Stop exposing ham operator's full name and address to google from just their callsign
this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2025
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Embrace digital modes.
What is a digital node?
I love the idea of using it, but between getting married, looking for better jobs, and maintaining friendships, I haven't found the time to study for the amateur radio exam, which appears to be considerable.
GMRS is $35 and a license so that I can use a radio with my family, husband, and licensed friends while skiing or mountain biking, making localized communication easy, while the cert process was mostly friction free (looking at you, ancient FCC website and the guides needed to figure out licensing- something less dedicated people forgo, hint hint). The friction for getting ham licensed makes it difficult for young people who don't have much time for additional hobbies.
I do hope it's around when I'm older and (hopefully) have more free time!
I listen to the hams on my scanner and I’m not trying to take a test, buy a fancy radio just to shoot the shit….I have the whole internet in my pocket I can do that with.
I travel the US with my scanner and listen in….i just don’t see the appeal other than the electronics side of it, and there are other areas to learn about that.
I’d like to want my tech license, but I just don’t know why….sounds like a membership to the dork club, but I’m already in it, so I’m conflicted.
It's not the access to the club or whatever, it's how cool it is that it works at all. The science behind it.
Yeah you can call Japan right now, and your voice will get digitized, and it'll travel thousands of miles over copper, fiber, microwave. It'll go under the sea and to space and back through satellites, through millions of dollars of backbone and infrastructure. And that's pretty cool, but also has become mundane. It's so easy. But that infrastructure is delicate. Now I'm not a prepper or doomsdayer, I'm just saying, think about it it wasn't there. Could you talk across the world? Across the country? Heck, across the state might be hard.
Back in the day, hams in Alaska would communicate with people back in the States to keep families in touch, relay information and well wishes alike, because it was all that was available, and it worked.
I got my license just before COVID, and one of my first contacts was over 6000 miles to Japan. Nothing between me and him but a piece of wire in a tree, and some radio waves bouncing off the ionosphere. His voice in my ear, milliseconds after he spoke. It was just... Kind of awe inspiring, and I was hooked.
Not just because I was talking to a guy in Japan, one with similar interests to me I'll remind you, but because of HOW we were doing it. That's what made it awesome.
And these radio waves are everywhere, all the time, passing through us every day. But unless you know what you don't know, you'll never know.
So I started playing with it more, different antennas, more power, fixing and building my own radios. There's even games to play over the air, both related to the hobby directly, or just using it as a data backbone. You've got POTA, SOTA, fox hunting, digital modes, even Morse code is still heavily used. It was challenging to learn, but fun.
Now I didn't go turbo nerd, I just did this for a number of years, pretty heavily, but I've eased off the gas now. I have a basic setup and I use it a few dozen times a year, maybe more. It's still awesome but it doesn't have to be your life. I have other hobbies. I'm a member of a club, because it costs like $10-20 a year, and they're nice people. They've helped me and I've helped them.
IDK I guess all I'm saying is don't discount it entirely, without knowing what you're missing out on. It's not just a means to an end. Just because it's normally easy to talk across the world, doesn't mean the hard way isn't amazing that it even works, let alone that it still works and we still have access to the bands that let us do it. Even though corporations definitely want to take them.
But still it's ok to not be interested in it 🤷♂️
Oh, the other thing is I live in a very large city. I don’t have room for any antennas so everything has to be ultra portable. Ham radio doesn’t really fit in. Chatting on a local repeater (I don’t even like taking on the phone) isn’t appealing.
I hear what your saying, it’s just not practical for me beyond tinkering….and if I’m going to tinker, I have a world of radio (SDR) that doesn’t have a lot of infrastructure to transmit on….so being a ham does not do much for me.
Make it affordable isn't a reasonable request...
How about don't trash talk inexpensive equipment. "This $4k radio is what you need, not that Chinese junk." Watch the majority of people will just walk away.
My unused general license is a perfect example. The multiple free HF antennas and free LMR400 run to my free 30' antenna mast I was given didn't even put a dent in offsetting the cost of a radio to use the equipment I have rotting away.
