Back when I joined ARRL….
…. my first years membership dues were $4.50
…. ARRL was a big North American radio club which included Canada on an equal
footing
…. QST was the monthly club newsletter, with a monthly report of what was
happening in each local chapter of the big club (remember “Section News”?).
QST contained the scores of ALL the participants in EVERY contest, not just the
handful of category winners. As a new ham in my very first SS, I tallied up a
spectacular score of 2,226 points. There it was, printed up in the QST results
on an equal footing with contesting greats like W4KFC and KH6IJ. The pride I
had in seeing my callsign in the national club newsletter is one of the
elements which gave me a sense of belonging, and spurred me to try again every
year since. New DXCC members were listed every month…. How proud I was when
all the club members in North America saw that KG6AQI had achieved DXCC with
102 countries confirmed!
I could go on and on, but suffice to say that the big national radio club has
been long be closed down. (In fact, the Mythbuster in Chief has told us there
never was such a club.) At W1AW the gyro has tumbled, and ARRL has lost it’s
way. It has morphed into a slick corporate entity, distant and impersonal,
and the mindset of “membership in ARRL” (once the hallmark of every good
Amateur) has completely lost it’s relevance.
Financial support of the ex-club ARRL is no longer considered by me to be a
duty, it’s just become an increasingly expensive habit.
73, de Hans, KØHB
"Just a boy and his radio"™
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