RadioBanter - How to attract people to the Amateur Radio Service

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"Mike Coslo" wrote

|
| I doubt L'il Kim or Brittany Spears or Justin Timberlake will ever be
| hams, or (name your popular type person) will ever even think about
it.
|
| Well, that's just fine. Ham radio wasn't, isn't, and never will be
| Kewl. And that's kewl by me. If those type people were involved in it,
I
| probably wouldn't be.
|

Why wouldn't you be? I don't personally know the three young people you
mention and I'll concede that I haven't paid a great deal of attention
to them, but my impression is that they are bright, intelligent,
successful, "with it" sorts who have influence among a wide segment of
the population, particularly young people. Seems that the involvement
of "those type people" could be one way (obviously not the only way) to
attract people to the Amateur Radio Service.

Personally I find myself in direct disagreement with "wasn't, isn't, and
never will be Kewl". (Thanks to WB8IMY for some of his thoughts) In
case you didn't know, belief in magic is a necessary requirement for all
Amateur Radio operators. Of course, you won't see a question concerning
magic or metaphysics on the test you take to obtain your license, but in
your heart you will come to believe in that powerful, intangible force.

All of us in the hobby have felt its influence at one time or another.
Some night when the band is dead as a doornail you'll be tuning
aimlessly, not expecting to hear a single signal because NOTHING could
be coming through at that hour. But then, rising out of the noise like a
ghost, there will be a faint call from another stalwart explorer
thousands of miles distant. You pounce, establish contact and both of
you marvel at the fact that the conversation is taking place at all. A
few minutes later, however, the signal vanishes as quickly as it came.
Your rational mind will shrug it off as a quirk of propagation, but that
little tingle in your gut will tell you otherwise.

Hey, that's Kewl!

If you could travel back in time 1000 years to 1004 AD, you'd probably
be burned at the nearest stake for even suggesting that two human beings
could communicate with each other over great distances without a
physical connection. No doubt they would accuse you of dabbling in
magic -- and they'd be right!

As Amateur Radio operators, we work feats of magic every day. Many of
us have become jaded about our powers and we tend to dismiss them as
commonplace. We hardly think twice when we use our equipment to sommon
the elemental forces of the universe. But every so often we need to
pause and remind ourselves of what we are really doing. We need to
remember the essence of what drew us to our unusual avocation in the
first place: the wonderful magic of wireless communications.

Hey, that's Kewl!

Those of us who play at RadioSport contesting regularly employ our
station engineering and operating skills in weekend-long games of
world-wide electronic splatball with tens of thousands of other
participants aged from pre-teen to near 100.

Hey, that's Kewl!

I could go on and on.....

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de Hans, K0HB

Have you ever taken the time to stroll through "QRZ's" bios? If you do,
I think you'll notice that certain "hobbies" and career paths keep turning up.

A very large number make reference to flying, some type of active outdoor
sports (usually camping or hiking), participatioon as volunteer FD or EMS, or
active or retired career in the Armed Forces.

Al the above people make use of 2 way radios. So ham radio is a natural
path of progression for
them.

Not your usual skateboarders and glue sniffers.

Well, maybe skateboarders might like to use hands free radios to
talk to each other while rolling down the street. Though they'd
probably use GMRS sets for that.

I really don't understand glue sniffing. Whenever I worked with such
glue, I'd get a headache if I got too much of the fumes. Can't
imagine wanting that.

Doug McLaren wrote:

In article ,
Mike Coslo wrote:

| The world is full of examples of things that have been improved by
| making them really easy, isn't it? Want to see a kid get rid of a
| video game? Give him or her one that is real easy to beat. It will
| be traded in in no time. A game that is just difficult enough will
| keep 'em busy for a long time. If there is no intellectual
| investment in the hobby, then there is no intellectual investment in
| the hobby. A challenge is not a bad thing.

Bad analogy, a game vs. ham radio.

The FCC tests are a tiny fraction of what there is to learn out there.
The FCC could replace all the tests with a `check here to get your
license' form, and ham radio wouldn't be any easier, harder or less or
more interesting.

You make it sound like ham radio is all about the FCC test, and if
that's easy, ham radio is suddenly easy. Well, I disagree. The tests
are already easy -- it's all the other stuff to learn, the *useful*
stuff, that's interesting and challenging.

Really, all the tests do is keep the riff-raff out. (Which seems
*very* important to many people.) And I guess as far as 30 mHz goes,
I'm riff-raff. For now. :)

Well, something is working to leep ham radio from being like the CB band
(yes, there are some instances like 14.313 and that repeater out in LA
but those
are fairly rare). May not be the tests, it could just be the existing hams
giving guidance and elmering the newbies as they first get on the air.
There's
more than enough of a "critical mass" out there on the ham bands to keep
this
happening. All of us new general and extra-lites have not trashed HF since
restructuring.

| Show a newbie that it is fun. Let them make a DX contact with you as a
| control op. If they are shy to talk, maybe that keyboard and PSK31 might
| be a catalyst!

A rank newbie might think that you're on the 'net. Though you might
point out that
there's no ISP or other infrastructure than your radios and anttennas
required.

I actually was able to decode several PSK31 discussions last night on
14.073. I was very pleased. I was beginning to think that the dipole
I set up in my garage was somehow wrong. :)

Indoor antennas can be troublesome, but if you have CCRs you got little
choice....

I've passed elements 2, 3 and 4 and am working on 1, but I'm still a
rank amateur and I know it. Still, I'm really bummed that I can't
transmit on anything under 50 mhz until I pass the CW test, even
though I'm not really that interested in doing CW.

