[CQ-Contest] Observations of a young ham

[Charles Harpole]

Smart kid u have Mike.   I have given up advocating a younger appeal as a
strategy to ARRL.  The age to appeal to now days is 9.  At age 9 a youth is
interested in two things that ham radio provides in abundance....
-unique and individual:  one call sign IN THE WORLD as an i.d., and chance
for targeted successes along with unique chance to show individuality.
Added is being treated as an adult among real adults.

-joins a secret group:  with secret Morse and secret knowledge, the youth
can be super special within a secret group.

Youth at age 9 now days wants two contradictory things that ham radio
supplies  1. to be big, grown up, individual (with no bossing parents) and
2. to be part of a group, ideally secret, of full acceptance and full
"fitting in" no questions asked.

Please aim at age 9 when the developing personality is ready for ham
radio.  However, prepare to lose most of them at about 15 when the Internet
takes over.   Ham radio represents virtually everything the modern teen and
young adult NEEDS but abhors.  Like: doing satisfyingly difficult things
over a longer time span (which builds so many mental strengths like
discipline, problem focus and solving, patience, and self-reward for a
self-goal).   Like:  shifting from instant gratification of superficial
things to gaining personal satisfaction from deep devotion to a truly
worthwhile result.  Like:  gaining satisfaction for contributing to a group
of live humans (field day, club events) face to face.  Like:  on-air
ability to rag chew about real, interesting topics and to adapt to the
other person.

Those are abilities that help provide a satisfying and long life.  The many
can say in a dead end job at age 25 "I played to the top level of 3 video
games, but where is my satisfaction now?"  The few at age 25 can say "I
built a radio station that bounced signals off the Moon, made a computer
program that analyzed failure rates in transistors, and have a life-long
friend in Gambia that I speak personally to weekly..... and my management
job uses ham radio skills (beyond electronics) in organizing activities.

Maybe video games make good warplane jet pilots, and good eye-hand
coordination, but gee, what a vacuous endeavor for life preparation.

Contesting is NOT winning, it is the struggle that is valuable.  One can
helicopter to the top of the mountain, but climbing it is very satisfying!

73, Charly

On Mon, Dec 19, 2016 at 12:42 AM, W0MU Mike Fatchett <w0mu at w0mu.com> wrote:

> I had the opportunity to talk to my son in more detail and ask him why
> contesting does not interest him.  Here is what we discussed.
>
> 1.  Cost to get in the game and have a chance to win is prohibitive.  You
> need a great station, land, etc to really win or compete.  The playing
> field is so unbalanced that it becomes a show stopper.  For him he has no
> costs when at home.  I consider my station modest with a 70 ft tower and
> land to put up Inv L's and full sized 80m verticals and some receiving
> antennas.  I could do more but we have horses and they need to roam and are
> hell on things in the pasture.
>
> 2. You have to invest a lot of time to get good.  If he can not have a
> really good station then why invest the time to get good if you are not
> going to be able to really compete.
>
> 2. The tools we use to contest, logging software, packet look like old dos
> programs.  He called them ugly and boring.  He is used to amazing graphics
> in games.  I found this observation interesting.  I feel that the tools we
> have are pretty good and give me what I want to see readily available.  I
> was not expecting this answer.
>
> 3. He is far more interested in using packet where he can immediately
> chase things.  Packet essentially gives him a list of things to do or
> goals.  It is more visual so more interesting.  He thought that more
> automated systems would be interesting.  Young people and even us older
> folk expect things to happen much faster.  They are the generation of
> instant satisfaction and some of that even rubs off on us older folk.
>
> 4.  Talking to someone over the airwaves is still pretty cool. You can
> instantly talk around the world if the right condx exist, but we can talk
> all over the world with our phones so it is not as amazing as it once was.
>
> 5. CW is interesting but he was surprised that we don't have better code
> readers.  While he would like to learn the code time is once again the
> factor.  They have so many other outlets for entertainment that it is hard
> to find time for all of them.
>
> 6.  Results take far too long to come out
>
> 7.  He proposed that all participants use a scoreboard type system.  Many
> of us have said this was something we need to do but have instead met with
> amazing resistance and a ton of excuses why people refuse to use it.  A
> system where everyone can check it out and see what is going in in the
> contest.  We are back to visuals.
>
> 6. Playing radio in the car driving is fun because there is not much else
> to do but drive.
>
> 7. He has his general license but he does not have the technical skills or
> electronic knowledge to build a shack or decent station.  I am not a great
> teacher especially to my own kids so I take some of the blame for this but
> it is hard to teach people things when they don't want to devote much time
> to it.  I feel a reluctance to even try to do something without having the
> proper knowledge.  A far cry from when I was young and tried all sorts of
> silly antennas and projects that mostly failed miserably but boy did I
> learn from those mistakes.
>
> That pretty much summed up our hour long conversation and I am no closer
> to figuring out how to sell ham radio and contesting to them.  I hope some
> will find this information helpful and interesting.
>
> W0MU
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Charly, HS0ZCW