Michael Black wrote:

"Mike Mills" ) writes:

Sounds to me like this scatterbrained idea to
charge $250 fee for a renewal is almost as bad
as the dry-drunks at ARRL which gave us "Incentive
Licensing" in the 1960's, from which ham radio
has never fully recovered. (even with code requirements
being relaxed, you still don't see young people comming
into the hobby anymore, this should tell you something....)


I suspect the majority of US hams were not licensed when incentive
licensing was introduced. After all, it's been 35 years, and the
various layers of simplification have brought in many new hams.

I believe Mr Black wasn't licensed during the Incentive licensing time.


I suspect the whole thing about incentive licensing is overblown.

Completely.

How did incentive licensing damage the inflow of young people to the
hobby? It was the already licensed hams who grumbled, and who lost
anything.

It didn't. All new Hams are products of the time they become Hams. I
don't have any personal experience with incentive licensing or Novice
class or 13 wpm Morse code or 20 wpm Morse code. All I have is the
experience of going through the ranks from 1999, culminating in being a
"Nickle Extra".

Consider that all the changes made over the 35 years to make it
easier for people to come into the hobby (and we've seen similar
changes here in Canada in recent years) may have the reverse effect
when it comes to young people. Maybe the tests, code and theory, that
are so much a burden for the older person coming into the hobby were
not an impediment to the young. They thrived on it, and at a young age,
it was a boost to be able to pass the test when older people were
griping about how hard the test was. When I passed the test in 1972, at
the age of 12, it was no drag to be able to accomplish that. It was
practically like snapping my finger, because what was in the test interested
me, and it was not merely an obstacle to overcome before I could start
yacking on the radio. If you're ten (which is when I first set out
to learn the code, though I did not go about it properly), or eight, you're
young enough that being able to understand a "code" of some sort is picking
up a secret language that those around you don't know; that's incentive
in itself to learn it.

But, all the changes have been made by middle age men, or older, who
often seem to have forgotten what it was like to be young and get their
first ham license, or who came into the hobby in later years. They
are making judgements based on being middle age, which may not reflect
what it's like to be young.

I have never failed to be impressed by the ability of middle aged and
older men to become *incredibly* angry about so many seemingly trivial
things.

"The Morse code test is gone, and next we'll be forced to worship Satan
and vote Democrat!" ;^)



For that matter, too often the mistake when talking about getting newcomers
into the hobby is that quantity is the necessity. If only we can get
big numbers, then we're safe.

Correct. I want good hams, not huge numbers.



But in trying to lure those numbers, the
pool gets watered down. The hobby is no longer a technical playground,
it's no longer a place where kids can play and grow up, either into technical
pursutes or just adults who have a better than average familiarity with
technical matters (a rather important thing, given how much more technology
we're surrounded by compared to thirty years ago). There is plenty I learned
from amateur radio that have nothing to do with technical matters, but it
comes from being part of a not just for children activity when I was still
what amounted to being a child. Maybe in watering down the entrance
requirements, the hobby is not bringing in those who would benefit from
the hobby, as they traditionally would have. "It takes nothing to get
into the hobby, what possible appeal could there be?" Once things
have started down the slope of making it easier to attract larger numbers,
then there is no alternative but to seek even larger numbers, because
then the only thing you do have is those large numbers. Gone are the
benefits of amateur radio, to the actual hams and to society at large,
and there goes any ability to justify the frequencies except by large
numbers.

And getting back to the middle age men, it is they who keep repeating
the mantra "how can amateur radio be appealing in a world where every kid
has a cellphone and a computer?".

I hear this, and I wonder how there can be any competition between
these? Ham radio is about radios, communications without wire around the
world and locally. It's about making radios and accessories and antennas
and the like. Cell phones are about ordering pizza and talking to people
on the telephone. Computers are things that you buy at circuit city or
best buy and plug 'em in and dial up the internet and really aren't
technical. The people using computers that are closest in personality to
Hams are the young hackers that write scripts and virii. We don't want
them, thank you very much!


So long as competition with society in
general is the pivot point, then of course there can be little appeal
to the youngster. Only by promoting the hobby's strengths and uniqueness
can one hope to compete with superior forms of communcation.

Good and insightful post, Michael.

- Mike KB3EIA