State of the Hobby

I wanted to drop a quick note out to those who follow our communications. Due to the increasing and radical changes in daily life due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 State of the Hobby survey has been postponed. Please subscribe for more details on when the survey will be released. Stay safe out there and God bless.

Greetings fellow operators! I hope 2020 finds you well and excited for another year in amateur radio! I wanted to drop a quick note to let everyone know I've already begun work on the 2020 State of the Hobby survey, which will hopefully be released in mid-March. I typically kick the survey off when March begins, but this year I will be traveling during that time. I want to be able to devote the appropriate level of time to the survey so will prep ahead of time and release mid-March. Be sure subscribe (if you have not already) to the blog to get an email notification when it's released. I wanted to go over a few things for 2020, both what has changed and what has stayed the same. What Has Changed Anonymity - This survey can now be taken completely anonymously. You can provide a call if you'd like, but it's not required nor is a Google sign-in. I suspect there will be many attempts at data manipulation (there has been every year I've done this) and working w

The crew over at the ICQ Podcast talk about the State of the Hobby survey, among other topics. It's certainly a bit odd listening to a panel of well-respected hams discuss the project. Many thanks to them for the feedback and for the flowers. Frank, if you're reading this, I may have to pick your brain for the 2020 survey! :-)

If you have not subscribed to this channel, I highly recommend this! Great content from a fellow ham!

And by we're I mean me. Each year I attempt to make the State of the Hobby survey a bit more geocentric. While amateur radio is something that can be enjoyed around the global, some of the issues and topics are very regionally specific. The viewpoints and concerns of hams outside of the US are just as important, and can offer fantastic insights if properly collected. In an effort to increase the global nature of the questions solicited, I'd like to partner with a few hams from around the world for 2020. I'd like this to be a small panel of hams who have specific insights into both questions pertaining to their specific regions and into those questions on the general portion that may not be applicable. Specifically, I'm looking for representation from the following continents / regions / countries: Europe (e.g. UK, Western Europe, Eastern Europe) Oceania (e.g. Australia / NZ) South America Central America Russia Africa Japan China India Idea

During the course of this survey and it's development, some people have mentioned launching a Patreon page as a way to support the initiative. While I administer the survey out of interest and as a service to those who read the results, I've decided to do just that. The survey is currently financially sustainable out of my pocket, however I'd like to grow this each year and with that comes some opportunity to invest in new platforms. To that end, while Google Survey is the right price (free), it's not without it's limitations. I've received feedback that some of the questions lack clear or functional responses, something due in part to the Google platform. Others have also shown concern over the hosting of this survey on Google itself, and while I don't share in those concerns, it doesn't make them any less valid. I'm going start a Patreon as an option for those who would like to financially support this initiative. This survey will always rema

Greetings folks - 2019 is upon us! I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable new year. With a new year comes a new annual survey, and another chance to pick the brains of operators worldwide for what they like and dislike about amateur radio, as well as their opinions. Last year was a fantastic survey and I highly recommend checking out the results, if you have not done so. I am eternally thankful for all the blogs, sites and podcasts that picked up the 2018 State of the Hobby survey and push it out to such a wide audience. This brings us to now. I spent a fair amount of time sifting through comments and suggestions from last year and how I'd like to incorporate that feedback. I received some excellent ideas and I think you'll find the changes to the survey to be more inclusive and more holistic than before. The idea behind this survey is to grow each year. I will be spending the month of February preparing and polishing the survey for release in March. This year the survey

The 2018 survey is now closed! I want to extend a HUGE thank you to everyone who participate, and to those who passed this on to other hams as well. This year had a much larger turnout that 2017 and hopefully this trend will continue. So - the 65 million dollar question is...when will the results be posted? Short answer is anywhere from 4-8 weeks from now. My next steps are to pull the data out of the survey and begin to cleanse and normalize. Each question with an open ended response can be anywhere from 10-15 hours of work, depending on the variance of the response. It's important to me that each response is valued, as a result I want to ensure this is done well. As an example, I provided some options for "How did you find this survey?" and also left it open to people to enter in their own choices. Some example responses I received are: Email Emailed Emailed from another ham Got an email from my dad Gmail Someone mailed it to me online I

I had posted around a few weeks ago that the survey was due to close on 13-MAR-2018 for this year. That was originally my plan, but you know how plans go.... Our good friends on the other side of the globe, WA Amateur Radio News were kind enough to feature the survey on their weekly podcast (NewsWest Weekly Broadcast) and website. They reached out and asked if the survey could be reopened for a few weeks to allow their audience to participate - I couldn't or wouldn't say no to some more data. Special thanks to Glynn VK6PAW for promoting the survey and for helping give radio amateurs in Western Australia a voice. 73!