AmateurRadio.com

Every once in a while, I look at the number of licensed radio amateurs in the US and ponder how ham radio participation rates compare with other hobby activities. Take a look at this post from 2005: Some Amateur Radio Statistics and this one from 2015: Ten Year Trends in US Ham Licenses.

The latest number of FCC amateur radio licenses (March 2018, from ah0a.org) is 749,711 (Novice: 8847; Technician: 379,735; General: 174,478; Advanced: 41,153; Extra: 145,498)

The population of the United States (2018 estimate) is 325 million which means that FCC amateur radio licensees are 0.2% of the US population. (Yes, this number surely overstates the number of active radio hams.) From the 2017 Annual Report, ARRL membership is 159,070, which is a decline of 3% from the previous year, apparently associated with a recent dues increase. There is a slight time skew in the numbers but this means that ARRL membership is ~21% of the FCC licensees. This represents about a 2 point decline from the same calculation for 2005. Not a good trend.

It is interesting and maybe even useful to compare these numbers to other activities we are familiar with in the US.

Fishing

I stumbled across an in-depth analysis of sportfishing (basically all kinds of recreational fishing) by the American Sportfishing Association.  This report on US Angler Participation says that 49 million people in the US participate in fishing, or 15% of the US population. Frankly, that number seems a bit high but let’s just go with it. Perhaps what’s more interesting is their analysis of renewal rates for fishing licenses and potential reasons for why people start and stop fishing. Oh, guess what? Young people are not pursuing fishing at the same rate as adults so there is concern about the future of the sport. Browse through the website and you will find reasonably good data on the state of fishing in the US.

Outdoor Sports

The Outdoor Industry Association publishes data on a wide variety of sports ranging from bicycling to birdwatching. According to their numbers, every activity they track has a larger percent of the US population than the FCC amateur radio license number.  A very popular outdoor activity is bicycling, with a participation rate of 24%. Other significant sports listed include camping (21%), running (21%), hunting (6%) and downhill skiing (4%). Even birdwatching comes in at 3% and snowshoeing is listed as 1%.  This report also analyzes participation rates, motivations and trends by race, age and other factors. Good stuff.

Chess

I came across a web page that asks the question “how many people play chess?” This caught my eye because I think there are significant similarities between the game of chess and amateur radio. The answer: no one knows.

One study claims that 15% of the US population plays chess at least once per year.  This would be close to 50 million players and put it in the same participation class as camping or bicycling. That just seems too high…I can name quite a few of my friends and family that camp and bike. I can’t name hardly any that play chess regularly.

The US Chess Federation has 85,000 members, who are presumably actively involved in chess (for the most part). There are probably many times more people that play chess casually. A wild and generous guess of 10 times or 850,000 players would still only be 0.26% of the US population.

The chess community has many effective programs to help children get started in the game. This is probably a real strength for that community. However, I noticed several discussions in online forums lamenting the fact that children tend to drop the game in their teen years. Also, Sports Illustrated just published an article about how chess has always been dominated by men with women making limited gains in participation.

Model Railroading

Then someone on reddit asked why ham radio magazines have disappeared but model railroading magazines are quite available at the local bookstore. Now that is an interesting comparison. Model railroading is a well-established hobby that many people pursue for enjoyment. It is a bit “old school” with a strong hands-on “maker” aspect to it. It has also has seen the impact of newer technology, especially digital electronics. In terms of alternative activities, it is seeing competition from radio-controlled cars and aircraft.

This online forum puts the number of US model train hobbyists in the range of 150,000 to 300,000, but without much in the way of hard numbers (just anecdotal evidence).  One person argued that the number is more like 1 million hobbyists. This web site makes the claim (without references):

Today there are a half million model railroaders and toy train hobbyists in the US and Canada!

But many model railroaders see challenges ahead. This Wall Street Journal article discusses how the demographics of the railroader population are changing: End of the Line for Model Trains? Aging Hobbyists Trundle On

This web site also discusses the trends in model railroading. I found this quote to be relevant:

This hobby (as well as a lot of other markets) is currently dominated by the baby boom generation. They will be dwindling in numbers over the next ten years, and the generations behind them just don’t have the numbers to fill in unless there is a significant boom of interest in model trains.

