Ham radio and newer generations

[TheSpaceMann]

Bring back those cheap 11 meter walkie talkies, and let the youngsters get on CB. They will get a taste of radio, and many will just jump up to the ham bands just like many of today's old timers did!

 

[KC2GIU]

Bring back those cheap 11 meter walkie talkies, and let the youngsters get on CB. They will get a taste of radio, and many will just jump up to the ham bands just like many of today's old timers did!

That would be true IF we had any REAL Radio Shack stores. they should change the name to Cell Shack store instead.

 

[pinballwiz86]

I'm 29. I was 27 when I joined the ham radio hobby. I would have been interested in it a lot earlier if I had been exposed to it. I knew NO ONE that was a ham growing up. I found out about it on my own.

So, we have to expose young people to the hobby right now or it will become a shell of what it once was within 20-30 years. I'm doing my part. Are you?

 

[gewecke]

Bring back those cheap 11 meter walkie talkies, and let the youngsters get on CB. They will get a taste of radio, and many will just jump up to the ham bands just like many of today's old timers did!

. I held out for 49mhz. Talkies and threw my 11 meter talkie in the woodchipper! . 73, n9zas

 

[K7MEM]

I'm 29. I was 27 when I joined the ham radio hobby. I would have been interested in it a lot earlier if I had been exposed to it. I knew NO ONE that was a ham growing up. I found out about it on my own.

You are not alone in not being exposed to ham radio. But I don't mean me. I learned about ham radio in high school, 50 years ago.

About 25-30 years ago, or so, I was the head of the Computer Aided Design and Computer Aided Engineering (CAD/CAE) area where I worked. By "head" I really mean, I was the only one. I had dozens of Unix systems running CAD/CAE applications and I was the only one maintaining the entire network. I finally complained to the management that I was over worked and needed help. So they hired a guy that was fresh out of college with a BS degree.

It turned out that that job was the biggest learning experience of his life. It seems that he made it through 4 years of college and never heard of ham radio. He was amazed that regular people were allowed to talk around the world over the radio. But more shocking, he never heard of Unix! Talk about a learning curve. But he was a quick learner.

He worked for me for about a year, maybe two. And what he learned is that, he could instantly triple his salary, because of what he learned about Unix and managing large engineering applications. Maybe I should have taken a cue from him.

Martin - K7MEM

 

[chrissim]

You hit the Nail on the head with the dumbing down of the ham test and removing the code the only real filter that the fcc had is gone i have all ready seen the downfall of this hobby at least in my local area there's no more studying of Ham Radio Theory any more it's just memorizing A.B.C.D. to me thats not not Ham Radio.........

Forgive me, but judging by sentence structure and grammatical usage, I find it ironic that you used the word "dumbing." I'm not attacking you, but I've never seen a correlation between the ability to pass a ham test 25 or more years ago to actual raw intelligence.

Amateur radio may not be unique in this regard, but I find it more often in ham radio than other hobbies. There seems to be an intrinsic need for the old timers to collectively reminiscence about the "days of yore" compared to recent circumstances. I believe it's mostly due to the clique aspect and the need to feel some type of prowess over others. I do understand though. I think most of us want to believe we've achieved something others haven't - it sets us apart.

In terms of interest, kids have so much more to do today than in the past. So much is competing for their attention that I can understand why amateur radio isn't something often pursued by the young. As has been mentioned, entry level cost to this hobby isn't cheap and most young people don't have that type of disposable income. I doubt there's any real change in the composition of amateur radio than there was in the past. Finally, I assure you, not knowing code or being able to interpret a schematic has absolutely nothing to do with the course a new ham's path will take. My feeling is that they will, as a natural byproduct of their investment in radio both monetarily and intellectually, desire to learn what was once necessary anyhow.

 

[mmckenna]

Amateur radio may not be unique in this regard, but I find it more often in ham radio than other hobbies. There seems to be an intrinsic need for the old timers to collectively reminiscence about the "days of yore" compared to recent circumstances. I believe it's mostly due to the clique aspect and the need to feel some type of prowess over others. I do understand though. I think most of us want to believe we've achieved something others haven't - it sets us apart.

Well said. This exact attitude is very often given as a big complaint by newcomers.

