On Mar 7, 2025, a reader wrote:
Greetings,
I’m almost 50-year amateur , and a Life Member of the ARRL . I wanted to comment on your ideas how the League could improve its image .
I believe the ARRL has become a publishing firm with prices higher than a “hawks nest.” My first Repeater Directory was handed to me by Harry Dannals, who was the ARRL director at that time. It was free as a member. Today, the Directory with shipping is around $30.
Maybe because of my age, QST has become a magazine with articles that I can’t really understand. I’m familiar with coil and capacitor technology, which my R.L. Drake gear used. It served me well, and I was pretty much able to troubleshoot it. I still try to help hams in my area—Kalamazoo, MI—with antenna problems. I’m still the best on Home Made Tilts for a tip-over Tower . I am a retired tool and die maker from GM.
I have many more concerns about the ARRL. I will not quit, though, being a Life Member.
I replied:
Hi,
Thanks for your email. I am also a long-time ham—53, going on 54, years for me.
I found your comment about QST interesting. While you find that the magazine has “articles that [you] really can’t understand,” there are others that don’t find it technical enough. A friend of mine, who has been a ham longer than me and a retired electronics engineer, told me the other day that he just didn’t find QST interesting anymore.
To be fair, the ARRL has a tough job because amateur radio is such an expansive hobby. There are folks who just operate CW with vintage equipment and others who are pushing the boundaries with data modes at microwave frequencies. It seems to some of us, however, that the ARRL has given up on some aspects of the hobby and are not providing the leadership that it should be providing for all radio amateurs.
One example of this is the membership crisis—and I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic by calling it a crisis. Membership has been dropping like a rock. See this blog post by my friend Frank, K4FMH, for a good analysis of the data. Not only is membership dropping in terms of absolute numbers, but also as a percentage of licensed radio amateurs. The percentage of licensed radio amateurs who are also ARRL members is now south of 20%. How can the ARRL call itself the “national association for amateur radio” when less than 1 in 5 hams are ARRL members?
It appears to me that they either don’t care about membership levels or have just given up. My membership was set to expire at the end of March, and several weeks ago, I got a letter from the League asking me to renew. I could either renew at $59/year or $174/three years. Seriously? They’re only offering me a discount of $1/year to renew for three years? They did say that they’d send me a coffee mug for renewing for three years, but I already have a cheap ARRL mug that I never use from when I renewed for three years three years ago.
Their latest attempt to increase membership is a raffle of a “dream station.” Hams get “tickets” when they join or renew their memberships, and life members, like you, are given chances when you donate at least $50 to the Diamond Club. This is all well and good, but I highly doubt that it’s going to increase membership at all, much less make up the deficit. I’ll be interested to read about the effectiveness of the raffle in the 2025 Annual Report.
Aside from the three-year discount and the raffle, I don’t see any other efforts to increase membership. There is nothing mentioned in the Membership, Marketing and Communications section of the 2023 Annual Report (the 2024 annual report isn’t out yet), except that the ARRL had a presence at the Dayton Hamvention, Huntsville Hamfest, Northeast HamXposition, and Pacificon. That’s fine, but just showing up isn’t going to increase membership, and I would argue, that those events cater to older and more traditional hams and not the kind of people that we want to get into ham radio and become ARRL members.
Well, that’s enough (probably more than you bargained for 😀) for now. I’d be happy to hear more about what you think.
73!
Dan, KB6NU
p.s. I did renew my membership, but for only a single year. I figure that I’ll get a better return my money by investing that $115 in a CD or maybe some Costco stock than I would by paying for an extra two years of ARRL membership.
The ARRL was great back before the internet came along. They got stuck in their old ways because that’s what the members wanted.
The younger hams grew up with video, fast interaction with their peers and talking around the world instantly in full living color.
The league is still in the 70s with their print media and field organization. May as well be Pony Express! It’s not on the cutting edge of communication any longer.
Look at all the QST space used to celebrate our legacy from years ago. The magazine and organization just got so stuck i the past they can’t even see a future.
Most of the people I talk to about ham radio just laugh. They can do it all faster and better on their phones. The few that are interested in radio ( they call it wireless again) are doing things that don’t require licensing- meshtastic, lora, ISM. They don’t want to talk, just exchange data. If there’s no internet component involved, they’re not interested.
Hopefully there will still be people just talking to each other on ham radio for the rest of my time. It’s getting harder and harder to find them.
Rick & others,
I don’t know where I fall on this issue. I’m an ARRL dues-paying member, just renewed 1 year like others. I have no trouble finding folks to talk with in hour-long ragchews using CW just like 55 years ago when I was a 15-year-old novice (yes, 70 now). Yet, I’m actively on digital HF and VHF modes as well, occasionally use DMR or Allstar and check into some Allstar and Echolink nets to see if my mic still works. Very interested and have been since the 80s in the marriage of my computers and my radios. Yet, happy to pound brass like a true old-timer, too. Rarely use SSB anymore. Hopefully, with CW and digi modes I’ll be all set as the sunspot cycle starts to dip low again.
Anyway, my original point was that I’m still conflicted on the ARRL, but I can certainly get more timely and relevant info by tuning in to several YouTube ham radio oriented channels. I know ARRL fights for our bands, and that’s an important purpose of the organization. My other point is that I still have no trouble finding folks to answer my CQs because I CALL CQ and use whatever means to get someone to answer: CQ POTA, CQ SKCC, I email folks I’ve spoken with and ask them to sign up using my code buddy sked link on my QRZ page, whatever it takes. I’ve even been known to send VarAC VMAIL to people who hear me and report that fact automatically via PSK Reporter. That has generated plenty of asynchronous QSOs with people I never would have met otherwise. I have more people to talk with than I have time to talk. Whether 5w or 90w, I can usually get a QSO partner whenever I put out (or answer) a call. That’s my ham radio experience, and I suppose I’ll let the ARRL battles continue without me. I have more important things to do. Oh, sometimes I even read QST even though I don’t particularly enjoy the web-based mode being used. I read all my library books on my iPhone, so I’m not afraid of screens. Like I said, I get the info I’m looking for by searching Google or YouTube.
73, Paul
N4FTD