RadioBanter - View Single Post - License Fees --- a poll

August 13th 04, 06:19 PM

(Michael Black) wrote in message ...

I suspect the majority of US hams were not licensed when incentive
licensing was introduced. After all, it's been 35 years, and the
various layers of simplification have brought in many new hams.

There were approximately 260,000 US hams in 1968, when "incentive
licensing" was re-introduced after a lapse of slightly less than 16
years.

Today there are at least 675,000 US hams, so even of every one of
those
who held a license in 1968 were still with us, they'd constitute less
than 40% of US hams.

If we assume a 2% annual dropout rate of those who were licensed in
1968, only dropped out only about 123,000 are left from those days.
Less than 20% of today's US hams.

I suspect the whole thing about incentive licensing is overblown.

Me too! And I was one who lost privileges.

How did incentive licensing damage the inflow of young people to the
hobby?

Two ways:

1) The requirements for a full-privileges license were raised. In the
1953-1968 time period, all a new ham had to do was reach the
General/Conditional level, and s/he had full privileges. "IL" meant
that there were two more steps on the ladder to climb for the same
goal. And unlike the Conditional, those higher steps were usually only
available in front of an FCC examiner.

It was the already licensed hams who grumbled, and who lost
anything.

2) The grumbling and complaining of those hams had an effect too. One
common cry heard in those days was "our equipment will be made
worthless" - which is the last thing a cash-strapped young person
wants to hear! Another was complaints about how difficult the tests
were or would be. Was it not reasonable that young newcomers would
think the task to be nigh-impossible if older, more experienced hams
were afraid of it?

I recall all this clearly because I *was* one of those young new hams
in 1968. And when I got to the FCC office and actually took the exams,
I wondered just what all the fuss was about. It was a real eye-opener
for me.

Consider that all the changes made over the 35 years to make it
easier for people to come into the hobby (and we've seen similar
changes here in Canada in recent years) may have the reverse effect
when it comes to young people.

The biggest ham-radio-related problems I had as a young ham we

- Lack of money for ham radio
- Lack of information
- Lack of space for an antenna

I suspect that these are the same problems today - not license
requirements.

Maybe the tests, code and theory, that
are so much a burden for the older person coming into the hobby were
not an impediment to the young.

One advantage many young people have is that they're used to studying,
taking tests, and passing them.

They thrived on it, and at a young age,
it was a boost to be able to pass the test when older people were
griping about how hard the test was.

Yup.

I think that one of the reasons the Morse Code test is so despised by
some people is that it acts as a Great Equalizer. Except for a few
who learned the code outside of amateur radio, most new prospective
hams are faced with the task of learning the code from scratch. And
this
is true regardless of age, education, income, profession, titles, work
experience, etc. (Remember that I did except those few who learned it
elsewhere).

The end result is that the Ph.D EE usually starts at the same place,
code-wise, as the gradeschooler. And the gradeschooler may wax the
Ph.D's tail, too. Some people's egos cannot tolerate that. And some
people have trouble integrating young people into what *they* consider
to be an "adult" activity.

When I passed the test in 1972, at
the age of 12, it was no drag to be able to accomplish that. It was
practically like snapping my finger, because what was in the test interested
me, and it was not merely an obstacle to overcome before I could start
yacking on the radio.

I had a similar experience. There was one significant difference: I
started out
wanting simply to join the hams I heard on 75 meter AM. But to do that
required
at least a General license, so I set out to learn the code and theory,
earn a
Novice and then a General, and build a station. To me, these were just
items on a to-do list.

Along the way I discovered, by actual use, how 'cool' Morse Code is,
once you actually know it at a useful level, and so became primarily a
CW operator. Of
course I did SSB and FM and even AM too, but Morse Code still tops the
list.

If you're ten (which is when I first set out
to learn the code, though I did not go about it properly), or eight, you're
young enough that being able to understand a "code" of some sort is picking
up a secret language that those around you don't know; that's incentive
in itself to learn it.

That's true of many people, and particularly the young. It's one of
the things
that makes the Harry Potter books so popular among young people.

But, all the changes have been made by middle age men, or older, who
often seem to have forgotten what it was like to be young and get their
first ham license, or who came into the hobby in later years. They
are making judgements based on being middle age, which may not reflect
what it's like to be young.

EXCELLENT POINT!

And those of us who *do* remember are sometimes reviled as "living
in the past" or being "immature"....

But in fact we remember the joy of discovery, the energy and
enthusiasm of
youth, and most of all the feeling of "magic" and the challenge of
being a skilled operator. That's the real appeal - then and now. If I
ever lost them, I'd sell out and just let the license lapse.

For that matter, too often the mistake when talking about getting newcomers
into the hobby is that quantity is the necessity. If only we can get
big numbers, then we're safe. But in trying to lure those numbers, the
pool gets watered down. The hobby is no longer a technical playground,
it's no longer a place where kids can play and grow up, either into technical
pursutes or just adults who have a better than average familiarity with
technical matters (a rather important thing, given how much more technology
we're surrounded by compared to thirty years ago).

Exactly!

There is plenty I learned
from amateur radio that have nothing to do with technical matters, but it
comes from being part of a not just for children activity when I was still
what amounted to being a child.

Me too!

And there's another factor: We kids could be accepted as adults - or
at least as equals - based solely on how we presented ourselves on the
air. There were and are few other activities where that is true.

Maybe in watering down the entrance
requirements, the hobby is not bringing in those who would benefit from
the hobby, as they traditionally would have. "It takes nothing to get
into the hobby, what possible appeal could there be?" Once things
have started down the slope of making it easier to attract larger numbers,
then there is no alternative but to seek even larger numbers, because
then the only thing you do have is those large numbers. Gone are the
benefits of amateur radio, to the actual hams and to society at large,
and there goes any ability to justify the frequencies except by large
numbers.

You should write this up for QST and any other ham mag that will print
it. It's what many of us have been trying to say for years but have
been unable to clearly voice.

I will add just this: Part of the appeal to many people, young and
old, is
that something like ham radio *does* have high standards, traditions,
procedures, and requires a level of *personal investment* that goes
beyond simply buying a radio and talking into it.

And getting back to the middle age men, it is they who keep repeating
the mantra "how can amateur radio be appealing in a world where every kid
has a cellphone and a computer?". So long as competition with society in
general is the pivot point, then of course there can be little appeal
to the youngster. Only by promoting the hobby's strengths and uniqueness
can one hope to compete with superior forms of communcation.

You've really nailed it, Michael.

Amateur radio can only survive by offering an experience that is
uniquely different, not by trying to compete with cell phones etc.
That's always
been true. The purpose of the early hams relaying messages was not to
compete with Western Union, but rather to offer an alternative
communications experience and resource.

And it should be noted that amateur radio has always been a specialty
sort of thing. Back in 1968-1972, when I was in high school, there
were perhaps a half
dozen hams out of about 4500 students (combined boys and girls of two
adjoining Roman Catholic high schools). This was in middle class
suburban neighborhoods, a trolley/subway ride from the FCC office, and
the schools emphasized math and science.

There's a two-page spread in QST this month showing a listing of young
hams who have earned various scholarships this year. Quite impressive.

73 de Jim, N2EY