Michael Black wrote:

"Mike Mills" ) writes:

Sounds to me like this scatterbrained idea to
charge $250 fee for a renewal is almost as bad
as the dry-drunks at ARRL which gave us "Incentive
Licensing" in the 1960's, from which ham radio
has never fully recovered. (even with code requirements
being relaxed, you still don't see young people comming
into the hobby anymore, this should tell you something....)


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.

I believe Mr Black wasn't licensed during the Incentive licensing time.


I suspect the whole thing about incentive licensing is overblown.

Completely.

How did incentive licensing damage the inflow of young people to the
hobby? It was the already licensed hams who grumbled, and who lost
anything.

It didn't. All new Hams are products of the time they become Hams. I
don't have any personal experience with incentive licensing or Novice
class or 13 wpm Morse code or 20 wpm Morse code. All I have is the
experience of going through the ranks from 1999, culminating in being a
"Nickle Extra".

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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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.

I have never failed to be impressed by the ability of middle aged and
older men to become *incredibly* angry about so many seemingly trivial
things.

"The Morse code test is gone, and next we'll be forced to worship Satan
and vote Democrat!" ;^)



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.

Correct. I want good hams, not huge numbers.



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). 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. 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.

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?".

I hear this, and I wonder how there can be any competition between
these? Ham radio is about radios, communications without wire around the
world and locally. It's about making radios and accessories and antennas
and the like. Cell phones are about ordering pizza and talking to people
on the telephone. Computers are things that you buy at circuit city or
best buy and plug 'em in and dial up the internet and really aren't
technical. The people using computers that are closest in personality to
Hams are the young hackers that write scripts and virii. We don't want
them, thank you very much!


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.

Good and insightful post, Michael.

- Mike KB3EIA

Mike Coslo wrote:


I believe Mr Black wasn't licensed during the Incentive licensing time.

DOH! I meant to say Mr Mills! As you know, you are Mr Black!


- My bad! - Mike KB3EIA -

"Steve Robeson K4CAP" wrote


I ask, would YOU trivialize Amateur Radio just to accomodate a few
who
would have to choose between Amateur Radio or purient addictions?


Tobacco is a p(r)urient addiction?

Sunuvagun! If I'd known that, I'd never have retired my meerschaums.

71, de Hans, K0HB

Brian Kelly wrote:

"KØHB" wrote in message hlink.net...
K4CAP/K4YZ wrote: (about license fees)

I think fees in the $25/year range would not be inappropriate.

So let's take a poll:

Q1: If it cost $250 (plus testing fees) for a 10-year license would you
have become a new amateur radio operator?

Taking your poll at it's face value I would never in this world have
been able to come up with an inflation-adjusted $250 spot cash back
for a ticket back when I got mine. A drop-dead one year Novice
ticket?? How would that have worked?? I was a teenager with just a
paper route for income and you can bet there were both kids and
retirees out there who would have had the same problem.

--- or ---

Q2: If it had cost $250 to renew your license each time over your ham
radio career, would your license have lapsed by now?

Absolutely not but I'd be screaming and hollering.

Here are my responses:

Q1: Not a chance.

Q2: When raising a family, spending $250 on a discretionary avocational
item would have been out of the question.

Depends on young family income levels which varied all over the scale
then and which varies even more today.

73, de Hans, K0HB

w3rv


I'm with you on both questions, Brian. Besides, I figure those charged
with administering and enforcing amateur radio are already drawing a
paycheck. Aside from Riley Hollingsworth, those who are charged with
amateur radio testing are already getting a free ride. Let the no-loads
have a go at doing what they're supposed to be doing. Why should radio
amateur volunteers do their work for them?

Dave K8MN

On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 22:33:16 GMT, Dave Heil wrote:

I'm with you on both questions, Brian. Besides, I figure those charged
with administering and enforcing amateur radio are already drawing a
paycheck.

The license fees collected have no relationship to the "salary and
expenses" portions of the FCC budget. In fact, it works in reverse.
The Vanity processing fees do not go to the Commission, but the work
of processing them gets done by regular employees as part of the job.
It's just another siphon from the public's pocketbook invented by The
Congress. The FCC was very happy not having to collect and process
fee payments in the decade or so when they were suspended.

Aside from Riley Hollingsworth, those who are charged with
amateur radio testing are already getting a free ride. Let the no-loads
have a go at doing what they're supposed to be doing. Why should radio
amateur volunteers do their work for them?

If you are referring to the former field office examiners, those
positions were abolished in the early 1990s after all amateur and
commercial examination functions were privatized. The employees
affected either retired, were transferred to other open clerical
slots, or were RIFfed in the Great Debacle of 1996. The examiner at
my office became the office secretary when the former secretary
transferred to another agency in 1991 but retained the tail-end
examiner work until the privitization was finalized.

As I have stated here quite often, I am in favor of the FCC
"unprivatizing" the examination function, but the chances of that
happening are somewhere between none and zero.

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

In article , (Steve
Robeson K4CAP) writes:

Kinda like your leading
question as to whether we should "trivalize the Amateur Radio service
so we can accomodate the FEW who prefer to toss the monies away on beer,
broads and booze?"

Quoted out of context...Again, I'd expect nothing less, Hans.

Jim Miccolis made a SPECIFIC reference to a person he supposedly knew
who
was addicted to tobacco, and suggested in his post that his friend would
rather spend money on his addiction than divert the money to Amateur Radio.

I think *I'm* being quoted out of context there...

My point about my smoking friend was that, in *his* value system, smoking a lot
took higher priority than saving up for a ham station. Part of this was no
doubt addiction-fueled, but another part was that he even though he bought 'em
by the carton, his cigarette expenditures were relatively small, relatively
frequent purchases. If he had to buy a year's worth of smokes all at once, he
might have quit.

