Well here I am, 2 years after taking on the role of webmaster for the club. When I was asked, toward the end of 2006, if I would like to be an "ordinary member" of the committee I agreed, thinking that I would be able to, in some small way, assist in the running and advancement of the Highfields Amateur Radio Club. I was duely voted in as a comittee member at the 2006 AGM.
I will admit that I had no idea of what would be required of me at that time but, at the first comittee meeting of 2007, I mentioned that I had had some experience of writing websites in the past. By unanimous agreement I was promptly made responsible for the clubs' website! (Note to self: NEVER volunteer!!)
I checked out what had already been posted on the website and thought that I could do a bit better than the (from memory) 8 pages with half a dozen or so small (who an I kidding? they were tiny!) photos that was the face of the club for the whole world could see.
In due course I received the details that allowed me access to edit the site and discovered that space was severely limited. The photos were that small because the host, Orange at that time, did not allow space for larger files, also the page limit had been reached, so no more real content could be added, just the basics that were already there. I could edit the text and change or remove the photos but there was no room for expansion. I decided that more space was required, if only for better sized photos.
Denise, 2W0BDX, my partner, and I had (indeed, still have) a broadband account with Virgin Media (VM) which has 55 MB of useable, free, (well it's included in our contract charges) webspace. We decided that, as we didn't use it for a personal site, we would donate it for club use and I would move the club site to the VM space where it would have the room expansion (just decent sized photos and a bit more information about the Club, I thought!). I did have a small problem accessing the VM space and while customer services and technical support sorted that out I signed up for some "free" space with a hosting service that, quite frankly, was unsuitable with adverts popping up everywhere, but it was mainly to lay down some code (I was a bit "rusty", not having done any html for a few years), try out ideas and to get some feedback. It was fine for this use but not acceptable (to me) for the world wide face of "Highfields ARC". As soon as VM located the problem and our webspace came on-line the move took place.
The new look site was launched on February 28th 2007 when Steve, GW6CUR, pointed the highfields-arc.co.uk domain to the VM space. I had been asked to make the site "Blind Browser", or "Screen Reader", friendly so that our visually impaired members would be able to access it (evidently a problem with the Orange hosted site, as their adverts etc. were causing a few problems). I collaborated with fellow committe member and Screen Reader user Andrew, 2W0MGB, who pointed me in the direction of a free screen reader that I could use to check what I was doing was acceptable. I was very glad of his assistance as I had absolutely no idea what the site sounded like before that time, you could say that listening to the site was a real eye opener! I discovered that a lot of the pages didn't work well as the layout, pleasing to the eye as it was, to a screen reader was sometimes confusing, causing the reader to stop reading altogether at times!
The simple remedy, for me at the time, was to duplicate pages in a "Blind Browser Friendly Site", removing the images and layout from these pages and have the domain point to a front page (remember the Site Selector page?) that was both pleasing on the eye and ear (although I did have several people tell me that the page was dull and uninteresting). This worked well for a time but I knew there had to be a better way. Looking into it I discovered that if I used Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) then most of my problems would be solved within just one site, a much better way and less work for me too! (CSS was in its' infancy when I first learned HTML and most browsers couldn't render CSS as they didn't understand it, so I didn't bother learn it back then).
Things went on apace. Articles were suggested and written, old newsletters were archived, photos were scanned and added to the site and all was well on the Web. Then, in June or July of 2007, I realised that, due to the amount and size of pictures, archived newsletters and the amount of content that was now on the site, the 55 MB of web space was starting to fill up fast and more room was, again, required (I still had about 10 MB left but "Be Prepared" isn't just for the Scouts!).
Visitors to the site at that time may remember that I signed up with a hosting company (1 MajorHost) that offered 2000 MB of space free (well, there were some adverts, but not as bad as the earlier host). It seemed a good move and all went well. I moved the "visual" side of the site to the new host, leaving the Site Selector page and Screen Reader friendly pages at VM. But, shock, horror! The host died! No "sorry" message, no warning, just gone. I hastily re-uploaded all the visual files to the VM server again and looked around for what had happened and to see if I could find another (free) host.
I discovered that 1 MajorHost was one of the many hosts that were (are still) set up with the offer of a huge amount of space for free to get a good looking customer base, only to be sold off for a profit and subsequently closed by the new owner when it is discovered that there was no real revenue forthcoming from all the expensive equipment. Armed with this information (we all have to learn sometime!) I looked around, carefully this time, and settled for the Free Web Hosting Area (FWHA), which had received good reviews and had been running for some time. I signed up for an account with them and was glad to see that things worked well. There was only 200 MB of space on offer, but that was plenty for the time being.
I must, at this point, say that FWHA gets my seal of approval. The down time on the server for maintenence has been minimal, there has, so far, not been a major service outage and their customer services (via email) is excellent!
They offer advert removal at $1 a month (yes, that's one dollar a month) payable yearly in advance ($12 a year). I took up this offer at the end of August 2007, after trying the service free for a while. Well I say August, nothing ever seems to go smoothly for me and their payment processor (a third party company) had trouble processing my credit card, something about security. It was sorted by early September and on the 18th September the pop up adverts disapeared. Since then the space has been increased to 500 MB, for no additional charge. Advert removal, once paid via credit card, is automaticlly charged on a yearly basis untill you cancel the account. Now into the second year of using their hosting services I feel I can Highly Recommend them.
