ARRL speaks on Regulation by Bandwidth

Ed,

As a lifetime member they probably lose money on your membership. This is why they would like you to becoma a member of the Diamond club or whatever it is called. The thinking is that if you ponied up the cash to become a life member, you will be more inclined to do it again.

I would think that they should pamper life members. Unfortunately they know that they already have your money and as such can afford to give you short shrift when you call to ask for anything. Their real challange is to keep those who re-up year after year happy so they will continue to do so. Any rate increase affects them and they know that they will not be able to raise rates on existing life members (unless they join the Diamond club)

73
George
K3UD

 

The dirty little secret behind EMCOM and WinLink

You have to stand back a bit from the roar of cheerleading for WinLink to be seen as a part of ENCOM, rah rah the only meaningful part, to see what the real secret behind interest or even promotion of WinLink for EMCOM truly is.

It’s radio Spectrum, or more correctly stated; access to RF Spectrum without the troubles associated with having to put up with too many of those unpredictable, unreliable, Amateur Radio operators by emergency planners.

Why, here’s WinLink, this fully automated, fully integrated system that provides connectivity from your remote field networks to some node outside of the disaster area, instant connectivity to the full world. No learning about radios, no need for operators, and no logistics issues with housing, feeding, training, or even counting on those silly Amateur radio operators to show up. Heck, our Pimp, I mean the ARRL BOD, is even working to insure we can encrypt your traffic so you can comply with all sorts of real and imagined security issues and legal issues.

Sad part, is that the WinLink guys are spot on correct with what they are selling, and if I was working on preparing a disaster plan I’d jump on it. Figure two person teams to set up the radio gear at a field sites, two person team at EOC HQ, you’re in business. Small logistical footprint, high return on establishing connectivity by moving people and equipment into disaster zone, EOC’s can be pre-positioned and activated during build up to disaster.

I’m not saying the above scenario is bad per se, it would just be better for the ARRL BOD to propose models of disaster relief operations for use of Amateurs, both as human resources, and as owners of valuable spectrum resources, and do it publicly. Some won’t like the proposals, but an open debate on this topic would go a long way to selling it than some of the RAH RAH Cheerleading, and phony baloney efforts like RM-11306 to sneak it in.

 

W6EM, Lee _ I fail to understand how remaining a member of ARRL will allow me or all of us in concert, to change anything. Could you please elaborate on that?

 

Ordinarily I would agree but in this instance there has been too many years, no change and no likelihood that the membership has that ability. I read the other day that the SM in NC is changing and I didn't receive a ballot. Its been years since I've received a ballot for anything. So if I understand correctly, I should keep funding the League to tell me they represent me? But only if I don't actually expect anything from them in that regard? Got it!

 

Amazing, what can happen when you take the afternoon off (from the keyboard).

Exactly my thoughts. I couldn't have said it any better.

They probably view individual threats to leave like the comment about Life Members. The impact of losing your dues (or gaining back someone who's already left) doesn't bother them all that much. Besides, the vast sea of non-ham boat owners, RVers and the like who would become hams for the free mobile internet access will be the new, augmented ARRL membership base. Not too hard to envision.

Think about this for just a moment. What media outlets are there for the some 700,000 of us to "get the word" on the subject of the petition, or its bogus intentions, besides ARRL publications? AR Newsline (Bill Pasternak rarely challenges the ARRL), CQ (a sympathizer), and a couple of internet forums. That's it. So, with so little objective information flow, the League can do just about what it wants and unless they publicize it, or someone formerly on the inside, like Skip Teller was, blows the whistle, very few will ever know.

Sad state of affairs.

Lee
W6EM

 

I quickly scanned the ARRL Articles of Association By Laws. Although it is feasible to lauch recalls of individual directors, it is not simple nor easy.


24. In accordance with the provisions of Article 7 of the Articles of Association, members of a territorial division may petition for recall of the director or vice director of their division. Any League member may give notice of proposed recall by mailing to the Secretary by certified mail a letter to that effect. The fact of receipt will be communicated only to Officers, the Director and Vice Director of the division concerned, the sender and the Election and Ethics Committee. The recall petition shall be presented to the Secretary not later than 75 days after the mailing of the notice of recall and not later than June 1st of the final year of the term of office. A valid petition shall contain the dated signatures obtained on or after the date of mailing of the notice to the Secretary, and will include not less than 10 percent of the number of Full members voting in the election at which the director or vice director was elected, or not less than 10 percent of the Full members resident in the division on the preceding December 31st if the director or vice director was elected without membership balloting. Upon certification by the Election and Ethics Committee that the petition is valid, the Secretary shall prepare a ballot asking the single question, either "Shall the Director be recalled, yes or no." Or, "Shall the Vice Director be recalled, yes or no." If a majority of the votes cast are for recall, then the office of director or vice director shall be declared vacant. No director or vice director shall be subject to more than one recall election during a single term in office. A person removed from office by recall, shall not be eligible to be a candidate for Director or Vice Director for three years following removal from office.

