With the possibility of a Greater Depression now beginning to sink in for more than just a handful of negative nabobs like me, I’m curious to see how folks will respond. It’s certainly a time to get a lot more serious about personal finances and prepare for the economic downturn that is no longer just around the corner; it is here.

Is it just my imagination or are we seeing a lot more used radio equipment being offered for sale?

Amateur radio related mailing lists have always had some elements of a rummage sale – hams like to buy and then swap or sell equipment on a regular basis. When Elecraft announced the new K3 their own mailing list became the best place to pick up a used K2, K1, or KX1 as they were sold to raise money for the new K3 and that’s completely understandable.

But over just the last two weeks, I’ve noticed that a lot more gear is being offered for sale than usual and I’m trying to understand if this trend is in any way related to the economic downturn currently in play, or maybe it’s just a seasonal thing with folks wanting to offload some gear to make room for more.

I think this is something to monitor closely as we proceed down this long, dark tunnel. For most of us this is just a hobby and we only spend what discretionary funds we decide to make available for it. But given that so many US households are neck-deep in credit card debt, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the last visit to Dayton with a pocket full of plastic is going to become problematic for a number of radio hams.

Are you noticing more items than usual being offered “for sale” these days?

Shame on me for permitting the autumnal equinox to come and go without so much as a mention.

Religious followers from around the world observe many seasonal days of celebration during late September. Most are religious holy days, and are linked in some way to the fall or autumn equinox. Common themes found worldwide are balance, harvesting, hunting, and remembrance of the dead.

That’s got nothing to do with me — I simply prefer the Fall to any other season of the year.

Cooler days with clear, deep blue skies and crisp, chilly evenings that are absolutely ideal for snuggling deep under the covers with the windows partly open. The trees and bushes put on their annual pageant of extravagant colors more majestic than the canvas of any human artist.

What’s not to like?

Where I live in Indiana, this marks the beginning of the many Fall festivals where we will celebrate the harvest and the end of another growing season. Hot, spicy apple cider and home baked pies makes this season one to be looked forward to with much anticipation, even though we all know where this is heading.

And besides all that, the longer nights and diminished atmospherics marks the beginning of six months of radio joy on the lower bands — 40, 80 and even 160 meters.

So here’s a slightly belated, “Happy Autumn” to you and yours! 

A provocative title to be certain; forgive me, but I’ve renamed this post four different times and this one just keeps bubbling to the top…

The nearly infinite number of things with which you can busy yourself within amateur radio is really the secret ingredient that keeps this old steam engine chugging along decades after personal communication became ubiquitous without the need for a federal license.

Some of us enjoy making contacts using something as simple as Morse code and home-built gear while others in the hobby, are busy trolling for super high frequency radio reflections off the surface of the Moon.

It’s a hobby with a lot of different things to enjoy.

Now, I realize the risk of drawing wrath for declaring one facet of the hobby more technically sophisticated than another, but in my own head, I figure that some things, like EME and meteor scatter, for example, exist in different technical strata than, say, rag chewing, contesting or chasing DX.

It isn’t that one specific activity is more valuable than another, but I think it reasonable to assume that some aspects of the hobby require a higher degree of engineering acumen than others. Building sophisticated electronic equipment from scratch, for instance, requires more technical skill than simply buying a new transceiver and plugging it in.

The appliance operator is no less a radio ham than the workbench raconteur, but there is a distinction in skill.

My recent curiosity with WSPR has led me to read a number of articles about this unique digital mode, as well as to join a few mailing lists related to this particular activity.

Interestingly enough, as I scan through the mailing list archives, it’s pretty obvious that this facet of the hobby is dominated by participants outside the United States.

The exact same can be said of the Moon bounce mailing list.

This makes me wonder if the American radio amateur is capable, or even interested in keeping up with the forward technical progress being made by amateur enthusiasts around the world; or perhaps we are content to rest on our laurels, chew the rag and have fun, leaving the work of pioneering the electromagnetic spectrum to others?

This is admittedly a fairly broad generalization, and of course there are many US radio amateurs who are at the "head of the class" when it comes to crafting new methods of communication. I’ve said it before; Joe Taylor, K1JT is an example of one US radio amateur whose IQ lifts our average significantly – and there are of course many other US amateurs doing similarly amazing work.

But I find it odd that while much of the software and communication methodologies that underpin these esoteric propagation modes is crafted in America, its being primarily explored by enthusiasts outside these United States.

There could of course be all kinds of statistical reasons why the snapshot I get by simply looking at the activity on a handful of mailing lists doesn’t accurately reflect reality, and I’m more than willing to concede that point.

But perhaps there is another reason…

A recent Forbes Magazine article, The Next’s President’s Homework Assignment offers some sobering data about education in America – and mostly what’s wrong with education in America.

According to a recent National Academy of Sciences study, 93% of American science teachers have little or no training in science. This should (and does) concern the American Electronics Association (AEA) and other trade groups who are determined to keep the spotlight on education.

The AEA released a new analysis of government data that concludes that less than one-third of American eighth graders are proficient in math and science skills. That’s despite landmark educational reforms like the No Child Left Behind Act that encourage curricula geared to testing. Nationwide, 39% of fourth graders tested at or above proficient in math, up from 31% in 2003.

Progress? A little. But in science, fourth graders improved only one percentage point in the same period.

Josh James, AEA’s director of research and industry analysis, calls the latest results "unacceptably low" and suggests that this continued poor performance is a threat to the competitiveness of the domestic workforce. In a technology-driven world, he notes, math and science skills "are going to continue to be in high demand."

