21 ms·

The Uncertain Future of Ham Radio

181 points by Stratoscope 5y ago

WalterBright 5y ago
I was interested in ham radio in the early 70's. But in 1975 I discovered computers and that was the end of ham radio for me!
- mhh__ 5y ago
  Hence software defined radio!
bb88 5y ago
I saw this video the other day when looking up frequencies online. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDbzQLrBdio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDbzQLrBdio Makes me want to talk to these people less and less.
sfblah 5y ago
I think making the tests to get licenses easier was a mistake. One of the things that intrigued me about getting my license back in the day was the Morse code requirement. I enjoyed climbing the ladder, and I was proud when I passed the 20wpm test to get the Extra license. I think young people like things like that: a challenge, followed by some kind of symbol of your achievement.
- trangus_1985 5y ago
  It took me almost a decade to become licensed because I couldn't find any tests that weren't at 9am on a sunday, an hour drive away. Maybe that seems like a low bar, because it is! But, I got into ham radio to do interesting things, and not communicate. After all, why bother with making sure you have line of sight to a repeater when you can just fire off a text message? I'm much more interested in telemetry, instrumentation, and remote control.
  - tcmart14 5y ago
    I dont think dropping the CW requirements were a bad move, as you mentioned it can be difficult to make a trip to a testing session. When I got my general ticket, I was stationed down in San Diego, which does have a pretty big HAM presence. Even then, it was still that hour and a half drive to a testing session.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gravypod 5y ago
Amateur Radio has a chance to become massively popular through a resurgence of interest in mesh networking but unfortunately laws are not evolving fast enough for this to become possible. Right now it's illegal to transmit encrypted data over the air [0] which basically kills everything like. The areas where people are becoming increasingly active in radio are things like NYC Mesh which can only utilize a very small segment of the bands (and not even the ones hams use!) for running their networks. I'd love for an IP over Mesh network to become popular. Doing IRC and reinventing a lot of the early internet in a distributed manor would be very fun. [0] - Unless it is for the control of a satellite.
- generalizations 5y ago
  This is what I came here to say. The encryption prohibition destroys the biggest use case I can see, which is long distance mesh networks. Those networks would represent a leap forward for both HAM radio and for the development of a resilient, grassroots, worldwide communication system.
  - jcims 5y ago
    There’s limited bandwidth available. I definitely think it’s worth experimenting, but my expectation would be that any bands that allow for encryption would quickly be saturated with traffic.
    - generalizations 5y ago
      I imagine there might be other mechanisms for limiting abuse - e.g., limit the traffic that any given call sign can generate. The call signs can help ensure it's non-commercial. Plus, don't people like doing fox hunts?
      - jcims 5y ago
        We would learn a lot, that's for sure. I wonder if they could time box an experiment for 5 years and see what happens.
armadsen 5y ago
I'm 37 and got my ham radio license when I was 15. Ham radio captured my imagination in a way nothing has before or since, and led pretty directly to my career as a hardware and software engineer. In some ways I feel lucky that I encountered it when the internet was still young. The internet was there with tons of resources to learn about it, but not so ubiquitous as to have killed the magic of getting on my radio and talking to someone across the country or world. I'm primarily a CW (Morse Code) operator, and would so hate to see it die out as an art form, hobby, and useful technology. That said, I'm also well aware that the hobby is evolving and needs to evolve to survive, as it always has. I think accessibility of SDR and increasingly advanced digital modes is a great thing. If you're reading HN, you're probably the kind of person that would find stuff to enjoy in ham radio. It's a huge hobby, and about much much more than "talking to people".
- Johnny555 5y ago
  I got my license when I was around 37 and was already very familiar with the internet. So the long distance communications part of Amateur Radio was less interesting to me, I was more interested in shorter range VHF/UHF disaster communications. And still am, I still participate in diaster drills and the occasional special event (running, biking, etc) support.
- trutannus 5y ago
  > If you're reading HN, you're probably the kind of person that would find stuff to enjoy in ham radio Agreed. Plus if you want to just explore the ham world without going the license route, there's an abundance of cheep software-defined radio dongles (rx only) you can hook up and listen in with. There's a lot of weird and cool stuff on the air that'll keep you occupied for hours.
  - sliken 5y ago
    Heh, yes, the SDR dongles are quite fun to play with. You could be a beacon receiver (to help map propagation), track airplanes near you (and contribute to the nationwide map), listen to transmissions (voice or images) from satellites, be a RX only APRS i-gate (to improve APRS coverage), etc. Of course the options multiply once you get a license and transmit.
Fordec 5y ago
I have no interest in setting up a bunch of engineering equipment to listen to a bunch of 60-70 year olds broadcast their uncensored perspective on things. If you know what I mean. If they want to protect that as "one of the best parts", they are welcome to keep it among themselves for the rest of their days. The original iteration of Ham is from a bygone era when phone calls and broadcasting was the primary method of information dissemination. I don't have a yearn to go back to those days, personally. Now amateur, self-built, internet routing outside of constraints like DNS or corporate owned infrastructure? As an augment of the modern internet where we can self host satellite endpoints to a community owned constellation and send files (not just mere morse code), that I could be sold on.
- abbub 5y ago
  "I have no interest in setting up a bunch of engineering equipment to listen to a bunch of 60-70 year olds broadcast their uncensored perspective on things." That was my take on it, too. I have one cheap Chinese radio in a box somewhere, but I got rid of all of my decent radios a few years back. I can just imagine what our local repeater devolved into during the Trump years. :/ The once-a-month meeting at the Village Inn was filled with laments about how there were no young people involved, but the repeater was filled with conversation that no young people would possibly want to be a party to. I've discovered that it's unpopuler to point this out, but a big problem with amateur radio as a hobby is the current hobbyists involved.
  - Johnny555 5y ago
    I'm a ham mostly for disaster comms, I only occasionally participate in the monthly nets and almost never engage in random chitchat. But I do join the annual disaster drills as well as try to help out with special events (like long distance runs or bike rides), but those aren't as numerous as they used to be because a lot of the cellular dead zones are covered, so race volunteers just need a cell phone.
mmaunder 5y ago
The trouble with HAM radio is that it isn't that useful anymore. We have amazing cell coverage, wireless broadband just about everywhere and the ability to socialize online. Ham used to be incredibly useful for global communications, rural areas with no phone service, and a way for people to stay socially connected in remote (or not remote) locations. This isn't needed in the vast majority of cases now. That has led to most hams active on the airwaves being an older demographic. And the way they try to recruit others into the hobby is obsolete because the need just isn't there. It's a 100% academic exercise, rather than a way to connect with anyone around the world. There is a newer aspect to ham which is modern digital radio, but most old timers have no knowledge or interest in that. There's a subculture that exists that does amazing work in that space, but it's disconnected from the old-timers that represent the face of ham radio. You'll find this subculture at DEF CON and similar events. Even the things about ham that are still useful, like the marine net on 14.3Mhz which we used in the 90s for transoceanic sailing is about to become obsolete with affordable internet in the mid-pacific or mid-atlantic becoming a reality. And polar bases are about to get polar orbit Starlink satellites for broadband. So the hobby really needs to transform it it's going to survive. But the old guard and new world are so disconnected, destruction and recreation may be a better way to think about it. My wife and I are both ham Extras and we run a cybersecurity company. She's KF1J and I'm WT1J. We're passionate about the hobby, but both see the writing on the wall. Ham right now is a solution looking for a problem. 73.
- n8cpdx 5y ago
  The one area where it's still relevant is disaster response, but even that is questionable. Here in Portland, the city puts a lot of effort into emergency preparedness and getting people trained on radio, but the vast majority of people involved are 55+. I have my doubts about how effective it will be in an actual emergency. I tend to think the effort would be better spent on hardening the existing cell networks, and being ready to deploy public safety LTE, cells-on-wheels or similar. Mass produced consumer tech should enable economies of scale for cell phones that aren't there for ham radios. Full internet isn't actually needed, even just a few independent cells would perform a lot better than the walkie talkies that the CERT teams use.
01100011 5y ago
I feel like HAM Radio just can't compete for the minds of young people. There are just so many amazing things to play with these days. If I were a teen again, I probably wouldn't even bother with getting my HAM license because I'd be so busy programming and designing with microcontrollers, WiFi, LTE, lasers, genetic engineering, etc, etc... HAM Radio feels almost like a solved problem these days. Sure, there is room for advancement but to do anything interesting starts to require quite a strong background in communications theory.
- bink 5y ago
  heh, I was with you until you got to "genetic engineering". What opportunities are out there for a teenager to participate in that?
  - tejtm 5y ago
    https://www.edvotek.com/303 https://www.edvotek.com/303 first hit for home gfp experiment kit
  - 01100011 5y ago
    I get ads all the time for https://www.the-odin.com/ https://www.the-odin.com/ I feel like people aren't really taking note of how much power is in the hands of individuals these days. We may find ourselves caught off guard by the creation of a biohacker in the next decade or so.
