The Fall and Fall of Amateur Radio

Ah yes!  That old nut!  The contention that amateur radio is on the way out.

A more recent take on this undeniable phenomenon is the analysis of Google search trends.  This is not remotely as easy as it appears, not least because data is only available from 2004 onwards, and we have to know which part of the world is doing the searching - something I couldn't manage when I looked.

An analysis of the search term "amateur radio", or "radio amateur", or "ham radio" yields pretty much the same result: a decline of 88% or so since 2004.  It's much the same for things like "HF transceiver" (any indication people are buying radios?) and even the term "radio" itself.  Not even the onset of a new solar cycle, with its enhance propagation conditions seems to have made any difference to the decline.

All this seems worrying, condemning radio to the history books as soon as the current lot of coffin-dodgers finally kick the bucket in a few years' time.  If you happen to be non-white or non-male, then things have always been bleak in the hobby, and it doesn't seem to be getting better very quickly.  This is just as worrying.


Curiously, the search term "CB radio", whilst showing a clear decline, is nowhere near as bad as amateur radio, falling by only about 35% since 2004. Interestingly, CB also seems to be undergoing a very slow but definite revival (there is a less clear hint of this in amateur radio, also.)

So, it would appear that, if we want to attract more people to amateur radio, the likes of the RSGB should examine ways of appealing to CBers and, God help us, even promote CB itself.  But, although many of the current cohort of operators began life as CBers, there are still plenty of upstairs-downstairs attitudes towards the 'lower ranks'. It was always generally thus.

Whilst the RSGB do nod at trying to attract people with an interest in radio (well, they would have to, wouldn't they?) they don't seem to have realised the CB fraternity should get quite a lot of attention.

It seems to me that cheap, accessible radios like CB could well be analogues to hugely-successful ideas like the Raspberry Pi and Arduino gadgets that have taken the world by storm.  They are precisely opposite to the gadgets the IT, computing and amateur radio community are daily bombarded with as justification for continued high prices and feeding the 'look what I've got' fetishism.  Yet, they are rightly seen as essential and accessible ways to promote kids (and adults') interest in these subjects.

I suppose satellite dongles are in roughly this direction, though radio is so diverse I'm not sure they will be as much of a hit as a computer-in-a-matchbox.  And 'going simple, going cheap' really does go against the grain of most hams, who only ever seem to dream of how else they can spend their money.  For me, a £250, 10-year old Kenwood rig (still going years later) and two pieces of badly-sited wire were enough to get me hooked and work the planet.  I didn't need DSP, band scanning, a 20m tower or even an ATU. 

The cheapest, easiest way to be introduced to radio.  CB gave many amateurs their first feel of an antenna, coax and SWR meter - all directly relevant to their later radio careers.

When I decided to bite the bullet and study for my ticket back in the 1990s, the Morse/no Morse argument raged like a wild animal. Old-timers hell-bent on ensuring old ways prevailed, and others, like me, who really couldn't understand why the amateur community would rather see the hobby die than swallow their senseless opposition to allow people without Morse onto the lower HF bands.  And they, like me, were wholly blind to the digital and internet revolution that would in just a few years' time, profoundly change the nature of amateur radio, despite many of them being technology trailblazers in their time.

The point they were missing was that, if non-Morsers were allowed to operate at lower HF bands, they would almost certainly take an interest in Morse and perhaps use it.  Eventually, some sense prevailed and B licence holders were granted full privileges on all bands. It meant I became a real operator, whereas otherwise, limited to VHF only, I may well not have bothered at all. Morse wasn't something I wanted to do, but others insisted I had to.

In the end, I never really found any strong desire to learn Morse, but I do slowly keep trying, just as a nod to history.  With modes like JT65 and others giving CW-busting performance, I can't see that hand-sent code is any different from machine-sent code in any real terms, other than CW can no longer be defended on the basis of being '11dB better than SSB' when CW is that many times worse than the weak signal modes.

The NRC: amateur radio's saviour?  I doubt it.

The RSGB, undergoing profound convulsions of its own as a bogged-down organisation, recently came to the blindingly obvious conclusion that in ten years, its membership had aged 10 years. In other words, the number of youngsters joining the RSGB was, well, not far off zero.  Unlike the ARRL, though, it doesn't seem to be doing anything effective about it, such as having a well-publicised, high-profile Kids' Day.

The RSGB also makes the following assertion: "Without the RSGB, amateur radio will diminish in the UK."  The sad fact for them, of course, is that with the RSGB, amateur radio has massively diminished in the UK.  Interest in radio has little to do with the RSGB, though it certainly ought to have played a much greater part in slowing the decline, something I think it would agree it failed entirely to do until very recent times. You could equally say that, 'with something very different to the RSGB in place to promote radio, the hobby might be in much better shape.'

The 'New Order' for the RSGB centres a lot on the Bletchley Park set-up they paid dearly - at least £200,000 - for (and against much membership opposition and a ludicrously expensive affair over an antenna tower that failed to get planning permission.) This is undoubtedly a mistaken approach if its aim is to get sufficient numbers interested in radio such that national membership and interest is sustained. I can almost guarantee I will never visit BP, nor will my children. I suspect this will be the case for the vast majority of us. So why see it as the cure-all?  The answer is that the RSGB feels the need to vindicate itself for wasting its time and money on the BP escapade, something I suspect it will never actually achieve.  

Update: The RSGB Annual Report is just out, revealing that, expressed as an average visitors-per-day figure, only about 33 people a day drifted through their lovely National Radio Centre in the last 5 months of 2012.  How the hell is that going to promote and build up amateur radio, eh?

GB4FUN.  Now being disposed of by the RSGB.

 
GB4FUN, the mobile radio educational unit, is being disposed of. No doubt it could never cover enough ground to make any real difference. I did last year offer to do the leg work in getting some funding for GB4FUN visits to Wales, but I had no reply and it seems the decision to get rid had already been made during 2012.  But getting into schools is fundamental, and although part of the RSGB's plans, I'm not sure it will come off in practice.

The RSGB urgently - and I mean urgently - needs to get an attractive lesson pack ready for mass-mailing to schools about radio. But it will never work on its own. Kids will not become operators on the strength of a glossy pack alone. There needs to be an initiative to get stations set up within schools - the ARRL funds and promotes such things in the US. It's hard work, and it needs solid financial support. 

Amateur radio - and the societies that try to represent it - are in such dire age profile straits that almost all available funds should and must now go into promoting a revival. Without it, there will be no hobby to represent.  When licensee numbers falls below a certain level, it will only be a matter of time before the bands will be farmed off for more lucrative, commercial purposes.

The only trouble is, I'm not sure that it is a bunch of retired white men, one of whom wears a silly chain around his neck, that are best-placed to figure out how to do it.

Here, for example, is the latest cryptic minutes of the Board's deliberations on matters radio.  It doesn't make for inspirational reading - at all.

 And before you ask: 'what have YOU done to promote the hobby?', the only reasonable answer for mere mortals like me is: 'joined the RSGB and expect them to work on my behalf, just like they have claimed to do for years.'  It's time they worked a lot harder and smarter, though.