An upgrade to LOTW would mean replacing the Commodore 64 it is running on!

This lack of transparency and disregard for membership based associations is becoming more and more common, not just in Radio communities...Some of the Veteran communities I am engaged with are doing it too. A worrying trend!

I have WAS, DXCC and VUCC but I continue to use LoTW as a courtesy to those who might need a contact with me for an award they are workings towards. I’m thankful for those who did so for me.

I am a QCWA life member and left the ARRL when they dropped publications from their standard subscription and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars as a spend thrift on office upgrades. The leaders are grifting high salaries and providing no worthwhile services to their members. Disgusting!

Beginning to sound like a NRA type situation?

Due to KZfaq and the filters I will be civil. The ARRL is about to be obsolete if they don't step up and do their jobs. Don't tell me they are all volunteers. I agree with everything you said. So is The ARRL Field Day cancelled? Seriously! They have until June 26th to get this issue fixed or I will cancel my membership. There are other organizations out there that need support also. When Dayton Convention Center cancelled Hamvention did everyone just pack it up? No they moved elsewhere. The leadership of the ARRL think they are Congress and above their financiers. Just my rant. Update: After posting this yesterday I received an email trying to explain what happened (not really explaining it). With smoke and mirrors they will continue to take dues and tap dance.

As a 55-year licensed Old Timer, I know that I learned about ethics, on-air courtesy, following the rules - both of the Community and of the FCC, from years of reading ARRL books as I dreamed of affording that first radio. I learned electronics - well enough that, when I went in the Navy where they gave us a version of the final exam at the start of electronics training as a reference for measuring the success at the end of the class, I got a 94% on that final exam, going in. They considered sending me straight to the next level of training, on specific equipments, but decided that had I gotten a 96% instead of the 94% they would have just moved me on. I was good with that because I went in the Navy specifically to learn electronics and wanted the training. Learned all that from, among other books, the ARRL The point is, you will never hear me call for the end of the ARRL. Are they perfect? No. But it would be one of the saddest days of my life to see the end of the ARRL. That they had a ransomware attack on their servers is obvious. In my world, I have seen three different organizations that are part of my virtually every day life get hit by ransomware attacks so far this year, causing significant, real-world, problems for my own life and the lives of millions of others, not including the work required by the people in those organizations. As a retired IT professional, I have little tolerance for most IT teams that get hit by these attacks because the attackers almost always gain access using well-known flaws in software; I have not yet heard of a zero-day (ahead of public announcement) security flaw being used as the attack vector for a ransomware attack; I understand that doesn't mean it never happened. So IT departments, or perhaps those who approve their budgets and set their priorities (think C level execs and Boards of Directors), who have failed to do their jobs, and perhaps this is so at the ARRL as well, is something worth looking into. But then we get into why, perhaps, the ARRL could not, or did not, spend money on the software patching that would have prevented a ransomware attack. One of the biggest expenses, I would imagine, for the modern ARRL is print magazines and publications. The costs of printing has outpaced inflation by about 4 to 1, as evidenced by the fact that the 1944 dollar is worth about $18 today and the 1944 handbook cost $1.00 but today's is $80.00. And it's not just ARRL, virtually every magazine I ever subscribed to has gone to online only - with most not even having the option of a print version at any price. The ARRL could have included the $75 dollar a year cost in the membership and everyone would have to pay the price, or they avoided mandatory price increases in membership for the masses while giving an option to us old-timers who just want the paper for nostalgic reasons. I am always disappointed when I see hams (almost all of them worldwide today) that won't send a postal QSL card, pointing out that it's 2024 and an electronic card is more appropriate. Modern hams prefer the electronic version so why make them pay for it. Old-timers, such as my self (shhhh.. it's our secret) prefer the electronic version because our eyes are bad and we have to zoom to 2X in order to read the articles (yes, we don't buy them wholly for the pictures, though that's a big part of it). But we (at least I) pay the price for the print copy because we really do, as the insurance commercial suggests, want to print the Internet. I also buy the print versions of the Handbook but I am sure thankful that the print version also allows the download (I preferred the CD) version, too, so we can zoom it X2, as well. My print versions now sit in brand new condition on the ever-growing set of bookshelves and I am so thankful to not have to damage the print versions by handling them. I'm sorry to hear that you're butthurt that the League got hacked because, no doubt, it was a personal attack against you. I'm sorry you're butthurt that the League has to pass on the costs of printing in 2024 but I am very thankful that they didn't force me to bear those costs of sending print magazines to those who didn't want them and will never read them. You're free to not pay the price if you don't like it.