DoingIsLearning 5y ago
> And it will be hard to argue that spectrum reserved for amateur use and experimentation should not be sold off to commercial users if hardly any amateurs are taking advantage of it. > many are interested in the capacity for public service, such as providing communications in the wake of a disaster (...) having grown up with technology and having seen the impact of climate change, Michel says. They see how fragile cellphone infrastructure can be. They provided an argument for the preservation of the spectrum in their own text. Amateur Radio gives communities a means of long distance communication when all other infrastructure fails. That redundancy and resilience are precious and worthy of preserving.
- generalizations 5y ago
  > Amateur Radio gives communities a means of long distance communication when all other infrastructure fails. Starlink and a car battery can do the same thing, though. HAM radio has a future, but it needs to adapt.
  - sliken 5y ago
    Starlink isn't available to everyone. Starlink has a maximum density of customers which is pretty low. Starlink is not long range, you need a set of dishes and internet uplink in the same geographic area that you are in. Starlink costs $100 a month, leaving a substantial community withotu service. Amateur radio has no monthly cost, no maximum density, and no maximum range.
  - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
    Starlink needs a commercial contract with a company that may choose to terminate your service or be dictated to do so. Starlink contracts specify a cell region in which you're receiver can work. If you fall out with a benevolent or not so benevolent government or you are running away from disaster region or war zone all of these solutions fall apart pretty quickly. I will repeat my own quote, Amateur Radio gives communities a means of long distance communication when all other infrastructure fails.
    - 5y ago
abruzzi 5y ago
The primary reason I got my license wasn't to talk--something I do very infrequently--but rather I was interested in the technlogy behind shared locations tracking, but without infrastructure requirements. (think all the phone apps that show the location of your friends or family, but without needing a cell provider or cloud server.) The tech is called APRS and usually works at 1200 baud on 2 meter radio, and runs on top of AX.25 packet radio. It grew up more or less at the same time as consumer GPS in the late 90's (though I think it was first specified in the late 80s. The article delicately hits on one of the biggest things potentially holding amateur radio back in the US (can't speak to other locations)--specifically that there is a strong and vocal contingent in the AR community that is negative, dismissive, and sometimes downright rude to newcomers. My age is somewhere in the middle--younger than most hams I've met, and probably older tham most people here. Fortunately, locally, most of the hams I've met have been very friendly and helpful, but online there is a lot of venom. Part of it is political--people frequently conflate two interests, say AR and politics, and assume everyone else has the same two conflated interested. While I don't like to discuss politics with people, I'm not interestedin going to a AR meeting or event, and having to spent the whole time hearing people discuss politics. Part is cultural--AR is like a clique where a lot of people who've been in it for 50 years are resistant to people with different uses joining. It was a very long time before people stopped looking down on "no-code" hams--i.e. people who took their licensing exam after the FCC removed the morse code test. I also remember reding an official article on one of the most popular ham forums (not a trash post, but a published article) trashing "maker fairs" because it made him think of "homemaker", and that demeaned what he did. Again, locally, I've never encountered this kind of attitude, but it is common enough online that I simply don't interact with other hams online. Its not whats interesting to me anyway--I got into it to get offline (I travel in places in my state that are over 100 miles from a cell signal, so infrastructure-free location tracking is great.) But I can see those attitudes poisoning interest from people younger tham me who socialize online and will think that this is the hobby, and walk away because they don't want to be a part of it. I hope I'm wrong, and I hope there are better resources online than what I saw a few years ago when I looked.
Koshkin 5y ago
It will be useful (and popular) again when SHTF...
AlbertCory 5y ago
I got my General at age 14. I sat in the dark every night in my bedroom, which my grandmother had taken over in her (fatal) illness, to do CW practice. Nostalgia? Yeah, I'm afraid so. Most of the "conversations" were just reciting what equipment we were using, and how good our signal was for the other side. That stuff IS pretty outdated. There was a blind man down the block who was really into ham radio, and he had Braille on his equipment. He was very helpful to me. Emergency communications are a valid use case, which the younger generation seems to have recognized. But the thrill of working a station on the other side of the world? Not that much.
wcfields 5y ago
Reposting from a previous Ham Radio comment thread [1] One factor that I bring up whenever the “ham radio is dying” discussion happen is the FCC public database and safety/doxxing, specifically for marginalized communities such as Trans individuals and Black folks. It, itself, is creating a safety concern in modern society for people that may want to join the hobby but fear doxxing and harassment. If I give out my call sign on the Internet (or on the air) you now know my real name, address, and every past address I’ve ever used. So let’s say I registers as Bob Smith at 123 Fake St 4 years ago, and now I go by Susan Smith at 456 Example Blvd you’d know all that information with a simple lookup. The only real semi-workaround is when someone first licenses (and you probably don’t know this at first) is to use a PO Box, otherwise any address change will be on record. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24308712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24308712
- urdum 5y ago
  >Trans individuals and Black folks Comments like these are why I come here to hate scroll
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  Why not just not give out your call sign on the internet?
  - hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
    They answer that in their third paragraph. Due to the public nature of the info in the FCC's ham license registration database, I assume, and not wanting everyone on the internet to know their real name and current home address in case someone wants to harass them.
    - wcfields 5y ago
      I don't except for Ham Radio related things (Ham forums, Twitter that's only for Ham, etc..), so I'm fairly silo'd on my social media presence with regards to that. I'd be more free with putting it in my Github, HN Profile, Reddit, and other places if it didn't fully dox me.
jimhefferon 5y ago
Been a ham for many years. I like Morse, but don't think other modes are bad, just like Morse. I'm VP of a club that has had a lot of success, particularly at Field Day (we often win the most popular category). I find that young people are not interested in contesting. In particular, we put people on the air and they hear some of the poison, and they are out of there. One reason a lot of people are older is that it helps to be retired. Who else has time to get on the air at noon if that is what it takes?
rsync 5y ago
The use-case I am interested in - and what would have me licensing and tooling up next week - is an actual qwerty device for using that HAM text mode/feature (APRS, right) ? There's all kinds of info and notes and discussion about APRS but there isn't a single device for it. No I am not interested in serial connecting my yaesu to a laptop. I mean a standalone handheld that I can type in a message without T9-style pecking. Why doesn't this exist ?
- jdofaz 5y ago
  I wanted the same thing. When I discovered I could send text messages via APRS to a callsign on my kenwood tm-d710 I felt excitement that was then followed by disappointment in that I had to type my message using a knob selector. I had initially thought you could use the number pad on the microphone to input the message T9 style. I think someone made a keyboard for the older model but it didn't work with mine
  - detaro 5y ago
    I think other kenwood models are at least a bit better than that, but nothing really comfortable afaik. There's also bluetooth-enabled TNCs you can use with phone apps, but then you again have phone + TNC + radio. All-in-one's seem to be mostly just trackers that send position, without extra features, at least the ones I've seen. EDIT: the PicoAPRS can at least be used as a TNC+transmitter over usb, so that could be combined with a smartphone for a two-device pair.
- justin66 5y ago
  How could it possibly be more convenient than hooking a radio up to a laptop you like? Is it just a matter of all the software options being bad?
  - detaro 5y ago
    How is using a laptop in any way convenient while walking around?
antisthenes 5y ago
Here's a good way to get kids more interested: Give kids HAM radio equipment for free. From what I understand, the setup can be quite expensive for the younger generations, who are struggling financially, compared to your "average HAM operator", who's a 60+ year old white baby-boomer. When we were the age where interests and hobbies are developed, I didn't know anyone who had anywhere near that amount available to spend at their discretion. At most, some of us could save up money and buy a $50 video game. To get a radio station, we'd have to save up for a year.
- kortex 5y ago
  This is great advice. You got to get em young, even under 13 if possible. That's when the magic can have a real impact. I feel like the discretional income of an older HAM vs a teen is quite different.
- tobinfricke 5y ago
  That used to be true, but now you can get a Baofeng UV-5R 2m/440MHz handheld radio for $30.
vidanay 5y ago
>“Ham radio is really a social hobby...Here in Mississippi, you get to 5 or 6 o' clock and you have a big network going on and on—some of them are half-drunk chattin' with you." Is this supposed to be an endorsement?
rmason 5y ago
