2024-02-23 — Amateur Radio and the Growth of the Spectrum Workforce in the US National Spectrum Strategy, Power Amplifier Suitable for Software Defined Transmitters
Lime Micro has the Lime RFE amplifier. It has a very steep learning curve (mine is pretty much a very expensive dust magnet), but at least there's something. DK if there's actual support for it in GNU radio but their Lime Suite includes a tab for it. And the Lime SDRs include GPIO pins for keying amplifiers and sequencing preamps, etc. Again, not sure how much support is there for generic SDR programs.
At one time the charters of the various US government regulatory agencies included language that mandated they not only regulate but also promote the industries they control. So the FCC's charter included promoting use of radio, the FAA's encouraged aviation, etc. Not sure when that language was removed, but it seems to me the various "letter agencies" would be more in tune with niche and hobby corners if they actually were promoting use. I'm in the small UAV (drone) business, which grew out of hobbyists. Now everyone's getting into the act, and we see what's happening in Ukraine. But before that the FAA was so hostile to the hobby community it took an act of Congress for them to relent. Unfortunately that backfired as the community failed to police themselves, but at least the FCC isn't shutting down amateur radio, although it would only take a few high profile incidents with free-banders or other idiots to bring the hobby into a negative light.
Spectrum Workforce: I will not comment on the situation in the US, I am too far away. But some comments on the situation here in Germany might be interesting:
Our national ham radio society, DARC, does a reasonable job in representing ham radio in legislature, industry standards work and coordination. For the latter, we have a regular roundtable with quite some representatives of ham radio ommunity like DARC, AGCW (CW) etc. and officials. That includes BNetzA (Bundesnetzagentur, in this respect comparable to FCC), military etc. The latter are needed for example as the primary users of the 6m band.
For all this it is important that about half of all personal licenses are represented by DARC. In June we will get a new entry license class (VHF/UHF only). I fear that this might increase the number of licenses, but DARC might win hardly any new members. This might also reduce the influence DARC has had until now.
An example of results at industry standards: To be sold in Germany, power line equipment must notch out the SW ham bands. This is not the case in Austria.
At the last Radio Conference DARC was Europe's loudest voice to defend the 23 cm band against the interests of the navigational services. Negative examples: In Finland the 23cm band is no longer available for ham radio. In all of Scandinavia (OZ, SM, LA, OH) the 70cm ham radio band is only 6 MHz wide, compared to 10 MHz otherwise in Region 1.
In one respect, DARC makes a terrible job: Networking with general public. cqDL, the "German QST", was never available in Germany without a DARC membership. From what I see of (mostly internal) documentation about emergency traffic, there are basic errors that could only happen because the DARC officials lack contact to those responsible for official emergency management.
For example, emergency management here in Germany is organized on the county (Landkreis) level, not by towns or local communities. But DARC expects to be alarmed from that lowest level which will never happen.
Nearly all I found about publicity support was calls to publish press releases about events of local chapters. From time to time ham radio also appears at regional TV stations. Don't ask me who had the initiative.
At a group meeting with my mayor about local resilience the topic "wireless communication" nearly crashed the meeting. Winlink was way beyond their world.
Thanks for a very thoughtful and thought provoking piece. Representing Amateur Radio to the public is something I struggle with how to accomplish. What is the elevator speech?
Promoting our hobby now is best done through social media. Some hams have been good at this.... but only to other hams, methinks. BTW, enticing young people into the hobby was a problem even when TOM was writing editorials. Please keep up the great writing!
Steve, great reporting. I feel compelled to add a few comments.
As just another old guy who has loved Amateur Radio but who has worked ,fairly recently, in the technology industry, I note that the comments about getting in to libraries, being in schools and lobbying are great, a large issue is that these are places that potential new hams don't look anymore.
I believe that if we want to be noticed by the next generations, we need to have a substantial digital marketing effort - Amateur Radio needs to be "rebranded" and brought into the age of cell phones, small screens, gaming, AI and VR. We need professional digital marketing designs for relevant instagram (not facebook), TikTock, Messenger, LinkedIn (for new professionals) and many other platforms. We need to meet the next generations - as well as some of ours - where they "live" in our world today.
We also need to concentrate on promotion of aspects of our hobby that speak to the new generation. Rather than SSB, CW, FM HT's and even FT8 we need to speak about networking, high speed services, software, exciting new activities and ways to get fit while moving our joint technology future forward in a positive way. It's not that all the "older" stuff is bad, it's just that most of it no longer resonates with potential new hams in a world where a cell phone or many other devices that people use now can instantly communicate multi-media anywhere in the world for almost no cost.
Being an engineer myself, I note that this social/marketing communications (MARCOM) requirement does not come naturally to many techies who love the engineering issues and tend to shy away from promotion - I suggest that this is *most* hams. But... I think that we have, at least in a major part, a seemingly simple but in reality very complex branding and promotion problem in a world full of technologies that most of our existing licensees are not aware of and don't participate in.
I think that Amateur Radio has some of the "tools". We still have a viable ARRL. We have some great Youtubers, Vendors and Bloggers and global reach. We (the ARRL, RSGB, JARL and may others?) need to hire (yup hire) and trust marketing and messaging oriented Gen Alpha (born 2013 – 2025) and Generation Z (born 1996-2012) professional marketing (not technology) types and give them a grand challenge and the funding and tools to implement that challenge.
The grand challenge is to make what we call Amateur Radio relevant to younger people. This means that they need to "Recast" and "Rebrand" Amateur Radio in a form that would catch the interest of young women and men in the current world - hmm. maybe the term "Amateur RADIO" is anachronistic?.
Us older guys need to get out of the way once this challenge is staffed and funded.