I'll keep my dual band tyt and my 2m Kenwood. If there's an emergency where it is useful, I'll use it.
The problem is that cheap equipment literally performs worse, for you. And can make the frequencies around you worse, because of poor filtering or bad circuit design.
I'm not saying $4000 needs to be spent. You can get all the radio you'll ever need, for $800-900, with an icom 7300. Now that's not cheap, but it's definitely in the realm of feasibility. People pay more for cell phones in some cases.
But, if you want a more manual experience, and save some money, you can get older Kenwood hybrids for $500-600. Heck I bought my ts530s for $300 when I first started, it had an issue where it was partially broken, but I was able to fix it just by cleaning a few switches with deoxit.
But baofengs, while they can work, and heck I own them. Some of them are pretty poorly built. I definitely experienced issues with mine, adding more antenna started making my signal reception worse! I later learned it was front end overload, from cheap filtering. But that's besides the point.
I'm sorry your experience was so bad, and that people were rude to you. And it's a shame you never got to put that donated equipment to use. It really is a fun hobby if you can get into it.
This really showcases how out of touch most hams are. $800 just to get your foot in the door is completely unreasonable. OR you could buy a broken piece of junk for $300 that you have to fix yourself? Good god.
It's a great hobby, I got into it after having to learn a lot of antenna theory for work. I rolled it into a hobby. Just as any hobby though .. the high number of elitists just put a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not going to spend that kind of money to listen to guys to spout politics on local channels, fight with massive amplified signals for satellite bounces, be shamed/ignored at local meets for not buying the latest and greatest.
$500+ to get an HF radio is not enticing for a young person. You can get a gaming laptop for that, unless there is an uncommon passion for radio in that new person the hobby can't compete. (I don't own a PC it's just an example)
The question was how to get people involved... I'm just adding my 2 cents on why I walked away after putting time into getting started.
So I'm not just complaining, sorry if it comes off that way. Getting away from voice is the only way to inspire and interest new people. SSTV from ISS was interesting, several guys would setup image transfer and emails(?) on the local repeater which was an interesting idea. A decentralized email system would be interesting to me but not to many that aren't in natural disasters prone areas. Like passing traffic on 2m/70cm but instead it be data until it reaches someone with internet. Think BitTorrent type data transmission. Promote CW via software to allow for minimal power communications rather than make it a frowned upon activity. I never got a chance to really attempt packet radio but I imagine it would be similar to CW via software. One step further... Software for things like raspberry pi. Small affordable development computers that can expand the hobby, maybe that's common now? I dunno. If it is already a thing then that's the sort of thing that needs to be promoted. If the hobby remains the overpowered walkie-talkies/CB then it's just going to continue to decline as the older generations pass away. Computers for communication aren't going anywhere but are highly dependent on the ISP infrastructure. This being Lemmy I think we should all understand the potential and possibilities of decentralized uses.
But all it gets you for $900 is to...do a worse version of what your phone does, in public? I don't get it.
To answer op you have to give people a reason why. Learning the technology seems valid but not at that price point.
I mean, if you look at it that way, yeah. But to me the science is cool, and there's a few other aspects that I enjoy as well. I outlined it here.
You can learn the technology for significantly less if you're motivated, and handy. $100 for a 5w HF radio. That's half the fun is learning.
But also, if that's not enticing, then maybe it's just not for you, and that's ok 🤷♂️
Agreed, but OP is asking how you get people (ie it's not ok if it's not for you // or // we want people more aware of this) -- for someone approaching a new hobby you usually do need something lower cost because people don't know if they're into it. The counterpoint would be rich people I suppose who can go all in before they know they like something.
But that's good to know there are more approachable things to learn.
I guess that's fair. My "it's ok if it's not for you" was more of a specific platitude for him because we'd already discussed some of the options available, and he's already put some effort in and decided it wasn't for him 🤷♂️
I agree we need to entice more people, I don't have a good answer as to how. If someone looks into it, and makes an informed decision, then I'm not going to twist their arm.
