Bob K0NR has an alternate take on how to keep ham radio alive as many of its practitioners age up:

For whatever reason, it seems that most people find themselves in a situation as an adult that causes them to say “I want to get my ham radio license.” When asked why they want to get their ham license, the top response is always emergency/disaster communications, followed by backcountry communications, pursuing electronics as a hobby and learning about radio communications. I suspect that starting to be established in a community and having some disposable income also play a role.

My hypothesis is that the most effective way of growing a vibrant ham radio community is to target adults ages 25 to 40.

He’s got some data to back it up from the tech license classes he teaches:

Hard to argue with those numbers. I passed my tech (and general) at about 25, but it was definitely for those reasons: emergency communications, backcountry communications (such as while skiing), and relating to my existing electronics hobby. In high school and college, I had way too much going on – not to mention not as developed of an interest in electronics in the first place – to pay any attention to ham radio.

Not that I’m doing much better now, my only operation so far has been a handful of sessions on 70cm Simplex with cheap HTs to communicate with another vehicle in something of a convoy situation.

Are you a ham radio operator? What do you think?

[The K0NR Radio Site]