
The Uncertain Future of Ham Radio - MindGods
https://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/wireless/the-uncertain-future-of-ham-radio
======
irrational
This summer I was supposed to go on a week long backcountry hike with a youth
group. The youth would be split into multiple teams and they wanted an adult
with a ham radio to be with each team. I volunteered to get a license since
there was only one adult who already had his license and was experienced with
ham radio. Getting the license was interesting. I’ve never studied engineering
or electronics and a lot of the test was things like being able to read
circuit schematics, understanding how inductors/capacitors/tranformers/etc.
work, learning ohms law and the power law and being able to solve equations
with them, learning laws around ham radio, etc.

What you don’t learn as part of getting a license is what do you do after you
have a license. Where do you buy equipment? What kind of equipment do you
need? How do you use a radio? What do all the buttons on the radio do? Etc.

I asked someone about this and they said I needed to join my local club to
learn this stuff. But, I don’t want to join a club. I have a family, 2 jobs,
home remodeling, and various hobbies (woodworking, drawing, reading, board
games, baking, gardening, etc.) The last thing I have time for is to join a
club ;-)

So I’m in this weird spot where I have a license, but don’t actually know what
to do with it. Due to the pandemic, the youth trip was cancelled. But it may
be rescheduled for a future year. I’ll need to figure all this stuff out
before then.

~~~
thepangolino
What’s the actual point of having to learn all that for the license? What’s
the actual point for the license in the first place?

~~~
irrational
The license is an FCC requirement. They are also the ones who come up with the
test questions. You would have to ask them. I can understand why they would
want me to understand the laws governing ham radio. I don’t understand why I
need to be able to read a schematic diagram to get a license. I assume that if
I was going to build my own equipment that I would need to know a lot more
than what I needed to learn to pass the test.

~~~
tzs
> I can understand why they would want me to understand the laws governing ham
> radio. I don’t understand why I need to be able to read a schematic diagram
> to get a license.

You need to consider the big picture. Ham radio is just one of several radio
services. They have different licensing requirements depending on their
purpose and/or who is meant to use them.

For services that are aimed at people who just want to communicate, getting a
license won't involve anything like schematic diagrams--if a license is even
required.

The ham radio service's target is radio geeks. Hams are given considerably
more leeway in what they can do with radio than are users of most other
services, and so the licensing requirements include more things concerning the
underlying technology than you need to just operate a radio reasonably.

~~~
NovemberWhiskey
> _For services that are aimed at people who just want to communicate, getting
> a license won 't involve anything like schematic diagrams--if a license is
> even required._

For people who might be interested in what those 'unlicensed' services are,
they include:

\- FRS (the Family Radio Service[0]), which is typified by the sort of $20
bubble pack radios you can buy at a sporting goods store;

\- MURS (the Multi-Use Radio Service[1]), which is common in commercial radios
used by e.g. staff at big box stores;

\- CBRS (the Citizens Band Radio Service[2]), which is probably familiar to
most from "any movie involving truck drivers".

These services may have licensing/approval rules for equipment, but not for
individuals using them.

[0] [https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-
divis...](https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-
division/family-radio-service-frs)

[1] [https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-
divis...](https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-
division/multi-use-radio-service-murs)

[2] [https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-
divis...](https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-
division/citizens-band-radio-service-cbrs)

------
schoolornot
Dad always told me the smartest people he knew were Hams so I figured why not.
Skimmed the book, used the flash cards, and got a tech license.

In short, it sucks. Some observations:

\- the exams are oriented towards RF knowledge and will weed out anyone who
just wants to go on the air to talk. They should really restore the novice
license. Give it the same privileges as technician with no rights to broadcast
over 10w or construct towers

\- there is MASSIVE underutilization of spectrum. not just at the tech level
due to inefficient coding but in general, the airwaves are not busy at all
whatsoever. I live in NYC and there are rarely more than a dozen or so people
on across the entire tech band at any given time.

