"Bob Brock" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 2 Feb 2007 08:21:20 -0500, "Dee Flint"
wrote:


[snip]

Marketing the hobby is not the same as marketing the hardware or a
specific
aspect of ham radio within the ham community. Current marketing is
focusing
on the latter items. I hope you do get out and market our hobby. Many of
us do promote the hobby within our circle of family, friends,
acquaintances,
co-workers, etc.

Then you are marketing to what is pretty much a closed set. Don't get
me wrong, there is nothing wrong with that and it's what I would guess
most hams are doing. They are relying on organizations such as the
AARL to market for new members and the AARL isn't doing it. Hence,
what are already low numbers continue to drop.


Our numbers per population are the second highest in the world so the
"already low numbers" is a fallacy. Only Japan has a higher percentage and
it is difficult to determine the validity of their numbers since they
license many people for life in grade school, many of whom are never active.
Comparing it to parts of Europe, they have 1 ham per thousand where we have
2 hams per thousand.

The grass roots approach could possibly be the most effective. I know
hunters, truckers, fishermen, farmers, etc. All of them know additional
people that I don't If I recruit two ACTIVE people, and they in turn
recruit two more each and so on, we would have explosive growth in amateur
radio. Remember tsunamis are generally initiated by a single event in a
single location.

Actually I don't view the ARRL as being responsible for marketing ham radio
and recruiting new people. I view them as a service to their members type
of thing. However it might not be a bad idea to suggest to them that they
set up a donation fund for placing ads in non ham magazines.

Dee, N8UZE