For more than 50 years, some hams have been yelling "Ham Radio is
Dying!" "Ham Radio is Dying!" They came up with all kinds of bright
ideas. Incentive licensing...school clubs...extra-easy study
guides...dumbing down the licensing tests...no code licenses...on and
on. Why do some hams believe ham radio is dying? They are bored with
the hobby themselves! They put together some equipment, strung up
antennas, exchanged signal and weather reports, chased certificates,
collected QSL cards and after a few years or more of this they ask: "Is
this all there is?" Bah Humbug...yup that's about all it is. So what?
What more do you want it to be?

Instead of predicting "The Death Of Amateur Radio" and hashing over useless
statistics --
How about we promote Amateur Radio and mentor new folks?
How many doom sayers here help the hobby with training, elmering, and
emergency services ?
In Southern Calif -- we have three classes running at elementary and high
schools, lots of Emergency training as well.

I can tell you that Amateur Radio was highly valuable and praised during the
Southern Calif fires a few years back -- despite the generalization below of
"boring stuff".
Its only boring if you are a bore.

--
Caveat Lector (Reader Beware)
Help The New Hams
Someone Helped You
Or did You Forget That ?



"Bathrooman" wrote in message
ups.com...
For more than 50 years, some hams have been yelling "Ham Radio is
Dying!" "Ham Radio is Dying!" They came up with all kinds of bright
ideas. Incentive licensing...school clubs...extra-easy study
guides...dumbing down the licensing tests...no code licenses...on and
on. Why do some hams believe ham radio is dying? They are bored with
the hobby themselves! They put together some equipment, strung up
antennas, exchanged signal and weather reports, chased certificates,
collected QSL cards and after a few years or more of this they ask: "Is
this all there is?" Bah Humbug...yup that's about all it is. So what?
What more do you want it to be?

Well lets see if these Ham Radio QSO's that I have had -- would be of
interest to you:
1. A QSO with a Navy dirigible crew member -- flew in the 1930's airships.
2. A QSO with an archeologist in the Central America -- just discovered new
ruins.
3. A WWII Luftwaffe pilot - flew a ME-109
4. QSO with a Swedish Ham -- we talked about Soloman Andre's balloon flight
to the North pole -- in 1897
5. A QSO with a British soldier in the Falklands -- we talked about
Shackletons ordeal in 1908 and the Falkland war
6. An anthropologist in New Guinea -- we talked about a tribe there that was
virtually in the stone age
7. A missionary in the Amazon -- we talked about the tribe he was helping
8. A chap in Australia that was in the outback studying the aborigines
9. A Russian officer in an arctic weather station --- brrr -- we talked
about the incredible working conditions there

Lots more "boring stuff"

If the above is of no interest to you I suggest you have very limited
interests.

--
Caveat Lector (Reader Beware)
Help The New Hams
Someone Helped You
Or did You Forget That ?



"Bathrooman" wrote in message
ups.com...
For more than 50 years, some hams have been yelling "Ham Radio is
Dying!" "Ham Radio is Dying!" They came up with all kinds of bright
ideas. Incentive licensing...school clubs...extra-easy study
guides...dumbing down the licensing tests...no code licenses...on and
on. Why do some hams believe ham radio is dying? They are bored with
the hobby themselves! They put together some equipment, strung up
antennas, exchanged signal and weather reports, chased certificates,
collected QSL cards and after a few years or more of this they ask: "Is
this all there is?" Bah Humbug...yup that's about all it is. So what?
What more do you want it to be?

Well let's look at some numbers shall we....


The following are the Numbers of people entering the amateur radio service:

DATE TOTAL
--------------------------------------
12/04/04 671,837
01/02/05 667,562 down by 4,275
01/09/05 668,051 up by 489
01/16/05 668,750 up by 735
TOTAL STILL DOWN 3,015

The bottom line numbers really don't lie...people can say amateur radio is
on the rise but the actually truth is the number of people getting in the
service is still down from the previous month

Todd







"Bathrooman" wrote in message
ups.com...
For more than 50 years, some hams have been yelling "Ham Radio is
Dying!" "Ham Radio is Dying!" They came up with all kinds of bright
ideas. Incentive licensing...school clubs...extra-easy study
guides...dumbing down the licensing tests...no code licenses...on and
on. Why do some hams believe ham radio is dying? They are bored with
the hobby themselves! They put together some equipment, strung up
antennas, exchanged signal and weather reports, chased certificates,
collected QSL cards and after a few years or more of this they ask: "Is
this all there is?" Bah Humbug...yup that's about all it is. So what?
What more do you want it to be?





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"Todd Daugherty" wrote in message
...
Well let's look at some numbers shall we....


The following are the Numbers of people entering the amateur radio
service:

DATE TOTAL
--------------------------------------
12/04/04 671,837
01/02/05 667,562 down by 4,275
01/09/05 668,051 up by 489
01/16/05 668,750 up by 735
TOTAL STILL DOWN 3,015

The bottom line numbers really don't lie...people can say amateur radio is
on the rise but the actually truth is the number of people getting in the
service is still down from the previous month

Todd


And as any competent statistician can tell you, a variation over this short
time frame for this type of data is not likely to be significant. You have
to look at longer term data. In addition, changes of less than 1% are
seldom signficant.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE