largest single license class in the US,
comprising almost
half (47.7%) of the population of licensees in this country, nearly
equal to the
combined total population of the three higher classes.".

I'm not trying to nitpick semantics, Hans, just looking for solid info.


I do agree that most new hams since 1991 have entered via the Tech
license - in fact, by the mid-80s if not earlier, most new hams I
encountered bypassed the Novice and went straight to Tech. The main
reason they gave me was 2 meter and 440 repeaters - Techs could use
'em, Novices couldn't. The splitting of the Element 3 written test in
1987 and the dropping of the code test for Tech in 1991 just helped the
trend along.

AH0A's posted numbers only go back to June 1997, which is of course 8
years rather than a decade, but let's take a look anyway:

June 1997 (per AH0A.org):

Novice - 66,551
Tech - 174,924
TechPlus - 139,608
Tech/TechPlus combined - 314,532 (46.4%)
General - 116,629
Advanced - 107,024
Extra - 73,737
General/Advanced/Extra combined - 297,390 (43.8%)
Total all classes: 678,473



April 2005 (per AH0A.org):

Novice - 28,615
Tech/TechPlus combined - 318,318 (47.7%)
General - 136,808
Advanced - 76,418
Extra - 106,587
General/Advanced/Extra combined - 319,813 (48.0%)
Total all classes: 666,746

So in the past 7 years 8 months we've seen growth of 3,786 in the
Tech/TechPlus classes, pushing those classes' percentage of US hamdom
up 1.3%. But in the same time period we've also seen growth of 22,423
in the General/Advanced/Extra classes, pushing those classes'
percentage of US hamdom up 4.2%.

So when I read a claim that "The growth in numbers of Amateurs over the
past decade
has been overwhelmingly via the Technician license.", I would like to
see more data.

Now it occurs to me that you may have meant that "via the Technician
license" means most hams start that way, and I agree. Point is, it
seems to me that a lot of new hams don't *stay* Technicians forever.

--

I don't think there's ever been a time when ARRL had a majority of US
hams as members. The most I ever saw claimed was about one-third, and
that was many decades ago.

I think the big unknown in all this is the percentage of *active* hams
who are members - or even the number of active hams, period.

The number of ham radio licenses has always included a certain
percentage of SK and totally inactive hams, but with the increase of
the license term to 10 years back in 1984 and the general aging of the
US population, it's logical to think that the percentage of SK and
totally inactive hams has increased dramatically in recent years. From
1994 to 1999, no US ham licenses expired at all.

In the bad old days, those who lost interest quickly disappeared from
the license totals. Novices had one or two years to upgrade or leave
the air, and the other licenses were only good for 5 years. IIRC, it
used to be that if you didn't get your Form 610 to FCC before the
license expired, it was gone - no grace period. (Of course back then
FCC would renew a lot sooner than 90 days before the license expired,
upgrades caused automatic renewal and you could combine a renewal and a
modification.)=20



73 de Jim, N2EY

wrote:
From: "K=D8=88B" on Tues,May 3 2005 5:59 pm

"bb" wrote

The ARRL is about HF radio using Morse Code.

Bull****.

In the face of REALITY of years of published fact
that Brian is right, I "hurl your opinion aside
with great force!"



Yup, everyone just got through saying that there's a problem attracting
Technicians to the organization. No one seems to be able to put their
finger on exactly why, only because they reject the -correct- answer
(reminds me of the OJ case). And they still wring their hands and bite
their knuckles and ask, "Why?"

OK, I'll rephrase the answer. The ARRL may not be just about HF
radio using Morse Code, but the Technicians think it is. Hi! Sheds a
whole new light on the subject. How about that for fair play?