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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

#191

Post by jupp0r »

mywittyname wrote: post #128
crocodiletears wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I've swerved off of getting into HAM. By popular perception (in my circles, and perception doesn't necessarily reflect reality) it's a chatroom for boomers (not necessarily a bad thing) waiting to report you to the FCC for any kind of experimentation (a bad thing), with a cost of entry of at least a hundred dollars for equipment that supports a fixed set of protocols with a very narrow use-case. Radio jus…

> waiting to report you to the FCC for any kind of experimentation (a bad thing), This is what always kept me away from HAM Radios. Everyone I knew that was into it was a huge stickler about the rules and would talk about all the bad stuff that should happen to rule breakers. It was pretty unnerving.

What's wrong with following the rules? Spectrum is shared after all...

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

#192

Post by jupp0r »

geocrasher wrote: post #182
robertely wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well considering how seriously they take the chatter that happens on some bands (extreme profanity etc) I'd not worry about it. But, its better to be above board completely. Safest route would be to have a PO Box at a forwarder in another town.

There are services who scan/forward mail for you. It's not cheap but convenient compared to a physical po box.

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

#193

Post by bobloblaw45 »

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…

My dad is/was a ham. My experience growing up with ham radio in the house was so negative that it's just kinda a turn off for me. Going back to the early 90s, for a lot of those old boomer types ham was mostly just a way to out-do eachother by showing off their rigs. It's kind of disappointing to me that they have this awesome technology they could have been taking to the next level but instead just spend hours whistling into the mic and bragging. In addition I got a sense that many of the old guys were actively working as gatekeepers as a way to stroke their own egos.

These guys were a big part of the hobby for years and because of that the hobby has been stagnate. But from what it looks like it seems that they're swiftly being replaced by the newer generation of tinkerers in recent years which is pretty awesome.

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

#194

Post by Igorvelky »

retrac wrote: post #143
Igorvelky wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

im saying, HAM equipment is NOKIA 3310 non HAM world is Iphone 11, samsung galaxy S20

and im saying, my phone in my pocket is more powerful and more capable then any ham radio equipment on the market.

my phone can realtime decode 50 streams of packet radio, and im not even using integrated DSP processor inside my ARM SOC

packet radio is invention of 199x, we have DOS programs on pentium4 machines to decode almost all of the modes (GMSK, Olivia etc)

so where is invention, where is some improvement on these 25+ YEAR OLD technologies used by HAMs?

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

#195

Post by lxe »

Getting interested in ham radio is difficult when you have a smartphone and internet. "I can just talk to the world from my phone... what's the point of this?"

What really got me hooked is the fact that modern information infrastructure is so massive, expensive, and pervasive, and we just take it for granted.

Ham radio lets you replicate some functional aspects of modern communication with literally nothing but $50 worth of parts and a long wire. No cell towers, no fiber, no undersea cables, no comcast, no google, no facebook, no internet servers/protocols/routers/hardware/etc...

It's amazing how much of this you can just collapse into a hobby project.

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

#196

Post by etimberg »

apricot wrote: post #177
etimberg wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH as someone licensed in Canada, the basic exam is just that. I have an EE background and it is not needed for the basic license exam. There are a number of apps that have all the possible questions for studying. Would recommend using that to study. Having an EE background definitely helps with the advanced exam though

My 12-year-old son will be taking the basic exam next month -- studying for it has been his quarantine/summer project. It's been fun teaching him the basics of electronics, but there is some cramming required, especially for the questions related to legal matters.

Yeah, definitely just straight memorization on a lot of the questions. I did a couple practice exams on my subway ride to work each day and after a month it was no problem.

Hope it goes well for your son!

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

#197

Post by jsherer »

ryanianian wrote: post #64
jsherer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Yea, Metcalfe's Law at work. Give 40m a try.

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

#198

Post by jsherer »

geocrasher wrote: post #76
jsherer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Hey Jordan, fancy running into you here! W7RLF here, miscdotgeek.com. We've talked before on FB and groups.io. I must say, if it weren't for JS8 I'd be off the air right now. Soooo much life stuff going on.

Great to hear Ryan. See you on JS8 :)

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

#199

Post by jsherer »

hibby wrote: post #45
jsherer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

oh JS8 is your fault? It's great, I love it and have been enjoying it for the last few months - thank you so much!

Awesome. Hope to see you on the air sometime :)

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

#200

Post by hakfoo »

anon776 wrote: post #125

My offroad club has switched from CB to 2m. It really was not a challenge to convince people once they saw/heard the difference between AM and FM and the increased safety factor. Biggest hurdle was getting everyone licensed but the practice tests online make it pretty simple now. I think the future of HAM is finding practical uses for it that the average joe can take advantage of. Hikers, campers etc can buy a $40 ra…

I wonder if part of the problem is that if someone finds a sufficiently compelling application, it will be adapted into a product that avoids the need for a license.

I know that the CB band was originally intended to be licensed, but they gave up on that once it became wildly popular in the 1970s, and it sounds like those FRS products are basically designed to avoid the user having to acquire a license.

In that sort of situation, the Ham community is basically an incubator of communications products, 90% of which will remain niche or fail and 1% of which will be tweaked slightly and sold to non-Hams.

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