It's twenty twenty six, and is it hard to get started in amateur radio? Is it hard to get plugged into amateur radio? Why does it seem hard to get started in amateur radio? This is a Reddit article that I found that I thought was intriguing and I would like your thoughts about it today. Today's video is sponsored by bioinopower dot com. Bioinopower makes batteries of all sizes for the amateur radio market and beyond. They're sponsoring this video.
Definitely check out the link in the description below and thank you bioino for the support of this channel. So once again, this is a Reddit article, okay, And I know some of you say, well, Reddit is a dumpster fire, and I'm like, okay, well that's fine, but so is qr zed and we're all on there, so what are you gonna do? The title of this article caught my attention, okay, but it's kind of misleading. The title I think is misleading. Why does it seem so hard to get into amateur
ham radio? He says right here now. When I read that, I thought he was going to talk about studying for it, buying equipment. Why is amateur radio equipment more expensive than some people think it should be. No, that's not what he's talking about at all. He's talking about why is it so hard to find a club that's decent? So right here, he says, please hear me out. I'm a fifty something year old guy, so am I who probably
wears the label tech nerd. I've been intrigued by amateur radio and have been watched associated cost and equipment drop over the years. But in my local community, the existing ham radio groups, many members seem nearly hostile, to quote outsiders. When I've tried to ask some beginners questions about where to get started, they seem hostile. The online resources for beginners seem equally unwelcoming. Question mark Okay, So I read that, and he says it seems unwelcoming on an online resource.
Where are you looking When you say online resource, are you talking about the QRS forums? You're talking about the amateur radio subreddit on Reddit, which I think is really good for the most part. I think people on the
amateur radio subreddit are helpful. Okay. Sometimes people come in there and you can tell their obvious trolls okay, And sometimes people ask legit questions and trolls come by to tease them or respond to them, who you can tell they're not serious, but they think they're serious, but they're not because they're idiots. But for the most part, I have found the amateur radio subreddit on reddit dot com to be pretty helpful. So what do you talk about
online resources? Okay, how about YouTube? YouTube is a fantastic elder. If you want to talk in a more intimate environment, a more direct one on one environment, join us on Discord hand radio two dot com, forward slash Discord. I have my own Discord server. There's a lot of other YouTube guys out there that have their own Discord server. There are several hemorrhttal clubs I know of that have their own Discord server. Join a Discord server. You can
get one on one attention. There's a lot of really helpful people on my server. Second paragraph, he says, I know it's a particular skill set that requires study, training and testing, and I know it's way beyond a hobby. It all has vital public safety value beyond just novelty.
It seems that the current body of amateur radio hobbyists would want to do everything they can to make amateur radios attracted to the younger crowd, if for no other reason, to protect the spectrum itself as our generation ages out and passes on the opposite seems to be the case in my experience. I'm not expecting to be spoon fed, and thank you for letting me vent a bit. I just think there's a tremendous opportunity to open the craft hobby up to people who could help protect it as
a defined part of our culture and culture in Americana. Okay, And the first comment here says agreed. I'm forty four. Both my parents were ham radar operators. None of the clubs near me I got licensed during the pandemic offered classes and were hostile to me asking about tests. I had to take my tech in general online, which was fine as I had mobility issues. Still have no Elmer, so have almost no equipment and absolutely no idea how to actually do anything. But it is what it is, Okay.
So another comment here. When I started hand radio, my husband and I attended one of the local annual events. I'm pretty outgoing and make conversation friendly easy, but nobody was interested in talking to us, so I must admit I'm really kind of embarrassed. Maybe not embarrassed, Okay, I'm really kind of appalled that clubs like that exist. Okay. I've been a hand radio operator in North Texas for thirty years. Okay, it'll be this coming July. Recording this
video in January of twenty twenty six. This coming July, I will have been licensed for thirty two years. Got my first license in July of nineteen ninety four. Okay, I have been to a dozen different clubs in this area. This was long before I was on YouTube. No one knew who I was. I would go to six or eight, ten different clubs, not on a regular basis, but there was a lot of clubs in this area. I've never been treated that way. I've never been treated like an outsider.
There were probably a couple times I could name a club or two where I just kind of felt ignored, like no one came up and talked to me. But I didn't feel unwelcomed. It's just like no one was interested in welcoming a new person or a new face. Okay, So I've experienced that a little bit, but I've never experienced hostility or unwelcomness in a club in this area. I'm sorry that you've experienced that. I'm not questioning that at all. I'm absolutely certain that you experienced that in
your area. Just no, it's not like that in every area. There's a lot of really good clubs out there, and with the advent of online clubs. Ham Radio Clubhouse right here is an actual club. They have a Discord server. You can join their club, you can talk to them, you can go cut up with them on Tuesday nights in their live stream. But they're a welcoming club. The Toad's Club, KT zero Ads Club is a good club. The Ham Radio Adventures Club is a good club club.