I've been a ham for over fifty years. The problem with a lack of young hams starts at the local level. When I took my novice test at 14 the guy who was giving it became my lifelong friend or in ham speak my Elmer. I started a high school club (still going strong) and all its members were friends with this guy. He strongly encouraged me to join the local club and I did. Not only did I meet other teenage hams but I made friends with older hams who taught me stuff and were happy to be supportive. Contrast that with today, the club is still around but its moribund. I reached out when they were having problems keeping their repeater on the local university tower. I was told my help wasn't wanted. I reached out again when the local marker space wanted to do a joint event. I'm a life member of the group but I was rebuffed. I can only imagine the 14 year old me taking one look at this cliquish group of older guys and being discouraged about the hobby. I've run a programming group for twenty years. Sometimes the members get on me for having introductory type meetings. But I'm always reaching out to the greater community and trying to get new members. That's how you grow, if you don't do it you die. There's plenty in the ham radio hobby to attract young people, but if the local community turns them off they quickly chose to do something else.
- tlrobinson 5y ago
  This is my experience too. I'm a relatively young ham, and have found older hams have no interest in engaging with anyone other than their buddies. It's bizarre and sad.
- vegetablepotpie 5y ago
  At 20 I was interested in HAM radio. I went to a meeting at my university. Meetings were entirely five retired engineers talking the whole time, that was boring. There was one other student, who was the president. When I asked questions about radio and RF, they recommended I go to the library to look for books. I felt that I really didn’t need to spend an hour of my time to have them tell me that. I went to one other meeting, but I had school and work taking up my time and realized attending was not worth my time. I hope the community has improved since then, because it was not inviting to young people when I wanted to get involved.
  - 5y ago
sparker72678 5y ago
If you're interested in playing with radio, HAM equipment/bands aren't even the easiest/cheapest/most fun. You can buy breakout boards for all sorts of protocols and such (most in 2.4Ghz) on Adafruit et. al. for a few bucks, and hook them up and play with them with a RPi, Arduino, etc. to you heart's content. Without a license. Basic HAM gear is, for the most part, expensive (with the exception of cheap VHF hand helds), limited, big, heavy, bulky, and/or typically nowhere near cutting edge.
- sliken 5y ago
  Dunno, depends on your interest. Sure you can pay $1000s on a nice rig, but you can also build a small radio that fits in a altoids tin for a few $10s. 40M CW radio (bare board): $12.69: https://www.amazon.com/Qianson-Shortwave-Transmitter-7-023-7-026MHz-Transceiver/dp/B01KA4KRKI https://www.amazon.com/Qianson-Shortwave-Transmitter-7-023-7... Here's a kit that does 80m, 60m, 40m, 30m, or 20m for $40: https://kc9on.com/product/foxx-3-cw-transceiver/ https://kc9on.com/product/foxx-3-cw-transceiver/ Here's an easy kit for $55 that can do 5W (quite capable for digital modes) for 80, 60, 40, 30, 20 or 17m bands. https://qrp-labs.com/qcxp.html https://qrp-labs.com/qcxp.html Or pay a bit more and get one that can run on 4 bands for $80 ($60 if you want to make your own case): https://qrp-labs.com/qdx.html https://qrp-labs.com/qdx.html Or if you want a 2M 50 watt FM radio, alinco has one for $170.00, designed to sit on a desk or mount in a car: https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-008739 https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-008739 The above are far from the cheapest, and smallest. There's quite a few solutions under $100 and smaller than a deck of cards, just depends on what you want. Personally I wouldn't consider any of those particular expensive, big, heavy, or bulky.
- tcmart14 5y ago
  Yes and no. But the broad implications are an issue. I've been a licensed ham for over a decade and dropping money on a nice HF radio and antenna is something I have not had the luxury of. Luckily now there are things like QrpLab kits and the Bitx, which do make it way more affordable, but they also require time, patience and willing to learn at least a little electronics. Which comes back around that for quiet a few people, cost is a barrier. I know plenty of people who would love to play with antennas, but have no interest in soldering components and they are not in a position to drop $700 bucks on a yeasu.
zeckalpha 5y ago
(2020)
geocrasher 5y ago
The only thing that's certain is that articles like this are going to bring people out of the woodwork who are going to say why it's relevant and how it'll never die. Or the opposite. Until somebody tries to outlaw amateur radio or legislate it to the point it's no fun, there's nothing to worry about. It's like being concerned about the future of concealed carry permits.
logbiscuitswave 5y ago
I had long been interested electronics, and the study required to get my ham license really expanded my education and knowledge in this area. I’m no EE or anything but I eventually learned enough to be competent with creating simple projects or following a schematic to build something on my own from scratch. I never moved past a lowly technician license (mainly because of a lack of time and interest around learning Morse code) but I still found it immensely rewarding. The big barrier originally for really getting into the hobby was the cost of equipment. Even newer second hand equipment could cost hundreds of dollars. Now a barrier for me is HOA restrictions that prevent me from setting up antennas and not wanting to deal with interference complaints from my neighbors. With how cheap radios are these days maybe it’s time to get a couple handhelds to mess with again.
- nyanpasu64 5y ago
  You could try getting into SDR. RTL-SDR is cheap but receive-only and has pathetic bandwidth (around 2.4 MHz), and more expensive dongles have better bandwidth and/or transmit (with a license). I got bored of 2.4 MHz reception pretty quickly though.
linsomniac 5y ago
I used to have a tech no code license back in the '90s. A group of my friends all had them and we'd use them for coordinating road trips and camping and hiking. It worked ok, but also often just not great for either 2m/440 propagation reasons or just human "I didn't copy you" reasons. Once cell phones became common with texting, we basically stopped using them. Things like talking on repeaters was boooo-ring IMHO, and autopatch was fun but ultimately not that useful when I had a cell phone on me anyway. I love HAM for the idea of emergency comms. But at my 10 year anniversary, I literally didn't feel it was worth renewing, and all I had to do was send in a form and maybe a check... That Meshtastic LoRA stuff seems fascinating though! Anyone doing anything interesting with that?
mymythisisthis 5y ago
How do you join HAM radio if you're older?
- Stratoscope 5y ago
  Here is one place to start: https://hamstudy.org/ https://hamstudy.org/ It is full of ham radio information, how to get licensed, and practice exams.
ZanyProgrammer 5y ago
Some one who has experience with both should wrote an article about the comparisons between Ham (especially wrt emergency preparedness) and the Civil Air Patrol. Specifically with the aging users and declining numbers.
- gedy 5y ago
  CAP at least has an excellent cadet program for ages 12-19. Highly recommend it.
  - tcmart14 5y ago
    CAP is an amazing program. I was in it for awhile. Unfortunately, it is only a major thing in the home school community. My squadron had 30 other kids and myself and one other were the only public school kids. The rest were home school by really religious parents. Nothing directly wrong with that, but it makes it difficult to advertise to a wider group of kids. As I know where I grew up, it was known amongst the home schooling community but not amongst the public school kids. I just happened to stumble across it. Which sucks because it is a really good program that can expose kids to tons of interests with Cyber patriot, the summer academies for things like flying, and all the other programs.
    - gedy 5y ago
      Sounds like might have been your area, out here (west coast) most of the kids were from public school
throwaway4web 5y ago
I would get my license if it was not required to provide my home address which will be published on the Internet with my name and call sign.
- unobtaniumstool 5y ago
  Also that there's a test/license in general. I don't participate in hobbies with government-endorsed gatekeeping. Same as drones - it's more fun to be a rogue operator anyway.
- echoradio 5y ago
  You are permitted to submit a PO Box, work address, etc. It just needs to be an address you can be contacted at.
  - nyanpasu64 5y ago
    PO boxes cost money and I don't have a work address.
    - ComputerGuru 5y ago
      > PO boxes cost money So does a license.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
kawfey 5y ago
I’m N0SSC, unfortunately the pretty face on this article. It is really nice to see my thoughts from my old “Millennials are killing ham radio” [0] being amplified by IEEE spectrum. This thread is a good confirmation (bias?) of the issues facing the hobby (and the service) in the modern era. But still, I - 29 year old millennial - still think it’s an immeasurably fun and worthwhile hobby. I’m a co-founder of Youth on the Air [1], an IARU Region 2 (North/South America) spin-off of Youngsters on the Air [2], which is an initiative to connect young hams together and generally promote youth in the amateur radio and the art and science of radio and wireless. So many believe that ham radio is no longer relevant in the 21st century, because of cell phones and ubiquitous internet, and a lot of us hams have one or two common refrains to rebut that: 1. what happens when all else fails? Ham radio!(preparedness and emergency communications) 2. it was hams who created the technology and trillions of dollars worth of infrastructure that make those things work I take different approach that might be more welcome on this forum - ham radio is a wireless technology and radio science sandbox that is not only a really fun ultra-multifaceted hobby, but it’s also a prime extracurricular opportunity for young people (relative to the average amateur radio operator - a 55 year old white American). I’d wax eloquent on the relevance of ham radio and how we can both bring the hobby back into mainstream but I’m with my family enjoying a long weekend after way too many hours of work, so hit me up [3]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23808659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23808659 [1] https://youthontheair.org https://youthontheair.org [2] https://www.ham-yota.com https://www.ham-yota.com [3] https://linktr.ee/kawfey https://linktr.ee/kawfey
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  > what happens when all else fails? Ham radio!(preparedness and emergency communications) BGAN terminals and satellite phones?
  - sliken 5y ago
    Well generally when all else fails you want to talk more to local people. The ones that can help with the basics like food, shelter, water, meds, etc. Family radios (FRS) are as easy to use as the old school walky talkies. They are also cheap, pairs are sold in the $30-$100 range. Sprinkle a few of those around the neighbors. Sure a 2M HT isn't as user friendly, but a local ham can talk to the neighbors (in person or FRS) and then coordinate the other local people over 2M (often repeaters are on solar+battery). Said ham might even participate in emergency nets and have contacts inside various emergency organizations. Could likely figure out when water trucks are stopping by, food deliveries, expected projections for returning power, even help get prescription meds delivered. Sure if it's bad enough HF might be needed. But even 2M + FRS can be a huge help to an impacted community.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jes 5y ago
