I am a member of the local Rotary club, and I have always been fascinated by the similarities between Rotary International and the ARRL. They’re not exactly the same, of course, but they are close enough that I think the ARRL could learn from the experience of Rotary. For example, up until a year or so ago, Rotary Club membership here in the U.S. has been declining. It’s true that the number of ARRL members has grown slowly over the last few years, but the percentage of licensed radio amateurs who are ARRL members continues to decline.
I think that despite the sunny editorials written by Harold Cramer, WJ1B, the ARRL’s Chief Operating Officer, this is a problem. At what percentage, does the ARRL’s claim of being the “national association for amateur radio” no longer ring true? I’m not so sure that the ARRL Board or HQ staff shares my opinion, though. At least I haven’t seen much in the way of efforts to increase the percentage of licensed radio amateurs who are also ARRL members. And, to make matters worse, the recent increase in ARRL dues is sure to reduce this percentage even further.
Rotary’s membership problems have spurred several members to blog about them. One of the blogs—Retention Central—has a paragraph at the top of each page. It reads,
I think that the ARRL has gotten itself into a similar situation. I think that the ARRL has become “product-oriented,” rather than member-oriented. The ARRL fancies itself as the savior of amateur radio, and while there’s some truth to that, it’s certainly not as member-oriented as it needs to be. To paraphrase, “The number of hams joining the ARRL proves that.”
The latest Retention Central blog post has a link to a PowerPoint presentation given to the Rotary International board of directors by the PR company who eventually got the contract to update Rotary’s image. Of course, they were trying to sell their services, but I think that some of the results that other organizations have had in their “revitalizations” speak for themselves.
In particular, the slide titled, “Revitalization drives social impact and business results,” draws some interesting conclusions. I think a re-focusing of the ARRL on its members, and not on being the “guardian” of amateur radio and an amateur radio bookseller, could have similar results. I think hams would feel that they’re getting their money’s worth, and that membership would really go up. More members would lead to more donations to things like the spectrum defense fund and, in the end, would enable the ARRL to have more impact, both with the community and with served agencies and in governmental affairs.
RickB says
Hit the nail on the head. I see the ARRL as a book, magazine, certificate and high end CW key merchant. Gold foil decorated and personalized Handbooks doesn’t cut it with me. It’s less about the hobby and more about selling. The organization pays lip service to activities like QRP, CW and Digital.
I think statistics show that Technician class hams make up the majority of all hams. Better figure out how to engagge them or become a footnote in history.
Dan KB6NU says
I think that your comment on engaging Techs is spot on.
Walter Underwood K6WRU says
Very interesting. I agree about product orientation. I gave some QST’s to a brand new ham at work, but I didn’t have a killer reason for him to join ARRL. Spectrum defense? HOA and BPL? Very, very important, but that is “inside baseball”, not a direct benefit.
My dad was a lifelong Rotarian and very active in the International Federation of Scouting Rotarians (IFSR). I’m honored to have met three of the Silver Wheel recipients, one of them my father. http://scouters.us/ifsr/pages/awards.html#anchorWHEEL
I probably should write my own blog post about ways for The League to get their (our) mojo back. A few ideas:
* We have an NTS management structure in a Twitter world.
* Maker = homebrew
* Sponsor Elmering, like your books
* ARRL-blessed local clubs — what useful services could ARRL provide to clubs and what would the clubs give in exchange? Share the mailing list with ARRL? A rating system based on growth, attendance, new hams, etc? (Boy Scout troops have a rating system based on the goals of Scouting)
* Serious engagement with non-radio youth groups. I teach Radio merit badge for Scouts, but I’m not allowed to see the ARRL’s material for teachers. ARRL has a memorandum of understanding with the BSA, but Icom has ten stations ready to loan out to Scouts. Which one has more impact? http://www.scouting.org/jota/station-loan.aspx
* Mentoring/mediation for ARES/RACES/ACS relationships with served entities. Locally, we had a year-long spat about draconian liability waivers. It took a lot of work to stare them down, but I never did find someone I could contact at ARRL.
