I can see this statement from the ARRL being true for two reasons. First, is the fact that preparing for the tests teaches you absolutely zero about how to use radios. It teaches theory on electricity, frequency bands, outdated electronics, a smidge on antennas, a little bit on safety and the rules/laws of the FCC. Secondly, is the turn off that is being driven by older hams towards new hams.
I punched my Technician's ticket 14 yrs ago, I was inactive 2 weeks later even though I bought a new Yaesu 2M mobile, 30A Alinco PS, couple mobile antennas, and a couple cheap HT with upgraded antennas, etc.
The reason I punched my ticket was for EmComm. If something happened, I wanted a way to communicate, find out news, reach out to a couple friends within 10-20 miles of my QTH.
The reason I went inactive is i tried a few times to get stuff working, but I didn't have the time to figure out the radios on my own, especially since there really wasn't a lot of online information - YouTube was still in its infancy even back then.
At that time I had just turned 40. I was the CEO of a successful tech company, I held board seats on two startups as an early stage investor, i also spent some time mentoring startups at a leading incubator here in Atlanta, and was on the board for one national non profit as well AND I was married with a daughter in middle school.... I didn't have time to breath, let alone have the time to figure out what all the hobby had to offer.
A few years ago I took the golden parachute on doctor's orders, sold the business and retired. Earlier this year, I found my old radios - and even though I passed that simple test in 6 minutes with a 100% score - i found knew NOTHING about my radios - how to program them, how to join a net meeting, etc. This time I had ChatGPT and YouTube.
I studied for a month for my General, i watched W4EEY videos over and over, I read the ARRL book cover to cover twice, took the practice tests and even went paid for hamradioprep to make sure i knew the information. Spent five hours a day, seven days a week learning the material inside and out... again easy test i passed it 100% in 12 minutes... and what does it really teach you? NOTHING about the operations of the radio, zip, zero, nadda a dang thing. OK it gives you some Q codes and tells you that you start a transmission with CQ CQ CQ, but does it go into detail about what does a notch filter do and why or when to use it? What DNR is, why use it, when to use it? Grab the ARRL General test prep book and point out the page number if I am wrong please, cause if it is there, I missed it 100%.
As a new/old ham IMO - these tests need to really be revamped. There needs to be a way to teach - this is a repeater, this is how you connect to it, this is why it has an offset or an uplink/downlink frequency. This is what digital can do, Dstar, DMR, Fusion, Hotspot/Bridging, this is things you can do to "dial in" a faint signal on 10M phone, this is how you setup X top digital communication modes (FT8, winlink, varAC, etc)... and revamp it every couple of years as technology changes...
Also there needs to be a change in the mindset of the older hams. Join almost any Social Media platform subreddit or group about ham radio and the in-fighting is horrible. The tube guys vs the sdr guys, the CW only fanboys hating on the FT8 fanboys, the brand fanboys fighting over which radio is best, the outright disdain for those coming into the hobby from CBs or for preparedness reasons. The down right rude comments on the simplest questions... runs off a large % of newcomers.
My guess looking at my four local (and very active) clubs I beliebe most elmers or older hams are in the 70's. If this is true across the US. I hate to say it this way, but if they truly love the hobby and want it to last generations.. then they need to realize they may have maybe a decade left spinning the radio dial. They need do a much better join embracing every new ham, stop hating on what is new or different than they way they became a ham and accept it, respect its place in the hobby...
Mike - Thanks for sharing your experience, and I'm glad you're back into Amateur Radio.
Yeah, there needs to be massive changes in the average experience of newcomers to Amateur Radio. There are a lot of good ideas floating around out there, including a few brave clubs that are trying new things and having success in engaging and retaining and encouraging newcomer Amateur Radio Operators.
And I agree that the Amateur Radio test should be vastly simplified to things like:
* Spectrum regulations - where is legal to transmit, etc.
* Safety (some electrical, some RF including acceptable exposure limits)
* Acceptable behavior - must ID regularly, no exclusive frequencies, not acceptable to deliberately cause interference
* Know the penalties for violating the regulations
* If you want to really experiment, how to post your unique modulation technique or modem hardware to a public website, and how to request a Special Temporary Authority.
If you want to understand the physics - ionosphere, or the technology (circuits, formulas) you can learn that as you go.
But there's no clearinghouse for replicating the really good programs... and there really needs to be.