 

Yesterday I received the ballot for our Section Manager election.

Trouble is, the ballot was due Feb 17. The winner was already announced almost a week ago!

If it was just me, then maybe it was a freak accident.

But if late ballots are more widespread, then it's either incompetence, or corrupt manipulation of the election.

 

I strongly disagree. The League loves people like you. Just keep sending them your money. Keep filling their coffers. The BOD loves it and laughs all the way to the bank. They will use your money to further their agenda. I found out the hard way that as a member, I had no voice. I wised up and quit throwing good money after bad.

If you want to hurt an entity, hit them in the wallet. Change within the ARRL will only come about when disgruntled hams quit supporting "The Only Game In Town". I let my membership lapse after 8/31/04. Despite periodic mailings from the League soliciting my return to active membership by offering me a free Antenna Book, I will never give them another dime for a membership or any of their publications until they put their own selfish self interests aside and begin to put the best interests of amateur radio first.

Today's ARRL is a far cry from the ARRL that Hiram Percy Maxim started in 1914. They need to get back to the pure basics that prevailed in those early years.

This may be a bit off topic, but think back to the license restructuring proposal that the League submitted to the FCC in January 2004. Here is an excerpt from an ARRL bulletin dated 1/22/2001:

The Board also revised its position on whether Morse code proficiency should continue to be an international requirement to license operation below 30 MHz. The Board approved a resolution that ''recognizes and accepts'' that the Morse requirement likely will be dropped from Article S25 of the international Radio Regulations at the 2003 World Radiocommunication Conference. But the Board held the line on retaining a domestic Morse requirement, saying that each country should be allowed to determine for itself whether it wants to have a Morse code requirement.

The Board's Morse Code resolution declared that deletion of the Article S25 international requirement at WRC-03 ''should not automatically or immediately mean a similar removal of the Morse code from Part 97 of the FCC rules.'' Morse code, the Board affirmed, deserves continued support as an important operating mode as well as in terms of spectrum and ''should be retained as a testing element in the US.'' The resolution also called on ARRL Headquarters staff to ''develop a program designed to promote the use of Morse.''

What did the League go and do exactly three years later? They made a 180-degree turn from their position on Morse testing and proposed elimination of Morse testing for the General class license, along with a free upgrade to General for all Technician class licensees.

If you wish to read that bulletin in its entirety, here is the link:

ARLB002: ARRL Board Approves Dues Increase, Alters Morse Position

 

K3UD, your right. They most likely do loose money on me and my brother and sister lifers. They have our money already, so why bother. Well put.

As for the diamond club, geez, if they actually listened to us or asked us what we thought before going off half cocked... I'd be inclined to be foolish enough to send in a check. But they don't, I won't and thats all thats to that.

Now, yesterday, I hit my head on a low doorway. I may be braindamaged but I see it this way:

A) 20% of the amateurs in the USA are members of the ARRL. (I have no proof of the number, I just hear it quoted often)

B) It appears that at least 50% of the 20% disagree with the petition (that is a very generous estimation based on QRZ replies)

C) who is left but the BOD and their best friends at Winlink?

As for the entire argument that the rest of the world is doing it. Yippie for them. When the "rest of the world" does things, I personally think we should back off and rethink it. Examples:

Chamberlain bringing peace to his time.

Jimmy Carter giving away the KZ5

Giving up VS6 to BY

Oh the rest of the world was all for it. Where did it get us? If you think about each one, it only created a crises point for our children. (Well Chamberlain was a problem for our parents, sorry, bad example if I really wanted a simple tag line)

The ARRL is creating a crises point for us and our avocation.

Remember one vote is what you have with this group. More importantly, who do we vote for? Lets all step up to the plate.

They care so much about day to day operating expenses that they have lost track of long term goals.

Its time for a change.

Repectfully, Ed k3tj

 

Lets say that someone is going to pick up the mantle and run as a "reform candidate" for some hypothetical division.

I wonder what form that candidate's campaign would take.

What would be the planks in his platform?

Would he have enough of a fact base to show how the incumbant was "not responsive" to the majority of ARRL members in the division?

Would he be able to make a credible case for change?

Would he be able to market him/her self as different by presenting a laundry list of past actions by the incumbant board member and showing how those votes were bad for the majority of ARRL members in the division and further indicating how he would vote on specific issues likely to come up?

When I was in the Pacific Division in California I voted in all the ARRL elections for director. I recall that the ballots had statements from the candidates. Most of them had a long and distinguished service to ham radio and they listed the things they had done in the service such as "honor roll in DXCC", "helped setup repeator coordination in a particular region", "president of XYZ radio club or president of ABC DX club" or "general chairman of hamfest or DX convention" etc. Whether you agree with what these guys do or not they do seem to me to "rise to the top" as being the guys who have a track record of doing stuff that exhibits leadership in ham radio. Also many of them are quite successful in their "day jobs" which include areas such as academia, science/technology, law, etc.

