[SFDXA] The Uncertain Future of Ham Radio - IEEE Spectrum

[Bill]

/Link at the bottom: - Bill W2CQ (from the CWops list)/


  The Uncertain Future of Ham Radio


    Software-defined radio and cheap hardware are shaking up a hobby
    long associated with engineering

Julianne Pepitone <https://spectrum.ieee.org/u/julianne-pepitone>
10 Jul 2020
Ham radio operator Sterling Mann (N0SSC)
<https://spectrum.ieee.org/ham-radio>
Photo: Sterling Mann
John Anderson, AJ7M, from Marysville, Washington enjoyed getting on the 
air from home for 2020 ARRL Field Day event, held June 27-28. Field Day 
is ham radio\u2019s largest on-air annual event and demonstration.
John Anderson (AJ7M), from Marysville, Washington on the air from home 
for the 2020 ARRL Field Day event, held June 27-28. Field Day is ham 
radio's largest on-air annual event and demonstration.Photo: John Anderson

Will the amateur airwaves fall silent? Since the dawn of radio, amateur 
operators—hams—have transmitted on tenaciously guarded slices of 
spectrum. Electronic engineering has benefited tremendously from their 
activity, from the level of the individual engineer to the entire field. 
But the rise of the Internet in the 1990s, with its ability to easily 
connect billions of people, captured the attention of many potential 
hams. Now, with time taking its toll on the ranks of operators, new 
technologies offer opportunities to revitalize amateur radio, even if in 
a form that previous generations might not recognize.

The number of U.S. amateur licenses 
<http://www.arrl.org/news/us-amateur-radio-population-grows-slightly-in-2018> 
has held at an anemic 1 percent annual growth for the past few years, 
with about 7,000 new licensees added every year for a total of 755,430 
in 2018. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission doesn't track 
demographic data of operators, but anecdotally, white men in their 60s 
and 70s make up much of the population. As these baby boomers age out, 
the fear is that there are too few young people to sustain the hobby.

“It's the $60,000 question: How do we get the kids involved?" says 
Howard Michel, former CEO of the American Radio Relay League 
<http://www.arrl.org/> (ARRL). (Since speaking with /IEEE Spectrum/, 
Michel has left the ARRL. A permanent replacement has not yet been 
appointed.)

This question of how to attract younger operators also reveals deep 
divides in the ham community about the future of amateur radio. Like any 
large population, ham enthusiasts are no monolith; their opinions and 
outlooks on the decades to come vary widely. And emerging digital 
technologies are exacerbating these divides: Some hams see them as the 
future of amateur radio, while others grouse that they are eviscerating 
some of the best things about it.

No matter where they land on these battle lines, however, everyone 
understands one fact. The world is changing; the amount of spectrum is 
not. And it will be hard to argue that spectrum reserved for amateur use 
and experimentation should not be sold off to commercial users if hardly 
any amateurs are taking advantage of it.

Before we look to the future, let's examine the current state of play. 
In the United States, the ARRL, as the national association for hams, is 
at the forefront, and with more than 160,000 members it is the largest 
group of radio amateurs in the world. The 106-year-old organization 
offers educational courses for hams; holds contests where operators 
compete on the basis of, say, making the most long-distance contacts in 
48 hours; trains emergency communicators for disasters; lobbies to 
protect amateur radio's spectrum allocation; and more.

Former ARRL CEO Howard Michel at headquarters station, W1AW.
Former ARRL CEO Howard Michel (WB2ITX) at headquarters station, 
W1AW.Photo: ARRL

Michel led the ARRL between October 2018 and January 2020, and he fits 
easily the profile of the “average" American ham: The 66-year-old from 
Dartmouth, Mass., credits his career in electrical and computer 
engineering to an early interest in amateur radio. He received his call 
sign, WB2ITX, 50 years ago and has loved the hobby ever since.

“When our president goes around to speak to groups, he'll ask, 'How many 
people here are under 20 [years old]?' In a group of 100 people, he 
might get one raising their hand," Michel says.

members from the LASA High School Amateur Radio Club, K5LBJ, in Austin, 
Texas participated in School Club Roundup, and twice-yearly on-air event 
that encourages participation from ham radio school groups.
Members from the LASA High School Amateur Radio Club, K5LBJ, in Austin, 
Texas participated in School Club Roundup, a twice-yearly on-air event 
that encourages participation from ham radio school groups.Photo: Ronny 
Risinger (KC5EES)

ARRL does sponsor some child-centric activities. The group runs 
twice-annual Kids Day <http://www.arrl.org/kids-day> events, fosters 
contacts with school clubs <http://www.arrl.org/school-club-roundup> 
across the country, and publishes resources for teachers to lead 
radio-centric classroom activities 
<http://www.arrl.org/classroom-activities>. But Michel readily admits 
“we don't have the resources to go out to middle schools"—which are key 
for piquing children's interest.

