Back in the pre-Internet days--the mid-80s--I spent quite a bit of time on the ham radio, using the unfortunate call-sign of KB2GBV (it was unfortunate because four out of the six letters rhymed, which is a problem when you're working a weak signal and can't be heard very well). I wasn't much for DX (long distance) because I was using a homebuilt 10-meter wire antenna, with a 50-watt transceiver. Nonetheless, I used that wire to reach Japan once, and regularly spoke with folks from the West Coast, Canada, and South America.
The median age of today's dwindling ham population is over fifty, and rising. There was a brief moment before the advent of the Internet when ham radio was at the cutting edge of communication technology, with innovations such as packet radio (sending computer data over the airwaves) and SSTV (slow-scan-television--essentially, amateur TV). Then the Internet exploded, and there was really nothing that ham radio could do that it couldn't do better, faster, and cheaper. Two decades' worth of lax FCC enforcement have turned the allocated amateur radio spectrums into a free-for-all. I set up my radio for a couple of weeks in Queens, and heard tons of LOUD chatter in Spanish that I could tell, from the lack of call signs and protocol, wasn't coming from licensed operators.
In short, amateur radio is dying. Technology has advanced to the point where being handy with a breadboard and a soldering iron isn't enough to build your own top-flight rig. Most 'netheads can't comprehend why the hell anyone would want to try and join in the static-laden fray of a dozen radio operators trying to make that rare contact with McMurdo Station in Antarctica when you can just dial up and jump in a chatroom, or send off an e-mail, or open a webcam page and see a live feed from just outside the station's front door. The idea of using a communication medium the effectiveness of which is subject to an eleven-year sunspot cycle seems quaint at best.
This technological nostalgia was brought on by a perusal of my website logs this morning. I've gotten the occasional hits from the UK, Germany, Italy and (yesterday) South Korea. For the most part, though, my regular readers are stateside, and a good many of them are from places in the Midwest. There are also many folks reading from New York, California, and the like. But back in my ham days, most of the people I talked to were in the Midwest, or rural areas--ham radio is not a hobby well-suited to cities. I got a certain picture of America from ragchewing with old-timers who had been radio operators in WWII, or with younger folks who lived well outside of the insular NorthEast corridor.
I suppose the point of all this rambling is that I'm very pleased with the scope of my readership, which has been growing steadily over the past month or so. There are folks from Davenport and Chicago, from Palo Alto and Littleton, as well as New York and London. It used to be that I could go for weeks and not talk to anybody more than 100 miles away on the radio. Now I can reach people in Bombay without even trying. That's very cool.
So: thanks, everybody. I appreciate your visits.
And a special thanks to my number one repeat visitor fan: a chap named "Google" in New York.