I ask, would YOU trivialize Amateur Radio just to accomodate a few who
would have to choose between Amateur Radio or purient addictions?

How is Hans' or my opposition to license fees trivializing amateur radio?

73 de Jim, N2EY

"KØHB" wrote in message
news
K4CAP/K4YZ wrote: (about license fees)

I think fees in the $25/year range would not be inappropriate.

So let's take a poll:

Q1: If it cost $250 (plus testing fees) for a 10-year license would you
have become a new amateur radio operator?

--- or ---

Q2: If it had cost $250 to renew your license each time over your ham
radio career, would your license have lapsed by now?



Here are my responses:

Q1: Not a chance.

Q2: When raising a family, spending $250 on a discretionary avocational
item would have been out of the question.

73, de Hans, K0HB


Q1: If it had cost $250 for the 10 year license when I first entered ham
radio, I probably would not have done so for I had no basis to determine
whether the activity would appeal to me. Initially, it was just something
that I did to participate in my husband's interest (now ex-husband).

Q2: I would have renewed but complained loud and long about it. Having
learned that ham radio was something that I actually like, I would not give
up my license for anything.

Since entering ham radio, I've belonged to my local club in the various
areas that I've lived, became a VE, taught upgrade classes, participated in
special events, entered contests, been a club officer and many other
activities. Both I and the clubs to which I've belonged would have missed a
great deal if that first license had been $250.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

Subject: License Fees --- a poll
From: PAMNO (N2EY)
Date: 8/12/2004 6:56 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

In article ,
(Steve
Robeson K4CAP) writes:

Kinda like your leading
question as to whether we should "trivalize the Amateur Radio service
so we can accomodate the FEW who prefer to toss the monies away on beer,
broads and booze?"

Quoted out of context...Again, I'd expect nothing less, Hans.

Jim Miccolis made a SPECIFIC reference to a person he supposedly knew
who
was addicted to tobacco, and suggested in his post that his friend would
rather spend money on his addiction than divert the money to Amateur Radio.

I think *I'm* being quoted out of context there...

My point about my smoking friend was that, in *his* value system, smoking a
lot
took higher priority than saving up for a ham station. Part of this was no
doubt addiction-fueled, but another part was that he even though he bought
'em
by the carton, his cigarette expenditures were relatively small, relatively
frequent purchases. If he had to buy a year's worth of smokes all at once, he
might have quit.

I don't think I was misquoting or quoting out of context at all, Jim.

YOU made a point of using your friend as a case-in-point.

MY point is that is someone wants to prioritize his addictions before
Amateur Radio (or bass fishing, or knitting or golfing...etc...) then who
needed him in the first place?

I ask, would YOU trivialize Amateur Radio just to accomodate a few who
would have to choose between Amateur Radio or purient addictions?

How is Hans' or my opposition to license fees trivializing amateur radio?

YOUR post, Jim, suggests that we not enact fees since if we enacted fees
it would somehow prevent Amateur Radio from attracting people who would then
have to choose between supporting an addiction OR funding Amateur Radio
activities.

73

Steve, K4YZ

(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

"Michael Black" wrote


I suspect the whole thing about incentive licensing is overblown.

How did incentive licensing damage the inflow of young people to the
hobby? It was the already licensed hams who grumbled, and who lost
anything.


Michael,

I am convinced that incentive licensing remains the hands down all time
winner of the DAIOTC (Dumb Assed Idea of The Century) award.

When a lot of us got started in the hobby the bands were not subdivided
like they are today and it seems that we all, regardless of license
class, worked together to improve the Amateur Radio Service. I didn't
lose any privileges in 1968 because I had been an Extra for several
years, but I thought it was a really bad idea at the time, and I remain
convinced that it indelibly damaged Amateur Radio in the United States.

Back then, it seems that we all, regardless of license class, worked
together to improve the Amateur Radio Service.

Back then, nobody got a special deal because they could beep faster or
remember more electrical formulae than someone else. I got my Extra in
1964, well before disincentive licensing, and it was simply just another
personal accomplishment, and did not "elevate" me above other hams. We
all shared the same spectrum, worked together to solve the same
problems, competed in contests, trouble-shot each others radios, and
generally had fun together.

If you forgot the numbers for the dipole formula, it was OK to ask
someone else. If your Morse speed was 10WPM the speedier guys would
slow down for you, not QSY to some specially reserved band segment. The
one or two "old timers" on 75 meters who didn't like newcomers ("No
lids, no kids, not space cadets") were universally looked down on as
poor examples of what a ham ought to act like. The Novice bands were a
"cacophony of exuberance" to steal a term that K1ZZ used in a meeting
here in Minneapolis. Old hands were on those Novice bands also -- it was
not unusual to hear W4KFC or W5ZD patiently working WN4KKN or WV2CNL --
nobody remarked that it was "nice" of them to do that -- it was just
part of being a good ham.

The notion that you had earned a special band segment never occurred to
anyone -- we were just excitedly "playing in the ether", and there was
no distinction on the air between Extra, Advanced, General, or
Conditional -- elitist special callsign formats to celebrate the fine
granulations of your test taking/memorization skills had not been
invented.

36 years later we are still sliced and diced into 6 different classes,
carefully divided into our own special frequency segments, and Lord
protect the Extra who suggests that a new Technician might have
something to contribute to our beloved Amateur Radio service.

We'll never return to 'back then', unfortunately, and the intervening
years have not produced the breed of "superham" which we were promised
by ARRL and FCC; quite the opposite --- the technical acumen of the
typical amateur of today is many dB lower than it was back then.

Sunuvagun!

73, de Hans, K0HB