[Elecraft] Suggestions for Introducing a 10-year-old to Amateur Radio and Electronics

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Your foil antenna sounds a great deal like Marconi's first antenna used on the family estate to prove radio waves were not just "line-of-sight". 

https://readtiger.com/img/wkp/en/Marconi%27s_first_radio_transmitter.jpg

73, Ron AC7AC

-----Original Message-----
From: elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Nicklas Johnson
Sent: Sunday, October 15, 2017 10:09 AM
To: Dauer, Edward
Cc: Elecraft Reflector Reflector
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Suggestions for Introducing a 10-year-old to Amateur Radio and Electronics

I second this.  My first foray into electronics in general and radio in particular came from the old Radio Shack / Science Fair "160 in one" and
"200 in one" project kits.  Prepare for a spaghetti-wire mess of jumpers between spring terminals, but it was a really great means for me to begin to understand, and it was a great way for someone of that age (I think I started toying with them around the age of 9) to experiment.

My favorite kit build, of course, was the AM Radio transmitter, which led to a lot of experimentation with different antennas to see how far around our neighborhood I could pick up my signal, trying to find "improvements"
to the circuit, means of using speaker and line-level inputs instead of the microphone input so I could play music more easily, etc. etc.  It turned out that, for reasons I didn't understand at the time, a 6-foot-long sheet of aluminum foil makes a pretty good broadcast band antenna for a toy kit, much better than just a wire :-)

Eventually this led to a postal mail conversation with my uncle, who is a Ham, who in turn sent me a copy of "Tune in the World with Ham Radio" to help answer some questions I had about antennas.  And then, upon doing the calculations, I was dismayed to learn that a proper vertical antenna for the frequency I was trying to use would need to be over 150 feet high, well beyond the allowed length for a Part 15 transmitter.  Someone should have told me about loading coils... I bet I could have gotten a little more range out of that aluminum foil!

   Nick