Out of 30 industrialized countries, America’s 15 year olds rank 25th in math and 21st in science, according to a 2007 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development study. Years of underperforming U.S. classrooms are taking a toll, as "evidence of a decline in the number of highly skilled workers is surfacing," the AEA report asserts.

The AEA report coincides with news from the College Board that SAT scores for 2008 high school graduates showed no gains. One casualty of poor math and science skills is a shrinking pool of qualified engineering students.

That’s caught the attention of the aerospace business.

The Aerospace Industries Association, whose members include Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, is working with a federal task force charged with developing a government plan for a competitively skilled workforce. AIA has funded a national rocketry competition and apprentice programs with member companies, and has begun distributing to school guidance counselors a recruitment video promoting young engineers.

It seems plausible that the "dumbing down" of amateur radio that has been decried by the curmudgeons since the beginning of time, is actually in play here - but not because amateur radio testing is easier now than it used to be or because Morse code testing has been eliminated as a licensing requirement – the most commonly cited reasons from the critics.

If science and math education has been on the wane in the US for decades, then it seems much more likely that radio amateurs, who spring from all walks of life and not just from engineering schools, would reflect those deficiencies in education by shying away from some of the more technical aspects of the hobby – and I think we can see clear evidence of that happening.

While the old guard has a legitimate point that amateur testing fifty years ago included a higher degree of technical difficulty, the skills gained by that generation are practically useless in this age of software defined radio – which means that older hams are no better prepared to explore the new world of amateur radio than the new hams.

It can be said that when it comes to education, if the United States is not keeping up with the rest of the world in areas like science and mathematics, the results will be evident in areas other than just industry.

A technical hobby, like amateur radio, is a bit like a canary in the mine shaft.

If most older radio amateurs have little interest in discovering or participating in new technologies, and younger hams don’t have the necessary educational background to understand the fundamentals of math and science, then it seems rather obvious that whatever future amateur radio has in the United States, it won’t be predominately a technical endeavor – and it certainly won’t be something in which we lead the world.

I have subscribed to the SETI – Are We Alone? Podcast for as long as it’s been available. Contrary to any pre-conceived notion that title may evoke, the program explores the science that makes life possible.

While visiting the program Web site a few days ago, I stumbled across a fascinating series of audio recordings from a series of astronomy lectures.

Founded in 1999, the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures are presented on six Wednesday evenings during each school year at Foothill College, in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley. Speakers over the years have included Nobel-prize winners, members of the National Academy of Sciences, the first woman in history to discover a planet, an astrophysicist who is an award-winning science fiction writer, and many other well-known scientists explaining astronomical developments in everyday language.

The series is moderated by Foothill’s astronomy instructor Andrew Fraknoi and sponsored by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the SETI Institute, NASA’s Ames Research Center, and the Foothill College Astronomy Program.

Folks with almost any level of interest in astronomy will find this programming fascinating and a must-have download.

COURIC: You’ve cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land– boundary that we have with– Canada. It– it’s funny that a comment like that was– kind of made to– cari– I don’t know, you know? Reporters–

COURIC: Mock?

PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that’s the word, yeah.

COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.

PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our– our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They’re in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia–

COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We– we do– it’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is– from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to– to our state.

It seems to me a crime that we should age
These fragile times should never slip us by
A time you never can or shall erase
As friends together watch their childhood fly
- Bernie Taupin © 1970

On my last trip home I saw Mr. Reed taking his evening stroll up the street as he does most every evening; this time aided by two crutches.

I’m in a curious situation having bought a house a few years ago in the neighborhood where I grew up – right across the street from my Dad. Most of the people I knew as a kid have long since abandoned the neighborhood for greener pastures, though there remain a few stalwarts.

Mr. Reed lives on the corner with his wife and for all I know, they have lived there forever. Their white house was always one of the better kept homes in the neighborhood. There was nothing at all fancy about it. Its attraction was that it looked and felt like a home and not just a house.

I remember well how the neighborhood gang would cut through their yard walking to and from school every day. That route didn’t shave much off our journey but the Reed’s yard had in it the biggest, most fruitful buckeye tree in the known world.

The Reed’s never spoke an unkind word to us for the path we must surely have beat across the corner of their yard. And picking up a handful of shiny buckeyes on every pass just became a ritual. I remember having several shoeboxes full of them one year, but for the life of me, I don’t remember what we actually did with them.

Mr. Reed is ninety years old now and I imagine walking up and down the road once a day his only real activity and he’s definitely slowing down. The couple spends a lot of time on their front porch and it’s impossible for me or Brenda to pull out of the neighborhood without the Reed’s giving us a friendly wave as we pass.

I’m going to miss that when they are gone; but I don’t suppose I will ever forget the Reed’s.

Their lifelong friendliness and good cheer has etched a place in our hearts that’s more memorable than any tombstone that can be purchased. And every time we turn that corner I intend to remember them and that buckeye tree with a warm smile.

I had a notion a few years ago to found a new club inside the hobby. I planned to call it ‘Hobo Hams’ and use it as a means of focusing attention on frugal, dollar-stretching methods for enjoying amateur radio. It was a bit of social protest prompted by the announcement of several new commercial HF rigs with list prices that were more than I paid for my first house…

I figured a mailing list, periodical newsletter, a Web site, and some sweat equity would be the sum total investment for a very loose-knit, no rules organization that might be useful and fun. And why not – there are all sorts of facets in amateur radio, and what could be more true to our genesis than a group sharing ideas for expanding our enjoyment of the hobby without putting the family budget into hoc in the process?

I never followed through with that idea, but it might be back in play now that we all seem to be headed down the road to poverty together.