Via Southgate: Press story about ham radio in Japan

Japan’s The Mainichi carried a good promotional article about amateur radio

The newspaper highlighted the increase in membership of the national amateur radio society JARL.

The article says:

More amateur ham radio operators are reaching out across the airwaves in Japan, possibly due to past enthusiasts returning to the hobby amid the coronavirus pandemic.

While ham radios have practical uses like gathering information in times of disasters as witnessed in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, why are they getting attention as a pastime now?

The membership of the Japan Amateur Radio League had been falling steadily as mobile phones and the internet sapped ham radios’ appeal. But at the end of fiscal 2020 it saw a year-on-year rise of 574 members for a total of 65,788, the first increase in 27 years. The membership had grown further by the end of fiscal 2021. A league representative said of the trend, “One cause may be that the generation that was familiar with ham radios in their youth have retired and gone back to them.”

Sales at Ham Shop Friends, which sells amateur radio equipment in the suburban Tokyo city of Hamura, have also grown due to apparent demand from people stuck at home during the pandemic. Manager Katsuhisa Akiyoshi, 71, said it was “because ham radio enthusiasts can be connected even when they can’t go out.”

Read the full story in English at
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220625/p2a/00m/0li/019000c

While JARL membership figures have been increasing the total number of amateur radio stations in Japan has been declining most of this century and fell again over the past year.

On July 3, 2021, there were 384,514 amateur stations by July 2, 2022, there were 376,827 a fall of 7,687. Source:

https://twitter.com/JH3XCU/status/1411051006670958594

https://twitter.com/JH3XCU/status/1542963610535997440

Japanese amateur radio station statistics prior to 2015
http://ah0a.org/MPT/JA-Stations.html

Read more – Southgate Amateur Radio News RSS Feed http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2022/july/press-story-about-ham-radio-in-japan.htm
via IFTTT