I have been a ham for a couple of years now. I currently hold a general class license. I have found it to be full of interesting things to investigate. I’m loving the hobby. At this time I’d have to say that antenna theory is what interests me most. I ran a WSPR node as an experiment a while back. I think I had my output power set to only five watts. And yet I was able to see that my signal was received pretty much all over the world. That really changed my thinking quite a bit, as I recognized what I believe is the intimately connected nature of reality.
thepasswordis 5y ago
I'm a ham radio operator. The problem with amateur radio is that when it came into being, it was a way for amateurs to interact with something highly technical and innovative. Now, due to the laws about what you can actually transmit, it seems like a way of being nostalgic about the past. A 21st century version of ham radio is an unlicensed, amateur, long range "IOT" devices, but that's illegal. Basically a 21st century version of ham radio is LoRa.
- sliken 5y ago
  I'm a ham radio operator as well. There's still areas that are highly technical and innovative. SDR is continuing to progress, antenna design, digital modes, talking to satellites, design/launching of satellites, etc. I find it kind of crazy that a Pi+SDR could track any airplane nearby and contribute to a global map of plane tracking, all for $100 ish. One cool project I saw was using starlink sats and a SDR to figure out your physical location, just like GPS. Seems innovative to me. One thing I've been following is js8call. It allows for keyboard to keyboard communications at 20dB or so BELOW the noise floor (-24dB theoretical), so you can reach a fair chunk of the planet on just a few watts. Even some real world conditions where your transmission gets to destination via more than one path (i.e. east and west). This also allows things like multi-hop communications, store and forward, and other tricks to make the most of poor propagation conditions. Seems almost science fiction. Sure, adoption of some new technologies is crazy slow, like USB instead of serial connections. But things do seem to be improving, it's becoming more common to put a smarts inside a radio instead of externally connected. This allows for cheaper, smaller, but still advanced communications. Like say setting up a radio, battery, and solar panel to help with propagation for an entire continent for just $200 or so, without having to bolt on a raspberry Pi. So sure, you can buy a nice rig+antenna, learn nothing except what the license test requires, and just use it as a fancy voice chat. But if you want to push the boundaries there's quite a few areas to explore.
- gorgoiler 5y ago
  Maintaining a global amateur radio community is exactly the kind of living museum of pre-telephony communications that we would miss an awful lot if it were pushed out in favour of something more modern.
elihu 5y ago
I have a technician's license. My unpopular opinion is that I wish there was something like the HAM bands that requires a license but with less regulation of what you're allowed to do. Sort of a hybrid of part 15 (personal electronics) rules and part 97 (ham) rules: keep the license requirement and (some reasonable fraction of) the permissive transmission power limits of HAM, but with the "use this for whatever you want" permissiveness of wireless ethernet. For instance, suppose you're allowed to use cryptography, and do commercially useful things, and play music as long as the music is live and you aren't violating anyone's copyright, and use profanity as long as its over an encrypted channel and not in the clear, and so on. The main rules I'd want enforced are no ads sent in the clear, stations must be identified, and rules around permitted transmit powers and frequencies and not interfering with other users are respected. Maybe also a ban on pre-recorded content sent in the clear. The usual fear is that the band would be overrun by all kinds of people running their own radio stations or whatever. But if using the band requires a license, then it's not a total free-for-all, and if few people have radios that can even receive in those bands I don't think there's much risk of the band being overrun by radio talk show hosts or something. You can buy a cheap Baofeng radio without a ham license, but the number of people who actually own one in a given town is a very small audience. Why bother when people can access and host content on Youtube for free?
wglb 5y ago
Should have (2020) in the title
gorgoiler 5y ago
Amateur radio is indeed about as practically useful as a miniature steam railway*, but that’s not the point. It is also about as much fun as a miniature steam railway (imho, lots!) and about as variable in popularity, with a lot of overlap with the same kinds of people: grandpas and grandkids. I find it thrilling to be able to communicate between countries using two bits of consumer electronics and an ionosphere, although I’ve only ever done it using someone else’s WebSDR. I’m glad a tiny fraction of spectrum is left open to actually do this. *I like the idea of my local Mechanical Engineering Society having delusions of grandeur about laying new track, post hurricane, to deliver insulin.
- sliken 5y ago
  I think it's easy to miss how fragile society is. Imagine your power grid goes down (storm, hurricane, even just too cold like in Texas). A day or two later the cell towers start dropping off. This can happen in the USA (like in Texas last winter). Ham radios have totally been used to help get meds, it's one of the use cases for winmail, it's much more accurate to have an email like service than it is to have two ham radio folks spelling long drug names pheonetically ... twice, to help ensure a life safe drug is correctly identified.
RickJWagner 5y ago
For me, the greatest advertisement for ham radios were the 'Hardy Boys' books. Sadly, they've been out of fashion for about 40 years. Ham needs something else.
Nextgrid 5y ago
Ham radio is a hobby around what communication was like back in the day. There used to be no Internet, long-distance telephony was in its infancy, and radio (whether "ham" or official) was literally the only way to communicate in real-time at a distance, and those radios were relatively crude, required lots of knowledge and manual operation because digital logic wasn't advanced enough yet. Nowadays that is no longer true. Except in very specialized applications, analog radio is not typically used for communication, and digital isn't using manually-operated radios either, it's stacks of dozens of layers that eventually end up transferring IP packets or similar. Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but since ham radio no longer represents how the majority of people communicate today, maybe we shouldn't be holding onto the past and instead focus on how people communicate now? Maybe IP networks should be the future "ham radio", and we should have clubs around these things instead (and existing ham clubs should embrace them, instead of siloed things like digital modes over radio which are innovative but near-useless in real-world usage)? Even in emergency situations (which is one of the arguments for ham radio), a satellite phone/modem will get you online pretty much anywhere in the world and the only barrier is the equipment, which doesn't seem too different from a ham radio where a good set costs decent money and can't easily be built from scratch and especially not in an emergency situation. Imagine if ham radio involved into what I described above in which case being a ham could actually give you immediate, real-world benefits to you and your community in working around bad/nonexistent ISPs by building your own infrastructure? This would bring a lot more people into the hobby because those skills allow them to solve actual problems they/their community is facing. (comment I originally left on a different story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23808659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23808659 but I feel is just as relevant here)
- nyanpasu64 5y ago
  > being a ham could actually give you immediate, real-world benefits to you and your community in working around bad/nonexistent ISPs by building your own infrastructure? This would bring a lot more people into the hobby because those skills allow them to solve actual problems they/their community is facing. Sadly FCC regulation prohibits hams from relaying messages for non-hams, so you're not allowed to build transmission infrastructure which can be used by the general community outside of licensed operators (though operators can still communicate among themselves during emergency situations to help the community). Perhaps this needs to change; I suppose it keeps ham radio networks focused, but prevents them from gaining mainstream relevance and challenging the Internet and corporate cellular networks. On the subject of challenging ISPs and cellular networks, how is mesh networking doing these days? I don't think there's any meshnets near where I live though.
hyperstar 5y ago
How much time and money would someone who knew absolutely nothing about ham radio and had no equipment have to invest to get a license?
- hugs 5y ago
  No money. 2 weeks. That's what I did. I used a study guide app. (HamRadioExam Tech by Roy Watson) There are many other free options, though. Lots of people like hamstudy.org. I spent 1-2 hours a day for two weeks memorizing all the answers on the test. (All test questions and answers are publicly available from the FCC.) I took a real test offered by a local club when I was reliably acing the practice test.
helloworld11 5y ago
I'm curious, many comments here mention all the legal and regulatory permissions-based aspects of getting into the HAM radio network, but what is it, practically, that stops any young person from just buying the right equipment and starting with transmissions on their own? Does anyone even seriously enforce this? Why is it so regulated in the first place if its just partly amateur hobby radio of a sort? Asking as a someone who knows very little about HAM.
- bdavis__ 5y ago
  all ham transmissions need to be identified on a regular interval with a callsign, assigned by the FCC. it is trivial to look up a callsign, and see if it exists.
coolgeek 5y ago
This article had/has a more descriptive URL which was discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23795913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23795913
giantg2 5y ago
I got a license a couple years ago. There's a decent amount of traffic in my area. Plenty of cool projects to do. The testing experience was pleasant and fairly quick.

