COVID has been a shot in the arm for Ham in the UK in my opinion, the best thing being remote exam invigilation. Now it's possible to study in your own time and take the exam when it suits you - not just a couple of times a year, or in a place miles away!
Indeed, there's a lot to be said for meeting up as a club - like anything really, but the logistics of the exam system seemed like a vicious circle in the past: Not that many people are going to do it, so it's not worth setting one up and booking a facility and all the paperwork that often, so fewer people are going to be able to take it...
Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
11–20 of 216 posts
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#12As 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.
Interesting - in the UK we have a 'Foundation' license which is effectively just that. Sadly I don't think you could take it and use it abroad (i.e. outside the UK) though.
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#13COVID has been a shot in the arm for Ham in the UK in my opinion, the best thing being remote exam invigilation. Now it's possible to study in your own time and take the exam when it suits you - not just a couple of times a year, or in a place miles away! Indeed, there's a lot to be said for meeting up as a club - like anything really, but the logistics of the exam system seemed like a vicious circle in the past: Not…
I did exactly that, passed my foundation online at the start of this month. I've been on my local 2m net a couple of times, but still setting up my rig.
I think the online side is good (and the free Essex Ham course is brilliant) but once you pass there's nothing pointing you a what to do next. This is more that people studying online aren't part of clubs. I'm still learning etiquette and I think we'll end up with a lot of new passes ignoring it in 6 months time as behaviours become ingrained.
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#14As 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.
Interesting - in the UK we have a 'Foundation' license which is effectively just that. Sadly I don't think you could take it and use it abroad (i.e. outside the UK) though.
You can't. I passed my foundation this month and am moving to the Republic of Ireland later this year, so I won't be able to operate from there. Ireland has a Class A/B licence a bit like the old City & Guilds exam, so there's a massive gulf between foundation and a Class A licence.
There is some degree of sneakiness that may technically allow UK residents to operate their UK rigs remotely via the Internet, but that's not a road I'd go down.
As I'm going to be hopping back and forth a bit over the next couple of years, I'll probably do the UK intermediate in about a year, then either do the Irish class A or a British full licence after that depending on where I settle down for good.
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#15COVID has been a shot in the arm for Ham in the UK in my opinion, the best thing being remote exam invigilation. Now it's possible to study in your own time and take the exam when it suits you - not just a couple of times a year, or in a place miles away! Indeed, there's a lot to be said for meeting up as a club - like anything really, but the logistics of the exam system seemed like a vicious circle in the past: Not…
I did exactly that, passed my foundation online at the start of this month. I've been on my local 2m net a couple of times, but still setting up my rig. I think the online side is good (and the free Essex Ham course is brilliant) but once you pass there's nothing pointing you a what to do next. This is more that people studying online aren't part of clubs. I'm still learning etiquette and I think we'll end up with a…
Good point - I am optimistic that people will naturally find other local hams / clubs and join or establish communities and meetups and things. But it'll be interesting to see...
Must confess that I don't actually live in the UK any more so I am having to hold out for the Full to become available online before I get back on the air so I haven't been listening in or transmitting. For me though I'm really keen to just build analogue circuits and QRP stuff, so I've been enjoying studying this lately.
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting - in the UK we have a 'Foundation' license which is effectively just that. Sadly I don't think you could take it and use it abroad (i.e. outside the UK) though.
You can't. I passed my foundation this month and am moving to the Republic of Ireland later this year, so I won't be able to operate from there. Ireland has a Class A/B licence a bit like the old City & Guilds exam, so there's a massive gulf between foundation and a Class A licence. There is some degree of sneakiness that may technically allow UK residents to operate their UK rigs remotely via the Internet, but that'…
Yeah I'm kinda in the same place (not literally, but I'm not a UK resident - Finland now) so I leveled up to intermediate but I'm still waiting on Full (which gives you HAREC, so a reciprocal full in most of the world) before I start transmitting, do hope the RSGB set it up soon :)
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#17I think a lot of young(er) people like me who would otherwise get into ham radio are being sniped by SDR. You can buy a $30 piece of hardware and listen to planes talking to the airport, see weather imaging from satellites, intercept and read pager messages, listen to emergency and police radio, listen to all channels of consumer grade walkie talkies, and also just generally see the invisible world of wireless communications going on around us. For a few hundred dollars, you can transmit things back. All on frequencies that require no license with equipment that is very cheap compared to ham radio.
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#18I 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.
I'm just about ready for my ten year renewal and almost 50. Same for me. I got it for the ability to use APRS and other higher power options for high altitude balloon tracking (project never got off the ground hurr).
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#19I think a lot of young(er) people like me who would otherwise get into ham radio are being sniped by SDR. You can buy a $30 piece of hardware and listen to planes talking to the airport, see weather imaging from satellites, intercept and read pager messages, listen to emergency and police radio, listen to all channels of consumer grade walkie talkies, and also just generally see the invisible world of wireless commun…
As someone who holds but doesn't use a Technician Class license, I completely agree.
As someone commented below, sending encrypted data over HAM frequencies is not allowed (IANAL), which also rules out a lot of interesting projects and use-cases.
Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving
#20Someone help me understand what is the exciting thing about HAM cause this article doesn't do anything for that.
My first exposure to HAM was back in ~2000 when I started working at a car stereo shop and the owner (NU5K) was huge into HAM. He was an asshole most of the time, but very knowledgeable and loved to tinker with different HAM components both benchtop and mobile.
Everytime I would try and get interested the end result promise was something like: "You can bounce a wave off a cloud and talk with someone in Ukraine!"
Ok, well I can also do that on ukraine.bbs - and being able to choose my topic instead of whomever is actually on this random band at this random time.
Even moreso now - there's a million things to tinker with on the hardware side raspberrypi, Arduino, etc... even more on software etc. I see no reason that anyone would mess with HAM.