We need to “convince them there's more than getting licensed and putting 
a radio in your drawer and waiting for the end of the world."

Sustained interest is essential because potential hams must clear a 
particular barrier before they can take to the airwaves: a licensing 
exam. Licensing requirements vary—in the United States no license is 
required to listen to ham radio signals—but every country requires 
operators to demonstrate some technical knowledge and an understanding 
of the relevant regulations before they can get a registered call sign 
and begin transmitting.

For those younger people who /are/ drawn to ham radio, up to those in 
their 30s and 40s, the primary motivating factor is different from that 
of their predecessors. With the Internet and social media services like 
WhatsApp and Facebook, they don't need a transceiver to talk with 
someone halfway around the world (a big attraction in the days before 
email and cheap long-distance phone calls). Instead, many are interested 
in the capacity for public service, such as providing communications in 
the wake of a disaster, or event comms for activities like city marathons.

“There's something about this post-9/11 group, having grown up with 
technology and having seen the impact of climate change," Michel says. 
“They see how fragile cellphone infrastructure can be. What we need to 
do is convince them there's more than getting licensed and putting a 
radio in your drawer and waiting for the end of the world."


      New Frontiers

Dhruv Rebba (KC9ZJX) with his ham radio set up
Dhruv Rebba (KC9ZJX) with memorabilia from his ham radio contact with 
astronaut Joe Acaba (KE5DAR) onboard the International Space 
Station.Photo: Sateesh Nallamothu

The future lies in operators like Dhruv Rebba (KC9ZJX), who won Amateur 
Radio Newsline's 2019 Young Ham of the Year 
<https://www.arnewsline.org/2019yhoty> award. He's the 15-year-old son 
of immigrants from India and a sophomore at Normal Community High School 
in Illinois, where he also runs varsity cross-country and is active in 
the Future Business Leaders of America and robotics clubs. And he's most 
interested in using amateur radio bands to communicate with astronauts 
in space.

Rebba earned his technician class license when he was 9, after having 
visited the annual Dayton Hamvention with his father. (In the United 
States, there are currently three levels of amateur radio license, 
issued after completing a written exam for each—technician, general, and 
extra. Higher levels give operators access to more radio spectrum.)

“My dad had kind of just brought me along, but then I saw all the booths 
and the stalls and the Morse code, and I thought it was really cool," 
Rebba says. “It was something my friends weren't doing."

He joined the Central Illinois Radio Club <https://www.qsl.net/w9aml/> 
of Bloomington, experimented with making radio contacts, participated in 
ARRL's annual Field Days, and volunteered at the communications booths 
at local races.

“We want to be making an impact… The hobby aspect is great, but a lot of 
my friends would argue it's quite easy to talk to people overseas with 
texting and everything, so it's kind of lost its magic."

But then Rebba found a way to combine ham radio with his passion for 
space: He learned about the Amateur Radio on the International Space 
Station <https://www.ariss.org/> (ARISS) program, managed by an 
international consortium of amateur radio organizations, which allows 
students to apply to speak directly with crew members onboard the ISS. 
(There is also an automated digital transponder on the ISS that allows 
hams to ping the station as it orbits 
<http://www.ariss.org/uploads/1/9/6/8/19681527/k9jkm_2012_symposium_ver2.pdf>.)

Rebba rallied his principal, science teacher, and classmates at Chiddix 
Junior High, and on 23 October 2017, they made contact with astronaut 
Joe Acaba (KE5DAR). For Rebba, who served as lead control operator, it 
was a crystallizing moment.

“The younger generation would be more interested in emergency 
communications and the space aspect, I think. We want to be making an 
impact," Rebba says. “The hobby aspect is great, but a lot of my friends 
would argue it's quite easy to talk to people overseas with texting and 
everything, so it's kind of lost its magic."

That statement might break the hearts of some of the more experienced 
hams recalling their tinkering time in their childhood basements. But 
some older operators welcome the change.

Take Bob Heil (K9EID), the famed sound engineer who created touring 
systems and audio equipment for acts including the Who, the Grateful 
Dead, and Peter Frampton. His company Heil Sound 
<http://www.heilsound.com/>, in Fairview Heights, Ill., also 
manufactures amateur radio technology.

