[Elecraft] Reaching across the chronological divide

[David Gilbert]

Completely true ... all of it.

73,
Dave  AB7E



On 12/14/2019 7:46 PM, EricJ wrote:
> We're missing the point here somehow. Siri's answer should have been 
> "The best way to contact Helen is to pick up your phone and call her."
>
> Anything else is pretty much a waste of time and resources just to 
> talk to Helen. Seriously, there's a sizable investment in specialized 
> equipment to make contact via AMSAT or whatever. The contact is set up 
> for them. Then Jon and Helen wait to be told when the link is ready. 
> If that's worth doing and will attract young people, then just shoot 
> me. It sounds terminally boring.
>
> Making that investment in specialized equipment can't be justified as 
> utilitarian communication because it's expensive and inefficient. If 
> the point is to contact your friends any time you want to, they are 
> already doing that with a half a dozen reliable instant technologies 
> all accessible from the same smartphone. I don't get where ham radio 
> comes in to solve a problem they have already solved. Certainly not 
> with a system that requires waiting 15 minutes for a satellite to get 
> in position, and a Cupertino Robot to set up the call.
>
> I don't have the answer to attracting young people to a rapidly 
> changing hobby in an even more rapidly changing world. The aspects of 
> the hobby that attracted many of us was the sheer magic of radio 
> itself. We weren't attracted to it because it let us contact our 
> friends. Even then we had the telephone for that. We were attracted to 
> the magic. Nine times out of ten, the communication part was "599 OM 
> PSE QSL".
>
> I always heard how DX contacts would allow me to learn about other 
> cultures. Actually, it did. After exchanging signal reports, I'd look 
> up their city with an atlas or encyclopedia. But I learned zip on the 
> air. A few California Kilowatts could hog a DX station, and chit chat 
> for a few minutes, and did because they could. But the rest of us 
> never got beyond the basic exchange and fought like hell for that. But 
> it was magic so it didn't matter that it wasn't all that practical.
>
> The magic that attracted us is gone. Maybe there's new magic to be 
> found, but it's different magic that most of us with 30-70 years in 
> the hobby won't understand...and probably won't like. We are the wrong 
> people to even be considering answers but anyone expecting to make a 
> living from the hobby will have to find that new magic. It ain't 
> instant communication and it ain't the ham radio equivalent of retro 
> turntables.
>
> Eric KE6US
>
> ex-K1DCK, WA6YCF, WB2PVW
>