Does Ham Radio Need to Rebrand?

The trouble with Ham's is that they are blessed with over educated enquiring minds that insist on looking under the hood of anything to find out what's really going on. This makes them somewhat difficult to brainwash with a simple marketing campaign - unless it's for the next best thing transceiver or antenna when the marketing suddenly becomes blindingly effective on many despite the hokum involved . Lights the blue touch paper and retires.

 

This sums up rebranding nicely.

 

HE 're-branded' --away from radios...

 

Thank GOODness SOMEONE does....

 

I grew up and have had a long and enjoyable career in the Silicon Valley. At one time, it was to your advantage to mention to people that you were a ham. It helped me get my first job out of college as the Director of engineering was a ham. In these days before the elimination of code, the publishing of question pool, it took some focus and effort to become an amateur radio operator. You actually had to go to an FCC field office and take the exam. You did not get to choose a vanity call or whine that you had a hard time understanding the difference between a dit and a dah. You either did it, or you found a new hobby. You did not get to play being a victim. You had a 1-year non-renewable Novice class license that was crystal controlled and power limited to a maximum of 50 watts input CW on 40 and 15 meters. You either upgraded or you found another hobby. In those days, you were not restricted in putting up towers or antennas. There was no such thing as an HOA or a CC&R. You had to actually worry about TVI. Hams actually helped one another and had tower parties to help the local ham get his and mostly "his" in that day tower mounted. It was usually a BBQ, tower raising and good old-fashioned ham radio bonding! People in those days would help mentor the youth to bring them into the hobby. Even Boy Scouts had radio merit badges. Fast forward to today. A youth that is focused on their social media. Ham radio testing takes study and work. HOAs and CC&Rs are all over the planned communities. Amateur radio is looked upon by the youth as an OLD person's hobby. Take a look at 99.98% of all amateur radio websites. They are a flash to the early days of the internet. They do not follow any modern design criteria for UI/UX or content. They are a poor reflection of the hobby to the youth. The average age of amateur radio operators is in the 60s. The hobby is full of contests and very little discussion of technology. Remember the hobby is to advance the art of radio. I feel that if the issues of the hobby are not addressed sooner than later that the hobby will grey out when all of the baby boomers are no more. Wake up amateur radio. We need some leaders to step up and resolve these issues affecting the hobby or else the hobby will go the way of the horse and buggy. 73

 

As long as they do not say re-imagine, I can tolerate it...barely.

 

Brazil's Radio Hams Campaign for Tax Exemption...would that the government of the USA recognized the Amateur Radio Service by granting a tax exemption, credit, or similar symbolic recompense.

 

We are..."transformational!"

 

“Rebranding” is usually practiced by people who say thing like “We’re going to leverage our assets to create positive outcomes for our stakeholders,” or “Our transformational technology has disrupted obsolete patterns to create a new paradigm.” What it all really means is “I use big words that most people outside the CEO club don’t understand. That makes me Very Powerful. Follow me or you’ll be crushed like an insect.” It doesn’t work in ham radio. Ask the recently departed ARRL CEO.

 

Another thought: I was fooling around with JTDX, and I saw that many of its features are geared towards automating and multitasking most if not all of the QSO process. And it dawned on me that most technically oriented people are not interested in radio. Radio is analog, old, passé. They are interested in programming or scripting a computer to do automatically what a person (or several people) “used to do” manually. And once the code is written, the resulting program is passed onto the peasants, um, I mean users. And the coder goes on to something else.

Love of radio for its own sake is not something that comes naturally to many any more. Radio is background, taken for granted. Maybe we have to let people know that whe they are texting their BFF or sending a selfie to social media, that’s radio. And by the way, here’s some more cool stuff you can do with it...

 

I'll remind everybody of the disaster:




Incredibly informative! Oh yeah...don't forget to copy down that URL while you're doing 75 MPH down I-40.

The problem with billboards is that no non-ham is going to see a ham radio billboard and think, "Wow...you know, that billboard is right. It would be really cool to become a ham." Setting up in th public, in schools, in scouts, etc., where people can actually see radio in use, and actually operate, that's where you're going to recruit people.

Do away incentive licensing entirely, and just let people choose where they want to operate. One license and be done. HF is not the holy grail anymore. Forcing HF as the first license would kill amateur radio.

On the plus side, though in a very morbid way, those people are disappearing at a very rapid pace.

 

Love of radio for its own sake is a very bad plan to attract people. The radio should serve a purpose, not just be admired for existing.

