[SOC] Mesg from K3TKJ, Al

[Claude - F5PBL]

Bonjour � tous,

As we are QSL/QTH.net users, I think this should be of interest to everyone of
us.

73/72!
Claude, F5PBL - aka SOC ML manager

http://www.qsl.net/f5pbl          http://www.qsl.net/soc

DIG #4451 - FISTS #7722 - SOC #503 - 10-X #71724

=== beginning of Al's Message ===

Feel free to share this with your lists.....

Based on some comments we have received there is some misunderstandings
about QSL/QTH.net and our requests for donations.

In 1996 I started providing e-mail addresses and home page space to Amateurs
world wide. This was a single server co-located at a local ISP. I had a
contract with him that the monthly charges would slide, based on bandwidth.
The first months we paid $40 for access but there were not many users, later
this increased to $300,$500 and eventually $2500. At this time I purchased
the first T1 fiber and moved most of the load to circuits we owned. In a few
months we had all the load on our own circuits.

>From the one server start, it soon became necessary to balance the server
loads and we moved QTH.NET to it's own server along with Mail, DNS and Admin
servers. SWL.NET then needed a server. By 1999 we had $18,000 in computer
hardware, a dedicated T1 to serve the 20,000 web page users and the 195,000
users of the lists at QTH.NET.

I love this hobby, but not more than my family, home or 401k so in 1999 we
made the whole system a corporation in Delaware and operate under IRS 501
(3)(c) non-profit status.
This shields me personally from any litigation based on actions of any
users, such as copyright violations etc. This corporation is QSL.NET, Inc.
so when you see a reference to QSL it means the entire entity not just the
web sites In 1999 I also asked 12 prominent hams and active users of this
system to become directors, with their only obligation to keep the system
running in the event anything happened to me.

How was this funded? I had some excess income derived from stocks and I used
this to fund the start and growth of the system. I owe everything I have to
this hobby and I made the commitment to give something back to it.
Since 1996 my contribution has averaged $1000 a month.

So where are we today?

The system has grown to the largest in the ham world, it is popular and
grows daily. The highlight of 2002 was the receipt of the Dayton Hamfest
"Technical Excellence" award and the acknowledgement that we had created a
"new and mature" mode of operation. What is this system all about?
Knowledge..... that's it. We are the largest repository ever for ham
information. Was this planned NO! Did it just happen? YES!

Today to make all this run we have 28 servers and associated Internet
connection hardware, 2 spare servers, a spare router, CSU/DSU, 100Mb switch
and 6000 watts of UPS power to keep it alive when the lights go out. 2 T1
circuits, one fiber optic, the other 2.4Ghz microwave. There is also a
Starband satellite link that does some of the incoming FTP traffic. This is
an investment of about $50,000 Users today..... Web sites 50,000+ (most of
which I have never seen). About
400,000 users of reflector lists....most are subscribers but we have tens of
thousands who read the archives and daily posts.

Who uses the system? About 40-50 people per second....24/7 we gets hits in
the millions and serve Gigabytes of data daily. Mail users send and receive
about 350,000 emails every day. We kill or block about 35,000 spam messages
every day. The reflectors receive about 20,000 posts average which generates
about 500,000 e-mails daily.

What are the operating costs and for what?

Cavalier Telephone Fiber T1 $999 month DOL Microwave T1 $695 month Starband
Satellite $75 month Electric $150 month Telephone, FAX $60 month Insurance
$90 month Taxes,licenses,fees $125 month Accountant fees $800 year Repairs,
upgrades $100 month I'll let the reader do the math but you can see this is
not cheap nor is it ever going to be.

Until recently I continued donating $1000 monthly but in the present stock
market conditions I have dropped this to $500 hence the need for more user
support. Understand this one thing, the system has nothing to do with "Al
Waller the person". I give to the system as any user would it is no way
connected to my personal finances nor do I ever receive anything from it
other than the fun of making it all work and the many friends I have made
because of the system. The system has to stand on it's own and if there is
no money to run it then it will have to be shutdown...

I usually ask for donations twice a year, in the winter and again in the
summer. Typically a request for help returns $2000-4000 in donations from
about 350 users.....most times it is the same users over and over. I'm not
saying that a user has to donate, I don't know everyone's circumstance and I
understand the difficulty of foreign users. User support is just the ONLY
way we can continue.

Some things we do to fund the system....host ham and commercial domains, we
were an ISP but have discontinued it due to various problems, we host ham
radio banner ads, we sell the "404" errors generated by the system to a
banner ad company. All of this make about $1000 yearly.

As of today we have $10,000 in the operating fund and at the present burn
rate we will be good the rest of this year. I would feel a lot better if
there was twice or three times that amount and I would have to write these
e-mails less often.

To answer a common misunderstanding....the system here is NOT commercial,
never has been and never will be. It is by hams for hams and hopefully
funded by hams.

You may have noticed I refer to all of this as "the system" The network is
so interwoven that it takes all for it to work,
QSL.NET,QTH.NET,SWL.NET,DX.QSL.NET all are the same to me, a donation to one
or all assures "the system" continues.

My present e-mail load is about 500 a day, I try to read every one and have
robots help me answer many. It is sometimes very difficult to balance a
family, a real job (NASA) and the 40-50 hours a week I give to the system. I
am slow in answering mail, I am slow in thanking the donors but eventually I
get to it. Be patient with me or call me on the phone if it is really
important ( 302-875-7979)

Finally as always a few thank-you's to the volunteers:

Mike Imrick, AA9ZT Tim Miller, WB8ZQU The 250 list managers....
All the financial supporters old and new....

and my wife Denise who allows me to do this when other things need doing
just as much.

73, Al