I met Jim Maxwell (SK) several times at various hamfests in the SF Bay area. He was the Pacific Division Director for quite a while. I always enjoyed talking to him. He always answered my occasional E-mails.

I think one of the subjects was the possibility of removing the rule that linears must be sold with 12 and 10 meter capability crippled. He said that the ARRL was aware of this problem and that it was likely that the FCC would "eventually" eliminate this requirement. I think now we see that is -- in fact -- on the horizon.

BTW, I have an ICOM PW1 linear which has 10 and 12 meters crippled. I called ICOM and they sent me a pictorial of a particular PC board showing what two surface mount resistors (they might be zero ohm resitors -- i. e. jumpers) have to be removed to enable 10 and 12 meters. After taking off the covers and looking at the board I decided that the change was too high risk for me to attempt. Maybe someday when the sunspot cycle improves I'll ship the thing to Seattle and let ICOM do the job. It will cost me a small fortune just for shipping!

73   Roger    K5RKS

 

Exactly! No one is going to run on a "reform" platform for an ARRL office or appointment. They'd be DIW (dead in the water) immediately.

 

If nothing changes with the League whether you remain a member or not, it seems to me that the only recourse we have is to deprive them of revenue and at least part of the membership base which they can no longer claim to represent, even though they don't. Got that?

 

I never suggested that we need a "reform" candidate. I suggested we need ANOTHER candidate. I may be off in this opinion but I always vote against the incumbant. Not because he/she will loose, but because he/she will see how many people voted against him/her and work harder to win back those votes.

If someone on the reform side does run, planks in a platform are the least of the worries. Who reads that stuff anyway?

If the resumes are as suggested, if I was running for Sumners post, what could I say? Gee.... Attorney, teacher, previous state MARS director and a generally nice guy. Oh by the way, I have 336 countries and 6 DXCC certificates that date back in the 70's. (never bothered after the initial thrill.)

OK, I am not only unremarkable but I am boring.

Are these guys any less boring?

Many years ago, in the early 80's and long before 9/11, a buddy pointed out that the ARRL was getting full of itself. He suggested that someday we would all have to point our yagi's at Newington 4 times a day and call CQ. It was funny at the time.

He wasn't too wrong.

Its just time for a change... or at least a message. "We actually pay attention."

Respectfully, Ed k3tj

 

I agree it would be very difficult to effect change in the ARRL in the short term.

Any "reform" candidate would have start at the grass roots. It would take years to get traction before you could mount a credible campaign for a division director.

You would probably start out by getting involved in stuff going on in your section. You would have to start making the circuit to all the hamfests and ham clubs in your section so you would establish some "name recognition". You would have to have some sort of track record in some aspect of ham radio. You would probably have to get involved in your local ham club or repeater group or ARES group.

It would take years before you would have a chance of mounting a credible campaign for an ARRL director.

I know I'm too old to do this. In any case, most of you dissenters would never go for a guy like me.

While I object to both the process involved in coming up with RM-11306 as well as the result I would probably not be extreme enough for most of you.

I "only" want to separate robots from everything else.

I wouldn't be strident enough by taking stands against "digital elitists" ruining ham radio by turning it into a commercial E-mail service.

I wouldn't be against the idea of "regulation by bandwidth".

I wouldn't be against making "reasonable accomodations" for "high speed digital" stuff even on HF.
I would be in favor of giving away the farm and agreeing to giving robots 10 to 20Khz of exclusive space on most HF bands (with the possible exception of 30m)

I am a diehard CW guy and a budding DX guy. I've "retired" from contests but used to be fairly involved in the RTTY tests during the 1990s -- winning in the Pacific Division a couple of times. However, I support "codeless" tickets for HF. Holy Toledo!

I'd just like to see some sanity prevail. To me mixing robots and regular operations in the same sub-bands is crazy. I don't know why the ARRL still has not acknowledged this.

73 Roger K5RKS

 

I am presently a league member. I believe that they do not represent the majority of US Amateur Radio licensee's and it is time for the entire Board of Directors to listen to the members and resign, hang their heads in shame and get out in the field and operate. They then may know what is really transpiring. Actually, if the league really cared about CW operations, they would move their 40 meter code practice up in frequency to the Novice and Tech Plus part of the band. As far as  RM 11306 withdraw your petition, admit your heads are in the sand and listen to your members for a change. Sitting on my desk is my membership renewal form. Shall I send my Senior membership dollars in or should I use that same money to try to foster others to rebel, withdraw their membership and start anew, perhaps in the very beginning just a few but the small amount who start a new organization will grow if they work cohesively with other Hams. John