Category: Philosophy

Engaging Youth in Amateur Radio, Hoshnasi Style

Hoshnasi, a.k.a Josh Nass, KI6NAZ, is a shining star in the ham radio YouTube universe. Besides gear reviews, portable and SOTA operating, tutorials and discussion, livestreams, and pro-tips for newcomers, He created the Ham Radio Crash Course – a guided journey for hams and hams-to-be to be inspired to get or upgrade their amateur radio license through real-life experiences.

He invited me to talk about the state of Youth in Amateur Radio, and specific ways to get young people interested, involved, excited, and hooked on ham radio – see that interview here.

Here’s the summary:

  1. Lots of (disparate) youth activities taking place – Scouting/JOTA, YACHT, YARC, YOTA, YDXA, WRTC youth teams, etc – wouldn’t it be nice if we came together?
  2. Ham Radio in Education going strong. Ham radio is frequently used as a tool to explain science of waves, the cosmos, the atmosphere…
  3. Maker Movement is kind of passed…we need a new movement. The Hacker Movement! Lets start a ham radio hackathon!
  4. How to make your Radio Club more approachable to younger people – activities, modern and active web presence, ensuring newcomers aren’t left without an introduction and a mentor, having a public shack or members’ shack’s with an open door policy
  5. Modern technologies of the internet going to hit ham radio’s mainstream in 5 years – Remote operating, SDR, bluetooth/wifi/internet integration, Livestreaming, eSports style competitions, online & remote VE testing, etc.

Josh followed it up with introducing a STEM club to ham radio. This class serves as a brilliant method of introducing and educating kids about ham radio. I think it should be required viewing for anyone who calls themself an Elmer.

Some key takeaways:

  1. Examples and realtime demonstrations. Josh did an example of what SSTV sounds like and how it’s decoded, and brought an antenna he can use to talk to satellites and the ISS.
  2. Connect to other well known topics (ISS, cell phones/internet, social media, geography, walkie talkies/CB radio)
  3. Downplay the license, but (quickly) make sure to explain why it’s needed. Josh had one slide and about 30 seconds of explanation. Too much can be detracting but too little might leave a surprise.
  4. Keep jargon to a minimum, and when jargon comes out, explain it in a few simple terms or analogies
  5. Q&A during and after to keep the audience included in the discussion. If the audience is mute, read from a list of frequently asked questions that you can answer yourself – there are always questions, even simple ones, but most people are afraid to ask..

You can find more blogs about Youth in Ham Radio here on N0SSC.com: http://n0ssc.com/posts/category/youth-in-ham-radio

I also have a simple list of all my posts at http://n0ssc.com/post-archive, where you can easily CTRL+F “youth” to find more like this!

73!

Is HF actually that dead?

I found a ridiculous article from my Google News feed about the upcoming massive Solar Maelstrom which could definitely probably affect the entire electrical grid and cause headaches on 14 March.

Or is it 18 March? …the article is confused.

There is a much more reputable site for solar weather – http://spaceweather.com/

Pi day, 14 March is indeed the correct date. I also favor http://solarham.net/ for it’s awesome listing and displays of solar weather data, like this pretty solar wind gif that…shows the solar wind stuff (I don’t know my solar weather jargon…).

Wow…it’s really not that bad.

So yea, that article was just another clickbait that doesn’t actually know wtf’s going on. Kinda like the deorbiting Chinese space station that has a non-zero chance of landing on your Minivan…

[UPDATE: See? Calm down news media.]

A little farther down the page is some news we hams are too familiar with: a completely naked sun, devoid of a single sunspot.

🙁

Could you find any dark cores? Answer: No. The last time the sun was blank more than 50% of the time was in 2009, near the end of the deepest Solar Minimum of the Space Age. Now the sun is entering a new Solar Minimum, and it is shaping up to be even deeper than before.

-Spaceweather.com

Could this be the worst news for ham radio? Will the bands be forever dead?!

Well, relative to the early 2000s, yea. But to me, absolutely not. I got into ham radio in 2007 when we were at the dead bottom of that solar cycle. I annotated the sunspot number progression chart with my history in amateur radio:

Propagation isn’t so bad when you don’t actually know it’s been the worst in a few decades…

And believe it or not, those years between 2007 and 2010 were some of the best times I had on HF. I was contesting, DXing, building antennas, the whole shebang.

2009 was when I was getting into YouTubing my adventure – smack dab at the bottom of the cycle, and from 2007 to 2011 was some of my peak enjoyment of HF before heading to college. Here’s the playlist to prove it.

So, sure ~some~ of the bands are dead, but it’s not all that bad. There is a ton of fun to be had on ham radio, even on HF.

 

 

N8RMA 2018 State of Amateur Radio Survey

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc2gJ0xG_2EeFAgInFRM0NYi4eW93IBqlBbpBAB2Hx6zkYPNw/viewform

Enough said, go take the survey! 

ok I’ll say more.

Last year some dude in Michigan (literally, that’s what he called himself) started a survey to get some demographic information on the state of amateur radio, just because he thought it would be cool to know things like…

  • What are the most popular bands and modes?
  • What are hams’ favorite activities?
  • How old are ham radio operators?
  • Why did hams get involved in amateur radio in the first place?
  • What do you think are the biggest issues and roadblocks in ham radio?
  • Are governing and lobbying bodies doing a good job? What should they do better?

The 2017 survey got 668 unique respondents and provided a rather unsurprising birds-eye view of the hobby:

  1. 2m is a favorite band
  2. Hams like direct QSLs best
  3. And only 12% of respondants are under the age of 35.
  4. #wearethe12%

It’s a little surprising that the IARU or other lobbying organizations like the ARRL don’t seem to spearhead massive demographic surveys, considering the FCC and other regulatory bodies tend to not have a . I’ve heard in the past a lot of money has been spent trying to determine the most unbiased way of generating surveys but never got around to it, or maybe they found a way and it wasn’t targeted to my (millennial) demographic? Who knows.

But then came N8RMA!

Many thanks to Dustin for putting the survey together and publishing the results last year. Here’s to looking forward to some awesome new data!

For those concerned about their personally identifiable information (call sign) going on the internet:

Privacy Policy: Any information provided will only be used, by me, on the survey results.This response data will not be given or sold to anyone, ever. I might not be GDPR compliant (heh heh) but as I stated, just for me. All the demographic stuff is optional, it’s a good baseline but not needed. I’m not affiliated with a marketing company or any ham radio lobby or company, just a dude in Michigan. Plus you know who I am so you can hunt me down. 🙂

-N8RMA

So although “callsign” is a required field, you don’t actually have to put your callsign…just put N/A or something if you would like to remain anonymous.

Go take the survey!

See the reddit discussion here.