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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

#141

Post by nvahalik »

rthomas6 wrote: post #17

I 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…

I went through a radio phase a few years ago and got my extra. Then I had kids, then work got busy. We moved a few times.

I still have a quite a bit of gear left, mostly 2M stuff but the fact is I don't really have anyone to talk to and the biggest reason I got into radio (public service/storm spotting/emergency prep) have not been very active here. We do radios for parades, but they haven't activated storm spotters here in nearly 2 years.

If I had more people to talk to, I'd be on it more. But it's hard to get kids 3 kids 6 and under... to get interested in it.

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

#142

Post by ethbro »

etrautmann wrote: post #103
ethbro wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ham radio (the human component) seems to suffer from the DnD 3.5 problem. A lot of people invested considerable effort into obtaining knowledge. Once obtained, they were free to coast. I take it there's no true continuing ed requirement to maintain a license? Now, protocol / technical change threatens to render all their existing knowledge outdated. And furthermore, require additional effort. Unsurprisingly, they're…

I think this is generally true of many academic and scientific fields as well!

Good lesson for organizational engineering. Longer tenures in a job tend to increase risk aversion and technical conservatism.

So unless there's a mechanism to blunt that (and select for lifelong learners), you end up with a tyranny of outdated architects, opposed to any and all changes.

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

#143

Post by retrac »

Igorvelky wrote: post #135
retrac wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's more than 500 MHz of spectrum allocated to amateurs between 400 and 7 GHz in most jurisdictions. 420 - 450 MHz, 902 - 928 MHz, 1240 - 1300 MHz, 2390 - 2450 MHz, 3300 - 3500 MHz, 5650 - 5925 MHz are amateur bands here, and I think in the USA. It's also generally very illegal as a hobbyist to build and operate your own transmitter, except with an amateur radio licence. If you're more interested in how the phone…

i can simultaneously receive and transmit a 200MHz wide part of band in frequencies between 400MHz an 7GHz with my mobile SDR 5G phone after flashing custom firmware. so what channel spacing do you use on your ham radio?

My interest lies mostly in building my own SDRs. I'm not quite sure what you're asking as I don't even have a traditional voice transceiver. I got my licence so I can build radio equipment.

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

#144

Post by ProZsolt »

stakkur wrote: post #112

I'm a ham. I don't think there's hard data on the 'average age' of hams--it's very anecdotal. Nobody really knows that, and the ARRL or feds don't have the actual age of licensees documented. I agree that ham radio is 'evolving', but I see that evolving as most often a shift to computer-operated communication and digital tools. It's hard to explain to folks outside of ham radio that this isn't a 'old technology' vs.…

I was part of my university's ham club. Getting people onboard by saying that you could communicate with Australia is not niche any more in the internet age.

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

#145

Post by packet_nerd »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #20

Someone 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…

AFAIK bouncing off clouds isn't a thing. :-) But lots of other types of bouncing for sure: the ionosphere, ionized trails from meteorites, the edge between air masses of different temperatures, mountains, the moon, satellites, repeaters....

I'll be honest, I've been into the hobby for 16 years now, and have actually been on phone no more than a few times. To me, all the fun is building things, tinkering, just generally understanding and overcoming the technical challenges. And then when I get things working I prefer CW or digital just because it makes me a little self conscious blasting my voice out for all the world to hear.

Sure you can tinker with Raspberry Pis and Arduinos... but come on, what could be cooler than building your own radio and antenna system, and using it to make contact with some dude in Kazakstan without any Internet, or undersea cables, or satellites, or anything. Just two guys on the planet with wires strung up some trees. :-) How cool is that?!

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

#146

Post by nucleardog »

_b8r0 wrote: post #13
alibarber wrote: post #11

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…

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…

> 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.

That's the problem I had in Canada. I passed my exam, showed up to a local club meeting, and was like "Now what?" "Whatever you want." "I don't know what I want." "Whatever you want!"

Myself and one other young member of the club tried suggesting some local events we could offer services to to provide members a public service opportunity, their answer was "We don't go to them. They come to us." (Spoiler Alert: They don't come to us.)

I've sinced moved somewhere that has a very active emergency communications group that's well tied in with the city's emergency response plans and the police and works proactively with the city to provide communication for many large public events. That very quickly evolved into getting much more into the hobby as there was suddenly a _purpose_ to what I was doing. Testing equipment, fixing and maintaining equipment, solving problems _with_ radio (we need to link point A to point B -- what do?!) practicing emergency communications, etc. And once you get in to the hobby, it's much easier to branch out into adjacent areas as opportunities come up.

I think a big part of getting more people actively involved could just be... providing things for them to do. Where I used to live the question "Why should I get an amateur radio license?" was hard to answer. It's an incredibly easy sell where I am now to get people interested and involved as part of an emergency preparedness and public service group. It's all the feel good of volunteer work with all the fun of playing with a bunch of electronics and technical stuff. There are a lot of people that appeals to.

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

#147

Post by MrRadar »

mhh__ wrote: post #97
hpoe wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is that the case? Most spies use/d OTPs which can be used without encryption as per se. (VENONA notwithstanding)

The rules are against obfuscating your communications, which encompasses both encryption and e.g. using code words to hide your meaning.

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

#148

Post by TeMPOraL »

Cd00d wrote: post #93
rib3ye wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to agree with that line of reason. In my observation, GenX marketed themselves as the generation of apathy, and so eventually people became apathetic about them.

I think GenX didn't believe in marketing themselves. The concept makes this X-er chuckle quietly.

Funny things these "generations" are. It's just as if someone were drawing an arbitrary cutoff line every two decades, picking a random characteristic from the overall zeitgeist, and proclaiming it to define the people of that "generation"...

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

#149

Post by TeMPOraL »

mikece wrote: post #119
samatman wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boomers marketed GenX as the generation of slack and apathy, because we weren't impressed by their music. Richard Linklater was born in 1960... We were too young to object at the time, and now we're stuck with it.

> Boomers marketed GenX as the generation of slack and apathy... And we spend all day on Slack at work so clearly the Amateur Radio version of Slack/IRC has to be called "Apathy"!

More realistically: people playing with computers in the 80s/90s didn't complain enough about this being considered "nerdy", and now instead of "bicycles for the mind", we're stuck with digital toys designed to the lowest common denominator.

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

#150

Post by nyanpasu64 »

I don't like how ham radio broadcasts are linked to your callsign under your legal name (deadname) and identity. It creates the potential for trolls who dislike like what you say to doxx you by sharing your legal identity and mailing address (taken from websites linked to the government database of licensees).
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