[ForSale-Swap] Re: [foresail-Swap] Update

Fri Jan 18 10:48:31 EST 2002

Tim is absolutely correct. We have taken these lists, nearly 1,100 of them, for
granted for the past four years. There is nothing free, everything has its
price, somehow, somewhere, sometime. Like Tim I am aware of the numbers and I am
equally concerned about all of this simply going away.	

Alan Waller has never made the cost of what he does public, probably never will.
What he started as a hobby for a few friends has mushroomed into the greatest
communications network for the radio hobby in the world. It touches virtually
every country that has Internet access. The qth.net/qsl.net system gets about
one million hits per day! hence, the analogy to if every user donated a dime
there would be plenty of money to operate. But out of that one million hits per
day, let me assume that one fifth of them are the real users and the other four
fifths are repeat hits from those users. hence, a base of 200,000 users. Yet,
the donations are from about 600 users. This is only .3%! The other 99.7% of the
users do not contribute a single cent to the operation/maintenance of the
system.   	

I know what it costs to have a T1 line, I also know what it costs to keep
eighteen servers operating 24/7/365, how often hard drives must be replaced
because they never stop spinning and so forth. The cost has got to be over
thirty thousand dollars per year. I am probably low, but it is close enough to
make my point. If those 600 users each donated $10, that is only $6,000 Hence,
Alan Waller must come up with another $24,000 somewhere. What he can not get
elsewhere, comes out of his own pocket.	

All right, I grant this is his hobby. I further grant it is not our problem to
pay for his hobby. But I must ask, are we getting $10 per year benefit from his
hobby? Frankly, most of us get considerably more than that if we sell one item
on one of these lists! Not to mention the value of the information we receive
for free from the incredible number of outstanding sources who populate said
lists. Now frankly people, there is no other place to get this information so
quickly, so easily and so expertly. Is that not worth giving up a fast food meal
one day per year to continue to receive? 	

Please help Alan Waller out. If you do not, every single one of us will be
hating ourselves when one day the qth.net/qsl.net system is turned off and is
forever gone. Then we will be filled with regrets and "Gee, I guess I should
have sent him some money ..." But then, my compatriots, it will be like
everything else that has died, too late! Before that happens, please write him a
check, use the secure web site and a credit card or  send him a case of empty
Coke cans to redeem. But help him out, help all of us out, and help yourself out
too. 	

What Alan Waller, K3TKJ has offered to us is an incredible bargain. We all need
to contribute whatever we can to keep it going on for many years to come.
Whether you like me or not, I am not asking for myself. This is not about any
one person. This is about keeping the fantastic services that qth.net/qsl.net
provide available for all of us to use and enjoy into the future. So please send
Alan Waller what you can. Thanks for listening and thanks for helping. 

----------
From: Tim <listowner at mailman.qth.net>
To: forsale-swap at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [ForSale-Swap] Update
Date: Thursday, January 17, 2002 2:06 PM

Members,

Just wanted to update you on a few things.

The move of all qth.net reflectors from the old Majordomo list-management
software to the new Mailman software is about 2/3 complete. As we have seen, the
change has been virtually transparent to list users. For we administrators, the
changes have made our job much easier. 

Elsewhere... Al Waller, K3TKJ, is about to have a second broadband connection
hooked up on Friday morning. The T1 now in use has been running at 105% of
capacity which is why qsl/qth.net sites may seem slow at times. Financially, the
new connection's cost will be ON TOP of the old, original T1 connection... which
brings me to the REAL point of this "update" communication.

Al has said this:

"Other than the technical things with the servers, much of my time is spent
trying to find creative ways to finance what we do and not make it commercial. I
usually remind our users in the late Fall of donations and during this time of
the year I have 2 "Platinum" sponsors that I contact. These 2 account for about
a third of our yearly expenses. Today I made the calls and both are not able to
help us any longer, I can understand this. The economy is flat and who knows
when it will get rolling again."

He continues with:

"This means we are $10K short for the year at the start, but it gets worse. I
can't put any more money into this than I already do, to do so would not be fair
to my family. The only place I see this being made up is from the users with a
great deal of effort on our part. If every user gave us a dime we could operate
for 18 months or so, If every user sent us $1.00 we could operate for the next
20 years. What actually happens is about 600 users/clubs donate an average of
$10 each and we never hear from the rest. I'm not ungrateful for the donations
don't get me wrong but it is the same users year after year and that will cease
too, I'm afraid. With no help we will be in deep dodo by Fall."

Bottom line: donations to help offset the costs of running qsl.net/qth.net would
be gratefully accepted by Al. ANYTHING would help, even just a one dollar bill.
You can mail to: QSL.NET, Inc.; 34087 Old Hickory Road; Laurel, Delaware 19956.
Or if you would like to do it electronically, go to this web site:
http://www.qsl.net/donations.html

I'll get off your backs now; but please, before you forget all about this issue,
drop whatever you can afford in an envelope and mail it off to Al; let's give
him a pleasant surprise!

Tim
List Owner
ForSale-Swap

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