Millennials Are Killing Ham Radio | NØSSC’s Ham Radio Blog.

The Hobbiest Computer movement of the 80s (all of you with a TRS-80) is now the hacker/maker movement, automating life with microcontrollers, tiny computers, and data centers.
Amateur radio is to The Baby Boomer and Generation X’s youth as IOT is to Millennials and Gen Y.

Interest in “talking to people on the radio” is waning; it’s about talking to machines, and enabling machines to talk to us. That’s why the maker movement is such a hit, especially now as commercial entities have also entered the fray with off the shelf IoT devices. I’m thankful for the the ARRL for realizing this critical market, and repping ham radio at many Makerfaires and Hackercons.

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Does this mean Ham Radio is Dying?
No. Licensing is on the rise, contest log submittals are in constant growth, the HF bands are dense with stations, and the amount of hype behind AMSAT launches, ISS contacts, and High Altitude Ballooning is massive.

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Read more & K0NR’s post, “Is The Internet Destroying Amateur Radio?”.