Random question for today: Considering people who are not amateurs, if you wanted to create increased visibility and participation in amateur radio, what would you do?

One of the challenges I’ve long experienced with any of my hobbies is they are often niche and beyond the interest of most of the people I talk with; Amateur Radio even moreso. Nearly none of the people I interact with in daily life “get it”. They have their phones and Internet and don’t recognize the continuous marvels which constitute Amateur Radio.

I think all the -OTAs (POTA, SOTA, etc) have done a wonderful job of increasing visibility of our hobby, but to really supercharge it, every radio operator should also be willing to hang a sign which encourages passersby to come ask questions and engage. I was up at a fairly popular community park with a 200’ (~61m) span OCFD and not a single person approached. I reckon they’re unwilling because of how “official” a setup looks and don’t want to risk crossing into an area they’re “not supposed to be in”.

There’s not enough popular media which portrays the utility of Amateur Operators, which is probably an extension of the general unfamiliarity of the hobby by authors. Think of what percentage of any of the movies you’ve seen in the last 20 years and one can probably count on one hand the accurate portrayal of amateur radio communications.

These are just my initial thoughts having woken up not too long ago. I’d really be excited to hear others’ opinions.

"every radio operator should also be willing to hang a sign which encourages passersby to come ask questions and engage"

I thought about this EXACTLY! We travel a good bit in our bus conversion. I'm working on building some semi permanent radio equipment in here. Often we find ourselves in parks and other natural areas, which I plan on setting up antennas for fun.

I was thinking that I should put up a little sign that says come talk about radios!

As a non-amateur who every few months thinks "I should consider getting a license", I've been hoping for an obvious bootstrap point.

The library has some old "here's every exam question" style cram books, but I'm actually looking for a course for understanding, so I don't pass the exam and proceed to have no idea what to do or how to behave. That went so well eith the driver's license exam. :)

Here’s your bootstrap. Assuming you’re in the US, HamStudy.org. Spaced repetition studying for the exam, no Morse code requirement anymore.

FCC exams can now be administered remotely via computer. I’ve taken all three of my exams remotely; my first while sitting on a beach!
- It's a bit late, but here's my upvote. Ground the site for a few weeks, and took my Technician and General exams today, holed up in my bathroom.
- I studied all the legal questions for all three license levels through brute force using that site. Went through the questions so many times that I could tell you the answer within the first few words.
  
  Now is that a good thing? Meh, i think most of the learning occurs once you're on the air. Then again, i do have a EE degree so the radio science part i already knew.
- @667 @HakFoo Unfortunately our club is fixated on scheduled instructor led classes (death by powerpoint for the most part) and in-person administration of electronic tests.
  
  They deliberately conceal the fact that self-study and on-demand remote testing are options when people inquire about getting licensed.
  
  edit: fixed wordwrap
The answer on how to get your licence depends on which country or locality you live.

If you are comfortable sharing that, we can likely get you a starting point.
@HakFoo @vk6flab The real learning begins (and continues indefinitely) AFTER you get your license. Learn to follow the rules and not hurt anyone

Go through HamStudy.org and start taking practice tests. (I also picked up Gordon Wests books and did a once-through).

One tip is to grab the tech and general at the same sitting.

Got an cheap HT (handheld dual band)? Get on RepeaterBook, program repeaters in, and start listening to local nets. Test in person if you can but online is also avail

Honestly spawn a ton of pirate fm radio stations

Radio is super cool and it's criminal that we allowed the fencing of these commons. If pirate radio started popping up in massive quantities so as to make enforcement impossible, that would be really cool, and beneficial to society in terms of giving people access to non right wing perspectives and exposure to music that's not the same 10 songs of Dad Rock on 95.5 the edge

Amateur Radio is regulated, as is radio in general, because it all uses the same limited resource, shared radio spectrum.

The reason that mobile phones, Bluetooth, WiFi, emergency services, aviation and "the edge" work at all is because it's so heavily regulated.

Radio licensing isn't a fencing of commons, it's essential to make it work at all.

Consider for example a phenomenon called harmonics. A transmitter on one frequency also emits signal at multiples of that frequency. This is true for all transmitters. So what you do on one frequency affects other users on other frequencies.
- Thanks for your thought out and reasoned response
  
  I guess it depends on where you are but outside of major cities, aka the vast majority of the us, there's nothing on most of the FM spectrum other than dead air. As long as harmonics are properly filtered the harm from low power FM transmission would be relatively limited in my view. The Internet makes the dissemination of proper broadcasting practice much easier. Opening up the spectrum for low power transmission would do a lot to get folks interested in radio in my view.
  
  Although thinking about all the nuclear takes I am constantly bombarded with online maybe giving folks another medium for self expression isn't the best idea lol

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