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A comment on Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving.

Re:Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving by nipponese on Friday August 28, 2020 @10:07AM (#24304983)
A timely blog post for me: A close friend who is the same age as me (and an EE) has been trying to get me into Ham for over 10 years. I finally became interested and bought a $25 radio (BaoFeng UV-5R) on Amazon ... only to learn that I couldn't talk to my friend on Day 0 because 1. he lives >20 mi away, 2. no line of sight and had to learn about repeaters, and 3. I have to learn technical and cultural nuance of Ham before being allowed to speak. The proposition value that Ham is not an "old IM client" and instead a toy for analog protocol nerds took a long time to understand.

Edit: added radio model, fixed price

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Re:Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving by blnqr on Friday August 28, 2020 @10:10AM (#24305019)
I remember somebody saying Ham is just a bunch of grumpy old retired guys complaining about the government. Someone else said wait, we aren't all retired!
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Re:Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving by jimhefferon on Friday August 28, 2020 @11:44AM (#24306211)
> 3. I have to learn technical and cultural nuance of Ham before being allowed to speak

Could I ask what this item means? That you needed a license, or is it possible that the repeater somehow enforced a class?

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Re:Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving by wycy on Friday August 28, 2020 @12:53PM (#24307104)
There's no technical enforcement of this. I think this is just referring to the general conventions of the way people speak on ham radio, which is different.
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Re:Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving by creeble on Friday August 28, 2020 @03:04PM (#24308748)
And varies widely.

Our club/repeaters don't have any obvious "cultural" norms or rules. Announcing your call sign as required by FCC ham rules is about the only obvious rule.

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Re:Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving by Animats on Friday August 28, 2020 @05:04PM (#24309921)
toy for analog protocol nerds

That's a great phrase.

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Re:Ham radio is not dying, it's evolving by generalizations on Friday August 28, 2020 @01:06PM (#24307276)
> I have to learn technical and cultural nuance of Ham before being allowed to speak.

That just sounds like HAM culture hasn't yet had their Eternal September - which could be a really good thing.

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