Slow decline? - NOT amateur radio

 As far as I am aware there is nothing wrong with me, apart from the after-effects of my 2013 stroke.

However, I am now in my mid-70s and starting to feel old. Every step I take I am careful not to fall, I can no longer run, sex used to interest me, but no longer does, my energy levels seem to be declining and I am hopeless at remembering the names of people! Things seem to have gone downhill in the last 24 months.

I fail to see how someone old like me would want to be president of the USA!!

Powerful picture - NOT amateur radio

As someone who is now "old", this picture came over as a very powerful one to me.  

It shows a young girl looking in a mirror and seeing an old lady looking back at her.

It seems like just a blink of an eye since I was young. It seems no time at all.

Ageing dangers

For quite a while now, I have been concerned about the ageing amateur radio population. Before my stroke in 2013, I visited quite a few radio clubs giving talks. All had one thing in common: ours was a male, old aged population with few young people and girls. From a recent report from Germany reported on Southgate News, this would appear to be a worrying trend. Within 20 years most active amateurs will be very old. I can see several dangers:

• The hobby could just die out.
• Amateur radio magazines will get hard to find (they are hard enough to find now!).
• There will be fewer ads in magazines for new gear.
• Manufacturers will stop making amateur gear as the volumes are too low to make a profit.
• Dealers will close.

Now, I very much hope I am wrong, but unless we attract and keep younger people, who see no magic in radio as most of us did, our hobby is doomed. Sadly, I do not have a magic bullet.

See http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2019/november/germanys-darc-faces-an-aging-membership.htm#.Xd0n6e2TLnE

Rallies in years to come?

The high streets are changing. Have you noticed that there are far more coffee shops and charity shops and far fewer bookshops? This is because of us.

I wonder what radio rallies will look like in the future. Rallies are not my scene really, but I have been to a few over the years. There seem to be fewer trade stalls nowadays and more stalls that are not amateur radio related. As the average age of radio amateurs increases, fewer people will attend and some will stop. The GQRP rally at Rishworth ends this year, no doubt because of the average age of attendees. No, radio rallies will soon be a thing of the past if we are not careful.

My concerns about radio mags and adverts have been shared before, but our hobby is likely to be very different and soon. What can be expected are fewer magazines, fewer adverts, fewer products as the market shrinks.  Our hobby has a problem on many fronts due to an ageing population. We ignore this at our peril.