The biggest threat to amateur radio as a hobby is the amateur radio operators. No, not all of them are bad. It's like everything else, a few bad apples spoil it for others. While amateurs love to "self police", there probably needs to be less "radio cop" action and more calling out the -a$s-hat- operators that give the hobby a bad name.
When I first got my license back in the 80's, a couple of these jerk operators almost put me off the hobby for good. Growing a thicker skin fixed that, but that shouldn't be part of the requirement to join the hobby.
If amateur radio operators want to increase the numbers of licensees, they/we need to do a better job of squelching the jerks, attracting the younger generation and actively working to make the hobby attractive to others.

And the "no code was the death of amateur radio" schtick is getting old. Time to give it up. Hiding behind this excuse isn't helping anyone.

 

[bharvey2]

And the "no code was the death of amateur radio" schtick is getting old. Time to give it up. Hiding behind this excuse isn't helping anyone.

Yep, the code thing is what delayed me from getting my license. I took an interest in radios in high school in the 70's but just couldn't get the hang of CW. I certainly don't harbor any ill will toward those who enjoy code, in fact, I envy them. But, if we are going to dig our heels in the ground and resist change what is the point? Isn't experimentation and innovation part of the hobby? There wouldn't be repeaters, PSK, DMR, IRLP or a whole host of other things if not for trying something new. If the hobby doesn't move forward, it surely will die. - Well, better get off my soap box before I fall and break a hip.

 

[mmckenna]

Exactly. The "purists" like to cling to CW as the mark of a "real" amateur. I find that kind of funny. Not sure why these guys are not still running spark gap transmitters, too.

Actually, what I've seen at work recently is more and more people buying the $36 Chinese dual band hand held radios and then finding out they actually need a license. That has lead to a couple of people here getting their amateur license.

 

[Token]

And the "no code was the death of amateur radio" schtick is getting old. Time to give it up. Hiding behind this excuse isn't helping anyone.

Not sure what triggered that response, so far in this thread of over 45 responses I have only seen one that could be said to be espousing what you mention. I think that is a pretty good ratio, people are, after all, entitled to their opinions. A couple of other posts, including mine, mention code, but do NOT say it "made things better".

I may have had to learn code to get into ham radio, but it was a different day. In todays hobby I see no reason to require CW, that ship has sailed, however I DO see reason to encourage learning it, as another valid mode in the tool bag. As a requirement it's day is past, as something potentially useful it still has merit.

But since you brought it up I will say something positive about the code requirement, it did not guarantee, but did make more likely, that a licensed ham knew more about ham radio before they went on the air for the first time.

Today a potential ham can study online for every level of test, learn the answers by rote, and pass all levels of license, and the first time he has to interface with another ham is when he takes the exams. I know people who have done this, and people post to these forums about having done it. While technically possible even when there was a code requirement it was, for practical purposes, nearly impossible and it was VERY uncommon. You had to learn and practice code somehow, and for most people (outside military training) that meant learning from hams, often an Elmer. Chances were very good in all that time you took to learn the code (often measured in months) while working with experienced hams that you also picked up other stuff about ham radio, things beyond what was required to pass the exams.

So yeah, in some ways I see the code requirement as a good thing. However after the code requirement was dropped I saw many people who had wanted, for a long time, to get into ham radio, now take the steps required to actually do it. I think that by the late 70's code was running off more potential hams than it had in the past, and it was no longer a primary mode of operation. From this standpoint the positives of removing the code requirement outweigh its benefits to the hobby.

What I wish was there was some way to reintroduce the good (in the form of extensive exposure to ham radio even before licensing) that code brought to the table, without running off the folks who cannot learn it or don't want to learn it.

T!

 

[mmckenna]

Not sure what triggered that response, so far in this thread of over 45 responses I have only seen one that could be said to be espousing what you mention. I think that is a pretty good ratio, people are, after all, entitled to their opinions. A couple of other posts, including mine, mention code, but do NOT say it "made things better".

It was only directed at the single post in this thread, and not a general stab at the others. But, since we are on the subject, I've seen the "No Code" complaint used a lot since the 90's. If it was the real reason for the downfall of amateur radio, amateur radio would be all but gone. It obviously isn't.

If we really wanted to look at the removal of code as the main issue, we'd have to look at other things that changed around the same time, like taking vacuum tube technology related questions out of the pool. So far I haven't see anyone claim "No tubes? Know tubes!" line though.