The question is how to push this change, when it seems those at the "top" of the hobby, don't listen to the every day ham?
I think the key to driving new membership is being missed on two fronts - first of course is when we have such a tragic event as Helena happen, we need to focus on the fact that "fear sells"... for several weeks after Helena, social media platforms were flooded with "how do I get into ham radio?" Or "how do I study for the ham licensem" or "what radio do I need to contact my family"... there should have been a marketing plan with a budget set aside at the national level to drive these individuals to the local clubs or VEs or even the training sites. The second missed opportunity I feel is the fact the ARRL (and manufacturers) aren't working hand in hand with every S.T.E.M. School in the nation. My daughter when to a public high school that had education tracks for Engineering, Architecture, Medical, & Software Development. They had a whole slew of academic clubs - but nothing regarding ham radio... Lexis and Thompson give access to their legal databases to every law student in the nation for free... first touched, often becomes the preferred system of the student. Student graduates and starts their own practice they subscribe. If they join a firm that uses the same software they are happy, if not the are forced to use the other... but when they become partners, they push for their favorite systems even though they haven't touched it for 4 or 6 years.
Mike - In fairness to ARRL, they are making significant effort in the direction you suggest - https://www.arrl.org/teachers-institute-on-wireless-technology... though it mystifies me why they don't try to establish a strategic relationship with Make Magazine / Maker Faires, etc. to advertise Amateur Radio (in a relevant way) to the Maker / STEM communities. Not to mention that ARRL has no significant relationship (that I've seen) to IEEE which works hard to reach out to techies in college.
As to why ARRL doesn't "make its materials widely available like Lexis and Thompson... ARRL's true core business is being a publisher of magazines and books, and if they "open sourced" that... their entire financial structure would become precarious. At least... ARRL feels that's what would happen. In my opinion, ARRL's biggest issue isn't profitability... it's irrelevance at hiding most of its material behind a paywall, which essentially means that it's invisible and uninteresting to the newer Amateur Radio Operators. 73 Magazine, available on the Internet Archive's Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC) - https://archive.org/details/73-magazine is more relevant to new Amateur Radio Operators than any of the ARRL magazines because it's completely and totally available online without restriction.
I can see this statement from the ARRL being true for two reasons. First, is the fact that preparing for the tests teaches you absolutely zero about how to use radios. It teaches theory on electricity, frequency bands, outdated electronics, a smidge on antennas, a little bit on safety and the rules/laws of the FCC. Secondly, is the turn off that is being driven by older hams towards new hams.
I punched my Technician's ticket 14 yrs ago, I was inactive 2 weeks later even though I bought a new Yaesu 2M mobile, 30A Alinco PS, couple mobile antennas, and a couple cheap HT with upgraded antennas, etc.
The reason I punched my ticket was for EmComm. If something happened, I wanted a way to communicate, find out news, reach out to a couple friends within 10-20 miles of my QTH.
The reason I went inactive is i tried a few times to get stuff working, but I didn't have the time to figure out the radios on my own, especially since there really wasn't a lot of online information - YouTube was still in its infancy even back then.
At that time I had just turned 40. I was the CEO of a successful tech company, I held board seats on two startups as an early stage investor, i also spent some time mentoring startups at a leading incubator here in Atlanta, and was on the board for one national non profit as well AND I was married with a daughter in middle school.... I didn't have time to breath, let alone have the time to figure out what all the hobby had to offer.
A few years ago I took the golden parachute on doctor's orders, sold the business and retired. Earlier this year, I found my old radios - and even though I passed that simple test in 6 minutes with a 100% score - i found knew NOTHING about my radios - how to program them, how to join a net meeting, etc. This time I had ChatGPT and YouTube.
I studied for a month for my General, i watched W4EEY videos over and over, I read the ARRL book cover to cover twice, took the practice tests and even went paid for hamradioprep to make sure i knew the information. Spent five hours a day, seven days a week learning the material inside and out... again easy test i passed it 100% in 12 minutes... and what does it really teach you? NOTHING about the operations of the radio, zip, zero, nadda a dang thing. OK it gives you some Q codes and tells you that you start a transmission with CQ CQ CQ, but does it go into detail about what does a notch filter do and why or when to use it? What DNR is, why use it, when to use it? Grab the ARRL General test prep book and point out the page number if I am wrong please, cause if it is there, I missed it 100%.
