Is Ham Radio Doomed?

[Lauri-CoyoteFrostbite]

......Huh, why did the "guys with guns" find Taco Tuesdays a security risk?
bharvey


Becuz this is a government laboratory..... watched over by the DoE, DoD, NNSA, (National Nuclear Security Administration)- and any number of other agencies depending on what we were up to.....


I never argue with them.....

 

[millrad]

For the record, I have no immediate plans to jump off of a bridge.

Is ham radio doomed? No, I don't think so. It may shrink and some aspects of amateur radio may not look like they do today, but I think it will always be here.

For instance, I think hot spots are killing interest in digital voice repeaters. Why be tied to a fixed service that is run by someone else when you can run your own connection to the outside world (as long as you have Internet)?

For that matter, I think repeaters are doomed. I think it will be more and more difficult to get access to high profile repeater sites at the prices amateur radio operators are willing to pay (i.e. for free). "Garage" repeaters will proliferate which may put pressure on repeater coordinators to allow close spacing of repeaters. These garage repeaters, if they stay analog, will also have to connect to other repeaters which takes us back to hot spots or AllStar/Echolink/IRLP.

I think traffic nets are doomed. The older hams who are into traffic nets will slowly die off and so will their nets. I'm not sure traffic nets serve any real purpose any more and the "traffic" I hear on them seems to be mostly self-generated.

I think SSB DXing and contesting and ragchewing is doomed. As more and more people move into areas where they can't put up very good antennas, they will find it more and more difficult to communicate using SSB and 100 watts. Weak signal sound card digital modes, like FT8 will proliferate. Note that this would be a prime opportunity for CW to increase in prominence, but it won't because folks will go for the computer-based modes. As a result, CW DXing and contesting and ragchewing is also doomed.

I think ARES/RACES/SATERN/Skywarn are doomed. The served agencies will have less and less use for amateur radio as they become more and more reliant on infrastructure-based communications systems and social media.

The prepper aspect of amateur radio will flourish. As folks figure out that their cell phones and Internet access could disappear in a heartbeat, they will take greater interest in amateur radio. Sadly, without some training and familiarity in how to use their radios, these preppers will find that they still can't communicate. Note, this is a prime opportunity for the ARRL and every local amateur radio club to start addressing this aspect of amateur radio. These organizations need to start catering to the prepper crowd. I take the recent QST article about stockpiling water and food as a positive sign that maybe one person at the ARRL gets it.

So, chew on those topics for a while.

The ARRL reaching out to preppers? I don't really see this happening. What I DO see is the liklihood of preppers buying ham gear to use when the SHTF scenario happens and callsigns won't really matter. (Personally, I don't expect a doomsday event in my lifetime or any time in this century - but that's just me.)
"Prepper" still has a negative "Mad Max" connotation, no matter how you try and paint it. I do agree with you on the non-future of traffic nets, but I was saying the same thing 30 years ago. NTS is still a good way to pass birthday greetings to a relative a few states away, but it's far too slow for important disaster-related stuff in this digital day-and-age.

 

[bharvey2]

......Huh, why did the "guys with guns" find Taco Tuesdays a security risk?
bharvey


This is a government laboratory..... watched over by the DoE, DoD, NNSA, (National Nuclear Security Administration)- and any number of other agencies depending on what we were up to.....


I never argue with them.....

I've worked with both DoE and DoD and agree they aren't all "chuckles and yuks" but at the time, there wasn't an issue of what I did when I wasn't working on a project. Perhaps I misunderstood, were you bringing students into a government facility? I was under the impression that you were going to their school.

 

[6079smithw]

......Huh, why did the "guys with guns" find Taco Tuesdays a security risk?
bharvey


Becuz this is a government laboratory..... watched over by the DoE, DoD, NNSA, (National Nuclear Security Administration)- and any number of other agencies depending on what we were up to.....


I never argue with them.....

View attachment 73863

I wonder if the car is available at the next govt. surplus auction!

Never made it to Los Alamos but I did take a couple of my non-believer family members on a little tour south of Reno when they came out to visit a while back:

Decided that offering to share our tacos with those guys up on the hill probably wouldn't be a good idea...
All jokes aside, security matters are taken very seriously at these places...

 

[N8IAA]

I wonder if the car is available at the next govt. surplus auction!

