"Why is the [#hamradio] hobby dying? Because a bunch of cantankerous old men demean and condemn the new and exciting and cutting edge aspects of amateur radio that made it so interesting in the first place. And are super vocal about it."

-from an email I received about a big new movement in citizen science radio work.

Next July, I'll be helping these people put on a really nice event.

A lot of us have left amateur radio, but haven't forgotten what amateur radio was supposed to be about. All of us - and a growing number of organizers and leaders - are thinking much broader and much more inclusive, picking up #opensource teams, industry groups, and authentically and kindly serving people that legacy and traditional organizations have forgotten, hate on, or outright exclude.

On the "naughty list" are #ARDC, #ARRL, and #AMSAT. Odd how they all start with the letter "A".

@abraxas3d #hamradio is dying so hard that it has more licensees than ever worldwide. It is diverse; whether HF DX, satellite, digital modes, local VHF/UHF, SSTV, ATV etc. every ham has a favourite niche. If it's on air, someone is doing it.

There are some internet 'radio' devotees who don't twig why their niche isn't well loved, and they have the hurt of butt. Bless their little cotton socks anyway. 😃 👍

@weezmgk I did a study on US licensee demographics. You might find it interesting.

https://github.com/Abraxas3d/Demographics

Amateur radio is why I became an engineer. The sexual harassment is easily the worst I've seen from any aspect of a long and continuing engineering career.

The 10+2 year long license means that evaluating the numbers is not straightforward. As Sterling Moss points out, the "all time high" numbers that even I like to point to are due to the underlying population growth, and not an actively growing licensee base.

This is a better situation than, say, Japan.

GitHub - Abraxas3d/Demographics: US Amateur License Holders Demographics

US Amateur License Holders Demographics. Contribute to Abraxas3d/Demographics development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

@abraxas3d Ham radio (and electronic engineering in general) does have a terrible sausagefest problem and every ham is responsible for it. On a micro level, my radio club cultivates a culture of acceptance and respect. One 'woman driver' jibe is enough to get the offender admonished, a repeat gets the Wouff Hong.

I'm a recovering American living in Australia for the last 25 years. I'm VK2AAF but still WD9GYO. Praps things are different in VK.