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May 31st 05, 05:52 PM
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Dan/W4NTI wrote:
wrote in message ups.com... wrote: wrote: Mike Coslo wrote: wrote: . . . On the other hand, I believe that we should have a good mix of ages. Sure - but how much is enough? If, say, 10% of the US amateur population were under the age of 21, would that be enough? What "dire fate" would befall ham radio if there wasn't a single licensee under 21? What do they actaully bring to hobby which is so important?? Sorry, makes no sense, I just don't get it. Whole bunch of things: 1) Youth is the future Old thought pattern. Not at all, Dan. It's still true. Amateur Radio has turned into a hobby for the "older crowd". When I was a teenager, it seemed like almost all other hams were ancient. Not my dad's age but my granddad's age. The youth of today are too busy getting daddy and mommy to buy them a new cell phone and/or laptop. Maybe where you are. 2) One of the Basis and Purposes of the ARS is education - which includes things like educating youth. Even if a young ham does not become an engineer or technical type, the technical background of ham radio is a good thing to have. So who is going to educate them? The same sort of folks who educated me. Most of what I learned about ham radio in my teens came from books and personal experience. Now we have the internet too. How many ham stations have you seen at a school lately? More than existed when I was in grade and high school. For that matter....when is your club going to put on a school demo? Perhaps in the fall. But that's not the point, is it? 3) The ARS has the image of an "old white guy's hobby" in some circles. While that's not an accurate picture, losing younger hams isn't going to help things 4) Young folks have a lot to offer the ARS. Sure they do.....so go recruit them. Stop jacking your jaws and do something. I have, Dan. If it's a numbers game why not shift gears and recruit retirees instead of chasing kids? There you go....were zero beat now. That's been going on for a couple decades now. Look at the folks we did FD with a few years ago - most of the older folks in that crowd were licensed after age 55. The thing to do is what Dee says - recruit anyone with an interest. Correct. The retirees are far more independent than kids, Very true. they're more mature, And they got the money to buy a rig, antenna, house and lot to put it on...etc. HAH! Look at the FCC enforcement letters - you don't see many young people being cited for serious operating violations. Of course not. They have a signal to be heard. FCC can't hear anything below 20/9. Sure they can, but first they need complaints from hams. There was a guy in Florida named Flippo or some such, and now Gerritsen in LA. They have no counterparts in the younger crowd. Oh really? How about that computer geek in California that hacked all the computer systems????? He was a ham....forgot his call. You mean Kevin Mitnik (sp?) Yes, he was a ham - but he did not violate Part 97, nor any other radio service (that I know of). His crimes were all about hacking into computer systems. Which cost him his ham license (just like the KV fella) because FCC considers all violations, particularly those of the Communications Act, when granting licenses. Flippo and Gerritsen were convicted of *radio* violations. They're both a long way from being teenagers. Or you can look at the behavior of one "retired from regular hours" frequent poster here....Maturity? on average they don't care about nonsense like instant gratification and peer pressure and they have the time the kids don't have. And in most cases they also have the money the kids don't have. Those I'll agree with. There are pro/con on all the above. IMHO the basic thing....recruit all those you can and let the chips fall where they will. Agreed. You have to love Ham Radio to come and join us. If you don't.......(this will tick em off) WE DON'T NEED YA. The trick is that if they don't love it, they won't stay anyway. That's what I mean by "a means to an end". If someone got into ham radio as a means to local "honeydew" communication, they're likely to have replaced their ham rig with a cell phone. But if they got into ham radio because of interest in "radio for its own sake"...the cell phone won't change their interest any more than a wired phone. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
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