Like was said earlier, there will always be those that lament the loss of the old days. The desperately grasp at anything that they can use as an anchor to the old times. What I've learned over the last 25+ years of working in the industry is that you need to continue to advance your skills or you'll get replaced. Sure, the old skills do come in useful, and there are those days when I get to impress the younger guys because I know how to repair some antique piece of gear. Truth is that old equipment is disappearing and if I hadn't replaced some of the old knowledge in my brain with IP knowledge, I'd probably be out of a job.

Yeah, old radios are fun. CW is fun, but it shouldn't be used as the requirements for entry into the hobby. Likely at some point we'll see questions about VoIP, DHCP and IPv6 on the tests, then we can all lament the days when knowing how to tune an antennas was required.

 

[N4GIX]

I heard a comment made by a "gentleman" in South Florida after tonight's DMR North America Tech Net that really set my teeth on edge. I won't give a direct quote, but the essence was "...these new guys are scary with their simple questions that they should have learned the answers to before getting licensed."

Mind you, the questions for the most part were asking about such things as "I'm trying to write a code plug to my new CS750 and it seems to load but when it reboots it tells me no channels programmed." How anyone could have possibly learned that before getting their license remains a mystery!

In any case what bothered me was the dripping condescension and oh so superior attitude expressed. Just because he owns thousands of dollars worth of "appliances" and six bloody repeaters doesn't make him anything special in my not so humble opinion.

Worse, this fellow made those comments immediately after the net was closed, so it is quite likely that many of the hundred or so folks who had participated were still monitoring the QSO with the net control operator. I can only cringe when thinking about how they may have felt... :evil:

 

[pinballwiz86]

I heard a comment made by a "gentleman" in South Florida after tonight's DMR North America Tech Net that really set my teeth on edge. I won't give a direct quote, but the essence was "...these new guys are scary with their simple questions that they should have learned the answers to before getting licensed."

Mind you, the questions for the most part were asking about such things as "I'm trying to write a code plug to my new CS750 and it seems to load but when it reboots it tells me no channels programmed." How anyone could have possibly learned that before getting their license remains a mystery!

In any case what bothered me was the dripping condescension and oh so superior attitude expressed. Just because he owns thousands of dollars worth of "appliances" and six bloody repeaters doesn't make him anything special in my not so humble opinion.

Worse, this fellow made those comments immediately after the net was closed, so it is quite likely that many of the hundred or so folks who had participated were still monitoring the QSO with the net control operator. I can only cringe when thinking about how they may have felt... :evil:

There are jerks in EVERY hobby. Not just ham radio. I'm also a member of the amateur astronomy community and magic community (magic as in abracadabra, david copperfield magic). Believe you me..the magicians are real snobs. So are the astronomers. It's like that in every hobby. Someone with low self esteem, putting someone else down to make themselves feel better...is what it boils down to. lol. They might be 50 but they are still in high school!

 

[countywacker]

The key to keeping the hobby going is to engage the youth into participating and don't bore them to death. One of my biggest pet peeves is hearing new operators making contacting for the first time and hearing the typical response "so how's the weather out your way" or "I hear were getting 6-8 inches of snow tomorrow". great so what!! That will turn someone off real quick if all you want is weather reports.

Engage in a more meaningful conversation, welcome them to the hobby, ask how or why they got started, or what other interest they have. Explain everything that they can do in ham radio and how much fun they are. Keep them interested is the key!!!

Now is the best time ever to get into the hobby. You can buy a study guide, take the test and purchase a HT to get on the air all for under a $100. Cheap in my eyes to back out if you don't like the hobby.

AND!! the best part now a days, especially for the tinkers is there is so much out there in books and online on how to build antennas and fix equipment, which Is what the hobby is all about, experimenting and tinkering. I would have LOVED to have this available to me when I was younger. I had to figure it out for myself.

SO, the key thing is get younger people involved and keep them interested. Don't bore them out of the hobby.

 

[Token]

There are jerks in EVERY hobby. Not just ham radio.

^^^^^ This is very true…period.

I'm also a member of the amateur astronomy community and magic community (magic as in abracadabra, david copperfield magic).

It always surprises me how many hams are also into astronomy . For me I have several hobbies that I “cycle”, I might spend a few years deeply into one hobby and then drift into another, then another, only to return to the first a few years down the road. Astronomy is one of those hobbies. I may keep my fingers in all of my hobbies most of the time, but my focus tends to cycle from one to the other every couple years.

