This Website

W0MU invested a lot of time and effort into creating this website, and after I took over as the web administrator a year and a half ago, I created several posts. Neither of us got much feedback from what we’d done (in fact, I never got any), from which it’s easy to conclude that very few people read or used the website. To find out, I installed a WordPress plugin to count the number of daily visitors; it will not surprise you to learn that there are almost none:

And we have not even attracted the Russian or Nigerian troll bots which regularly scour websites like ours for vulnerabilities. Even my own website is regularly pinged by the Russians.

This website is hosted by a ham-friendly web host, https://hosting.qth.com, and the annual fee is a very reasonable $5/month. For this price, we get

• Registration of the URL name “grandmesa.org”,
• An SSL certificate that gives the website the coveted “https://” encryption and security,
• A generous storage allowance for photos,
• Up to ten permanent email boxes for officers (currently not being used or needed),
• The “Mailman” program we use for communication with officers
• Unlimited mail forwarders (like the ARRL mail forwarders; Yourcall@grandmesa.org forwards any received email to your real email) (also not currently being implemented)
• The ability to create up to four separate Mysql databases.
• The ability to add various PHP scripts which could access the databases.

The annual hosting fee ($60) is due in mid-February, 2025, so we need to decide whether we should keep it active. If we don’t, then if history is any guide, a bot from China will immediately snatch the grandmesa.org name and insert either gibberish or porn for a couple of years.

The truth is that static websites like this one are diminishing in popularity and usefulness. We use the groups.io mail list function regularly to keep in touch with other GMCC members. Many other ham radio clubs and organizations, including Parks on the Air (POTA), Gridtracker and the Hamrs POTA logging software, have migrated to Discord, which offers a smorgasbord of features for clubs and groups, including email lists, conversation topics, audio and video chats (think Zoom) and file storage. The structure and maintenance is handled by them, the content is uploaded by those who join. Although you can read a lot about Discord, they have a short video aimed at my grandson’s generation which explains it. A basic version with limited features is free; enhanced plans cost $5 and $10/month.

If we decide to keep this website, then someone needs to create content which will make it useful and make GMCC members want to access it on a regular basis. Unfortunately, I don’t have the expertise or knowledge to add content to the website. I know how WordPress works, but things like extracting contest results from 3830scores.com for making our own contest chart, or adding other features is way above my level of expertise.

As you can tell, I think Discord would be a very viable option for us to explore, but please add your comments and suggestions either in the comment section below, on the groups.io mailing list, or by contacting one of the club officers. If no decision is reached by mid-February, I’ll go ahead and advance the $60 to renew the website hosting package.

Thanks and good contesting!

Steve, KØGUZ