ARLA/CLUSTER: Como atrair novos elementos para o radioamadorismo segundo estudo da Cambridge University Wireless Society

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

Attracting newcomers to Ham Radio

*Dom M0BLF* of Camb-Hams and the Cambridge University Wireless Society
(CUWS) suggests a few ways to attract newcomers to Amateur Radio.

The only major recruiting event we have is the Cambridge University
Wireless Society's [CUWS] presence at the annual Fresher's Fair in the
University each September.

Typically, this gives us around 40-50 students signing-up, of which maybe 2
or 3 three will actually go on to be interested enough to take the
Foundation and Intermediate exams. (We normally encourage students to do
both exams at the same time, as the Foundation is almost insultingly easy
for a Cambridge University physics undergrad!)  Most years there's also one
student who joins the university already holding an Advanced licence they
obtained at school, but typically they haven't been QRV recently due to
time and financial limitations.

Despite these low numbers, it's not unusual for us to put 20 people through
Foundation + Intermediate exams per year, plus maybe 6 Advanced candidates.
The majority of these come to us via word-of-mouth or ad-hoc contact from
people who've heard about Amateur radio elsewhere, and a handful may be
referred via the RSGB DRM. Not all of them are students, as the CUWS act as
the local exam centre regardless of the candidate's background. This is
principally a matter of practicality: unlike other local clubs, as a
registered University society, we can rent University rooms for free, and
our shack is available for the Practicals 24 hours a day, so other local
clubs will refer interested people to CUWS.

We don't typically run courses. Of course, we run the Foundation +
Intermediate practical sessions as-and-when they are required but for the
theory exam we have a stock of the RSGB course books that we lend to
candidates, supplemented by a set of Powerpoint slides we have developed.
We find that motivated candidates (even if they aren't University students)
manage perfectly well with this self-study. We're happy to share the
Powerpoints if they would interest you / other tutors.  For the
Intermediate practical, we find that Maplin oscillator kits normally
fulfill the role adequately.

When the candidate is ready for the exam (normally as soon as they have
nearly completed the practical elements), we arrange the written paper for
two weeks' time, even if there is only one candidate. We'd prefer to keep
them while they are motivated than to have them waiting a few weeks, during
which they might get other interests, or an increased workload from the
University.

Reaching out further into the community, one recent initiative is to lend
the Cambridgeshire Repeater Group's van Flossie to the local not-for-profit
community broadcast station, *Cambridge 105*. This is used as an outside
broadcast unit when the radio station gets involved in charitable events.
For example, for Children In Need last week, Flossie toured four different
parts of the city with live music acts outside the van 'busking' for the
charity live on-air.

The OB engineers for these events consist of myself, M0VFC and M0LCM. As
we're using the van with all its amateur rigs in it as well as the
broadcast equipment, we get a lot of opportunity to talk about amateur
radio. So far, through this link, one of the station's DJs has got an
intermediate licence, with another promising to do a course, and the
licensed DJ's primary-school-aged children are also very enthusiastic.

We also find that the Cambridge 105 brand gets us into schools easier, and
for example, last month we had a number of children building crystal sets.
We didn't push amateur radio with them, but they've had some exposure, so
hopefully it has planted a seed. Time will tell. (As an aside, there are
interesting technical challenges for us working with broadcast radio,
too... it turns out that amateur 6m colinears work very well on a 52MHz
Band I backhaul frequency!) Most cities now have volunteer-run community
radio stations, so I'd have thought that other groups could emulate this.

Camb-Hams
http://www.camb-hams.com/
https://www.facebook.com/CambHams

Cambridge University Wireless Society (CUWS)
http://www.g6uw.org/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/192212924146430/
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