\- conversations are dull. the weekly nets can be interesting but pretty much
the subject of conversation always revolves around call quality or someone's
rig or something to do with radio. It's boring!

\- proprietary. all the digital modes employ proprietary protocols or
proprietary codecs. brandmeister is closed-source. echolink is closed sourced
and rarely updated. DSTAR is proprietary. DMR isn't proprietary but the
vocoder is. want to setup a repeater? sure, go pay a shady motorola VAR a few
bucks and he'll sneak you a unit and user manual.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
HAM still has some interesting practical uses. Up here in the PNW rally racing
events use them to coordinate stage start and emergency/sweeper vehicles. The
races are up in the mountains where cell phone service can be quite spotty,
but a truck with a repeater parked on one of the higher foothills covers the
whole area just fine.

------
umpc
I got into ham radio almost a year ago. I did so as my software and web
development hobby became my career.

Ham radio is a very interesting hobby with a large variety of activities and
operating techniques. It's been great to learn about how to make direct
contacts across the world using just a small antenna and coil using the HF
bands.

I certainly understand the potential commercial value of spectrum currently
allocated to amateurs, though it's a shame to see it constantly under threat,
with little regard to its usefulness as an emergency communication service.

While it's true that most amateurs are older, I'm 24 and I would encourage
anyone looking for something else to do to get licensed and get on the air.
There's always something more to learn and do, and many hams are happy to help
with choosing and setting up equipment.

Check out hamstudy.org if you want to get licensed. It's pretty easy,
especially to get a basic Technician class license, and online testing has
begun due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

~~~
stellersjay
Where are you seeing results for online testing? Seems to be tricky to find as
most of the ones I have seen have been cancelled or "no walk-in / call ahead".
Also thanks for prompting this and keep ham radio alive :)

~~~
irrational
Someone in my local area told me about them. Apparently you normally have to
go to a community college for 2 days of classes and then take the exam in
person. But they did the classes over zoom and the testing over zoom too. I
didn’t even need to leave my home to get my license. Nice.

The exam system was figured out by some group in Texas. Their system was
approved by the FCC so my local group piggybacked off of the Texas group to do
the online exam.

There was a zoom call at a certain time. You had to do certain things to your
computer ahead of time to get it ready. When it was time they had me turn the
laptop all around to show my room to prove there was no one and nothing other
than a plain sheet of paper, a basic calculator, and a pencil nearby. I had to
prove the paper was blank and the calculators memory was wiped. I had to have
all family members leave the house during the exam. There were five other
people on the call all watching me over my camera while I took the test. The
proctor took control of my computer to see what I had running and to start the
exam. Then I took the exam. I missed one question, but they can’t tell you
which one you missed. I really thought I got them all right and it still
bothers me not knowing which one I got wrong ;-)

Afterwards the Texas group was given my information and they submitted it to
the FCC. I got my license a few weeks later in an email.

~~~
neilv
That test protocol sounds needlessly invasive and dehumanizing.

~~~
irrational
Nah, it didn’t bother me at all. It actually made a lot of sense. The test
proctors were all very nice.

------
beckler
I've had an amateur radio license since I was 14, and I got it through a
collaboration with our local radio club and the boy scouts. I don't use my
license enough, but I love having it.

One of my absolute favorite memories growing up was when we did a camping trip
during a field day. A field day is basically an annual global contest to see
who you can contact and how far you can reach out. We setup a massive portable
antenna in the woods, and I stayed up ALL NIGHT on one of our more powerful
SSB radios reaching out to people all across the world. Like Ukraine, Denmark,
Ireland, Australia, and more (I'm in the US). Young me was so fascinated with
talking with those people, that I'm pretty certain it was one of the first
times I experienced sonder.