One commenter suggests there are 1 million model railroaders in the US.

Analysis

First, I am struck by the number of different hobby and sports activities available to us. From a historical perspective, North Americans have significant leisure time and a multitude of activities to choose from. Some of those are “mainstream” in the sense that most people are aware of them and many people do them (examples: fishing, bicycling, running). Other activities fall into a niche (< 1% of the US population) but still have vibrant communities that pursue them with gusto (examples: chess, amateur radio, model railroading). The participation rate for Chess may actually be higher than 1% of the population…I’m really not sure…but it looks more like a niche activity than a mainstream hobby.

The mainstream activities tend to have access to good data on participation in the sport or hobby while the niche activities tend to be lacking reliable data. It seems that the more popular activities have a industry association or member organization with sufficient resources to pursue obtaining participation data and maintaining it over time. The information available concerning sportfishing and outdoor activities was pretty impressive. Chess, amateur radio and model railroading…not so much. If you are worried about the health of a hobby or sport, the first step is to have accurate data. (I recently heard that ARRL Headquarters is pursuing this. I certainly hope so.)

Participants in many of these activities express concern about the demographics of their communities. There are lots of comments on web sites about needing to attract younger participants for the future of the hobby, along with comments about how kids don’t seem to be interested. The big concern was getting kids involved but there are also issues of low participation by women. Certainly, we hear these same concerns in the amateur radio community.

One big takeaway is that amateur radio is not the only community that is concerned about growth. I’d really like to hear from radio amateurs that are active in chess and model railroading, to compare and contrast their experiences.

73 Bob K0NR

The post Ham Radio, Chess and Model Railroading appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Welcome to the final episode of 2018! In this episode, the hosts invited anyone to participate in a live Q&A and year-end wrap up. We explore the past, present and future of Linux in the Ham Shack, memories of news and important events of 2018 in the open source and amateur radio world and contemplate predictions for the future of life on planet Earth. Thank you for everyone who participated and we hope you enjoy this roundtable discussion. Happy holidays and all the best for 2019 from the LHS Crew.

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

This year, on December 7th for Pearl Harbor Day, I was flattered to be invited to the USS Batfish in Muskogee, OK for their annual “Pearl Harbor Tribute” Event.  The Muskogee War Memorial Park has a permanent Ham Radio Club that meets regularly at the location, and operates HF from their radio room, also from inside of the submarine itself.  For Pearl Harbor Day, they planned something special.

Several students from various areas attended the event and were able to operate the HF bands on both 20- and 40-meters.  Several classrooms in the area were also on-the-air for demonstration of HF propagation, Ham Radio operating practice and education.  The video below shows a special event with some of that operation.

Also recorded was Message Traffic from inside the USS Batfish using the callsign WW2OK, honoring the life of CPO James Booe, the Band Master aboard the USS Oklahoma killed on Dec 7th, 1941 during a Disabled American Veterans Naming Facility (in his honor) in Florida.  This was a special request from the group in Florida that honored us with the request.

We heard MANY MANY schools on the air discussing history with other ships that took the time to activate on this date.  Our youngest military licensed student sent a Traffic Message to Florida.  Each QSO with a student was unique and hopefully memorable.  From my listening vantage point, those QSOs between ships and school students were priceless and worth the effort by all those involved.

 

Jason Johnston, KC5HWB, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

On Saturday, I had the privilege of talking to a group of radio amateurs on the topic of electronic measurements. I opened the session with a short discussion of “why do we even need electronic measurements?” This was captured in three “laws” listed below:

Bob’s First Law of Electronic Measurement

With electricity, most of the time we cannot observe what is going on without measuring instruments.

Bob’s Second Law of Electronic Measurement

When we can observe electricity directly, it is often a bad thing.

