Amateur Radio and Common Sense

Agreed. That's good common sense. But with kids its good news and bad news. The bad news is that in a marketing study released by The Management Network Group Inc. for the cellphone industry, young males between the ages of 13-24 were interested in (in order) Commercial free radio, video (mobile tv and video clips), music downloads, and multiplayer 3D gaming. "Texting" was not listed as a choice. The good news is that 27% of respondants had never had the technologies above demonstrated to them so they had no opinion. In the catagory of "not interested at all", the highest winners were video and 3d gaming. We should view the 27% as our optimal target group for Amateur Radio. A survey last month by a different group had the order for 13-24 year old males as portable texting, music downloads, video, and gaming in that order. In that study, commercial free radio and mobile TV were not offered as choices.

 

As I have stated in a post on another thread, perhaps a month ago, this seems to be where ham radio is moving. Two very different 'hobbies' or 'services' or one 'hobby' and one 'service.'

I have just been appointed DEC of my area, and I admit I am learning more than a few things. I see people who want to be the emergency communication volunteers, and I am beginning to understand. In fact, I am likening it to the volunteer fire fighters, people I think are the most selfless and the opposite of self-centered, of any humans on the planet. If you know a volunteer fire fighter in your area, thank him/her.

I have long (and I continue to be) an advocate of "ham radio is fun." Volunteer fire fighting, I guess, can be fun, but as far as I can tell, is a completely serious business, with the possible exception of the fund raisers. I do not like to see ham radio turned into a 100 percent, or even 95 percent, service organization. In fact, if that did happen, I would suspect the government would put minimum age restrictions as well as minimum public safety restrictions on ALL amateurs.

As I have suggested elsewhere, maybe we do need a cadre of folk who do nothing at all but support emergency communication and public service events. I would, though, not call them ham radio operators. I'd call them Volunteer Communicators, and I would probably place the above restrictions on them concerning training and minimum age, as well as background investigations. They would no longer be hams. They would not, in fact, even hold what is known as a ham license. They would qualify for a government issued Volunteer Communicator's license. That is not to say they could NOT hold a ham license, but it would be a separate entity.

By far, the fast majority of active hams never participate in either emergency or public safety communications. To them, this is, and always has been, a hobby. In an emergency they tend to forget all about ham radio, and start saving the family.

This would be the other split in what is now known as ham radio. They *could* get a Volunteer Communicator's license, and with it, they could participate in official emergency communications support.

All this may not be so far fetched. To be honest, those hams to only turn on their radios if there is an emergency or community project, I simply to not classify as ham radio operators. They are good civil volunteers, and I have no quarrel with that. They do a good service. But the rift between them, and those who think ham radio should be fun, is widening. Each side treats the other with disdain.

Yes, there are some amateurs who do both. They go to the drills, assist in emergency communications, and when they have free time, they work DX, or ragchew on CW, or build or restore old radios. We CAN do both.

The problem is, we won't! We have so many who want to exclude the other faction, and to ridicule those who do not do ham radio as they see it. I think this is far more noticeable with the EMCOM types, who ridicule any ham who does not participate in public or community events.

As to attracting young people, I believe it is true that most (not all) kids today have far too much technology at their immediate disposal (in an 'immediate' world) and the only delay they will tolerate in their fun is the learning curve of the X-box.

There are exceptions, some by necessity as their families can't buy for them the lastest electronic toys. Some, I'm sure, just don't want them. At the ages of 7 to 12, though (my wife works in a school with these kids) they want what is trendy and immediate.

In my new position as DEC, I am trying to walk the fence of social club and serious public safety. I admit, it is a difficult fence to walk, but if this old dog can do it, so can others who choose one, ridicule the other. It doesn't have to be that way.

As our group plans Field Day, I have been busily aquiring handouts we can place on our table, which we hope will be exposed to the community. I don't want, and I don't want the club to want, to grab people by the throat and drag them kicking and fighting into ham radio. I want to make it visible. I want to be there to answer questions. I want to try to be ready for the serious inquiry.

I am, though, very set against the idea of converting an entire 2nd grade class into hams, as a means of learning geography, or physics. Let the teachers in school teach the darned courses and not rely upon a hobby to do the job for them. We definitely do not need a generation of hams who "had to do it" to pass third grade. And we have come awfully close to doing exactly that.

We should not be a requirement. We should not be all things to all people. We should not become nothing but the Volunteer Firefighters of Radio.

Keep it fun, keep it free, and keep it NO, not low, pressure.

ed

 

Blimey - that was a bit of a tome...

On a simpler note, THIS SONG may well become the most significant thing this year in Amateur Radio!

Hams an non-hams alike are MARVELLING at this video.
It might take a while to load if you are on dial-up so be patient.

