From the perspective of a young person who doesn’t have their amateur radio license yet, the hobby may seem quite obsolete. One confused look at the swap section of a hamfest, a glimpse of a boat anchor in an Elmer’s basement…these aren’t the most appealing parts of amateur radio, especially to young people or teenagers who barely even know what one would do with this dusty equipment.
Old radios and equipment, seemingly never-ending rag-chews about the weather, and slowly tapping out Morse code with barely functional, rust-encased straight keys—these things are basically irrelevant to young people, but amateur radio itself is far from irrelevant.
The amateur radio community is full of individuals who have a passion for learning new things, making it a place where experiential learning and technical advancements are everywhere. This isn’t hard to observe if we briefly imagine a timeline of amateur radio’s history. Since the hobby’s humble beginnings in the early 20th century, the equipment and methods used to enjoy it have morphed from basic crystal radios and spark gap technology to the far more complex radios we use today.
While the aforementioned early amateur radio equipment may not be appealing to young people today, it certainly was to the young people of the time. I can’t even begin to count how many stories I’ve heard on 40 meters about a ham’s teenage years being spent listening to shortwave broadcast stations late at night. Modern radio equipment, particularly those with the capability to support digital mode operations, can be appealing and just as relevant to young people today. For some students, the equipment used can help them gain a more thorough understanding of the technical concepts they’re studying in school.
Speaking of school, young people spend the vast majority of their days in the classroom trying to make connections between the things they are memorizing for tests and the parts of their life that they (for lack of a better term) actually care about. That’s where amateur radio comes in. Amateur radio provides a real-life tie to many of the things young people are learning about. Geography? Very useful in recognizing DX prefixes. Foreign languages? Amateur radio provides a great place for these skills to be put into practice. Math and science? I think we can all see what part these subjects play in amateur radio. Thus, not only is amateur radio relevant to young people, but it makes the things they are learning and experiencing outside the hobby relevant as well.
On the non-technical side of the hobby, amateur radio also holds relevance to young people through the opportunity that it provides for them to connect with others. Young people are always looking to make friends and meet new people, especially those with whom they share an interest. Numerous resources for young people to connect with others exist in amateur radio, from solely on-air and online groups like the Young Amateurs Communications Ham Team (YACHT) and Youth Amateur Radio Club (YARC) to on-air and in-person groups like Youth On The Air (YOTA).
In addition to being places for young hams to meet other operators, most of these resources also aim to make amateur radio more relevant to young people by exposing them to various aspects of the hobby and showing them the possibilities within it.
These organizations also create opportunities for young people to serve a community that they are an integral part of and care deeply about. Many school-aged hams are required to fulfill a certain number of hours of public service or volunteer work to be considered for membership to organizations like the National Honor Society or even to graduate high school or college. Amateur radio facilitates meaningful and impactful volunteer work that betters a community and hopefully allows them to see the effects of their work down the road.
At the end of the day, amateur radio is very much still relevant to young people through the opportunities it provides for cross-cultural learning, technical skill refinement, connecting with others, and service. While various aspects of the hobby, some of which I mentioned in the beginning of this article, are less relevant than others, the hobby is certainly still relevant. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to make that clear to young people and how to keep it relevant as the technology they have access to every day advances and unfairly competes with the magic of amateur radio.
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