Computerworld, a computer trade magazine, is currently running the article, “Want to bone up on wireless tech? Try ham radio,” on its website. It’s saying what I’ve been saying all along that getting a ham radio license is a good thing for computer professionals, especially those involved with networking.
Here’s what the article has to say about innovation in ham radio:
Reviving innovation
Decades ago, amateur radio operators were on the forefront of scores of technological innovations, including television, digital communications, solid-state design and cellular networks. The hobby’s roots trace back to radio pioneers such as Guglielmo Marconi and FM-inventor Edwin Armstrong.But in recent years, as many potential new hams were attracted to computers, the Internet and other technologies that they could explore without passing a licensing exam, some veteran hams worried that ham radio was at risk of gradually sliding into stagnation and was perhaps even on the road toward technological irrelevance. Over time, many old-timers worried, experimenters would gradually be replaced by hams more focused on the hobby’s operational aspects, such as restoring antique radios and providing communications services for community parades and other charity events.
Other hams, however, believed that the hobby was actually entering a new era of innovation, one driven by the same type of people lured away from ham radio by advancing digital technologies. They reasoned that a streamlined licensing system, capped by the FCC’s elimination of Morse code testing two years ago, would, over time, revitalize the hobby. This would happen by attracting technically skilled innovators who were interested in more than merely tapping a telegraph key.
It goes on to talk about how hams are working on interesting projects, such as new digital communications techniques, and how hams have parlayed their ham radio hobby into lifelong careers. One example they give is Joe Taylor, K1JT, who is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.
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