I’m three years into my General, clicked over to 65 yrs this year. Main expectations were to communicate with people around the world. But my time so far has been local club repeater nets, and only accumulating HF & CW gear that I still haven’t really touched.
My disappointments with the state of the hobby (as I’ve experience so far) are the emphasis on snatching contacts, and logging contacts (and re-re-logging contacts), chasing awards, and the de-emphasis on DX and ragchews. Smoke em if you got em, they’re just not my own reasons for getting into this. My surprise at the prevalence of FT8, and yes POTA, is not in what it takes to make a contact, but that they end at the contact itself, off to the next dozen. Again, just looking at what’s different from what I was looking for. I’ve got DX and CW in my future, but I keep hearing how dead SSB is and that doesn’t give me confidence for my long-term future with it. — Jeff KQ4CMA DC > On Aug 31, 2025, at 1:55 PM, Fred Jensen via Elecraft > <[email protected]> wrote: > > "How to get younger people into ham radio to replace us OT's?" is a common > question these days. Probably because of when we OT's joined the hobby, most > discussion seems to center around what attracted us ... often decades ago. > I'll suggest that the world has changed and if you want to increase the > number of new folks entering the hobby, you should first ask, "Who are the > candidates?" > > In the US at least, the rate of new FCC license grants has held more or less > steady for the last decade or two. There really are new hams already with > calls ... lots of them ... but close to none of the discussion ever focuses > on them. > > As a teenage ham in the mid 50's, I was very active in NTS and traffic > handling, and enjoyed it a great deal. It's an anachronism now, the only > traffic is "Congrats on your new license," service messages about them, and > net reports. Out of nostalgia, 15 or 20 years ago I joined the NorCal net > [3533 @ 1900 Pacific] and began delivering such traffic to new hams in NE > Calif and most of Nevada. > > The nostalgia finally faded, and I'm usually watching a Giants game at 1900 > PT now but a little wrinkle showed up that I didn't expect -- when delivering > the Congrats via the telephone, about 60-70% of the time I found myself > talking to a real, no fooling, NEW HAM! During my nostalgic period, I got to > chat with something close to 250 or so. Who are they? What propelled them > to sit for an exam and obtain a license? > > I can assure you they are not teenagers. They are mainly in their 30's and > 40's. They're employed, they have careers and families [background > kid-noises were common in our chats]. I call them "established adults." > They mainly got their licenses at VE sessions run by clubs, and for a variety > of reasons. Most of those reasons are utilitarian rather than driven by > interest in a cool new hobby. They already have a variety of recreational > activities, many of which are outdoor related. Most already have their $40 > Chinese HT programmed onto the club's repeaters. > > Very few care much about anything ham-ish beyond that. Not that they > couldn't or wouldn't find other aspects of ham radio interesting if exposed > to it, that's just not where they are right now. Business 101 tells us, > "Know what your customer wants and sell it to him." If in the process you > slip in information about some other products he's never asked for, maybe > he'll give them a try ... that would be Advertising 101. So the Plan To > Attract New Folks To Ham Radio starts out: > > 1. Find out who they are and what they use ham radio for now. > > 2. Build "products" [web sites, publications, support for their clubs, etc] > that satisfy their needs, improve their utilitarian use of ham radio, and > keep them close. Celebrate them in ham radio. > > 3. Acquaint them with all the other joys of ham radio but do it slowly, > quietly, and without suggestion that they're not "doing ham radio right." > > Note that there is very little on ARRL's or any other ham website directed at > brand new hams and their use of their radios. In fact, it's common for older > hams to disparage that ... "shack on the belt" ... and the like. I have one > friend who began with the obligatory HT, found out about SOTA and POTA, got a > little rig, and is now on HF and having a blast. Another, also an amateur > author, found out about DX-peditions while unsuccessfully looking for some > VHF FM answers on ARRL's site, and now chases them. Not a DX-hound or > contester, just expeditions, using them as fodder for his adventure stories. > > If preserving the amateur radio hobby is important, we have to approach it's > evolution smartly and with some planning and science. Just trying random > things isn't going to do it. > > 73, > > Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW > Sparks NV DM09dn > Washoe County > > PS: I'll bet Elecraft has a pretty good idea of the distribution of K4 > customers ... how many were already K2, K3, KX3 users and how many are brand > new to the brand. ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
