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How Popular Is/Was Amateur Radio
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 |
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