181 points by Stratoscope 5y ago

I was interested in ham radio in the early 70's. But in 1975 I discovered computers and that was the end of ham radio for me!

mhh__ 5y ago
Hence software defined radio!

bb88 5y ago

I saw this video the other day when looking up frequencies online. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDbzQLrBdio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDbzQLrBdio Makes me want to talk to these people less and less.

sfblah 5y ago

I think making the tests to get licenses easier was a mistake. One of the things that intrigued me about getting my license back in the day was the Morse code requirement. I enjoyed climbing the ladder, and I was proud when I passed the 20wpm test to get the Extra license. I think young people like things like that: a challenge, followed by some kind of symbol of your achievement.

trangus_1985 5y ago
It took me almost a decade to become licensed because I couldn't find any tests that weren't at 9am on a sunday, an hour drive away. Maybe that seems like a low bar, because it is! But, I got into ham radio to do interesting things, and not communicate. After all, why bother with making sure you have line of sight to a repeater when you can just fire off a text message? I'm much more interested in telemetry, instrumentation, and remote control.
- tcmart14 5y ago
  I dont think dropping the CW requirements were a bad move, as you mentioned it can be difficult to make a trip to a testing session. When I got my general ticket, I was stationed down in San Diego, which does have a pretty big HAM presence. Even then, it was still that hour and a half drive to a testing session.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

gravypod 5y ago

Amateur Radio has a chance to become massively popular through a resurgence of interest in mesh networking but unfortunately laws are not evolving fast enough for this to become possible. Right now it's illegal to transmit encrypted data over the air [0] which basically kills everything like. The areas where people are becoming increasingly active in radio are things like NYC Mesh which can only utilize a very small segment of the bands (and not even the ones hams use!) for running their networks. I'd love for an IP over Mesh network to become popular. Doing IRC and reinventing a lot of the early internet in a distributed manor would be very fun. [0] - Unless it is for the control of a satellite.

generalizations 5y ago
This is what I came here to say. The encryption prohibition destroys the biggest use case I can see, which is long distance mesh networks. Those networks would represent a leap forward for both HAM radio and for the development of a resilient, grassroots, worldwide communication system.
- jcims 5y ago
  There’s limited bandwidth available. I definitely think it’s worth experimenting, but my expectation would be that any bands that allow for encryption would quickly be saturated with traffic.
  - generalizations 5y ago
    I imagine there might be other mechanisms for limiting abuse - e.g., limit the traffic that any given call sign can generate. The call signs can help ensure it's non-commercial. Plus, don't people like doing fox hunts?
    - jcims 5y ago
      We would learn a lot, that's for sure. I wonder if they could time box an experiment for 5 years and see what happens.

armadsen 5y ago

I'm 37 and got my ham radio license when I was 15. Ham radio captured my imagination in a way nothing has before or since, and led pretty directly to my career as a hardware and software engineer. In some ways I feel lucky that I encountered it when the internet was still young. The internet was there with tons of resources to learn about it, but not so ubiquitous as to have killed the magic of getting on my radio and talking to someone across the country or world. I'm primarily a CW (Morse Code) operator, and would so hate to see it die out as an art form, hobby, and useful technology. That said, I'm also well aware that the hobby is evolving and needs to evolve to survive, as it always has. I think accessibility of SDR and increasingly advanced digital modes is a great thing. If you're reading HN, you're probably the kind of person that would find stuff to enjoy in ham radio. It's a huge hobby, and about much much more than "talking to people".

Johnny555 5y ago
I got my license when I was around 37 and was already very familiar with the internet. So the long distance communications part of Amateur Radio was less interesting to me, I was more interested in shorter range VHF/UHF disaster communications. And still am, I still participate in diaster drills and the occasional special event (running, biking, etc) support.
trutannus 5y ago
> If you're reading HN, you're probably the kind of person that would find stuff to enjoy in ham radio Agreed. Plus if you want to just explore the ham world without going the license route, there's an abundance of cheep software-defined radio dongles (rx only) you can hook up and listen in with. There's a lot of weird and cool stuff on the air that'll keep you occupied for hours.
- sliken 5y ago
  Heh, yes, the SDR dongles are quite fun to play with. You could be a beacon receiver (to help map propagation), track airplanes near you (and contribute to the nationwide map), listen to transmissions (voice or images) from satellites, be a RX only APRS i-gate (to improve APRS coverage), etc. Of course the options multiply once you get a license and transmit.

Fordec 5y ago

I have no interest in setting up a bunch of engineering equipment to listen to a bunch of 60-70 year olds broadcast their uncensored perspective on things. If you know what I mean. If they want to protect that as "one of the best parts", they are welcome to keep it among themselves for the rest of their days. The original iteration of Ham is from a bygone era when phone calls and broadcasting was the primary method of information dissemination. I don't have a yearn to go back to those days, personally. Now amateur, self-built, internet routing outside of constraints like DNS or corporate owned infrastructure? As an augment of the modern internet where we can self host satellite endpoints to a community owned constellation and send files (not just mere morse code), that I could be sold on.

abbub 5y ago
"I have no interest in setting up a bunch of engineering equipment to listen to a bunch of 60-70 year olds broadcast their uncensored perspective on things." That was my take on it, too. I have one cheap Chinese radio in a box somewhere, but I got rid of all of my decent radios a few years back. I can just imagine what our local repeater devolved into during the Trump years. :/ The once-a-month meeting at the Village Inn was filled with laments about how there were no young people involved, but the repeater was filled with conversation that no young people would possibly want to be a party to. I've discovered that it's unpopuler to point this out, but a big problem with amateur radio as a hobby is the current hobbyists involved.
- Johnny555 5y ago
  I'm a ham mostly for disaster comms, I only occasionally participate in the monthly nets and almost never engage in random chitchat. But I do join the annual disaster drills as well as try to help out with special events (like long distance runs or bike rides), but those aren't as numerous as they used to be because a lot of the cellular dead zones are covered, so race volunteers just need a cell phone.

mmaunder 5y ago

The trouble with HAM radio is that it isn't that useful anymore. We have amazing cell coverage, wireless broadband just about everywhere and the ability to socialize online. Ham used to be incredibly useful for global communications, rural areas with no phone service, and a way for people to stay socially connected in remote (or not remote) locations. This isn't needed in the vast majority of cases now. That has led to most hams active on the airwaves being an older demographic. And the way they try to recruit others into the hobby is obsolete because the need just isn't there. It's a 100% academic exercise, rather than a way to connect with anyone around the world. There is a newer aspect to ham which is modern digital radio, but most old timers have no knowledge or interest in that. There's a subculture that exists that does amazing work in that space, but it's disconnected from the old-timers that represent the face of ham radio. You'll find this subculture at DEF CON and similar events. Even the things about ham that are still useful, like the marine net on 14.3Mhz which we used in the 90s for transoceanic sailing is about to become obsolete with affordable internet in the mid-pacific or mid-atlantic becoming a reality. And polar bases are about to get polar orbit Starlink satellites for broadband. So the hobby really needs to transform it it's going to survive. But the old guard and new world are so disconnected, destruction and recreation may be a better way to think about it. My wife and I are both ham Extras and we run a cybersecurity company. She's KF1J and I'm WT1J. We're passionate about the hobby, but both see the writing on the wall. Ham right now is a solution looking for a problem. 73.

n8cpdx 5y ago
The one area where it's still relevant is disaster response, but even that is questionable. Here in Portland, the city puts a lot of effort into emergency preparedness and getting people trained on radio, but the vast majority of people involved are 55+. I have my doubts about how effective it will be in an actual emergency. I tend to think the effort would be better spent on hardening the existing cell networks, and being ready to deploy public safety LTE, cells-on-wheels or similar. Mass produced consumer tech should enable economies of scale for cell phones that aren't there for ham radios. Full internet isn't actually needed, even just a few independent cells would perform a lot better than the walkie talkies that the CERT teams use.

01100011 5y ago

I feel like HAM Radio just can't compete for the minds of young people. There are just so many amazing things to play with these days. If I were a teen again, I probably wouldn't even bother with getting my HAM license because I'd be so busy programming and designing with microcontrollers, WiFi, LTE, lasers, genetic engineering, etc, etc... HAM Radio feels almost like a solved problem these days. Sure, there is room for advancement but to do anything interesting starts to require quite a strong background in communications theory.

bink 5y ago
heh, I was with you until you got to "genetic engineering". What opportunities are out there for a teenager to participate in that?
- tejtm 5y ago
  https://www.edvotek.com/303 https://www.edvotek.com/303 first hit for home gfp experiment kit
- 01100011 5y ago
  I get ads all the time for https://www.the-odin.com/ https://www.the-odin.com/ I feel like people aren't really taking note of how much power is in the hands of individuals these days. We may find ourselves caught off guard by the creation of a biohacker in the next decade or so.

