Belong to the ARRL

Why I belong to the ARRL (and why all US hams should)

ARRL -- it used to stand for "American Radio Relay League", but now 'ARRL' is apparently a proper name by itself -- is the national organization for amateur radio operators in the USA. It has been around since the beginning of amateur radio, and over the years has been the target of a lot of criticism. Some of it has come from competitors, such as the (now defunct) 73 Magazine, and other organizations that would like to replace it as the spokesman for US amateur radio.

There's also been criticism from individual hams and groups that disagree with particular positions and decisions taken by ARRL. For example, in the 1960's, ARRL supported a concept called Incentive Licensing which was ultimately adopted by the FCC. At that time, General Class operators were allowed all amateur privileges; the Extra Class license was available, but did not confer any additional privileges. Under Incentive Licensing, Extra and Advanced Class licensees were permitted to use frequencies that were not available to General Class licensees. The idea was to give hams an incentive to improve their knowledge of theory and code by upgrading. Unfortunately, the implementation had the effect of reducing the privileges available to current General and Advanced Class operators. Many hams screamed bloody murder that ARRL had acted to take away frequencies that they had previously had. It especially annoyed phone operators that there now were phone frequencies that required a 20 wpm code test! To this day, there are those who refuse to belong to ARRL because of this (for details, see the excellent article by Bill Continelli, W2XOY).

However, there are several good reasons that US amateur radio operators ought to belong to ARRL.

ARRL is the political action arm of US amateur radio. In the past, many hams worked for the FCC, and the contributions of amateur radio to military and disaster preparedness, technical advances, etc. were well known. Today, FCC staff reflect the agency's interest in many forms of communication besides radio. Hams no longer provide a pool of trained operators for the military, and technical progress does not in general come from amateur experimenters. Many decisions that impact amateur radio are made by Congress. It's absolutely necessary for our interests to be represented with the FCC and with the US Congress. ARRL understands this and does it.
ARRL is really a grass-roots organization. Directors are elected by the membership to represent various regions, and are responsive to members' concerns. Minutes of director's meetings and annual financial reports are available on the ARRL website.
ARRL provides many useful services in addition to advocacy, including publications, courses, research in areas such as RFI, etc. For example, QST reviews set the standard for reviews of amateur equipment. Many services are subsidized by membership dues.

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