SDR is fun, but no where near as rewarding as using analog.

~~~
nlh
1000% this. Same story - was one of the highest of highlights of my ham youth.
The local club’s field day operation happened literally a day after my license
arrived in the mail and I vividly remember staying up all night totally
immersed in this crazy hobby that I’d only been reading about.

Huge fancy Kenwood and Icon HF rigs (the amazing ones I could only dream about
buying as a 12 y/o), tons of people having fun, and CQ Field Day CQ Field Day
into the wee hours. Super fun experience and memory.

(Ps - DE K2KD)

------
GekkePrutser
Personally as a HAM I think our technology is becoming too stale.

Commercial tech is now migrating towards high-speed data networks to be used
even for voice. With HAM radio we're still stuck with analog voice and very
low-bitrate voice codecs in the digital standards. None of which really offer
much that analog (and linking tech) didn't. APRS is a joke with its low
speeds.

The whole idea about ham radio was to innovate... We're not doing that at all,
at best we're just using commercial technology. Some advancements to adapt
firmware of commercial rigs (MD-380tools, OpenGD77) are amazing, but we're
still lifting on what's commercially possible. This is not the ham spirit :(

We really need something good to offer and at the moment we haven't. It used
to be so cool you could talk to people around the world for free. Now anyone
with a phone in their pocket can do that.

~~~
m0xte
There’s still plenty of innovation left to do. Low bandwidth, low power, long
distance signalling is interesting. As are ridiculously high frequencies. Also
new modes and repurposing some of the modern radio ICs you can get.

But the issue I found is that the technical community is about as dead as it
gets. It created a stereotype and then proceeded to get stuck in a hole. This
was around 1970. Any newer thinking made it into appliances which cover the
95% of the rest of the user base. Most hams can barely solder a PL259 without
destroying it. Even talking modulation schemes solicits a glazed look and some
mumbling about 80m QRM. I was about done.

This year I didn’t renew my RSGB sub and sold all my radio equipment and test
gear. I spent the money on an iPad Pro with Procreate and and a new Mac and am
in a better place with respect to personal satisfaction and have some cash
left over to spend on experiences and not things.

~~~
walrus01
Compared to innovation in radios for commercial telecom microwave and
millimeter wave radios (2.4 all the way up to 86 GHz), ham radio is moribund.

There's a whole lot more on the ground real world innovation happening in
people building WISPs in very rural, challenging locations with no pre-
existing telecom services (except by two-way satellite) than there is
happening in ham radio.

~~~
m0xte
Now you see that's a thousand times more interesting. It's providing utility
to people and that has a purpose.

------
h4m1tup
I got a general license in the US since it seemed like an interesting hobby,
but haven't used it much. Sometimes I feel bad about that, and I've thought a
bit about it.

Radios are fascinating to learn about, but our HAM regulations seem mired in
the past and overly restrictive. You simply aren't allowed to do much on the
amateur bands besides chatting with people.

For example, I don't believe you can cipher communications unless they're
being used to control an RC vehicle. That rules out a lot of DIY-style
projects. The regulations and terminology around automated "beacons" are also
a tad confusing, and the potential fines are quite heavy.

And if you do spend the time reading rules, going to a class or doing flash
cards, taking your test, buying a starter radio, and finally talking with some
people on a local repeater...then what? Try to contact a different country or
continent? You can, but talking to someone across the world feels very
pedestrian in this day and age.

And while it is technically possible to set up a beacon for something like
data collection or remote monitoring on HAM frequencies, it's much easier
these days to use an off-the-shelf radio module. You don't need a license to
use a $5 LoRa module with an arduino or raspberry pi, and there's no red tape.

It's too bad, because I really admire the amateur operators who step in during
disasters to keep information flowing. But I can also see why HAM radio is
sort of a dying art in the US; like many relics of an optimistic past, it's
been left to rot for decades.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> You simply aren't allowed to do much on the amateur bands besides chatting
> with people.

Here's a fun thing you can do: 802.11b channel 1 is in the amateur band, so as
long as you don't use encryption, you can use quite a lot more power than the
802.11 band would normally allow. (Remember that you should only use the
amount of power you _need_ , though.)

Our amateur rocketry group used ordinary wifi, amplified to 1W and run through
a custom cylindrical antenna, to communicate between the rocket (breaking the
sound barrier) and the ground.

~~~
chmod600
Now that's cool!

But rocketry is also pretty tightly-regulated in my area. So that's two high-
attention hobbies, and it starts to seem like a bit much.

~~~
JoshTriplett
You don't have to do amateur rocketry to have fun with high-powered long-
distance wifi.

------
brian-armstrong
If you're reading this and you're thinking about getting into radio, you can
get a Baofeng UV-5R handheld radio which works on the 2m and 70cm bands for
$25. It has never been cheaper or easier to get into radio than it is now.
These radios are completely portable and will let you "work" the repeaters
local to you and can be received 10-15 miles away even without a repeater at
5W power [https://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-Dual-Radio-
Black/dp/B00...](https://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-Dual-Radio-
Black/dp/B007H4VT7A)

Do I need a license, you ask. Yes, you'll need to get a technician's license
to transmit, though you can receive on the radio without it. The test has no
morse code requirement, and it's entirely multiple choice. The entire question
pool is freely available and it only takes a couple weekends to prep for and
pass. It'd be an easy task for anyone here. Most of the questions pertain to
FCC policy as well as radio safety, just enough to make sure you don't injure
yourself or interfere with other radio users.

73s :)

~~~
dbcurtis
Please don’t get a Baofeng. Those things put out incredibly dirty signals.
They are RF polution you can carry in your pocket.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Quite apart from their quality, a VHF handheld is possibly the most boring
possible introduction to amateur radio. There is so much more you can do that
is so much more interesting than hearing 80 year old retirees talk about their
prostates on the local repeaters.

~~~
brian-armstrong
Does this imply there's a radio frequency that's not dominated by retirees? ;)

HF feels considerably harder to get into. If you're a city dweller your only
antenna choice is probably a magloop. VHF has options for things like
satellite and ISS contacts, and the fact that it's local makes it seem a bit
more relevant and community-driven.

~~~
jdc
2.4 GHz ;)

------
jvanderbot
I am working on my HAM General-class license. I have young and non-engineer
friends who are into it. It is mostly interesting to them because they have
never done something highly technical, and here is a relatively approachable
technical hobby.

However, I'm decreasingly enthused about HAM. I got my license so I could
interact with devices that I wanted to build. However, there are almost no use
cases where HAM helps. I cannot build something cheaper, or make it more
effective than a commercially available product. It's only at the extreme, un-
useful cases that HAM becomes a thing. (Want to bounce signals off the moon?)

What I'd like to see from HAM:

\- More, different competitions. Long-term monitoring, stealthy side-channel
transmissions, digital and analog networking competitions (like hackathons:
Get a signal from A to B with minimal loss / delay using teams in disparate
areas of the country --- internet OK), recovery games (set up a network
serving x users with max datarate or voice capacity using this equipment), or
encoding / decoding games, and so on.

\- More support from local governments and infrastructure. I want to know
where to sign up to be useful if telecommunications suffers a hiccup. If that
is not useful, I want to know and be told how to be useful (esp studying
different technology). Some certifications beyond HAM, and specializing in
different niche areas would be nice.

\- More training on HAM-adjacent technologies. To be useful / innovative
requires knowing the telecommunications space, and sticking to SSB voice + FT8
for DXs is great, but not helpful when trying to understand telecommunications
and make an impact on the world. God forbid a disaster did happen and the HAMs
showed up with their 10m antennas and were useful for 30 minutes until the
Verizon tech arrived. It'd be more useful if they could bridge 3G / UHF by
setting up an adhoc repeater network to actually extend the range of whatever
equipment didn't die in the zombie apocalypse.

For example: In the IoT area, I thought for sure HAMs would be front-and-
center with new mesh networking technologies, WAN, etc. But no, we got another
AWS product with minimal device-device communication and called it a day.

~~~
FlyMoreRockets
> I cannot build something cheaper, or make it more effective than a
> commercially available product.

Not sure what you are looking to do, but there are plenty of inexpensive radio
designs. Consider the Pixie or the SMT version, the Knight SMiTe, either can
be built very cheaply.

Onr could also put an amplifier on inexpensive IMS chips for really
inexpensive radio projects.

A Raspberry Pi Zero can be bitbanged into a transciever using PWM and SDR and
can operate pretty much any mode. It's a very noisy, low power output signal
and will need filtering and amplification. Still better than a spark gap
transmitter, the ultimate low cost radio.

For cheap recievers, look into foxhole radio designs.

~~~
entropea
I made it across the pond to UK from NY on WSPR 20 meter amateur band using
the ~10dBm output of a Raspberry Pi on its IO pins. It's quite capable. That
was ~7 years ago when the atmosphere/sun was a bit more ham friendly however.

~~~
FlyMoreRockets
You should see what the QRSS guys are doing down in the noise floor.

------
jimnotgym
There is something soul destroying that comes with the demographic. Long, ill
informed, right- wing speeches. Politics is supposed to be a taboo subject, of
course.

I was listening to a repeater in the UK one day and heard this,

"I don't follow the news, I don't follow politics, I don't know the first
thing about it. But in my opinion... blah blah Brexit blah"

Or another on air every night without fail on 2m FM in the SSB segment... "
These modern planes are all auto-pilots, the pilot is just sat there. No skill
at all."

That's the reality that greets us after we get our licence. You would also be
hard pressed to join in with them either, they are just chatting to their mate
up the road. I tried to get my boys interested, but they heard this stuff and
now make their own jokes about ham operators.

~~~
ColanR
Yeah, too bad there's people using a communication tool to share their opinion
with their friends.

------
jacquesm
HAM radio is a complete luxury with today's networks _right up until the point
that you really need it_ , for instance during some kind of natural disaster.
With high speed satellite internet maybe even that function will be
superseded.

~~~
teddyh
If “some kind of natural disaster might happen” is your only argument, then
you’re basically being a prepper.

~~~
jacquesm
Natural disasters happen all the time, and HAM radio in the past has
traditionally been the last to go down and the first to be back up in those
situations because it needs no infrastructure at all to work.

~~~
teddyh
> […] _HAM radio in the past has traditionally been_ […]

You know what’s not like the past? The present, and, even less so, the future.
3G/4G/5G/Satellite phones are rapidly progressing, and everybody already has
one.

But even if you were right, how does that address my point that arguing for
HAM radio with the argument “it might be useful in a disaster” is basically
being a prepper?

------
thatannoyingguy
In my country (Luxembourg) is only one place where you can take the courses.
That place is in the south of the country and the courses are held in the
evening. Their schedule is impossible to combine it with public transportation
and their sessions/courses are only done once per year, meaning that I'd have
to wait an entire year to be able to apply to their courses. As a young
person, it is nearly inpossible to participate without relying on somebody
with a car or living somewhere closer.

~~~
xvf22
It seems easier in Canada but what always puts me off is that there isn't any
formal resting center. You need to find an examiner and they set the price. A
bunch of them insist on lessons which be useful for some but if like to just
write the test.

------
chmod600
One thing I noticed when getting my license was that broadcasting is not
allowed. That makes sense, because you're not supposed to hog the airwaves.

But I think they could create room for some kind of amateur programming. For
instance, you have to pause every 5 minutes so people can either join the
conversation or ask questions. And maybe it would have to be a human speaking
live, not a recording or machine. And I'm sure you'd need certain channels and
parts of the spectrum for this.

The advantage is that this gets content on the airwaves and gives people a
chance to get involved. After the program, you can jump onto another part of
the spectrum for free-form chat. Like: "That's all for now, but join the
discussion starting right now on [callsign of repeater]".

It would have to be non-commercial, but people like talking about their
hobbies, etc. I could easily see a lot of people doing scheduled 30-minute
programs about cars or gardening or whatever.

