of your ideas, I like "follow up with them to help them." the most. Young people have an extreme, unmet need for fellowship as they have becom atomized by social media. Amateur radio is the best medicine for this problem for two reasons. 1. hams are a different, self selected group of people who care about understanding things and being logical more than others and are better suited to become colleagues with young impressionable people than those who put themselves into leadership positions due to self interest in making a quick buck. 2. amateur radio inherently is about peer-to-peer communication, which is presently in extreme deficit and is the basic problem afflicting young people.
I am at yugeshima.com in the Japan Islands, by the way but hope to see you in Dayton this May at the booth in Building 4 titled "Photon Radio" Mots
Marvin - Yeah, it always surprises me that this basic step is just missed. Amateur Radio ought to swarm the newcomers! I'll have more to say about this in following issues.
Steve, Really enjoyed your segment on saving amateur radio. In the locality where I live, there is a fairly active welcoming community. And yet our repeaters are also fairly silent. But we are starting some of the things you mention in your article. Just this month we held a basic class on Linux mint for some hams at a maker space. It went well and we're looking to do more. This maker space has a close relationship with a college and really hoping to leverage that to perhaps rope some folks into the fun. Anything where there is a relationship to leverage, we're gonna look at that. And we have some pretty good community leaders in the area, and a fairly active VHF/UHF simplex crowd. Thanks for another great article
John - simplex is fun when you can do it. But the real magic, to me, about VHF / UHF Amateur Radio is how repeaters multiply our communications capability. It's incredibly obvious to anyone who's used a repeater for voice... but there is a fundamental disconnect when it comes to thinking about repeaters for data; folks have been "brainwashed" (a harsh term, but I can't think of a better one) that "digipeaters" are for data, and "repeaters are for voice". I think if we could marry low-power radios using data modes, with repeaters, it would be a whole new world. Of course, we also have to have the use cases, but I'm working on that.
I agree, but it's very difficult to break into this. I think one of the big issues is that ham radio digital data folks are a small percentage of the already small percentage of Ham Radio operators
John - And.... RIGHT! "Data folks" ARE a minority in Amateur Radio... at the MOMENT. But the "traditionals" tend to be the ones that are aging out of Amateur Radio. Thus my thrust with Zero Retries to explain Amateur Radio through the lens of "the cool stuff" like data communications and start attracting more "data centric" folks into Amateur Radio. I think we may well have to only "flip one" repeater in an area, and then FLOOD it with lots of participants and lots of folks having FUN.
You know, when I go to the chess club, we play chess. At the bridge club, we play bridge. At the beer brewing club, we don't brew, but we do sample and comment on members' beers. But at the ham club, all we do is talk. A recent topic at the meeting was "how to prepare for being a SK". Wow, that really brought the kids in.
Ham clubs need to play radio at their meetings. Solder fumes should be common. How to use a multimeter. And so on...
Donald - Agreed that radio club meetings should be about radios. This is a quote that should be virtually tattooed on the brain of any Amateur Radio Operator hoping to attract others:
The Universal Purpose of Ham Radio is to have fun messing around with radios. - Bob Witte K0NR
I've probably mentioned this in the past regarding clubs and their "business meetings." I always look at the tech meet-up space as a great alternative example of success. There are no constitutions, boards, by-laws, etc. There's a code of conduct and a small group of organizers that ensure there's a compelling presenter each month with time to mingle and catch-up. With as busy as people are these days, there's not room for much more than that. And yet meet-ups are effective evangelists of their topics of focus.
This will likely be an unpopular opinion, but there's way too much focus on recruiting children. The vast majority of professional organizations equivalent to the ARRL (AIGA, AICPA, etc.) recruit young professionals and college-age adults. Not to say there isn't value in investing in youth, but it's a long-tail payoff at a point when the hobby needs immediate help.
Ultimately, it comes down to story telling (marketing). What's the future story of amateur radio? That's what I'm interested in hearing.
Cale - I've thought about this and what comes to mind is "a" reason that Amateur Radio clubs are structured as formal organizations is that they usually have property, as opposed to a professional organization, that does not. At one point, Amateur Radio "clubhouses" were fairly common. More common now are trailers, equipment for Field Day, and of course, repeaters. That requires a bank account, dues, a board, etc. If those things could be divested or spun out into an org that just concerns itself with managing assets, then maybe we could get back to having fun. But, see Donald Rotolo's earlier comment - Ham clubs need to play radio at their meetings (not just talk).
of your ideas, I like "follow up with them to help them." the most. Young people have an extreme, unmet need for fellowship as they have becom atomized by social media. Amateur radio is the best medicine for this problem for two reasons. 1. hams are a different, self selected group of people who care about understanding things and being logical more than others and are better suited to become colleagues with young impressionable people than those who put themselves into leadership positions due to self interest in making a quick buck. 2. amateur radio inherently is about peer-to-peer communication, which is presently in extreme deficit and is the basic problem afflicting young people.
