[CQ-Contest] Observations of a young ham
W0MU Mike Fatchett
w0mu at w0mu.com
Sun Dec 18 23:00:15 EST 2016
Well said Charlie.
I think take many of the skills I have learned from radio for granted.
My son looks at me and asks who taught you to do that? Much of it we
learn hands on and failure, having good elmers and groups like this to
learn from. Young folks don't get any hands on schooling. They don't
build birdhouses in school or fix motors so this is all foreign to them.
Thanks!
W0MU
On 12/18/2016 7:06 PM, Charles Harpole wrote:
> 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
> <mailto: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
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