Nice making contact with you this morning and thanks again for the coin!

We know where the priorities of the ARRL are when they put out a statement that they can't tell us anything, but make a point of mentioning the renewal process is still working as is their store for purchasing merchandise. Their priorities are not in line with the members, but rather making money.

What you’re witnessing is the last death throes of an organizations final stages just before it fails completely or ends.

Time for a class action suit and time to replace the board!

Just listening and learning. Thanks for the update.

I'm glad I got my DXCC and WAS awards before this. As an IT worker I can't comprehend why this is taking so long! I've gotten Enterprise sytstems back and running within 24 hours after a DR event and the ARRL can't get a database up in a month? I just can't wait to hear their explanation if and when they get this working again.

Hopefully ARRL will get things fixed. However, after 43 years of membership I decided to NOT renew ARRL membership since I have NOT seen much in the way of benefits to assist with HOA issues, etc. Lotw was used since my QRZ account I had posted I would QSL that way. After seeing MFJ quit, I thought I wonder if ARRL would be next too. Also, dropped NRA many years ago for the same reasons; out of touch with reality. My bet is ARRL is gone.......73s from an extra class

I don't use it I use qrz for my log

Reletively new ham (less then 10 years) and this year I removed my automatic renewal data and have officially been dropped. I haven't seen any benefit..

I quit over QSL being a separate payment, where I work I can't use online. And the magazine gave me something to enjoy on breaks and talk with others and spark their interest. Lack of transparency second. This hobby is full of young folks that have enjoyed the open source software world for 20+ years and this "member" org is run at top secret levels. Bullcrap!

I live in a country where the postal system is broken. LOTW is the only way for me to get the ARRL awards. Agree about QST, I cancelled my membership about 7 years ago. I think LOTW should be fixed. As you say, there are many people in the ARRL who could do this. Good luck & 73 from ZS land.

Couple of comments. LOTW needs to be completely redesigned and modernized - and if it's not on a cloud service provider, it should be, if only so it can scale up and down according to immediate need (ie: when people update their logs after being offline >1 month it needs to automatically scale to meet that demand). They need to use a database service of some kind, not home brew something that is at least 20 years out of date and not maintained. Next, without a National special interest group, you can kiss the hobby goodbye. Sorry, lived through it in Canada, no NRA like group existed there, and all gun rights were lost. Without an effective national level organization, the entire spectrum will eventually be sold off to corporations. The ARRL needs A LOT of changes because it's failing miserably.

What really makes me angry is they cut the print mag and then raise the membership dues. CANCELED!!!

Thank you so much for covering this topic, as you said, no one is talking about it! There needs to be some pressure on ARRL to release statements, keep people informed on how the digital forensics and/or data recovery is progressing etc.

Are there any known class-action lawsuits file ARRL Members can join for breach of membership contracts?

It absolutely blows my mind that they apparently didn't have back ups of LOTW, I would have provided off site back ups to our data center for free. The radio silence on this is deafening. I have a bunch of contacts stacking up that I can't log. What's the best alternative to LOTW? QRZ?

The lack of transparency in a non-profit is the death knell for the organization. The ARRL has been keeping more and more from the membership and proposing things that are just not right (such as all directors MUST get behind whatever issue the board passed whether or not they were for it). The lack of frequent updates as to what happened are also an issue. My membership expires in September and isn't going to be renewed. Yes, as long as LoTW is down, upgrade it to the 20th century at least. Preferably to the 21st since we're at the quarter century mark soon.

LOTW is a Dinosaur 🦖. It needs a total revamping.