T!

 

[62Scout]

You had to pass a code test as well as answer some serious technical questions back when I got my license (N8BSR). Then came code free licenses and mail-order testing (club exams). I felt that those changes were going to contribute to the downfall of the hobby. You don't value something you get with little effort. Could it be that I'm being proven right?

Exactly. The "purists" like to cling to CW as the mark of a "real" amateur. I find that kind of funny. Not sure why these guys are not still running spark gap transmitters, too.

Actually, what I've seen at work recently is more and more people buying the $36 Chinese dual band hand held radios and then finding out they actually need a license. That has lead to a couple of people here getting their amateur license.

I heard a comment made by a "gentleman" in South Florida after tonight's DMR North America Tech Net that really set my teeth on edge. I won't give a direct quote, but the essence was "...these new guys are scary with their simple questions that they should have learned the answers to before getting licensed."

Mind you, the questions for the most part were asking about such things as "I'm trying to write a code plug to my new CS750 and it seems to load but when it reboots it tells me no channels programmed." How anyone could have possibly learned that before getting their license remains a mystery!

In any case what bothered me was the dripping condescension and oh so superior attitude expressed. Just because he owns thousands of dollars worth of "appliances" and six bloody repeaters doesn't make him anything special in my not so humble opinion.

Worse, this fellow made those comments immediately after the net was closed, so it is quite likely that many of the hundred or so folks who had participated were still monitoring the QSO with the net control operator. I can only cringe when thinking about how they may have felt... :evil:

There are jerks in EVERY hobby. Not just ham radio. I'm also a member of the amateur astronomy community and magic community (magic as in abracadabra, david copperfield magic). Believe you me..the magicians are real snobs. So are the astronomers. It's like that in every hobby. Someone with low self esteem, putting someone else down to make themselves feel better...is what it boils down to. lol. They might be 50 but they are still in high school!

This is the BIG part of what nearly killed the hobby altogether for me recently - the feeling that no matter what I do, I'll never be accepted into the "group" because I'm not full of knowledge like the "old timers" are. Ironically, it seems that's it's the middle aged group that carry this attitude much more so than the seniors.

I have a tech license, so obviously I don't have a clue. I've asked basic questions that I should have known better, so I don't have a clue what I'm doing. I've gotten berated for ADMITTING that I don't have a clue what I'm doing, or that I didn't have a full understanding of the particular subject but am trying to learn it. I'm not a REAL ham because I got my license after the code requirement was dropped (and just how am I supposed to fix that?!? Invent a time machine to go get my license back when code was still required?) I'm not a REAL ham because I'm not on HF, but don't DARE try to get on HF because you don't know what you're doing! You'll never be a REAL ham because you came from CB!

Yes, as pinballwiz mentioned, every hobby has it's jerks, it's better-than-thou members. But the key point that separates ham radio from most other hobbies - it's almost a requirement that you have someone else to do it with. I can't exactly talk to myself on the radio, lol. I need someone else on the other end.

To a lesser degree, the extreme emphasis on HF and talking to people around the world seems to be a bit of a disservice to the hobby in the modern world as well. As others mentioned, we have cell phones, the internet, etc. The big draw to ham for me was being able to get into far better local communications. Being able to communicate with others in my off road groups for more than 1/4 mile. To not have to deal with the yahoos with the "peeked and tuned" CBs splattering over the entire band with their FFFFFFFFFFFFF-UUUUUUUUUUUUs. To have coverage in areas where cell phones just don't reach. If I'm having an emergency, I need help from police in my county, not the other side of the world. But even now, I generally carry a SPOT for the truly life or death situations. I'm not going to mess around with HOPING I find someone, somewhere, on the HF bands. When I was younger, I was jealous of the people with RC planes operating on the ham bands, and not having to deal with interference nearly as much.

It wasn't until after I got into the hobby that I found that it expands FAR beyond yakking into the mic, and HF vs VHF/UHF. Finding things like APRS, and radio mesh networking. I was exposed to ham at a very young age by Grandpa, but didn't actually get my license until early 2009 at the age of 28, and just picked up my first HF capable radio a couple days ago (a 2nd hand 706MkIIG). Figured hey..I have the money for the equipment now, might as well try HF before settling on whether I really like it or not.

But nearly everyone else I talk to, that asks me about Ham radio..the draw is virtually never on the ability to run code, or yak with people on the other side of the world....