And several of us around this area are working on forming a new club. It's not a new club where rediscovering a club that used to be around. So there's a lot of online clubs you could join if you don't have anything available to you locally. This is a good comment right here, for what it's worth. I never really understood things until I got in the air, started operating and then building antennas. Don't feel like you need to be one hundred percent proficient before you get your license.
This is so true. Passing the test is important, but I've done most learning since being on the air. Yes, I agree with that right there. People who want to memorize the questions and answers and just get the license and then get on the air, that's when you start learning. Everyone learns differently. There's nothing wrong with just memorizing the answers and taking the test and getting your license. There's nothing wrong with deep diving into it and really gaining
an understanding of the test either. There's nothing wrong with either one of those solutions. You got your license, get on the air, you're going to learn even more right down here, Doc Holliday nine nine eight nine. My elmers were YouTube channels. Exclamation Point also joined a few clubs and made a little extra effort to socialize with knowledgeable guys who like to discuss many topics. At least ask anything you want to know about here. Yeah, I'm sure
there'll be a lot of help and info offered. You can check out Claire's dot ca a English for that Canadian club right there. So I think it's very dependent. I agree with what you're saying about the club. I agree that there's a lot of clubs out there that aren't welcoming they're kind of clickish, they're kind of unwelcoming. Okay, but there is YouTube, and I can speak for most of the YouTubers. If you've ever seen any of the people on any of my live streams. I invite people
onto Zoom. We live stream, we do happy hours, we'll do discussions. Coming up next month is a really big hand radier show in Orlando. We'll get together on my channel and live stream a week or two before that to talk about plans for that Pamfest. And any of those people that have come onto my channel, they are welcoming on their channels as well. If there's someone who's off putting or someone who's rude to people who come by their channel in the comments, I don't invite those
people onto my channel. They're out there, there's people out there like that on YouTube, sure, but I don't invite those people onto my channel. So I think that if you can't find anything locally, look online, join us on discord ham Radio two, dot com, forward slash Discord. I'll put links in the description to a couple of Hamm Radio Club Discord servers as well. But don't let it get you down. Don't let it frustrate you too much, Go get your amateur radio license. You were talking about.
None of the clubs near you have online or have classes. I just put up a brand new class for the general exam on this channel. I've had technician class. I have two different technician classes. One is a no nonsense class that's like six seven hours long, that's the whole thing. The other one is like three sessions and it's more of a deep dive into the questions and answers. Both of them are available on this channel. They're free for you to watch as many times as you want to.
Both of them are done well. The longer one was done by local club here next to me, and we're gonna do another class when that question pool updates as well. The general class I just put up on this channel is from Gigaparts. If you're anywhere near Huntsville, Alabama. Gigabarts offers classes for technician, general and extro. You can go into their studio and sit down. They have a classroom inside of the store where you can go sit down
in a classroom environment if you want to. So there's multiple ways to get licensed to, multiple ways to learn. Don't get frustrated. I feel I'm sorry you had to go through that. I don't discount it at all. I don't question your perspective at all. I know you went through that, but don't let it get you down, because there's a lot of people out here that actually want to help you. So thank you for putting up this
Reddit post. I've talked about clubs and licensing numerous times in the past, but this is kind of like a refresher of a topic that I haven't talked about in a while. So I appreciate you putting this up here and let me comment on it. Maybe I'll put a link to this video as a reply to the Reddit article. So thanks for watching today, guys. I would like to know your comments in the video. Blow. I had talked a while back about putting together a list of welcoming clubs.
If you are a member of a club, and I have that list somewhere, my web developer went mia on me. That's why I never put up that page. I've got all this in an email somewhere, so I might want to revisit that. Maybe that should be a task for twenty twenty six. I might want to revisit the whole Hey, we need to put up a web page and categorize clubs by state and say, Okay in Texas, in Oklahoma
and Mississippi, and do all the states. And if you are a member of a welcoming and thriving club, I want to know the name of the club, where it's located, email address, best contact info probably email address. Okay, how people can get involved in that club around here? And I want to put together a list of viable and vibrant and welcoming clubs in the United States for people who would write such an article like this, So put a comment in the video below. I'd love to hear
your thoughts about that. And if you like this video, check these out over here because YouTube thinks you want to watch those next seventy three