
Millennials Are Killing Ham Radio - rmason
https://n0ssc.com/posts/583-millennials-are-killing-ham-radio
======
Nextgrid
Ham radio is a hobby around what communication was like back in the day. There
used to be no Internet, long-distance telephony was in its infancy, and radio
(whether "ham" or official) was literally the only way to communicate in real-
time at a distance, and those radios were relatively crude, required lots of
knowledge and manual operation because digital logic wasn't advanced enough
yet.

Nowadays that is no longer true. Except in very specialized applications,
analog radio is not typically used for communication, and digital isn't using
manually-operated radios either, it's stacks of dozens of layers that
eventually end up transferring IP packets or similar.

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but since ham radio no longer represents
how the majority of people communicate today, maybe we shouldn't be holding
onto the past and instead focus on how people communicate _now_? Maybe IP
networks should be the future "ham radio", and we should have clubs around
these things instead (and existing ham clubs should embrace them, instead of
siloed things like digital modes over radio which are innovative but near-
useless in real-world usage)?

Even in emergency situations (which is one of the arguments for ham radio), a
satellite phone/modem will get you online pretty much anywhere in the world
and the only barrier is the equipment, which doesn't seem too different from a
ham radio where a good set costs decent money and can't easily be built from
scratch and especially not in an emergency situation.

Imagine if ham radio involved into what I described above in which case being
a ham could actually give you immediate, real-world benefits to you and your
community in working around bad/nonexistent ISPs by building your own
infrastructure? This would bring a lot more people into the hobby because
those skills allow them to solve actual problems they/their community is
facing.

~~~
imgabe
It's a hobby. There's no need to throw away hobbies just because they're
obsolete. Plenty of people enjoy blacksmithing and knitting even though nobody
has a need to do these things themselves. We don't have to push people to do
it if they don't want to, but at the same time if someone enjoys it, who
cares?

It also does provide a societal benefit of having backup knowledge that might
work when newer technologies fail.

~~~
meddlepal
We don't need to throw obsolete hobbies under the bus, but the people that are
passionate about an obsolete hobby need to realize it is dying for a reason.
You'll still get the odd-ball young person, but it is going to be increasingly
rare.

~~~
Apocryphon
Obsolete hobbies could potentially have a resurgence, from all kinds of
subcultures whether paleo (paleo diets), hipster (vinyls and typewriters),
geek (Ren Faires, historical reenactments), or even survivalist/prepper.
Millennials are stereotypically known for seeking older, "authentic" things,
with perhaps a level of exclusivity, so there can be ways to spin ham radio
into something fitting their aesthetics of cool.

~~~
dalke
Radio hobbyists used to use spark-gap transmitters. These were cheap to make
and popular. They also produced a lot of radio noise.

This caused them to be effectively banned by the 1930s, outside of marine use,
in favor of continuous wave transmitters.

So that particular obsolete hobby will not have a resurgence.

I can see a similar argument with ham radio. If it "dies", that is, if there
are many-fold fewer people using it, then that frees up RF spectrum. There
will be pressure to reallocate those frequencies to, eg, commercial use.

When the 2090s subculture rediscovers ham radio, there won't be the spectrum
for them all, and the spectrum assignments will be hard to change for what is
likely a fad.

Maybe CB radio will be popular again? "Ah, breaker one-nine, this here's the
rubber duck. you gotta copy on me, pig pen, c'mon?"

~~~
taddevries
That CW McCall line from Convoy brings back some serious memories.

Talk about old hobbies. When I was about 9 I found an 8-track of his and fell
in love with that song. I spent much of that summer buying stereo equipment at
garage sales to get a working 8-track player setup in my bedroom just so I
could listen to that song on repeat.

"There's a road-block up on the cloverleaf and them Bears was wall to wall. I
said Pig Pen this hear's a Rubber Duck, we justa ain'ta gonna pay no toll. So
we crash the gate doing 98 I says let them truckers role 10-4."

------
dschuetz
So, the guy was 25 in 2017, he's a millennial himself. Let's see what has been
_truly_ killed...

BTX, dial-up, ISDN, pagers.

But ham radio? I don't think it's going to be dead anytime soon, because as
long as the lower EM frequencies are not legally blocked by some other
services, everyone can build and use their own tx/rx. And even then, nobody
can stop the use of EM for communication, it takes some time to locate the
source.

~~~
Nextgrid
All those technologies died because they were replaced by something
equivalent/better.

The only reason ham radio is not dead is because it has a hobby around it,
just like ISDN wouldn't be "dead" either if there was a hobby around it and
people were building/maintaining ISDN networks for fun.

