As with all my hobbies, I’ve always loved teaching my friends about them and ham radio is no different. It has been a very slow burn to get any of them to get their tickets though. Because I tend to get very excited about most things I’m learning about, many of them are happy that I’m enjoying the hobby and may even conceptually like the advantages of ham radio for emergency communications or the like, but they usually are just turned off my the idea of having to study to get in the air.

I was able to convince one of my friends to get licensed (KC1YIO), only after having him get on the air, as 3rd party traffic. He liked my local community and they were very welcoming and encouraging for him to get licensed and join the community.

I found that its easy to feel like an outsider, when looking at radio, if you don’t have someone close to you that can share stories or explain what drives them to radio. It was apparent that the moment he touched the PTT, it was no longer something that I did, but rather something he could see himself doing, because he was doing it right now, in that moment.

This brings me to why I’m posting. I had the idea to start a net on my local repeater in Woodbridge, CT, USA (W1SPC SPARC - Echolink/broadcastify accessible). The net is a 3rd party traffic net, in order to get operators to encourage non-licensed individuals to get on the air (with a control operator of course).

I am only a year and a half in to having my ticket and ran my first net ever last Tuesday. I didn’t advertise at all and we ended up getting 6 stations and 4, third parties. All four of the guests mentioned how they now are going to start studying for their tickets.

I am 35 years old, seemingly a bit lower in age than the median license holder in the USA and when I ask a lot of my local, older hams, many of them were already into radio or tech and it just made sense to get into the hobby. Many of them have given up after trying a few times or have never tried to activity get friends and family into the hobby. I feel like the hobby has given me more than I could even give back, so I feel it is my duty to try to do everything I can to insentivise others to get on the air.

I hope this wasn’t too long, and I hope it encourages you to get behind the idea of trying to actively welcome and invite others into the hobby.

I would love to hear of stories that perhaps I can share with the net, as to what got you into radio, what keeps you active in the hobby and maybe some insight and how you have gotten others to get licensed as well.

TL:DR I started a 3rd party traffic net to encourage others to get licensed.

73 AC1ST