Report on results from survey of amateur radio operators

I find your results very interesting, and they mirror the experiences that are found here,
the average first licence age is around 45-50. One problem is the very small population, around 90/year of new radio amateurs, that makes it very difficult to find statistically valid trends.

Something that is missing is the fraction that becomes measurably active within,
say, 2 years. Here this fraction is in the order of 5%.
It has been tried to find out why the attrition rate is so high, but there have not been
found any conclusive causes yet.

It however seems that contributing factors are:

• Antenna problems
• Local interference problems
• Course materials do not cover practical aspects of getting on the air
• Lack of practical guidance
• Too easy exams, no sense of accomplishment
• Very low activity levels, almost no stations to contact
• Cliqueish behaviour on the repeaters

73/
Karl-Arne
SM0AOM

 

Nice job! The League would not make public the results of their surveys of hams conducted by READEX so these things matter.

I conducted a couple of surveys for the Delta Division of ARRL in 2011 and 2013. See here for a PDF of the reports. The "late in life" ham pattern you've observed is also confirmed in greater detail in the reports:

http://www.arrldelta.org/missdirectors.htm

73,

Frank
K4FMH

 

Broken link for the 2013 report. See this webpage for both 2011 and 2013 survey results: http://www.kb6nu.com/search/Delta+division/

 

John, I too am concerned that younger people do not have these traditional entry points. As for me, I was inspired by the CB radio my grandmother bought my two older brothers back in the late 1970s - at the height of the CB craze. Still, amateur radio has a lot to offer in this day and age -- as so many hams explained in answering the "relevance" question on my survey. Getting more folks (and especially younger ones) into the hobby is an uphill battle, but for starters we need better marketing.

 

No, but I am a college instructor by trade. I did this as a sort of research project (great researching a topic I love...).

 

Mark,
No, I didn't look at gender issues in my report, but I can tell you that only around 5% of survey respondents were female. Again, my sample was not random by any means, but I think we can all conclude that women remain a small minority in amateur radio.

 

Frank,
Thanks for the link. I had come across your 2011 report, but for some reason not your 2013 one. It is on my reading list for the next evening or two.

73,
Joel

 

Instead of the usual over thinking analysis, my simple minded question would be... I wonder the accuracy of surveys when only .09% (I believe that is 9 hundredths of 1 percent) participate?

 

That's an interesting point and he addresses that issue at the beginning under Methodology in the third paragraph where he discusses some of the limitations.

 

Great work. A few years back I did a calculation based on birth and death rates in the US by age grouping that demonstrated that although the numbers appear to be slowly climbing, they were hovering around zero growth rate or a slight slow decline as compared to the general population. As a marketer looking at this data there are a number of strategies that can be considered to raise the numbers. First, embrace, accept that your primary new ham demographic is in the 45-55 year grouping. Given this, we could do deeper research to understand and to better message and improved reach out to this group. Maybe, this age group has established their careers, children older, and want to form more connections via a hobby with others. Less isolation. Of course, our 15 second contact report based conversations may not be enough to hold people in. Maybe we need to do more on this as a group.

Second, we could take this further and direct our attention to building up ham radio and ham shacks in assisted or retirement living communities. It can help people stay connected and for emcomm it can mean having a nice fixed, mostly available net controllers. But mostly to help people form community within their buildings and with others via radio. It also, means we may get old, expired license hams, back on the air.

Third, okay, we all want to see some younger people in the hobby and this is great. However, when I did my age break down of ham radio I found a bi-modal distribution. There was a 12 to 22 year old spike and a 45-55 year old spike. What I found anecdotally was that people who took up the hobby when young, dropped it as they built their careers and their families. Later they may pick it up again. We need to consider what will really be relevant in the Internet age to young people. I think the best synergy (yup, I do consulting) will come by fusing the robotics and maker movements, with their high young people outreach, to ham radio. Specifically, using ham radio for much longer distance remote control. Balloons are already utilizing ham radio, what about space camp using ham radio to control a Mars rover simulation, or environmental research, radio astronomy, long distance operation of robots? Radio not for radio's sack, but as tool.

Well that's my two-cents.

73

 

"What is the relevance of ham radio in the 21st century"
The choice, "it isn't relevant was not available"

 

Where does it say anywhere that amateur radio has to be relevant to exist?

Coin Collecting, Stamp Collecting, Gun Collecting, Shell Collecting, Antique Collecting, etc all have
Zero relevance to anyone except those that choose to participate in those activities. Same with
Amateur Radio. Believe it or not, participants actually enjoy participating in amateur radio. When a hobby becomes a source of upset and worry, its time to look for other things that you can enjoy. Life is to short.

 

I've always believed that quality not quantity is the way to go.

 

Coin Collecting, Stamp Collecting, Gun Collecting, Shell Collecting, Antique Collecting do not use public frequencies. The use of public frequencies comes with a moral obligation to be relevant. The phrase, "life is short" is frequently used to excuse things you should not do. Life is not short, you were in Kindergarten a long time ago. Please look at FCC regulations and tell me where the word hobby is.

 

My thoughts from the perspective of a non-technical guy who enjoys ham radio...(for what it's worth)

I didn't take the survey, but in my case it is certainly true that I had an interest in ham radio when in my teens in the 1980's. I never had any involvement with CB. Problem is, I'm not a tech wiz nor do I possess a high IQ. Also I didn't have any money nor were there any local "elmers" for me to learn from. Oh, there were one or two ham radio operators, but they weren't interested in me.

I'm an operator and not one of those prodigy kids that took things apart as a child to see how they work. I was always more fascinated with the natural world (playing outside, looking at bugs, etc.) and literature and language--definitely NOT the typical "future ham". For me the magic was in being able to communicate with people far away--and it still is.

I am not mechanically inclined. I drive a car, but no way in heck could I rebuild an engine or do any repairs beyond changing out a carburetor or changing the oil in my car (in the early 90's). And even what little I was able to learn took me a while, reading from a Haynes/Chilton manual.

I can, with time, figure some ham radio-related technical stuff out, but my intelligence does not lie in that area and therefore I am not "quick" at it.

Morse code is (a code) related to "language", and therefore for my type of intelligence, it isn't especially difficult for me to learn. The issue for me is time. I have a lot of things in my life (I'm almost 48) that compete for my time. I'm sure that if I took a month off of work and studied/practiced Morse code that I could probably hold my own in a qso.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say with all of the above is, I am probably not your "typical" ham radio licensee. My experience touches on some of the things referenced in the study, but also varies quite a bit from it.