~~~
nullc
This isn't precluded under US regulations. Broadcasting means transmissions
intended for the general public, as opposed to other amateurs. One way
communications are generally prohibited too (except in certain cases like
beacon stations and remote control), but as you note-- what you want doesn't
need to be one way.

It's not even uncommon on HF for people to blather on for many minutes at a
time without pause.

People could totally do lectures with Q&A, and I imagine many repeaters would
be perfectly fine with that use.

~~~
GekkePrutser
Yeah also many people have been duplexing over the years, upstreaming on 2m
and downstreaming on 70cm for example. That is allowed as long as you mention
your call every few minutes.

------
punchclockhero
Got the Baofeng and the callsign, in that order. Got licensed because it costs
around $10 for the exam with no mandatory classes and to use Echolink. Don't
see much point in it as I don't like to talk and the funny chatter is on the
unlicensed bands anyway.

Seriously, PMR446 near hotels and nightclubs is pure gold. Local gangsters'
seating preferences, awkward staff romance, weird room service orders, you
name it.

------
marianov
Licensing is the worst part. In my country you have to sit through about 20 2h
lessons and then take an examination. No way to just study on your own

------
zeckalpha
I got my ham license at 16, later used it at work extensively (non-commercial,
research projects), but mostly set it aside in 2016 due to the incessant
discussion of hateful politics on the local 2m band. I upgraded to general but
my HF setup is portable (no permanent antenna) so it’s harder to hop on, but I
hope those bands are less bigoted, or at least, the bigots keep to themselves.

------
m0llusk
I wonder if Negativland tracks documenting the history and art of "jamming"
might be a way of sparking the interest of young people. Track and sound arts
are popular new sounds and radio is a great way to expose lots of people to
compositions.

------
BrianHenryIE
> The 66-year-old from Dartmouth, Mass., credits his career in electrical and
> computer engineering to an early interest in amateur radio.

I initially studied electronic systems before later studying computer science,
which I credit to my dad's interest in ham radio.

------
segfaultbuserr
The original article talks about attracting newcommers to the ham radio
community, on the other hand I'm here to complain about the trouble of staying
in the community.

From my experience, one major killer of ham radio is the horrible and
dehumanizing electromagnetic interference in modern cities from 0 to 30 MHz.
HF/shortwave remains the most interesting spectrum in ham radio - it's the
only spectrum capable of international communication without specialized
equipment or infrastructure, just throw a random wire out of the window, how
wonderful it is.

Unfortunately, 0 to 30 MHz is also where most electrical and electronics
devices operate at. A cheap bike charger with PWM control can easily disable
all HF communication around it, so can a cheap switched-mode power supply,
also, yes, builders of transparent PCs without metal enclosures, I'm looking
at you (although it's not much of a problem compared to commercial devices)!
Government regulations on EMI/RFI is useless when tons and tons of
nonconforming devices made by the cheapest vendors are flooding the market.
While it's easy to add filters or stop using them if they are yours, but in
cities, you often cannot possibly know where they are coming from. And even
worse, nobody cares - without a spectrum analyzer (or an SDR equivalent),
nobody can see or smell it. Remember those stories about car key fobs being
jammed? The media makes them sound almost mysterious, because EMI/RFI is
unknown to the general public. Car keys are only a tip of the iceberg, VHF is
actually pretty clean, HF is horrible. And even to some people with respective
knowledge on the subject, many still don't care - the worst offenders, such as
VDSL and Ethernet over Powerlines technologies, are fundamentally harmful to
radio communication and can disable all HF receivers in sight. In an ideal
world where telecommunication regulations are faithfully enforced, nobody
should be allowed to use them, yet the interests of ISP trumps HF amateur
services and governments allowed their deployment.

Even with all these jammers, HF is still somewhat usable, but only for picking
up powerful stations, or using slow, digital modes designed for weak-signal
communications. It's better than none, but quite limited (this includes
digital modes that requires a higher signal-to-noise radio). When HF becomes a
lost battle, the enjoyment and capabilities of amateur radio is reduced
greatly. So one is forced to go somewhere else, either physical moving your
home or your radio (not an option for most), or moving the spectrum of your
operation: VHF (without special setups) is only capable of local
communication. Then the only remaining choices for international communication
are satellite communication, meteor scatters, and tropospheric scatter. They
are interesting technical challenges much in line with the tradition of
amateur radios, but far from easy like HF. For example, satellites at Low
Earth Orbit are only usable when they are passing your location.

With the launch of the first geostationary amateur radio satellite, QO-100
(Es’hail 2), I can only hope the situation of amateur radio without HF will
continue becoming better at the next decade and enjoy global coverage by
geostationary satellites.

