Chinese Kids Go Old School with Ham Radio

Forget text messaging, cell phones, and iPods; Chinese kids are trading in their gadgets du jour for Morse code, dipole antennas, and SWR meters. It’s the world of ham radio, and it’s the thing in the Middle Kingdom.

I’ve been a licensed amateur radio operator since I was a teenager. As the world’s amateur radio operators continue to age, it was nice to read this story about amateur radio abroad by Jimmy Jian and Hanna Rantala.

The number has been steadily growing in recent years, the association said, despite mobile phones and the Internet becoming commonplace in nearly all the country.

For members of the Beijing Sunny Radio Club, a perfect weekend means surfing the frequencies and talking to radio fanatics in other cities, or even other continents.

Wang Ranning, a 15-year-old student, has been an enthusiast for more than four years, and finds radio “charming.”

“Your signals might reach the pyramid in Egypt, the Pentagon in America, go through California or any state and finally end up in a small family in the east of the United States,” Wang said.

What surprised me most was how accessible the hobby is for the Chinese. With much of the equipment starting at 200 yuan ($30 US), nearly any Chinese person can gain access to the world once they earn their operator’s license.

photo credit: voipnovatos

Compare that cost to products here in America. My first radio, a Kenwood HT-25AT, cost more than $300 in 1987. A quick survey of AES, shows that the cheapest HF transceiver, one made by MFJ, costs $200. Yes, kids today pay more for a service contract on a Blackberry; but wouldn’t the hobby be more accessible domestically if manufacturers produced rigs for the entry-level operator?

Not everyone can afford a Yaesu FTDX-9000 (On sale for $10,999 plus shipping and handling). Even the license manual from the ARRL costs more than $30.

What’s So Cool About Morse Code?

b4 ur kid sent txt msgs, ham ops wrote this way. In fact, your great grandfather helped invent the common abbreviations you or your kids use so frequently when they text.

Learning Morse code is rather easy. I picked it up from my grandfather before I was in Kindergarten. With a little practice, anyone can learn it. So what’s stopping you from earning your ticket?

K? bcnu ltr. 73.