[Lowfer] Soapbox (again)

[Les Rayburn]

At 12:14 AM 1/31/02 -0500, you wrote:
>Ah Les, cut the guy some slack! We can't be keeping your listing up to date
>every time we try something new - no matter how much we all appreciate the
>good work you are doing. 'Sides Paul is in 185.3 country and under special
>protection of the BRA (Boston Radio Association).
>
>


Bill & The Group,

It's not "my" listing. I check e-mail about 40 times per day on average. If 
all this
was for my benefit, no other form of update would be needed. But many
listeners do not.

I don't know about the LWCA listings, but the Noise Floor beacon page gets
an average of 200 page views per day. Someone is checking those listings.

This hobby depends on a certain amount of cooperation and coordination.
A beacon is useless without listeners and listeners need to know where
you're transmitting, in what modes, and when.

I didn't intend to pick on Paul...but the truth is one doesn't just "whip up"
a lowfer beacon in an afternoon. If you can go to the considerable trouble
of getting a beacon on the air, how much more trouble is it to
make sure that it appears in the only two complete on-line listings?

We have a lot of newcomers this season...many of whom are feeling left
out of the action. It is easy for those of us with optimized stations to
QSY at will into a "group" making us attractive targets for listeners...
or to change modes on a daily basis...but can you imagine the
frustration of someone out there still struggling to understand all this?

I submit that the "Minnesota Radio Assocation" has handled the situation
better. While their grouping certainly makes for an attractive target, they
have all stayed on their new frequencies for a period of weeks. This
allows time for lists to be updated, and for people to attempt several
nights of reception.

Yesterday, John changed his beacon ID to LL..or so I thought until I checked
his web page. That lead me to believe that perhaps the change is only
temporary. Does John want the beacon listed as TAG or LL? Should I have
changed it?

I don't know.

Maybe Bill should take over updating these web sites for a week or two and
see how frustrating it is to try to provide this service. I'm not looking 
for gratitude,
just that people try to keep their listeners (and potential new listeners 
in mind. )

And no, it did not take me thirty minutes to look up a callsign on QRZ. But
it did take that long to review the e-mail messages, look up the callsign, 
check
the LWCA message board (to insure that the info wasn't already there),
update the web pages, FTP them to the server, etc. The point is, I or John
shouldn't have to go to all this trouble.

Last year, without ever letting us know, a very active 160 meter operator
in Nebraska with some serious beverage antennas decided to try
his hand at receiving lowfer beacons. He got all his info from the
LWCA web site. In just a few days, he logged six or seven
beacons, including XMGR on standard CW mode!

Without those listings, he might never had know where to look and listen.
How many others are out there like that? And why is it that I have to
remind beacon operators to consider their listeners?

None of this is intended to make anyone mad. I truly consider Bill
to be my very good friend. Same goes for Paul, John A, etc.
But we do need to acknowledge that people are giving up free time
to provide listings, print Lowdowns, update web sites, etc.
How much trouble is it really to do the minimum required to
allow folks to do it without a lot of effort?

Enough said. I certainly don't want to argue over it.

73,

Les Rayburn, N1LF





Les Rayburn, director
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