WELL worth the wait! Click on the video link at the top and you will see it:

http://www.af4k.com/video.htm





TELL YOUR FRIENDS!!

73 de AF4K

 

I feel like this forum has a totally different view of todays youth than I have. I am involved with a scout troop and I have never seen a better group of boys.
Can I get them interested in Ham radio- well they really enjoy feild day each year and argue over who gets the next turn.
I also share AR with the local boy scout camp for the 5th year in a row. The boys find it facinating and I don't even have to sell it> I leave psk and SSTV up and away they go.( ps alot of us are watching and would appreciate less of the slightly clad women - but it does get the boys interest!!
I have a group of hams that are attempting to build our camp a new shack and have done a great job at fundraising and sharing their time. I guess I feel it is not time wasted on our youth. I have recruited adults that see what we do and have always wanted to try it. I also share an old copy of QST with each participant because you never know what will be the aspect of the hobbie that will inspire them.
So I conclude- don't write off our young people - when did you last talk with a teen, you might be suprised to find out what they like.
73- Jill Raymer KC8PVQ
W8BSC-Camp Greilick

 

Amateur Radio, well its a science. Thats how it should be approached in the schools. Young people that are curious about electronics, talking on a radio, propagation, radio waves, etc. will be attracted to it. Otherwise, they will find another interest other then our hobby, which is really a science. A most interesting one.
David

 

Damn shame.

 

Yep, this is sad.... BUT there are no comments
from ANYONE in this topic about the wonderful video,
so I guess that everyone here is happier to stew in
the remorse rather than look at something
positive that COULD bode well for the future of
amateur radio!

BTW:
There is nothing "archaic" about working on tube radios.
If a nuclear war broke out it might be the only kind of
radio that worked any more! OK that sounds ridiculous, but looking into electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) some time.

Most of the boatanchor enthusiasts are also capable of operating digital modes, DXing, FM, satellite etc.
A great many of them are widely versed in a variety of skills. Maybe your club is different.

 

There is nothing inherent to vacuum tubes that make them resistant to EMP that cannot be duplicated in transistor technology.  The reason a vacuum tube radio is more likely to survive is because they are big, heavy, and use a much higher voltage than the average transistor based radio.  It is fairly trivial to make a transistor radio resistant to EMP, just make them big, heavy, and use a much higher voltage than your average transistor radio.

Radiation hardening is another thing.  A transistor's performance degrades as it is exposed to radiation.  A vacuum tube's performance may be inhibited by radiation but unlike the transistor it's performance will return once the radiation has dissipated.  To radiation harden transistor based equipment it has to be shielded and overbuilt, much like how one would harden it against EMP.  Vacuum tubes, hardened against radiation and EMP or not, will eventually burn out and have to be replaced unlike a transistor.

When I worked for a company supplying electronics to the military I had a conversation with an experienced engineer that told me a few things about electronics and how they react to nuclear explosions.  Early electronics for nuclear bombers were vacuum tube based.  Partly because it was already being used prior to the development of the A-bomb, but also because it was known not to fail in the event of an EMP.  Once the technology of transistors improved and the effects of a nuclear explosion were better understood all the big and heavy vacuum tubes were replaced with transistors and proper shielding.

Also in my discussions with this engineer I found out that vacuum tubes were still being used in broadcast radio and TV transmitters.  Transistors were not up to the task of the high power and voltages involved.  I found out years later that transistor technology has improved and all new radio and TV transmitters are transistor based and that the existing tube based equipment is quickly getting replaced.  Most likely to avoid the need for the occasional tube replacement.

I don't want to sound like I'm belittling your hobby of restoring old radios.  I just wanted to dispel the myth that vacuum tubes are better suited to surviving a nuclear attack than transistor technology.

Since the threat of a nuclear explosion is quite small I don't think that any advantage a vacuum tube may have over a transistor will be much of a selling point. If there was a threat of nuclear attack then I would imagine radio manufacturers would be selling transistor based radios that were designed to survive such an attack.

I could say that a steam locomotive was archaic since a diesel electric locomotive is more reliable, more powerful, and less expensive to operate and maintain. People still have a fascination with steam locomotives, just as they do with vacuum tube radios. Because of that people continue to restore and use them. While I would call a steam locomotive archaic I would not call steam engine technology archaic. Steam engines are still used in electric power generation and in the propulsion of large ships. But vacuum tubes are archaic. Vacuum tubes are only used out of a nostalgia, a respect for history, not because of any advantage over transistors.

 

what are you whinning on here for get on the air and talk about it every chance you get instead of hiding on the computer where it goes nowhere. radio radio radio.................................fill the airwaves with beautiful sound of amateurs using their radios ._._.

