[CQ-Contest] K5GO speaks out for youth in contesting

[Michael Adams]

I'd like to offer an alternate, possibly less negative view.

My working theory has been that amateur radio has become a hobby that people come to in middle age / later middle age (at least in North America).

That's a time in many of our lives where we are likely to be firmly established in other aspects of our lines.  Perhaps the passage of time is causing more sedentary activities to look attractive to us.  Many of us have achieved a comfortable level of disposable income and can afford some toys, and we are more likely to own property that might accommodate antennas.  Maybe we're finding ourselves with a bit more free time (with children having become self-entertaining or perhaps having moved out) and have an itch to try something new for the fun of it.

If my theory is correct, folks depressed with the apparent aging of ham radio might find some comfort by looking at the demographics of North American population. 

The age distribution of North Americans is "lumpy".  Most of us are familiar with the bump in the population called the baby boom, where quite a few babies were born after some suppression of procreation due to the economic pressures of the Depression and the other challenges of World War II.  I suspect that if you look at the typical aging ham, they fall in this cohort.

The folks now achieving what I hypothesize is prime "new ham" age are members of a cohort that is relatively small.  So you have a relatively large number of aging baby boomers who are seemingly not being replaced by the relatively small number of forty-somethings who are good candidates for a new hobby.  Oversimplifying: the average age of people above aged 40+ is increasing because there were fewer people born 40 years ago than were born 60 years ago.

The good news is that the next cohort, the folks who are now 20- or early 30-somethings, is another relatively large cohort.  They fall in an echo of the baby boom.  The relatively large number of baby boomers had a relatively large number of kids.   I hypothesize that we don't see too many of these folks in amateur radio because of the other demands on their time and pocketbooks...but I suspect they might be candidates for VE sessions in a few years.

If my hypotheses are correct, that cohort will potentially mitigate the apparent aging of ham radio IF we can attract their attention once they have the time, etc. to support a new hobby.  There might be a bigger challenge in attracting their attention because they grew up after computers were commonplace, and geeks tended to get sucked into gaming and internet-based activities rather than being mesmerized by vacuum tubes.

I'd say that that's a reason for concern, and some collective thought ought to be turned towards how to market the hobby to that cohort (and to lay the foundation for the subsequent cohort, which while being smaller, is currently at a rather impressionable set of ages).  The good news is that there are folks like me, in that transitional cohort, who have some level of appreciation that radiosport has several things in common with gaming when it comes to the fun.

If we can figure out how to attract enough of those folks at an appropriate time to replenish our ranks, I don't think there's much to worry about (aside, perhaps, from upsetting folks who may miss the classic days of radio due to the new quirks, interests, and practices fueled by the next generation).  If not....well, hopefully folks will still do DXpeditions so that I can appreciate the smaller pileups after the grim reaper reduces the QRM level.

-- 
Michael Adams | N1EN | mda at n1en.org

-----Original Message de VE4XT-----

Competition will attract some, but to slaughter an old saw from Alfred P. Sloan, you can sell an old man a young man's hobby, but you can't sell a young man an old man's hobby. 

So, how do we sell it as a young man's hobby? By showing young people enjoying it. I've seen photos of some mall displays, Field Days, etc., where the average age of presenters was between 60 and 70. 

Bless them for trying, but the image is of a hobby that's dying.