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

[John Magliacane]

 On Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at 11:25:50 AM EDT, David Gilbert via Elecraft <elecraft at mailman.qth.net> wrote:

> How many of those young hams were still active two years after they got
> their license? Do you even know?
>
> Dave AB7E

The pathway to a license is very easy, these days. Unfortunately, the pathway to sustainability is a whole other story.

Only a few who took interest in what I was doing became licensed. Of those few, even fewer remained active after moving on in their education and careers and losing contact with me.

Life has priorities. I get that. That's one of the reasons I've been largely inactive for many years, myself.

However, one student was offered a telecommunications job specifically because he was a ham, and the fact that none of the folks coming out of the technical schools and colleges knew anything practical about antennas, transceivers, transmission lines, VSWR, etc. Incidentally, the President of the company was not a ham, but he certainly knew what Amateur Radio was and understood its value as described in Part 97.1.


73 de John, KD2BD