Glad I saw your video. I’ve been an operated since 2005 and I’ve never been a member of the ARRL. I’ve thought of getting a life membership, but now. Now so much. AE6TK

Aloha Bob, just back from Washington DC for 15 days and it’s good to be home again and my cats really missed me too. I just got a renewal notice from ARRL in the mail while I was gone and to be honest, I wasn’t planning on renewing it and I’ll tell you why. Over the last 20 years, just before the yearly Field Day season, ARRL always prints up these Field Day shirts, hats and other related Field Day items but it’s alway the same problems every year like clockwork. The shirts only come in extra small,small and mediums, with Large, Extra Large, 2X and 3X always sold out. That’s not the worst part because whoever picks out the colors of the shirts must be colorblind because for the last 20 year with the except of the tan Field Day shirts in 2012 and I think in 2020 when they had a grey shirt with a boot print on it, which was super dumb, all the other years has been these stupid vomit colors. I mean vomit colors, there is no polite way of putting it. It was as if they when to a printer and told them to mix up all your excess paint together and print an “X” amount of shirts in these sizes and that’s it. I call the ARRL to complain about this every year for the last 20 years and it must either fall on “DEAF N DUMB” ears and the secretary just to afraid to forward our messages to those who make the important decisions at the ARRL. So I call the ARRL last year and spoke to them at length about the same issue after they announce they were ending the printed magazine. I told to print the Field Day shirts in black with red, white or blue lettering and white shirts with red, black and blue lettering but just end all the vomit colors all together. When I asked how important the Field Day sales was, I was told that it was their main bread and butter each year. My response was, why all the vomit colors every year and I asked point blank, who decides the colors? Typical response: “I don’t know?” Two years ago, I was going to buy the lifetime membership and I decided I want to talk to them one more time about all the VOMIT colors and of course, it fell on DEAF ears again. So unless the ARRL starts listening to its membership, I don’t think I will renew my membership ever again. What makes this last statement so bad, Bob, is the fact that I just one of the few living “A-1 Op Club” members left, which is the highest award that can ever be awarded to a license Amateur radio operator in America. I just feel that the ARRL brought these hard times onto themselves and the membership dues has been severely mismanaged for a long time, this kind of crap just doesn’t happen overnight, it takes decades to go this badly in this short of time. Plus the fact that the ARRL wasn’t even enforcing their own rules when it came to their state Section Managers. Ten years ago, I bust the infamous Hawaii Jammer but because he was also the ARRL Section Manager, legally and as a retired Federal investigator, I had to get him to admit it himself and over the air. Plus I was working with the ARRL General Counsel attorney Chris Imlay W3KD because as a license Amateur radio operator, you must report these things to the elected OO’s for your state before you can approach the FCC’s Enforcement Devision but if that state’s ARRL Section Manager never picks out the OO’s, the only recourse is to approach the ARRL’s General Counsel or the best chain of command that I could use at the time. There was a lot of Big Island of Hawai’i Ham that were involved in catching the infamous Hawaii Jammer that deserves most of the credit. The really sad part was that this person who I will name in a moment had been doing this crap for a long time before I got involved. There was teams of Hams on the Big Island that would undertake the dangerous jobs of driving to the top of the two main volcanos on that island with all kinds of spare parts, batteries, solar panels to make everything work again with just a single trip up there just to discover that nothing was wrong with the repeaters, the batteries, the solar panels and everything else involved. All these trips up to the tops of these volcanoes was for absolutely nothing. These ham risked their lives for nothing and this person (Hawaii Jammer) knew this. What made the matter worse was the fact that we caught this bozo in the act and got him angry enough to admit he is the jammer. I used a part from a famous movie that we all know and love, “You Can’t Handle The Truth! You Want Me On That Wall, You Need Me On That Wall” is a famous quote but my idea had to work and it did. Even after catching this ARRL Section Manager and getting him to admit he was the infamous Hawaii Jammer, it was also leading up to ARRL’s 100th Centennial and they didn’t want this black-eye to become the downfall of the hobby, so I made a deal with the devil to keep this matter under my hat and they agreed to fire this Section Manager and he was replaced with our current Section Manager, who by the way, was picked out by the Jammer to replace him. I’ve been ham since I was a kid and a third generation ham at that, I had to think about how my late grandfather and uncle would feel if I singlehandedly destroyed the hobby that I have always loved. This famous Hawaii Jammer used his powers as the ARRL Section Manager to use the repeater codes that he was given to turn these repeaters off and on at will if he heard hams from different islands communicating on the linked repeaters system, which no longer exists today because of this same person that connected all the main islands together. He heard two hams from different islands in the middle of the day talking about the new DNLR Regulations about the size of the squares for the traditional Hawaiian fishing nets and he admitted that he turned off the links because it wasn’t Amateur radio related and that Hams from different islands shouldn’t be allowed to communicate on the linked repeaters, which is really DUMB because that would defeat the purpose of having linked repeaters to begin with. The infamous Hawaii Jammer was none other than that ARRL Section Manager Robert L.Schneider AH6J, who still has the balls to get on the air and run the Ohana Net in the afternoons on the Big Island of Hawai’i. He even tried to have my FCC license pulled for reporting him and turning over the Wave files of him admitting his crimes over the air. I will never forget him calling my home and threatening me, even told me that he knew Hams here on Oahu that he could have to come after me and Oahu is a small island like that was going to scare me out of my combat boots, lol! 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂

I have a VE application that needs to be processed. I called yesterday and they cannot process new VE applications yet.

I’m a ve for our club. Our May 18 test session had 6 extra class licenses plus several technician licenses and general licenses. Still haven’t received their email , upgrade or callsigns. The process to upload to fcc by ARRL has just started back. But it is a slow process. This is not the first time that the lag in processing has happened. If it is an IT situation then it is the old saying fox one problem then 99 left to go.🥺

Excellent video!! Seems the ARRL is operating as a corporation, incuding non-divulsion of important information. This is killing them from the inside out. I no longer place as much trust in them anymore. Theey really need to massively upgrade their equipment, software, and policies. Perhaps this is just the wake-up they need. Russ - AEØPX

Thanks!

Agree with you 100% on all points - fix LOTW and bring it out of the stone age into the 21st century. Geez even the DoD Cyber Security certificates aren't this archaic and stupid.

The VEC is catching up on backlog. I upgraded to Extra at the beginning of the outage. There was a 2 week delay, but the FCC let me know they got it.

I’ve been saying for about the past year, the ARRL has essentially become the NRA of ham radio on many fronts. Maybe it’s time to create the FPC or GOA of the ham radio world…

Noticed LOTW was not working over the last several weeks. Been using it since 1990. Oh well, uploading HRD Logbook data to QRZ. Looking at other online checking logs. Any suggestions?

When they took my QST hostage 4 months before my subscription expired, they lost me. 25 years of membership went out the window with that. They have sent me 3 requests to subscribe again. Nope. Had they waited for the subscription to expire before raising their price, I’d have been much more likely to continue my membership.

There is no security on the radio side of things. There is also no care about security since "everything" has to be open even if it does not. Default passwords on allstar (yes I know it's a different topic) I assume are all over, not to include open ports on hosted hubs that can be closed off with a click of a button. They are easy targets if someone want to disrupt communications deemed as a critical backup.

I think a sinking ship in private

My last QST renewal was for digital magazine only. I've never been notified as to when it is available each month for viewing.

First joined, 1975, renewed last summer and as of jan. 2024 no qst because ive not paid the ransom fee. Now the lotw issue. Will NOT renew in a few months.

I agree with you Bob. The ARRL should fix it. I was worried about something like this which is why I haven't signed up for LOTW. I tried to sign up twice but had problems with it and just gave up.

The only reason was I with ARRL was because I wanted to focus on emcomm and ARES, and the local chapter required it. Unfortunately, no time since we have different schedules so never joined. I have zero use for a membership.

LOTW needs to be rewritten so badly. The code is so old. It needs to be updated/modernized. I don’t feel bad about it being down, even though I use it. Also, transparency on this issue has been done. They waited to say anything public including details. ALL companies when suffering the same thing do not blast out publicly what happened with zero details asap. They need to get their ducks in a row first. Make sure all the details are covered and what is being done for recovery. 73!

