On Feb 2, 10:10?am, Cecil Moore wrote:
wrote:
But what if it doesn't?

Ham radio still has a lot to offer but not
nearly as much as it once did.

What does amateur radio not offer now that it once did?

It seems to me that amateur radio today offers even more than it did
when I first got started 40 years ago.

For example, in 1967:

- Almost all HF/MF amateur operation was CW, SSB voice, or AM voice.
There was some SSTV and 45.45 baud Baudot RTTY, but those modes
required a considerable amount of additional equipment that was bulky,
complex, and expensive.

- Almost all VHF/UHF amateur operation was AM voice or CW. There was
some SSB voice, some FM voice, some RC, some RTTY and some ATV. RTTY
and ATV required a considerable amount of additional equipment that
was bulky, complex, and expensive. There were only a few repeaters on
the amateur bands, and amateur satellite communications was only a few
years old (OSCAR 1 was launched in 1961).

- 30, 17 and 12 meters weren't ham bands. 160 was full of LORAN, and
amateur use of 160 was severely restricted.

- Adjusted for inflation, most new ham gear was much more expensive
then than it is now. Look up the price of, say, a Swan 350 and power
supply, or a Drake 4 line, and then adjust the prices for inflation.

- Computers had almost no presence in amateur radio. A few people with
connections, usually at universities, did neat things like very early
forms of computer logging and circuit simulation, but that was the
exception.

- Most not-in-person communication between amateurs was by the ham
bands, the telephone, the US mail and publications. There were no
websites full of free-for-the-download information, no eBay or online
sellers, no email, etc. Elmering was limited to the hams in your area,
the ones you could find on the air, and possibly a few by-mail.

- The only permitted digital mode was 45.45 baud RTTY using the 5
level Baudot code. It would be a decade more before any other digital
modes were allowed for US hams.

The list goes on and on. Many of the things that are commonplace in
amateur radio today were far in the future back then. Many other
things in amateur radio were far more expensive and difficult in those
days than they are today.

It seems to me that a ham today can do almost everything that a ham
could do in 1967.

What can we
do to make it more attractive?

I think the major thing to do is to simply portray all the things
amateurs are doing - today, in 2007 - to as wide an audience as
possible. Then let people decide what they are interested in.

For example, don't assume that today's young people will only be
interested in how to use a computer with a radio, or that older folks
aren't going to be interested in new technology.

Just show the "Ham's Wide World" of 2007, and let the folks who are
interested decide what they like about it.

73 de Jim, N2EY