One thing I've tried with my friends kids is to take them out and do POTA in the woods, let them run a pileup. They really seem to enjoy it, enough to stay studying, but not enough to follow through. What can you do? 🤷♂️
Those inexpensive, although less traditional means is the answer to the question that started this thread.
They need to be promoted and advertised above all else. Once someone is interested then you can add in the expensive things.
Example, I race RCs. Just the chassis of some of the cars is well above $500(I use $100 3racing Chinese knock offs and extremely very competitive with them btw). These cars are raced on perfectly flat and prepared asphalt so it's very niche. The club wants members to race... We don't tell people that come to watch that they should buy the $1500 car&radio, nobody will join. We have several classes that are "starters". The cost of the cars is $100-200 ready to race. It's not fast at all but it's cheap enough to see if you want it. It's also cheap and easy to maintain. Most people enjoy the inexpensive racing that fills the majority of the day.
The hobby needs to adapt to the complaints/requests of people not actively involved but willing to give it a try.
Give them a reason. I got my license for giggles. It expired because I had no reason to use it or means to get equipment. Honestly if you (whoever cares to push it) can't find niches it complements or fits in.... Why even? You can talk across the planet with <$50 in electronics via used PCs, tablets, raspberryPi, etc... unlicensed and near anonymously.
Plus... Ham Is what? A voice call? Ick. You'd have a better chance at brining back Cybikos.
At the end of the day all you need are dank memes.
This is very one sided. There's SO much more to ham radio than voice.
Maybe the question is "How do we get people to think that ham radio is more than just a voice call?"
Yes. I got my ham tech in ~08 and that's all I really know it does.
There's digital modes galore these days. Some people never speak ever on the radio.
See my comment here on why it's so much cooler than two PCs over the Internet.
Get them interested in LoRa. Ham radio might follow after that. LoRa is the new ham radio anyways.
I love LoRa for IoT devices, sensor nodes, automation, environmental monitoring, etc... And I think it is absolutely the future for outdoor electronics. As far as communication I am really not so sure.
What benefits does it have to ham radio though besides no license? There is no real time communication, no possibility of voice, mesh-based which results in delays or dropped messages, and it only works within walking/short biking distance (a couple kilometers) without line-of site tower infrastructure or in mountainous areas.
I could see a potential use of it as a broadcast system during emergency by a central tower for messages that work over text, but further than that I have only seen personal projects or youtubers use them.
Camping isn't even a great usecase (in my opinion) because in an emergency there are 3 things needed for communication
- Satellite or very long-range communications/broadcast to alert S&R
- GPS location
- real time communication to guide someone out of a dangerous situation or guide them to you using descriptive markers
Lora only has the possibility one of them: telling people your location who are within walking distance. Not to mention it is blocked to a degree by vegetation. Most people go camping with all of their important people within like 100m, and the number one rule of backpacking is don't go off on your own, especially not off-trail.
I’ve been really interested in the LoRa stuff especially as the state of communication infrastructure (and the electrical infrastructure behind it) is always at the brink of collapse where I am. The only problem is that there is zero chance I can even buy the parts for this “strange encrypted radio” without being arrested under accusation of espionage. If not by the government then by the other guys.
As a backup emergency messaging system we really need it but I really need to not rot in a jail cell that smells of death 20 meters under Beirut street level and need both of my kneecaps.
I’m not a youth but as an outsider who’s seen a few posts from this community, one thing I feel like you guys could focus on a little more is the typical day to day experience of amateur radio operating. What you’re actually doing and not just the tech/setup stuff. That stuff is interesting but w/o the context of what you do once you’re done setting up your radio would be interesting to see more of as someone who is genuinely interested in getting into the hobby.
As a youth interested in ham, I couldn't agree more. It's been surprisingly difficult to find stuff for beginners who know pretty much nothing. Even having studied for the ham exam, there's still a huge gap between that and the generally available information.