 

This is NOT my quote.

PLEASE CORRECT the attribution.

 

KC0LXK wrote>>To radiation harden transistor based equipment it has to be shielded and overbuilt, much like how one would harden it against EMP.

<< Not precisely right.  Radiation tolerance is a matter of semiconductor processes and materials. Some bipolar processes are "hard" to megarads without anything special. Silicon on Insulator (SOI) tends to be quite hard without anything special. There are SOI microprocessors (8085 type) being used in nuclear science experiments (near/in the beam line) which take 10s of MRad.

The other thing is that the radiation dose from nuclear explosions isn't all that high once you get a reasonable (mile or two) distance away. The air stops most of the radiation.  Fallout's a different issue, but also not particularly intense.  The 600 Rad dose necessary to kill someone  is a long ways from even wimpy rad tolerant designs at a few kilorad.  Damage from big weapons is primarily blast and thermal pulse (and EMP for high altitude air bursts).

So... solid state can be and is designed to be just as nuclear attack resistant as hollow state.


>> on the topic of current use of tubes.  Tubes are still the answer when you need very high powers (> Megawatt) or high frequencies (>several GHz) at high powers or efficiencies.   At 8 GHz and 100W, for instance, you'd be hard pressed to beat the good old TWT for efficiency (probably 50% overall wallplug to RF) compared to solid state (30%) and reliability. Lots of radars (high peak power) use tubes.  I haven't noticed many microwave ovens using solid state amplifiers to replace the magnetron, and, I'll bet a good percentage of the readers of this will be using at least one vacuum tube to read it.  High power induction furnaces also still use tubes (where their ruggedness in the face of a mismatch is handy)

Vacuum tubes are hardly dead, but not a universal panacea.

>>> On a further note, I fully agree with the poster that ham radio provides a place for people to experiment in a hobby fashion with technologies of yesteryear, just as people fool with small reciprocating steam engines.

73 de W6RMK

 

We agree that solid state systems can be just as EMP and radiation hardy as vacuum tube systems.  What I meant by "shielded and overbuilt" is nearly exactly what you said.  A modern processor would not be built with bipolar technology unless there was a concern about radiation.  CMOS uses much less power than bipolar but since EMP and radiation tends to charge and discharge the plates on the CMOS transistors randomly it would be nearly impossible to get them to work properly in a high radiation environment.  Also the 8085 processor you mention has a much larger feature size than you'd see in a processor used in a desktop computer.  That is also because of the radiation.

What I understand is that there are two processes that radiation affects solid state electronics.  One is a matter of charge.  The radiation can create a charge because of the electrons and protons flying about.  To counteract that the electronics have to be built to be tolerant of the loss or gain of charge, which usually means making it bigger.  In the electronics found in the average electronics for the home the feature sizes of the electronics can be so small that adding a few electrons here and there can scramble the system.

The other matter concerning radiation's effect on electronics is a matter of decay.  That is nuclear decay.  With all those electrons, protons, and neutrons flying about the chances of a silicon atom changing into something like aluminum increase greatly.  Again the solution is to make it bigger and with looser tolerances to accommodate that.  Decay is inevitable in all things, in the case of electronics exposed to radiation that decay is accelerated.  By over designing the electronics the decay can be tolerated by extending the life span of the device to a reasonable time.

I realize I don't have to convince you that solid state can be just as radiation hardy as vacuum tubes I'm just sharpening my points.

Perhaps my report of the vacuum tube's death was an exaggeration (with apologies to Mark Twain).  However your examples of vacuum tube use were in areas not relating to RF transmission.  Radar, induction heating, and microwave ovens all have RF for non-communication uses.  I am aware that CRTs are still used and are technically vacuum tubes, but they are getting less used every day.  Laptops now outsell desktop computers.  When a person buys a new desktop they are more likely to buy an LCD display than a CRT.  CRT based television sets are getting replaced with LCD, plasma, etc. sets everyday.  When vacuum tubes are used for communications it is because of a very specific use that they are suited for and not because of EMP or radiation hardiness.  While I may have been mistaken that vacuum tubes are being replaced in all uses, I still maintain that your average ham is not going to use vacuum tube radio excepting out of historical reasons.

 

We all need to do our part as moms and dads and do all we can to pass down the hobby to our children.
I have done so and my 12 yr old just got his Tech and will probably pass element 1 and 3 in the next few months.
Of course if the ARRL has it's way, sadly he won't need code to get on HF [Sorry I had to take a jab at the ARRL..they deserve it] CW is worth preserving. support FISTS and save your ARRL dues for new gear.
I know some disagree but we'll just have to agree to disagree.