As a new/old ham IMO - these tests need to really be revamped. There needs to be a way to teach - this is a repeater, this is how you connect to it, this is why it has an offset or an uplink/downlink frequency. This is what digital can do, Dstar, DMR, Fusion, Hotspot/Bridging, this is things you can do to "dial in" a faint signal on 10M phone, this is how you setup X top digital communication modes (FT8, winlink, varAC, etc)... and revamp it every couple of years as technology changes...
Also there needs to be a change in the mindset of the older hams. Join almost any Social Media platform subreddit or group about ham radio and the in-fighting is horrible. The tube guys vs the sdr guys, the CW only fanboys hating on the FT8 fanboys, the brand fanboys fighting over which radio is best, the outright disdain for those coming into the hobby from CBs or for preparedness reasons. The down right rude comments on the simplest questions... runs off a large % of newcomers.
My guess looking at my four local (and very active) clubs I beliebe most elmers or older hams are in the 70's. If this is true across the US. I hate to say it this way, but if they truly love the hobby and want it to last generations.. then they need to realize they may have maybe a decade left spinning the radio dial. They need do a much better join embracing every new ham, stop hating on what is new or different than they way they became a ham and accept it, respect its place in the hobby...
Mike - Thanks for sharing your experience, and I'm glad you're back into Amateur Radio.
Yeah, there needs to be massive changes in the average experience of newcomers to Amateur Radio. There are a lot of good ideas floating around out there, including a few brave clubs that are trying new things and having success in engaging and retaining and encouraging newcomer Amateur Radio Operators.
And I agree that the Amateur Radio test should be vastly simplified to things like:
* Spectrum regulations - where is legal to transmit, etc.
* Safety (some electrical, some RF including acceptable exposure limits)
* Acceptable behavior - must ID regularly, no exclusive frequencies, not acceptable to deliberately cause interference
* Know the penalties for violating the regulations
* If you want to really experiment, how to post your unique modulation technique or modem hardware to a public website, and how to request a Special Temporary Authority.
If you want to understand the physics - ionosphere, or the technology (circuits, formulas) you can learn that as you go.
But there's no clearinghouse for replicating the really good programs... and there really needs to be.
The question is how to push this change, when it seems those at the "top" of the hobby, don't listen to the every day ham?
I think the key to driving new membership is being missed on two fronts - first of course is when we have such a tragic event as Helena happen, we need to focus on the fact that "fear sells"... for several weeks after Helena, social media platforms were flooded with "how do I get into ham radio?" Or "how do I study for the ham licensem" or "what radio do I need to contact my family"... there should have been a marketing plan with a budget set aside at the national level to drive these individuals to the local clubs or VEs or even the training sites. The second missed opportunity I feel is the fact the ARRL (and manufacturers) aren't working hand in hand with every S.T.E.M. School in the nation. My daughter when to a public high school that had education tracks for Engineering, Architecture, Medical, & Software Development. They had a whole slew of academic clubs - but nothing regarding ham radio... Lexis and Thompson give access to their legal databases to every law student in the nation for free... first touched, often becomes the preferred system of the student. Student graduates and starts their own practice they subscribe. If they join a firm that uses the same software they are happy, if not the are forced to use the other... but when they become partners, they push for their favorite systems even though they haven't touched it for 4 or 6 years.
Mike - In fairness to ARRL, they are making significant effort in the direction you suggest - https://www.arrl.org/teachers-institute-on-wireless-technology... though it mystifies me why they don't try to establish a strategic relationship with Make Magazine / Maker Faires, etc. to advertise Amateur Radio (in a relevant way) to the Maker / STEM communities. Not to mention that ARRL has no significant relationship (that I've seen) to IEEE which works hard to reach out to techies in college.
As to why ARRL doesn't "make its materials widely available like Lexis and Thompson... ARRL's true core business is being a publisher of magazines and books, and if they "open sourced" that... their entire financial structure would become precarious. At least... ARRL feels that's what would happen. In my opinion, ARRL's biggest issue isn't profitability... it's irrelevance at hiding most of its material behind a paywall, which essentially means that it's invisible and uninteresting to the newer Amateur Radio Operators. 73 Magazine, available on the Internet Archive's Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC) - https://archive.org/details/73-magazine is more relevant to new Amateur Radio Operators than any of the ARRL magazines because it's completely and totally available online without restriction.