~~~
jrockway
Noise is pretty bad in the city. You have to realize that you are going to be
responding to other people's CQs, not calling your own. There is just too high
a risk of the receiver being able to hear you, but you not being able to hear
the reply.

I routinely operate out of my 1st floor apartment in Brooklyn with 5W into a
magloop antenna and can make contacts across the country. I've had the best
luck on 40m, and 30m works well too. 20m is pretty much unusable for me, and
it's a popular band, so that kind of hurts. Using FT8 or CW works better than
voice (par for the course when running QRP). If you take your rig out to a
park, the noise floor drops dramatically.

You certainly have to make more of an effort than someone in the country with
a 5 element beam on a tower, but you can still make a lot of QSOs in subpar
conditions.

(Also worth noting is that we're at the bottom of a solar cycle, so HF isn't
amazing for anyone right now. A few years ago, I could reliably listen to WWV
and WWVH at the same time. But I haven't heard WWVH for ages. Aloha!)

------
hanoz
If anyone in the UK is thinking about getting a foundation license, you might
like to know you can now sit the exam entirely online, as the practical
assessment component is currently waived.

------
arbitrage
I am a paper HAM, that is a derogatory term in the amateur radio community for
us operators who only have a license and don't use it.

In short, it sucks. HAM radio is full of old weird people, talking about
bodily functions. Wanna go to a HAMfest? If you're under 50years old, you well
get weird looks. And weird interactions. The learning curve is brutal to do
anything other than exchange callsigns with randos, or talk to old people
about communism and their bodily functions.

HAM radio has outlived its usefulness. It is really sad, and I regret that.
But there is just no point to it.

------
MrRadar
As a guy in his 30s who got his ham license last year, there are two major
things I think the ham radio community needs to change if they want to
increase membership. Firstly, they need to target the right demographic for
recruitment. Right now they're laser-focused on targeting teens, since that's
the age many of these older guys originally got into the hobby, however (as
the article acknowledges) what draws people to amateur radio today is very
different to what drew people back then. I think the demographic they need to
be targeting is engineers and scientists of all types and electronics
hobbyists in their 20s-40s, i.e. people who have an aptitude/knowedge base to
build off and who can imagine applications for radio, and who have the income
and physical space to invest in the hobby. (Don't get me wrong, if younger
people want to get involved they absolutely should be encouraged to do so, but
I don't think there is enough interest there to rebuild the base the hobby
needs to continue.)

Secondly, the ham community needs a _much_ better presence on the web. ARRL's
site has a lot of information but if you don't know what you are looking for
it can be a bit of a maze to navigate. Also, they _really_ want to sell you
their books, which means some of that vital information about being an amateur
radio operator is not available for free on their site.

