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Do You Still Find Amateur Radio Interesting?
Marcos Eliziario asks: "Soon, I'll be taking the exams for a Brazilian, Class-D, Ham Radio license (Equivalent to an American Technician License) and, as I was reading about the subject, I wondered what today's geek thinks about amateur radio. In the past, Ham Radio was very popular among nerds, however with the Internet boom it seems that interest on radio, among the younger generations, is becoming dimmer each day. A lot of cool things can be done with radio, like building your own equipment, digital modes (btw, few people know that Packet Radio was born on the amateur's rank), and long distance contacts. The gear is cool, there's a lot of things to be learned about propagation, and today's Hams even use satellites to talk. Do you think that we could see a renaissance of Ham Radio among 21st century techies?"
I wish i had the bankroll to get into HAM. I live in the woods and another way to communicate would be nice. Plus I predict that after the US government is done raping and pillaging the internet, IP over HAM might take off among those who know how, and want to keep a free internet.
My friends and I use ham radio because our cell phones drop all the time.
Yep, I ragchew all the time to/from work. I have a 45 minute commute. The time on the road (and time in traffic jams) generally breezes by. The topics vary, but it's always interesting conversation.
For those who say: "I can do the same thing on my cell phone", let me ask you this? How much does your 1800 minute per month plan cost? Mine costs $0. Plus, I'm usually chatting (rountable style) with more than three people. I never heard of Four or Five Way Calling on a cell phone plan.
73 and I'm QRT
The way I see it, there are five classes of individuals who have historically been interested in ham radio. These four classes are not mutually exclusive, and I am in all five of them.
First, there are folks who want to meet people and chat. These folks now have the internet, and have gradually withdrawn from ham radio.
Second, there are folks who want to be able to make phone calls away from a landline. Traditionally, this has been done via a phone patch. Cell phones are now dirt cheap, so these folks have gradually withdrawn from ham radio. As a result, there are also fewer phone patches than there used to be.
Third, there are folks who want some form of intra-family communications. These folks would get their entire household licenced historically. Now these folks either get cell phones, or FRS or GMRS radios, or in some rare cases, MURS or CB radios, and so these folks have (need I say it?) gradually withdrawn from ham radio.
Fourth, there are folks who generally love radio. These folks will never leave ham radio because playing with radios is fun (which is the real answer to your question).
Fifth and finally, there are the ever-prepared crowd. These folks will do whatever they feel they need to in order to make themselves stable and useful in the event that social order breaks down for some reason or other.
www.wavefront-av.com
An excellent point. Here are the rhetorical questions I use to try to explain the appeal of amateur radio to non-hams:
"Why does anyone spend huge amounts of money on a fishing boats and fishing equipment, when they can just buy a fish at the grocery store?"
"Why do people go horseback riding, when a car would get them where they want to go, faster and more comfortably?"
Amateur radio is a hobby. Like most hobbies, it's not meant to be practical (though it can sometimes come in handy during emergencies).
Since you can do both of those using a commercial cell-phone and SMS, why would you want to take away amateur radio bandwith to duplicate what you can already do using a cell-phone?