It has been two years already…

This blog was started two years ago when VK1OD.net was closed due to forced change of call sign.

In that two years, more than 450 blog articles have been published here and there are more ‘in the wings’, around 10 articles ready for release as I write this.

Though I set out to write mostly about electronics and less about Amateur Radio application of technology, that clearly hasn’t happened as the majority of articles are about Amateur Radio related technology.

Interestingly, the most popular articles are about technology, but not about Amateur Radio technology.

Amateur Radio has relegated itself to a backwater in electronics and technology hobbies. Relegated from the proud tradition that saw many of the significant contributions to electronics and communications technology from people who were also radio amateurs, and that had help shape their development. Amateur radio has transformed itself under the active guidance of its peak bodies into a contesting activity, train-spotting if you like and promoted as “radio sport” and the ‘original’ social network, a pursuit where technology is no longer the main shared interest (or much interest at all) and bad behaviour is rewarded.  Progress!

Overall, hit rates on the new site are much lower than for VK1OD.net which was quite expected. Factors, positive and negative include:

  • + shorter articles intended to be more digestible to modern audiences with busier lives and shorter attention spans;
  • + format that presents well on smartphones and tablets for the mobile user; and
  • – diminishing interest in the underlying technology in amateur radio.

There a many current projects that will give rise to blog articles, after all, the blog is my experimental notebook. Most current projects have some Amateur Radio element, but they apply wider current technologies to the experiments and are relevant not only to Amateur Radio but to radiocommunications more generally and general applications of technology to discovery.