Never made it to Los Alamos but I did take a couple of my non-believer family members on a little tour south of Reno when they came out to visit a while back:

Decided that offering to share our tacos with those guys up on the hill probably wouldn't be a good idea...
All jokes aside, security matters are taken very seriously at these places...

They might have if you had something cold to drink with the tacos.

 

[6079smithw]

View attachment 73861

Lower left corner.

I just tried this myself! Liking it a helluva lot better too!

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

......Huh, why did the "guys with guns" find Taco Tuesdays a security risk?
bharvey


Becuz this is a government laboratory..... watched over by the DoE, DoD, NNSA, (National Nuclear Security Administration)- and any number of other agencies depending on what we were up to.....


I never argue with them.....

View attachment 73863

Did you watch the TV series Manhattan? Manhattan (TV series) - Wikipedia

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

I've just changed to dark theme in Preferences > Style and it looks great - very modern and easy to read

Just checked out your "shack" . nice radios! Where can I get "The Enemy is Listening" stickers!

Are you hearing much in clear on the MILSAT's? I need to set up my 9 ft long Andrew Bifilar Helix again.



For the Mods. Ham Radio is not dead, it just smells funny.

 

[ai8o]

Tempis Fugit!

Amateur Radio as it is presently constituted is DOOMED!
Does this mean that the concept of "Amateur Radio" is DOOMED?

NO!

Amateur Radio always has been changing, and will always be changing!

The idea of some amateur experimenting with RADIO wil live on!

The subject areas of technical experimentation will change.

After all, who does spark any more?

Hiram Percy Maxim changed the way Amateur Radio is organized.
CO-AX led to major changes in how antennae systems are configured.
Repeaters led to an explosion in HT use.
Packet Radio led to experimentation that ultimately led to BPSK 31, FT8, and FT4 being popularized.
Transistors led to 100 Watt transmitters that are shoe box sized, rather than being so big that it took two people and a hand truck to move them.


Things will never be the same again.
Amateur Radio is always changing.

FUTURE SHOCK is alive and well in Amateur Radio.

You gotta just Deal with it!

 

[KK4JUG]

FWIW, I just made a trip from Columbus, GA to Wichita, KS and back. Using RepeaterBook (Sorry, that's about the only thing available), I programmed 2m and .70m repeaters that were within about 20 miles of my route. I used a Yaesu FT-8900 set at 50W. I "checked in" on approximately 100 repeaters. Unscientifically, about half of the attempts opened the repeaters. I did not get a single response, however. In the bigger cities (B'ham, Little Rock, Tulsa & Wichita) I set the radio to scan with negative results for traffic.

I've done the same thing on a trip to Bay City, MI and back with similar results.

I refuse to say that amateur radio is doomed but it certainly doesn't sound promising.

 

[KR7CQ]

Doomed? Yes. Once everyone currently on RR is gone, I can't imagine the young kids of today who will be older then having any interest whatsoever in it. Most (but not all) young people look at ham radio as a completely silly thing. They live in world of mobile devices with free unlimited local and national long distance calling and texting, Instagram, Spotify, etc. I believe the increase in licenses does actually come largely from the prepper community. People started getting really paranoid during the Obama years, and with the current political climate, with the nation being so divided and angry, more are looking at guns, prepping, radios, and they are worried more about the future. The average skill level of the the ham radio operator is a fraction of what it was 20 years ago. I think there are a whole lot of people out there with a call sign and a Baofeng sitting in a drawer unused most of or all of the time. Local repeaters and simplex frequencies are largely silent in the three million person Phoenix metro area, for example. Few young people seem to be heard on HF on a regular basis. HF is 98% an old white man's game. Ham radio is much more popular in the white community than it is in the other communities, and America is growing less white, and fast. As less people actually use the bands, the FCC will reclaim the bandwidth bit by bit.

But all of this is going to take a while, decades. I would say ham radio has 25-35 years left in it before it is all but non-existent. Just my take.

America as we knew it may have less than 25-35 years left anyway.

 

[bharvey2]

Tempis Fugit!

After all, who does spark any more?

To be honest, I do spark every once in a long while though not intentionally. Usually it's just an E or a T and then I go immediately to voice traffic. Loud and local only!!

