Joel,
I certainly remember 73 and Wayne Green. As a naïve new licensee, I even
joined his national organization, whatever it was called, as well as ARRL.
Initially, I viewed him as being a member of the loyal opposition. It
took me just a very short time to reach a different conclusion and dropped
my subscription to 73 and membership. With all respect I dont feel it is
legitimate to lump Moseson with Green. Wayne was on a vendetta against
ARRL. I now may be a naïve old ausfart, but certainly do not see Rich as
being on an anti-League crusade, nor do I anticipate he will begin such a
crusade -- even if we were to provide a succinct, logical statement of
position that would address his editorial. If we were to reply to his
editorial, we would need to be forthright and admit where we might have done
better, place perspective on what we did and, yes, defend and explain where
we believe we did right.
Please do not conclude that my position of difference with your decision
represents displeasure with you, personally, or with the very excellent job
you have been doing as ARRL President. I continue to support you and
anticipate no change in this position. On the other hand, I do not believe
my duty as Director and friend can be fulfilled by being a sycophant or
maintaining silence.
FWIW.
Jim
Jim Weaver, K8JE, Director
ARRL Great Lakes Division
5065 Bethany Rd.
Mason, OH 45040
E-mail: <mailto:k8je@arrl.org> k8je(a)arrl.org; Tel.: 513-459-0142
ARRL - The Reason Amateur Radio Is!
Members - The Reason ARRL Is!
-----Original Message-----
From: Joel Harrison [mailto:w5zn@arrl.org]
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 2:37 PM
To: arrl-odv
Subject: RE: Re the Secret Society
I mentioned I disagreed with Jays position regarding the CQ editorial, and
heres why.
Does anyone remember Wayne Green?
If you do you apparently have forgotten that he slashed ARRL every month in
his editorial. If we had spent the time responding to his accusations and
considerable lack of facts we would never have been able to accomplish
anything other than monthly responses to Wayne Green and that would have
help him achieve his goal of exactly what he was trying to do; draw
attention to himself.
Fast forward to today when there is no 73 Magazine and only CQ. This is
not the first time Rich has taken a slap at ARRL, there have been several.
The most recent one prior to this was when he took us to task and slammed us
for printing a book for new hams that was oriented toward HF operating. He
obviously thought that was the popular thing for him to do at the time but
look at CQ now
.trying to catch up because they totally missed the mark!
If you look at CQs subscription numbers, theyre nothing to brag about.
Last year their average subscriptions were 20,750, however recent numbers
suggest their subscriptions have declined to around 20,600 our so. Im sure
they will receive a boost with the recent interest in HF operating, but the
magazine and articles are aimed mostly toward the seasoned operator and
really have nothing of substance (my opinion). They do publish another
11,000 copies of the magazine that are distributed to dealers and news
stands, some of which are returned in accordance with the no-sale return
clause with many news stand distributors.
I imagine it is pretty touch for Rich being CQ Editor and having to stare at
a blank editorial page every month with the task of filling it up. If you
dont think it is, just ask Dave who has the same task on our side. Dave, of
course, chooses to take the high road and address pertinent topics to hams
rather than take cheep shots at other amateur radio organizations and thats
a hard job
..its very easy to fill up a page with rants, attacks and
personal opinions.
Rich has generally been supportive of our efforts, however Im convinced he
(and CQ) is feeling the sting of no growth and stagnation in the current
market while we are not only growing in just about all areas but the
atmosphere and environment at HQ of how much fun amateur radio and operating
on the air are is being funneled out into the amateur community and stirring
up interest and excitement there as well. Our staff has been doing things
with blogs and UTube videos that have generated over 40,000 viewings (more
than CQs subscriber base!) with exciting, positive things about amateur
radio that hams are excited about.
This current situation reminds me of the Alltel commercials on TV (some of
you may not see them) where things are really great at Alltel, lots of great
services that people are excited about that the others (AT&T, Sprint,
Verizon and T-Mobile) cant stand so all they can come up with are bad
things to say about and do to Alltel.
So, why not respond to Rich most recent editorial?
First, most of his facts are correct but his conclusions are totally wrong
and a matter of opinion based on his incorrect conclusions. Formally
responding to him does nothing but fuel the fire he is trying to start and
give him the fight he is looking for to promote his own cause to generate
support for his opinion. A formal response from ARRL to CQ would give his
opinion considerable support.
The Red Cross issue is the more unfortunate of the two issues. As you know,
there was good reason why we did not publish an update concerning background
checks for almost four weeks after the March 20 meeting. The reason is we
were waiting for a response to an action item from the Red Cross. Sadly,
Rich as no day-to-day experience with meetings of this nature in todays
times. He works mostly from home and just doesnt understand that today you
very seldom walk out of meetings with agreements. You walk out of most
meetings today with action items that are resolved and then final agreement
comes at that time. If we formally confront Rich on these points we either
say bad things publicly about the Red Cross (not a good idea at all) or we
say Rich is a moron for not understanding how meetings are handled today.
Either way, we make matters worse.
Quite frankly, the matter of RM-11306 and the ex-parte filing is old news
now. We have addressed our actions via ARRLWeb and literally thousands of
personal emails to individual members and non-members alike who asked us,
not CQ, and we gave them straight answers. We have been timely and upfront
about Red Cross background checks and we have received nothing but praise
for keeping our members informed on the issue. Of course, the issue Rich is
trying to raise with these two specific topics is secrecy. Aside from what
we publish on the web and in our periodicals if you communicate well with
the ARRL members in your division, and most of you do very well, then they
know this is utter nonsense.
This specific matter is one that is best dealt with offline. Dave sees Rich
occasionally and usually meets with the CQ folks once a year or so and this
matter is a topic to discuss at that time if it so warrants. In fact, CQ had
a booth this past weekend at the Rochester Convention and I had hoped Rich
would be there so I could chat with him. Unfortunately, he wasnt there (nor
were very many others at their booth either).
I want each of you to know that I hear you and fully understand your concern
about perception, especially negative perception among the amateur community
toward ARRL. If you dont believe it bothers me and causes me to lose some
sleep at nights you just dont know me very well. But I have to step back
and look at things as a whole right now. Sure, we get a few specific
complaints that are immediately addressed and resolved but overall the
League is held in high regard and things are going very well for us. I have
not had one person
.not one come up to me at a hamfest (including our very
large ARRL Expo at Dayton) this year to tell me how bad we are. Quite the
contrary
.they come up to tell me how pleased they are with ARRL and the
direction we are taking, how great our publications are, how responsive the
staff is and most important, how many are getting back on the air after a
long period of inactivity. Dave can tell you I am very, very sensitive
toward any action on our part that might disrupt this current trend.
Did I like Richs editorial? Nope
to be blunt, it pissed me off to no end.
Given the above, though, I dont believe a formal response to fuel a fire he
is trying to start is a good idea in this case and I prefer to save our
fights for ones that are really important to amateur radio and ARRL. This
one is not and can be adequately dealt with off-line at an appropriate
time
...sooner if future action on their part warrants.
73 Joe W5ZN
p.s. I am a member of a secret society
.The Royal Order of the Wouff Hong
and I do know the secret hand shake and the secret password!
