[amsat-bb] Re: Vanishing Hams

[Tony Langdon]

At 09:38 PM 7/17/2008, Ben Jackson wrote:

>No, the technology available to youths today has become so pervasive
>that the majority of non-techies is using it. There are still the geeks
>and nerds sitting in the back room playing with technological toys, they
>just into Ham Radio. They think Ham Radio is a technological dead end
>and a just a bunch of old guys talking to each other about their medical
>problems. Sadly, for the most part, they're right.

Well, that's partly a problem of limited perception on their part, 
and also a failure of the ham community to market itself as a place 
for communication experimenters to play and try new things.  I for 
one have learnt a LOT of useful stuff about VoIP technology and 
managing large networks, as well as having had a lot of fun tinkering 
with various systems and making a few small contributions back to the 
hobby. :-)


>| The wanting to learn about things technical is considered
>| anti-social by today's youth.

I think there's always a large part of the population not interested 
in learning the guts of technology, and there is a certain percentage 
that lives for that sort of thing, though not a lot of those know the 
opportunities ham radio has to offer, especially in the software, DSP 
and digital communications fields, as well as weak signal arena.

Now off to configure Asterisk as a radio node...  Another skill set 
that could be used in industry. ;)

73 de VK3JED
http://vkradio.com