On the Internet

There’s something that’s happened recently over at the #arrl, which is the national #hamradio organization for the USA.

ARRL identified, by name, clubs and organizations that produce educational videos as “being in competition with” the ARRL “Learning Center”.

ARRL then retaliated against these clubs and organizations, calling them up and stating that these organizations *would be excluded from ARRL publications and partnerships*

Firsthand, #qsotoday and #ratpac are affected.

This is bad.

I found this to be kind of amazing, so I contacted Dan, K7REX, one of the RATPAC organizers and Eric, 4Z1UG, the man behind the QSO Today Academy (formerly the QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo). Both verified this story.

Dan, K7REX, said,

Sadly, what Michelle posted appears to be true.  RATPAC has been on the league’s naughty list for sometime.  For us, it started when we began working with FEMA and other such organizations. Since then, the ARRL came up with their Learning Center and apparently we qualify for their naughty list for that too.

Eric, 4Z1UG, said,

I was told orally by [an ARRL official], in a telephone conversation,  that QSO Today Academy is in competition with the “Learning Center”. Therefore, [the official] says that the ARRL cannot endorse, put on their Events Calendar, or promote QSO Today Academy in their press because of this direct competition.  I was also told that because I did not have the ARRL logo on the new Academy webpage, that I had made a decision to keep the ARRL out of the Academy.

Good business practice or boneheaded?

So, is this good business practice or just boneheaded? I’m leaning  towards boneheaded. I seriously  doubt that this move by the ARRL is going to put either RATPAC or the QSO Today Academy out of business. In fact, it may make them even more determined to continue to provide the services they do to the amateur radio community.

And, for the life of me, I can’t see how this policy makes amateur radio better. It seems to me that the ARRL’s biggest fault is that when it makes decisions like this, they only consider what’s best for the ARRL, not what’s best for amateur radio. They fail to see that if they made decisions as to what was best for amateur radio in general, the ARRL would benefit in the long run.

Since posting this, discussions have popped up on both the subreddit /r/amateurradio and the Facebook group My ARRL Voice. Most of the comments are negative, although some challenged W5NYV’s post as lacking any backup info. This blog post and a comment from K7REX in the My ARRL Voice discussion should dispel those doubts.

A personal story

I may also have been affected by this new policy. About a month and a half ago, I received an email from an ARRL editor asking if I would be interested in doing some freelance writing and editing on ham radio-related news pieces. She noted that this typically required less than 10 hours per week. I replied that I’d be happy to do this for them and asked how much they were paying.

Since it seemed to me like they needed someone sooner rather than later, so I emailed them four days later when I didn’t hear back from them. The editor replied, “Sorry for the delay. I’m in the process of gathering further details. Will get back to you shortly.”

Well, I never did hear back from her. After reading this, I’m guessing that someone recognized my call sign and told the editor, “Hey! We can’t hire that guy. He’s one of our competitors!” This might have been an amusing thing to do. If anyone at the ARRL is reading this, I’m still available.