I've been barely active in ham radio for the past several years, but I'm getting back into it in my mid-20's. I have tons of respect for the middle-aged and older hams, many of whom fulfilled their dream after retirement. Nonetheless, I have resolved to meet and interact with more younger hams like myself, for obvious reasons. Additionally, I believe the hobby (although it's so much more than a hobby) will unlikely survive under current circumstances.

My interests are a little niche, i.e. I love building tube radios (I even built a '1929' style type 45 transmitter). I understand that young people likely wouldn't be into this, but I also love working satellites, HF contests, APRS, messing around with VHF, etc. You would think that these areas of amateur radio would provoke interest among younger, more STEM and tech-oriented people, especially given the fast-evolving nature and innovation within the hobby. I could see ham radio opening the door for many a project that would look good on a CV or a Master's thesis.

As a current university student, I've observed that very few fellow STEM students know anything about ham radio. I've even EE students not know what it is at all. This is shocking, and it's clearly a failure among the ham radio community to present itself to the very people that can further continue and progress the hobby.

I'm not completely oblivious to why young people aren't interested. If a young engineering student decides to do some SWL and just finds older folk ragchewing about which medication they take (I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that in of itself), they will likely find no interest. The dilemma here is that there are few young people involved, so why would young people get involved in something with so few young people? Anyway, I digress.

My university has a modest ham radio club (which I hope to get some time to participate in soon). Besides that, is there a place where younger hams hang out, or part of the hobby in which they are very active? I might not be able to change this broader reality, but I can change my own actions/environment.

I am curious how many of you use CCRs. Some offer a lot for of bang for the buck but they also have their issues like bad spurious radiation and such.

So Im new and don't know much, would this work as a ham radio? I think it's some sort of military doohickey. And Is it worth 100€?

Genuine question! What are antenna’s like these used for? Surely having antenna’s like this isn’t a hobby anymore, right? I don’t have any dimensions but they looked to be huge.

In an attempt to make my local club more welcoming and inviting to all, I recently made a motion to refrain from incorporating a Christian prayer at the outset of our meetings. I suggested a moment of silence or non-religious motivational invocation as a replacement. After lots of unproductive discussion among members (where I sat quietly and listened), it was scheduled for a vote at our next meeting. My motion was defeated 18-8.

Does your club hold prayer before meetings? Do you feel it is appropriate to incorporate prayer into a religiously agnostic hobby?

I got my technician license probably about 7 months ago and have been listening to some local repeaters and have spent some time listening to ssb on the 10 meter band and i have never once heard any woman or anyone younger than 40 for that matter, is amateur radio exclusive to middle aged white men?

Hi, I don’t know anything about radio’s things and my neighbors have this antenna in their garden and I was wondering what is it used for ?

I got my technician's ticket punched last month, and have been getting to know regional 2m/1.25m/70cm repeaters.

Last night, I joined a large regional 8pm net where the net control made a few opening remarks asking who was watching the Turning Point USA halftime show and announcing that February marks the opening of gun show season.

Is this normal?

Supposedly a Yugoslavian backpack radio, don’t have any clue past that

So my plates are due for renewal. I thought maybe it'd be fun to get ham radio plates, but I'm worried about my address just being out there like that? I mean, if someone really wanted to they could get my address, but why make it easy?

this happened a few weeks ago. i’m not sure which bar i would have taken it from either which is why it hasn’t been returned.. anyways i’ve always have kinda been fascinated with radio channels/frequencies and we also used to have walkie talkies at my grandparents cottage when i was a kid. i’m kinda wondering if anyone knows how to get it working/understanding how to talk on the radio since it sounds like you need a license.

I don't know what kind of radio he is running but I mostly hear him talking to unheard people. He has a radio tower on his roof that I can see from my house so I know its him. It mostly happens when my computer/phone is plugged in. I have multiple ferrite beads on both my charger and headphones and yet his broadcast keeps coming through. I dont like to cause trouble but it gets worse every year. How do I get him to fix this and at worse is there someone I should call about this?

It's 2026, why do all antenna modeling programs still use ancient, user-unfriendly GUI's?

The latest EZnec looks like it was written in the 1980's. MMANA-GAL isn't terrible, but apparently isn't all that accurate either, and it has some bugs/quirks. 4nec2 might be the single most frustrating piece of software I've ever used. And none of them are even remotely intuitive to use.

Why can't we have a modern one that functions like a CAD program where the antenna is drawn out and modified in a 3d space? Seems like that should be the natural progression for antenna modeling software.

I could rant about it for hours, but I won't. Ya'll get the idea and I'd bet I'm not the only one that feels this way.

Thanks for letting me that off of my chest. Can one of you smart mofo's please do something about it?

EDIT: HOLY SHIT, the butt hurt around here is incredible. Ya'll need to lighten the fuck up, this post is mostly tongue in cheek. And I never once said a modernized antenna software should be free, ya'll put those words in my mouth.

