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Young people don't have large houses with a suitable backyard shack. Running Ham radio from a condo is very hard. Millennials aren't killing things, the housin

by nikanj 6y ago

Young people don't have large houses with a suitable backyard shack. Running Ham radio from a condo is very hard. Millennials aren't killing things, the housing crisis is.

doikor 6y ago
There are handheld and car ham radios.
- Ao7bei3s 6y ago
  Effectively being limited to your local repeater or maybe some local simplex (if you're lucky) gets very old, very fast. Not just because of the people, but there's just not much interesting to do. What I mean is that pushing a button on an off the shelf handheld doesn't require much sophistication. Same for handhelds as for car radios; and anyway car ownership is also less prevalent among young, urban people. Many people I know do carsharing. Can't install stuff there. Most people want DX (long range) on HF bands, and that mostly requires moderately large antennas (for the non-hams: rule of thumb: ideally λ/2, where λ=100m-10m. smaller is a compromise). It's by far where most of the activity is, and if you can't participate in that, that may lead to a feeling of being left out. (I say effectively because there are many niche areas that you can cover with handhelds and small antennas, like building a small cross yagi to reach a hamsat. But still, how often do you really do that? How much activity is there, really? Keep in mind for any mode, you need someone to talk to.) So that leaves going outdoors and operating portable. Summits On The Air (SOTA) is so much fun. But with prep/driving/hiking/setup/teardown/driving/cleanup, that always takes most of a day. Not something you can do for an hour, after work. (And completely infeasible for kids too young to drive.) And you have to carry everything, which limits you to low power gear. Which leads me to... ...my 'best' experience: I was outdoors on some hillpeak, with a 15W portable radio. Had a nice diy antenna, but still couldn't reach most (with SSB anyway). Overheard two older hams running 1.5kW, talking straight over me, ranting that quote "young people just don't know how to listen". Toxic.
- Jemm 6y ago
  To use mobile in the urban canyon often requires travelling a long distance, which is an added barrier.
tzs 6y ago
Home ownership rates in the US have been pretty stable going back at least to 1960, averaging about 65% with some long term swings down to 63% or up to 69%. About 50% of Americans say they live in the suburbs, 30% cities, and 20% rural. If you just look at Millennials, it is close eto venly split between cities and suburbs at about 38% each. Given those stats, I'm skeptical that housing is a factor unless someone can make a good argument that the young people who would have developed an interest in ham radio nowadays are moving to cities before that happens at a higher rate than previous generations did.
- nikanj 6y ago
  I would argue the jobs for the geek-adjacent people are in the big cities. Likelihood of being into ham radio correlated well with likelihood of being stem-y geek type, anf those jobs are in the cities where the housing situation is dire

by nikanj 6y ago

Young people don't have large houses with a suitable backyard shack. Running Ham radio from a condo is very hard. Millennials aren't killing things, the housing crisis is.

doikor 6y ago

There are handheld and car ham radios.

Ao7bei3s 6y ago
Effectively being limited to your local repeater or maybe some local simplex (if you're lucky) gets very old, very fast. Not just because of the people, but there's just not much interesting to do. What I mean is that pushing a button on an off the shelf handheld doesn't require much sophistication. Same for handhelds as for car radios; and anyway car ownership is also less prevalent among young, urban people. Many people I know do carsharing. Can't install stuff there. Most people want DX (long range) on HF bands, and that mostly requires moderately large antennas (for the non-hams: rule of thumb: ideally λ/2, where λ=100m-10m. smaller is a compromise). It's by far where most of the activity is, and if you can't participate in that, that may lead to a feeling of being left out. (I say effectively because there are many niche areas that you can cover with handhelds and small antennas, like building a small cross yagi to reach a hamsat. But still, how often do you really do that? How much activity is there, really? Keep in mind for any mode, you need someone to talk to.) So that leaves going outdoors and operating portable. Summits On The Air (SOTA) is so much fun. But with prep/driving/hiking/setup/teardown/driving/cleanup, that always takes most of a day. Not something you can do for an hour, after work. (And completely infeasible for kids too young to drive.) And you have to carry everything, which limits you to low power gear. Which leads me to... ...my 'best' experience: I was outdoors on some hillpeak, with a 15W portable radio. Had a nice diy antenna, but still couldn't reach most (with SSB anyway). Overheard two older hams running 1.5kW, talking straight over me, ranting that quote "young people just don't know how to listen". Toxic.
Jemm 6y ago
To use mobile in the urban canyon often requires travelling a long distance, which is an added barrier.

tzs 6y ago

Home ownership rates in the US have been pretty stable going back at least to 1960, averaging about 65% with some long term swings down to 63% or up to 69%. About 50% of Americans say they live in the suburbs, 30% cities, and 20% rural. If you just look at Millennials, it is close eto venly split between cities and suburbs at about 38% each. Given those stats, I'm skeptical that housing is a factor unless someone can make a good argument that the young people who would have developed an interest in ham radio nowadays are moving to cities before that happens at a higher rate than previous generations did.

nikanj 6y ago
I would argue the jobs for the geek-adjacent people are in the big cities. Likelihood of being into ham radio correlated well with likelihood of being stem-y geek type, anf those jobs are in the cities where the housing situation is dire