* Reviews, reviews, reviews. 99% of my time on the ARRL site is finding reviews. They have a commanding lead here and they are sitting on their collective asses. Use the bully pulpit to scare the yogurt out of vendors. Compare every new transmitter’s splatter against an average of the best three transmitters reviewed in the previous year. Don’t give the Chinese HT to a gee-whiz first time reviewer. Give amateur equipment the BPL treatment. When QST disses a UHF connector on a 70cm rig, I’ll know they are serious. When a vendor drops ads for six months, I’ll know they are really serious because they are working for us, not for the vendors.
I could go on.
Walter Underwood K6WRU says
An ARRL “Retention and Growth Central” group would be great. I’d be on that. And vocal, but you probably guessed that.
Walter Underwood K6WRU says
Where is the ARRL LinkedIn group?
Dan KB6NU says
There isn’t an “official” ARRL LinkedIn group, although there is an “unofficial” one.
The ARRL doesn’t get social media, and I think that’s partly due to their not being member-oriented. They don’t realize that it should be a two-way street. Even on Twitter, the use @arrl and @ARRL_PR to broadcast rather than interact.
Walter Underwood K6WRU says
Yes, that was a rhetorical question. There is no official ARRL LinkedIn group. There is an ARRL Facebook page, but no group.
Kyle says
I wonder if you sent this to ARRL?
Dan KB6NU says
I did send this to the ARRL Great Lakes Division director.
Ed B. says
QRP History shows that when semi conductors became available, and homebrewers were at a loss on how to build with them, that ARRL paved the way. W1FB and W7ZOI published designs in QST right from ARRL, and were instrumental in the QRP movement. This was serving the members needs in my book.
Ed KC8SBV
Ed B. says
These days with YouTube videos for everything, ARRL seems lost. They have videos, but no organization, no channels, no beginners corner, nothing. They don’t focus on Ham Radio being fun at all.
Dan KB6NU says
I think your comment, “They don’t focus on ham radio being fun at all” is perhaps one of the best comments I’ve ever heard about the ARRL.
btw, they actually do have a YouTube channel&mdsash;https://www.youtube.com/user/ARRLHQ—but they have only posted six videos in the last year, and none of them look all that interesting. Unless, of course, you really want to hear ITU Secretary-General, Dr. Hamadoun Touré, HB9EHT, bloviate about the 23rd IARU Region 1 Conference in Albena, Bulgaria, September 2014, or if you want to hear the FEMA chief once again say how valuable amateur radio is to our emergency preparedness. Those don’t really sound like fun to me, though.
John says
Talk about growth of amateur radio. I would say the costs ARRL demands for testing does not encourage younger folks to test, and should they fail, a fee to re-test, while a couple of other VE groups offer FREE testing and re-testing. ARRL’s study guides seem to be more complicated than others that are available at little or no cost. Look at the number of licensed amateurs in the U.S. and look at the number of ARRL members. There’s a difference of about 500,000. That should be the message ARRL is just not getting.
Dan KB6NU says
That’s exactly the point of my post—the ARRL isn’t getting the message, or they just don’t think that it’s important enough. I think the idea of waiving the test fee for kids 18 or younger is a good idea. Surely, the ARRL can afford that. I waive the class fee for who are 18 or younger.
k8gu says
Maybe I’m out of touch, but I find it hard to believe that the cost of sitting for an amateur radio exam is preventing anyone from entering or enjoying the hobby. Even the least expensive gear is 2x-3x the exam fee, if not more by the time you replace the stock antenna and get the programming cable. Frankly, I think the exam fee forces people to be ready to take it, to have some skin in the game. Anyhow, isn’t the point of a hobby to have something to fritter away a little time and money?
Bob - Still Studying - Soon to test - says
I’m commenting here so that the ARRL might hear from a soon to be Amateur Radio Operator. Who is the ARRL? How can the ARRL help me? Training is not a good answer. I found too many other good places to get study materials. cheaper and or free. Most new operators know a Amateur Radio Operator. Most of us got interested due to that huge fact and get even more 1st hand knowledge from them. My friend never mentioned the ARRL as a reference. I hope that sounds as bad as I believe it should. I have on my own discovered the ARRL. I figured an important Org like the ARRL would be a place to help me begin buying the correct stuff and helping avoid overspending on the wrong stuff. Sorry no help. Just buy books to help your causes. I don’t even understand your causes or why there are in need of help. Why because I’m totally new to this hobby. Getting my license is not the most important thing to me. Having a hobby that is fun is # 1 – Helping in a Community Emergency # 2 – Getting involved in my community # 3 – Helping you at this stage is maybe not even on my list. Perhaps after 3 or 4 years I’ll come visit your priorities again. Today I’m back to the internet looking for help about antenna designs, radio’s, Cables, testing equipt. I sure hope I don’t spend hundreds of dollars needlessly. I’m glad I know a Amateur Radio Operator because he’s looking out for me.
