Hi Tom,
Thanks for the report, which I enjoyed very much reading and felt fully connected with.
Your story reminded my activation of the new unique EA2/NV-171 with my little son.
Here you can find the activation report.
I have 3 kids (2 girls and 1 boy) and I also have tried to take them with me to some SOTA and even given them a chance to talk to some of the chasers on the frequency, but it’s not easy for a young little kid to feel the attraction by the too technical for them ham radio hobby and hiking in the cold/wind, when being home or getting a car ride is much more comfortable. On top of that, the people they hear on the air are all speaking a weird language with lots of IKAO spellings, Q-codes, stupid number exchanges 59, 73, 88 and all the rest they hear is in English, which was mainly an exotic unknown language for them.
I felt interested by ham radio at the age of 16 and I guess it will happen to our kids one day or other if it’s indeed something to happen.
We’ll see…
73,
Guru