AM among ARRL subscribers

SURVEY RESULTS IN ONLINE ARRL POLL SHOW STRONG AM PRESENCE

Nearly 20 percent of the licensed subscribers to the ARRL include AM in voice modes they use on HF, according to a survey of more than 2400 people in several parts of the country. The poll was not commissioned by staffers at the League, but instead came directly from volunteer regional "directors" of the group acting on their own initiative.

The poll began July 1, ahead of a July 20-21 meeting of the Executive Board of the ARRL. The directors, elected from the Atlantic, Great Lakes and the Delta divisions, used the results to help provide direction to the League's paid staff administrators. Some staffers in Newington had indicated surprise as word of the non-"headquarters" survey spread through divisions that did not take part.

The unorthodox project was the talk of the meeting according a source with knowledge of what went on behind the closed-door sessions. Other Directors viewed the fresh, short-turnaround surveys as a tool they can repeatedly use in the future to shape their policy and program supervision of upper-level ARRL staff.

Atlantic Division Director Bill Edgar/N3LLR initially developed the survey with help from volunteer local staff. The poll was conducted as an on-line response form validated through the use of a subscriber's "ARRL" email address. A confirmation reply through that address had to be completed before the responses would be accepted.

The directors of two other divisions, Delta and Great Lakes, joined the poll in the final days before it was rolled out.

Of the 2453 overall responses, 84% (2050) use voice modes on HF. Within that category 99% use SSB and 17.5% use AM regularly. That was 357 out of the 2050, according to a statistician compiling the numbers and sharing them ahead of Edgar's official posting on the Atlantic Division email reflector.

Some of of the survey was dedicated to assessing subscriber sentiment regarding the League's failed "bandwidth petition," withdrawn by the group earlier this year after overwhelming opposition was filed with the Federal Communications Commission.

Responses to this part of the poll suggest a high level of understanding but a lack of support for the proposal among those who responded to Newington's call for comments. This is at odds with statements made by the League's hired attorney, along with statements from paid League administrators, all of whom had blamed the failure on a "misunderstanding" on the part of subscribers and others who successfully fought the plan.

Among the 50 % of subscribers indicating they had read the petition, nearly 75% said they understood it, with about 10% of that group sending along some reaction to the ARRL and the FCC. League executive Dave Sumner K1ZZ had acknowledged most of the input was negative. Several informal tallies of formal FCC comments found the opposition running 6-to-1.

Of those who read the final petition, just half felt their input had been "adequately solicited" by the ARRL ahead of time.

The overall margin of error was said to be +/- 1 %.

The Atlantic Division email reflector will carry additional details in August, and a presentation with further analysis is planned at the Maryland ARRL Convention planned September 8 at the Old Soldiers' home in Washington, DC (now called the Armed Forces Retirement Home).