Foundations of Amateur Radio

Amateur radio is an activity enjoyed by many people around the world. How many exactly is cause for debate. The most recent official figure we have is from the IARU, the International Amateur Radio Union. In 2020 it counted over 3 million people, but an article written a year later puts that figure at 1.75 million.

In Australia there's a common narrative that the total amateur population is in undeniable decline, some think that it's on a stark decline. Interested in hard data, for years I've been collecting information around the amateur population in Australia and I can report that across the nine years that I have data for the total variation is within two percent and it's not a straight line down either. There was a dip in 2020, potentially associated with training and callsign allocation being moved from the Wireless Institute of Australia to the Australian Maritime College, something which is going to change again shortly when amateur licensing in Australia will revert to the regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority. If you're familiar with amateur licensing in Australia, that's not the only change, but that's not what I'm looking at today, mainly because the available information associated with the upcoming changes are limited at best, seemingly buried in invective at worst.

Back to the topic at hand. One of the often heard responses in relation to the decline of our hobby is recruitment of new amateurs. It's a topic that I've spent plenty of time over the past decade contemplating. How do you share the joy of amateur radio with a general public who is apathetic to the preconceived ideas associated with this hobby, you know, old white men sitting in the dark with Morse keys.

For the record, I prefer a shack with light and I still don't know how to use a Morse key, other than to make my radio beep. The rest is genetic.

In the quest for spreading the word there's a repeated emphasis on the young, often coalescing around the annual Jamboree on the Air, or JOTA, as organised between Scouting groups and radio amateurs. I have previously said that JOTA was how I first came across amateur radio, but at the time, aged 15 or so, I had no money for such endeavours and the experience didn't resonate with me until decades later. So, you could argue that this is what changed me into an amateur, but the reality is that I had to come across the hobby a few more times before I got interested enough to investigate, something which I have spoken about before, in short, Meg, then VK6LUX introduced me to the concept of controlling a 2.4 GHz drone using higher power than was permitted with standard Wi-Fi equipment. I was hooked and got my license less than a month later. I then discovered that I needed more permissions and set about studying, only to get distracted with everything I could already do. I'm still being distracted today.

So, JOTA is a potential touch point, but I see little evidence that the initial spark goes anywhere in a hurry. I'm not dismissing it as a way to have amateur radio gain relevance outside our own community, but perhaps there are other ways to make this happen. In the early days of my journey I attended country fairs with my club and we'd set-up a radio or six to show and tell. There was talk of doing this in a shopping centre, at the local hardware store and even brief discussions about doing this at the local electronics store. As enjoyable as this was, none of it ever appeared to generate any permanent interest and I don't recall seeing new amateurs suddenly appear at the club after any outings.

Last week Glynn VK6PAW and I, set-up at the local airport, YPPH, that's Perth International Airport if you're not familiar with the designation allocated by the United Nations arm, ICAO or the International Civil Aviation Organization. Perth has a public viewing area. It's situated at the south western end of runway 03/21. It's an elevated position with minimal shade, some seating and you're 320 m from the runway centreline. It's a place where plane spotters congregate and now a few radio amateurs.

One thing we have in common is an interest in radio. We were told that the plane spotters often listen to one or two frequencies and if they're into video, they might record one radio channel to include on their YouTube videos. When Glynn and I visited we had a few radios with us. When I say few, in amateur terms we only had about five or so, but I suppose that comes with the territory. As it happens, admittedly not by accident, our radios could receive airband frequencies, so we could tune to Perth Tower, Perth Arrival, Perth Ground, Perth Departure and Melbourne Central, all at the same time. Next time we'll likely bring some HF gear so we can also listen to HF aviation frequencies as well.

While I was hosting F-troop, the weekly net for new and returning amateurs, midnight UTC, every Saturday morning for an hour, Glynn was busy talking and sharing with the plane spotting community. There were conversations around what radios and antennas to use, how you could tune to more than one frequency at the same time, how you could use software defined radios, how to set-up radios so you could have different channels appear at the left or the right, in the middle, or somewhere in between, which will allow you to focus on a particular radio call as it happens. Also, I should mention a piece of software called rtl-airband which allows you to use an RTL-SDR dongle to do this at home, but I digress.

There was a steady stream of people looking at planes and their age was surprising, aged 3 to 93 or so. Of course not all were into the radio, but plenty were.

Afterwards it occurred to us that there might be other venues like this, attracting people who are interested in radio for their own purposes. I have no doubt that we'll be back to Perth Airport, but I suspect we'll also see if we can find some other spotters. Train, ship and other airports come to mind immediately. I can't wait to learn about other people's uses and interests in radio, even if radio isn't the main attraction in their hobby. Perhaps you can think of some that you'd like to share.

Getting on air and making noise is one way to get outside, but publicly listening to frequencies that others are interested in is a perfect excuse to play with radios.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB