Future of ham radio - the current facts.
Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 12:48 pm
There's lots of heat about the state of ham radio, the glass is half full, or half empty perhaps.
A good place to start to see the future is with carefully gathered facts about the present.
The best I could find was from Canada. Take a look:
https://foxmikehotel.com/wp-content/upl ... -FINAL.pdf
If we fret about what, if anything, do hams do now, this next graphic should be a great relief. A very wide variety it turns out, but with very different popularity.
So that invites the question do the activities differ, depending on age? Hugely so!
It might be that clubs should use different activities to attract specific age groups?
DX is popular with the young and senior, but not so much the middle. QRP and Portable are most popular with younger hams and progressively less so with age.
Restoring old rigs, predictably an old codger's domain, turns out to be just that.
So, next time you find yourself with someone who perhaps seems interested, now you know what to say.
First remember that most folks know nothing about ham radio because we don't tell them. Show them it's not what Grand Dad used to do with CB or something, but a modern communication experience with the world.
A good place to start to see the future is with carefully gathered facts about the present.
The best I could find was from Canada. Take a look:
https://foxmikehotel.com/wp-content/upl ... -FINAL.pdf
If we fret about what, if anything, do hams do now, this next graphic should be a great relief. A very wide variety it turns out, but with very different popularity.
So that invites the question do the activities differ, depending on age? Hugely so!
It might be that clubs should use different activities to attract specific age groups?
DX is popular with the young and senior, but not so much the middle. QRP and Portable are most popular with younger hams and progressively less so with age.
Restoring old rigs, predictably an old codger's domain, turns out to be just that.
So, next time you find yourself with someone who perhaps seems interested, now you know what to say.
First remember that most folks know nothing about ham radio because we don't tell them. Show them it's not what Grand Dad used to do with CB or something, but a modern communication experience with the world.