The AM Forum

Great to see all the AM activity here with the current 3105 members.  ??? ???  Maybe AM is on the downside slope of the AM interest curve. Or maybe radio in general is not high on member's interest level.

Maybe the forum should convert over to possibly forums like parts collecting, general hoarding, basket weaving, rock polishing, or string management  ::) Maybe it will get some participation.

Just maybe, if the forum was at 80 pct or better uptime it would get some action.  Hard to post somewhere with a 500 error during almost all waking hours.  That really limits your audience.

It's time for introspection.  QRZ and Facebook am forums are going great.  With a lot of people who used to be regulars here.

Why are they gone? 

A tyrant can ruin a web forum just as fast as 500 errors.

Making flippant statements when supporting members are asking why the website is usually down now doesnt help to get people to come back.  Or making zero statements whatsoever.

Happy Holidays.   Here's to AMFone being around another year.

--Shane
WP2ASS

I been lurking, maybe I get in 25% of the time.

I have yet to hear much about the technical issues of why this web forum is struggling to stay on the air. I am not a network/website guy, but I bet we have many on our roster. Did our admin talent go away, and if not, just what is happening? I think some transparency instead of sarcasm could benefit the members, and get the troops fired up in an effort to help.

Here in Texas, AM is good, and growing. People regularly meet using am on 3725 (8pm CST almost 7 days a week), 3740 7PM Wednesdays, 3740 7am M-F, 3890 6am to past 7am M-F, 3890 sat 7am, 7160 sat 11am-12:30pm, 7160 most days at 2pm. There is more, sometimes past 7:30 am on 3875, or 3880.

Jim
Wd5JKO

   It's winter, what I consider "radio season," and I've got plenty of projects in the works and plans to share them all on this forum, but with the site up and down (mostly down), it's discouraging. But, I'm holding out hope that it will be resolved, and I'm not giving up yet. I did a brief stint in IT work, mainly as a humble desktop support and network tech, but it was twenty years ago, and my knowledge is both outdated and largely forgotten. I wish I could suggest something that might help.

I am only an occasional poster, but I do come by and read the tech posts fairly often.   Recently its been down quite a bit, so much so that I thought it might have been shutting down permanently.   It would definitely be a shame if this site went down.   If the problems are financial in nature I'd think many here including myself would gladly help.

it may be a while before anyone hears from an admin.  Out of the 3 most active admins, 2 have not logged in for over a month. The third logged in just over a week ago.

W3JN has responded several times in different forums and is well aware of the problem
The other two administrators, K4HX and KA1KAQ, the last time they were here was after 9:30 PM EST in November when most of the time the web site has typically awaken.  K4HX is the chief cook and bottle washer. I sent him several e-mails some time ago to the e-mail addresses I found and received no response.

I could be, the software being so old, is running on life support (cross your fingers and pray). Generally, when the Error 500 flag goes up, both the webmaster(is there one even here?) and the host company generally need to get together and solve the problem. Since security protocols on servers has escalated over the last several years, it could be that old software and new protocols aren't very compatible and stuff doesn't work all the time and/or breaks.

Don't know: but, it could be the administrator(s) have many other important personal day to day tasks and the web site doesn't command a high priority for them especially for the time involved to fix, upgrade, manage, etc.

It might be time to pass the baton to someone, who could step forward, to take the reins, to manage, plan, get web site creative, maybe create some member cost initiatives (money reserve for maintenance and support), and thrust amfone.net into the 21st century.  

The site is only available briefly while most people are asleep, so it is and has been, for all intents and purposes... dead since the summer.  It's on an unsupported platform so the casual observer might conclude that there is no maintenance being done and we shouldn't be surprised if it just disappears one day.  People have been donating regularly to the site for many years so that begs the obvious question about the obvious err elephant in the room. What was all the $$ used for ?  


No opportunity in 4+ months for a quick post explaining the exact issue and what's being done about it? Geez, I hope they're OK.



There are experienced IT types among the membership here but how would that work ?  Someone dons their pirate uniform and commandeers the site from the hosting company ?   ;D

"parts collecting, general hoarding, basket weaving, rock polishing, or string management" Well... DIYAudio does have a topic of "what did we buy today?" that seems popular.

I have done lots of parts collecting, general hoarding, and the like but have also put a halt to those activities after three estates filled up the work shop. Only now have I been able to sell off some of it. 5 racks worth of transmitters to be exact, and there are still boxes and boxes.

I have no knowledge of basket weaving or rock polishing though I have a good sized tumber.

For hobby reasons I only use AM, but I'm off the air due to downed antenna dipole, but hope to have that rectified fairly soon. I can testify AM is strong in Texas.

I'm willing to donate, and even pay something if the site could be expanded a bit. How, I couldn't say at this point. I like to build things with tubes but that's the exception these days.

I don't have the skill to set up or manage a site like this.

We have membership from all over the world, so there are places were members are up and around  ;D

Monies:   You have to pay a yearly fee to keep your URL active and see-able in the Internet. You have to pay yearly hosting fees on a server and depends on how much space you need. You generally have to pay a webmaster for your local URL updates, fixes, etc. Maintenance and service support from the hosting company also requires yearly payment.

Owning and running a web site can run into the hundreds of dollars per year.

Hi Pete:

Keep a positive vibe. Yes AM and ham radio activity has been decreasing, but I still enjoy it very much when I get time.

I hope the board admins are able to resolve the access issue. Maybe a simple login home-page would help?

My filaments will be lit, and wo will I...

Happy Holidays!

Dan