RadioBanter - View Single Post

June 5th 05, 06:09 PM

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wrote:
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3) The ARS has the image of an "old white guy's hobby" in some
circles.

In a *lot* of circles and they're basically right.
This phenomenon is a
result of evolutionary forces at work within
the hobby. There are two
choices he Go with the obvious flow and
accept where Mother Nature
is leading us and take advantage of it -OR- fight
Mother which is
always a losing battle and try to keep applying the
mores, values and
expectations of the yesteryears when we came into
the hobby50, 30 even
20 years ago.

Actually I we should go back to those "mores, values and
expectations of the yesteryears"

Liked that one dinya? Heh.

"Going back" ain't gonna happen but let's not dig this one up for the
umpteenth time.

- in a way.

Look at the old ham mags and other publications (ARRL
and non-ARRL, doesn't matter as long as it was a ham-
oriented publication) of the
so-called golden years of, say, the '50s. Back when we had
annual growth of about 8% year after year. They *weren't*
specifically aimed at "young'uns".

Kids in that timeframe lived in the remnants of the old "children
should be seen and not heard" mindset. Unless some publication was
somehow directly related to school classwork it was written for adults.
Particulary if there was any technical content and the ARRL followed
suite.

The license requirements
*weren't* reduced (as NCVEC and others want to do) to make
the tests easier for kids to pass.

Of course not, no more so than the state made it easier for kids to get
drivers licenses. For the same underlying regulatory reasons.

The "Beginner And Novice"
columns weren't aimed at teenagers or any other age group.
And that may be a big part of what made them so attractive
to kids!

Nah, never entered our minds. Ham radio was an adult hobby and we
accepted it. Period. We were used to having to read at the adult level
when it came to technical publications, there were no options, we
didn't know the difference. There were beginners publications in some
hobby fields but I don't remember any in ham radio and they were all
written for adults. In another direction kid hams were a tiny and
poverty-struck book and magazine market, there's no money in a market
like that so nobody wrote for specifically for us. In yet another
direction all the kid hams I knew had adult-level reading skills by the
time they were twelve or so and wouldn't have bothered with being
spoon-fed kiddie sorts of writings even if they were available.

If it's a numbers game why not shift gears and
recruit retirees instead of chasing kids?

That's been going on for a couple decades now.

Don't agree. Point out one example of a formal effort to
consciously
recruit older folk. Which is like all the widely publicized (and
generally failed) programs which have been targeting kids over
the years.

See above - I'm thinking the trick is to *not* target *any* age
group.

Standard Motherhood is always the "safe approach" snore.

73 de Jim, N2EY

w3rv