right on guys !

btw, many of those inactive hams are now returning to the hobby
due to retirement, kids at school or more spare time and the interest
is there.

I'm 46, tech ten years and general by june !

73 qro

"Jon Gauthier (KB1HTW)" wrote:

"Larry Gauthier (K8UT)" wrote in message
...
Although these raw figures show growth up until 2000, they produce a false
sense of a ham radio as a "healthy hobby".
...
- consider the average age of licensed hams (
http://users.crosspaths.net/~wallio/LICENSE.html US figures are available
for comparison... we'll have to extrapolate that other nations are
experiencing a similar trend) the hobby could be seen as being terminally
ill, with very little fresh blood being infused by young hams.

I'm a relatively new ham (licensed in 2002), and I'm what the average ham
would consider "young" at 42. I was mildly surprised when I joined the ham
club where I work - MITRE, in Bedford MA. We host a Winlink node (club sign
is W1ON), we host a field day every spring. All the officers of the club,
except one, are younger than I am - late twenties/early thirties. And we
have at least a couple of women. Granted, MITRE is a technical company (R&D
for the US Govt), so we have a ready pool of technical men and women. But at
least we're contrary to the stereotype.

My point is - all is not lost. There is a younger generation in the wings.
Instead of complaining, get out and promote amateur radio. Yeah, cell phones
are cool, but they require a multi-billion dollar infrastructure to make
them work. Ditto for the Internet. Show a kid how a cell-phone sized radio
can talk directly to someone halfway around the world - without having a "4
bars" connection to the neighborhood cell tower, and you open up their mind
just a bit more than the normal classroom fare.

I wish the statistics proved otherwise, but I think your celebration of
the IARU charts is a bit mis-guided.
--
-larry
K8UT

BTW, Larry - my dad's name is Lawrence also. Nice to know there's more than
one Lau(w)rence Gauthier in the world. And one that spells Gauthier
correctly, too!

Jon Gauthier
KB1HTW