KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

membership

A reader writes about his concerns with the ARRL

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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.

Membership should be the ARRL’s top priority

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Last Wednesday, Scott Yonally, N8SY, the Great Lakes Division director, addressed our club, ARROW, via Zoom. Scott pretty much stuck to the facts and managed to avoid any controversial issues. There was one statistic that really jumped out at me though.

One of Scott’s slides pointed out that there are 751,233 licensed radio amateurs in the FCC database and only 145,133 ARRL members. My calculator says that means that only 19.3% of licensed radio amateurs are also ARRL members. As you know, if you’ve read my blog over the years, I keep track of this number, and this is the first time that the number has fallen below 20%!

We all know that the ARRL is having membership problems, but I didn’t realize that it was this bad. According to the 2022 annual report—the 2023 annual report has yet to be released—ARRL membership was close to 152,000. That’s a drop of nearly 5% in less than two years! Even if you allow for 50% of those in the FCC database being either inactive or SK, that’s still not even close to 50% of active, licensed amateurs being ARRL members.

As a point of comparison, Fabian Kurz, DJ5CW, recently posted on Mastodon membership figures for DARC, the German equivalent of the ARRL. He noted that there were approximately 31,000 DARC members at the end of last year. I asked if he knew how many licensees there were in Germany, and he replied that there were 60,736 individual licenses on Dec 31, 2023. You do the math. More than 50% of licensees in Germany are also DARC members!

What’s the ARRL doing about membership?

After gathering this data, I asked Yonally in an email, what the ARRL was doing to increase membership? In his talk, he pointed to the new, free student membership, and the increased club commissions. These are good programs, but overall, I don’t think that they’re going to increase ARRL membership much, if at all.

I told Yonally that from my point of view, membership should be the staff’s first priority. If ARRL membership continues to decline, we might as well just close up shop right now. I keep my ear pretty much close to the ground when it comes to social media, and the ARRL isn’t getting a lot of positives strokes. One of the most common things I hear is, “I’m not planning to renew.”

It makes me wonder if the ARRL has just given up on increasing membership. In 2008, the ARRL made a big deal out of hiring a membership manager. And, as recently as 2019, the 2018 annual report noted that membership dropped less than forecast. The report said, “ARRL Membership Manager Diane Petrilli, KB1RNF, and a small group of ARRL staffers are working with marketing agency Mintz + Hoke to help formulate future strategy for increasing and maintaining membership.”

Fast forward to 2023, and the only mention of membership in the 2022 annual report is the chart shown below. There was no explanation at all.

I’d like to know what happened to the 2018/2019 strategy. Ms. Petrilli left the ARRL in 2021, and is now working for the Gerontological Society of America. I searched the ARRL website and cannot find anyone with the title of Membership Manager, so I’m wondering who at HQ is now responsible for increasing membership? I also wonder what the 2023 annual report will have to say about membership.

What role do clubs play?

When I pressed Yonally on this lack of membership strategy, what I got back was kind of confusing. He sent me a bunch of replies to a poll he conducted as to why hams don’t belong to local clubs. The laundry list of complaints was nothing new—we all know that there are many clubs that aren’t run very well—but I couldn’t figure out how that related to ARRL membership.

Further down was his answer to my question about what the ARRL is doing to increase membership:

My answer is simple…  YOU are the ARRL. ARRL is a member-based organization. We are ALL responsible for increasing the numbers.

In other words, the ARRL has no membership strategy, or at least none that Yonally is aware of.

If the ARRL is relying on clubs and individual members to boost membership, then we are truly screwed. It’s a lot of work just keeping a local club going and most of them aren’t going to have the bandwidth or motivation to also recruit ARRL members. Aside from a few bucks that they might get from the commission program, clubs have no incentive for recruiting ARRL members.

It’s the ARRL’s responsibility to recruit ARRL members, not the local clubs. Only the ARRL can figure out what benefits it can offer radio amateurs to recruit and retain them as members. I advised Yonally not to waste his time trying to get clubs to do something that they are ill-equipped and not really motivated to do.

Set a target

As I said earlier, I really think that increasing membership should be the ARRL’s top priority. Just think of all the cool things they could do if 50% of the licensed amateurs in the U.S. were ARRL members.

