Our radio club (Tri-Lakes Monument Radio Association) offers a 2-day Technician license class which has resulted in over 300 new Technician licenses in past years. We also offer a number of activities to help new licensees get started in ham radio. Still, we wonder how many of our newly-minted Techs have actually gotten on the air and are actively using amateur radio.
To assess that, I surveyed 258 people that went through our Technician license class from 2010 to 2017. We’ve actually had more students than that get their license but I don’t have valid email addresses for all of them. To improve the response rate, I kept the survey short at 5 questions.
The response rate was 42% which is quite good for this type of survey. I suspect there is a response bias in that active ham radio folks are probably more likely to reply to this survey. People that have lost interest are less likely to reply. That’s just my opinion; I don’t have data to support that.
Almost half of our Technician class students upgraded to General but only a few went on to Extra. Overall, I see this as a good result but I expected to see a few more Extra class licensees.
Most of the respondents have been on air recently: 60% of them have made a radio contact in the past 6 months. On the other hand, that means about 40% of not made a contact in half a year. It is disappointing to see that 13% have never made a ham radio contact.
There is quite a range on how active the respondents are with 45% making 10 or fewer contacts in 6 months.
About one half of the survey respondents are members of our radio club. Some of them are also members of other radio clubs in the area. Some of our students travel a long distance, up to 100 miles, to attend this class so it makes sense that they find a radio club near their home.
Most of the respondents reported being active on 2m/70cm FM. About 18% of them are on HF Phone. The total for all forms of HF operating (CW, digital and phone) is not shown on the chart but it is roughly 20%. While roughly half of the respondents have their General or Extra class license, only 20% are actually using the resulting HF privileges.
Conclusions
My broad conclusion is that our radio club should continue to provide opportunities for our members to develop their operating skills and expand their radio operating. I filtered the responses to our club members only to see if our club member responses are any different from the larger group. Basically, our members indicate they are somewhat more active than the rest of the respondents but the overall story does not change.
Obviously, this is a small slice of data relevant to our local situation. It may not apply to other parts of the country.
What do you think?
73, Bob K0NR
Great information, Bob. I am not surprised by any of your results.
If you have read my article on eHam (http://www.eham.net/articles/40931) then you know that I am an advocate of learning more about potential hams, those who attempted to get licenses and did not, those who did but never got on the air, those who got on the air but eventually dropped out, and, of course, those who have remained more or less active over a good period of time. Only through such data can we see what might attract and keep more people as a part of our wonderful hobby.
I also did a far less formal survey than yours and came up with five primary roadblocks–real or perceived–that keep interested people from diving into and enjoying ham radio. They are, in no particular order, a fear: 1) of it being too technical or not technical enough; 2) of putting up an antenna; 3) of putting together a station; 4) of knowing what to do on the air so as not to be ridiculed, and; 5) of the jargon. I wrote a book, GET ON THE AIR…NOW! to attempt to overcome those fears.
Great work! Thanks for sharing.
73,
Don N4KC
http://www.n4kc.com
http://www.donkeith.com
Don,
Thanks for the comment. Reacting to your eham.net article, I too see the need for a comprehensive study that really gets after what drives to people to get/not get their ham license, get/not get on the air, join/not join the ARRL, etc. Without the data, I don’t know how you build a strategy to change things. If the ARRL has such data, I’ve never seen it published.
Have you published your survey results?
73, Bob K0NR
My survey was far, far more informal than yours, Bob. And this from a guy who was in the research business for a lot of years! I just kept getting those same answers from folks I spoke with.
Keep doing what you’re doing!
73,
Don N4KC
Are use 70 cm for 440 Quite a bit but in my case the operators on 11 m seems to have gotten a tech license or general and have moved to the FM band. They make as much stupid noises and tried to cover up other people so you can’t talk please explain to me why did I get a ham ticket when 11 m has less issues then to meter for 40. I took all my 2 m 440 Radio equipment put it in a box and put it upstairs I know with the BS going on I’m gonna get in trouble so I have a radio that does 10 m and above and I guess that’s all I’m going to use it’s a shame.
Tom,
Sorry to hear you are encountering problems. Lots of them.
What is your callsign?
73, Bob
In my immediate area (Rochester, NY) there are well over two dozen repeaters yet with the exception of three (one is permanently connected to the East Coast IRLP reflector so perhaps it doesn’t count) there’s very little activity. None of these active repeaters are club owned or sponsored.
Hams have built considerable VHF/UHF infrastructure that’s going unused and that can’t possibly be attractive to someone with a new Tech license. I find myself (a Tech) spending more time on DMR now than my local repeaters. I tried mobile 10 meter SSB but that resulted in one contact in over three years of trying. Perhaps the changes the ARRL is proposing will help get Techs excited about HF I don’t know if that will happen if we can’t get them on the air to begin with.
73,
Tom KC2TCK
Tom,
VHF/UHF is pretty much a local thing so it depends greatly on the activity in your area. We definitely have lots of repeaters (lots of “channel bandwidth”) that just sit idle. In my area, we have a good group of locals that get on VHF/UHF repeaters. It helps if you have an active radio club in the area…creates relationships with other local hams.
We have quite a bit of activity on 2m fm simplex, too. Summits On The Air contributes to that. VHF/UHF activity definitely picks up when threatening weather or wildfire danger appears.
Switching over to one of the networked modes (DMR, D-STAR, IRLP, etc.) can help connect you to interesting conversations.
10m is not very reliable at this point in the solar cycle. Years ago, it was awesome (worldwide communications with low power). It will come back again but it will take years.