 

[mmckenna]

Most (but not all) young people look at ham radio as a completely silly thing. They live in world of mobile devices with free unlimited local and national long distance calling and texting, Instagram, Spotify, etc.

Yep, I agree.
At one point amateur radio was leading technology, but that's rare these days. My son has more communications access from his laptop and cellphone than I would with a radio.

Which is why people want it to change to stay relevant. Amateur radio is stuck in the 20th century.

 

[KK4JUG]

KR7CQ, you make a great point, but part of the problem is the technology itself. Years ago, you could build your own radio. The tubes were readily available and, if necessary, you could go to the drug store or hardware store and use the tube tester. Now, they put millions of components in a space the size of a tube socket. As a communications device, an amateur radio is actually not a particularly efficient device. For some, that may be part of the fun. You can tune, tweak and rotate, then pat yourself on the back for getting your signal all the way to another continent. Furthermore, you don't care who you talk to there. You just want to talk to someone, anyone. And then there's the cost. A really good cell phone will set you back, maybe, four figures. By the time the ham buys the radio, power supply, antenna, tower and all the stuff to hook it together, he could have bought at least a half a dozen cell phones.

Ham radio is still around but but the hobby is walking through a mine field littered with banana peels.

 

[bharvey2]

KR7CQ, you make a great point, but part of the problem is the technology itself. Years ago, you could build your own radio. The tubes were readily available and, if necessary, you could go to the drug store or hardware store and use the tube tester. Now, they put millions of components in a space the size of a tube socket. As a communications device, an amateur radio is actually not a particularly efficient device. For some, that may be part of the fun. You can tune, tweak and rotate, then pat yourself on the back for getting your signal all the way to another continent. Furthermore, you don't care who you talk to there. You just want to talk to someone, anyone. And then there's the cost. A really good cell phone will set you back, maybe, four figures. By the time the ham buys the radio, power supply, antenna, tower and all the stuff to hook it together, he could have bought at least a half a dozen cell phones.

Ham radio is still around but but the hobby is walking through a mine field littered with banana peels.

While what you state is true (heck, I recall running down the street from my house to the local drug store that had a tube tester) You also, couldn't buy a Raspberry Pi, an SDR dongle or a number of other devices I see as pretty cool now. Yeah, component level stuff is harder these days but that is the cost of (progress?) When you or I were youngsters, the chances of us buying a new dual band HT for less than an hour's labor would be almost impossible but it can be done now. Granted, you don't learn a heck of a lot doing that but maybe the cheap cost of entry is enough to whet one's appetite for more.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

To be honest, I do spark every once in a long while though not intentionally. Usually it's just an E or a T and then I go immediately to voice traffic. Loud and local only!!

Last time I did "spark" it took the utility 12 hours to get me hooked back up again. Not recommended.

 

[bharvey2]

Last time I did "spark" it took the utility 12 hours to get me hooked back up again. Not recommended.

I agree completely. That line item was scratched off of my bucket list long ago.

 

[Lauri-CoyoteFrostbite]

The last time I was Sparked it was all so, so magically tingley !.......

...............Uh, wait-- wrong Sparking...

....................Never mind

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(Moderators, do your worst.................lol )

 

[Eugene]

HA.....good one..........

 

[WA8ZTZ]

FWIW, I just made a trip from Columbus, GA to Wichita, KS and back. Using RepeaterBook (Sorry, that's about the only thing available), I programmed 2m and .70m repeaters that were within about 20 miles of my route. I used a Yaesu FT-8900 set at 50W. I "checked in" on approximately 100 repeaters. Unscientifically, about half of the attempts opened the repeaters. I did not get a single response, however. In the bigger cities (B'ham, Little Rock, Tulsa & Wichita) I set the radio to scan with negative results for traffic.

I've done the same thing on a trip to Bay City, MI and back with similar results.

I refuse to say that amateur radio is doomed but it certainly doesn't sound promising.

Summertime tropo season has produced some remarkable openings. Tuning my SDR to the NOAA WX freqs during one of these
openings will often produce seven solid lines on the waterfall. Sigs pouring in from 200-300 mi in all directions. Then a quick QSY to the 2 meter band... the spectrum display is a flatline... nothing. Get on the 2M rig anyway and call and call on .52... crickets.
Ham radio may not be doomed but hard to say some aspects of it are thriving.