ARRL Members and Officers – Enjoy Your Day
Amateur Radio Operators – Enjoy Your Hobby.
Bob – Eagle Point Oregon
k8gu says
Bob, you have a perspective that’s sorely lacking every time this topic comes up: It’s really unclear to me what ARRL actually does for new and prospective hams. Even though I’m relatively young (34), I entered the hobby in a different era (the early 1990s) when paper media were still king. Books and QST were a great educational service. Not so anymore. I wonder how much of the ARRL revenue stream comes from books? It must be nontrivial.
Anyhow, trust becomes a problem in the “new” digital domain because the bar to entry is so low and the old, trusted organizations (like ARRL) are slow to adopt the new norms. Fortunately, you are reading some good material if you’re on this (Dan, KB6NU’s) site. But, there is some real trash out there, even on some of the established sites like QRZ.com and eHam.net. It’s a good thing you have a friend to guide you along.
At the end of the day, people become hams and remain active hams because it enriches their life somehow: they develop lifelong friendships, they overcome challenges (even personal ones like building your first antenna or participating in an emergency communication exercise), etc. This stuff predominantly happens at the local level. ARRL has limited influence at this level, and maybe that’s what Dan is getting at?
I used to ponder these questions (about the relevance of ARRL) a bit myself, but then I realized that ARRL represents a low-order common denominator in Amateur Radio. It doesn’t have to represent all of your niche interests, but it is OUR organization. If you are an active amateur radio operator, you should be a member. If ARRL doesn’t represent your interests, they sure aren’t going to listen to you if you’re not a member.
Joseph, K9RFZ says
I’m not trying to defend the ARRL because I believe there are many things the League could be doing to entice more participation from the membership. I currently serve as the Indiana Section Manager and have more contact than most with ARRL officials. However, many of the comments I’ve read so far in this thread show an ignorance of what the ARRL does for amateur radio. Like any organization that consists mostly of volunteers, if you aren’t willing to get involved, then you don’t have a right to complain.
So many hams have a ‘snow globe’ mentality. They have their personal niche and remain largely unaware of what’s happening in the rest of the hobby unless something comes along to shake their little world and then they get upset. It’s unfortunate, but true that only about 1 in 5 licensed amateurs in the US belong to the ARRL. The ARRL Board of Directors has tasked a Strategic Planning Committee to review and provide recommendations for improving membership gathering and retention. As a Section Manager, I proposed to the Chair of that committee to offer a free one year Elmer” membership to every newly licensed operator. The Elmer membership would grant all the same privileges of a Regular membership without providing a paper copy of QST magazine. They would still have access to the online digital copy. Giving new licensees a free one year membership lets them see what the ARRL has to offer and it’s an investment that maybe that person will renew the following year. The Strategic Planning Committee Chair has promised he will promote the idea to the committee and hopefully it will be a part of the recommendation submitted to the BOD next January.
I agree with one of the previous posts that new licensees have a short time of enthusiasm following passing the test in which they need mentoring to really ‘set the hook’ and get them active. As Section Manager, I have my Affiliated Club Coordinator send out monthly contact lists to clubs across the state of all newly licensed hams. The ARRL doesn’t have enough representatives to reach out and personally help every new ham, so we have to rely on the local clubs to make that contact and invite the new hams to get involved.
I’m not certain how the author defines ‘member-oriented’. EVERYTHING the ARRL does is for the good of amateur radio. As Section Manager, I receive many emails asking for help. I don’t check to see if the person is an ARRL member before responding. It really doesn’t matter to me. The ARRL helps hams, period. How long will the ARRL be the ‘National Association for amateur radio”? Probably as long as there are threats to amateur radio spectrum privileges, there are hams who want reputable contests and award programs, there are needs for trained volunteer emergency communicators, there is a need to educate new hams, and there are people who want to enjoy amateur radio. I don’t see any other organization that comes close to the ARRL in filling all those needs.