One thing I did worry about for a while, though, was site visitor numbers:
The FWHA Terms and Conditions state that a small site has to have, at least, 1 visitor a month. In the early days this was no problem, but the Ts & Cs continue:
"Larger sites have to have at least 1 visitor a day". As the site was growing quite large fairly quickly (by October 2007 there were over 200 pages and by April 2008 it was over 600 pages, a growth of 400 pages in 6 months, along with all the associated graphics and other files) I started to wonder if a "local radio club" website could sustain the required 1 visitor per day minimum, especially at Christmas. I need not have worried though, I seem to be giving people what they want and if I get less than 30 visitors in a day I wonder what I've said wrong!
Now that the pop up adverts had been removed, Screen Readers could now read the main site without the ads popping up in the way, confusing things. I initiated the use of CSS with a crash course of self teaching from the end of November 2007 and, over the Christmas period (after being chosen to continue on the comittee and the committee deciding that, as I was doing a good job so far, they would keep me as webmaster), the newly styled CSS layout was written and uploaded in sections. I had to alter around 400 pages, check they worked, both visually and aurally (again Andrew, 2W0MGBs', help was invaluable), then upload them to the host for all to see / hear.
To my credit, the site was "live" all the time the changeover was taking place, visitors were not confronted by the meaningless, well it's actually one of my pet hates, "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" messages that litter some sites, just the page of information they were looking for. To me, you've either got something to say or not, "under construction" means you're not sure, I mean, how many books do you read that say "under construction" on pages because the author hasn't filled the page with words yet!?.
I finally closed the Screen Readers' site, having incorporated everything into one site, at the end of January 2008. I left some files on the VM space for a while, linked seamlessly (usually) so nobody really noticed there were 2 hosts.
After having removed the pop up adverts I stumbled upon a company that offered payment if I added just 3 adverts (1 advert each page on 3 different pages) to the site, Money 4 Banners.co.uk. 
One of the conditions for being accepted to the scheme was that the applicant site had no pop up adverts, well it didn't now, so I applied.
The website was accepted to their scheme and the adverts, supplied by Money 4 Banners, were added to the pages that I had offered the space on (Home, Glossary Index and Fun & Games Index pages) and I donated to the club the £5.00 per month for the advert hosting. The amount may be small but it is a welcome source of revenue that pays the domain and hosting fees with money left over for club funds. A self financing, even profitable website. That can't be bad!
Since the major changeover to CSS the site has grown every week, in fact I think I've only missed updating the site for 6 weeks in total since I started, and now there are over 1200 pages or, if you like, the site has doubled in size in 10 months!
The most popular area visited is the Battery Equivalents. Thanks to the suggestion from Andrew, 2W0MGB, the (I think) largest Consumer Battery Equivalents List in the world is hosted by the club! It's hard work but certainly worth it, accounting for around 70% of page visits to the site!
I have moved all the files over from the VM space now (with redirection pages placed for a while, so anyone finding the page through a search engine that had not yet discovered the change was whisked off to the correct location) so, if required, there is a "spare" 55 MB of space that could be used in the future along with the (at time of writing) 331 Mb of space yet to be used on the FWHA server. There are several ideas in the pipeline for new areas within the site, think satellite communication, SSTV and FSTV for starters, but I really need contributors with expertise in these areas, I know far too little about those, and other, subjects to write any real articles on them!
I've recently made both Google and YAHOO! search engines more aware of the site, although there is some extra work involved with keeping their sitemap files up to date with the latest additions (not to be confused with the Sitemap page for your navigation!). Add the extra search engine traffic to the referrals from Wikipedia, The DXZone and other referrals, it does seem well worth the effort as the weekly total for visitors to the site has certainly increased over the past couple of weeks, getting the name of Highfields ARC noticed all around the world. The hit counter was placed on the site in March 2007 and turned over to 25,000 visitors on 22 February 2009! That's an average of 250 visitors a week! Now I know I don't have to worry about the "1 visitor per day" minimum!
Feedback about the site is, in the main, favourable. The only real complaint that I tend to receive is that the site is too large to read at a single sitting! Much of the information is there as a reference and I really wouldn't expect someone to start at the Home page and read through to the end (let's face it, unless they read quickly they'd never do it due to new content being added weekly!).
I must not lose sight of the main reason for the site being in existance. The fact that it is a local Amateur Radio Club site. I hope that I do cover all the local and club issues that need to be reported (if I don't that means you're not letting me know things!) with some food, fun & games, reference material, projects and history all "thrown in" for good measure.
I certainly couldn't have done it without the aid of people suggesting articles, new sections, permission to use their data, addition of things like the menu and search facility, further information and, most of all, corrections. Also those supplying photos, old newsletters, prepared articles, jokes, hand drawn designs etc. Not forgetting the software providers that make it all possible!
My heartfelt thanks go to (alphabetically):
Due to personal reasons I felt that I had to resign my post on the committee in July 2009. As a result the Highfields ARC website closed and, as I had already paid the hosting fees and done most of the work on a such a useful resource (other peoples' comments not mine), I used most of the content that I had written for my own personal Amateur Radio site.
In early August, after I had spoken with a couple of committee members, I decided to continue hosting and writing the club site but there was a slight difference. The club site was separate from my personal site and mainly contained cub related matters. By the end middle of November the 2 sites were fully integrated into one again.