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A few years ago at the 2002 AMSAT meeting in Ft. Worth, Tony, AA2TX was giving a talk on his antennas made from cardboard boxes and aluminum foil. There was a grade school class in attendance with their teacher. When the talk was over, the kids swarmed over the boxes and aluminum foil to make antennas with great enthusiasm. Very inspiring -- this is the kind of reaching out we need.

Instead of our self serving pursuit of DXCC, WAS, VUCC, WAC and others, maybe the ARRL needs to sponsor an award for bringing new Hams into the community. Otherwise, someday, no one will remember what those letters even stood for.

Believe me, at 43 years old, I'm acutely aware of two facts:

1. I'm relatively young for a radio amateur; and 2. I'm not exactly young.

Amateur radio has a few things going against it as far as "young" people are concerned, and some of these things cannot be easily solved by regulation changes, mentoring, etc.

First and foremost is that amateur radio is a technical hobby and is consequently viewed by young people (hereafter taken to mean "people under 25") as nerdy, uncool, etc. I say with some confidence that very few people who currently hold amateur radio licences were members of the popular crowd in high school or university. Is that silly? Perhaps... but it's also true. Young people have a lot of demands on their time, and being "cool" is as important now as it ever was, maybe more so. The result is that amateur radio is going to appeal to a comparatively small number of young people from the get-go. I am not sure how or if this perception can be overcome.

Second, advancing technology makes the hobby less useful than it once was. If you wanted to chat with people in far away lands back in 1979 (when I first started SWL), then amateur radio was probably just about the only way to do it. If you want to do that today, you need only download any of a multitude of simple computer programs and have at it, with no technical skill, no licence and little or no cost. People getting into amateur radio now will be doing it, in my opinion, purely for a love of radio or tinkering rather than what I perceive to have been a large palette of reasons in decades gone by. This issue can probably be overcome by raising the profile of amateur radio as a hobby with a modern flavour. Certainly amateur radio satellite and keyboarding modes for amateur radio help out a lot. No offence to morse code afficiondos, but the vast majority of the kids I see (I volunteer at the Canada Science and Tech museum) think of morse code as a quaint reminder of days past... interesting only as far as "yeah, my grampa used to do that, neat" but not interesting enough to be something they'd want to do. Every time someone tries to raise the importance of morse code in amateur radio, I guarantee it scares away another potential young licencee who sees amateur radio as old-fashioned and backward. On the other hand, get a kid talking on a satellite to someone across the continent (or ocean, from here) and they'll remember that for a LONG time. Get a kid chatting with someone around the world by keyboard using Olivia or PSK31 and they can relate instantly because they're used to instant messaging. Seriously, as radio amateurs we should really downplay morse code outside our licenced ranks. People who want to keep code alive will do so, but very few people are attracted to this hobby by morse code and I believe a great many people are repelled by a perception that if you can't do code, you're not a "real" radio amateur.

Third, and this also can't be overcome by mentoring etc., is that amateur radio has space and financial requirements that are beyond most young people. Everyone on this list go look at your stuff right now and add up what it cost in terms of currency as well as indoor and outdoor space. Sure, you *CAN* get into amateur radio with a used 2m HT picked up in Dayton for $100. But let's face it the really cool stuff requires more sophisticated (read: expensive) equipment, usually with antenna systems that require space and more money. When you're a teen or a young person just starting a family, it's a discretionary expense that is probably just not high on your list. Only when you've started to get a few grey hairs (if you have any hairs left) is it likely you'll be in a comfortable position to invest in the "good" stuff. This is the reason, in my opinion, that radio amateurs largely seem to be no younger than about 35 or so. It simply takes that long to get in a position to really pursue parts of this hobby.

That's my spin on it. And I'll be back in the museum on Saturday showing off amateur radio satellites to the kids :)

73 de VE3OIJ Darin