how about telling teens...

I would just like to add that not all teens are dead to the idea of being a ham radio operator. I'm only 17 and I've almost always been into radios. A few years ago, I had a real fascination with it and over time I bought like 3 or 4 different pairs of GMRS radios. I bought the whole deal, hand mics, throat mics, helmet mics, had my dad get a GMRS license (although it's debatable if that even means anything), etc. I had known that ham radio was an option, but I thought that it was just too expensive because you see all of these people with these huge antennas and multi-thousand dollar radios; I just thought it was too much. However, (I can't remember how I figured this out) I discovered that all you really need to get into the world of ham radio is just about $100 and some studying. My elmer recommended me to get a Baofeng VHF/UHF radio. They only cost like $40 and quite honestly, they do pretty much the same thing as Icom or Yaesu radios. I think that if you could let people know that ham radio is actually really cheap and that you've got nothing to lose to try it out, that might draw in more people who have some sort of fascination with radios. I love it so much now that I'm hoping to get some sort of major in radio. I've made myself an 80 watt mobile rig for my HT, I've really gotten into satellite ops (probably my favorite thing to do), I've talked to people hundreds of miles away on the satellites, I've gotten tours of my local repeater and how the whole shenanigan works, and on and on.

So bottom line, I think there are probably quite a few teens out there who think radios are really cool, but they just don't know the whole world, the whole very inexpensive world, that's right underneath their nose. Of course, the majority of teens won't care, but then again, do you see the majority of Americans caring? If you're honest with yourself, no they do not. Why do you expect it to be different with the young crowd?