The ARRL membership problem is less about what the ARRL has to offer, and more about the lack of motivation by many new hams to get involved. The ARRL can do a better job of promoting its current services, but new hams (and old hams who didn’t look very hard) can do a better job of meeting the ARRL halfway by educating themselves on the services and benefits the ARRL already offers.
73,
Joseph, K9RFZ
Dan KB6NU says
Thanks for your reply, Joseph, but I think that the first sentence of the last paragraph says it all–and not in a good way. You say, “The ARRL membership problem is less about what the ARRL has to offer, and more about the lack of motivation by many new hams to get involved.” How arrogant is that? That’s like a company blaming its customers for not wanting to buy its product, instead of figuring out what it is about its products or services that aren’t attractive to the customers. With an attitude like that, is it any wonder that people don’t join?
I think the idea that you submitted to the Strategic Planning Committee is a good one, but my question about that committee is how much input are they getting from current members and, dare I say, from those who aren’t members? As far as I can see, there wasn’t a heck of a lot of effort put into getting membership input. Basically, it was requests for comments in a couple of issues of QST, and how could those comments be anything but general comments without seeing a draft plan or being more involved with the planning process? If all you get is insider input, I’m not sure that the plan will do much to effect any change. In any case, I’m looking forward to the final report of the committee.
My goal here is not to just criticize the ARRL, but to make it stronger, and it would be a much stronger organization if more hams were members. I think a good first step would be for them to set a membership goal of 25% of all licensed radio amateurs. That shouldn’t be so difficult, and it would go a long ways towards focusing the ARRL on its members.
Wilson Hines says
I’ve been a member of Rotary now for a year. I swear, I have thought several, several times how the ARRL would do well to recruit someone to help train clubs how to do fundraising for their clubs, but primarily also the ARRL. Rotary is an amazingly efficient organization when it comes to raising capital.
Dan KB6NU says
What club do you belong to, Wilson?
a concerned amateur says
I’ve been continuously licensed since 1988 and was an ARRL member from 2001 to 2013.
After the terrorist attacks of 9-11-01, ARRL became more activist in its submissions to the FCC. Some of these were worthwhile and a core part of the mission. Interspersed with these petitions have been a fair number of illogical Petition For Rulemaking submissions. A possible motivation is the understandable desire to gin up sales and donations.
ARRL tends to intercede with the FCC over a particular issue or issues to please their so-called “affinity groups”. It continues to this day. This has made at least some contribution to the churn in their membership rolls as they replace disgruntled former members with new ones, only to have a certain percentage of those drop out later. Kind of like a revolving door.
The ARRL has a vision for the future of amateur radio. They tend to be tight-lipped about it, particularly in their numerous Petitions For Rulemaking which amount to being pre-assembled sections of a Trojan Horse. Many may not share a vision for the future of amateur radio similar to that of the ARRL. If amateur radio were to- for example- become all digital all of the time, then I have no interest in the Amateur Radio Service.
What’s tough for ARRL or any organization is once you’ve been sold what you think is a lemon, it is very difficult to undo that impression and go back to that customer for repeat sales. The organization needs a top-to-bottom reordering to become customer-focused on the typical member. Taking them for granted has not worked. This will require a sea-change in the ARRL way of thinking.
ARRL is largely responsible for who I am as a radio amateur. I maintain an extensive library of publications by ARRL and others. I have benefited tremendously from these books over the years. I’d like to seem them continue, and get back to basics.
I wish the ARRL continued future success but it won’t be with me on board, at least not anytime soon. In a better world I would be forthcoming with my name and callsign, but I have been around long enough to know that dissent is generally not tolerated.
