Southgate News has a piece today about declining amateur numbers in Germany. This is mirrored elsewhere. In 20 years' time, unless things change, we could see steep declines in our hobby.
See http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2020/february/germany-ham-radio-decline-continues.htm#.XjbnpY6TLnE
2 Feb 2020
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Amateurs are in denial over this. It won't take 20 years, either. It won't even take 10 years.
Here in the U.S, it's the oldest operators who are the most clueless about the situation. As long as they can point to *one* 20-something operator, there's no problem. The younger amateurs at least know that they are an anomaly. The ARRL estimates that half of new licensees never even get on the air. The oldest operators are actually clamouring to make it *harder* to get a license. They live in a make-believe world where the CB craze of the '70s is still going strong. They're still obsessed with fighting the unwashed barbarian hordes at the gates, and they find few hams to be 'pure' enough to share the airwaves with.
Meanwhile, the oldest operators are moving into nursing homes where ham radio isn't allowed, or they're slipping into dementia.
The problems aren't technical or regulatory in nature. They're social and cultural. Most young people don't want to discuss geriatric health issues, right-wing politics, or how we need to return to the 1950's. But, for the most part, that's what the hobby has to offer. Other than that, it's only filling up logbooks with brief, content-free 'contacts'. The hobby simply isn't competitive with other technologies in terms of grabbing and holding the interest of younger people.
The few that *do* find an interest then get assaulted by the strange 'group-think' that the hobby is immersed in: you must have an *expensive* radio, you *must* advance almost immediately, you must be willing to be treated like you are a moron, you are not allowed to express opinions, and you must be content to dwell on the lowest end of an over-the-top social hierarchy for a decade or more.
I hope that the social end of things is better in Europe. But the more elderly the hobby gets, the less appealing it is to younger people. Solar cycles won't change that. Putting a "Y" in front of the ubiquitous "OTA" won't change that.
- KD0TLS
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