Dan Simpson
You could almost say it “self infects” those that get the bug lol.
I remember finding it hard to understand some basic electronics, other than ohms law, back at school,it was such a minor part of the Physics teaching at O level.
CB back in the late 70s was fun, all we knew was yer had to swr the antenna, there was different modes, AM, then ssb, later FM, and back then “power” was king. If you were lucky you got to know someone that had scanners, wow, listening in to all those frequencies, and if further interested, Short Wave listening.
Mine progressed remarkably, as sort of the same era, I qualified in Electronic Test, and the lecturer was a Ham. However, I didnt have the time or the miney back then to do anything about it, and, once left college, there were no other hams I knew.
As I said earlier, lockdown was the time I used to investigate Amateur Radio further. Imagine my delight, not only was there free training (cheers Pete), but I didnt have to learn morse, and the exam was online.
I must admit, Ive now stalled a bit, I have Foundation, and, now back at work full time, have little or no time to devote to Intermediate courses yet (retire in 2 years, so thats my next window of opportunity)
So, getting back to the OP;
I believe its necessary for new people to have some initial interest, it can be “stirred” a little by meeting others that are hams and being at ham events, but after that, its down to the individual to want to learn more, you cant force feed it like a school curriculum.
There will be a finite amount of people that will have that interest, even after being introduced to the hobby.
It therefore becomes like the old direct sales routine, more people that see or hear your ad, the more possible leads you get, the more people that hear of ham radio, then a greater chance of those finite groups of people have of coming into contact with the hobby.
I mentioned County Shows…maybe the best ones are those military displays, demonstrations at those, showing radio communications, even morse code, show people how to spell their name in code, give them a paper printout to go away with,
if a qso is obtained on air, get a qsl physical card printed out to remind them.
Gimmicks? yep.
Schools, sponsored kits for kids to assemble, with basic theory how each bit works, get a ham to set up using something they have made, show them how easy it can be.
Anyway, this is just me rambling.
Here we are discussing how to get new blood into ham radio, and its hard enough to get existing hams to use a forum like this lol.
ATB
Dan
M7JJO
