Possible outage this week
Due to constant poor participation rates in regards to posting from members, we will be moving from our current dedicated server and on to a VPS. There maybe some downtime to do this, I am looking at having it done this week. Hopefully there will be no drop in performance, I am not expecting there to be.
The balls in your court guys. Use it or lose it. Yes, I have said it before, I am really serious this time. We are at an all time low both in participation and income. Another few months at this rate and we will be on a $5 hosting plan.
I am happy to run it, I am happy to occasionally participate, I am not happy to be the only major participant. I have put Austech as my number one priority for 15 years, I am no longer prepared to do that.
| Look Here -> |
What is the approx. annual cost of running the site now?
I just did my Premium Member 6 months update
Sorry for being so slack / broke LOL
When you do things right, people won't be sure that you have done anything at all
Here's an offer for all that subscribe to Austech
...........Leroy
Was that offer before my upgrade LOL
When you do things right, people won't be sure that you have done anything at all
OSIRUS (07-10-13)
Shoot me your details!Originally Posted by best4less
Leroy
XCRUISER HDSR600HD twin sat and terrestrial receiver $OOS *
XCRUISER HDSR385 Avant - sold out$OOS UltraPlus DVB-T and DVB-S2 tuners $49 Remotes $OOS
also if you're already a member you can subscribe for an extra 12mths to get the diseq switch offer!
Leroy
With some reflection I can forgo my wild riotous jet setting lifestyle for several minutes and donate $20 if it will help any.
My membership is current to May next year and I am quite happy to renew it when it falls due and while I am lothe to knock back a 'freebie', I dont have any use for the Diseq switch and I'd rather see it passed to another or its value put into the Forum.
Dont think I am being generous as I am donating the 26 cents per fortnight rise we pensioners got on some allowance recently.
It wont happen until Thursday when the Eagle makes its deposit so please advise.
I stand unequivicably behind everything I say, I just dont ever remember saying it !!
best4less (07-10-13)
When I first read the thread title I was going to commend Admin on his courage, these are indeed progressive times
admin (08-10-13)
Its not a matter of people paying money for Premium Membership (though it is of course appreciated and does form part of the sites income). However....
The point is the poor participation rate in posting and taking part in the site by members in general. Even if every active member became a PM, it isnt going to make any difference because all they will be coming to visit is a great big void of nothing eventually.
Since I slowed down posting a couple of months ago, the slide has been horrendous. Ad income due to poor traffic is currently about 30% of what it was 3 months ago. Traffic is about 30% of what is was 3 months ago. It would seem I am definitely 70% of the site, I cant put it down to anything else. Realistically you only have to look at my post count to see that.
I am not going to be the prolific poster I was previously. If others dont step up to the plate to replace my posts, at a guess you will be visiting a ghost town on $5 hosting in the very near future.
So if you want the oldest Australian tech forum on the internet to survive, I would suggest :
Visit more often
Reply to threads more often
Create a new thread more often
Give Austech a plug on sites you visit (if possible without spamming)
I dont really want to be seen as the same person who comes on every 6-12 months telling the same story of woe banging saucepans and trying to get people to do something. However in 15 years I havent seen the site plunging in one direction so fast and its not the direction I want to see it go. If 70% of income and traffic can disappear in 3 months, it doesnt leave much to work with.
Having said that, I am not going to come back to posting the huge amount I have previously. This year represents the first time in 15 years I have had more than 2 days off the site. I am making a big effort to try and recover from 6 years of severe back pain and constant (subscribed) morphine use to deal with it. I am making good progress due to a new drug method, I have cut opiods by 70% and am doing light gym work slowly building up upper body strength to put less strain on my back. My goal is a return to work, at what I dont know but regaining strength and movement is my current goal.
Along with this, I am spending a lot less time on the internet and in all honesty, enjoying not being on it. I will still be on at least 3 days a week and will still of course deal with anything that has to be dealt with. But we have a large hole that needs to be filled in regards to others stepping up to the plate, how much of that hole gets filled is up to the sites membership.
Nice offer too Leroy, hadnt seen it, appreciated.
Though telling them you have hacked NDS and keep them guessing by threatening to reveal the secret every day at 5 PM might keep more of them on the site
LeroyPatrol (08-10-13),Tiny (08-10-13)
Oh, forgot to mention that I have purchased a VPN and we should be moved over the next day or 2 and our dedicated server will then be decommisioned.
There is no way I would like to see this site diminish in any way, as it is a constant source of information for me, and I would have extreme withdrawal symptoms if it did demise.
