Since you asked ...
I'm not trying to be negative for the sake of being negative, but I think the young people interested in those things are going to immediately be drawn to hardware and software considerably more sophisticated than amateur radio. What you're expecting is the equivalent of people interested in neurosurgery to want to learn how to build a microscope. I agree that those will be interesting fields of study, but I don't think it will work the way you postulated. I'd bet that a microwave internet link to a base station on the moon would get much more use than anything related to ham radio.
73, Dave AB7E On 12/16/2019 12:54 PM, [email protected] wrote:
A few quick thoughts on this subject. Space exploration, colonization, and physics are the best "hooks" I see to fish for the young people that are best prospects as future hams. Amateur radio is the best way to "touch" the world beyond the earth and to get a "hands on" understanding of solar physics, electronic equipment, electromagnetic fields, solar weather, and the harsh environments that are Intersolar and interstellar space. Early involvement should come with hands on experiments, internships, summer jobs, resume builders for college applications, and university work/study programs in the communications, computer technology and defense industries. A sequenced set of building block project kits (Elecraft style would be ideal) that introduce basic principles and result in a receiver, a transmitter, and an antenna could provide a gateway, and present hams should underwrite making these available at a low cost and with available "Elmers" to help. This equipment could be used for radio astronomy, communications, physics experiments, meteorology, and contesting. Contesting should be portrayed as glamorous "yacht racing in space" and much cooler than on the ocean. I believe we are at a second "Sputnik" point in the quest for the high ground, and this is the time to grow more modern technologists, explorers, and entrepreneurs and fewer snowflake philosophers and low information consumers! What do you think? 73 John N5CQ
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