With a high percentage of cash flow devoted to home expenses, there is insufficient money or time to spend hours at a time chatting with the world on a multi-thousand dollar HF rig plus antenna installation. Throw a couple of kids into the mix, and between work and family life, time for leisure activities has often vanished. The result is different kind of ham radio experience for today's ham than for the ham of 30 or even as few as 20 years ago. Tom Poberezny, President of the Experimental Aircraft Association , writes in the October 1996 Sport Aviation of the difficulties in recruiting new entrants to personal aviation. New hams are integrating ham radio into their everday activities.
Ham radio is less an end unto itself and more an adjunct to other activities.
There are new competitors for our time and money. And when it comes to local and even long distance communications, there are new competitors for those who might otherwise have been interested in ham radio. This is a troubling issue. We agree completely. The point we are trying to make is to compare ham radio within the context of the broader competitive environment for persons interested in radio communications.