this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2025
117 points (100.0% liked)
Amateur Radio
1383 readers
11 users here now
General amateur radio (ham radio) chat, questions, and news
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The problem is that cheap equipment literally performs worse, for you. And can make the frequencies around you worse, because of poor filtering or bad circuit design.
I'm not saying $4000 needs to be spent. You can get all the radio you'll ever need, for $800-900, with an icom 7300. Now that's not cheap, but it's definitely in the realm of feasibility. People pay more for cell phones in some cases.
But, if you want a more manual experience, and save some money, you can get older Kenwood hybrids for $500-600. Heck I bought my ts530s for $300 when I first started, it had an issue where it was partially broken, but I was able to fix it just by cleaning a few switches with deoxit.
But baofengs, while they can work, and heck I own them. Some of them are pretty poorly built. I definitely experienced issues with mine, adding more antenna started making my signal reception worse! I later learned it was front end overload, from cheap filtering. But that's besides the point.
I'm sorry your experience was so bad, and that people were rude to you. And it's a shame you never got to put that donated equipment to use. It really is a fun hobby if you can get into it.
But all it gets you for $900 is to...do a worse version of what your phone does, in public? I don't get it.
To answer op you have to give people a reason why. Learning the technology seems valid but not at that price point.
I mean, if you look at it that way, yeah. But to me the science is cool, and there's a few other aspects that I enjoy as well. I outlined it here.
You can learn the technology for significantly less if you're motivated, and handy. $100 for a 5w HF radio. That's half the fun is learning.
But also, if that's not enticing, then maybe it's just not for you, and that's ok 🤷♂️
Those inexpensive, although less traditional means is the answer to the question that started this thread.
They need to be promoted and advertised above all else. Once someone is interested then you can add in the expensive things.
Example, I race RCs. Just the chassis of some of the cars is well above $500(I use $100 3racing Chinese knock offs and extremely very competitive with them btw). These cars are raced on perfectly flat and prepared asphalt so it's very niche. The club wants members to race... We don't tell people that come to watch that they should buy the $1500 car&radio, nobody will join. We have several classes that are "starters". The cost of the cars is $100-200 ready to race. It's not fast at all but it's cheap enough to see if you want it. It's also cheap and easy to maintain. Most people enjoy the inexpensive racing that fills the majority of the day.
The hobby needs to adapt to the complaints/requests of people not actively involved but willing to give it a try.
That's fair, yeah important to make it clear what's available and what will do the job.
A lot of people have a buy once cry once mentality, which I do agree with in a lot of ways, but that's a hard sell.
RC cars is probably worse, because your equipment takes a literal beating. That's how it was in the fpv drone world, 100mph into a tree and you're done for the day, probably a hundred or two in damage, if you're lucky. So n in that world too I flew cheaper stuff, still fun, but still hurts to take a crash and destroy a $50 camera it vtx, etc.
That's where loaning equipment out comes into play. I loaned out drone stuff, to be used with me present and teaching. And that's what I try to do with ham radio, come hang out, we'll do a POTA or chase some DX. But I feel like a lot more people these days are losing social skills and don't want to hang out, or as evidenced in this thread they don't even want to use their voice to talk on the radio. There are digital options, but this complicates the lending/teaching/social aspect 🤷♂️
Again, I don't have the answers, it's a complicated problem in a changing world. But there sure are a lot of black and white opinions in here.