Amateur Radio is Dying - And Why You Shouldn't Care Less

 The past couple weeks have seen not one but at least two entries into the ham radio YouTube discourse on how amateur radio is dying. The second references the first, and in some ways is a rehash of the first. Neither video presents any empirical evidence, like number of licenses or number of QSOs logged in various databases; in fact, the second video's presenter actively rejects such measures. You might find this hard to believe, but I'm going to give the two YouTubers a free pass on that one. Ad hoc social criticism needn't be subjected to the pedantic sort of methodological rigor as, say, an academic paper. It's okay to make qualitative observations, as long as you don't get too carried away with rejecting scientific evidence that doesn't quite match your feelings. My criticism of the two videos and of the larger ham-radio-is-dying subgenre of blog articles and YouTube videos is in three parts: (1) the evidence supporting the two videos' conclusions relies on three pretty dubious barometers of amateur radio's health, (2) the fourth barometer that the two videos somehow omitted is at least equally dubious, and (3) these sort of sky-is-falling stories are nothing new, and they're not very helpful. 

The two videos present as evidence of amateur radio's imminent demise three observations: repeaters are quiet, club attendance is low, and the same ten or so people show up at every event. Times have changed, and the utility of VHF/UHF repeaters has diminished for reasons that have nothing to do with the overall health of amateur radio. They used to be used for DX spots, which are now available online. They used to be used as a way of auto patching telephone calls to get around toll call rates and exorbitant mobile phone per-minute fees, both of which are thankfully relegated to the past. What remains on VHF/UHF repeaters is half-baked political commentary and descriptions of doctor's appointments. You could be forgiven for not mourning the decline in those types of QSOs. Meanwhile, HF bands are wall-to-wall on major contest weekends and activities like POTA make it hard to find an open frequency on the phone portion of twenty meters on weekends. While two meters and seventy centimeters may have gotten a little quieter, HF is still alive and well. As for scant club meeting attendance and event participation, these are observations not at all unique to amateur radio and have been around for as long as there have been volunteer organizations. Ask any church, Scouting America troop, or Coast Guard Auxiliary flotilla, and they'll tell you all about the 80/20 rule: twenty percent of the members are typically responsible for eighty percent of the participation.

While not mentioned in the two recent videos, we also hear a lot of hams expressing alarm over the demographics of the hobby. Data are hard to find, but the consensus puts the average age of radio amateurs in the United States well north of 55, and possibly north of 70. Yes, we're going to experience some attrition over the next decade or two, but it's not entirely unnatural for this to be an activity that skews toward empty nesters and retirees. I don't want this to be taken as an excuse for gatekeeping or treating amateur radio like it's exclusively an old man's activity, but I don't think that we should be surprised that people currently in their 30s who are building up careers and raising families aren't exactly flocking to an activity that has an entrance exam, requires a few thousand dollars worth of equipment investment, and takes up anywhere from several to several dozen hours of free time weekly.

In a fable, Chicken Little is struck on the head by an acorn and concludes that the sky is falling. He goes on to tell everyone he comes in contact with that the sky is falling. Sorry if this contains spoilers, but the sky didn't fall. A lot of life gets lived while you're worrying about things that never wind up happening, or about things that do wind up happening but you turned out to be better equipped to manage than you thought you were. Fifteen years from this writing, I'll be in my early 70s. According to actuarial tables, a good number of current license holders will be silent key by then. Maybe a new generation of empty nesters and retirees will find, as they have in the past, that amateur radio can be an enjoyable pastime in a life not as busy as it once was. Maybe HOAs and municipal antenna restrictions will prove to be a blessing in disguise as outdoor activities like Field Day, POTA, and International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend bring amateur radio out of our basement shacks and into our communities where potential future hams can see firsthand just how fun radio can be. Maybe the bands will fall silent, or be gobbled up by finance bros, and we'll all have to find something else to spend our time and money on. It's hard to make predictions, as Yogi Berra once said, especially about the future, but if I had to bet I'd bet on amateur radio, in some form, still being around. There's one thing I can say with complete certainty: worrying about it won't change the outcome. Between now and then I can either strive to be as skilled and courteous of an operator as possible, and experience the full joy of amateur radio while I can, or I can let wringing my hands about a future that may or may not even happen diminish the joy of the moment. I've made up my mind. See you down the log.

Acknowledgements: Looking back, I'm not sure why the idea to write about the greatly exaggerated reports of amateur radio's death didn't come to me sooner, but one fine morning in November of 2025 I saw a couple of tweets from Timothy Ortiz N9SAB and Mike Shoesmith VA7FC. That led to a morning commute conversation with my wife Carolyn and this article is what emerged from the conversation. Thanks guys and gal!