In terms of practical use however, both ISDN and ham radio are near-useless to
the majority of people, and the problem ham radio is facing is a lack of new
people joining because ultimately, the benefits it offers (such as the ones
you list) aren't problems the majority of people are facing (and the people
that do are a minority that wouldn't be enough to sustain such a social hobby
that also relies on real-world meetups to trade radio gear).

~~~
doctor_eval
Nonsense. The difference between ham radio and most other telecommunication
technologies is that all you need for ham is al allocation of spectrum and a
couple of radios. ISDN and other legacy telco technology will disappear
because they require a bunch of expensive, obsolete infrastructure - copper
pairs to the exchange, the exchange gear itself, and the inter exchange trunks
all cost real money in terms of support and maintenance.

Spectrum is shared and costs nothing to maintain. There is certainly an
opportunity cost of assigning spectrum to ham versus some other use, but
that’s very different to the cost of maintaining obsolete physical tech to
support a few hobbyists.

------
nikanj
Young people don't have large houses with a suitable backyard shack. Running
Ham radio from a condo is very hard.

Millennials aren't killing things, the housing crisis is.

~~~
doikor
There are handheld and car ham radios.

~~~
Ao7bei3s
Effectively being limited to your local repeater or _maybe_ some local simplex
(if you're lucky) gets very old, very fast. Not just because of the people,
but there's just not much interesting to do. What I mean is that pushing a
button on an off the shelf handheld doesn't require much sophistication. Same
for handhelds as for car radios; and anyway car ownership is also less
prevalent among young, urban people. Many people I know do carsharing. Can't
install stuff there.

Most people want DX (long range) on HF bands, and that mostly requires
moderately large antennas (for the non-hams: rule of thumb: ideally λ/2, where
λ=100m-10m. smaller is a compromise). It's by far where most of the activity
is, and if you _can 't_ participate in that, that may lead to a feeling of
being left out.

(I say effectively because there are many niche areas that you can cover with
handhelds and small antennas, like building a small cross yagi to reach a
hamsat. But still, how often do you really do that? How much activity is
there, really? Keep in mind for any mode, you need someone to talk _to_.)

So that leaves going outdoors and operating portable. Summits On The Air
(SOTA) is so much fun. But with
prep/driving/hiking/setup/teardown/driving/cleanup, that always takes most of
a day. Not something you can do for an hour, after work. (And completely
infeasible for kids too young to drive.) And you have to carry everything,
which limits you to low power gear. Which leads me to...

...my 'best' experience: I was outdoors on some hillpeak, with a 15W portable
radio. Had a nice diy antenna, but still couldn't reach most (with SSB
anyway). Overheard two older hams running 1.5kW, talking straight over me,
ranting that quote "young people just don't know how to listen". Toxic.

------
armadsen
I’m a millennial (35). I’ve been a ham since I was 15. It’s what led me to be
an electrical engineer. I’m primarily a CW (Morse Code) operator, and have
been since I started. I love the hobby, and it means a lot to me.

That said, I was basically always the youngest regular member of the local ham
radio club, and most of the other members are/were old enough to be my parent
or grandparent. That’s a little disheartening (which is not a knock, the
people I’ve met and befriended are great, and have always been incredibly
welcoming to me). I’m not sure how to change things, but I do think there
should be less of a focus on chatting with old guys, and maybe more on the
tech, the challenges, and the opportunity for learning.

FWIW, I sell a ham radio app, and have for 13+ years. My sales have increased
~4x during the pandemic. I guess a lot of people are returning to activity in
the hobby while stuck at home?

~~~
popped
you sound like a wise 35yo. Hanging around those old folk has some benefits.

I worked really hard with no one to help in a rural community to get my
licence at 13, then after saving up and buying an old tube rig finding the
disappointment of talking to old men about the weather.

Then the Internet hit.

Any chance of a link to your app?

~~~
armadsen
I agree. I’ve always liked being around older people, because I feel like I
can learn a lot from them. That was true even when I was a teenager. I had the
incredible fortune to be friends with Pem Farnsworth, Philo T Farnworth’s
widow in my teens. She was 76 years older than me, but a true friend, and an
incredibly interesting person to talk to.

My app is: [https://aetherlog.com](https://aetherlog.com). I’m working on a
site redesign (finally!) now.

------
Animats
It's good to keep some HF capability for emergencies. Beyond that, though, ham
radio doesn't seem that important any more. I restore Teletype machines from
the 1930s and can't be bothered to hook them up to a radio. Much of the ham
Teletype community actually uses something called ITTY, which sends frequency-
shift-encoded radioteletype signals over an Internet audio bridge, so you can
use antique electronics to decode the tones.

~~~
Apocryphon
Could ham radio be something survivalists pick up upon as a post-apocalyptic
form of communication?

~~~
msla
I'm not sure survivalist types will be happy with having to register with the
Federal government to do something.

Plus, last I checked, I can look up ham callsigns online and find real names
and addresses. (Just did: Popped callsign into Google, name and address came
out, straight from the FCC.) If you're looking side-eyed at Facebook for
invasions of privacy, I cannot imagine consenting to _that_ level of utter
public exposure.