Thanks for your great work. I’ve no idea how you keep up the pace. G5DOC
Lime Micro has the Lime RFE amplifier. It has a very steep learning curve (mine is pretty much a very expensive dust magnet), but at least there's something. DK if there's actual support for it in GNU radio but their Lime Suite includes a tab for it. And the Lime SDRs include GPIO pins for keying amplifiers and sequencing preamps, etc. Again, not sure how much support is there for generic SDR programs.
At one time the charters of the various US government regulatory agencies included language that mandated they not only regulate but also promote the industries they control. So the FCC's charter included promoting use of radio, the FAA's encouraged aviation, etc. Not sure when that language was removed, but it seems to me the various "letter agencies" would be more in tune with niche and hobby corners if they actually were promoting use. I'm in the small UAV (drone) business, which grew out of hobbyists. Now everyone's getting into the act, and we see what's happening in Ukraine. But before that the FAA was so hostile to the hobby community it took an act of Congress for them to relent. Unfortunately that backfired as the community failed to police themselves, but at least the FCC isn't shutting down amateur radio, although it would only take a few high profile incidents with free-banders or other idiots to bring the hobby into a negative light.
Spectrum Workforce: I will not comment on the situation in the US, I am too far away. But some comments on the situation here in Germany might be interesting:
Our national ham radio society, DARC, does a reasonable job in representing ham radio in legislature, industry standards work and coordination. For the latter, we have a regular roundtable with quite some representatives of ham radio ommunity like DARC, AGCW (CW) etc. and officials. That includes BNetzA (Bundesnetzagentur, in this respect comparable to FCC), military etc. The latter are needed for example as the primary users of the 6m band.
For all this it is important that about half of all personal licenses are represented by DARC. In June we will get a new entry license class (VHF/UHF only). I fear that this might increase the number of licenses, but DARC might win hardly any new members. This might also reduce the influence DARC has had until now.
An example of results at industry standards: To be sold in Germany, power line equipment must notch out the SW ham bands. This is not the case in Austria.
At the last Radio Conference DARC was Europe's loudest voice to defend the 23 cm band against the interests of the navigational services. Negative examples: In Finland the 23cm band is no longer available for ham radio. In all of Scandinavia (OZ, SM, LA, OH) the 70cm ham radio band is only 6 MHz wide, compared to 10 MHz otherwise in Region 1.
In one respect, DARC makes a terrible job: Networking with general public. cqDL, the "German QST", was never available in Germany without a DARC membership. From what I see of (mostly internal) documentation about emergency traffic, there are basic errors that could only happen because the DARC officials lack contact to those responsible for official emergency management.
For example, emergency management here in Germany is organized on the county (Landkreis) level, not by towns or local communities. But DARC expects to be alarmed from that lowest level which will never happen.
Nearly all I found about publicity support was calls to publish press releases about events of local chapters. From time to time ham radio also appears at regional TV stations. Don't ask me who had the initiative.
At a group meeting with my mayor about local resilience the topic "wireless communication" nearly crashed the meeting. Winlink was way beyond their world.
DL4NO
Thanks for a very thoughtful and thought provoking piece. Representing Amateur Radio to the public is something I struggle with how to accomplish. What is the elevator speech?
Promoting our hobby now is best done through social media. Some hams have been good at this.... but only to other hams, methinks. BTW, enticing young people into the hobby was a problem even when TOM was writing editorials. Please keep up the great writing!
Steve, great reporting. I feel compelled to add a few comments.
As just another old guy who has loved Amateur Radio but who has worked ,fairly recently, in the technology industry, I note that the comments about getting in to libraries, being in schools and lobbying are great, a large issue is that these are places that potential new hams don't look anymore.
I believe that if we want to be noticed by the next generations, we need to have a substantial digital marketing effort - Amateur Radio needs to be "rebranded" and brought into the age of cell phones, small screens, gaming, AI and VR. We need professional digital marketing designs for relevant instagram (not facebook), TikTock, Messenger, LinkedIn (for new professionals) and many other platforms. We need to meet the next generations - as well as some of ours - where they "live" in our world today.
We also need to concentrate on promotion of aspects of our hobby that speak to the new generation. Rather than SSB, CW, FM HT's and even FT8 we need to speak about networking, high speed services, software, exciting new activities and ways to get fit while moving our joint technology future forward in a positive way. It's not that all the "older" stuff is bad, it's just that most of it no longer resonates with potential new hams in a world where a cell phone or many other devices that people use now can instantly communicate multi-media anywhere in the world for almost no cost.
Being an engineer myself, I note that this social/marketing communications (MARCOM) requirement does not come naturally to many techies who love the engineering issues and tend to shy away from promotion - I suggest that this is *most* hams. But... I think that we have, at least in a major part, a seemingly simple but in reality very complex branding and promotion problem in a world full of technologies that most of our existing licensees are not aware of and don't participate in.
I think that Amateur Radio has some of the "tools". We still have a viable ARRL. We have some great Youtubers, Vendors and Bloggers and global reach. We (the ARRL, RSGB, JARL and may others?) need to hire (yup hire) and trust marketing and messaging oriented Gen Alpha (born 2013 – 2025) and Generation Z (born 1996-2012) professional marketing (not technology) types and give them a grand challenge and the funding and tools to implement that challenge.
The grand challenge is to make what we call Amateur Radio relevant to younger people. This means that they need to "Recast" and "Rebrand" Amateur Radio in a form that would catch the interest of young women and men in the current world - hmm. maybe the term "Amateur RADIO" is anachronistic?.
Us older guys need to get out of the way once this challenge is staffed and funded.
Just a thought from an old guy.