Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
1–10 of 216 posts
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#2I saw this shared on Twitter this morning, and had some thoughts:
While the graph is good, it is specific to the US and ignores the fact that a large amount of the amateur population is 50+ - the hobby is healthy now, but there's an age crisis coming soon. It doesn't really reflect the health of the entire hobby, globally, just a specific subset.
Millenials aren't young any more, I'm millenial and I've held a ham license for over a decade - since my 20s. We're creeping in to middle age now, and are somewhat past killing anything. We need Zoomers - Gen Z to be interested, and the first step is probably not mislabeling them as millenials!
That said, there's a robust discussion to be had around this topic. I absolutely love my hobby, the things it makes me do and the constant stream of projects it gives me, but one day I do fear there won't be any folks on the radio for me to talk to at the end of the projects.
I've got friends in the local hacklab interested, and I'm trying to set up a /good/ station there to let us play, teach and share more with people who aren't licensed... but it's really just a slow, expensive passion project!
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#3When I first read about FT8, I immediately started looking at the code to see how simple it would be to handle more meaningful conversations. Fortunately I stumbled onto this video from Jordan Sherer: https://youtu.be/mZKhVcFOljY He had done all the work for me in JS8Call: https://bitbucket.org/widefido/js8call/
If you want to skip the video, the design document gives a nice overview of the protocol: https://github.com/jsherer/ft8call
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#4As someone who has looked on into the hobby in Canada. I feel there needs to be another class for people who just want to use a store bought radio.
I have to take time to study an exam about how increasing x changes y, and all these other fun facts about radio equipment. However the draw for me is talking to people, not building radio equipment.
Just my two cents.
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#5I saw this shared on Twitter this morning, and had some thoughts: While the graph is good, it is specific to the US and ignores the fact that a large amount of the amateur population is 50+ - the hobby is healthy now, but there's an age crisis coming soon. It doesn't really reflect the health of the entire hobby, globally, just a specific subset. Millenials aren't young any more, I'm millenial and I've held a ham lic…
> a large amount of the amateur population is 50+
Yes, and a lot of these folks take a "get off my lawn" approach to anything that's different to how amateur radio has been done for the last 50 years. Try talking up metro-wide mesh data network or using packet radio for anything other than APRS you get the "Why would you want to do that?" Once upon a time amateur radio operators MADE their own equipment: it was the maker space par excellence long before the term came into being.
There is so much that can be done with digital, SDR, and hybrid/fusion over-the-air and internet modes. We could probably advance the hobby further and faster by creating new amateur radio clubs specifically aimed at younger, more technical makers and experimenters and specifically excluding people who think talking about the weather on a local repeater is the height of the craft. Yes, its elitist, agist snobbery but if amateur radio isn't a home for hackers and makers it's going to die within our lifetimes.
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#6I saw this shared on Twitter this morning, and had some thoughts: While the graph is good, it is specific to the US and ignores the fact that a large amount of the amateur population is 50+ - the hobby is healthy now, but there's an age crisis coming soon. It doesn't really reflect the health of the entire hobby, globally, just a specific subset. Millenials aren't young any more, I'm millenial and I've held a ham lic…
I've been to ham radio clubs and the age gap is real. I go to the meetups in the Chicago land area and only see about one or two people my age. The people my age are usually sons or daughters of the older people.
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#7I saw this shared on Twitter this morning, and had some thoughts: While the graph is good, it is specific to the US and ignores the fact that a large amount of the amateur population is 50+ - the hobby is healthy now, but there's an age crisis coming soon. It doesn't really reflect the health of the entire hobby, globally, just a specific subset. Millenials aren't young any more, I'm millenial and I've held a ham lic…
I got my license 25 years ago and now I’m 50+. Even then the population skewed much older.
I never got into HAM and never really used it. I always thought the hobby would evolve into more of a digital Internet. The idea of chatting with voice is really not appealing. Too much like CB radios in the 1970’s.
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#8The overwhelming majority of hams are male, white and old (like me). Just take a look at most of the photos in QST or glance around a hamfest sometime. There is some synergy happening with the Maker crowd but it doesn't seem to me that it will be enough to keep ham radio alive.
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#9I would guess that Digital Mobile Radio gets held back by the fact that most of the internet is now SSL/TLS. And that you aren't supposed to (outside of emergencies) pass encrypted traffic over Ham.
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#10I saw this shared on Twitter this morning, and had some thoughts: While the graph is good, it is specific to the US and ignores the fact that a large amount of the amateur population is 50+ - the hobby is healthy now, but there's an age crisis coming soon. It doesn't really reflect the health of the entire hobby, globally, just a specific subset. Millenials aren't young any more, I'm millenial and I've held a ham lic…
Two additional things from someone who has considered getting a license a few times, but never quite made the jump because it wasn't clear what for in the end:
- a bunch of interesting radio things are available without a license today - e.g. hunting for various signals with a cheap SDR receiver. Which could potentially be a way for ham communities to then get people deeper into it, but the communities seem quite distinct, or even hostile to each other (the latter is even worse between ham and non-licensed radio communities)
- online communities. For better or worse, thats what people look for today for niche interests, and dedicated ham communities often are ... not the best advertisement. (EDIT: but people are sharing plenty of links in this thread, so I'll have stuff to dig through)
A hackspace is probably a good environment to get people into it (my local ones don't seem to have active hams, but in theory).
EDIT: just noticed the username. Greetings to the Scottish Embassy!