181–190 of 216 posts
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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"...
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With my last address change, I used a PO Box. My current physical address isn't listed in the FCC database (or qrz.com) and I use my PO Box everywhere else. You can find past addresses easily but not my current. I like it that way for the very reasons you've mentioned.
I'm studying for my test and they warn you that having an undeliverable address could get your license revoked. I wasn't sure how seriously to take that one.
A timely blog post for me: A close friend who is the same age as me (and an EE) has been trying to get me into Ham for over 10 years. I finally became interested and bought a $25 radio (BaoFeng UV-5R) on Amazon ... only to learn that I couldn't talk to my friend on Day 0 because 1. he lives >20 mi away, 2. no line of sight and had to learn about repeaters, and 3. I have to learn technical and cultural nuance of Ham b…
That's a great phrase.
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There was a good thread on reddit about this recently and I firmly agree with this comment about how useless "spin the dial" is: https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/iatqth/a_lot_... social ostracization and penalty has its time and place, and this is one of those occasions. Same reason cars have number plates.
I hear you, but the flip side is that this is a hobby. I did not get in it to get mad.
At the moment there isn't a financial incentive to perform this at any reasonable scale, but this doesn't mean that it can't be done at all.
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…
> 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 m…
If ham radio goes digital then it’s just people wasting spectrum on something they could be doing on the Internet.
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I assume you're being downvoted because of the terms you're using, but you're not wrong. Extra class licensee here. On phone (Single Sideband "SSB" or FM typically, for those not familiar with the terminology, where you use radio for voice rather than data/Morse) I've heard all kinds of absolutely reprehensible things. In one single conversation where a man was ranting about mask mandates, he managed to throw in dero…
Radio is public. These people need to be named and shamed. An automated system for recording and archiving these public transmissions with their call signs attached as tags would probably be a good first step.
If it crosses the line where it wouldn't be allowed on over-the-air TV, it's not allowed on HAM radio spectrum. You can report it, and with evidence it can lead to nasty fines and/or revocation of license.
One factor that I bring up whenever the “ham radio is dying” discussion happen is the FCC public database and safety/doxxing, specifically for marginalized communities such as Trans individuals and Black folks. It, itself, is creating a safety concern in modern society for people that may want to join the hobby but fear doxxing and harassment. If I give out my call sign on the Internet (or on the air) you now know my…
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> 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 m…
I got involved with amateur radio ~20 years ago as a teenager Handled radio traffic for various marathons. Was a bunch of 60-70+ people and a few teenagers. Got briefly involved a few years ago. Still dominated by 60-70+ year olds. Me and a friend in our early 40s were the “kids”
Check out TARPN for an interesting usage of ham and more modern tinkering. http://tarpn.net/t/packet_radio_networking.html
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…
Any recommended resources to get started with SDR?
Aside from SDR# on Windows and gqrx on Linux, there's also GNU Radio [2] and a variety of lightweight applications that can run on, let's say, a Raspberry Pi Zero [3]. Oona Räisänen has a fascinating blog that touches on digital signal processing as well, applicable to SDRs as well.
Me? No ham license, but that may come someday.
[1] https://www.nooelec.com/store/