Report on results from survey of amateur radio operators

Your statement, "Where does it say anywhere that amateur radio has to be relevant to exist?"

I wasn't implying amateur radio needs to be relevant. What I was trying to state is a basic of Marketing, that is, what would make this hobby interesting, attractive to a specific consumer segment? Given this information we can then better promote the hobby to a given market segment. All hams came to the hobby with some belief in its relevance to ourselves - that which makes it meaningful to us individually. If we investigated this for the 12-20 year-old, would we then find a better way to approach and recruit this demographic?

 

Read some statistical sampling theory....

 

I believe the elephant in the room is the internet. I suspect many of us were motivated to join amateur radio by our desire to reach out and communicate with the world beyond our own town or city. 50 years ago there was no internet so we turned to radio. Today with smart phones and the internet, young people are exposed to a multimedia explosion of information about the world around them. While I can get excited about a 20 watts and a wire JT65 QSO with Australia, they accept as routine effortless internet based multimedia messaging from the same location. The level of technology we use today is far beyond the capability of most of us to homebrew rigs. The hours we spent learning from an Elmer as he built a transmitter isn't likely to be repeated for a new generation. Sadly, I see the curiosity that drove us fading into the darkness of the future...

 

I have said often that our radios WERE the Internet before it came around. By the looks of the numbers licensing keeps going up. There are also an influx of more older people than young. Stop splitting hairs and just breathe. (hard for most of us to do anymore).

 

Sorry, this is an old wives tale passed on past it's time. Valuable spectrum needs bandwidth, and the entire amateur band together wouldn't make a decent LAN connection. Saying "very valuable spectrum" is like an eBay ad for a Swan 350 saying "rare" or "highly sought after".

 

What are you basing that on? Here's some data on degrees conferred from the National Center for Education statistics.

Bachelor's https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_322.10.asp
Master's https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_323.10.asp
Doctor's https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_324.10.asp

The two really big subject areas seem to be business and heath. Engineering is still quite big. "Area, ethnic, cultural, gender, and group studies" which probably covers two of the subjects you quoted is one of the smallest.

 

Thanks. A cursory look at that data is interesting but there are 2 things. First, not being a statistician, I'm not going to add up all the different categories to come up with totals because it really doesn't relate to my point. The larger issue is they don't tell you anything about those graduates, ie: American or foreign. A PEW research paper in 2015 said that the ratio of American students to foreign students in our science / tech courses was less than 50%. And the high tech companies have been screaming for years about increasing the number of H1-B people they can bring in because they can't get enough qualified Americans. But I will admit my choice of examples was a comment on our society today.

 

Something to consider.. When I got my tech license I was 50 years old in 2005. My daughter Natalie was 11 years old when she got her tech license in 2007. Her interest in ham radio was directly related to my involvement with the hobby and getting her involved at a young age. The chance of her becoming involved with ham radio on her own had I not been a ham would be extremely low. Does this type of situation account for many of the younger hams within the current license base (Children of hams)? Kind of a "generational induction"

Will there be a similar relationship within families of future hams? For example a Gen Xer got his license last year and has a 2 year old Son. Can he stay interested and active with the hobby long enough to possibly get his son interested in the hobby?

I think an important aspect of the future success of the hobby is that we all stay active and interested. If Natalie or I are still active with the hobby into the future, It raises the chance of bringing a 3rd generation into the hobby.

I am happy to say that My Niece who lives off the grid and home schools her Daughter wants me to do a presentation / demonstration on ham radio for her Daughter as part of her in home educational studies. I'm really going to make it fun and interesting!

Mike / W0MSN

 

Because we as hams occupy a valuable public resource - the airwaves.

 

My primary love in Ham Radio is Building and fixing things. Thats why I have so many vintage radios. I find them at the swapmeets all ravaged and butchered. I say "I CAN FIX THAT!!!" And I often do!! the rest become static Museum pieces. Most of my Heathkits work. It is fun and relaxing to fix them.
When I don't have radios to fix, I build projects. CAT RANCH ELECTRONICS and before that , RAT RANCH has churned out countless one of a kind projects over the past 50 years.

