I only found the site a few months ago. I really enjoyed the international flavor and the posts leading me to other hams I never would have met otherwise. Thanks for your efforts, Mark. I would have posted more, but I didn't want to overdo it. I hate to see the site go down!
Nope, the owners name is Mark, call sign G4HAA (yes, it's me!). There were two major issues with running the site, maybe three. I had opted for the most secure and respected hosting company I could find in the UK (so think not cheap). Also, unlike many sites that use freebie scripts for their sites I chose to use a well respected, secure, well supported one, but again this equates to $$$. I had also added an additional media gallery and sked page, all integrated as part of the site. So far so good. But the problem was lack of usage by members. We had plenty of folks signing up, but perhaps only 1 in 10 to 1 in 20 actually posted anything. Many would sign up and then never return (why bother signing up?). I was having to deal with about 10 to 20 rogue signups (spammers) each day and it was becoming a real chore to keep sifting through them all looking for the 'real' prospective members. Some made it easy, they used their call signs and it was easy to verify who they were, but others would obfuscate their credentials to the point where it would take maybe an hour or so to work out whether or not they were genuine signups or just slightly better than usual spammers. And after all that effort they either never returned to the site or else would visit for a while but never post anything. In the early part of this year all of the hosting fees were due, plus a number of the software licenses needed renewing etc, so I had to decide whether to keep the thing running or just pull the plug on it all. After a lot of soul searching I opted to switch off the life support machine! All backups of the database were securely deleted, along with anything else to do with the forum. Going back about 15-20yrs I had had the same issue before, but I thought that with modern scripting, with all of the facilities it could provide, that the forum would do better this time around. Big mistake, same 'issues'. I still have control of the domain names for the project, I still have all of the software/scripting that made the site tick, and I still have all of the up to date licenses for it all. Would I bother again? Based up the amount of time that has to be committed to such a project, and the countless head-scratching issues behind the scenes that need solving, the costs and so on, I would need some serious persuading to start over. There's an old expression about flogging a dead horse? Well, in this case the horse was dead, decomposed, and had been picked clean by scavengers! Running a forum is a bit like playing a slot machine. You keep feeding money in, hoping that once in a while you will get even a small win, and secretly hoping for a big 'win'. But the 'win' never came, the forum never reached a critical, self sustaining mass of regular posters to maintain interest for both the members, or myself. Not so much a slot machine but a time consuming money pit. 73, Mark...
Well I was late to your website, Mark, and did try to post some content without seeming like I was taking over. And I did read most of the previous posts just to see how I could fit in. I was amazed to see how many years it had been running, and I didn't know about it. QRZ is great, but I'm always looking out for other outlets, especially non-US to get different ideas and perspectives. I appreciate the time, effort and money you put into Hamradioforum. It takes talent and knowledge to make something like that continue for so long. And I copied your call and name to a safe place so I don't mess them up again. Sorry about that. I plead guilty by reason of old age!
No problem, we are all getting older! Apart from specialty forums (SOTA, POTA, IOTA etc.), sites set up for trading and selling are popular. I could have gone down that route many times, but once a site is noted for being primarily an online flea-market then any useful threads seem to go out of the window. I wanted to see and provide sound technical conversations, with additionally in my case with a good section for CW operating, Morse key collecting and so on. I've noted over the years that many of the Admins of online flea-markets seem to be perpetually irritated by the lack of gratitude shown by the users of their websites, and additionally face constant complaints where deals have gone wrong or users have been scammed. Even huge multinational corporations have never fully managed to fix the dodgy-deal issue, and very often they themselves get ripped off by unscrupulous users. Even with the best disclaimer in the world, when a deal goes wrong the users will blame you (the Admin) and your website, not the serial scammer who perpetrated the crime. I can live without such things! Which is the overriding reason I never took the forum down that route. @K0UO No worries. There's been no end of instances where I have only discovered a cool site about ten minutes after it has been closed down! It's the nature of the web these days, it's so huge and 'fluid' it's impossible to keep on top of it all. 73, Mark...
Best of luck 73 from, Steve https://www.k0uo.com/k0uo "Rhombic Antenna Farm & test range" Miles of Wire In the Air and On the Air Daily.
