ARRL CEO David Minster NA2AA

Tonight we have a chance to get to know David Minster, NA2AA. David is the new CEO of the ARRL. This is the first interview he has given since taking the reins of the League. Join us as we get to know David as an amateur radio operator. The video goes live at 7pm central time on Dec 16, 2020.

 

Not sure why I would want to know about just David's personal background and amateur radio interests. Things I would like to know about for example, are why the ARRL CEO position it turning over so frequently. I am glad to see an effort at establishing a relationship with the amateur radio community. Ken Goodwin, K5RG

 

On his qrz.com bio he describes himself in the 3rd person...
Seems weird.

 

I will rejoin the ARRL when they get their act togher.

 

There does not seem to be much interest here. Not many comments...

 

OK. I'll go first.

That may be a good thing. The last couple of CEOs (other than Barry Shelley who was interim for the past year) drew an inordinate amount of negative attention. Maybe we all got worn out arguing about it the past several years.

This CEO actually does appear to be an active ham, which I think ARRL members expect of their HQ upper staff.

 

Perhaps because the main issues with the arrl are not @ the CEO level.

The good old boys in the background still run the organization.

 

other words for burnt out

• become exhausted
• exhaust
• fatigue
• get tired
• grow weary
• run down
• run out of steam
• stress out
• tire
• wear down
• wear out

 

rundown, brungdown, slungdown, flungdown, talkin 'bout the arrl, blues

 

David is definitely an active ham and has good ideas for the organization. His Second Century letter in the January QST is worth reading. It appears to me that he will be an excellent CEO.

 

I agree... David is an active ham, and has been for some time. I think he will be a welcome addition to the league.

 

Important to understand that the CEO's initiatives are limited by the governance of the ARRL board. It's up to the director and top officers. David is inheriting someone else's problems and my speculation is he needs to work at fixing those before doing much in the way of new initiatives.

IMO, our lack of comments is likely a reflection of the high turnover of CEO's and other top ARRL personnel over the last 5 years. Outside of that, recent disasters with PRB-1 (and its variants) and loss of the 3.3 GHz band , among others, weigh heavily on the future of Part 97 and what diminished form it will take.

The modest percent of Part 97 hams who are actually League members, and the ruthless aging of our demographic, are huge issues that fall in David's lap.

Should we support David? Of course!

My only suggestion to David is 'use a personal touch'. It makes you more accessible and empathetic to the many of us who may have different views and suggestions. No one expects you to always agree. Everyone expects you to listen.

73
Chip W1YW

 

And avoid pretentious "business management jargon" when communicating with the membership ...

 

I have been in ham radio for 50 years and I dumped ARRL in 1986 and I was watching to see if this guy was going to convince me to join again but I found him boring and was very light on ARRL and Part 97 issues. I have experienced ARRL as high in leadership when I became Alabama EC so I am quite familiar the way the League works. I live in Pensacola and found an interactive map of all licensed hams in Pensacola and I saw well over a thousand or maybe two thousand hams but the group that operates here is an ARRL club that has trouble attracting 50 people. They probably license as many as 20-30 hams per year and most of them will never get on the air. Secondly, everything here is going fusion and repeater trustees are discouraging analog, especially on 440 MHz and some on 2 meters. I think that some of the digital is made so easy that most cell phones will do the same thing with apps like Whatsupp and Messenger. Over the years I have seen some of these new things like packet, amtor and etc become fads that just faded away. I think DMR, Fusion, and D-Star fading away where people will lose interest and get bored and fall away. The same with the FT modes in which are designed to make contacts but not ragchew and those who accomplish working the world on FT modes will fall away as fads fall away. Even though I am in the upper half age group that still do conventional CW and SSB, we are still a significant number that use the HF bands regularly and do traditional ragchewing everyday. I hear many say, ham radio is moving forward and it has since the AM days but there are still some AM guys there and lots of CW still out there but we are dismissed as dinos. We are all in this together and I have not changed and doing the same things I did 50 years ago but ARRL left me because on all the issues over they years, I was always on the opposite side of ARRL and the cost and the quality of the magazine was not worth it so I stopped sending Newington my money every year. Another thing is Ken Sumner that ran ARRL ran it into the ground over the decades to which it might not ever recover. Anyway it seems to me ARRL will continue to go on as always and will never include all hams and do nothing to try to convince us that have fallen away a reason to return.

 

Merry Christmas to you from the ARRL Lab
Bob Allison
WB1GCM