I can recall a conversation I had in a club for enthusiasts of open source software. The people I was talking with had a plan for a city wide mesh network for people that wanted a network that existed outside of the public utilities and city run WiFi services. These were people very much interested in radio communications, but they were operating under Part 15. My guess is that they were ignorant of similar projects by Amateur radio operators. I didn't think to ask at the time, or I was just as ignorant as they were, but they could have been valuable members of the Amateur radio community in getting this in use more broadly. Those kinds of projects were killed off by the FCC giving some trouble on defining what was legal and what wasn't, the rapid advancement of cell phones and other consumer technology, and a large heaping serving of licensed Amateurs crying, "That's not ham radio!"

There are plenty of people interested in radio. I run into them all the time as I'm the "resident nerd" among family and friends. They will ask what's possible with radio technology. I'll see people just fascinated but when they see the rules on Amateur radio, especially when Morse code testing was required, it's a turn off. They see portions of the spectrum marked off as "CW only", and that is certainly going to imply that Amateur radio is old, analog, and passé. They know that their smart phones run on radio technology, they get reminded of this every time they don't have enough "bars" to make a phone call, or "text their BFF" as you put it.

It dawned on you that technically oriented people are not interested in radio? It dawned on me that the technically oriented people are not interested in Amateur radio. Why aren't they interested? I'm getting the impression because the rules on Amateur radio look like they were written for people operating radios in the 1950s. Maybe it's because we still operate under rules written in the 1950s.

These are people that aren't afraid of some test, they consider these a part of their career advancement. They will gladly take a test for a certification from CompTIA, Microsoft, Cisco, or whatever. The way licensing is now for Amateur radio it's telling newcomers that HF equals CW. They aren't interested in CW so they aren't interested in HF. If they do get licensed then they stop at Technician so they can play with modified WiFi and other networking gear on 2.4 GHz, 5.8 GHz, and maybe some gear at 10 GHz and 900 MHz. Maybe they get an HT for participating in storm spotting, or to use for tracking down a beacon on a rocket they shot off.

I'm seeing plenty of technically minded people interested in radio. They tend to be quite pleased operating under Part 15. Amateur radio doesn't interest them since once the rules are shown to them they see far too many rules on the old and passé, and very little on what got them interested in radio in the first place.

Amateur radio is in need of a rebranding. A big part of that will have to come in new rules from the FCC. There needs to be a new license to replace Technician, or a significant change to Technician privileges. There needs to be more room to experiment, such as regulation by bandwidth instead of by mode.

There will be people that write some code, release it to the masses, and move on to some other challenge. We need those people because they are moving things forward, inspiring others, creating new challenges for someone else to solve, and keeping things interesting for those that aren't interested in writing their own code but are certainly willing to be "beta testers" for that take on the challenge of improving the code that was written by others.

Amateur radio has been held back by having far too many that take an interest in reliving old times than seek new challenges. As @N3FAA points out, this is a problem that will correct itself in time.

 

As much as like the idea of a single Amateur radio license I do believe that getting the FCC on board may be difficult. Who knows, maybe they'd like the idea. It would require making a convincing argument. The FCC does take public support into account and so if there's too many comments in opposition then it will fail.

I didn't mean my idea to be taken too seriously on making an HF only license as the entry to Amateur radio. I made the comment to get people thinking. A problem right now is that people don't seem to take much interest in HF. A "nudge" in that direction would not hurt. Taking it too far would be a bad idea.

When it comes to the idea of ARRL advertising on billboards I do agree that they made a lot of mistakes. Just because it didn't work well before doesn't mean a new try with a more well thought out plan should never be considered again.

I think of the rebranding that the US military did and that's something that will get people's attention. The military points out that they will train those that enlist in skills that they can use to get a job, and while in training they will save lives, and protect their families at home. That's 30 seconds that will be far more memorable and compelling to enlist than 30 minutes of a M*A*S*H re-run. Maybe the ARRL, REACT, and Skywarn can get together to recruit people for storm spotting and severe weather preparedness. Come up with a catchy slogan, build an easy to find website for information, with a URL that can be picked up from a billboard while going 75 mph on I-35. Think of something simple like with the "Got Milk?" campaign.

It can be done. Someone just needs to take it seriously and have enough resources to make it happen.

 

Some of this drivel in this thread seems to always go back to the problems of lower class/animal thinking, namely FALSE BARGAINING and SACRIFICE.

In days of yore, Caveman Bob would throw an innocent person into a bonfire and murder them, in hopes that the human sacrifice would bring about good harvests the next year. The idea is not religious, but rather base desperate thinking, again we are talking about FALSE BARGAINING and SACRIFICE> Caveman Bob deeply wants to believe that, in exchange for such a horrible loss, some great good counter effect MUST take place right? When people get desperate, or during the process of dying or accepting grief, there is always that "bargaining" phase, right? Certainly, if we just destroy something in our lives, make some grand SACRIFICE, certainly we can force some sort of deal and get what we desperately want? Right?