DoingIsLearning 5y ago

> And it will be hard to argue that spectrum reserved for amateur use and experimentation should not be sold off to commercial users if hardly any amateurs are taking advantage of it. > many are interested in the capacity for public service, such as providing communications in the wake of a disaster (...) having grown up with technology and having seen the impact of climate change, Michel says. They see how fragile cellphone infrastructure can be. They provided an argument for the preservation of the spectrum in their own text. Amateur Radio gives communities a means of long distance communication when all other infrastructure fails. That redundancy and resilience are precious and worthy of preserving.

generalizations 5y ago
> Amateur Radio gives communities a means of long distance communication when all other infrastructure fails. Starlink and a car battery can do the same thing, though. HAM radio has a future, but it needs to adapt.
- sliken 5y ago
  Starlink isn't available to everyone. Starlink has a maximum density of customers which is pretty low. Starlink is not long range, you need a set of dishes and internet uplink in the same geographic area that you are in. Starlink costs $100 a month, leaving a substantial community withotu service. Amateur radio has no monthly cost, no maximum density, and no maximum range.
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  Starlink needs a commercial contract with a company that may choose to terminate your service or be dictated to do so. Starlink contracts specify a cell region in which you're receiver can work. If you fall out with a benevolent or not so benevolent government or you are running away from disaster region or war zone all of these solutions fall apart pretty quickly. I will repeat my own quote, Amateur Radio gives communities a means of long distance communication when all other infrastructure fails.
  - 5y ago

abruzzi 5y ago

The primary reason I got my license wasn't to talk--something I do very infrequently--but rather I was interested in the technlogy behind shared locations tracking, but without infrastructure requirements. (think all the phone apps that show the location of your friends or family, but without needing a cell provider or cloud server.) The tech is called APRS and usually works at 1200 baud on 2 meter radio, and runs on top of AX.25 packet radio. It grew up more or less at the same time as consumer GPS in the late 90's (though I think it was first specified in the late 80s. The article delicately hits on one of the biggest things potentially holding amateur radio back in the US (can't speak to other locations)--specifically that there is a strong and vocal contingent in the AR community that is negative, dismissive, and sometimes downright rude to newcomers. My age is somewhere in the middle--younger than most hams I've met, and probably older tham most people here. Fortunately, locally, most of the hams I've met have been very friendly and helpful, but online there is a lot of venom. Part of it is political--people frequently conflate two interests, say AR and politics, and assume everyone else has the same two conflated interested. While I don't like to discuss politics with people, I'm not interestedin going to a AR meeting or event, and having to spent the whole time hearing people discuss politics. Part is cultural--AR is like a clique where a lot of people who've been in it for 50 years are resistant to people with different uses joining. It was a very long time before people stopped looking down on "no-code" hams--i.e. people who took their licensing exam after the FCC removed the morse code test. I also remember reding an official article on one of the most popular ham forums (not a trash post, but a published article) trashing "maker fairs" because it made him think of "homemaker", and that demeaned what he did. Again, locally, I've never encountered this kind of attitude, but it is common enough online that I simply don't interact with other hams online. Its not whats interesting to me anyway--I got into it to get offline (I travel in places in my state that are over 100 miles from a cell signal, so infrastructure-free location tracking is great.) But I can see those attitudes poisoning interest from people younger tham me who socialize online and will think that this is the hobby, and walk away because they don't want to be a part of it. I hope I'm wrong, and I hope there are better resources online than what I saw a few years ago when I looked.

Koshkin 5y ago

It will be useful (and popular) again when SHTF...

AlbertCory 5y ago

I got my General at age 14. I sat in the dark every night in my bedroom, which my grandmother had taken over in her (fatal) illness, to do CW practice. Nostalgia? Yeah, I'm afraid so. Most of the "conversations" were just reciting what equipment we were using, and how good our signal was for the other side. That stuff IS pretty outdated. There was a blind man down the block who was really into ham radio, and he had Braille on his equipment. He was very helpful to me. Emergency communications are a valid use case, which the younger generation seems to have recognized. But the thrill of working a station on the other side of the world? Not that much.

wcfields 5y ago

Reposting from a previous Ham Radio comment thread [1] One factor that I bring up whenever the “ham radio is dying” discussion happen is the FCC public database and safety/doxxing, specifically for marginalized communities such as Trans individuals and Black folks. It, itself, is creating a safety concern in modern society for people that may want to join the hobby but fear doxxing and harassment. If I give out my call sign on the Internet (or on the air) you now know my real name, address, and every past address I’ve ever used. So let’s say I registers as Bob Smith at 123 Fake St 4 years ago, and now I go by Susan Smith at 456 Example Blvd you’d know all that information with a simple lookup. The only real semi-workaround is when someone first licenses (and you probably don’t know this at first) is to use a PO Box, otherwise any address change will be on record. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24308712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24308712

urdum 5y ago
>Trans individuals and Black folks Comments like these are why I come here to hate scroll
ALittleLight 5y ago
Why not just not give out your call sign on the internet?
- hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
  They answer that in their third paragraph. Due to the public nature of the info in the FCC's ham license registration database, I assume, and not wanting everyone on the internet to know their real name and current home address in case someone wants to harass them.
  - wcfields 5y ago
    I don't except for Ham Radio related things (Ham forums, Twitter that's only for Ham, etc..), so I'm fairly silo'd on my social media presence with regards to that. I'd be more free with putting it in my Github, HN Profile, Reddit, and other places if it didn't fully dox me.

jimhefferon 5y ago

Been a ham for many years. I like Morse, but don't think other modes are bad, just like Morse. I'm VP of a club that has had a lot of success, particularly at Field Day (we often win the most popular category). I find that young people are not interested in contesting. In particular, we put people on the air and they hear some of the poison, and they are out of there. One reason a lot of people are older is that it helps to be retired. Who else has time to get on the air at noon if that is what it takes?

rsync 5y ago

The use-case I am interested in - and what would have me licensing and tooling up next week - is an actual qwerty device for using that HAM text mode/feature (APRS, right) ? There's all kinds of info and notes and discussion about APRS but there isn't a single device for it. No I am not interested in serial connecting my yaesu to a laptop. I mean a standalone handheld that I can type in a message without T9-style pecking. Why doesn't this exist ?

jdofaz 5y ago
I wanted the same thing. When I discovered I could send text messages via APRS to a callsign on my kenwood tm-d710 I felt excitement that was then followed by disappointment in that I had to type my message using a knob selector. I had initially thought you could use the number pad on the microphone to input the message T9 style. I think someone made a keyboard for the older model but it didn't work with mine
- detaro 5y ago
  I think other kenwood models are at least a bit better than that, but nothing really comfortable afaik. There's also bluetooth-enabled TNCs you can use with phone apps, but then you again have phone + TNC + radio. All-in-one's seem to be mostly just trackers that send position, without extra features, at least the ones I've seen. EDIT: the PicoAPRS can at least be used as a TNC+transmitter over usb, so that could be combined with a smartphone for a two-device pair.
justin66 5y ago
How could it possibly be more convenient than hooking a radio up to a laptop you like? Is it just a matter of all the software options being bad?
- detaro 5y ago
  How is using a laptop in any way convenient while walking around?

antisthenes 5y ago

Here's a good way to get kids more interested: Give kids HAM radio equipment for free. From what I understand, the setup can be quite expensive for the younger generations, who are struggling financially, compared to your "average HAM operator", who's a 60+ year old white baby-boomer. When we were the age where interests and hobbies are developed, I didn't know anyone who had anywhere near that amount available to spend at their discretion. At most, some of us could save up money and buy a $50 video game. To get a radio station, we'd have to save up for a year.

kortex 5y ago
This is great advice. You got to get em young, even under 13 if possible. That's when the magic can have a real impact. I feel like the discretional income of an older HAM vs a teen is quite different.
tobinfricke 5y ago
That used to be true, but now you can get a Baofeng UV-5R 2m/440MHz handheld radio for $30.

vidanay 5y ago

>“Ham radio is really a social hobby...Here in Mississippi, you get to 5 or 6 o' clock and you have a big network going on and on—some of them are half-drunk chattin' with you." Is this supposed to be an endorsement?

rmason 5y ago

I've been a ham for over fifty years. The problem with a lack of young hams starts at the local level. When I took my novice test at 14 the guy who was giving it became my lifelong friend or in ham speak my Elmer. I started a high school club (still going strong) and all its members were friends with this guy. He strongly encouraged me to join the local club and I did. Not only did I meet other teenage hams but I made friends with older hams who taught me stuff and were happy to be supportive. Contrast that with today, the club is still around but its moribund. I reached out when they were having problems keeping their repeater on the local university tower. I was told my help wasn't wanted. I reached out again when the local marker space wanted to do a joint event. I'm a life member of the group but I was rebuffed. I can only imagine the 14 year old me taking one look at this cliquish group of older guys and being discouraged about the hobby. I've run a programming group for twenty years. Sometimes the members get on me for having introductory type meetings. But I'm always reaching out to the greater community and trying to get new members. That's how you grow, if you don't do it you die. There's plenty in the ham radio hobby to attract young people, but if the local community turns them off they quickly chose to do something else.

