[Towertalk] The Ham Radio Business

[Tom Rauch]

Nice Troll!

> ents worth.  1.  Ham radio has been dying for over 30 years.  Whether

All technical hobbies that require some work or effort have been 
dying, it is a cultural change. Ham radio is not unique.

Neither the ARRL, Ham Radio, Wayne Green, or Samuel Morse 
are the problem. It is our culture that is changing.  

Most everyone understands that.

> guess is down.  6.  In conversations with the FCC over the decades,
> their usual comment about ham radio growth is, "If we handed out Extra
> class ham licenses on the corner for free, no one would take them." 

They already almost do hand out Extra's (and other class 
licenses)....but then degrees and diplomas are almost the same. 
We no longer need to be able to read an analog clock, tie our own 
shoes, read, or add and subtract without a calculator to graduate 
from some school systems. Why should radio be any different?

The reduction in code speed results in virtually no change in the 
number of new Hams. It was successful if the goal was really just 
having upgrades. The elimination of CW will have the same effect.

That's because it is a social change driving the lack of interest.

> MARS, RACES and 2 meter HT repeaters.  We can forget finding much new
> technology since the size of stuff today is too small for us to even
> see without a microscope or large lens, unless you can come up with a

Someone still has to design and build stuff. Ham radio is still very 
valuable in that area. 

For example, I have a niece who is a EE and she has never 
soldered a wire. She heads a communications company, and yet 
thought the "Atomic Clock" she gave me works from satellites.

She is a really intelligent person and a hard worker, but has zero 
experience in how anything in her field actually works. Those are 
the areas Ham radio would help the world, except few of us are in 
her age group.
73, Tom W8JI
W8JI@contesting.com