[ARC5] where is a new generation?

[Richard Knoppow]

     I don't know when I got interested in radio since I don't remember 
ever not being interested. It may have been a neighbor boy who had an 
S-38B but I think before that my dad took an evening course in radio.  
We, mostly I and my mom built a crystal set. A real one with coils wound 
on a toilet roll tube and assembled on a piece of plywood.  We strung a 
wire from the upstairs back porch to the garage. Wow, I even remember 
the Bakelite odor of the surplus headphones.  This was radio before TV 
so there were lots of programs to listen to.  I got bit bad although it 
was years before I got my ham license. I think I got bit by photography 
around the same time.

On 11/20/2015 2:12 PM, Glen Zook via ARC5 wrote:
> My interest, in radio, was sparked when I was like 9-years old and discovered an old broadcast bad plus shortwave receiver that my father had put, on the top shelf, in an open closet at the bottom of the stairs to my bedroom.  The receiver had a broken dial cord and my father did not want to spend the money to get it repaired.  I found that, by reaching through the back of the receiver, avoiding the hot tubes, that I could tune the receiver.
>
> Eventually, I removed the receiver from its cabinet and put it behind a fiber-board panel at the head of my bed.  Somehow, I fabricated a dial and calibrated that dial using known frequencies of stations that I received!
>
> For Christmas, 1957,  my parents got me a used Heath AR-3 receiver (bought at Allied Radio in Chicago).  The AR-3 was light years better than my previous receiver.
>
> There was a "garage shop" TV repair shop less than a block from my house.  The owner was an EE graduate who was a "bit" eccentric.  His day job was in the tool crib of the local Allis Chalmers factory and at night, and weekends, he ran the TV repair shop.  He also wrote books!  His son, who was about a year younger than I, had absolutely no interest in anything electronic or mechanical.  As such, he "adopted" me and gave me as many old TV chassis as I could haul off and then strip for parts.  He also gave me, for my bedroom, a working TV set that was better than the one in my parent's living room!
>
> My father was in the heating and air conditioning business and the company also sold fuel oil and coal.  An amateur radio operator, now long SK, K9BPV / ex W2ZSK, moved in about 5-blocks away and became a fuel oil customer.  My father made arrangements for me to meet him.  Dave, K9BPV, helped me fine tune my code and gave me my Novice Class examination.  The rest is history!
>   Glen, K9STH Website: http://k9sth.net
>        From: Bob via ARC5 <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
>
> Hi
>
>
>      While reading  ongoing missives on recruitment of younger folks into the hobby it piqued my curiosity as to what got me interested in this stuff almost 70 years ago.
>
>
>      I remember as a tyke my dad taking me with him to dump trash at the Ventura County dump and seeing a pile old radios near a heap of other things.  I was so taken by the idea that anyone would toss out such things as precious as a radio that I talked my dad into letting me drag some of them home.  That was the beginning of what I would now classify as an inculcation of radio and electronics stuff into my brain case.  The romantic connection with the junk has never left me.
>
>
>      Exposure to the ham radio hobby in all its marvelous forms is the key to recruitment.  And this means that all of us have to open up our shacks and equipment hoards to young folks who show even the smallest of interest in the hobby.  It's also generational.  Neither of my daughters embraced he hobby, but one did take an interest in the science side of the avocation and used that information as a springboard into a highly paid career in the Electronics and Computer industry.  My grandson, did pick up the challenge and is now a general class ham.  The hook there was connecting electronics with his first love, cars and engines (a real gear head).
>
>
>      A agree with many of the postings that ham clubs have turned into collections of white headed geezers.  I recently joined a couple of local clubs and found the members to be dedicated to the hobby, friendly, and active in various ham endeavors.  But as noted among the members I saw only one young person, a young fellow who looked like he'd rather be cleaning out chicken coops than attend a ham club meeting.
>
>
>      In my teenage years a couple of local hams, K6CXB (sk) and W6BWV(sk) were very generous with their gifts of equipment and knowledge which helped me gain entrance into the  hobby with little if any hard earned money invested. If not for the generosity and encouragement provided by these two fellows I probably would no have entered the hobby.
>
>
>      My recruitment suggestion(s) at this point is to loosen up your hold on functional ham gear and get it into  the hands of young folks,  Just having an old but usable ham band receiver with a hunk of antenna wire just might spark an interest in what's out there.  And if this process gives way to an interest on the part of the youngster,  encourage that development by giving him or her some materials to construct some ham gadget that in turn may accelerate the process and provide that inculcation that many of us OLDER folks experienced as kids.  Clubs may want to set up booths at some of the Maker Fairs or even county fairs and other social gatherings.
>
>
>      So rather than wring our hands and do nothing about the lack of young folks entering the hobby, lets get proactive and Elmer a few kids so we will have a bunch of able bodied folks to put up the antennas at Field Day and pull the late shifts at the operating table (a bit of self interest here)
>
>
>    
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-- 
Richard Knoppow
1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
WB6KBL