8 ms·

At least where I live, the vast majority of hams you encounter both in person and on the airwaves are grumpy aging boomers who are actively hostile to new peopl

• Brusco_RF 3y ago
  Can't wait for you to get older and start shaking your fist at the youngins who hate you for no discernable reason.
• dylan604 3y ago
  One day, your area will suffer a major disaster like earthquake, hurricane, etc that will knock out all of the cell towers and possibly even home internet access as well. We'll see how much you miss the HAMs then
  • nvy 3y ago
    Yep, that's the fetish these guys have. Old grouchy misanthrope in a Tilley hat becomes local hero during an earthquake.
    • dylan604 3y ago
      and you sound exactly like the type of person that will be the first one crying to everyone that their wifi isn't working and they're missing some ridiculous TikTok time waste instead of helping out with the situation.
      • mlyle 3y ago
        As a long time radio amateur, extra class, licensed since 1995: I don't really like the attitude. There's legitimate concerns about the longevity of the hobby. The average ARRL member is 68 years old. There's also a bigger and bigger disconnect between older operators and (the few) younger operators. Most of the hobby is not prepared to help with emcomm. And I think you (and a lot of people) overstate how helpful amateur emcomm is. In the past couple decades, local officials have gotten pretty good systems for getting high priority traffic out of the local area (which is what HF was previously for). Amateur volunteers relaying things in the local area are helpful in keeping disaster logistics running smoothly. Radio skills are not a big part of it, for the most part. I'm a teacher and passionate about radio. I don't know how to get my students into radio and make it into a good experience for them. They're way too likely to face hostility, racist political rants, etc. So I haven't pushed on it.
        • MandieD 3y ago
          I'd encourage them to focus on the digital modes as a way to test the things they build and learn about propagation. The communities around digital modes also seem to be nicer and more diverse. There are still lots of old guys in these parts of the hobby, but ones open-minded enough at least to learn new things, and I've not had any issues with them despite having a distinctly female first name. WSPR is the best place to start, in my opinion - lots of results for really low capital investment (5W is high power), really lending itself to DIY.
          • mlyle 3y ago
            The one place I've gotten some slight traction is that we have a group of students building a satellite for eventual launch and operations. So they have deployed a satellite ground station, and have been taking line-scan photos of our region via NOAA satellites. Licensing is ultimately going to be important to transmit, etc. WSPR is amazing, but there's a certain "so what"-- I can send a packet over there, too, via the public internet. Radio doesn't make sense to kids anymore: like they really don't get it.
        • dghlsakjg 3y ago
          I'm a former HAM. And the "grumpy old-man" majority is what really turned me off of it when I was younger. I occasionally still use SDR to listen in to HF/whatever, and it seems like the "old-man" factor has only gotten worse. Last time I listened to the HF SSTV (it would have been in 2021 or 2022) channels I gave up after getting an anti-Hillary meme. As for emergency preparedness... No. Hams don't really play a role anymore. Satellite texting/Starlink, digital repeaters for agencies, generally available idiot-proof radios are all things that would have to fail. There's a reason that the volunteer SAR team near me just buy off the shelf stuff from Motorola instead of trying to recruit Hams. Even in some sort of failure like that, I would rather have an air band or marine band radio than a Ham radio.
          • mlyle 3y ago
            I think you overstate what I had originally argued. Our local CERT makes big use of amateur emcomm. But it's the non-critical stuff: neighborhood liasions to go out and spot things, or volunteers in a truck to relay supply needs at peripheral stations. It's a parallel line of communications (with a separate set of humans making a judgment of what's important to escalate), which is useful when administrative and decision-making capacity is constrained. And it has different failure modes, which is nice, too. Even little things: visible volunteer patrols by amateur operators for fireworks laws violations just helped my city tamp down the normal dozens of fires to only two and hastened the firefighting response.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • nvy 3y ago
        How charming. Email is in my profile if you'd like to discuss this further.
  • ianburrell 3y ago
    I'm a ham and train to use radios after earthquake. But ham radio is becoming less important for disasters. Any effort for ham radio would probably be better spent on making cell network more reliable. I would pull out satellite messenger to text people that I'm okay. I have thought about getting Starlink for internet but it is too expensive for just disasters. I'm hoping they come out with smaller, cheaper dish. But Starlink would be perfect for command posts. Or for city to setup communication centers for the public.
• Dah00n 3y ago
  Anyone using words like boomers aren't worth listening to. You could have said the same thing without using slurs. This isn't Reddit.
  • lolbert3 3y ago
    [dead]
• jimnotgym 3y ago
  What does that matter? You don't need to talk to the hams where you live. Talk to the ones over the horizon!