N2EY wrote:
In article , Mike Coslo writes:


Ryan, KC8PMX wrote:

(sarcasm mode on)

Since the entire public is completely aware of amateur radio, therefore

they

all are waiting for the code test to drop, then we should have huge growth
eh???

(sarcasm mode off)


Is the reason for low growth that people don't know about the ARS?


I'd say it's #1.

I'd postulate that anyone that has any interest will pretty quickly
find out about us. have internet access, you'll find us. Read a
newspaper, and there are several articles a year about the ARS.


Several articles a year out of how many thousand?

Folks hafta know where to look.

All I an say here is a related story. When I was the president of a
youth Ice Hockey association, to recruit new players, we took out ads in
the local newspapers, we took out ads on television, we posted ads on
the bulletin boards in most of the schools in our county, and We posted
flyers, professionally made by the Pittsburgh Penguins. association.

Then along comes a prospective player who's father gives me a dressing
down in the board meeting on how our association just can't survive
doing the poor job we do advertising. I listened patiently while he said
we should advertise in the local newspapers, on television, in the
schools, and in the Ice Rink.

I asked him how he found out about us, and he told me he saw the ad on
tv, and then in the rink. Go figure.

My point is that if prospective amateurs or skaters don't want to get
involved, there's no way we can stop them.

I don't think the ARS is an impulse hobby,the prospect has to want to
do it, and then has to look. Considering the small number of people that
even want to be a ham, a mass advertisement approach would be kind of
like spam.

Remember the movie "Contact"? Great opening scenes. But nowhere do they mention
that what's going on is amateur radio!

btw - the Vibroplex shown in that film is the very model and vintage I have
used since 1974.

I'd also bet that there really aren't that many people who are really
that interested in radio. That's okay. I don't pick my hobbies on their
popularity. I pick them because I like to do them.


Radio "for its own sake" has always been a niche avocation. I went to a
highschool (class of 1972) that had 2400 boys and a heavy academic emphasis on
math and science. In my senior year there were exactly six licensed hams there.
Of those six, three remained active long after high school. Now we are two,
with the untimely passing of WA3RVT some years ago.

More publicity can't hurt. But amateur radio isn't a spectator sport - for
most, anyway.

--

There was a great article some years back which I will now paraphrase.

The author whose name escapes me now said that there were three basic kinds of
hams - operators, communicators, and tinkerers. Or words to that effect.

Operators simply like to get on the air and make contacts. It's the medium more
than the message, the skill as much as the results.

Communicators are there for the message. Radio is the tool to get the job done,
that's all.

Tinkerers are into the technology of radio, the projects, etc.

Yay! Tinkering for me! Well I do like to contest too.....

- Mike KB3EIA -