The web presence of local clubs is highly variable but often poor. For
example, the club I took my license exam through has two different web sites
with different information in them, one of which is apparently no longer
maintained and the other of which is "temporary". I got a free 1-year
membership to the club when I passed my exam so I get a ~monthly newsletter
from them, but it's sent from a personal e-mail account in the form of a PDF
attachment. I actually deleted those newsletters for the first few months
because I didn't know who was sending them or why I was getting them!

The club doesn't have any social media presence and meetings were strictly in-
person before the Coronavirus. Because I live a 45-minute (in good traffic)
drive away from where they hold meetings I hadn't attended any before they
held those online ones.

Clubs really need to invest in their online presence as that's where people
under the age of 50 will first encounter them. They should have a decent-
looking site with a dedicated domain, photos/blog posts about activities they
do and, if possible, _recordings of their meetings_ so people can see what
joining the club brings them. They should also maintain a presence on Facebook
and Twitter, if only to post the occasional updates and links to their main
site.

Online forums aren't much better. QRZ Forums, the largest English-language
online amateur radio community, has such a reputation for being hostile to
newcomers to the hobby that I haven't even bothered looking at it.
r/amateurradio, by nature of being on Reddit, has a much younger and more
welcoming demographic than QRZ Forums, but it has the problem of being on
Reddit which is not conducive to any kind of long-running discussions which
makes forming a community hard.

On YouTube channels that focus on amateur radio rarely seem to cover topics
related to getting people interested in the hobby or the basics of the hobby,
and those that do generally seem tsrgetted at the "prepper" community (which
is not me). What got me to take the time to get my license was a guy on a
programming forum I follow posting that he was going to do live streams of
himself making contacts and otherwise doing projects related to radio. Just
seeing the practical side of the hobby was enough to push me from a vague
interest to getting my license. Unfortunately he stopped streaming after a few
months, but this is _exactly_ the type of content organizations like ARRL or
local clubs should be putting out to get people interested.

~~~
wcfields
r/amateurradio & Han Radio Crash Course on YouTube are about the only thing
that keeps me interested in HAM; everything else is octogenarians with
Angelfire-esq websites.

For myself, late 30’s IT profesional, I’ve found the European Twitter scene of
Satnogs, Amateur TV, QO-100, and microwave comms much more interesting than
anything that’s come out of the LF OMs in the states. Hell, I saw a French
person create a high speed VHF/UHF system that’s technically illegal in the US
due to regulations/encryption.

What I have seen from Reddit is there’s a lot of “listener” trans operators
and one huge roadblock is the FCC open database of full names and addresses,
past and present. Even myself, I almost never give out my call sign online
since it has my government name and home addresses, even If I’ve updated to a
PO Box it still has historical info. I can only imagine what it’s like for a
LGBTQ person in the Midwest calling CQ and being deadnamed, or worse in
return.

In my ideal world Amateur Radio would be packed to the gills by people of all
stripes using it as free communication for ad-hoc cell phone networks, free
WiFi/internet, and DIY wireless systems. I know there’s limitations but
politically I want it to become available and free for everyone against the
oppression of paying for communications.

~~~
1996
> one huge roadblock is the FCC open database of full names and addresses,
> past and present

That is creepy. No wonder why people shy away from HAM. Even privacy conscious
geeks would just object to that!

In practice, how does it works?

Does the FCC gets its data from Experian?

~~~
sterwill
The law says you have to get a license from the FCC to operate your radio, and
getting the license requires sending them your name and addresses. It's that
simple.

~~~
1996
Then they shouldn't complain too loud that HAM is dying.

Between us privacy minded geeks who don't want our records out in the public,
and the queer teens who don't want their old names out in the public as
explained by the parent poster, it doesn't leave much of a demography.

Nobody wants their archaic rules. It's that simple.

------
sitzkrieg
ham is not an acronym, dont write it HAM :-)