I am at yugeshima.com in the Japan Islands, by the way but hope to see you in Dayton this May at the booth in Building 4 titled "Photon Radio" Mots
Marvin - Yeah, it always surprises me that this basic step is just missed. Amateur Radio ought to swarm the newcomers! I'll have more to say about this in following issues.
Steve, Really enjoyed your segment on saving amateur radio. In the locality where I live, there is a fairly active welcoming community. And yet our repeaters are also fairly silent. But we are starting some of the things you mention in your article. Just this month we held a basic class on Linux mint for some hams at a maker space. It went well and we're looking to do more. This maker space has a close relationship with a college and really hoping to leverage that to perhaps rope some folks into the fun. Anything where there is a relationship to leverage, we're gonna look at that. And we have some pretty good community leaders in the area, and a fairly active VHF/UHF simplex crowd. Thanks for another great article
John - simplex is fun when you can do it. But the real magic, to me, about VHF / UHF Amateur Radio is how repeaters multiply our communications capability. It's incredibly obvious to anyone who's used a repeater for voice... but there is a fundamental disconnect when it comes to thinking about repeaters for data; folks have been "brainwashed" (a harsh term, but I can't think of a better one) that "digipeaters" are for data, and "repeaters are for voice". I think if we could marry low-power radios using data modes, with repeaters, it would be a whole new world. Of course, we also have to have the use cases, but I'm working on that.
I agree, but it's very difficult to break into this. I think one of the big issues is that ham radio digital data folks are a small percentage of the already small percentage of Ham Radio operators
John - And.... RIGHT! "Data folks" ARE a minority in Amateur Radio... at the MOMENT. But the "traditionals" tend to be the ones that are aging out of Amateur Radio. Thus my thrust with Zero Retries to explain Amateur Radio through the lens of "the cool stuff" like data communications and start attracting more "data centric" folks into Amateur Radio. I think we may well have to only "flip one" repeater in an area, and then FLOOD it with lots of participants and lots of folks having FUN.
You know, when I go to the chess club, we play chess. At the bridge club, we play bridge. At the beer brewing club, we don't brew, but we do sample and comment on members' beers. But at the ham club, all we do is talk. A recent topic at the meeting was "how to prepare for being a SK". Wow, that really brought the kids in.
Ham clubs need to play radio at their meetings. Solder fumes should be common. How to use a multimeter. And so on...
Donald - Agreed that radio club meetings should be about radios. This is a quote that should be virtually tattooed on the brain of any Amateur Radio Operator hoping to attract others:
The Universal Purpose of Ham Radio is to have fun messing around with radios. - Bob Witte K0NR
I've probably mentioned this in the past regarding clubs and their "business meetings." I always look at the tech meet-up space as a great alternative example of success. There are no constitutions, boards, by-laws, etc. There's a code of conduct and a small group of organizers that ensure there's a compelling presenter each month with time to mingle and catch-up. With as busy as people are these days, there's not room for much more than that. And yet meet-ups are effective evangelists of their topics of focus.
This will likely be an unpopular opinion, but there's way too much focus on recruiting children. The vast majority of professional organizations equivalent to the ARRL (AIGA, AICPA, etc.) recruit young professionals and college-age adults. Not to say there isn't value in investing in youth, but it's a long-tail payoff at a point when the hobby needs immediate help.
Ultimately, it comes down to story telling (marketing). What's the future story of amateur radio? That's what I'm interested in hearing.
Cale - I've thought about this and what comes to mind is "a" reason that Amateur Radio clubs are structured as formal organizations is that they usually have property, as opposed to a professional organization, that does not. At one point, Amateur Radio "clubhouses" were fairly common. More common now are trailers, equipment for Field Day, and of course, repeaters. That requires a bank account, dues, a board, etc. If those things could be divested or spun out into an org that just concerns itself with managing assets, then maybe we could get back to having fun. But, see Donald Rotolo's earlier comment - Ham clubs need to play radio at their meetings (not just talk).