Evan DiBona 12/13/11 Ethnographic Report

An Ethnographic Study of the Amateur Radio Community During the Past Three Decades
The Amateur Radio community is very unique. One of its most defined characteristics is how its culture has stayed fundamentally the same for at least the past three decades. However this is more of an outsider's perspective. If one takes a deeper look at this community they will find that it has in fact evolved more than they might realize at a glance. During the past decade it has seemed like the number of newcomers to the amateur radio scene was decreasing and the average age of a ham was increasing. However FCC statistics seem to say otherwise. In fact the total number of licenses issued has been growing at an accelerated rate in the past few years. So after some listening it turns out that the ham radio community is not at stereotypical as I remembered it. He's got a huge antenna! You know that guy's got some cool stuff. There's something about talking over a staticky ham radio that makes most individuals feel that they have to get the most out of each transmission by being significantly more long winded than in everyday speech. I think some of it definitely has to do with the protocol instated by the FCC. Ham Radio used to be (and still is) a sort of fraternity or brotherhood. No matter what part of the world they are from or what other background they may have, active hams always seem to seek each other out.

So the amateur radio community is definitely a very unique collection of individuals. In many ways their culture vaguely resembles that of the 'hacker underground' of the 80s and 90s. And in those days the two hobbies were often very interrelated. However amateur radio enthusiasts, are not typically as informed as a usual hacker. Today the ages of the typical and more vocal hams has definitely risen. And if one were to tune into a local network they would most likely notice that most of the participants are over 25. in some cases the youngest of the group may be well over forty. During the past, recently closed decade one of the largest groups of hams were retired folks, some of whom had recently picked up a new hobby(my grandfather fits inside this category. ) or who may have been hams for decades. Despite the apparent aging of the ham radio community there is definitely continued efforts to involve younger people in the amateur radio community.

Bibliography
Haring, Kristen. The 'Freer Men' of Ham Radio: How a Technical Hobby Provided Social and Spatial Distance. The Society for The History of Technology. 2003.