Justmy Opine says
ARRL triggered my entry into the world of Amateur Radio back in the mid-fifties when I received a pamphlet called “You Can Be There,” if I recall correctly, which was a short story about Kon Tiki, enclosed with an order for a crystal set from Burstein-Applebee Company. I struggled to learn 5wpm code, and passed my Novice, and have continuously been licensed since. I took my Extra back when it required 20wpm and was harder than my First Class Radiotelephone series of licenses. I have used ARRL publications over the years, and believe they are probably the easiest to understand when you only have “a book” to learn from. I had several excellent “Elmers,” some who were hams and some who were professionals. The “School of Hard Knocks” is a memorable way to learn because one usually remembers what knocked him on his ass. Along the way I attended many Tech Schools and courses, and I earned a couple of BS degrees, one in business and one in physics, and became an electronics engineer. But always rattling around in my mind was Amateur Radio. It was fun, of course, but that wasn’t the entire enchilada. It served me well throughout my working life, and now that I’ve retired, I still have some fun using it and teaching it. I enjoy passing what I have learned on to people who are interested, but lately I have trouble finding people who are interested, and under the educational system of this country for the last several decades people have not been taught sufficient basics to understand anything technical, and now vote for a living instead of work for a living. It’s a real shame, and I’m trying to stay out of the politics that is causing it, but that is extremely difficult.
Many people have many goals and areas of self-interest. Just one thing is not an option for most of us. ARRL is still very important to help maintain our status of being important enough to be considered worthy and hold onto our spectrum. The Handbook has had to be split into separate parts to hold the size of the handbook down due to the exponentially increasing number of technological changes, and new and varied technical interests, social interests and contests. The quality of some of the books has deteriorated, or maybe I’m just not interested in an overview of something that takes many chapters to cover what could have been done on a page or two. QEX is more my interest level, even though I sometimes have to struggle to understand some of these highly educated writers at my advanced age.
We are allowing the extreme socialist influence to take over our hobby as well as our country. We are continually being bombarded with the “ideas” that something for nothing is good. We continue to dumb down our educational system so we won’t leave anyone behind, which stifles persons who could excel if they had the opportunity. We are moving the hobby into the philosophical world of CB, where you finally end up with a much greater number of hams who know far less about how things work and why certain rules are necessary for smooth operations. We do the same thing to the country by having a socialist controlled Congress who turns out thousands and thousands of superfluous rules, or laws, that cover ever conceivable problem one might ever have, in order to have control of the people no matter what they may do, if they aren’t politically correct and hurt someones feelings, they can be incarcerated.
Socialists, or Globalists, thrive on this type of thinking, but it will eventually end in the failure our country, and I hate to see Amateur Radio end up failed as a general form of CB in the meantime. We should work to keep the level of learning elevated in Amateur Radio to make it an organization that requires some extra effort to get into, and then provide the incentive to want to gain more knowledge about Amateur Radio, not just “have fun” by being “entertained.” Very few hams build anything anymore, let alone design it themselves. SDR is a great new technology, but nobody puts out a book about how to actually show and explain the programming of how to accomplish it; a block diagram in a book just doesn’t cut it for me, and I’m sure there are others like me who could benefit from instructions in this area.
I’m a life member of ARRL, but sometimes I feel like I don’t get my money’s worth. But I still think they are very important. And yes, they could do better, and they need our support financially as well as our suggestions for improvement.
Average Ham says
The ARRL stopped caring years ago. They recently raised the dues to 49$, which is causing many to leave. Their OO program is a sad joke, allowing the HF frequencies to turn into cesspools of unidentified ops jamming and playing music. They paid out 7.1 million in salaries in 2014. Good luck getting one of them to answer your email or return your phone call. They have aligned themselves politically with the far left, even supporting the global warming hoax with printed editorials. They no longer represent me, and I will no longer support them.
WJ0X says
I think the Arrl dues are too high, that lowering them may bring more members? The QST magazine is excellent and I think it should be distributed to schools and scouting, etc. as a way to create more new members… I think the ARRL needs to do a better job of informing its members of its purpose and value it brings to the amateur community. I question every year why I pay dues, ask others why they join, most do not have good answers. I think there are many more reasons why I should want to belong but I am not aware of them. The Magazine is the number one reason I join and I could just buy it but I just keep hoping that the ARRL is going to wake up and become a better member driven organization!!
Chuck says
I have thought quite often that the ARRL is turning into a business rather than an organization helping it’s members. I know they do important work protecting our frequencies but to the average new amateur he could probably care less about that and just want to learn about ham radio. He has very little incentive to join the ARRL. If he could see some tangible benefit from joining I am sure that the membership would increase.
Every time I want to explore something new I go to the ARRL book store find a book then am jolted by the price. It seems to me that if an organization really wanted to gain members and promote knowledge they could reduce the cost of books to it’s members. Maybe even provide free or greatly reduced internet downloads of the books.
