We need more butchers

As well as painters, doctors, architects, accountants, bus drivers, shop keepers and housewives. Sportsman, hunters, adventurers, extroverts and dreamers.

Or we will perish.

We don’t need any more engineers and career bureaucrats. And especially not any more self centred introverts. The reason why ham radio is dying in Australia is obvious: over many decades, we have created a comfy club for the least progressive and least competitive introverts. Overly technically minded experts who’ve spent their careers in a risk free, cushy environment. People who have turned the highly competitive sport of ham radio into a hobby with no real purpose.

I am flicking through the pages of AR magazine, the flagship publication of our organisation. Club politics by bureaucracy, followed by ten pages of engineering a home built project that no one is going to build. A self congratulatory article by a competent and experienced engineer, but boring to death. Follow by another, even dryer post-graduate-level analysis of a bandpass filter. More club news – old people reminiscing about something I could not care less about. Finally, the last couple of pages listing contest results.

But no photos of radios or antenna setups, no personal stories, literally just copy and paste from an Excel sheet. Of course I still read the magazine from cover to cover because I am an addict, but there is more action and more excitement in the Watchtower doomsday Christmas issue than in AR.

We teach newcomers the basics of communication theory, and make them aware of rules and regulations. They pass the exam, get the callsign – and that’s it. We left them wondering what the hell is the next step? Surely not a bogan mundane conversation on 40m band? Endless talk about modulation? AR magazine in the mail? A club meeting were the only attendees are hams who made their last dx contact in 1982? Where is the action? Where is the sophistication? Where is the excitement?

Did you know that chess is not just growing fast, but there are more and more kids, teenagers and young adults taking it up seriously? Thanks to the internet, it is one of the most popularised games in modern history. Why? Because it offers instant gratification, the satisfaction of winning, and opportunities to learn. The grand masters are featured like true celebrities, every boy wants to be Magnus Carlsen, and every girl wants to be that smart princess from Queen’s Gambit. An old game previously reserved for introverted nerds, reinvented, publicised, sold, and embraced by the next generation of extroverted, smart kids.

Or clay target shooting – another growing hobby where everyone regardless of age or education is welcome. Highly addictive for a reason. Every shooting day is a competition, an attempt to better oneself. No idle and boring talks about rifles, or weather, or politics. Just hit the target, and hit it with a smile. Hunt and destroy.

Amateur radio is long overdue for a complete overhaul. It has to be reclaimed by smart extroverts, popularised by vocal ambassadors, repackaged and sold as a sport. A highly competitive sport played by sophisticated players. Because – that is what it is.