Amateur Radio and the New Ham - Part 1

[DISCLAIMER: I include myself in the New Ham category because, as I write this, I've only been licensed for a few months. Of course, these are my views that are the product of my life experience in the worlds of music, computers, and teaching. Take them with as many grains of salt as you need.]

After reading some "state of the hobby" articles on the Internet, it became clear to me that amateur radio is in a state of disruption.

In the long run and in general terms, this is a good thing, but for the short term, it can be very troubling, disconcerting, and even downright frightening for a New Ham. In this case, disruption is being caused by new (or different) knowledge and expectations that are in conflict with previous norms.

Let me explain where I'm coming from: Some of the articles I've read speak to perceptions about the demographics of the hobby, i.e. the lack of young people entering, the lack of women entering, and the overall graying of the majority.

Others point out the division between those who consider the hobby oriented toward Over The Air transmissions versus those who are interested in the interface between radios, digital modes, and the Internet = the modern view of the "Air").

These views are definitely worthy of examination because they lead one (especially a New Ham) to conclude that the current number of young people in particular who are entering the ranks of amateur radio operators is probably too few to sustain the hobby in the future as anything more than a "quaint pastime" based on the current understanding of the hobby.

Unless...

Do I have an answer? Well, nobody has a crystal ball, so, no, not exactly.  But this trend has appeared in other pursuits and disciplines, and quite a few books and articles have been written on the subject of disruptive processes from their perspective. Interestingly, one of the examples often cited is the story of Sony and the transistor radio in the 1950's. (see Clayton Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma)

The gist of the research points out two camps: one established camp that has gotten to where it is by following a set of carefully learned principles and procedures that made it steadily successful to the point of dominating a market, and another camp made up of newcomers who see the established camp as a limiting gatekeeper and who seek to circumvent the established gateway principles and procedures by creating new points of entry for themselves.

In the case of Sony, the cheap transistor radio was quickly dismissed by the old guard for all of its limitations (particularly its sound quality), yet, for its low cost of admission, people were willing to put up with a lesser sound experience, because they were also getting a more convenient, portable size, and cutting-edge technology. The old guard made console radios that were big, beautiful pieces of furniture that also sounded big and beautiful when listened to in the sedate parlor with the family gathered round, while the new cheap devices were out where the action was - convenient and remarkable (even with poor sound quality), and easy to afford by the young and restless market that snapped them up.

Does any of this sound familiar within the ranks of amateur radio?

When I first started listening in on amateur radio transmissions (via Broadcastify on my Android phone in late 2017), before I passed my first exams though fully engaged in the study process, I heard right off the bat:

1. a series of derogatory exchanges about Baofeng radios in particular and Chinese radios in general;
2. a derogatory exchange about DXing; 
3. multiple corrections to operators who sounded "wrong" to the corrector because of what they were doing (I later discovered that many of these corrections were actually valid, but not all of them);
4. multiple derogatory comments about types of antennas, HT usage in cars, and sniping about other operators who were not part of the groups I happened to be listening to;
5. a handful of operators who patiently helped newcomers navigate the many new facets of the hobby.

If it weren't for the last item on that list, my listening experience may have told me to seek other avenues of learning, but hearing a couple of the "old guard" patiently and politely answering questions and encouraging the New Ham was truly special, and warmed my heart. Nevertheless, looking at that initial list, one sees a disturbing commonality: negativity toward alternate points of entry into the hobby.

Now, I'm sure that hams do not spend 80% of their QSO's trashing the inexpensive entries competing with the old guard, and that corrections to operating procedures are usually offered in good faith, but I'm also sure that there is a strong undercurrent in the hobby built of biases that favor certain approaches that can develop into distinct prejudices against other approaches.  And because too many hams don't filter their comments to minimize these prejudices, the airways can often seem inordinately negative.

Fortunately, it isn't all bad. Since those negative early eavesdrops, for example, I've heard many more hams actually rooting for the success of inexpensive alternatives. I know I am.

But is that the answer?

• Do we simply root for the inexpensive stuff? 
  
  I would think not. As a professional musician, I know what it's like and want to play on the best instruments and use the best equipment available, but as my teacher used to say, "a true pianist can make even a cheap piano sound good" and that philosophy should apply to the use of inexpensive equipment. But we must still aim for and support the best that the hobby can offer at every level.
  
  
• Do we drop the old stuff and focus on the new? 
  
  The old stuff is still perfectly valid, so: no. The old stuff stands as a monument to inventiveness, and often as a monument to craftsmanship and well-solved problems. Once upon a time, amateurs were thought to be relegated to "non-viable" bands, but somehow those old timers figured out how to turn the unusable into usable.  Furthermore, too many times in the history of technology development we've forgotten solutions to old problems that don't seem to be problems anymore - until they are. For example, old timers thought nothing of painstakingly tuning up their rigs, and even though it took time, effort was usually rewarded. In a lot of new modes and techniques, there is often the need to tweak and experiment, so that old patience and painstaking effort is still a worthy outlook. 
  
  
• Do we re-examine the history of the hobby and re-prioritize what it teaches us?
  
  Of course, but how? For example, we have a service history, but do we still have a service outlook? I got into ham radio with an intent toward emergency preparedness for my school and my family, but I've found that entry into the knowledge base and connecting to practitioners of emergency preparedness have some barriers I didn't expect; many of which stem from what appears to be a high level of assumptions on the part of those who are already in charge of the system. Is this a microcosm of the hobby's broader situation?
  
  What we do now was once considered magic, or was something you had to choose to believe in! But as Arthur C. Clarke famously stated,  "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." So, do we retain that sense of magic in our communication and camaraderie? Can we remind ourselves that any kind of communicating over long distances is magical so that we don't become jaded over what has become commonplace through a long progression of innovations and advancements?
  
  And what about the members and newcomers that see a hobby dominated numerically by men of a certain age? Those numbers exist because of social history as much as anything. Once upon a time growing up, boys had their expected activities and girls had theirs. Ham radio didn't fit into the context of home economics (girls), but tinkering and inventing was certainly part of manual arts training (boys). (That's what they used to call them in school.) That gap is what gave the male population the head start in the hobby that plays out as numerical advantage today.
  
  But that simple numerical advantage is just numbers. It's not a measure of competence. It does, however, often lead some of the old guard toward a viewpoint of "scarcity" with regards to less-represented demographics, which then often leads to unnecessary interest when coming into contact with someone who is deemed a "scarce commodity" and this can put off those who would want to join in otherwise.
     
• Do we determine as best we can the actual demographics and interests of those engaged with the hobby as well as those wanting to engage with it?
  
  This is a big YES, but some will challenge the validity of the data, some will not know what to do with it, and some will wonder if we ever can really know these things. We cannot deny, however, that more information is always better than not enough.
  
  The real value of the data is knowing the entry points that people consider valid, determining which need assistance by the collective intelligence of the worldwide participants, while giving more "handholds" for those trying to grab onto the bandwagons.

Part 2 (coming up...)