Comment on What Can We Do to Get Youth into Ham Radio?
Twitchy1@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks agoThose inexpensive, although less traditional means is the answer to the question that started this thread.
They need to be promoted and advertised above all else. Once someone is interested then you can add in the expensive things.
Example, I race RCs. Just the chassis of some of the cars is well above $500(I use $100 3racing Chinese knock offs and extremely very competitive with them btw). These cars are raced on perfectly flat and prepared asphalt so it’s very niche. The club wants members to race… We don’t tell people that come to watch that they should buy the $1500 car&radio, nobody will join. We have several classes that are “starters”. The cost of the cars is $100-200 ready to race. It’s not fast at all but it’s cheap enough to see if you want it. It’s also cheap and easy to maintain. Most people enjoy the inexpensive racing that fills the majority of the day.
The hobby needs to adapt to the complaints/requests of people not actively involved but willing to give it a try.
beastlykings@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
That’s fair, yeah important to make it clear what’s available and what will do the job.
A lot of people have a buy once cry once mentality, which I do agree with in a lot of ways, but that’s a hard sell.
RC cars is probably worse, because your equipment takes a literal beating. That’s how it was in the fpv drone world, 100mph into a tree and you’re done for the day, probably a hundred or two in damage, if you’re lucky. So n in that world too I flew cheaper stuff, still fun, but still hurts to take a crash and destroy a $50 camera it vtx, etc.
That’s where loaning equipment out comes into play. I loaned out drone stuff, to be used with me present and teaching. And that’s what I try to do with ham radio, come hang out, we’ll do a POTA or chase some DX. But I feel like a lot more people these days are losing social skills and don’t want to hang out, or as evidenced in this thread they don’t even want to use their voice to talk on the radio. There are digital options, but this complicates the lending/teaching/social aspect 🤷♂️
Again, I don’t have the answers, it’s a complicated problem in a changing world. But there sure are a lot of black and white opinions in here.