There are many ways to get enjoyment from Ham Radio, long distance
contacts being just one of them. I am a DXer and Contester by heart as
that is what I was exposed to as a young ham. I never got into the rag
chewing. I had a sched with my Grandfather weekly yet we still still
talked just as much on the telephone. People stay involved in hobbies
that are fun. It has gotten increasingly more difficult to find homes
that allow ham activities, ie towers and outside antennas. The entry
cost can be high. I am curious to see if Remote is going to bring in
any new folks. It is keeping older ones active that desire to move to
assisted living or smaller more easily maintained homes. Contesting
could probably be bigger than it is now but there is nothing close to
level playing field which you can find with online games or Esports.
The guy with the most bucks and best location is going to have a huge
advantage. We in the west can't compete with the east coast that can
run EU all day long in most DX contests. Domestic contests are
different but look who consistently wins. These are big stations.
I am also involved with 3D printing as a hobby as I play table top games
and I build terrain, walls, trees, miniatures. This hobby is booming
and is filled with young and old alike. Entry is about 200 bucks and
requires a bit of space on a desk. Same mind set for many as there is a
lot to learn about the printing process to setup and make good prints.
It is not a plug in and go hobby.
Young people would rather binge watch shows on their phone or tv instead
of actually meeting people.
I think there could be a draw but what I find is many hams don't want
more hams. They want exclusivity and for some don't really want
competition as someone else might win their paper or wooden plaque.
People want the stuff and want to win and want the accolades but would
prefer to do it without competition. I know a person that is part of
horse club that my XYL and daughter are part of. She used to always win
a saddle because she was the only one that would enter that class, which
required you compete in 3 classes. She got mad when the club removed
that class and started giving saddles away for the individual classes.
Her comment, well I can't beat...so and so.............. so I just won't
compete anymore. Many competitors do it only for fun and themselves
and know they have little chance to win. This is very similar to ham
radio contesting where most are really just participants and not serious
competitors.
I am not sure how you sell Ham Radio to people today. I have two sons
and a daughter. One son got licensed really young and did some contests
and mobile activities with me but never got hooked like I did. People
have less free time than ever and there are more options for
entertainment than ever.
W0MU
On 12/13/2019 9:36 PM, David Gilbert wrote:
This of course is a discussion that isn't likely to die before we do,
but I really don't think that any significant portion of today's youth
will ever look at amateur radio like we do. I wish that weren't the
case, but reality bites.
1. The major lure of amateur radio for most of us was the ability to
freely talk to faraway places. Young people today can do that with FM
quality and yet often they don't ... they text or chat via message
groups and forums.
2. Communicating today is license free, and while even now with
today's lesser requirements getting an amateur radio license is maybe
not a roadblock it's a nuisance to have to study for something that
you don't otherwise care about.
3. Effectively communicating today is far cheaper hardware-wise than
for amateur radio, especially for long distances.
4. Communicating today is independent of time of day or position in
the sunspot cycle.
5. A basic competency in amateur radio was once considered a stepping
stone to a technical career. That is hardly the case today. In fact,
I remember one manager of a test department in another company telling
me he tried to avoid hiring hams because they talked about it too much
on the job.
One thing I do believe has carryover appeal is the spirit of
competition. Humans in general always seem keen to compete at almost
anything ... from eating hot dogs to running to vicariously watching
football to quilting to barbeque. Young people today have video games
that provide a FAR richer competitive environment than any ham radio
contest (I do both, by the way), and I've always thought that one way
to drum up interest in ham radio is to develop a contest format that
has similar elements. Ham radio contests are essentially endurance
events that involve independent action throughout the contest with the
comparison occurring at the end, and often weeks or months later.
Video games require different but otherwise comparable proficiency
(both mental and physical) but involve real time counter moves to any
opponent. The closest we hams come to offsetting somebody we view as
competition is to steal their frequency or QRM them. I'm not at all
suggesting that we do any such thing, but a contest where we could
take some action that subtracted from somebody else's score is the
kind of thing I'm talking about. And no, I don't know how to do that
either, but it illustrates what I'm talking about.
It's not any surprise to me that contesting is one of the few
surviving ham radio activities with high participation. Even
ragchewing has practically died out, and if anyone disputes that take
a look at how much time you spend each week reading email reflectors
versus being on the air (other than in a contest).
I'm not really sure what Wayne was referring to here, and maybe he
implied that same thing that I'm saying, but we aren't going to bring
young folks into the hobby by trying to convince them that the same
things that appealed to us 40 years ago are going to appeal to them.
This isn't a communication or publicity problem. In spite of the
comments from hams I've seen over the years, most young people pretty
much know the general framework of ham radio and they've simply
rejected it in favor of other things. There are always a few
exceptions, of course, but I'd bet $100 that the bulk of those young
people who pop up online or in QST as shining examples of young blood
in the hobby are nowhere to be found two years later.
If for any reason we want young folks to embrace the hobby, the hobby
itself is going to have to adapt. That most of us seem unable to
understand that fact is probably another facet of the problem ...
we're old and inflexible (in both appearance and in fact), which
doesn't help the image of the hobby one wit. The pictures from Dayton
or any other hamfest have the same appeal as if they were taken at a
Lawrence Welk concert.
I guarantee that those of us who are still above ground five years
from now will be having this same discussion, and it won't be because
we weren't persuasive enough.
73,
Dave AB7E
On 12/13/2019 7:24 PM, Wayne Burdick wrote:
Hams of a certain age, including yours truly (first licensed in 1971)
recall their excitement on joining the hobby: there was the promise
of contact with faraway places, collection of vivid QSL cards,
mastery of esoteric equipment, synchrony with the rhythms of Morse
code, and the crafting of antennas to harness action at a distance.
Most of us still feel that spark, occasionally--some on a daily
basis--experiencing the wonder all over again.
While the accoutrements and equipage of youth have evolved over the
decades, their DNA has not. Somewhere, nestled between the genetic
codes for half-pipe snowboarding, Instagram, Juul, and ambient house,
there's a dormant sequence for the Radio Art waiting to be stirred.
Is there a Battle Royale for ham radio? A tactical RPG?
What is our sorcerer's stone? Our rap?
Will Gen-Z or Gen-Alpha tickle the ionosphere, and if so...why?
To hand our batons across the chronological divide, we'll need
empathetic, open-ended inquiry.
73,
Wayne
N6KR
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