2019 State of the Hobby Survey
Get ready operators - the 2019 State of the Hobby Survey is here!
*** Privacy Notice *** I am not affiliated with a company or organization, I am merely an individual conducting a survey for myself and others to learn more about the state of the hobby. Just a guy in Michigan. Any demographic questions are optional and are fairly standard for surveys. No data will be sold or given to anyone - it's to be used by me personally for the survey results only. No personal information will be associated with specific responses, including call signs.
I first want to take a moment to sincerely thank everyone for the fantastic participation in 2018. Our inaugural survey in 2017 found around 600 responses but 2018 came booming in with nearly 3,000 responses, voicing their opinions! A huge shout out to the blog / websites owners, podcast producers and large clubs for taking the time to promote the survey within their respective audiences - I could not have done this without you!
If you have not had a chance to see the results from previous years, they are listed here:
The survey started out in 2017 as simple curiosity. While browsing Reddit I began to notice several users posting surveys for highly specific topics. I made sure to participate yet often wondered what the results were. I then decided to host my own survey, to collect the opinions from the community on a variety of topics for comparison over the years. I wanted to ensure I made the results widely available for anyone to consume for whatever reason.
Thanks to feedback and inquiry from hundreds of participants, I've made a few minor changes to the survey. This year I've included some questions specific to 2019, which of course will change year to year. I hope to keep the core portion of the survey mainly intact (for that comparison) and continue to modify the annual section as deemed fit.
As always, please subscribe to my blog for email alerts on future survey and result activities.
2019 State of the Hobby Survey
*** Privacy Notice *** I am not affiliated with a company or organization, I am merely an individual conducting a survey for myself and others to learn more about the state of the hobby. Just a guy in Michigan. Any demographic questions are optional and are fairly standard for surveys. No data will be sold or given to anyone - it's to be used by me personally for the survey results only. No personal information will be associated with specific responses, including call signs.
The question "In the last 12 months, what new repeaters have gone operational in your area?" should have included an "other" field. In my area there is a new 33cm repeater. No way to notate that in the survey.
ReplyDeleteJon, I'll be sure to include that for next year. In terms of the "other" field, I try and limit those as much as possible. People tend to use those even if their option is available for selection. It might say 70cm but participants will write in 440MHz for some reason. Sure, this is technically correct but I'm one guy going all the data cleansing and analysis. My goal is to get the survey results out within 2 to 3 weeks after the window closes, so I like to tighten it up where I can. Thanks for checking it out!
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ReplyDeleteI did most of the survey then got stuck and cannot participate. I cannot answer "Strongly agree / Disagree" questions about activities I don't engage in.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback. Typically on a 5 point Likert scale question, the middle chevron represents no opinion. You don't feel strongly about it one way or another! This could mean you don't participate or that you simply don't care enough - I hope that helps!
Deleteregarding cswenngsen's point - it's valid, and it would be better to give a "not applicable choice" than to assume the mid-point of a Likert-type scale means the respondent doesn't participate or doesn't care enough. Golden rule with survey questions is to make them such that the surveyor doesn't have to interpret/assume what the respondents mean.
ReplyDeleteI can certainly see the merit in that - sadly I'm also bound by the platform (being Google) for that. I would love to have the 5 point scale and then an N/A option at the end. Perhaps in future years I'll see about another platform for the survey itself (SurveyMonkey, SoGoSurvey, etc) to solve that issue. Thanks for stopping by!
DeleteI like that the low-ends of the bands are (for the most part) CW only. 100 KC is enough room for CW on VHF, and the HF bands allow for plenty of CW-only frequencies. Of course, CW is still allowed on all Amateur Radio frequencies, but courtesy dictates that SSB/FM/AM allocations should mostly be used for those modes. Amateur Radio is in excellent shape, and the influx of younger Ops is a blessing....
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