The analogy of ham radio and model trains is nearly perfect. Its almost a perfect concern troll as seen in hand wringing ham radio discussions. All thats miss

The analogy of ham radio and model trains is nearly perfect. Its almost a perfect concern troll as seen in hand wringing ham radio discussions. All thats missing from this article being a ham radio concern troll is a completely unrelated demand at the end. Traditionally the ham radio articles end with "... and thats why we need to change the whole repeater coordination system to benefit me personally" or "... and thats why we need to change the whole radio contesting system to benefit me personally". We're transitioning from a "large cheap real estate" world to something where we're a lot poorer (someone is certainly collecting a lot of money off it). Also each generation is a little lower on the socioeconomic scale on average which is a reversal of past centuries of growth. Therefore hobbies that require a lot of physical real estate space and a modest pile of cash such as model trains or ham radio (at least HF work) or serious fine/artistic carpentry are all going to be kind of elderly gentleman-ish. I would theorize recreational gardening would fit on this list. Possibly more exotic cooking techniques fit this, are most sous vide system owners over 50, I bet they are. I bet almost all people remodeling their kitchen spending $50K to do it with commercial grade appliances are over 50. Who is more likely to have $1000 and an empty basement, a 25 year old college grad living in his parents basement and driving Uber for beer money unable to pay his student loan or ever own a house or have children, or a 50 year old software engineer living in a burb house purchased before the worst of the housing bubble struck? Then take a wild guess what the customer look like at WoodCraft store or HRO (ham radio outlet) store or the friendly local independent hobby train store. Its beginning to have a demographic impact where store opening hours reflect retired people more than the few working age customer's preferred hours, seriously you guys call yourself a retail store but you close at 5:30pm every day? Well there's always Amazon if I need a saw blade or whatever... Now as long as humanity continues to supply a continuous stream of 50 year old guys who've "made it" financially, those hobbies will continue in perpetuity. In fact ham radio is growing at an impressive rate. The "elder" population is generally predicted to be increasing. I would predict as the odds of "making it" get ever worse for college grads and ever better for skilled craftsmen and building trades, more stereotypical blue collar hobbies for old men will continue to grow, probably good times ahead for recreational carpentry and maybe not so good long run for ham radio.