If DARC can hit 50%, I think that the ARRL can get to 25%. This is a membership target that I’ve been suggesting for many years. Let’s get started on this today.

ARRL takes my advice, ups club commission

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I love it when the ARRL takes my advice. Almost ten years ago, I pointed out that the club commission for new memberships ($15) and renewing memberships ($2) was just too low. They recently upped that to $15 for new memberships and $5 for renewals.

On Thursday, the ARRL Learning Center hosted a talk by AB1QB about how to use the commission to help both your club and the ARRL.

In the video, Anita, AB1QB, explains the program, and how to apply for the commission. Currently, it’s a paper-based system. New and renewing members have to fill out membership forms, and on top of that, the club officer responsible for the program has to fill out a separate “reconciliation” form to actually get the commission.

There was a question during the video about whether or not members could renew online and designate a commission be paid to the member’s club. Someone (who didn’t identify themselves) quickly responded that it was something that the ARRL was working toward, but at the current time was not an option.

AB1QB suggests that clubs have quarterly “membership drives” to encourage people to join the ARRL. During these drives, clubs are supposed to extol the virtues of the ARRL, recruit new members, and collect the dues for those whose memberships expire during the subsequent three months.

While I applaud the increased commissions, I’m not sure that this program hits the spot. I think that the commission is still too low for the amount of work involved. If you’re a club officer, I’d be interested in hearing what you have to say about this.

No surprise: ARRL to raise dues

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I wrote back in May about the ARRL’s plan to raise dues. Well, three days ago, members received an email from president Rick Roderick, K5UR, informing us that the board has voted to increase the dues and by how much. Here are some excerpts from that message:

  • “I’m writing to let you know that they made the tough, but necessary, decision to increase the regular membership dues rate to $59 a year starting January 1, 2024 (see 2024 Dues Rates). Additionally, we have chosen to separate the printed, mailed magazine from regular membership.” This last sentence is the kicker. Starting in January, there is going to be an additional $25 charge if you want print versions of QST or On the Air magazines. And, this charge will apply, even if you are a current member.
  • “We know from the survey results that most of you will find the new rate reasonable, or even ask why we didn’t set it higher.” The new rate may be reasonable, but seriously, how many are going to ask for an even higher dues increase? Get real, Rick.
  • In justifying the dues increase, K5UR writes,“There is no other organization that is working harder to advance a vision that allows any citizen to explore, develop, and practice radio communications and radio technology [his bold, not mine].” I think that you could make a casethat ARDC is working just as hard as the ARRL, and not only that, has the potential to be an even better advocate for amateur radio.

As I wrote earlier, I have no problem with a dues increase, but I’d feel a lot better about it, if I thought that the ARRL had a strategy for increasing membership. Yesterday, KY4ID, started a Reddit post on the dues increase. It included this graph from the 2022 ARRL Annual Report:

Keep in mind that this drop in membership is still a holdover from the last dues increase. I can only imagine how much membership will drop after this new dues increase kicks in.

Anyone got any new ideas?

As I’ve said, I’m not that concerned about the dues increase personally, but what really worries me is that there doesn’t really seem to be any original thinking at the ARRL about how to actually increase membership. I know this isn’t an easy problem to solve, but having a strong membership is the key to all of the ARRL activities. The ARRL would have a lot more influence if they could boast of having 200,000 or 300,000 members.

There are smart people on the ARRL board and on staff. They need to make this their top priority.

The Reddit post had a few interesting ideas on how to increase membership. ItsBail, one of the subreddit moderators wrote, “I feel the ARRL needs to stop putting all their eggs in the boomer basket. They need to spread out into other STEM related hobbies and plant seeds. Put their social media accounts to good use (National Parks twitter is a good example of using social media to their advantage). Update their very much antiquated website and VEC dept. Stop focusing on the so called ‘haters’ for making suggestions or dismissing them as just complainers.”

Stargazer12am had another interesting take. They wrote, “Personally, I’d like to see people opt out of the mailing portion and invest the difference into their local club. Even if not a member of local clubs, the sponsorship approach (if done on a grand scale) would generate more interest and involvement in the art of amateur radio. ARRL membership would probably wouldn’t take as much of a hit in the long run if we do our part to help locally stir interest and promote a community of hams.”