I wonder if the way to go is to start with the premise of "It's a way to communicate" and work backwards. Better tooling could make it more amenable to new users, and also help make specific use cases more compelling. Once users have he reason you want to be in the ecosystem-- which I suspect, for many people, might look more like a community than a bag of one-off contacts-- then it justfies going deeper into better equipment and technique.
Discoverability is a huge thing. For example, a cheap SDR, even receive-only, is a magical thing, but you end up getting a waterfall full of "what's this weird burst" and jumping around the dial trying to chase where the action is. I suspect better software could really help there-- a UI that decodes digital modes and CW in the right place, and archive received signals might make it easier to track the activity and reduce the problem of "I tuned elsewhere and missed something interesting"
If you start with one of the cheap 2m/70cm HTs, you might be able to find a local repeater, and once you work your way through the fidgety UI, even send a transmission. but are you just going to find empty air much of the time. Again, it's hard to find the action, and make sure you're actually being a positive contributor. I think this has been a problem for me; I got licensed, got my little HT, but now I have the choice of either listening to static, or waiting for a conversation and hoping I have everything configured right enough not to be an annoyance. Maybe better guide websites and scheduled events can help minimize "listening to static" disappointment times.
I could see a fun community project being an autoresponder bot-- in idle times, it would listen to an advertised frequency, detect speech and CW signals and respond with signal quality reports quickly and conveniently to make it easy for a new user to make sure they've got their equipment set up right without barging into a conversation. I know there are ways to test propagation, but a lot of it is "go find a second device and pull up a tracking website"
There might also be room to think of ham radio more as a "transport protocol" than as the main draw. CW and some digital modes feel like they could be packaged up in tools that more resembled modern IM/chat tools to increase accessibility and encourage understanding of best practices. (For example, let the software handle things like regular identification and responding to requests to change transmission characteristics automatically, or at least by providing helpful affordances) Or even a "dashboards and logs" paradigm for recieve-- let the software decode hundreds of hours of signals and then you can crunch it into interesting and useful visualizations.
I admit some of this could be seen as "dumbing down" or steering towards specific narrow paradigms, but that doesn't have to be the entire universe. It could be the equivalent of AOL or Compuserve to the open internet-- making sure that you can get value out of the experience early on, so people can transition to the broader open platform as their needs and skills grow.
Make clubs accessible for younger people again. Lots of clubs became old man's clubs that aren't where kids want to hang out. Clubs are a great way to get access to gear without having to buy it and be able to use it via the club license(s).
I think showing the different types of communications available, including sat coms is helpful. Not everyone wants to ragchew with old men.
Frequently bigoted old men. I'm in a very liberal area, and still, hardly a day goes by where the morning "check in" calls don't take several very problematic detours about trans people or crime statistics or both.
Ah, so that hasn't changed. I last had contact with hamradio through a friend 25 years ago and it was just what you described. Bigots, racists and otherwise unpleasant men. And it truly was all men. I was interested in this hobby, but why would I pursue this if almost all people you'd talk to were assholes?
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Make it so federal agents don't show up if you do it wrong?
Meshtastic. It's cheap and the UI is familiar and it's fun to share.
Yep. Super cheap and also, I think, more interesting technically.
I've got a few pocket nodes, got a solar node on my roof and just outside the range to transmit into a massive mesh we have around the city. But i hear all the chatter.
Honestly its far more boring than anything I've done with ham radio. No one is having conversations, there are no nets, no socializing using the technology. Just people pinging from random locations.
Where as with my ham license I have local repeaters where we have nets on different topics, including one at midnight for anyone who is up. I chat with people using DMR, EchoLink and Allstar to get out to places all over thw world with just an HT. I do HF work for contests, rag chewing SSB, CW and digital modes. I build hardware and antenna, work from parks, collect QSL cards.
And i also bought a $30 meahtastic radio that i occasionally get a "Ping from downtown, anyone hear me?"
I found the most effective way to get a nerd into ham is: mention that ham radio is in the criteria to become an astronaut. Suddenly they're doing the study courses all on their own. Granted, they have to already be a nerd. ;)
For the non nerds, the prepper angle seems to work with some.
