Teacher kit · session 1
What amateur radio does that your phone cannot
45 minutes · Grades 9 to 12, no background
Bring: a handheld radio from the club; a phone; a map of the borough.
Goal
Students leave knowing three things: a radio talks to other people without any network in between, a license is what lets you transmit, and there are people doing this within a few miles of the school.
Open (10 minutes)
Put a phone in airplane mode and ask what still works. Then key the club's handheld on a simplex frequency with the control operator at the radio and let a student hear the club volunteer answer from the hallway. No infrastructure, no account, no data plan.
Show what is around (15 minutes)
Open the school's location on the where-am-I screen of QSO App and read the list: repeaters people have submitted, AllStarLink nodes with a frequency, operators who said they are around today. Every line is a real person or a real machine within reach of that handheld.
- Ask the class which one is closest and whether the terrain check says "worth trying".
- Look up the school's own callsign if it has one, and the volunteer's.
Why a license (10 minutes)
The FCC licenses operators, not radios: the license says you know the rules well enough to share the spectrum. Technician is the entry level, the question pool is public, and under-18 applicants can have the FCC fee waived (ARRL Youth Licensing Grant Program). Nobody in this room will transmit until they hold one; until then they speak through the volunteer.
Close (10 minutes)
Each student writes one question they want answered by radio, not by the internet, over the next eight weeks. Keep the cards; session 8 comes back to them.