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What Would You Say?
24 May 2012 | by In July I’m giving a 45 minute talk on amateur radio to a local neighborhood group that restored and maintains an old historic schoolhouse down the road from my QTH. I plan on bringing my FT-897 and throwing a dipole up in the yard so I can tune around the bands and maybe even whip up a phone QSO. (It sure would be nice if 20 was open to Europe.) I’m going to avoid “death by PowerPoint” and just work off of some simple bulletpoints.
So, any suggestions on what to talk about? What would you definitely not talk about? Any tips from seasoned speakers on things to wow the audience with?
2 Responses to “What Would You Say?”
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This always makes for a quick (about 6 minutes) overview of ham radio from a recognizable source:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z9136_Nhh4
A CW DX QSO can be equally impressive to visitors, although they have to take your word for it that it’s DX since they can’t hear the accent. Of course, you can clue the audience into what accents (warbles, fades, chirps, etc) DX CW signals often have.
Avoiding PPT is right. The really important thing is: don’t over-think it! Tell them about aspects of amateur radio that interest you. Answer these questions (although perhaps not explicitly stated): What is it? How did you get started? Why are you still involved? Etc, etc, etc.