[Elecraft] Effective ways to introduce amateur radio to newcomers?

[Fred Jensen]

There are about 800K active license grants in the US.  Unfortunately, 
it's impossible to determine how many of those are still alive, still 
active, and if active how much and in what ways. I've been at this for 
70 years.  Hugely HF active as a 50's teenager, much less so in college, 
QRT for 4 years while in the USAF in SE Asia, increasingly active after 
I returned home but that declined again after several kids, during grad 
school, and several jobs.  Big spike after I retired.  Now, as the 
birthdays accumulate, I'm generally on the air daily, but only in the 
on-air activities I still enjoy [mainly conversational CW and some low 
key "contesting" such as QSO parties, NAQP's, events, etc].

Generalizing is virtually impossible nor is there a single magic 
bullet.  I did SOTA until I no longer could physically and found a few 
curious people on summits, on the trails, and at the trailheads.  POTA 
likewise although it's common for visitors to my picnic table to wonder 
if I'm a CIA spook. 😉  CWops with their CW Academy has worked well 
fostering CW proficiency and thus sparking interest into contests, 
on-air events, DX, etc.

The one observation I've been able to make that seems to have at least 
some measure of fact in it is that of those who sit for the exam and 
then remain "active" in the hobby are, for the most part, doing so on 
VHF/UHF on club repeaters.  ARRL [or its replacement organization] might 
make some retention headway with these folk if they cleaned up their 
website and made an active, focused place for them to learn about the 
parts of ham radio that they are interested in ... and maybe 
accidentally, a few they didn't know they were interested in.


73,

Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW
Sparks NV DM09dn
Washoe County
"K3 to an HOA-friendly antenna"
> David Gilbert via Elecraft <mailto:elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
> Saturday, July 26, 2025 3:57 PM
>
> Exactly.
>
> Trying to talk people into being interested in things we're interested 
> in for the reasons we're interested in them is a foolish endeavor. 
> Evangelism is boring and off-putting.  The best we can do is describe 
> what ham radio can offer and let people decide if that has any 
> interest for them.
>
> If we have to convince somebody that ham radio is interesting to them, 
> then it probably isn't and even if they go along it won't last.
>
> Which brings me to this question:
>
> Why is it necessary that we talk other people into ham radio in the 
> first place??  There are supposedly close to 800,000 licensed hams in 
> the U.S., which is a bigger market and a bigger pool of like minds 
> than LOTS of other activities.  Is there some sort of collective 
> insecurity complex going on every time this comes up? And it comes up 
> with annoying frequency on almost every forum.
>
> Dave   AB7E
>
>
>
>
>
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> Wayne Burdick via Elecraft <mailto:elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
> Wednesday, July 23, 2025 7:52 PM
> Hi all,
>
> Please share any methods you've used for stirring interest in our shared
> pastime. How have you communicated the science, the camaraderie, and the
> intrigue of the radio art? Real-world examples would be inspiring to read
> about.
>
> 73,
> Wayne
> N6KR
>
>



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