[CQ-Contest] Interesting Youth In Ham Radio (was Digest)

[Ria Jairam]

With all due respect, I think you vastly underestimate today's youth.

I work with millenials and I'm barely one myself (probably the term
Xennial is a better fit). They work long hours, they pump out code,
they work magic with a lot of stuff. To say that they don't understand
how computers work is inaccurate.

Walk into Google, Facebook or any other tech outfit and you'll see the
level of dedication and competence.

Walk into the maker space, for example at my alma mater (NYU
engineering) and you'll see them working on projects, some of which
are pretty complex. That's to say nothing of the actual engineering
projects that's done during regular coursework and research.

What has changed these days is that a lot of low level functions are
abstracted to the point where code is looking like plain English
rather than code and entire languages (like Swift) are designed to
look like plain, human readable language.

When I talk to my peers about radio, they see it as anachronistic and
it's just not exciting to them. A few do catch on. But the majority
are uninterested. It's just not "cool" or "fun" to them.

73
Ria, N2RJ

On Sun, Nov 12, 2017 at 2:18 PM, Jim Brown <k9yc at audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote:
> On 11/11/2017 11:29 PM, Eric Gruff wrote:
>>
>> I have to laugh (to myself only) because most kids are more adept with
>> computers and electronics than most folks in our generation will ever be.
>
>
> They may be more adept at USING computers and electronics, but I'd bet that
> few have a clue about how stuff works, or even care. There are exceptions,
> of course, just as many of us were exceptions as kids. My wife's grandson
> was the IT person at his grade school, was interning with software companies
> in jr high, had written "Aps" that had been accepted by Apple for
> distribution on iTunes, and in high school had paid gigs writing software.
> When he finishes his sophomore year in college (engineering) he's got a
> summer gig (paid) lined up at Apple! My grandson and my own two kids have
> never had even the slightest interest in anything technical.
>
> We hams are a pretty diverse bunch -- some very technical, some not at all,
> many in between. Some of us work on various elements of station building,
> from antennas to radios to control systems to power amps to writing code to
> automate our stations.
>
> Progress and miniaturization of every sort of electronics have made it far
> more difficult for us to build much of the gear we want to use, but power
> amps and antennas remain quite viable exercises. I know great operators who
> have by themselves built much of their own stations, and I know some who
> don't know (or care) which end of a soldering iron to pick up.
>
> It helps to think back to what drew US into ham radio in our youth. In those
> days, the magic of using radio to communicate across an ocean was both a
> technical challenge and a thrill. For at least 30 years, we've been doing
> that via the internet with nothing more than a computer and a modem, and we
> can do it in whatever time frame is convenient to us, and in many platforms.
>
> Before we were licensed, most of us were SWLs from the AM BC band to
> international broadcasting. Then, there was first class entertainment on the
> AM band and content from international broadcasters that wasn't available
> anywhere else. Now, AM BC is a sewer, and most international broadcasting
> has been replaced by streaming on the internet. My primary interests in
> broadcasting are news and jazz; a C Crane "internet radio" next to where I
> sleep lets me switch with an IR remote between ten jazz stations that I've
> pre-programmed from a choice of several hundred around the world!
>
> Recently, I heard of a ham club a few hours away from me that developed out
> of the interest of a local community organization in emergency
> communications -- this is a low population density community in the Santa
> Cruz mountains north of me, where the potential hazards are wildland fires,
> winter storms, and earthquakes.
>
> Here's a link to photos from this year's Field Day. Notice the number of
> young hams on the air in the photos of the stations.
>
> http://www.sc4arc.org/groups/general/forum/topic/field-day-photos/
>
> Some of the photos show a pretty serious effort with antennas, and
> communications on their blog show well organized planning. There's a photo
> of their score summary in one of the photos. All SSB and digital. Here's
> their home page.
>
> http://www.sc4arc.org/
>
> 73, Jim K9YC
>
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