[Lowfer] We Shall All Hang Together, Or--? (was: the Lowfer forum)

[John D]

>The LWCA has decided that it doesn't want to deal with
>Part 5 500kHz stations - talk about fracturing the group!
>The 500kHz lists and web page are not interested in 137,160-190
>QRSS etc.

For the record, it wasn't the LWCA's decision to not deal with 500kHz 
stations.  The various groups that got together to work in that band decided 
THEY needed their own reflectors and home pages, right up front.

No one in those groups--not even our own members, so far as I can tell--ever 
voiced the thought that, hey, LWCA has the capability to do multiple lists 
and forums, so why don't we start there.  Our existing LW Message Board was 
and is open to all things LF, all Part 15, and even Part 5 non-commercial 
experimentation.  The only determination we eventually made was that there 
was no point trying to "compete" with those who had already staked out 
territory for themselves.  Our claim to fame was "radio under 500kHz," so 
duplicating efforts would be both unseemly and a waste of limited time.

In point of fact, we'd very much like to have a volunteer do a regular 
column on 600 meters for the print edition (as for Web presence, see below). 
I've got all I can handle with my own columns and the other aspects of the 
publication that I manage.  Anyone who'd like to give it a try is welcome to 
email me directly.  It can be as much work or as little as you like; either 
way would be better than right now, where we have almost no coverage of the 
field.

>The reality is that there is a hell of a lot of overlap!

I agree absolutely.  Interesting that this point should come up right now, 
because I have about 24 hours left in which to decide what to do about the 
LWCA hosting plan.  I'd be very glad for feedback on what follows!

Unfortunately, there is an ongoing reason for that overlap, which I alluded 
to above.  Everyone who can do their own HTML wants to do it all at their 
own site.  At the risk of being ungracious, most of the fragmentation in the 
hobby has been the result of ego:  "Hey, look what I can do, come to MY site 
for such-and-so."

The LWCA site was not created to be my personal entry into the race for 
reader attention.  We were eager to provide a portal for all interested 
parties...a portal that would remain long after I am gone, or anyone else 
whose efforts are now exclusively tied up in their personal sites.  There's 
nothing wrong with personal sites, but in the end, if that's ALL we have, 
there's nothing to hold the community together!

Alas, in the old days we did not have a hosting plan that allowed us to 
create multiple FTP accounts,  By the time we got that capability, there was 
already an alarming amount of fragmentation.  We tried to maintain a links 
page to individual sites for a long time to provide some unity, but again, 
many folks were more interested in what they were doing with their own sites 
than informing the community about them, and eventually they stopped 
bothering to update their links when they updated features and/or changed 
service providers.  Everything got too out of date to be useful.

So--we return to a question I asked almost a year and a half ago on the 
other reflector.  Is anyone interested in managing their own content areas 
on the LWCA site?  Does anyone really want to work together on a real 
portal, or do we all want to continue doing our own thing ad hoc?  I need to 
know whether to continue pouring money down our current hosting plan, or 
tell them tomorrow afternoon to cut back our next year's service to 
something cheaper.

I'm not asking for definite commitments of time or effort at this point, but 
I would like to know whether ANYONE is really serious about unifying the 
Web-based community with a true portal.  Warren, would you want to bring 
together Part 5-related content and files into a section of the site?  Would 
someone else like to take over the general file library effort, as we had 
started on at one point before the member dropped out?  Would one or more of 
you who are good at tracking down experimenter-related sites, who keep up 
with which grabbers are active, and/or who stay current with vendors and new 
products like to make a REAL AND LASTING contribution to the community at 
large???

The door is open at this moment...if we want to use it.

John Davis


The only thing anyone might see as a downside is, doing it as an organized 
effort means a new service or content area won't be as fast as "gee gang, 
let's borrow my uncle's barn and put on a show tonight."  It might mean 
everyone involved in a forum will take a few days to plan out how it should 
work, not just create something in an hour or two and hope it takes shape in 
a useful direction.  Sometimes you get lucky with that approach, and 
sometimes it dies a slow and painful death.