Can you advise me what you mean when you say it could become a "$5 hosting in the very near future", as I do not know what this means, or what effect it has on an end user.
No matter what the site looked like, I would still keep coming back, until it died.
Obviously there has been a significant reduction in the number of participants in the satellite tv forums, and I am just as bad as others I guess, in that as I no longer chase satellite feeds on both Ku and Cband. I rarely read those posts or contribute in that way now. I guess technology in the form of internet tv & streaming of media has overtaken the satellite hobbyist of former years, and as such, many of these people have "moved on", or deserted, as encryption has made them do that.Likewise, that had dropped the numbers considerably.
Perhaps the thought of encapsulating what you have just posted, into a PM or email to all members, would spark some more interest / participation by some of the lesser contributors. I certainly would not see this a spam, and if you are a common reader of the forum, I believe you would understand the reason of the information being sent to you, to consider.
I sincerely hope that we will survive.
It is interesting when you look at the statistics at the bottom of the page
At present time...
There are currently 443 users online. 56 members and 387 guests
Of these. only 12 were premium members.
Still a lot looking at the site by the look of it?
What is the approx number of premium members please?
Last edited by viewer; 08-10-13 at 01:05 PM.
A lot of those guests are bots and spiders for search engines.
Everything seems to go through a phase of being inundated with interest to becoming dust and blowing away with the merest puff and now this great site is suffering I believe from this phenomena.
During a shed rebuild last week those copies of CB action and Electronics Australia circa 1970/80's I had stacked away had to be moved and as I thumbed through the dusty slowly disintegrating pages, they are only of interest to me now and I need to decide whether to store them away or do a total clean out.
Some time ago I finally threw out all my copies of 'Compute Gazette' for the Vic 20 and 'Compute' which later combined both the Vic 20 and 64 until it too ceased publication as both those computers were replaced by later generation ones and disappeared from the market.
I was only thinking as I checked out the Digital Terrestrial and VAST Satellite forums of them being added to the list of permanent 'stickies' and the interest they generated as we came to grips with the changes to come but now by the end of the year, this will be just about completed and part of everyday life.
Like Hula Hoops, Frisbee's and Yo Yo's that reappear every few years, hopefully something will occur that will generate interest so Austech can continue on.
But until then, all I have to offer is the occasional donation towards the Bills, post the odd request for help when I stuff up or offer what little assistance information I have to others postings.
Last edited by gordon_s1942; 08-10-13 at 01:40 PM.
I stand unequivicably behind everything I say
Postings in the satellite TV section are right down. From a pay tv perspective, things have changed on that front where joe public can't pirate tv as easily as in the past hence you don't see the posts about cards, logging sharing, dreambox and other receivers etc. since Foxtel rolled out a fix to prevent card sharing.
Another factor is also that VAST would be satisfying peoples viewing needs a lot more hence people not worrying too much about FTA satellite on the various sats for their fix. And this is for both C-band and Ku.
Also Aurora will be switched off by years end. This was the last service you could program pirate cards for. This is where you would build a programmer etc. what fun but no more shortly.
........Leroy
XCRUISER HDSR600HD twin sat and terrestrial receiver $OOS *
XCRUISER HDSR385 Avant - sold out$OOS UltraPlus DVB-T and DVB-S2 tuners $49 Remotes $OOS
Also I forgot to mention that internet TV has replaced a lot of the card sharing activites and tv veiwing requirements for many.
Leroy
XCRUISER HDSR600HD twin sat and terrestrial receiver $OOS *
XCRUISER HDSR385 Avant - sold out$OOS UltraPlus DVB-T and DVB-S2 tuners $49 Remotes $OOS
Godzilla (13-10-13)
Would it make a significant difference if people turned of their browser add blockers?
I don't use one, just a popup blocker, I know the adds slow down page loading a little on my deficient satellite connection, however I find some of the adds interesting, that's just me, never refer to me as normal, I'm not.
Cheers, Tiny
"You can lead a person to knowledge, but you can't make them think? If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
The information is out there; you just have to let it in."
marty 17 (08-10-13)
One of the most frequently visited forum and its threads is Technology / GPS, this because of fact it's the only one which really is worldwide known. Many posters in other GPS related forums recommend to also visit Austech -> Technology / GPS to (hopely) get existing issues solved.
I came to Austech for this reason. All other stuff here for me is too Australia specific - I'm located in Germany. I can't benefit from.
Last edited by jwoegerbauer; 09-10-13 at 12:57 AM.
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