I think ARRL should let us know will LOTW be fixed and how long OR is it closing?

NAFC (fishing) and NAHC (hunting) stopped their magazines offering nothing to replace those subscriptions to those of us who bought life memberships.

The best thing that could ever happen for amateur radio here in the USA is for this Club who has modeled itself like a government agency would be for it to sink to the bottom and never see the light of day again

I have been an ARRL member, emphasizing "have been." The ARRL dropped their print magazines and stopped sending them to me, even though their membership contract stated that I receive a print version throughout my membership. Well, I call that a breach of contract. What makes it even worse is that nobody cares. I contacted the ARRL and was waiting for a response to letters or emails. A phone call ended from their side quickly. No, the best part. I canceled my membership and thought all was good... - no. I found out that even though I canceled, I now had a new account - of course, I was expected to pay for it. To blow my mind entirely, no cancellation is possible online - so I called and received a charming (sarcastic) treatment. I made clear that I am not paying one dime for this organization. This is when I walked away from the ARRL and genuinely hoped that this organization would disappear from this planet. I will never ever support them nor advise anybody to join them. LOTW - it is so far behind that it can stay buried. It still blows my mind why one would pay cash for these certificates, especially when the money goes to the ARRL. I hope that their numbers dwindle and the organization ceases to exist.

I abandoned LOTW years ago because I couldn't get it to work reliably. The excessive bureaucracy required for even the simplest tasks outweighed any potential benefits.

We do know it was an international hacking organization. They put up a press release yesterday. Still, thats two weeks too long.

Well they lost MFJ as a major advertiser!! That paid a bunch of bills each month!!!

I pay my ARRL by check but not going to use credit cards on their site due to security issues.

I still get the magazine. It is my only splurge since we don’t dine out or go to movies.

Seems to me in this century there could be some kind of a system where when you upload all of your contacts and you get an award or not that you could be able to download an encrypted file from ARRL that includes everything you've uploaded and all your confirmed contacts and your awards and basically anything that pertains to you and the ARRL and your contacts and awards. Then if something like this happened again you wouldn't have to reupload all your log files that you probably don't have anymore and then wait on hopefully somebody else to do the same again so that you could reconfirm your awards and contacts. I haven't used LOTW in a while but it doesn't seem to me something like this exists but seems like it could exist. You would upload your logs periodically like you would do now, subsequently same day or weekly or monthly if you had uploaded more logs you would download some kind of a encrypted file that would just have everything you had uploaded and everything you had won and it would not depend on someone else to do the same thing. Your whole everything pertaining to LOTW could be rebuilt from your own upload. I probably didn't explain this exactly the way I'm trying to but hopefully it makes enough sense.

ARRL has said in a Member Bulletin: “. . . the Logbook of The World® server and related user data were unaffected, we have taken the precautionary measure of keeping the service offline until we can ensure the security and integrity of our networks. “

Put out at RFP for a LoTW next gen

LoTW has been down for 3 weeks. No feedback from ARRL. Is it ever gonna come back?

You apparently missed the updates released by ARRL on 6/4 and 6/6.

So are you saying there is no more QST magazine? What tha...A magazine is preferred by many as hard copy easy to read anywhere.

About the time this video came out I called ARRL to find out what happened to the order I placed on the 28th of may. They said it was processed and being shipped. According to my Credit card company the payment was rejected by they ARRL. I got my product a few days ago. According to my credit card there is no trans action with the ARRL. I guise I got 2 $5 Field Day Patches for free.

Suppressing some of your contented because they don't like some of things you say.. you mean the truth? The lack of information from ARRL is amazing.. Let's see, what is the saying,, " your silence speaks volumes"! I will bet however they will still have no issues asking for membership fees! Keep up the great work,, keep telling the truth!

Silence from the ARRL is no real news because it has always been slow there. I think there are some shenanigans going on there, possibly. But will this keep folks from getting licenses and upgrading too? QST was a good magazine for a long time and now its gone and lost to history.

Like , share , subscribe and become a member. Thank you.