I retired recently, and one of my retirement projects is going to research association membership issues and see if I can’t contribute some new ideas on how to combat membership decline. As I’ve mentioned before, I am also a member of the local Rotary Club, and Rotary Clubs have also seen similar membership declines. There must be something that we can do.

Get ready for another ARRL dues increase

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In his editorial in the April issue of QST, David Minster, NA2AA, ARRL CEO pointedly said that we’re in for another ARRL dues increase. This is being followed up by a membership survey on what this dues increase will look like.

Now, personally, I don’t have a problem paying a little more. Costs increase, meaning that prices generally have to be raised. I can pay an extra $5 or $10 per year for my ARRL membership. A lot of hams, however, are going to view this as another reason to quit the ARRL, and the ARRL is going to take another membership hit.

I’ve been writing about ARRL membership issues for years. I may not be an expert in this field, but I can tell you that declining membership is not a good thing. I can also tell you that raising dues—while it may be a good, short-term financial strategy—is not a good, long-term membership strategy.

It seems to me that the ARRL is approaching this all wrong. For example, in the April editorial, Minster writes, “Members agree that $49 is a bargain for all that ARRL does to promote and protect amateur radio.” That statement is certainly debatable, but it misses the mark. I’d say that it’s not current members that the ARRL should worry about, but rather those that aren’t members.

The survey is another indication of this focus on current members. To even take the survey, you have to sign in to your ARRL membership account. I think that’s a mistake. Most—but not all—current members will renew if there’s a modest dues increase. What the ARRL should really be trying to find out is how a dues increase is going to affect their ability to recruit new members.

I’m not sure if it’s possible for the ARRL to break out of this downward membership spiral, but I hope that they can.  I think both members and non-members would be more amenable to a dues increase if it was accompanied by a more comprehensive membership strategy. Without this comprehensive strategy, a dues increase is just a delaying tactic.

ARRL should rethink the Gil mug

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At Hamcation last January, I renewed my ARRL membership for three years. One of the reasons that I chose three years is that they were offering two premiums for doing so: the book Grounding and Bonding for the Radio Amateur and an ARRL coffee mug.  When neither the book nor the mug showed up in a couple of months, I emailed the ARRL. Shortly thereafter, the book appeared in my mailbox, but not he mug.

One of the premiums for renewing your ARRL membership for three years is this Gil cartoon mug.

It took three more emails and several more months to finally get the mug. It arrived on Saturday, six months after I renewed my membership.

The mug features a cartoon by Philip “Gil” Gildersleeve, W1CJD, who contributed over 1500 cartoons and drawings to QST and the ARRL for almost 40 years. This cartoon features a haggard ham in front of his radio. To the left is his attractive wife who comments, “What a relaxing hobby, dear.”

Just by conincidence, I got a message from a new ham this morning, who wrote:

I got my letter to renew my ARRL membership, and they advertise that if you get a 3-year membership you get a “Gil Cartoon Coffee Mug.” The mug is an image of a woman saying “what a relaxing hobby, dear” to a shlubby looking man operating a radio. Could someone explain the joke or context? Is this a famous ham cartoon series or an inside joke that I’m unaware of?

I need to understand the joke before I can use the mug!

I replied:

Gil’s cartoons used to appear regularly in QST. Some of them are still funny, but most of them have seen better days. I certainly think that they could have made a better choice for this particular giveaway. In fact, it probably would have been better to skip the cartoon and just put the ARRL logo on the mug.

Having said that, the joke is similar to the joke that they used to make about computer programmers staying up through the night to use the computer. In this case, it’s the amateur radio operator staying up through the night to either take advantage of night-time propagation (shortwave signals on some frequencies propagate better at night) or to operate all 24 hours of a contest.

To which, she replied:

I think that’s good feedback for them! You can tell them I like the retro cartoon idea, but the tone of the cartoon is a little off putting – the joke is that the woman “doesn’t get it” and then I literally didn’t get it, so that’s not so great from a marketing perspective for attracting newbies/women.

I’m all for tradition—when it’s appropriate. Heck, I’m still a CW operator. But, as a friend of mine put it, “It is important to remember the past, but not get stuck in it.” I think it might be time to move on from Gil cartoons, especially for situations like this. Gil tells the story of a ham radio that used to be, but maybe not what we want it to be.