(And passing element 1 isn't going to magically make me stop being a
rank amateur. But at least then I'll be able to transmit `down
there'.)

I did it, and I'm no good at "motor" skills like that. Be sure to be
ready for high
speed characters spaced at 5WPM (Farnsworth method). This is designed to
get you used to the "sound" of each character and not get you in the mode of
counting dits and dahs. Makes getting up to higher speeds easier if you so
choose.

KØHB wrote:
"Mike Coslo" wrote

|
| I doubt L'il Kim or Brittany Spears or Justin Timberlake will ever be
| hams, or (name your popular type person) will ever even think about
it.
|
| Well, that's just fine. Ham radio wasn't, isn't, and never will be
| Kewl. And that's kewl by me. If those type people were involved in it,
I
| probably wouldn't be.
|

Why wouldn't you be? I don't personally know the three young people you
mention and I'll concede that I haven't paid a great deal of attention
to them, but my impression is that they are bright, intelligent,
successful, "with it" sorts who have influence among a wide segment of
the population, particularly young people. Seems that the involvement
of "those type people" could be one way (obviously not the only way) to
attract people to the Amateur Radio Service.

Agreed that they are all a part of popular culture, and are widely
respected and emulated by a lot of youth.

L'il Kim was just indicted for lying to the FBI about her involvement
in a shootout outside a studio when a security cam showed her very much
involved in it. Ms Spears has a lot to do with many prepubescent girls
"sluttin it up" the past few years. They adore her and emulate her as
much as possible. And Justin was the other half of the Janet Jackson
"wardrobe malfunction during the Super bowl.

Personally I find myself in direct disagreement with "wasn't, isn't, and
never will be Kewl". (Thanks to WB8IMY for some of his thoughts) In
case you didn't know, belief in magic is a necessary requirement for all
Amateur Radio operators. Of course, you won't see a question concerning
magic or metaphysics on the test you take to obtain your license, but in
your heart you will come to believe in that powerful, intangible force.

Sorry, I don't believe in either.

All of us in the hobby have felt its influence at one time or another.
Some night when the band is dead as a doornail you'll be tuning
aimlessly, not expecting to hear a single signal because NOTHING could
be coming through at that hour. But then, rising out of the noise like a
ghost, there will be a faint call from another stalwart explorer
thousands of miles distant. You pounce, establish contact and both of
you marvel at the fact that the conversation is taking place at all. A
few minutes later, however, the signal vanishes as quickly as it came.
Your rational mind will shrug it off as a quirk of propagation, but that
little tingle in your gut will tell you otherwise.

Hey, that's Kewl!

Certainly a coincidence.

If you could travel back in time 1000 years to 1004 AD, you'd probably
be burned at the nearest stake for even suggesting that two human beings
could communicate with each other over great distances without a
physical connection. No doubt they would accuse you of dabbling in
magic -- and they'd be right!

As Amateur Radio operators, we work feats of magic every day. Many of
us have become jaded about our powers and we tend to dismiss them as
commonplace. We hardly think twice when we use our equipment to sommon
the elemental forces of the universe. But every so often we need to
pause and remind ourselves of what we are really doing. We need to
remember the essence of what drew us to our unusual avocation in the
first place: the wonderful magic of wireless communications.

Hey, that's Kewl!

Those of us who play at RadioSport contesting regularly employ our
station engineering and operating skills in weekend-long games of
world-wide electronic splatball with tens of thousands of other
participants aged from pre-teen to near 100.

Hey, that's Kewl!

I could go on and on.....

What you are talking about is what I find fascinating about Amateur
radio also. Electronics in general for that matter.

Just imagine, all this starts with rocks. Rocks contain things that do
things when they are hit with electricity. Might be conduct electricity,
conduct it in one direction only, or block it. Maybe the rock will make
electricity when you hit it or when the sun shines on it. Maybe it will
make electricity when you get it near a magnet. Maybe the rock is a
magnet. All kind of stuff that enables us to do great things. And it's
all in rocks.

But it isn't too likely that the Popsters are going to be too
interested in that. It isn't the way they think.

Popular culture is what it is, and if the purveyors of pop thought that
Amateur radio was something to be popular, they would say so. Then the
popsters will come running to the ARS in droves.

And you or me thinking it is cool doesn't make it kewl for them.

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hey, that's good!

- Mike KB3EIA -

"Mike Coslo" wrote

| Just imagine, all this starts with rocks. Rocks contain things that do
| things when they are hit with electricity. Might be conduct
electricity,
| conduct it in one direction only, or block it. Maybe the rock will
make
| electricity when you hit it or when the sun shines on it. Maybe it
will
| make electricity when you get it near a magnet. Maybe the rock is a
| magnet. All kind of stuff that enables us to do great things. And it's
| all in rocks.

Hey, Kewl, Magic Rocks!!! Rock on, Dude! (Pass me that doobie you're
puffin'!)

|
| But it isn't too likely that the Popsters are going to be too
| interested in that. It isn't the way they think.
|

I don't know what the hell a "Popster" is, but I've got 14 grandkids and
I know how they think. Several of them think it's way Kewl that grandpa
plays in "weekend-long games of world-wide electronic splatball with
tens of thousands of others". "Kewl" enough that 3 of them are licensed
and 2 are studying. They don't care crap about rocks in the sunlight,
and frankly neither does grandpa.

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de Hans, K0HB

I think weather weenies are a potential market for ham radio.
Admittedly, I'm biased by the fact that storm spotting is what led me
to become a ham.

I guess that we can write off anyone on a diet, anyone concerned about
his/her blood cholesterol, and health/fitness gurus. :)

Jason Hsu, AG4DG