So when it came time to get a job, I looked for one which allowed me to do similarly based work. As an Electronic Tech, I got to build and fix things
I just fixed a company product today. It had a big LCD in it that the customer smashed, and I replaced it. Just wish i could get paid for the hard work i am doing for this company. The boss seems to think I owe him BACK RENT for the time I kept rigs in the back room. So I am paying him back by working paycheckless for the rest of my life!
But I can atleast work on my own projects here.
meanwhile, at home, I am working at getting my home test station ramped up as this company is expected to FOLD UP anyday now. I hang around cuz I want to NAIL much of this test equipment in the fire sale.
here is the Ultimate test station, now complete with a 22GHZ Spectrum Analyzer thanks to SUE AF6LJ fixing it.

Not much room for more, I guess 10 DMMs is almost enough!

 

I find your Statement Extremely Accurate. I have a hard time understanding WHY they don't Understand it Unless they are Banking on Younger Kids who feel Entitled to get their Parents to Support their HAM Radio Hobby, those will be the Very Few Exceptions to the cause and Certainly Not Enough to Support the Hobby Finacially Overall. I recently Joined the HAM Radio Hobby myself and I am 56. 73 KG5TJV

 

Interesting study... I was somewhat surprised at the age information, too, but certainly my Tech classes are usually filled with folks nearing retirement. I've had a couple of all female classes recently, so perhaps that demographic is changing. I see a small trend of female 'makers' drifting over to ham radio out of curiosity, as well as female preppers.

I do think the study highlights a problem with 'motivation'. Indeed, younger people don't know about radio, and most don't care. This became obvious with the publication of breathless news stories (apparently by a younger journalist) talking about how millennials had found a way to 'hack' free TV programming. The 'hack' involved reception of over the air signals. Who knew you could do that?
I am still stuck in some kind of time warp over that one.

Where can Amateur Radio be relevant? In teaching the whole world of RF communication and technology. The 'makers' are doing it without us, but some of them have discovered that a ham ticket makes it possible to do their 'Internet of Things' communications over longer distances. I think we really need to exploit that niche as much as we can. The same can be said for building WAN's using ham bands. We don't need to duplicate the Internet, but I think we could duplicate the old packet radio networks, but at much higher speeds, using off the shelf, affordable gear, particularly if we used the Internet to fill in the gaps until RF links could be established. This network would be used for 'Internet of Things' applications as well as traditional ones.

There certainly are, and have been, barriers to entry, particularly for kids. Take a typical 13 year old. Even if they want a ham rig, they certainly want a cellphone and a tablet or laptop much more, and unless their parents are very rich, it's unlikely that Mom and Dad will buy them both. The computer can easily lead to a career, the ham radio not so much. I've heard this logic many times from parents of kids who were interested, but parents said 'no'.

Antenna issues are very real, even for older newbies. I cringe when one of my students talks about their nice condo, because I know they are going to get frustrated on HF. I am a real believer in remote ops and shared stations. Remotehams.com has made it possible for at least one old timer to resume his ham career from a retirement assisted living condo, where the RF noise is 20 over 9, and 5 watts will blow the AFCI breakers ! You can even do CW that way, now. I think we should all encourage more of these, and if you have a spare rig, put it on the air with Remotehams, and share it with those less fortunate.

 

While what you say is very true, K0RGR, we have additional problems.

And if you listen to the TRVE HAMS, those people should have thought about that before buying, even if they weren't even hams then.

Me too, but again if you listen to the TRVE HAMS, "that's not ham radio!"

That opposition by the TRVE HAMS, to solutions to real problems experienced by new hams, is what is going to kill ham radio.

 

I sit in stunned silence...

We have just seen the top surface of Pat's lab bench. Unbelievable!!!!

 

HEY JOEL !!!
Thanks for taking that "in-depth" SURVEY, as it was VERY INTERESTING, especially about the section on "CW"!!! I've always said that "CW" would never DIE OUT", and your survey PROVED THAT !!! The bit about (FUN & LEGACY) are "spot-on !!!. Sure, it is true from the standpoint of instant communications (CW) is much SLOWER than the SPEECH/IDEAS conveyed by the human voice, BUT that particular MODE, out of many, WILL ALWAYS/ALWAYS be VIABLE/USEFUL, and those who condemn it for whatever reason are IGNORANT FOOLS!!!