tlrobinson 5y ago
This is my experience too. I'm a relatively young ham, and have found older hams have no interest in engaging with anyone other than their buddies. It's bizarre and sad.
vegetablepotpie 5y ago
At 20 I was interested in HAM radio. I went to a meeting at my university. Meetings were entirely five retired engineers talking the whole time, that was boring. There was one other student, who was the president. When I asked questions about radio and RF, they recommended I go to the library to look for books. I felt that I really didn’t need to spend an hour of my time to have them tell me that. I went to one other meeting, but I had school and work taking up my time and realized attending was not worth my time. I hope the community has improved since then, because it was not inviting to young people when I wanted to get involved.
- 5y ago

sparker72678 5y ago

If you're interested in playing with radio, HAM equipment/bands aren't even the easiest/cheapest/most fun. You can buy breakout boards for all sorts of protocols and such (most in 2.4Ghz) on Adafruit et. al. for a few bucks, and hook them up and play with them with a RPi, Arduino, etc. to you heart's content. Without a license. Basic HAM gear is, for the most part, expensive (with the exception of cheap VHF hand helds), limited, big, heavy, bulky, and/or typically nowhere near cutting edge.

sliken 5y ago
Dunno, depends on your interest. Sure you can pay $1000s on a nice rig, but you can also build a small radio that fits in a altoids tin for a few $10s. 40M CW radio (bare board): $12.69: https://www.amazon.com/Qianson-Shortwave-Transmitter-7-023-7-026MHz-Transceiver/dp/B01KA4KRKI https://www.amazon.com/Qianson-Shortwave-Transmitter-7-023-7... Here's a kit that does 80m, 60m, 40m, 30m, or 20m for $40: https://kc9on.com/product/foxx-3-cw-transceiver/ https://kc9on.com/product/foxx-3-cw-transceiver/ Here's an easy kit for $55 that can do 5W (quite capable for digital modes) for 80, 60, 40, 30, 20 or 17m bands. https://qrp-labs.com/qcxp.html https://qrp-labs.com/qcxp.html Or pay a bit more and get one that can run on 4 bands for $80 ($60 if you want to make your own case): https://qrp-labs.com/qdx.html https://qrp-labs.com/qdx.html Or if you want a 2M 50 watt FM radio, alinco has one for $170.00, designed to sit on a desk or mount in a car: https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-008739 https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-008739 The above are far from the cheapest, and smallest. There's quite a few solutions under $100 and smaller than a deck of cards, just depends on what you want. Personally I wouldn't consider any of those particular expensive, big, heavy, or bulky.
tcmart14 5y ago
Yes and no. But the broad implications are an issue. I've been a licensed ham for over a decade and dropping money on a nice HF radio and antenna is something I have not had the luxury of. Luckily now there are things like QrpLab kits and the Bitx, which do make it way more affordable, but they also require time, patience and willing to learn at least a little electronics. Which comes back around that for quiet a few people, cost is a barrier. I know plenty of people who would love to play with antennas, but have no interest in soldering components and they are not in a position to drop $700 bucks on a yeasu.

zeckalpha 5y ago

(2020)

geocrasher 5y ago

The only thing that's certain is that articles like this are going to bring people out of the woodwork who are going to say why it's relevant and how it'll never die. Or the opposite. Until somebody tries to outlaw amateur radio or legislate it to the point it's no fun, there's nothing to worry about. It's like being concerned about the future of concealed carry permits.

logbiscuitswave 5y ago

I had long been interested electronics, and the study required to get my ham license really expanded my education and knowledge in this area. I’m no EE or anything but I eventually learned enough to be competent with creating simple projects or following a schematic to build something on my own from scratch. I never moved past a lowly technician license (mainly because of a lack of time and interest around learning Morse code) but I still found it immensely rewarding. The big barrier originally for really getting into the hobby was the cost of equipment. Even newer second hand equipment could cost hundreds of dollars. Now a barrier for me is HOA restrictions that prevent me from setting up antennas and not wanting to deal with interference complaints from my neighbors. With how cheap radios are these days maybe it’s time to get a couple handhelds to mess with again.

nyanpasu64 5y ago
You could try getting into SDR. RTL-SDR is cheap but receive-only and has pathetic bandwidth (around 2.4 MHz), and more expensive dongles have better bandwidth and/or transmit (with a license). I got bored of 2.4 MHz reception pretty quickly though.

linsomniac 5y ago

I used to have a tech no code license back in the '90s. A group of my friends all had them and we'd use them for coordinating road trips and camping and hiking. It worked ok, but also often just not great for either 2m/440 propagation reasons or just human "I didn't copy you" reasons. Once cell phones became common with texting, we basically stopped using them. Things like talking on repeaters was boooo-ring IMHO, and autopatch was fun but ultimately not that useful when I had a cell phone on me anyway. I love HAM for the idea of emergency comms. But at my 10 year anniversary, I literally didn't feel it was worth renewing, and all I had to do was send in a form and maybe a check... That Meshtastic LoRA stuff seems fascinating though! Anyone doing anything interesting with that?

mymythisisthis 5y ago

How do you join HAM radio if you're older?

Stratoscope 5y ago
Here is one place to start: https://hamstudy.org/ https://hamstudy.org/ It is full of ham radio information, how to get licensed, and practice exams.

ZanyProgrammer 5y ago

Some one who has experience with both should wrote an article about the comparisons between Ham (especially wrt emergency preparedness) and the Civil Air Patrol. Specifically with the aging users and declining numbers.

gedy 5y ago
CAP at least has an excellent cadet program for ages 12-19. Highly recommend it.
- tcmart14 5y ago
  CAP is an amazing program. I was in it for awhile. Unfortunately, it is only a major thing in the home school community. My squadron had 30 other kids and myself and one other were the only public school kids. The rest were home school by really religious parents. Nothing directly wrong with that, but it makes it difficult to advertise to a wider group of kids. As I know where I grew up, it was known amongst the home schooling community but not amongst the public school kids. I just happened to stumble across it. Which sucks because it is a really good program that can expose kids to tons of interests with Cyber patriot, the summer academies for things like flying, and all the other programs.
  - gedy 5y ago
    Sounds like might have been your area, out here (west coast) most of the kids were from public school

throwaway4web 5y ago

I would get my license if it was not required to provide my home address which will be published on the Internet with my name and call sign.

unobtaniumstool 5y ago
Also that there's a test/license in general. I don't participate in hobbies with government-endorsed gatekeeping. Same as drones - it's more fun to be a rogue operator anyway.
echoradio 5y ago
You are permitted to submit a PO Box, work address, etc. It just needs to be an address you can be contacted at.
- nyanpasu64 5y ago
  PO boxes cost money and I don't have a work address.
  - ComputerGuru 5y ago
    > PO boxes cost money So does a license.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

kawfey 5y ago

I’m N0SSC, unfortunately the pretty face on this article. It is really nice to see my thoughts from my old “Millennials are killing ham radio” [0] being amplified by IEEE spectrum. This thread is a good confirmation (bias?) of the issues facing the hobby (and the service) in the modern era. But still, I - 29 year old millennial - still think it’s an immeasurably fun and worthwhile hobby. I’m a co-founder of Youth on the Air [1], an IARU Region 2 (North/South America) spin-off of Youngsters on the Air [2], which is an initiative to connect young hams together and generally promote youth in the amateur radio and the art and science of radio and wireless. So many believe that ham radio is no longer relevant in the 21st century, because of cell phones and ubiquitous internet, and a lot of us hams have one or two common refrains to rebut that: 1. what happens when all else fails? Ham radio!(preparedness and emergency communications) 2. it was hams who created the technology and trillions of dollars worth of infrastructure that make those things work I take different approach that might be more welcome on this forum - ham radio is a wireless technology and radio science sandbox that is not only a really fun ultra-multifaceted hobby, but it’s also a prime extracurricular opportunity for young people (relative to the average amateur radio operator - a 55 year old white American). I’d wax eloquent on the relevance of ham radio and how we can both bring the hobby back into mainstream but I’m with my family enjoying a long weekend after way too many hours of work, so hit me up [3]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23808659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23808659 [1] https://youthontheair.org https://youthontheair.org [2] https://www.ham-yota.com https://www.ham-yota.com [3] https://linktr.ee/kawfey https://linktr.ee/kawfey

