In the latest edition of QNews Geoff Emery VK4ZPP asks how much do we promote amateur radio? and if we do, what follow up is there?
He writes:
Hello, I’m Geoff Emery, VK4ZPP, and I’ve been thinking.
As World Amateur Radio Day is upon us, I wonder how much we care about the service that we enjoy. It is one thing to talk about things at the club and chinwag on the radio but how much do we do to promote the hobby? Here am I on a weekly news broadcast and I ask myself how much do I do to promote amateur radio or am I just talking to the faithful?
I hark back to the attempt at promoting an annual field day to roughly coincide with the International Commemoration of the founding of the IARU. I think the VK attempt struggled for the first year and foundered after the second and that must have been some 15 years or so back, from memory. The idea was to have displays and demonstrations in places where the public could come and see what we were doing.
It worked to an extent.
In my area, the club succeeded in getting coverage from a couple of the local TV networks and some material in the local paper.
To aid clubs, the WIA had previously provided a press kit which assisted us in preparing news releases about the activities and there were posters available to aid the visual presentation. That was a while ago and I wonder what has happened to the impetus to show off what we do. What is it that seems to have bogged us down? What is it that we can do that will put amateur radio before the public again.
The schools that contact the International Space Station, ISS, via amateur radio tend to get the message out and show the interest in a particular part of the STEM curriculum but what is the follow up?
The clubs that provide operators and aid in Jamboree of the Air for the Scouting movement seem to provide a contingent without getting publicity of the public service they provide.
These are just two examples of hams participating in community events and as a recreational group, we fail to capitalise on the opportunities to show the world a more comprehensive picture than the blurry image or no idea of what radio amateurs do.
I don’t expect us to revert to historical re-enactments but from my point of view this is something that the candidates for the WIA Board should be already working on. I don’t have the figures and don’t know if they have been collated but we see that by utilising remote invigilation methods, both the ARRL in the USA and the RSGB in the UK have seen the majority of candidates sitting for amateur credentials, not only succeed but during the lock downs the numbers have increased over previous equivalent periods.
How have we done in VK?
There is a comedic song from many years ago by Bob Hudson called "The Newcastle Song” and the refrain carries an important wake up for us too, "never let a chance go by”.
I’m Geoff Emery VK4ZPP and that’s what I think....how about you?
