wrote on Mon, 7 May 2007 08:12:02 EDT:

On May 6, 11:44?pm, RDWeaver wrote:

For example, back in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, we experienced a
steady stream of new hams who wanted to use the various repeater/
autopatch systems in this area for personal noncommercial
communications, particularly while mobile. Whole families would show
up at classes and VE sessions, and the repeaters were busy with their
activities. The term 'honeydo hams' entered the jargon.

I didn't know the term "honey-do ham" existed until seeing in
these newsgroups. :-) In knowing many licensed radio
amateurs in the southwestern USA, their spouses and/or
offspring got licenses for the purpose of amateur radio
participation, not for picking up dry cleaning or coordinating
soccer practice carpools. While it has been common for
some spouses to call the other spouse to pick up something
on the way home, that has been routinely done by the POTS
here from 1960 to the present time. shrug

3) The percentage of residences with antenna restrictions keeps
rising. In many areas you have to look really hard to find an
affordable newer home where you can put up something as innocuous as a
G5RV or a vertical.

I keep hearing about all that "trouble" and have yet to see it
around here in existing neighborhoods of the eastern San
Fernando Valley area of L.A. (SFV population about 1.5
million). The average home residence plot is 1/4 to 1/3 acre
in the majority; in the majority of those with antennas other
than K-band TV satellite service are the CB and scanner
antennas. The off-center-fed dipole (G5RV type) is more
noticeable than a CB or external scanner antenna or TV dish.
A beam antenna, even one that can be lowered to near
ground level will stick out like a sore thumb in a neighborhood
which doesn't have anyone else with such a structure.

Yes, I know such residential areas exist, but I say those are
still in the minority among the millions of residence units in
the USA.

In the common residence without any restrictions on large,
ungainly structures, hams have to face the very real
problem of some neighbors simply not tolerating
uncommon, highly-visible structures such as ham
antennas. Amateur radio is simply not their thing and
they consider their home as a home, not a small-scale
radio station. To get along with neighbors, hams have to
"sell" themselves to neighbors and completely damp any
indignation that neighbors don't like the idea of (to them)
ungly structures in the air next door. There's no way that
one can legislate away bad feeling that neighbors may
have about ugly (to them) ham antennas; it is their
neighborhood also.

4) The nature of free time has changed for many Americans. It's not
that people don't have free time, it's that their free time is less
predictable and comes in odd chunks. Many American families are
juggling two careers, child and elder care, and the expectation of
being available most of the time. Activities that requires solid
pieces of time, like amateur radio, aren't going to be as popular in
such an environment.

Being always older than the FCC, I just can't accept the above
excuse for "times changing." Every year for the last 50 or so
I've heard variations on that rationalization and every time it
has appeared always applied the "current generation." :-)
No generation owns that excuse nor has it "earned" it.

In every year I've observed human society in this country for
the last half century or so, those that wanted to do what they
wanted made the time. The motion picture industry made its
big business push during the Great Depression...when folks
didn't have much income. They wanted to be entertained,
didn't have TV, few had radios to listen to the a-borning
broadcast networks. Elder-care homes were not close to as
numerous as they are now and families were stuck with
providing for their aging relatives with no extra financial help,
no Medi-Care or (in CA) Medi-Cal. Wives kept up the homes
and took care of the children (if there were any) while
husbands worked (if they had jobs...28% didn't have steady
work at the peak of the Great Depression). Somehow most
survived that ordeal as they had for centuries past. Most of
my high school class of 1951 managed to show up at our
2001 Reunion even though some had to travel 1 to 2 thousand
miles to do so. Most of us looked like we could make it to
our 60th Reunion in 2011. :-)

Amateur radio is really a niche activity in American society
when viewed in the entirety of all activities available. Of course,
the downside of that same society is a divorce rate that has
continually increased since the end of WWII...which is oddly
(but not so much so) coincident with the fantastic rise in
availability of mass media advertising plus the escapist fare
of TV and motion picture entertainment. I won't bother to
mention the increased new-home foreclosures or the rising
debt from easy credit card spending. ["credit cards" didn't
exist a half century ago] Like it or not, advertising space
sales make it possible for amateur radio publications to exist
even if just to break even for membership organizations. Those
ads are bought by producers of goods and services for the
amateur radio market, producers hoping to sell things even to
those who already have radios and some services. Everyone
needs to honestly ask themselves a number of questions:

Do you really HAVE to trade up to a new, bigger home in order
for more antenna space? Do you really HAVE to get a new
transceiver to replace the one you've used for ten years? Do
you HAVE to spend all that time on the hobby at the expense
of time with family and friends? If you have a spouse, does
she/he HAVE to work to help support your hobby? Do you
HAVE to use ham radio to communicate with others or can you
possibly use another form of communications?

Those questions are all individual. Insert any hobby's name
in those questions, same thing there. Amateur radio is a
voluntary activity, not a basic necessity of life. The USA as
a nation won't collapse if a ham misses a contest or can't
make a Field Day "readiness exercise." Let's put it all into
a proper perspective of viewing amateur radio as a whole,
not just from an individual-experience viewpoint.

73, Len AF6AY