Getting youth interested by exhibiting in high schools
Students in most schools have never heard of amateur radio. IARU-R1 Youth Co-ordinator Lisa PA2LS suggests how to raise awareness of the hobby.
Many youngsters have no clue about the radio hobby. An opportunity to change this is to exhibit at a local high school. For example in the Netherlands VERON section Breda exhibited at the open day of Radius College in Breda last January.
Their goal was to show youth that there is more than only internet and WhatsApp. First they started with making promotion material, like flyers, banners and pens. The committee of section Breda made the decision what they wanted to show. They choose to show in an active way what the radio amateur hobby is about. Also showing something about self-building and that the PC is important in our hobby. Because it was the first time they were exhibiting, they did choose for a set-up.
The next step was to ask members of the VERON section to help during the exhibition. It seemed during club meetings that many members wanted to participate and help. Also some younger members, which is nice when you are promoting on a school.
Before the start of the exhibition, which was two days in total, local radio amateurs helped with the preparations. A pump mast was placed at the schoolyard together with a X300 and FD4. Inside there was a stand next to the electrical engineering faculty of the school. There was also a self-build SDR-radio, self-build radio’s, MKARS 80 meter QRP transmitter and much more.
IARU Region 1
http://www.iaru-r1.org/
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