I am very surprised, of all the Ham radio youtube channels I view yours is one of the first I have seen really address this ongoing issue. Honestly I just don't know how much longer the ARRL can continue. I fear they like many others today are fiddling while Rome burns. I hear more against the ARRL than I do for and I consider lack of bringing them up as against. IMHO the ARRL is becoming redundant and under valued they need to prove why the need our money and our time. Till that time I will carry on with my paper log book. Thanks for the great videos K5WCF

Maybe the group that wanted to use some frequencies for high-speed trading the AArl was pushing back on wanted to ruin the logbook to prove Hams never used the frequencies.

We need more than one way of logging.

The same happened to me with World Radio which I bought a life membership. I got a message from 73 magazine telling me that they were taking over World Radio. They pro-rated my lifetime and gave me a couple years of 73 magazine. They made anyone wanting to read World Radio pay 73 mag. a yearly fee like QST. I couldn't figure why they didn't give those of us the same lifetime for the online magazine now run by 73 magazine.

I discovered it on 15th May evening (Indian standard time) I think its a delibrate

I don't think this is an organizational problem exactly. Other orgs are also being hacked right now. SBE was hit in a similar way.

I stopped paying dues when the ARRL didn’t advocate giving Advanced Class licensees Extra class priveleges, despite already passing half the former extra exam and 13WPM code test. Now I see these codeless extras walking around the hamfests with these 1x2 calls……makes me wanna puke.

When the heck will LOTW be fixed? It has been weeks?????

QST has more ads than articles...

I agree with bringing LOTW to the 21st century. Seems to be an antiquated interface I used to think.

after the arrl and fcc had the getto meeting at a Chinese restaurant where they said linking of GMRS wasn't allowed based on interpretation of the rule... Even though the FCC had sent out written letters of their interpretation of the rule. I have lost all respect or concern for the thoughts of either group

The fact that you have to pay to get the privaledge to recieve an award is a big reason I'm not interested in the ARRL awards

What is a virtual eQSL? eQSL is a virtual QSL card. To say "virtual eQSL" is like saying "virtual virtual QSL". It is also kind of like saying "for ID" then your call sign. The call sign is your ID from the FCC or etc and saying "for ID" is redundant. I do agree with your points concerning the ARRL. On a fixed income I have always had trouble making my annual dues. Since the increase in dues and the elimination for snail mail QST I have not paid this years dues. QST was my favorite piece of monthly mail, I learned a lot over the years from QST and I do miss it. LOTW is and has been very important to me, I too have a backlog to upload. All the world is going to hell. It is my hope and prayer is that does not happen to my favorite pastime.

old sad hams have wrecked almost every part of radio.

I had to call the ARRL about my QST magazine that I paid for the printed version (Yep, I/m a Gutenberg) but had missed the March April, May, and June . I got the May and June shipped to me but the others were not available. She said that there publication data base had been down. To be down that long is either hacked or programmer strike or none available, IMHO. However, I support the ARRL. They are instrumental is keeping the Band Plans in tack with the FCC and Congress and the world (the name escapes me). Getting hacked is here to stay. So I'm not going to smack talk about it. IMHO 73

Been down more than 2 weeks

Identity security is required to maintain the integrity and prestige of the awards.

Now more than ever we must be careful when we browse the internet looking for the best software to design antennas or for ft8. If you have doubts, don't click, back up your files, don't use pirated Windows and pay for a good antivirus

Thats why i keep paper logs

Lotw is 50 years old?

Takes your money then takes a holiday, sounds more like incompetency than external wrong doing

Never have liked LBOW that said. I hope ARRL gets it together. I like Eqsl though.

Tell me - how many magazines and newspapers have dropped print... or are now 80%+ ads and very few articles. Print is dead.

Gone downhill just like the Boy Scouts. When the board is "above" the members.... 😢

ARRL membership and QST subscriptions are technically not the same thing. Read the fine print. I do think they messed up by not sending printed QST through the end of active memberships. The ARRL is flush with cash so they could have afforded it. They lost a lot of good will by killing printed magazine Jan 1st 2024.