The thing you have to deliver is the "why", not the how. If they've decided they want to learn it, they will.
Allow encryption.
I don't want to talk on open air with anyone and everyone able to listen in.
If this is allowed, then the bands will become so busy they will be unusable.
Not with consumer traffic, mind, but illegal commercial traffic.
These bands are extremely valuable, and corporations, especially stock traders are literally chomping at the bit to get access to it.
I hear you, encryption would be nice, but it would literally destroy the hobby. Probably for more reasons than just the one I listed. Talking in the open air isn't that bad, you get used to it 🤷♂️ it's a hobby after all.
Make it easier to get into? I've wanted to for years but when I looked into studying for the test (which can only be taken in another city in my state and only a few times a year), I found a like 4 hour long video and when I tried watching it it was like someone speaking a foreign language. I don't have a ton of free time to study for the test and it seems like I need to already be a master electrician to even study for the test.
So yeah, maybe don't make it so difficult and more people might want to get into it?
If you're in the US, you can test online! https://hamstudy.org/sessions/remote
I do agree that the test itself could be tuned down a bit, especially for the tech license. hamstudy.org also has all of the test questions available online to help you study.
Thanks, I'll try to remember to check this out after work!
Are you eligible for a US license? HamStudy.org and study for the Technician’s license. Memorize the answers. Then when you are passing practice exams with a solid 80% or better, schedule your remote exam through the HamStudy website, take it, then get on the air.
I did my Tech from a beachside resort in the Philippines during the peak of the pandemic.
You can do it!
I'm intensely jealous of people who couldn't work during COVID (well more specifically those who could manage or were being paid still). Working at a grocery apparently makes you as essential as a doctor or nurse...
Great advice though, sir or madam.
I had been looking for remote testing since about 2018 because personal circumstances had me moving about quite a bit. Possibly there were some options back then, but I had not been able to find it; Covid certainly made that widely available. As soon as I had discovered it, I booked my appointment and studied/memorized.
Covid was a tough time for many, and a tragedy for others. I am thankful for folks, like you, who worked during that difficult global time, to ensure access to food went basically uninterrupted.
I love hamstudy's algorithm, that it feeds you back questions you missed later. I actually contacted them once to see if they could maybe also do aviation knowledge tests (which are formatted almost exactly like amateur radio tests; they're both government ABC tests) but we tripped over a source for the question pool, the FAA doesn't publish it.
It’s a great algorithm called spaced repetition. I use the method so much I discovered Anki (and its parent site Anki Web) to do a ton of university studies. There’s a small learning curve, but once you get it, you can make all sorts of flash cards with fine grain detail for spaced repetition.
As for the FAA, once you are past PPL, Sheppard Air is pretty much the golden standard, only there is no space repetition in their system.
This is helpful advice, thank you.
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Present it as an alternative to social media -- one without the kinds of mental health issues and corporate controls.
Present things like electronics tinkering as a life skill instead of a hobby. That includes the Tech license.
It's a long shot, sure.
I think it’s pretty screwed. What is ham radio? The name means nothing to today’s youth, it’s just confusing and they’ll move on to something else. Our attention is so fractioned these days that no one will stick around to find out more, we’re never bored. And you need boredom to get into this type of thing.
What can you do with ham radio? Talk to strangers? You can do that online with milliohms of resistance whereas getting on ham radio is megaohms of resistance in comparison. What I’m saying with this resistance analogy is that ham radio has a big learning curve and friction. You’re competing with the internet, social media, games. Ham radio simply doesn’t have a good hook, it doesn’t have a good incentive.
The name means nothing to today’s youth
Story time: When I was a kid in the late 90s, there was a fad for toy walkie-talkies at my school. I was obsessed with seeing how far I could get my signal, which wasn't very far given the likely minuscule power.
The teachers decided to capitalize on this trend by inviting a representative of a local ham club to speak at our school. I was absolutely floored when I learned you could talk around the world. Two things kept me from pursuing my license at the time. There was still a code requirement, and nobody for the life of me could tell me what lunch meat had to do with wireless communication.
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