If she’s into science and physics, I think that’s a great age to get her interested in radio.
I recommend starting with an RTLSDR ($30 on Amazon) and a homemade dipole. You can use an open source program called GQRX to listen to it. This will be fun to just listen to local FM radio, air traffic controllers, EMS/Police in your area if it’s not encrypted.
If she seems interested and you want to go a bit further, buy a block frequency upconverter (there’s one on Amazon called “ham it up” for ~$30) and make a large antenna for the 20M ham band. You’ll be able to pick up people from all over the country, and if you do a good job on the antenna, all over the world.
Most importantly, it’s fun and you get to work with your hands. You get to have fun trying to get ropes over trees in your yard to hang the antenna high enough. You get to deal with the problem of measuring out 60 feet of wire and cutting it. You have to figure out what trees to hang the antenna on so that it’s pointing where you want to listen (not directly East, but northeast due to the curvature of the earth, Google maps “measure distance” can help give a vector). This is all done with a cheap run of coax and speaker wire, no more than $40 in materials.
If she’s into it, you can get your ham radio technician license for a $15 fee, and you can get two way radios on Amazon for the VHF/UHF bands for $20 (baofeng UV5R). Fun to study for.
I recommend starting with an RTLSDR ($30 on Amazon) and a homemade dipole. You can use an open source program called GQRX to listen to it. This will be fun to just listen to local FM radio, air traffic controllers, EMS/Police in your area if it’s not encrypted.
If she seems interested and you want to go a bit further, buy a block frequency upconverter (there’s one on Amazon called “ham it up” for ~$30) and make a large antenna for the 20M ham band. You’ll be able to pick up people from all over the country, and if you do a good job on the antenna, all over the world.
Most importantly, it’s fun and you get to work with your hands. You get to have fun trying to get ropes over trees in your yard to hang the antenna high enough. You get to deal with the problem of measuring out 60 feet of wire and cutting it. You have to figure out what trees to hang the antenna on so that it’s pointing where you want to listen (not directly East, but northeast due to the curvature of the earth, Google maps “measure distance” can help give a vector). This is all done with a cheap run of coax and speaker wire, no more than $40 in materials.
If she’s into it, you can get your ham radio technician license for a $15 fee, and you can get two way radios on Amazon for the VHF/UHF bands for $20 (baofeng UV5R). Fun to study for.