[MTham] Donations needed..

[Bob N7CZ DN47hm]

Howdy;

Thought I would give you all a little update on the status of the MTham
reflector.

The move of all qth.net reflectors from the old Majordomo
reflector-management software to the new Mailman software is almost
complete with only a few reflectors still using Majordomo (per their
administrator's requests). As we have seen, the change has been virtually
transparent to reflector users. For we administrators, the changes have
streamlined some things and a few Majordomo features are no longer
available. Overall, for myself as administrator of the
relatively-low-traffic MTham reflector, the work load is about the same and
I have no complaints about Mailman.

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!

73,
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Bob N7CZ MTham Administrator
DN47im
ICQ#6767824
MSN MESSENGER - n7cz@hotmail.com
http://www.hamsnet.net/n7cz
n7cz@hamsnet.net  n7cz@arrl.net