THE CHALLENGE IS HOW TO MAKE CHANGE HAPPEN.
Our amateur radio community in the United States is 800,000 and growing. Reaching and influencing this audience is a major challenge. We need to do three things to affect change.
Engage
We need to get our message out to our whole community, a compelling message that generates broad awareness of a problem and a strong interest in solving it.
Educate
Once we have the attention of our community, we need to provide the information our people need to create and maintain a safe environment for their work.
Enable
Enablement is about making expertise, tools, people, safety equipment readily available and accessible. The average ham needs access to the right equipment and knowledge at a price he can afford.
WE NEED TO MOBILIZE OUR COMMUNITY.
We have a committed community. Early indications, based on reactions to presentations of our underlying research, are that this community is motivated to solve problems. The amateur radio community is driven by three major groups. Each of these groups is critical and must have a role in addressing issues of safety.
Individuals
It’s the individual amateur radio operator who is at risk. This is the group that needs to be reached. Individuals may be uninformed, unmotivated or have other reasons for employing unsafe practices. Those who are doing things ‘right’ are also important to the effort as role models and mentors.
Clubs
Clubs provide critical social structure through which information, role modeling, mentoring and support of all kinds makes its way to individual ham radio operators. Clubs – from the smallest to the largest global organizations -must be a critical component of any broad initiative targeted toward the amateur radio community.
Industry
Providers of all the equipment and services that amateur radio operators purchase and use in the many activities they pursue have an important role. They have the attention of the community, and can use that voice to contribute to awareness and education. And, they can actively reduce the barriers to access to the kinds of products amateurs need to create the safe environments they need.
THE ALLIANCE NEEDS YOU
Our strength is our community. Join the alliance and help create a safer environment for all hams.