~~~
LinuxBender
Survivalist types do not necessarily concerns themselves with paperwork. There
is no law against having the gear, I have plenty. And when the SHTF, the FCC
is not going to bother people that had good intentions. Source: Have sat next
to the FCC while operating out of spectrum. They really don't get involved
unless you are interfering with someone. To really get their attention
requires interfering with a government agency or a business or operating in a
commercial spectrum. That is just my experience anyway.

------
kawfey
Author here. A lot has changed since then, mostly for the better. There's been
numerous youth initiatives, clubs, groupos, and technological advancements
that have grown ham radio since 2017 across all generations, especially
millennials (that are starting to settle in and grow disposable income) and
GenZ (that are starting to come of age to really experiment with various
technical hobbies like ham radio, electronics, programming, etc)

This is a great sign, and there's more up my sleeve that I'm trying to get
moving through larger organizations like the ARRL and IARU, so they can start
to set the precedent for the future of amateur radio, rather than no-name
bloggers like me.

Also, read the article. This was the first blog of mine that truly used a
clickbait title, and as such the ratio of criticism regarding the content of
the article to the headline is understandably low.

------
PostPlummer
What I found the biggest turn of in Ham, versus the communication medium I
choose at the time, was the fact that everything was already close to perfect
and people in the community knew close to everything and where very
conservative.

"The internet" (datanet 1 in my case, growing up in Holland) was a complete
different beast: everyone was scrambling to figure stuff out, there where no
limits, no hierarchy, no unwritten rules, just an endless space to figure out
and to share experiences and hypotheses.

Never lost interest in the airwaves since they are my first love, but never
spend more then some after-hours on it. The ham people I've met over the years
that I found to do interesting stuff, seem to border legal experiments (with a
new found interest for pretty powerful (mobile) shortwave radios since
recently).

------
nabaraz
It is an expensive hobby.

I got myself a ham radio license but gave up after hearing the starter
equipment was north of 1 grand.

~~~
curiousfab
This is not true. You can get started on VHF for below $100 (e.g. Baofeng
handhelds) and the same is true for HF (e.g. a QRP-Labs QCX kit and a simple
dipole antenna).

You can also find used 1980s HF radios (TS-440S era) in the range of $300 and
add a power supply and some wire antennas so you'll have a fully capable 100W
HF station for less than $500.

My personal experience is also that local radio amateurs will be very willing
to borrow you equipment to get started. Many of the older radio amateurs have
collected a lot of gear over the years and are happy to put it to good use.

Money shouldn't be an issue if you're really interested in ham radio!

------
greendestiny_re
Millennials are killing _shuffles deck_ ham radio? Sigh, whatever, just get it
published.

------
dalke
Until this article, I thought that Gen X killed ham radio.

> Amateur radio is to The Baby Boomer and Generation X’s youth as IOT is to
> Millennials and Gen Y.

To clarify my bona fides, I'm solidly GenX. I didn't know any hams my age
growing up. I was active with math-y and computer-y activities (MAΘ,
programming competitions, science bowl, math camp) - many of the same places
where IOT would be popular now, I presume - and ham radio never came up.

My dad and grandfather were hams and my dad was a professional radio engineer.
They both helped in the ham response to Hurricane David in the Dominican
Republic. (We lived in FL. My g'pa lived in the D.R. for a while, and was one
of the first licensed hams there.) So I have an idea of what ham could do.

I didn't become a ham myself, even though I had hand-me-down equipment I could
use.

I _did_ listen to the hams, and wasn't interested in joining in.

It certainly wasn't enough to interest me in learning Morse - this was back
when code was still a requirement.

I had a Heathkit H-151 PC-compatible computer, which I soldered myself. I
would go to Heathkit computer meetings. Certainly the store sold ham gear, but
again, never met anyone my age interested in it.

Hence why I concluded that Gen X killed ham.

------
popped
Nature abhors a vacuum.

Leave some spectrum available, as unregulated as feasible, with some bar to
entry.

Let nature, human nature, fill the gap. It will. In ways we can't predict.

There will be serendipity, genius, frustration, innovation, conflict, debate.
These are all good things when you give a shared resource to passionate smart
motivated (qualified) public.

Long live ham radio

------
Jemm
Lack of time for hobbies is more likely the culprit.

Young people are attending post secondary schools in higher numbers. They are
racking up debt faster than prior generations. Their summer jobs are no longer
sufficient to pay for tuition. Housing is more expensive as are cars so they
have to work longer. Child care is now as much as a full time job. Students
are required to do unpaid volunteer work and unpaid internships.

I would dare say the system left behind by boomers is killing amateur radio.

------
BJBBB
I dunno; methinks the ham arts have arrived at a new steady state. I am a
boomer and have been a ham since 19 (the military avionics schools proctored
the test for each graduating class). My Nephew is a gen 'Z' guy, and has an
extra class (the boy can pass these tests half asleep).

A major difference is SDR. All of you code people can do DIY stuff by pounding
on the keyboard, and hand-held radios have become dirt cheap. So nothing is
dying - it is just re-inventing itself.

