[CQ-Contest] 2008 ARRL DX Phone Results and opting out

[Richard DiDonna NN3W]

If you take a look at the circulation figures for NCJ and QST - always printed on a USPS form once a year - the printing of QST is somewhere in excess of 160,000 copies per month (all members + copies printed for retail sale + copies printed for sample/exhibition/other).  I think when I saw the NCJ numbers at last, it was less than 5000 copies every two months.

A 3% reduction will not kill QST.  Indeed, the reduction may well be less than 3% as many subscribers are foreign and are not ARRL members.  Some ARRL members may still opt for both.

At the same time, consider print costs.  NCJ is printed on plain, uncoated paper (except the cover), whereas QST is coated free sheet - much more expensive to print.  You'd be mailing fewer copies with less weight.  And, assuming that NCJ remained semimonthly, the print costs would be even lower as by option out of QST, you're foregoing double the print costs given that QST is monthly.

Frankly, required ARRL releases and letters can be published on the website.  Many already are (e.g., annual meeting minutes, notices of meetings, notices of section/division official posts, etc).

73 Rich NN3W
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Gerry Hull 
  To: Richard DiDonna NN3W 
  Cc: CQ-Contest 
  Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 12:58 PM
  Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] 2008 ARRL DX Phone Results and opting out


  It'll never happen.   Advertising rates for QST are set by the number of eyeballs that see the pages.
  Despite the fact that we don't necessarily read the pages, ARRL can claim we do with paid circulation 
  figures.  Opting for NCJ vs QST will reduce advertising income.  Not a good thing.

  It's always about the money.

  I vote for more contest results in NCJ, plus a (new) annual issue with ALL the ARRL results for the 
  year...  I'd even pay for that.

  73, Gerry W1VE


  On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 10:55 PM, Richard DiDonna NN3W <nn3w at cox.net> wrote:

    I'm starting to wonder if perhaps the ARRL should begin publishing the
    abbreviated writeups in QST and the full writeups AND SCORES in NCJ.  In
    addition, perhaps the ARRL should consider allow the membership to OPT for
    either QST or NCJ.  Given that ARRL is quite general interest, many
    contesters might be content with foregoing QST and accepting NCJ as the
    subscription component of their annual League dues.

    Obviously, there is a revenue reduction to the League for those who are
    League members and pay the additional $15.00 for NCJ, but if NCJ was an
    option in lieu of QST, there is a savings in printing costs as I am sure QST
    costs a lot more to print than NCJ...

    Thoughts?

    73 Rich NN3W
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Kutzko, Sean, KX9X" <kx9x at arrl.org>
    To: <cq-contest at contesting.com>
    Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 8:41 PM
    Subject: [CQ-Contest] 2008 ARRL DX Phone Results


    > Folks,
    >
    > Complete results for the DX Multi-Op and DX Single-Band categories were
    > not
    > printed in the QST version of the 2008 ARRL DX Phone writeup because all
    > of
    > the tables (Top Ten, Regional, Club Competition, Plaques, etc) were
    > mistakenly left out.  The error was due to a misunderstanding about who
    > was
    > going to add the tables to the article.  By the time the error was
    > discovered - one day before sending QST to the printer -  a full page of
    > coverage had been reallocated to other articles and it was not possible to
    > recover it.
    >
    > The tables are a required part of the article, so the unpleasant decision
    > had to be made about what to text cut.  The writeup author (N0AX) made the
    > decision to remove the full block of text instead of significantly
    > rewriting
    > the entire article so as to reduce its volume by nearly 25%.  It was felt
    > that using the full text wherever possible was better than having limited
    > text that differed between the two versions of the writeup; print and
    > online.  Obviously, some of the stations whose efforts were not reported
    > in
    > QST don't have the same perspective and it's easy to understand why they
    > might not see things in the same way, absent any information about how
    > this
    > all came to pass.
    >
    > Fortunately, unlike the old days, 100% of the full article, including the
    > DX
    > results removed from the QST version, is available in the Web article.
    > That
    > version should be available within the next couple of days. The online
    > version of all contest results should, in general, be available
    > simultaneously with the QST version, but the annual Board of Directors
    > meeting and internal work on the ARRL Web site delayed the conversion to
    > HTML of this particular article.
    >
    > Omitting such a significant portion of the writeup is not a permanent
    > policy
    > for DX Contest coverage.  We appreciate that some might feel slighted by
    > the
    > omission and very much regret that the process of delivering a complete,
    > high-quality writeup went awry in this way.  There will be steps taken to
    > avoid similar mistakes in the future since we all have the same goal - to
    > conduct the contest and report the results with high standards and
    > quality.
    >
    > 73,
    >
    > Sean Kutko KX9X - ARRL Contest Branch Manager
    > Ward Silver N0AX - ARRL DX Phone Results, Lead Author
    >
    > 73,
    >
    > Sean Kutzko KX9X
    > Contest Branch Manager
    > ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio
    > 225 Main Street
    > Newington, CT  06111 USA
    > (860) 594-0232
    > email: kx9x at arrl.org
    >
    > _______________________________________________
    > CQ-Contest mailing list
    > CQ-Contest at contesting.com
    > http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
    >

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