Bob’s Third Law of Electronic Measurement

Lord Kelvin was right

The post The Three Laws of Electronic Measurement appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

No one called me a nerd when I was growing up in Hillside, NJ although I could have been the poster boy for what we know today as a nerd. Maybe it was because it wasn’t until 1950 that Dr. Seuss created the nonsense word “nerd” for an imaginary animal in “If I ran The Zoo.” By then I was already W2DEC.

During my pre-teen years some of the most common titles used to describe me were precocious, crazy, studious, and a loner to name a few of the nicer names. I lived on a small farm and there were no kids my age close at hand so I became an expert at entertaining myself. It wasn’t easy but I convinced my parents that I should have a subscription to Popular Science when I was 11 years old. When the magazine would arrive every month I would disappear for a few days while reading the magazine cover to cover, including advertisements. One month the featured article described the manufacturing of industrial diamonds. “Ah ha,” I proclaimed to myself, I can do that. The end result was almost a disaster but that’s a story for another time.

My Favorite Christmas Present of all Time:

My parents realized my isolation was starting to make me both crazy and anti-social so my 1944 Christmas present, shortly after my 12 birthday was a one-tube radio kit. It was so cool. It was built on a one foot square piece of plywood. The components were mounted using Fahnestock connectors screwed into the plywood. The kit had a “A” battery that was the size of a small shoe box. There was another box of parts including a one piece earphone. My folks gave me the present about nine in the morning and they assumed it would keep me busy for at least a week. By lunchtime music was emanating from my earphone.

Back in those days very few radio stations stayed on the air 24 hours a day. They would sign off at either 11 or 12 o’clock and like magic; another station farther out West would take its place. Since it was late December you could follow the clock with stations to the Rocky mountain area before the east- coast stations started signing on again. It was great fun but my grades were not helped with my midnight DXing.

Big Discovery:

After a few month of broadcast band DXing and spending a good part of my allowance on replacement “A” batteries I started to get bored. I had become fascinated with the variable capacitor (back then I had no idea what it was called) which controlled the frequency as the capacitor was rotated. I wondered what would happen if I spread the end plate out a little. What the heck, I could always bend it back. I grabbed my long-nosed pliers and give it a tug and it broke right off. I was crestfallen; I had destroyed my favorite toy. I spun the knob around and low and behold I was hearing non-broadcast station that I had never heard before. I was listening to stations above the high end of the broadcast band!

After a few weeks of mapping my new territory boredom again started to set in once again. Dare I take off another capacitor plate? I thought no, I had pushed my luck to the limit as far as capacitor modifications. However, I did notice there was a large coil of wire connected to the ends of the capacitor (again I had no idea of parallel components.) This time I was smart enough to think through a modification that could be reversed. I got out my trusty soldering iron and disconnected one end of the coil and took off about five turns and soldered the newly exposed wire back onto to the mounting lug. Eureka, I was hearing a wholly different group of stations. Up until this point almost all of the stations produced by my experimentation were one-way broadcast. One day I heard two guys talking to each other; it was an event that would change the whole direction of my life. I was fascinated, these stations had call letters but they were different, they had a number in the middle! I wanted to become one of those people.

I went to an Uncle who had a lot of worldly knowledge. His advice, ignore them, they’re ham radio operators and they’re harmless. When I wouldn’t give up my goal I told my Uncle that I wanted to become one of “them.” He told me to go to the library and ask for a book about ham radio. The librarian pulled out a copy of the ARRL Handbook and I started reading it religiously. I renewed it so many times she finally said, “Keep it we’re getting a newer version.” I would read about a half hour a day and practice Morse code as well. Back then you had to do 13 WPM straight away. I was making good progress until the hormones set in. I was about 14 and I discovered girls. Ham radio went onto the back burner for almost two years. Fortunately, I came to my senses and picked up where I had left off. On the day after Thanksgiving in 1949, when I was 16, I made the trip to NYC and took and passed my first FCC ham radio license exam. It was for a Class B license and predated the Novice license by about two years. For good measure I passed my Second Class Radiotelephone license on the same day. A year later I returned once again to the FCC and upgraded to a a Class A license and a First Class Radiotelephone ticket.

