Ideas and Resources for Growing Youth Involvement in Amateur Radio

Looking around at a hamfest or club meeting will give you the definite — and most likely accurate — impression that the ham radio population as a whole is graying. While there are definitely young people getting involved and active in amateur radio, and many of them and their activities are highlighted in these pages, there need to be more. And it’s up to us to bring them in.

Unfortunately, two of the most common pathways into ham radio in the past — shortwave listening and scouting — are both in decline for reasons over which we have no control. Also, many of the previous attractions of an amateur radio license — such as the ability to have 24/7 connectivity with friends and family through the local VHF / UHF repeater — has been replaced with today’s smartphones. Add to that the ability to make long-distance phone calls for free on the same device. Without these passive incentives, we need to increase the active recruitment of new hams. We also need to do a better job mentoring newly licensed hams to make sure they become and stay active.

There is no silver bullet that will completely solve these issues, but one idea that many believe can help reverse these trends is the increased involvement of youth in amateur radio. For our purposes, I am going to define youth as anyone under 26 years of age. By age 26, most people have completed college, graduate school, military, job training programs, etc. This still covers a wide range of ages and requires multiple plans to address the interests and needs of the many subgroups involved.

For this article, we will focus on the subgroup of students in grades 4 to 12, as the college, postgraduate and