I have been a life member of the ARRL since the early 70’s and for the life of me can see very little that would make me join now if I weren’t. All I know is that if the ARRL doesn’t make itself more attractive to new hams it may wither on the vine and die.
Jon Adams says
Interesting comments here. Some seem close to the mark, others are pretty off-target perhaps.
Jon N7UV here. Live in PHX, got my first license in 1974 while at UCLA. I am an old guy. I have BSE and MSEE degrees from UCLA, and am the wireless comms practice lead for my engineering firm (10k+ employees). Have been in space flight comms design for 1st career, went to RF semiconductor design for 2nd, a bay area comms equipment startup for 3rd, and now am a lead for comms systems in civil infrastructure development like highways, airports, transit systems, statewide comms systems, passenger light and heavy rail, that kind of thing.
Been a member of ARRL a couple times. Each time it struck me that it was just a bunch of old farts still bemoaning the loss of Morse code as an entry. More interested in defending the FCC-allocated amateur radio spectrum from ham radio’s own kids and cutting-edge experimenters than from the outside pressures that know how much that spectrum is worth. And I’m an old fart.
I’ve been involved in standards and industry consortia development for on/off nearly 20 years now. IEEE, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi Alliance, UWB Alliance, NFC, WiMax, ZigBee, you name it. And so many in ham radio look at these things as existential threats to “their” spectrum. Hogwash.
The last generation and a half (now) are all digital age people. APRS and packet radio? 1200 baud? Are you kidding? So 1979(?). Let’s all get up in arms because some young’n wants to run some super digital mode on HF bands. Or at least on anything below 220 MHz. The number of hams locally who were in arms about 802.11 and Wi-Fi back 20 years ago were significant. It was going to ruin their ATV comms. Instead of realizing that the tide had moved, they fought against the market. Not gonna win, only gonna look out-of-touch, and while perhaps winning a skirmish losing the entire war.
I ran a Yahoo Groups thing called AI (Amateur Internet) 802 way back 15 years or so ago, and the complaining that would come from folks who thought that all these little devices and the incredible opportunities and improvements they brought to the world were going to destroy ham radio. Oy vey!
Yes, I still have radio gear. No, I don’t care one way or another about Morse, though I constantly marvel at the signal processing ability that can take place in that lump of grey/white stuff in-between the ears. But there’s so much more. All the work on the various digital modes and signal processing that we took for granted (in the profession) 20 years or more ago has finally started to make an impact.
I am fortunate that I have access to a bunch of “national park” grade spectrum for my playground. Yep, it’s tough, since we have to play nice with other countries in order to have some kind of uniformity, but it’s worked. We might want to consider amateur radio as that proving ground for kids coming along who discover with some cheap SDR gear and some basic knowledge about antennas and radio can do things that most can’t. Certainly doesn’t compete with cellular and satellite comms technologies, but there’s so much that can be done. The RPi and Arduino and makerspace revolutions have made the world comfortable for experimentalists and creators, why can’t we bring them into our inner sanctum?
At least a decade or two ago, last time I looked, the ARRL actively prevented people who were in the comms industry from positions within ARRL. Concerns about conflict of interests. While I get a bit of that, brass pounders from before I was born also have a conflict of interest in seeing the sport grow and embrace the complexity that comms have become. Most of the clubs I’ve been in were more worried about some swap meet dying out (TRW swap meet was my fodder for years) than they were with bringing in new kids. Things die. That’s sad. Things also get born. ARRL is in the position of thinking they’re a leader, and not looking over their shoulder to see who’s following. If you don’t have a healthy following, you’re not leading.
I found this site when I’d just now done a search for Greg Ginn solid state transmitters (or tuners, which is it?). While I’m a big fan of Black Flag, I never talked to or met him on the air or in person. At least now, due to Mike WB6DJI’s post on this site nearly a year ago, I have WA6ZNM recorded in my synapses. Thanks sir! Bob JGW was in our SCEARA group in LA through the 80s, I think, as was Chris HGW, Dave CGR, Greg ZSU, Chip CA, and others. I didn’t know that Bob was a buddy of Greg. Small world!
Fun times! and they continue to be.