Three Years In

   Well, today makes three years that I've been a licensed amateur radio operator. In the bizarre and out-of-touch world of ham radio, that's an insignificant amount of time, but it's certainly enough time to see what the hobby is all about. In some regards, amateur radio is pretty much what I thought it was before I actually became licensed. In other ways, it's not at all what I had hoped it would turn out to be. 

  When I got my licence, The Great BaoFeng Hysteria was in full swing. Pretty much every "expert" ham was absolutely convinced of all kinds of ugly, scary, and stupid things. Chinese HTs would destroy the hobby, as the evil "CBers" would now jam repeaters or use them without having callsigns. Fire services, ambulances, police, marine radio, etc. would all be plagued by constant malicious interference. The amateur FM bands would be rendered unusable by "splatter" from non-certified radios. These radios would be banned, everyone 'knew', and those that use them would be tracked down and jailed. 

  As it turned out, it's not the 1970's any more and not that many people are interested in two-way radio at all -- much less interfering with those who are. The FCC basically shrugged at the flood of uncertified radios. The claims of "splatter" turned out to be unfounded, produced by "experts" who used over-driven input levels on spectrum analysers. Instead, a whole lot of people getting into the hobby and excited over their new HTs were met with hostility, derision, and elitism. 

  I mention this as an example of the counter-productive and delusional "group-think" that infests amateur radio. Otherwise sane and intelligent people willingly suspend their critical thinking skills constantly in this hobby, either in pants-shitting fear or delusional optimism. This is something that I didn't bargain for when I got my licence: the cult-like indoctrination exhibited and freely embraced by people who believe that they are some sort of intellectual elite. 

  There is a weird belief, which is pretty much widely accepted as Indisputable Truth, that if anyone is exposed to amateur radio and tries it, they will be hooked for life. You find this kind of thinking in virtually every cult. If only people were exposed to the wisdom and truth of The Leader's teachings, they would leave their useless old life behind and join up, for example. 

  The reality is that a lot of people have got their licences and found a stale community living in the past, with low levels of activity, and constant pressure to spend ever-larger sums of money. They may have a licence and be counted in the numbers, but they aren't active. 

  Currently, the IARU has decided that an effort needs to be made to bring young people into the hobby. This is odd, because the official indoctrination has always held that kids are crazy about ham radio. Boldly springing into action, the IARU placed the letter "Y" in front of the pervasive "OTA", which pretty much fixes things. We are already seeing propaganda about what a wild success this effort is. Look, there's a photo of two kids checking out a transceiver! Hey, they're hooked for life! There are already suitably vague Newsline reports about kids "showing an interest" in YOTA events. Somehow, we go from kids not recoiling in disgust to getting licensed and being "hooked for life" in one delusional swoop, logic be damned. Put a video game console, a smart-phone, and a transceiver on a table and see which one gets the most interest. Even better, explain the arcane procedures, "traditions", and rules for operating that transceiver, and see how much enthusiasm remains. As the YOTA effort moves into full swing, more and more hams are going to 'know' that practically all kids are wild about amateur radio. But not kids who live in apartments, covenant-restricted developments, or who have parents disinclined to have antennae on the homes, or who simply lack the disposable income needed to pursue the hobby. It's okay, because we also 'know' that those people are losers. 

  The next delusional underpinning of amateur radio seems to be a belief that the hobby is "the only game in town". It's either get into ham radio, or sit staring at the walls in boredom. The corollary to this is the belief that "there's something for everyone" in the hobby, because it's so "broad". There's no sensible reason whatsoever for anyone not to be amateur radio operator, apparently. 

  I refer back to another hobby that I engage in: archery. Archery is a hobby that owns it's obsolescence. Nobody in that hobby pretends that it's cutting-edge or the realm of some kind of elite. Nobody pushes archery as an option for an Armageddon scenario or "emergencies". Nobody asserts that everyone is secretly crazy about archery, but that most don't have "what it takes" to succeed at it. Archery is also "broad". There are traditionalists who make their own bows and fletch their own arrows. There are others who prefer longbows and recurves, and still more who find compound bows attractive. And within the range of compound bows, there are short and long axle bows, bows with elliptical cams or simple wheels, bows built for speed and others for stability. There are none of the artificial distinctions and petty hierarchies in archery that one finds in ham radio. Nobody cares what bow you use, or if you have aluminum or composite arrows. Everyone fully recognises that archery isn't for everyone, and they're okay with that. The only distinction in archery is between hunters and target shooters, and that's because the things that work for one aren't particularly practical for the other. But neither camp considers themselves to the "real" archers, while the other is just "fooling around". Archery is simply not "serious business" in the way that hams have convinced themselves that their hobby is. 

  Instead, hams convince themselves that all of the stupid, pointless, and counter-productive things in amateur radio are things that are found in every hobby. That's simply not true, though. 

  The simple truth is that amateur radio has never really accepted that cellphones and the internet are here to stay. Just as archers had to concede to the efficiency and advantages of firearms, hams have to concede that there are much more efficient, cheaper, and reliable methods of communication in the modern world. Nobody has to wait for "the band to open" to send an email or have a video chat, for example. Unlike archery, which still exists and is relatively popular, hams seem to believe that admitting two-way radio is no longer vital will kill the hobby. And so amateur radio invents "threats" that we can rally against, at the same time as it engages in weird cheer-leading to persuade the faithful that the hobby is as relevant now as it was in 1975. 

  We accept people into the hobby on a provisional basis, until we see if they are willing to embrace the indoctrination and delusions put forward. If not, then they are deemed to be "the wrong sort" and they find that there's no place for them in amateur radio. Nobody, especially those that have been in the hobby the longest, even see this situation for what it is. People that have been in amateur radio for thirty years are not treated the same as those new to it, yet these same people blithely assert that they aren't treated differently, so therefore nobody is treated differently. 

  I thought that I was getting into a hobby with people who loved radio as much as I did. Instead, it was all about cliques, which radio you had, how "serious" you were, and a whole ton of baggage that had nothing to do with actually enjoying being on the air. On top of that, there was this bizarre "living in the past" mentality and an implicit requirement to mouth the group-think du jour. It's as if actually talking on the radio is an after-thought, something that you do to keep the other stuff going. 

  Over the past three years, I've found that a lot of things in amateur radio simply don't appeal to me, such as HF, contesting, nets, CW, and EmComm. I don't begrudge anyone the enjoyment of these things, if that's where their interest lies. This view, however, is not reciprocated. The hobby may be "broad", but its practitioners are not broad-minded. The deeper that people seem to get in to this hobby, the greater the need to gain status by deriding others. 
  
  Beyond that, this whole "ignore the jerks" syndrome that is tossed at every critic is nothing more than "blame the victim". It's your fault for not ignoring the ugliness in the hobby, in other words. The truth is that if the "jerks" were taken to task in even the mildest and most mealy-mouthed manner, they would change their behaviour. But they know that they will always be given a free pass by the Wise Elders, so they continue to engage in conduct that drives others away. This simply becomes one of the "tests" to see if you are "serious" about amateur radio or not. 

  While I still enjoy amateur radio, I am not as optimistic about its future as the required cheer-leading seems to demand. The mere fact that we now have to engage in widespread cheer-leading should, in itself, be a warning sign to sensible people. Who, exactly, are we trying to convince?