“I'd say wake up and smell the roses and see what ham radio is doing for 
emergencies!" Heil says cheerfully. “Dhruv and all of these kids are 
doing incredible things. They love that they can plug a kit the size of 
a cigar box into a computer and the screen becomes a ham radio…. It's 
all getting mixed together and it's wonderful."

But there are other hams who think that the amateur radio community 
needs to be much more actively courting change if it is to survive. 
Sterling Mann (N0SSC), himself a millennial at age 27, wrote on his blog 
that “Millennials Are Killing Ham Radio 
<http://n0ssc.com/posts/583-millennials-are-killing-ham-radio>."

Sterling Mann with his ham radio setup
Sterling Mann (N0SSC) is advocating that ham radio shift away from a 
focus on person-to-person contacts.Photo: Sterling Mann

It's a clickbait title, Mann admits: His blog post focuses on the 
challenge of balancing support for the dominant, graying ham population 
while pulling in younger people too. “The target demographic of every 
single amateur radio show, podcast, club, media outlet, society, 
magazine, livestream, or otherwise, is not young people," he wrote. To 
capture the interest of young people, he urges that ham radio give up 
its century-long focus on person-to-person contacts in favor of 
activities where human to machine, or machine to machine, communication 
is the focus.

These differing interests are manifesting in something of an 
analog-to-digital technological divide. As /Spectrum/ reported in July 
2019, one of the key debates in ham radio is its main function in the 
future: Is it a social hobby? A utility to deliver data traffic? And who 
gets to decide?

Those questions have no definitive or immediate answers, but they cut to 
the core of the future of ham radio. Loring Kutchins, president of the 
Amateur Radio Safety Foundation, Inc <https://arsfi.org/>. (ARSFi)—which 
funds and guides the “global radio email" system Winlink—says the divide 
between hobbyists and utilitarians seems to come down to age.

“Ham radio is really a social hobby...Here in Mississippi, you get to 5 
or 6 o' clock and you have a big network going on and on—some of them 
are half-drunk chattin' with you."

“Younger people who have come along tend to see amateur radio as a 
service, as it's defined by FCC rules, which outline the purpose of 
amateur radio—especially as it relates to emergency operations," 
Kutchins (W3QA) told /Spectrum/ last year.

Kutchins, 68, expanded on the theme in a recent interview: “The people 
of my era will be gone—the people who got into it when it was magic to 
tune into Radio Moscow. But Grandpa's ham radio set isn't that big a 
deal compared to today's technology. That doesn't have to be sad. That's 
normal."

Gramps' radios are certainly still around, however. “Ham radio is really 
a social hobby, or it has been a very social hobby—the rag-chewing has 
historically been the big part of it," says Martin F. Jue (K5FLU), 
founder of radio accessories maker MFJ Enterprises, in Starkville, Miss. 
“Here in Mississippi, you get to 5 or 6 o' clock and you have a big 
network going on and on—some of them are half-drunk chattin' with you. 
It's a social group, and they won't even talk to you unless you're in 
the group."

Martin F. Jue (K5FLU)
Martin F. Jue (K5FLU), founder of well-known radio accessories maker 
MFJ, is developing new products to accommodate the shift towards digital 
radio communications in the amateur bands.Photo: Richard Stubbs
“It'll all be digital at some point, right at the antenna all the way 
until it becomes audio."

But Jue, 76, notes the ham radio space has fragmented significantly 
beyond rag-chewing and DXing (making very long-distance contacts), and 
he credits the shift to digital. That's where MFJ has moved with its 
antenna-heavy catalog of products.

“Ham radio is connected to the Internet now, where with a simple 
inexpensive handheld walkie-talkie and through the repeater systems 
connected to the Internet, you're set to go," he says. “You don't need a 
HF [high-frequency] radio with a huge antenna to talk to people anywhere 
in the world."

To that end, last year MFJ unveiled the RigPi <https://rigpi.net/> 
Station Server: a control system made up of a Raspberry Pi paired with 
open-source software that allows operators to control radios remotely 
from their iPhones or Web browser.

“Some folks can't put up an antenna, but that doesn't matter anymore 
because they can use somebody else's radio through these RigPis," Jue says.

He's careful to note the RigPi concept isn't plug and play—“you still 
need to know something about networking, how to open up a port"—but he 
sees the space evolving along similar lines.

“It's all going more and more toward digital modes," Jue says. “In terms 
of equipment I think it'll all be digital at some point, right at the 
antenna all the way until it becomes audio."
https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/ham-radio-2650280117#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16338070217411&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com
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