Epilogue:

It is now obvious, receiving that one-tub radio kit was the most fortuitous event in my young life. It pointed me to several careers, was responsible for getting me into a six and a half month school at Fort Monmouth, NJ and kept me out of combat during the Korean War. In addition, ham radio introduced me to a huge number of fantastic people. During my late teens through my late twenties, I keep showing up at the right place at the right time, frequently for the wrong reason.

Mom and Dad, as you look down upon your wayward son, I want to say thank you both for the greatest Christmas present ever.

Urb LeJeune, W1UL, is the creator of Ham-Cram, a ham radio test preparation website. He writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Homemade vertical mounting....."thing"

After doing some "playing" with the location of my 1788 mag loop on the balcony and getting really nowhere with lowering the SWR. The lowest I could get it was 1.6:1. I decided to go vertical with the loop to see what happened. Now those of you that have the MFJ 1788 loop know there is a bracket that comes with the loop for just this purpose. Well when I moved I know I put this bracket somewhere safe...........and it's still there as I can't remember where this "safe" place is!  I did try putting the loop vertical bout a month ago but at the time I was tired from all the fiddling around on the balcony and my vertical attempt was very hap-hazard. That approach did not seem to work for me either and I just left it at that. As time passed I decided to take a more serous approach at mounting the loop in a vertical position. I went to the hardware store and picked up some metal conduit and the finished product was a decent looking mount that allowed the loop to be vertical.  In a vertical position I knew the antenna would be directional but if the SWR was lower that was just fine with me. Low and behold on a certain place on the balcony the SWR is 1.4:1 which I am pleased with.The loop is still mounted inside a tripod on the balcony and you can see some holes in the tubing. When the new loop vertical bracket is placed inside the tripod tubing I slide a pin through. This stops the loop from spinning if a wind comes up. The next step will be to put some watts into it and see what
happens! It just really gets me how time just flies and all the non ham things pop up which make me very happy that in just over a  year I will be retired. I will have as much time as I need to get things done (not just ham things) I can't see myself getting board......well that is the plan anyway. Now I did mention in my last post about an update on the Sun SDRpro 2 rig that is going to have to wait for about 1 more week.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

For those of us that enjoy CW as well as QRP operating, the Winter QRP Fox Hunt nights make for an exciting combination of both interests.




The QRP Fox Hunt is an operating event during which low power (QRP) stations or "Hounds", attempt to make contact with specific QRP stations designated as "The Fox".

Spanning a twenty week period from November to April, each week sees two Fox Hunt events ... one on Tuesday evening and another on Thursday evening. The Tuesday night event sees the Hounds go hunting on 40m, while on Thursdays, the move to 80m, for an even greater challenge.

For each evening, there are two assigned 'Fox stations', usually one in the east and one in the west. The object of the hunt is for the hounds (you and I) to find and work the fox ... both foxes if you can, as bagging both is the ultimate goal. This all sounds pretty easy except for the fact that all foxes and all hounds are limited to 5W output or less, and therein lies the fun! If you have never heard a pileup of QRP stations, it is worth tuning in just to listen ... a multi-station cacophony of QRP signals, all around 559 or weaker ... it's not your typical kilowatt-laden ear crushing pileup!

The 40m foxes will be found between 7030 and 7050, while the ones on 80m will be between 3550 and 3570 kHz. Most foxes make a habit of working split, usually listening 'up 1', so once you find the pileup, the fox is easier to locate.

The hunts begin at 0200Z and run until 0329Z ... early evening here on the west coast and mid-evening out east.

Complete rules and a 'Fox Hunt Primer' may be found on the QRP Fox Hunt home page here. For discussion of the individual events and soapbox comments, join the QFox ioGroup site here or join the chat in Facebook's QFox QRP Foxhunt Group.

If you're in search of some challenging week-night operating fun, you may just find what you are looking for with the bi-weekly QRP Fox Hunts. Working both foxes is not as easy as it might sound and is an excellent test for your antenna system and of your CW operating skills. Come and join the fun this coming Tuesday ... no special hunting permits required!
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].