I had no idea LOTW was such critical infrastructure. By some comments, you'd think it was. Fortune 500 companies often take months to recover from a cyberattack. Just ask AT&T. The ARRL is not a Fortune 500 company. Improvise, Adapt, Overcome. Seems most of the whiners are not even ARRL members.

ARRL/McFly….hello….anyone home??? Knock knock knock on the head…. Hello LOTW been down for over a month! Field day? Yea, right!

LotW has undoubtedly established itself as the number 1 standard for amateur radio confirmations, despite the fact that it has been lacking performance and functionality for years. So with every day of absence, the damage to amateur radio is getting bigger and bigger. And the ARRL's information policy is doing its part to destroy the rest of the trust in the system. For me, there is currently only one consequence: I will remove LoTW for my QSO management and I am switching everything to alternatives.

I really do not agree with some points you said. Basically, when you are dealing with a cyber attacks, there are situations where you cannot talk to the audience. If they negotiate with an attacker, they cannot often talk about it. If they are restoring the system - well... from what I can say - it is taking too long. So in my opinion they are rebuilding everything from scratch. But in this case, they should release a short note to the public and give ETA when they will be back. Regarding volunteers Well, they are ARRL, they have founds. You pay them. If they were hit so bad, it means that they were ignoring cyber attacks for a very long time and someone there should be responsible for this. I would love to use alternative systems, that exist and are popular. Sadly LOTW is too popular and most of the people use it. I joined only this year and it was challenging to find what is where, and I'm quite technical person. I was surprise that so bad system is so popular.

The Aliens got together and decided that the best solution to solar system "Sol", take over is to first take over the Sun and then the satellites, next is the planets. By the way, the Govt and the ARRL know what is going on. By the end of cycle 26, The people of the planet Earth will be QRT. Unless we find and activate the Stargate Station we're doomed. 😮❤

I've been a HAM for a decade. Never seen a good reason t o be a member.

The ARRL needs to end.

Down with the ARRL. Goodbye and good riddance!

You bring up some strong arguments why I should not consider renewing my ARRL membership. It's expired anyway, but I was just holding onto their latest mailing reminder to renew my subscription. I'm not in an HOA (I refuse to be told what I can or can't do with my property), so I don't have a dog in the fight, but those who are should have the right to have antennas without HOA interference. The ARRL dropped the ball on this fight for legislation. Maybe I'll send them an email saying when legislation is passed allowing hams antennas regardless where they live, I may consider renewing my membership. That way, I know your serious about fighting for our interests rather than sitting on your fat asses collecting beer money.

The ARRL is kind of like the NRA. They both annoy me, and sometimes, they frustrate me to no end, but I really don't like thinking about a world without them. They're both very flawed organizations, but the good work that they manage to do is necessary for both of these "hobbies" (or rights) to continue. Both also need major reforms put in place if they want to remain relevant.

I really hope they aren’t done. If amateur radio is to survive, we desperately need an advocacy group. Corporate, government and who knows what entities want either our frequencies and/or the free range to pollute the bands making them unusable for the rest of us. Having said that, the membership due increase is tough to swallow. Mine is due right now, and I’m not sure I can justify it in today’s economy. On the flip side, with MFJ basically gone, QST and many other businesses lost a ton of advertising revenue. Fred WB5NOE

Hey bob KF0NTX here. As a rather new ham, prepper and staunch trump supporter. I thought I'd put little political talk if you don't mind. Last week verizon went out for me. Plus a so called water main break happened in lumen technologies building in des moines iowa here. I tend to think so far it's much more wider then arrl.

What you describe is overly simplified. Merging data between two or more databases is routinely done all over the industry. When one database source has a displaced field with data populated, and it's merged, then the result leaves us with a corrupted data base. When this corrupted data is sent through to applications for presentation, the applications will experience syntax errors and then either terminate or suspend execution. That's all there is too it. Game over. Fix. Either revert back to last known good database (if available) from backup and accept losses from mergers events afterwards and install updated syntax merging filters for future merges or appendence Or simply start all over. Many catastrophic merge errors can happen easily over a missing charactar from a parsing rule. (filtering charactar strings)