Adding symbols after a name in recognition of something does have it’s limits. At some point they just become noise and people ignore. Now you’ve just lost what you wanted to accomplish.

For me I can keep track of what 3 or 4 individual symbols indicate. Go over 4 I ignore everything as I’m not going to continue to look at the key to figure out what they all mean.

I think we have reached that limit.

Bill

AC0W

From: arrl-odv <arrl-odv-bounces@reflector.arrl.org> On Behalf Of rjairam@gmail.com
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2021 5:02 PM
To: Richard Norton <richardjnorton@yahoo.com>
Cc: Arrl-odv <arrl-odv@arrl.org>
Subject: [arrl-odv:32133] Re: Proposed Silent Key - Donor Category Annotation

I can see both sides of this. 

No matter what we do, people will say the ARRL only cares about money. 

I’m a bit on the fence about recognizing high donor silent keys because it does create a sort of “classism.”

I also think that money shouldn’t be the only consideration for a deceased ham. Many hams don’t have a lot of money yet pour their hearts into this hobby and contribute their time, knowledge and service. It’s easy for a multimillionaire to write a big check but some people go and teach others, license new hams (eg. VE honor roll) or broaden ham radio’s audience (eg teachers, astronauts etc).

On the other hand, people do make significant monetary contributions to this hobby and that shouldn’t go unnoticed. 

So I’m really not sure what to make of this. 

Ria

N2RJ

On Thu, Mar 11, 2021 at 5:18 PM Richard Norton via arrl-odv <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> wrote:

I think there is a risk that using the Silent Keys listings to recognize donors will be used to further bolster the argument made by some that “ARRL is all about money”.

We already recognize donors in QST and in the League’s Annual Report.

Personally, I am also concerned that some members will be less inclined to want their calls listed in SK when they pass away because the absence of a special designator will make it clear they’re in the “non-donor” or “insignificant-donor” class.

I know of no other group, such as university alumni associations, that includes lifetime donation history in their equivalent to SK reporting.  

The Silent Key listing serves to pay our respect to all deceased members, not to create financially based classes or tiers. Can’t we put money aside when paying this one final tribute?

73,

Dick, N6AA

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