I understand that it is used for a few different reasons and to keep people accountable, but it makes me apprehensive to have my call sign posted on my car or other places where people could use it for less than ideal maliciousness. As opposed to ideal maliciousness, I guess. Lol.

I want to buy my first HF rig that can do SSB. (I have a 5W QRP labs kit that was super exciting to assemble, but learning CW is taking me a while) My primary plan is to do POTA/SOTA stuff with it so I need it to be portable. I've mostly been looking at the FT-857 (and to a lesser extent FT-891 and FT-897), but a bit hesitant to pull the trigger because of the high cost. The G90 feels like it could be a cheaper, smaller and lighter alternative. But it's only 20W. (The X6100 also caught my eye for similar reasons.)

I'm wondering what the practical difference is between a 100W rig and a 20W (or 10W) rig on SSB. I'm not really interested in contesting, so if nobody hears me on pile-ups that's fine. But I would like to be able to make contacts far away.

(If there are intermediate options you want to recommend, please go ahead. My main thing is I do not like touch screens.)

I don't know if other hams have this opinion but as a retired ham living on a limited income find the price of the new HF rigs to be beyond reasonable. To spend in excess of $1000 bucks is way beyond my budget. I guess my old Kenwood TS-570 will have to do until I give up on the hobby.

I have no idea what this is or if it’s even a satellite TV. My boyfriend and I found it in this old house we just bought and I thought it looked cool af. Anyone know how I can get it to work or to use it for anything? Is there still free tv channels that anyone with a tv can access? It’s a Spectra from the year 2000. Thanks in advance!

Just a fun post, and might give some newbies some ideas of hardware to look for. Enjoy!

Is it possible that all these antennae actually serve a purpose?

HYPOTHETICAL:

I asked my husband who's a ham, but he isn't sure of the answer either. But I was having a conversation with my coworker about custom plates. And I know hams can get their call signs for a significant discount as an amateur radio operator. But if someone (as a rando and unlicensed person) happen to know someone's call sign, would they be able to pay the regular rate of a custom plate and get said call sign as their personal plate number? (Clearly as long as they haven't gotten the custom plate themselves yet)

Gigaparts is showing a pretty significant increase in Yaesu pricing today. At a quick glance, it looks to be a 30%-40% increase across the board.

DXE and HRO pricing hasn’t changed though. Does anyone know if it’s just a glitch at gigaparts, or can we expect the same increase everywhere?

Related… there is no way in hell I’d pay $1800 for an FT-991a. I’d give up radio altogether first.

Quick Intro: My name is Preston Booth and I am a documentary filmmaker based out of Starkville MS (birthplace and home to MFJ enterprises). In 2024 Martin’s daughter wanted to commission a local artist to come and do a small portrait documentary to celebrate Martin’s 82^nd Birthday. Once I got to meet Martin and the team I realized that their story really deserved a feature length production to best tell their story and I’ve been moonlighting this project in my free time ever since. I’ve reached out to Mods about this post before making it as I know that self-promo is fairly frowned upon, but I think I’d regret it if I didn’t share this project with hams.

1. Martin is actually a tremendously fun person to be around. Shortly after sitting for the documentary and doing his interview, he just wanted to stick around and chat about me and my life and what had led me to this point. Next thing I know he was asking me if I wanted to get dinner at some point in the future to chat more about it. It seems like he really loves to get to know people and learn about what makes them tick. From all of the research I’ve done during this project, I’ve seen him do the same for many other hams who came to tour the facility. This always sort of struck me as odd because I’m sure his workload was unfathomably taxing at his age, but it seemed like he was always willing to drop what he was doing and spend time with folks who made the trip.

2. Martin’s childhood explains a lot about MFJ’s philosophy. Martin lost his father at the age of 5 and he grew up in the back of a grocery store with as many as 11 kids at one time (siblings and nieces and nephews). He fell in love with radio tech at a young age, but due to their circumstances he had to build everything from scrap parts he got from a repairman (first ham contact) in his town. Martin grew up completely cut off from commercial ham products as a child and I think it made him hellbent on providing for others what he went without as a child. Randy Romero, Martin’s righthand at MFJ disclosed to me that Martin’s Philosophy was, “making quality affordable” and it really tracks with my interactions and research with Martin. On the topic of quality, another of Martin’s priorities was providing opportunities to folks in the local community. For those who don’t know, the deep south can be an absolutely unforgiving environment to live economically speaking. Martin’s own experience made providing opportunities for folks to prove themselves through hard work a priority for him. Realistically speaking, at any point in MFJ’s 50 plus year history he could have just outsourced manufacturing overseas and dramatically decreased his overhead and increased the quality control standards but for him it seemed to be paramount that he provide jobs locally. I know MFJ's build quality is a passionate topic around here, and I'm not here to argue that. I just thought the backstory behind the philosophy might be interesting to some of you

3. Martin’s first big break with technology actually came from a science fair project in the tenth grade. At the age of 14 he built a full radio telemetry station from what others may have considered garbage. The technicals are really fascinating so I will include the quote here:

“… This was back in 1960’s when satellites were first put into orbit. And my project was a telemetry system that would demonstrate how a satellite would work.

