The Mystique of Radio

[wu3u]

I've been licensed since 1983 and spent 2 years as a Novice banging away on a straight key and now hold an Extra Class license.

So while I'm not from the "we built everything from scratch" era, I've seen Ham Radio change an awful lot in the past 21 years since I was first licensed.

CW was always my passion and I've always been the high speed CW sort of operator over phone and other modes.

I just read an article on another Ham Radio web site describing the difficulty of keeping university and college radio clubs going for lack of members. #I was a member of WA3NPP, the Rutgers University ARC in the mid-1980s.

The main thrust was that the Internet has robbed us of potential recruits.

The Internet? #To me, the Internet, while useful and interesting in its own right, is nothing like radio. #

After all is said, the Net is really nothing more than a very sophisticated telephone system providing text and graphics that today is "consumer friendly."

For the most part, the Net provides reliable communications under normal conditions. #Talking to someone on the other side of the world via the Net is nearly always a sure thing, while on radio, it's hit and miss and depends on all sorts of variables from propagation to antennas to operator skill.

In short, that radio is not a sure thing, that one never knows just who and from where an answer to a CQ will come is the true mystique of radio, the thing that makes it intriguing. #It's not a sure thing and you never know what you're going to find.

We Hams did not give up the ship when telephone service became widespread so many years ago. #Why do some offer the Net as proof positive that Ham Radio no longer can attract new recruits?

I think the failure lies in the fact that as a community, we Hams have not been able or simply haven't bothered to communicate the true mystique of radio to potential newcomers mentioned earlier: #Not knowing who you will contact, not knowing where you signals will propagate, precisely because it is NOT a sure thing like the Net.

Perhaps we should all show our friends and family, many of whom may have never experienced this mystique, just how intriguing it is while making it clear that the Net is nothing more a a sophisticated telephone. #

Sure fire communication is not what radio is all about, and this is what keeps us coming back year after year to Ham Radio.

I think it is this that we must emphasize and communicate to potential newcomers.

What do you think?

TP

[K4JSR]

Thank you LXR for some ham radio meat on this forum.
Liberals and conservative issues are fun for a while, but
get boring. #Ham radio is why we are here in the first place.
I often wonder why people are not just immediately swept off
of their feet the first time they run into shortwave radio,
either as an SWL or with a ham friend. #Then I think of how
inactive two meter repeaters, in general, have become since Cell phones have gotten to be so popular. #Perhaps what we
are seeing is not the death of our magnificent hobby, but only
a transition period where we renew ourselves and our purposes for being. #I certainly see hope in the future for our
great hobby. #Thanks for the topic!
73, #Cal # K4JSR # # http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[KC8QMU]

I agree 100% with you LXR, I see radio in the exact same way.

The problem is that many people I show this stuff to will say "yeah, that's pretty cool" but other than that, they really don't have the interest. And really, though, that's ok, everyone is different. With all the doom and gloom that we hear some of the older ops talking of, rest assured that if one is interested enough in radio, they will pursue it. I hear new ops, some younger than myself regularly. The key is for them to do enough in the hobby to keep themselves interested, whatever level of experimenting/operation that might entail for that specific individual. As long as the new ops have older ones to teach them a few things and help them along, I believe the interest will be around for quite a while. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[KC9CFB]

I’ve been in ham radio for a relatively short while, and am only 15 years old, so I’m not much of a judge as to how relevant my opinions are here, but I thought I’d throw in my two cents.

I was introduced to ham radio by a chaperone at band camp, where he had brought a dipole, a laptop, and his TS-2000. At the time I was a tagalong and not a member of the marching band, so while the kids all worked in the hot sun for hours, I sat in the shade of the cabin and listened to the comforting hush and chatter of the radio. Roger, WB9JXE, was there as a chaperone and had brought his ham equipment down on behalf of his club to try and get some of us kids interested in the hobby. Something about it fascinated me, enough so to make me want to get a license…maybe it was the excitement of being able to chat with someone in Brazil or Greece as easily as if they were on a walkie-talkie a quarter mile away. Or maybe it was calling out degrees from the laptop as a friend tried to point an enormous antenna at the right spot in the sky until –with a whoosh and a crackle – that rush of adrenaline as voices spill out from the speaker. To me, it wasn’t (and still isn’t) about who has the biggest antenna or the most QSL cards or the most gear with their call sign plastered across it…it was about the magic of communication. I wondered: is it only me that looks out across a sea of faces, pictures, and words and sees that a fair amount of that special element is lost?

Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m a firm believer in ‘to each their own’. But with this post, I see I’m not alone in my way of thinking.

Andrea

[KC8QMU]

Yup, Andrea definitely has the bug!
http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[WF7I]

Andrea,

Very well written reply. Welcome to ham radio. We need a lot more people of your age group & intelligence in our hobby.

As for the topic...I was licensed about the same time as the author (1985) and I agree, things have changed a lot. Cell phones did indeed kick aside repeaters, but I never had much use for them anyway. Most of the traffic was the morning/evening commute and hubby telling wifey they'll be late for supper. Cell phones are better for that. There's still a bit of activity on simplex from what I've seen, so the band is not yet dead at least.

Packet radio was the big digital rage of the late 80s/early 90s and as we know, it's essentially dead as well.

I'm typing this email from a Wi-Fi high speed gateway to the internet from a hotel room. To me, this readily available consumer technology will rob ham radio of the avenue to develop a similar system within the hobby. Nobody will become a ham just to surf the web via a wireless link, in my opinion.

To me, the future lies in communicating to others about the excitement within our hobby. There's the "thrill of the hunt" -- hunting for DX or weak signals in a challenging medium and competing with others. There's the design/analysis aspect -- hombrewing equipment. There's the digital/computer software aspect -- software-defined radios, computer control of radios, digital signal processing of signals, new digital modes on HF, etc etc. In other words, there's plenty to do, and there's lots of excitement.

I frankly think that the biggest issue is getting the word out and communicating it to people like Andrea. Jr. High is the time I got into the hobby, and so did many others. We should all get more involved in spreading the word.
(my battery just died! 73!)

Do not forget to write your anti-BPL letters,
encourage new amateur radio participation and generally be nice
to one another. That is all.