It is what marketeers rely upon when pushing all of this "rebranding" nonsense.

Certainly, if you destroy all your traditions and history, certainly great things will come of the sacrifice and the magic bargain, right? By changing names and taking on new identity, you must magically pull up some sort of Springtime death/rebirth ritual and make this years harvest of new Technicians a bumper crop? Destroying Elmers and the old clubs, attacking CW as "old fashioned", hell, sacrificing pretty much all of HF and AM/FM/SSB phone will certainly grant us a rain of new techies to fill VHF/EHF from the very clouds and skies and provide the wonderful rebirth of Ham ( I mean Wireless or whatever the hell you want to "rebrand" it now) Radio!

Why, of course, these neolithic thinking types of folks can't possibly believe that Ham radio can grow, that's impossible they say. There is no possible way that Ham radio as it is, named what it is, with all of the old analog phone modes, Morse code, RTTY, could ever possibly hope to gain people interested in other bandwith or new and innovative modes. NO. The ONLY way to get kids interested in Ham, and in EHF, is, of course, to destroy everything Ham is and rename it. Complete destruction and rebirth is the ONLY way. Their animal instincts tell them.

The appeal of "rebirth", "renewal", "rebranding", isn't about reason, logic, or function. It is an appeal to the most backwards and basal desires and instincts of man. We can't improve better ways of farming to get better crops, we better get that bonfire up and blazing so we can start throwing people and things into it to bring about those great harvests. Right?

Once again, I have yet to see ANYONE who ever pushes rebranding of ANYTHING, EVER provide solutions or strategies.

Just "we have to desperately make sacrifices to save ourselves from the dark times".

 

@KF0CSM, just what traditions are you seeing tossed onto a fire in the hopes the sacrifice will avert a disaster?

Here's what I've seen happen in the past, a number of examples of people interested in experimenting in radio getting told by some old farts that "that's not ham radio!" then simply go away to continue their experimentation under Part 15, Part 95, Part 90, or some other radio service. This isn't a destruction of old traditions, it is having them restored. Amateur radio used to be where people would experiment but didn't rise to the level where it called for the use of Part 5 experimental licensing. Part 5 is mostly for commercial experimentation, the hobbyist and enthusiast was given room to experiment in Part 97 but I've seen that lost.

I've seen little pockets of the experimental spirit in and around universities, where they are largely isolated from the old farts that dominate the radio clubs around the nation. Because of the isolated nature their "playground" is above 30 MHz. Because these are people still learning their experiments rarely amount to much, but they learn and they enjoy themselves. But in a few short years they will have to leave this bubble, and then go out where they will likely hear, "That's not ham radio!"

So, again, tell me what you see being sacrificed? If anything is going to be put on that fire to burn it is the shackles we placed on ourselves. What needs to burn is the idea that newcomers have to go through the exact same testing as generations before. I've read people complain how newcomers don't know what a Smith Chart is for. As someone that studied electrical and computer engineering at university I can tell you that licensed professional engineers don't know what they are for. I had a professor tell me that nobody uses Smith Charts any more, and that was many many winters ago. That's just one example of Amateur radio "tradition" being a stone around the neck of the hobby.

I can keep going on how "tradition" is destroying Amateur radio because Amateur radio forgot the tradition of being in the lead on technology. Amateur radio is barely even following technology. It's just getting in the way.

I'm seeing people mention that Amateur radio clubs aren't seeing as many invitations as in the past to help out with communications. I can guess why. I had a conversation with a MARS recruiter on how many people left MARS when the announcement was made that CW wasn't going to be allowed on MARS frequencies any more. In the days of cell phones and WiFi the appearance of licensed Amateurs coming with their Morse code keys isn't going to gain a lot of confidence. MARS did end up reversing their decision on barring CW, perhaps because if they hadn't the loss in old curmudgeons holding dearly to their Morse keys could have sunk the whole program.

If all the old curmudgeons want to reenact their days in the signal corp with a mill and a key by a tube radio then there's room for that in the hobby. Just don't expect everyone to have the same enthusiasm for it. Don't chase off the people wanting to carry on the tradition of experimentation and developing technologies. That tradition was sacrificed a long time ago in the hopes that these reenactments of days gone by would not have to share bandwidth by someone trying something new. Hearing anything new on the air might remind someone that it's not the 20th century any more and we can't tolerate that, right?

Looking at the history of Amateur radio I saw people trying to keep the "tradition" of not advancing technology beyond what existed in 1979. Even that might be pushing it since I'd bet seeing an Apple II+ used to send Morse code would upset some of these old curmudgeons.

What traditions are being sacrificed here? How is this bad for Amateur radio? What I'm seeing ready to be tossed on the fire are some rules and practices that were old and tired in the 1980s. Just in case you didn't notice, that was 40 years ago.