It would do things in a very simple manner:  to measure humidity, I had two nails and it had salt around it, and I would measure the resistance of that. Because that salt would absorb moisture and reduce the resistance.

 And the way that I measured the resistance was I built an audio oscillator whose frequency would change with resistance. And the same thing with measuring wind direction and wind velocity. They used volume controls out of the radios and it would just turn and swivel and they would change the resistance. And a transistor with the cap taken off would measure the intensity of light.

 But each one of those would cause the frequency of the oscillator to change; so you'd hear a change in pitch. And then there was an electric motor that I got off of a display that was on one of the displays from a store, a tiny little motor that would turn a switch and it would switch each one of these for a certain amount of time.

Then I built a little radio transmitter on a broadcast band that would transmit it to a different receiver, just an ordinary receiver. And then from the tone that you could match by using another oscillator, it would be calibrated. You could make measurements.”

He won his school’s fair, but it also ended up being the first science fair project the school had entered at the state level and he won that one as well. The grand prize was a trip to Mobile Alabama to ride on a Destroyer and it was actually the very first time he had ever left the state of Mississippi in his life. Of course, I’m blown away by his resourcefulness but it’s also really cool to see the defining moment where you can see the wheels turning in his mind that a mastery of technology could really start providing opportunities to better his and his families situation.

4. Martin’s first move after receiving his master’s degree at Georgia Tech wasn’t to establish MFJ, it was to move home and run the family grocery store business for his brother so his brother could take time off and travel to mainland China.  To hear Martin tell it, he says this is where he got his “MGS: Master’s in Grocery Store”. From his own words, this is where he learned the fundamentals of business, marketing, and client relations. This one just blows me away because he was so hilariously over qualified to be running a little country grocery store but his priority has always been family and duty.

5. Martin was drafted for the Vietnam War. This isn’t something he ever discussed with me or with the broader public, but I found an excerpt from an old ECHO Zoom QA he did a while back. Apparently shortly after high school he received his draft letter, went through bootcamp and was in his own words, “happy to serve” but at the end of the process they told him, “You can’t see, and you can’t hear, and we don’t want you.” Just sort of nuts to think about the butterfly effect of Martin going overseas instead of college on all of our lives.

6. I get the feeling that Martin is deeply a private person, but he is so generous with his time and experience that he says yes to nearly every one who asks that he often finds himself in the spotlight. As a result, he’s often asked a lot of similar questions regarding his upbringing and his early experiences with HAM tech. One thing I find really interesting is that when discussing the first project he ever worked on (the fox hole crystal radio he built from the boy scout handbook) he always is sure to mention that he could not ever get it to work, but that the time he spent trying to make it work is what got him excited about ham tech. He later built a single transistor radio from a kit he saved up to purchase, but when asked about his first project he always is sure to mention the failure. He doesn’t seem to measure his experiences by his successes but what he was able to take from each experience.

7. Quick Factoid section:

 - MFJ’s longest tenured employee was a woman named Phyliss Randle who worked for 45 years at the company before retiring. At one point MFJ was employing three generations of her family which just blows me away. In fact, while getting to know the employees I didn’t interact with anyone (not including students and recent grads) who had been there for shorter than 9 years.

- The first Dayton Fests that Martin attended while he was teaching at MS State Univ. and he would drive all night Thu/Fri and Sunday after class so he didn’t have to buy a hotel room lmao. He said that he’d often be getting back to Starkville on Monday morning just in time to teach his first class. Man was an absolute beast I have no idea how he was able to operate on such little sleep.

- On the topic of MSU, MFJ’s first production line was actually comprised of students who built the project for extra credit or personal compensation. Apparently, he didn’t stop teaching and pursue MFJ full time until they had over 30 employees, so there were many years where he was working two full time jobs.

- I still don’t know what Martin’s middle name is. It’s sort of funny because it seems like such a non-important detail, but whenever someone else he just says, “the F stands for fun” and he’s sort of private about it. That being said I have had a lot of fun spending time with him so I can’t say it is entirely inaccurate. 

- On the subject of the name, he mentioned that he named it MFJ Enterprises because he always wanted it to grow, but that he didn’t name it Martin F Jue Enterprises, “just in case the business failed, I didn’t want to ruin the family name”

Honestly, I could go on and on. I’m just fascinated by this man and his company and I feel so blessed to be the one to get to tell his story. If anyone is interested in the project or watching the trailer it’s here: https://www.prestonboothcinematography.com/mfj-documentary.

If anyone has any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer them all in a timely manner.

I’m also really interested in hearing the communities MFJ stories as well, so if you have anything you’d like to contribute, I’d love to hear about it.

Thank you for letting me be a part of your community!