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Make it affordable isn’t a reasonable request…

How about don’t trash talk inexpensive equipment. “This $4k radio is what you need, not that Chinese junk.” Watch the majority of people will just walk away.

My unused general license is a perfect example. The multiple free HF antennas and free LMR400 run to my free 30’ antenna mast I was given didn’t even put a dent in offsetting the cost of a radio to use the equipment I have rotting away.

I’ll keep my dual band tyt and my 2m Kenwood. If there’s an emergency where it is useful, I’ll use it.

The problem is that cheap equipment literally performs worse, for you. And can make the frequencies around you worse, because of poor filtering or bad circuit design.

I’m not saying $4000 needs to be spent. You can get all the radio you’ll ever need, for $800-900, with an icom 7300. Now that’s not cheap, but it’s definitely in the realm of feasibility. People pay more for cell phones in some cases.

But, if you want a more manual experience, and save some money, you can get older Kenwood hybrids for $500-600. Heck I bought my ts530s for $300 when I first started, it had an issue where it was partially broken, but I was able to fix it just by cleaning a few switches with deoxit.

But baofengs, while they can work, and heck I own them. Some of them are pretty poorly built. I definitely experienced issues with mine, adding more antenna started making my signal reception worse! I later learned it was front end overload, from cheap filtering. But that’s besides the point.

I’m sorry your experience was so bad, and that people were rude to you. And it’s a shame you never got to put that donated equipment to use. It really is a fun hobby if you can get into it.

This really showcases how out of touch most hams are. $800 just to get your foot in the door is completely unreasonable. OR you could buy a broken piece of junk for $300 that you have to fix yourself? Good god.

That’s a misrepresentation.

800 for the last radio you’ll ever need. I didn’t say start with it.

4 to 500 for a middle ground radio.

300 if you want to learn to fix it, it’s a feature not a bug. And it’s not for everyone, I never said it was.

You can get a 5w HF radio for $100, plenty to learn on, but can be frustrating if the solar cycle is down.

If you really want to get your foot in the door, get your foot out the door and over to your local club, they lend you gear, or even give it to you and has happened to me a time or two when I was starting. Or you can use their club station, or go out and do a POTA with someone. That’s what I do with my buddies kids, and they love it

There’s plenty to do, nobody is trying to gate keep here. It’s just a hobby with a very high cost ceiling, and a lot of people who’ve been doing it for decades and built up equipment stores. It’s a lot to come into, and yes we do need to be more welcoming.

ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS.

Do you think people are made of money? I’m not spending $100 on a hobby I don’t even know if I’ll like yet. Out of touch indeed. My dude if I can manage to put $50 in my savings account on any random month, that is a fantastic month for me.

One dude in the article spent $25,000 on his gear, that’s more than twice what I spent on my car!

My budget is $20 max to start. If and only if I enjoy it will I possibly consider spending months and months of savings to buy better gear. You want more hams, start here.