Nextgrid 5y ago
> what happens when all else fails? Ham radio!(preparedness and emergency communications) BGAN terminals and satellite phones?
- sliken 5y ago
  Well generally when all else fails you want to talk more to local people. The ones that can help with the basics like food, shelter, water, meds, etc. Family radios (FRS) are as easy to use as the old school walky talkies. They are also cheap, pairs are sold in the $30-$100 range. Sprinkle a few of those around the neighbors. Sure a 2M HT isn't as user friendly, but a local ham can talk to the neighbors (in person or FRS) and then coordinate the other local people over 2M (often repeaters are on solar+battery). Said ham might even participate in emergency nets and have contacts inside various emergency organizations. Could likely figure out when water trucks are stopping by, food deliveries, expected projections for returning power, even help get prescription meds delivered. Sure if it's bad enough HF might be needed. But even 2M + FRS can be a huge help to an impacted community.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jes 5y ago

I have been a ham for a couple of years now. I currently hold a general class license. I have found it to be full of interesting things to investigate. I’m loving the hobby. At this time I’d have to say that antenna theory is what interests me most. I ran a WSPR node as an experiment a while back. I think I had my output power set to only five watts. And yet I was able to see that my signal was received pretty much all over the world. That really changed my thinking quite a bit, as I recognized what I believe is the intimately connected nature of reality.

thepasswordis 5y ago

I'm a ham radio operator. The problem with amateur radio is that when it came into being, it was a way for amateurs to interact with something highly technical and innovative. Now, due to the laws about what you can actually transmit, it seems like a way of being nostalgic about the past. A 21st century version of ham radio is an unlicensed, amateur, long range "IOT" devices, but that's illegal. Basically a 21st century version of ham radio is LoRa.

sliken 5y ago
I'm a ham radio operator as well. There's still areas that are highly technical and innovative. SDR is continuing to progress, antenna design, digital modes, talking to satellites, design/launching of satellites, etc. I find it kind of crazy that a Pi+SDR could track any airplane nearby and contribute to a global map of plane tracking, all for $100 ish. One cool project I saw was using starlink sats and a SDR to figure out your physical location, just like GPS. Seems innovative to me. One thing I've been following is js8call. It allows for keyboard to keyboard communications at 20dB or so BELOW the noise floor (-24dB theoretical), so you can reach a fair chunk of the planet on just a few watts. Even some real world conditions where your transmission gets to destination via more than one path (i.e. east and west). This also allows things like multi-hop communications, store and forward, and other tricks to make the most of poor propagation conditions. Seems almost science fiction. Sure, adoption of some new technologies is crazy slow, like USB instead of serial connections. But things do seem to be improving, it's becoming more common to put a smarts inside a radio instead of externally connected. This allows for cheaper, smaller, but still advanced communications. Like say setting up a radio, battery, and solar panel to help with propagation for an entire continent for just $200 or so, without having to bolt on a raspberry Pi. So sure, you can buy a nice rig+antenna, learn nothing except what the license test requires, and just use it as a fancy voice chat. But if you want to push the boundaries there's quite a few areas to explore.
gorgoiler 5y ago
Maintaining a global amateur radio community is exactly the kind of living museum of pre-telephony communications that we would miss an awful lot if it were pushed out in favour of something more modern.

elihu 5y ago

I have a technician's license. My unpopular opinion is that I wish there was something like the HAM bands that requires a license but with less regulation of what you're allowed to do. Sort of a hybrid of part 15 (personal electronics) rules and part 97 (ham) rules: keep the license requirement and (some reasonable fraction of) the permissive transmission power limits of HAM, but with the "use this for whatever you want" permissiveness of wireless ethernet. For instance, suppose you're allowed to use cryptography, and do commercially useful things, and play music as long as the music is live and you aren't violating anyone's copyright, and use profanity as long as its over an encrypted channel and not in the clear, and so on. The main rules I'd want enforced are no ads sent in the clear, stations must be identified, and rules around permitted transmit powers and frequencies and not interfering with other users are respected. Maybe also a ban on pre-recorded content sent in the clear. The usual fear is that the band would be overrun by all kinds of people running their own radio stations or whatever. But if using the band requires a license, then it's not a total free-for-all, and if few people have radios that can even receive in those bands I don't think there's much risk of the band being overrun by radio talk show hosts or something. You can buy a cheap Baofeng radio without a ham license, but the number of people who actually own one in a given town is a very small audience. Why bother when people can access and host content on Youtube for free?

wglb 5y ago

Should have (2020) in the title

gorgoiler 5y ago

Amateur radio is indeed about as practically useful as a miniature steam railway*, but that’s not the point. It is also about as much fun as a miniature steam railway (imho, lots!) and about as variable in popularity, with a lot of overlap with the same kinds of people: grandpas and grandkids. I find it thrilling to be able to communicate between countries using two bits of consumer electronics and an ionosphere, although I’ve only ever done it using someone else’s WebSDR. I’m glad a tiny fraction of spectrum is left open to actually do this. *I like the idea of my local Mechanical Engineering Society having delusions of grandeur about laying new track, post hurricane, to deliver insulin.

sliken 5y ago
I think it's easy to miss how fragile society is. Imagine your power grid goes down (storm, hurricane, even just too cold like in Texas). A day or two later the cell towers start dropping off. This can happen in the USA (like in Texas last winter). Ham radios have totally been used to help get meds, it's one of the use cases for winmail, it's much more accurate to have an email like service than it is to have two ham radio folks spelling long drug names pheonetically ... twice, to help ensure a life safe drug is correctly identified.

RickJWagner 5y ago

For me, the greatest advertisement for ham radios were the 'Hardy Boys' books. Sadly, they've been out of fashion for about 40 years. Ham needs something else.

Nextgrid 5y ago

Ham radio is a hobby around what communication was like back in the day. There used to be no Internet, long-distance telephony was in its infancy, and radio (whether "ham" or official) was literally the only way to communicate in real-time at a distance, and those radios were relatively crude, required lots of knowledge and manual operation because digital logic wasn't advanced enough yet. Nowadays that is no longer true. Except in very specialized applications, analog radio is not typically used for communication, and digital isn't using manually-operated radios either, it's stacks of dozens of layers that eventually end up transferring IP packets or similar. Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but since ham radio no longer represents how the majority of people communicate today, maybe we shouldn't be holding onto the past and instead focus on how people communicate now? Maybe IP networks should be the future "ham radio", and we should have clubs around these things instead (and existing ham clubs should embrace them, instead of siloed things like digital modes over radio which are innovative but near-useless in real-world usage)? Even in emergency situations (which is one of the arguments for ham radio), a satellite phone/modem will get you online pretty much anywhere in the world and the only barrier is the equipment, which doesn't seem too different from a ham radio where a good set costs decent money and can't easily be built from scratch and especially not in an emergency situation. Imagine if ham radio involved into what I described above in which case being a ham could actually give you immediate, real-world benefits to you and your community in working around bad/nonexistent ISPs by building your own infrastructure? This would bring a lot more people into the hobby because those skills allow them to solve actual problems they/their community is facing. (comment I originally left on a different story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23808659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23808659 but I feel is just as relevant here)

nyanpasu64 5y ago
> being a ham could actually give you immediate, real-world benefits to you and your community in working around bad/nonexistent ISPs by building your own infrastructure? This would bring a lot more people into the hobby because those skills allow them to solve actual problems they/their community is facing. Sadly FCC regulation prohibits hams from relaying messages for non-hams, so you're not allowed to build transmission infrastructure which can be used by the general community outside of licensed operators (though operators can still communicate among themselves during emergency situations to help the community). Perhaps this needs to change; I suppose it keeps ham radio networks focused, but prevents them from gaining mainstream relevance and challenging the Internet and corporate cellular networks. On the subject of challenging ISPs and cellular networks, how is mesh networking doing these days? I don't think there's any meshnets near where I live though.

hyperstar 5y ago

How much time and money would someone who knew absolutely nothing about ham radio and had no equipment have to invest to get a license?

hugs 5y ago
No money. 2 weeks. That's what I did. I used a study guide app. (HamRadioExam Tech by Roy Watson) There are many other free options, though. Lots of people like hamstudy.org. I spent 1-2 hours a day for two weeks memorizing all the answers on the test. (All test questions and answers are publicly available from the FCC.) I took a real test offered by a local club when I was reliably acing the practice test.

helloworld11 5y ago

I'm curious, many comments here mention all the legal and regulatory permissions-based aspects of getting into the HAM radio network, but what is it, practically, that stops any young person from just buying the right equipment and starting with transmissions on their own? Does anyone even seriously enforce this? Why is it so regulated in the first place if its just partly amateur hobby radio of a sort? Asking as a someone who knows very little about HAM.

bdavis__ 5y ago
all ham transmissions need to be identified on a regular interval with a callsign, assigned by the FCC. it is trivial to look up a callsign, and see if it exists.

coolgeek 5y ago

This article had/has a more descriptive URL which was discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23795913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23795913

giantg2 5y ago

I got a license a couple years ago. There's a decent amount of traffic in my area. Plenty of cool projects to do. The testing experience was pleasant and fairly quick.