There is never a legitimate reason to gatekeep knowledge.
Every time I hear this pearl clutching from hams I like to remind them that the biggest threat to their hobby isn't rouge transmitters and antennas or someone stepping on their transmission - but nobody giving a shit about them anymore.
If you keep new people from entering the hobby it will completely die off and eventually all that spectrum will be reallocated to useful things like cellular.
I've been interested in Hamming it up for a while but between frequent moving (making it unreasonable to expect to have enough/keep enough gear) and more importantly, the culture of the remaining Hams themselves I haven't had the opportunity nor will to actually do it.
I'm pretty sure that those few who might get into really do get pushed away by the people who still do it...
Absolutely ridiculous. That makes me want nothing to do with the hobby, period.
These hams are behaving like animals with a dominance hierarchy. With "newbs" and status in that hierarchy based on license class / callsign. And reacting aggressively, completely out of proportion, to outsiders who intrude on their territory. Akin to a dog with behavioral issues. This attitude in amateur radio is so common, we are supposed to be better than that.
Many years ago I built a high voltage power supply to drive a metal halide or sodium lamp from batteries, and one of my coworkers who was a radio ham, was threatening me that I could get fined thousands for interfering with amateur radio. That was my direct experience, and I have heard this kind of thing happening so many times to others.
It's always the hams making the bulk of complaints to the authorities, as well. And if I remember correctly it's actually tying up FCC resources...
Yup, there's also a big problem with gatekeeping and what's "true" ham radio.
I wish it was different since you can do things with ham radio that are not possible without a license but then I look at the state of something like APRS that is still stuck in the '80s and it's depressing. The M17 project may change that and FT8 is starting to make inroads but I feel like the attitude you mention above keeps out people who would be taking it to new places and domains.
My dad is/was a ham. My experience growing up with ham radio in the house was so negative that it's just kinda a turn off for me. Going back to the early 90s, for a lot of those old boomer types ham was mostly just a way to out-do eachother by showing off their rigs. It's kind of disappointing to me that they have this awesome technology they could have been taking to the next level but instead just spend hours whistling into the mic and bragging. In addition I got a sense that many of the old guys were actively working as gatekeepers as a way to stroke their own egos.
These guys were a big part of the hobby for years and because of that the hobby has been stagnate. But from what it looks like it seems that they're swiftly being replaced by the newer generation of tinkerers in recent years which is pretty awesome.
I'm a ham and I agree with you but you're missing the fact that the people you may hear locally aren't indicative of the broader hobby. Yes there are a lot of grumpy old elitists chatting up the airwaves every day, but there are also people who rarely if ever talk but still do things with the hobby (like myself). There are so many sub-genres in the hobby that someone can always find something they enjoy.
If anything we need more people like you to get involved so we can have more diversity of thought.
Yeah, there's an attitude(you see it a lot WRT the digital modes) to be very dismissive if it wasn't the route you took or a part of the hobby that you care about.
It's a shame because I feel like there's a ton of groups of people(younger, more diverse backgrounds) that would be around if they weren't pushed out. I know a few really sharp people who build their own hardware but got chased off because their aspect of ham radio didn't involve contesting/etc.
Nevertheless, it is one of the unpleasant traits that turned me off from a hobby that I'd otherwise be interested in. The technical aspects are appealing, but it's the outdated rules regime and the people in the community that drove me off.
It may be different in your locale, but the hams around me are mainly older white men, and the voices that can be heard on the air are frequently strongly biased against my moral and political opinions. And they have no "block" buttons.
The general responses to suggest getting off of voice modes either HF or VHF, and into digital or contesting has problems for people not living in a large city with multiple clubs to choose from. I’ve been an active ham for more than half of my life now and been finding the toxic culture in local ham club is frustrating, and real problem to recruiting younger people to the hobby.
I used to participate in the local club but quit after a few too many times hearing racist comments from the (not-octogenarian) club president with no reaction by other members, I decided to call it quits. That also means the tools and instruments I used to be able to borrow, or having a few extra sets of hands to help put up an antenna has gone away. And I won’t recommend the club to other people who have asked about getting into the hobby, at least not without telling them what to expect.
I still have a fellow ham I talk with who is a non-club member in the area, but he’s been in and out of the hobby as well for the last few years.
Sure this is one datapoint, but the value of having a local club with available knowledge, and tool and junk boxes to raid makes it a lot easier to stay active in the hobby.
That was incredibly attractive to me when I was a kid. Then when I was an adult I worked with some engineers who were hams and suddenly found I could afford the radio kit so I got a license. Almost immediately found out it was all racist old men talking about health problems and religious matters around antennas. Disappointedly I sold all the kit and never bothered again. I still keep the license up to date for when I get old and have health problems to talk about.
Much as most hobbies these days most of the ham operators don’t actually operate stuff as well. They just buy stuff and arrange it and post on QRZ forums about it.
i dont want to actually attack thier media, the cultural experience felt toxic, and the hobby felt needlessly constrained.
there is angst between commercial operators and ham radio; its seen as wasted bandwith that should be used to make money; every transgression is ammo in possible future decisions to de allocate ham spectrum.
it wasnt my idea of fun. know the rules and you can avoid attracting attention, from FCC or [foxhunters] looking for unlicensed operators breaking convention,rule,or law. there is that greyzone for consumer electronics to swing your elbows a little more.
radio-hobbyists are a group of people that need to have some level of gate-keeping so as to prevent the commons from peeing in the pool.
