Comment on What Can We Do to Get Youth into Ham Radio?
TK420@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I listen to the hams on my scanner and I’m not trying to take a test, buy a fancy radio just to shoot the shit….I have the whole internet in my pocket I can do that with.
I travel the US with my scanner and listen in….i just don’t see the appeal other than the electronics side of it, and there are other areas to learn about that.
I’d like to want my tech license, but I just don’t know why….sounds like a membership to the dork club, but I’m already in it, so I’m conflicted.
beastlykings@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
It’s not the access to the club or whatever, it’s how cool it is that it works at all. The science behind it.
Yeah you can call Japan right now, and your voice will get digitized, and it’ll travel thousands of miles over copper, fiber, microwave. It’ll go under the sea and to space and back through satellites, through millions of dollars of backbone and infrastructure. And that’s pretty cool, but also has become mundane. It’s so easy. But that infrastructure is delicate. Now I’m not a prepper or doomsdayer, I’m just saying, think about it it wasn’t there. Could you talk across the world? Across the country? Heck, across the state might be hard.
Back in the day, hams in Alaska would communicate with people back in the States to keep families in touch, relay information and well wishes alike, because it was all that was available, and it worked.
I got my license just before COVID, and one of my first contacts was over 6000 miles to Japan. Nothing between me and him but a piece of wire in a tree, and some radio waves bouncing off the ionosphere. His voice in my ear, milliseconds after he spoke. It was just… Kind of awe inspiring, and I was hooked.
Not just because I was talking to a guy in Japan, one with similar interests to me I’ll remind you, but because of HOW we were doing it. That’s what made it awesome.
And these radio waves are everywhere, all the time, passing through us every day. But unless you know what you don’t know, you’ll never know.
So I started playing with it more, different antennas, more power, fixing and building my own radios. There’s even games to play over the air, both related to the hobby directly, or just using it as a data backbone. You’ve got POTA, SOTA, fox hunting, digital modes, even Morse code is still heavily used. It was challenging to learn, but fun.
Now I didn’t go turbo nerd, I just did this for a number of years, pretty heavily, but I’ve eased off the gas now. I have a basic setup and I use it a few dozen times a year, maybe more. It’s still awesome but it doesn’t have to be your life. I have other hobbies. I’m a member of a club, because it costs like $10-20 a year, and they’re nice people. They’ve helped me and I’ve helped them.
IDK I guess all I’m saying is don’t discount it entirely, without knowing what you’re missing out on. It’s not just a means to an end. Just because it’s normally easy to talk across the world, doesn’t mean the hard way isn’t amazing that it even works, let alone that it still works and we still have access to the bands that let us do it. Even though corporations definitely want to take them.
But still it’s ok to not be interested in it 🤷♂️
TK420@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Oh, the other thing is I live in a very large city. I don’t have room for any antennas so everything has to be ultra portable. Ham radio doesn’t really fit in. Chatting on a local repeater (I don’t even like taking on the phone) isn’t appealing.
I hear what your saying, it’s just not practical for me beyond tinkering….and if I’m going to tinker, I have a world of radio (SDR) that doesn’t have a lot of infrastructure to transmit on….so being a ham does not do much for me.
beastlykings@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
City living is tough for ham activities, that’s fair. I’m in an apartment myself. But I go hiking and bring the radio, set up a hammock and vibe. But that’s not for everyone either.
I agree wholeheartedly, local repeaters don’t really have much of a place anymore. My buddies and I used to chat on our respective drives to work every day, and home. That was a fun way to keep in touch. But we kind of drifted out of the habit.
You have a transmitting SDR? That’s basically a ham radio, which is cool! And also technically illegal to transmit anywhere without a license as it’s not type certified. Maybe the ISM bands are ok? I can’t remember. Anywho I’m no snitch, just letting you know 🤷♂️
Bottom line I guess is yeah, sometimes it’s just not for everyone. And that’s ok.