 

[chrissim]

I spent about six years obsessed with astrophotography. I spent a great deal of time on cloudynights (a forum similar to eham, but for the amateur astronomy community). I just don't recall the chest beating, grandiose statements/embellishments, and the overall lousy attitudes that I have witnessed from some in amateur radio.

To further veer way off topic, I sold all of my astro gear some years ago. Even though the local skies above have become increasingly terrible for viewing, there's no other hobby I miss more. I recall countless nights on Mount Pisgah in Asheville, NC, shooting for hours on end. My last image was NGC 7000. Forty five shots @ seven minutes each using a refractor on a Celestron CGE guided with a short tube 80. Nice, round and sharp stars. Sigh...

 

[PrimeNumber]

So, any thoughts about what can be done to help attract younger folks to get licensed and be ACTIVE or will the active side of the hobby just end up dying with us?

This is one of the most positive things I've seen lately that appeals to a younger, or at least physically active, demographic: Top 10 Reasons to Take Ham Radio Portable ← M0JCQ's Ham Blog In fact, that guy's whole blog is pretty upbeat.

On a completely different avenue, there's the whole "getting away from other people's infrastructure" appeal. Watch this recent ad for a very much non-ham product, GoTenna: https://player.vimeo.com/video/100711244 Now look, this is emphatically not ham radio, but you can see the crossover: great outdoors with friends, works when the cell system is either overloaded or simply out altogether – "and look, we can use it to have a blackout party or find the festival's beer tent!" Yes, it is an appliance, but so is CB radio and how many people have come to ham from there because they wanted something better? This is when (for example) you loan your 20-something nephew a spare FT-817 and show him how to do PSK31 on his iPhone to "text" when he's out finding himself in the Rockies next summer. (if you missed that thread, it's here http://forums.radioreference.com/am...27836-psker-ft-817nd-ios-9-a.html#post2524627) Then you help him study up for his General.

Just last year in one sci-fi anthology, Hieroglyph, I read two stories that touched on ham technology. One was about a crypto-punk collective making drone-riding mesh net nodes to provide a free alternative to a future heavily-controled version of the internet. In another, one group is building a crowdsourced moon rover in a makerspace and is on friendly tool-loaning terms with some hams who do their projects in the same place. Playing off this kind of background literature can draw prospective young hams in.

We've got to think beyond what drew people in 50 years ago. Sitting around grousing about no-code licenses or "mail order testing" just won't get it. It has to be a positive, relevant message. Once people are attracted by obvious utility, their technical curiosity will take it from there.

 

[AC2OY]

When my club does field day we take the time out to explain amateur radio to anyone who stops by our tents and tables. We invite the local scout troops...eat. Amateur hasn't died out yet and I hope it never does. I really enjoy this hobby and continually to try and learn more or as much as I can.

 

[KE0GXN]

On the topic of jerks dissuading folks from being active, I had my first CBish incident the other day while on one of the 2 meter repeaters in my area...

Unfortunately due to family commitments I don't have the ability to drop hundreds of dollars or what have you for a proper base station set-up, so I am operating with just an HT, however fortunately I am within decent proximity to a few repeaters. So the other day, I was in the middle of a rag-chew with a gentleman who from time to time would ask me to repeat some transmissions (he was mobile) which may have or not contributed to our signal issues. Anyway, some guy out of nowhere without IDing, interrupts our QSO and rudely screams, "You need to get an outside antenna!"

Well, the gentleman I was talking to, who come to find out I am an acquaintance of his son and a very experienced ham asks for the station to identify himself twice...of course nothing but crickets is heard. So no big deal, we end our QSO. Well later that evening I get with his son and he tells me he had happened to have been scanning the repeaters when that happened and I was clear and he could copy everything I was saying, but because of guys like that is the reason he does not get on any repeaters anymore. (He is into HF/DX.)

Anyway, I wondered for awhile afterwards, what the heck is wrong with people and why do they feel the need to expound their unsolicited commentary in a conversation they are not even a part of. If he didn't like our signals, then he should have turned his VFO.....

Yeah, I would love to have hundreds of dollars worth of gear sitting on my shack desk and an outdoor antenna mounted on my roof, but I am trying to work with what I got in the meantime and I don't need this guy making me feel like I am interrupting HIS clear bandwidth listening experience.