"Greg and Joan" wrote in
hlink.net:


It depends.

Some years ago, I went to a hamfest/convention, and there were some
ARRL bigwigs in the room. Must have been the early 90s.

There had been suggestions that amateur radio didn't have the general
exposure it should have had. There are huge county fairs, state
fairs, and how often do you see amateur radio shown and demonstrated
there?

Indeed, the Smithsonian Institution had a station = NN3SI, that was
on public display and in daily operation, and it disappeared!!!

So finally one of the senior citizens running the event said "We put
up an amateur station at (a major fair)".

I'm thinking --- GREAT!

"And we held demonstrations for the youngsters - like the 4-H group."

GREAT AGAIN!

"And we had a message fair!"

Groan.

The ARRL guy reads some text from a parent to his kid at home "and if
you don't do your homework, you're grounded.", grasping a wrinkled
"radiogram".

I asked a question. When I asked it, I thought the guy was gonna
die.

"Well, I can understand, that a message fair may be of interest to
you, and may have gotten you interested in this. But in this day of
cheap long-distance and international telephone calling, and now
we're in the cellular age, and online computer chatting, do you
really think this is going to turn kids' heads? I mean, a MESSAGE
FAIR???"

He didn't know how to answer. He stumbled. Then he said ,
"well we weren't really trying to convince the kids to join up" or
something like that.

A noted media personality was in the audience and suggested that ham
radio be tied into technologies that kids understand -- like, for
instance, satellite tracking and communication. Show the horizon
tracking and when the satellite gets to this point here, you're gonna
hear voices on the radio. Fuse computer technology with ham radio
technology and you'll turn the kids heads.

How do you attract the new folks? Kids, adults, whatever?

Forget about what turned you on to amateur radio 20, 30, 50 , 60 years
ago. Try to think of something that will turn the kids' heads today,
if you can.

Morse code won't do it. Neither will 2 meter hand helds, not in the
era of cellular technology. Packet? Who needs it, we got e-mail.

Experimentation? Maybe! SOMETHING ... I'm surprised amateur
television hasn't jumped up. ATV via balloon? Satellite signals?
But clear your head of message fairs, or technology that got you
buzzed in 1955.

Don't blame the audience if they're not interested in code. Don't
blame society. They want to know -- what FUN can they have?


Well put. A message fair is about as exciting as watching the
trucks unload at the grocery store.

First we need to evaluate what amateur radio is. It's a
hobby/service that is aimed at more or less technically inclined people.
It is not Kewl. It is very cool though. It is a chance to send signals
agross the world without the aid of wires or infrastructure. You can
build antennas, build radios, write software, communicate via voice,
keyboard or OOK Morse. You can contest, you can contact as many
countries and make friends all over the world. You can explore a
lifetime worth of activity.

It is not much of an an activity for children anymore, although the
young can take part in it. But times have changed. Not as much equipment
is easily bought or built by the young'uns, and club activities are
usually not set up for a mix of adults and youngsters. The demographic
of new hams is similar to other technical hobbies such as Amateur
astronomy, in that as a person gains more free time after the children
are in college, they pursue interests that they have put off. This puts
the new Ham in the 40's or older. My own experience and what I have seen
since I became a ham bears this out. Age is not important. Enthusiasm
is.

The technical aspect of it will sell at a fairly low level until
the chinese put a man on the moon, then the politico's will scream about
how the US is being eclipsed technically, and we start having sputnik
flashbacks. then parents may encourage their children to look at
technical pursuits.

I agree that the ATV ballooning aspect is a good approach for
generating interest. I was heading up a ballooning effort when other ARS
related activities made it take a back seat. But it has the potential
for some really interesting work that amateurs can participate in.

Emergency Ops? I fear that in the post Katrina world, Amateur radio
emergency operations will become *******ized into people who will
undergo background investigations so that they can unload trucks, take
out the trash and serve coffee to the professionals. At one point I was
interested in EO, but seeing the recent "how amateur radio has to
change" articles that espouse the above, I'll pass. I'm pretty certain
that emergency ops will eventually be handled by professionals who get
amateur radio licenses. Remember that the ARS got high marks during the
Katrina debacle. The pros won't forget that. No good deed goes
unpunished.

- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -