Right at the bottom of the original renewal notice, it says you can renew online. And I did. I also got the confirming renewal e-mail three weeks before from the ARRL that I was again getting notice for.

Now, most published magazines use some kind of service to take care of subscriptions. And the ARRL and NCJ are not the only ones who don’t get databases updated in a timely manner. I have a whole “magazine subscriptions” note in Outlook that just has the expiration dates for the subscriptions because the magazines send out renewal notices one month after you’ve subscribed.

But if money is tight and the League makes money on publications, why is it so hard to synch the databases so that when I renew online I don’t get the paper, envelope, stamp, and time spent on a renewal notice in the mail three weeks later?

If the League is serious about using technology, here’s one to implement that will give you some money to serve hams instead of magazine subscriptions services.

Related posts:

1. K9JY.com Subscriptions
2. ARRL needs new media tools for donations
3. ARRL Starts New "Contest Blog"
4. Subscriptions and Internet Explorer fixed
5. New ARRL Site up

When you develop content for a site (like the K9JY WriteLog User Site), you go through some hoops trying to figure out how to organize the information, how to present it, and how to keep it updated. As you do updates, the site becomes unwieldy and more difficult to use.

So it is with the ARRL contesting rules area where there are “general rules” for all contests and rules for specific contests. I could never tell when a “general” rule applied and when a specific contest rule applied. Not that it was tough, but it could be confusing.

On the contesting reflector, Sean, KX9X, notes that the ARRL (i.e., Sean) will be updating the ARRL Contest Rules for easier reading. He notes:

This will include posting ALL rules for any given contest together, and eliminate the need to bounce back and forth between contest-specific rules and general rules.

With the development of the new arrl.org website (underway as I type this), more information such as a contest-specific FAQ will be included, with specific examples of what is allowed and what is not. This will take some time, but it is in the works.

Obviously, this includes the contesting area, but it was nice to see that the ARRL is looking to update the entire web site. It needs to be updated and I’m happy to see they are working on it. Updating websites is no small task as I can attest.

While I would never call the ARRL technology leading edge, in just the past year they have added Twitter accounts, are updating the web site, changed the formatting of the Contest newsletter, and started some blogs (though I don’t define them the same way they do…).

This is an encouraging sign from the League; part of their technology initiative. The fact that they are doing these on-line tasks means they will learn from what has been done and then continuous improvement can take place to make them better.

Maybe we’ll kick the ham community out of the technological Stone Age yet. I sure hope so.

Related posts:

1. New ARRL Contest Update Delivered
2. New ARRL Site up
3. Update on WriteLog User Site – 07-AUG-2007
4. Update on WriteLog User Site — 10-AUG-2007
5. ARRL Starts New "Contest Blog"