 

ARRL annual report highlights membership problems

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Two weeks ago, the ARRL released the 2017 Annual Report. As you might expect, it highlights the League’s work in supporting disaster relief, not only in Puerto Rico, but also California.While there was some controversy about the role that the ARRL played at the time, I think overall, it was a positive for amateur radio.

The report also reports on other accomplishments, including preparations for the World Radiocommunications Conference to be held in 2019, the amateur radio administration course held in Mexico in August 2017, and allocation of the 630 m and 2200 m bands. All three of these are solid accomplishments.

One thing that I found kind of puzzling was the coverage of activities that I’m not sure a whole lot of hams really care about. One of these was the “first-ever” AM Rally. The report notes, “Seventy-two logs were submitted, with nearly 1,500 contacts reported.” Okay-y-y-y-y. There was also a paragraph on the QST redesign. The report says the redesign “was met with widespread praise,” but personally, I’m not sure that it’s all that big a deal.

There are also reports on issues that didn’t turn out so well. There is, for example, nearly a page on the attempt to pass the Amateur Radio Parity Act. Unfortunately, that doesn’t sound like it’s going anywhere.

Membership woes

Finally, one thing that I took away from the annual report is that the ARRL’s membership problems are getting worse. In a section that’s misleadingly titled, “2017 Membership Surpasses Goals,” the report admits that membership fell by 5,000 in 2017. Not only that, it says, “membership is forecast to continue to decline in 2018 (2.0% loss is forecast).” Nor does this report expect an increase anytime soon. It goes on to say, “The decline should being to flatten out in 2019/2020.”

The ARRL expects membership to decline in 2018 and for the decline to “flatten out” in 2019/2020.

Aside from noting that a few test mailings were made to new hams and that “multiple tests for new ham mailings are scheduled for 2018,” there’s no mention of any kind of new member initiatives. Honestly, I’m floored by the lack of urgency here. If we’re not there already, we’ll quickly reach a point where fewer than one in five licensed radio amateurs will be ARRL members.

If you don’t think that the membership decline will have repercussions, thing again. Fewer members means a loss of credibility with the FCC and with politicians. It also means fewer dollars for programs that could really benefit amateur radio. I would even go so far as to say that membership should be the #1 priority of the League at this point.

We really need to get creative about this. And the time is NOW, not in a year or two.

ARRL Executive Committee addresses membership growth, FCC cooperation

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The meeting minutes for the March 25, 2017 meeting of the ARRL Board of Directors Executive Committee were just published. Two items caught my eye:

In the CEO report, there was this little gem:

The membership working group (that presented in January during the Board meeting) continues to work toward identifying ways to grow membership, especially among former members or never members.

I love the fact that they are addressing this issue. I still think that they should set a goal, and in the past, I’ve suggested a goal of 25% of licensed radio amateurs.

The CEO report goes on to say, “They are developing a ‘life-long learning’ plan to encourage activity and development among all age groups.” While that’s a worthy goal, I don’t think that’s what is going to get more hams to join the ARRL.

ARRL and FCC

The other item that was interesting to me was the report of the General Counsel, Chris Imlay, W3KD:

Mr. Imlay presented the report of the General Counsel. He was complimentary of new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, and thinks enforcement efforts might be more successful due to Mr. Pai’s interest in the issue. The new Enforcement Bureau chief is also reported to be more “amateur friendly.” New opportunities seem to be emerging for cooperative efforts with the FCC in what Mr. Imlay described as a potential window of opportunity for better spectrum enforcement work, as well as building a better working relationship with the Commission on all issues.

Personally, all that I’ve heard about Mr. Pai so far has been negative. He opposes net neutrality rules, while I don’t know his personal opinion on the recent Senate action to unravel the Net privacy rules, I’d assume that if he had been opposed to it, the Senate wouldn’t have rushed to pass this legislation.

What is interesting is that work continues on a new memorandum of understanding between the ARRL and FCC. This could bring new responsibilities for the ARRL’s Official Observers. ARRL Second Vice President Brian Mileshosky, N5ZGT, is heading up this effort and says that his committee plans to present final recommendations later this year on revamping the Amateur Auxiliary, for ultimate consideration by the full Board.