I didn’t have clue that my last article would be such a hit in tandem with K0NR’s article. If I had known that I would have put maybe a tiny bit more effort into making it much more coherent, a little less of a rant, but holy dang has it got people talking.
On Southgate.
On Amateur Radio Newsline’s Facebook.
It’s practically blown my twitter to smithereens.
Even Adafruit rehosted it on their blog!
But not on reddit…I didn’t post it there because of self-promotion anti-blogspam rules (i.e. self-spotting not allowed), and partially because I wanted to see how the article would grow organically, but I’m surprised it hasn’t appeared there yet.
[edit1: I posted it on reddit, a few headline-only readers, but a much larger contingent of frustrated younger hams.]
Part of me wishes I had advertising on the site but I don’t, and even if I did it wouldn’t defray a fraction of the hosting costs. This might be viral in the ham radio world, but it’s par for the course on the internet in general. C’est la vie. Also, YouTube has shown us that ads suck for creators.
To headline-readers who email and comment without reading the article. Read it please. I’m getting hate mail and silly comments from dissenting voices like:
“This article is garbage.”
“What a load of crap.”
“Cell phones wouldn’t be here without ham radio!”
I have a strong feeling these commenters only read “Millennials are Killing Ham Radio,” taking up arms over the title without a second thought. Not only is that a problem with hams, that’s a problem with the internet as a whole – so please read, and tell us how you really feel.
On the other hand, it’s heartwarming to see younger people commenting to agree, and disagree with the gist of the blog. There was a lot of good discussion at the Thanksgiving dinner table, and a lot of eyes opening up to a new market/generation of hams.
I do plan to milk this click-bait title by making an accompanying video to hit the non-reader market, and Marty and I will be talking about this, as well as recap on HamJam, ARRL Sweeps, CQWW, and more on our next episode of The Phasing Line Podcast.
So yeah. If you’re new to following the blog, welcome and thank you for following!
Hi, just found your website here. Very thoughtful article. I did not know about this topic until I actually stumbled upon HamRadioNow.tv and viewed the webcast you referenced. Keep up the blog and I plan to visit here often. 73 and have a great holiday season.
John – NO0I – Columbia, MO