Check our the new ARRL membership value proposition. You can get their four leading magazines for the price of one! Well done.

For most of my time in ham radio, I have belonged to the U.S. based American Radio Relay League. At one time, Canada was a “section” in the ARRL, but now instead we have Radio Amateurs of Canada as a separate organization.

ARRL and Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) are the most useful English-speaking ham organizations, at least in terms of their information publications. I value these very much as sources of ideas and assistance. Both have been around for more than a century.

I belong to ARRL mostly to receive its monthly publication, QST. Typically, I sign up for 3 years to get a small discount. My annual cost for receiving QST in the mail is CDN $83, not too bad, but not cheap for a retired guy, either.

So, a few weeks ago I got my renewal notice and asked myself: do I really need QST? And if so, do I really need a print edition mailed to me? Switching to digital edition would save me nearly CDN $20/year.

Or, maybe I should drop ARRL and just join Radio Amateurs of Canada? RAC also has a monthly magazine, The Canadian Amateur. RAC membership with the magazine is CDN $56 annual for print or $48 for electronic. Trouble is, I find TCA a far cry from QST.

ARRL Membership Value Raises Its Game

So, while I was wrestling with my decision, I read in the latest QST that ARRL is going to provide all four of its major magazines for the price of one membership rather than additional subscriptions.  Wow. If I renew my ARRL membership this month, I can get all four magazines electronically for CDN $66/year.

I am sold. QEX is a great technical journal, which I would love. NCJ is about contesting but also has some helpful articles. Before this new deal, QEX alone would have cost me CDN $50/year.

On The Air is ARRL’s recent magazine geared towards newer hams. I checked it out and found it contains useful technical articles which complement QST.

So, I am thrilled with the improved ARRL membership value proposition, and my renewal is in the mail! I will just have to adjust to reading QST on my iPad.