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Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving

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Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving

#61

Post by marianov »

Depends on the country I guess. In the US you can watch videos from Ham Radio Crash Course and sit for a license online. The quiz is easy and you can then move on to learn more advanced stuff. The only focus should be on not breaking things (like interfering others or causing electrical havoc) In Argentina you only can sit for an exam after 30 2.5 hour lessons, that is several months listening to things you would better read/study out of a webpage.

And the attitude if you try to suggest a simpler process is "you are a criminal wanting to circunvent the laws!" (this attitude also comes from guys in the US if you suggest things like asking if you could license on a country and operate on a different one.

I'm better off using marine band, off road VHF frecuencies and GMRS as I please.

Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving

#62

Post by blnqr »

I became a ham out of love and respect for my deceased father, who held a General license, knew Morse code and had been a comms tech in the Air Force. I keep the license in case of emergencies. But neither of those (good) reasons are going to pull new people into Ham.

Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving

#63

Post by madengr »

panzagl wrote: post #52
jenkstom wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I see this more as a baby boomer thing than a Gen X thing. Gen X who are into technical things tend to be into digital things. I mean hey, give me a commodore 64 hooked up to a modem and I'm gonna have a good time. Other digital modes are all the same to me. I'm Gen X and I'm 50, and I'm gonna whine more about k-pop than digital modes.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but no one cares what GenX thinks. Apparently we didn't throw enough temper tantrums as children.

I'd say we didn't through tantrums as adults, rather buckle down and work.

Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving

#64

Post by ryanianian »

jsherer wrote: post #35
jron wrote: post #3

When 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.c…

Glad you found me :) Here's the main site where you can learn more: http://js8call.com/ And a video walkthrough I did just a few months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz0Cpkaol-o

Thanks for your work. JS8Call seems really cool, but I can never make any contacts with it. Maybe bad luck, but every time I try on 20m through 80m there's nobody on the other end. (FT8 and friends working fine.)

Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving

#65

Post by aphrax »

I remember trying to get into HAM a couple of years ago, I followed the standard advice of joining a local group - after emailing to enquire I received a reply which can only be described as rude, the exact opposite of welcoming. Kind of left a sour taste, a shame really - I should give it another go.

Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving

#66

Post by kawfey »

Reiterates a lot of the points from this post, "Millennials are Killing Ham Radio" [https://n0ssc.com/posts/583-millennials-are-killing-ham-radi...].

There is a movement/revolution in ham radio occurring, led by young people online. Large youth-oriented groups like YOTA (in IARU region 1[0], 2[1] and 3[2]), YARC[3], YACHT[4], ILYH[5], and others. The advent of SDR and software-based radio peripherals has really opened the ham radio door up into the hackerspace, such that it's increasingly common to see radio-related articles on Hackaday. Remote operation is also growing immensely and giving young people a lot less barrier to entry into the real fun parts of HF operating.

I have high hopes for the future of ham radio, especially after emailing with the new ARRL CEO [6]. He has a lot of plans and visions to fill the void where youth advocacy and modern marketing led by ARRL have fallen short.

[0] https://www.ham-yota.com/

[1] https://youthontheair.org/

[2] https://www.iarur3yota2020.com/

[3] https://yarc.world/

[4] http://yacht.younghams.org/

[5] https://ilyh.org/

[6] http://www.arrl.org/news/board-of-directors-elects-new-arrl-...

Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving

#67

Post by ja27 »

melling wrote: post #7
hibby wrote: post #2

I 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.

Yeah I've been licensed for 25+ years and I'm still one of the younger hams here.

I was never really into random rag-chews / chats on repeaters or HF. I did a lot of public service - disaster relief and helping with fundraising walks/rides - but that's mostly dried up here. Still some room for hams to serve in other disaster roles.

Been doing a lot with SDRs but outside of ham radio.

Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving

#68

Post by hpoe »

Retr0spectrum wrote: post #49
mikece wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a proviso that goes with that. If you're doing a metro-area mesh network (some of the WiFi overlap with the 2.4GHz amateur band!) you can use WEP or WPA as long as the password for joining the network is "publicly available." Putting the current password on the website for the club/group running the project is sufficient to demonstrate, for FCC purposes, that the communications are open.

What happens if I use SSL over the top of such a network? Is that allowed? If the answer is yes, it seems more like a loophole in the rules than anything.

Probably not. These rules were put in place to prevent spies from using HAM to exfil data during the Cold War. Really I think it should be something that should be revisited but I don't know how the 3 letter agency's would like a method of communication that they can't access.

Re: Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving

#69

Post by detaro »

hpoe wrote: post #68
Retr0spectrum wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if I use SSL over the top of such a network? Is that allowed? If the answer is yes, it seems more like a loophole in the rules than anything.

Probably not. These rules were put in place to prevent spies from using HAM to exfil data during the Cold War. Really I think it should be something that should be revisited but I don't know how the 3 letter agency's would like a method of communication that they can't access.

Preventing commercial use is still a major argument used.
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