Every time a new practical way of using radio networks has popped up, the numbers of people in conflict or violation of FCC regulations put into place to keep the network usable has skyrocketed.
So, as much as i'm against gate-keeping in a general sense.. letting people enjoy 'what aspects of radio they find interesting.' sits on the back burner for myself when compared to 'let's have a network that everyone can use without stepping on toes.'.
>let people enjoy what aspects of radio they find interesting.
Unless, of course, the person enjoys malicious activities that ruin the spectrums for everyone; then it's absolutely accepted that the person should be reprimanded by whatever governing FCC-like body is in the area, you know, gate-keeping.
All this isn't to say anything about ham/net bridges, it's just to point out that some communities actually do benefit from a level of gate-keeping. Radio is one of them.
I think I addressed your second point above; for the first one, I think the ham community is largely gone at this point.
As you note, there are something like 700,000 licensed people in the US, but if you tune in to your local repeater and listen for a month, you will hear the same 2-8 people, typically in their 70s - and that's about it. They're there due to force of habit, and when they die, they're not going to be replaced. The same demographics can be observed for most ham clubs, maybe outside the SF Bay Area (where the median age is closer to 50).
So what are we really protecting here - a "community" representing and speaking on behalf of maybe 0.1% of all licensed individuals? Is this something to treasure, or should we bite the bullet and instead encourage a larger group of people to build something new?
And I hate to say this, but I think this situation is of their own doing. The old-timers wanted all the newcomers to follow in their footsteps and get excited in exactly the same things. As evidenced in the community-developed ham exam, which deals with such exciting and timely topics as tuning vacuum tube amplifiers, receiving analog slow-scan TV signals, memorizing Morse code shorthands, and DX contests that lost most of their "oomph" when the Internet showed up.
Meanwhile, VFH / UHF handheld-to-handheld messaging is still an elusive technology, and many old-timers don't consider anything above HF to be "real ham".
Strong disagree, and wish this sort of gatekeeping wasn't present. Go get one of these things. They're $20, and ham radio is a fun and useful hobby.
I have many baofeng radios which have been in many forms of being thrown into boxes, backpacks, filled with dust, rained on, abused by drunks, dropped, etc. and they ALL are still working fine, albeit some with dest behind the LCD cover.
The trouble with HAM radio is that it isn't that useful anymore. We have amazing cell coverage, wireless broadband just about everywhere and the ability to socialize online.
Ham used to be incredibly useful for global communications, rural areas with no phone service, and a way for people to stay socially connected in remote (or not remote) locations. This isn't needed in the vast majority of cases now.
That has led to most hams active on the airwaves being an older demographic. And the way they try to recruit others into the hobby is obsolete because the need just isn't there. It's a 100% academic exercise, rather than a way to connect with anyone around the world.
There is a newer aspect to ham which is modern digital radio, but most old timers have no knowledge or interest in that. There's a subculture that exists that does amazing work in that space, but it's disconnected from the old-timers that represent the face of ham radio. You'll find this subculture at DEF CON and similar events.
Even the things about ham that are still useful, like the marine net on 14.3Mhz which we used in the 90s for transoceanic sailing is about to become obsolete with affordable internet in the mid-pacific or mid-atlantic becoming a reality. And polar bases are about to get polar orbit Starlink satellites for broadband.
So the hobby really needs to transform it it's going to survive. But the old guard and new world are so disconnected, destruction and recreation may be a better way to think about it.
My wife and I are both ham Extras and we run a cybersecurity company. She's KF1J and I'm WT1J. We're passionate about the hobby, but both see the writing on the wall. Ham right now is a solution looking for a problem.
Well, yes because I don't want to be involved in things that are so authoritarian in nature, with draconian punishments enforced by the government for what amounts to being stupid.
I want to be involved with hobbies where you can be more playful and carefree, where the threat of such punishment is not present. Where there's freedom for exploration and experimentation, like the ISM bands, which are what I use instead. Without authorities dictating to you every minor detail of what you're permitted to do or not, under threat of force by the state. And requiring you do identify yourself at all times, or be ratted out by a fellow ham and prosecuted. No thanks.
Also I've been personally threatened by a ham radio operator (in the UK), over me constructing a perfectly legal, non-interfering high voltage power supply. And hearing other people having the same experiences as well, as if hams consider parts of the radio spectrum their "territory". I know myself, and many other people do as well, that the amateur radio community has this authoritarian streak, which is so eager to call out those breaking minor rules. And back that up with threats of prosecution.
Yes, from personal experience, so many in the ham community are very rule oriented, which is counter to my personality and philosophy. That's another reason I want nothing to do with it as a hobby.
And no wonder there's a lack of innovation in the field, it's all tied up with rules and the personalities that thrive in such environments.
> Without users HAM bands will go away. So let's start asking why the younger generation don't want to get in instead of saying "business as usual" when it is clear the business is dying (and dying fast).
This is simply not true. There are more hams now than there ever has been, and it's growing every year. [1]
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