W8LT - The Amateur Radio Club at The Ohio State University

The Ohio State University has an Amateur radio club. The club was founded in 1926, so it has been around a LONG time. There is a lot of heritage in the club. I am a Ham radio operator (obviously), so it makes sense that I am a member of the OSU Amateur Radio Club.

I would have ended up with W8LT no matter what, but I have a neat connection to the club. Here's a quick story about it:

I came to OSU fall quarter 2006. I had already known about the club before I came here. W8LT is one of the most well-known university call signs for the reason of past contests. Many well-known contesters were cultivated at W8LT. Back about 20-30 years ago, W8LT was one of the biggest signals on the bands. The club members were knowledgeable and dedicated to the understanding of radio systems. They got on the air and made the W8LT signal heard. They placed high scores in dozens of contests.

Enough of the history. Before school started up at OSU, that summer I was in Columbus as my mom and step dad live here. I was on the local 146.760 repeater and was talking to someone, I believe it was Tony KC8PZU (now KC8PZ). AB8VE broke in and Tony told him he was talking to "Steve, KC8QVO. Hes from your hometown, Dayton". I didn't know this at the time, but Dan, AB8VE, had changed his call sign. Talking to him, I didn't recognize who he was. I had AB8VE talking back to me. It just didn't register in my head who he was.

Fortunately, I haven't changed my call sign (yet). Dan recognized the call sign and was a bit shocked. He asked to make sure I was the same "qvo" he talked to on the 145.110 repeater in Dayton. He mentioned his previous call sign was KC8UDJ and that's when it hit me who he was! I used to talk to him all the time. He and I were the only younger guys on the repeaters in Dayton, so we had a unique connection. Its not often being in your late teens that you have someone else close to your age to talk to on Ham radio. Granted, there are even younger kids on the bands. Having someone right in your hometown to talk to that is your age is pretty cool.

Long story short, it turned out he was the president of W8LT. They were going to be having their Field Day operation at Matt KD8ANP's house in Delaware and invited me along. So I changed my Field Day plans and headed out there. Boy, what an experience! The people were great. I had a spectacular time!

Now, I am actively involved with the club. I don't hold an official position yet because I wasn't sure if I was going to stay at OSU after last winter or not (read my post on "OSU-School" if you want to get in to that). So I didn't want to run for office.

However, I have a deep interest in W8LT. I talk to people all the time on the radio who remember how W8LT used to be. I wish the club was as great as people say it was. Unfortunately, these days interest in Ham radio is fizzling out. Its not just with our club, its the hobby/service as a whole. Since we don't have many active student members to begin with, the club really has been hit hard. We aren't as active as a whole because of it. We need to generate new interest in W8LT. We need to spark enough interest with people that they become dedicated to helping and preserving the club. To do this, we need to spark interest in Ham radio. We need to get new people together to show them what we do. We need to get them on the air and able to feel the magic of radio. Its one thing to be sitting next to a box with a microphone and talking to someone else, but to share that magic with someone who doesn't know about radio and has never experienced anything like it before is very powerful.

Field Day is one BIG exception to our lack of interest, however. Field Day brings people out of the woodwork you would never know about otherwise. If there is any one event that shows what ham radio is, can do, and how fun it can be - Field Day is it! There just is no other event like it. To bring everyone together and have such an intensely enjoyable event is so great.

I wish we could bring people together like this more often. It can't be done by one person, or a handful of people. It requires the interest and dedication of the club as a whole.

One of my goals being at The Ohio State University is to spark off some interest in Ham radio in others. Because Ham radio can be a technical subject (see some of my posts about Ham radio on here), many people shy away from it. I am a technical person. I dive right in to how it works and why it works. In explaining Ham radio, that flies over a lot of people's heads. For me to spark interest in Ham radio in others I need to come up with a way of explaining Ham radio that is interesting to people. Its not a very easy chore, but I think it can be done.

I made a flyer for the Fall 07' Welcome Week Involvement Fair. I took the initiative to do it because no one else really showed much interest. The day before the event I hit the flyer hard. I got it printed out at the Union about an hour before the event started.

In the flyer I explained Ham radio briefly. I only had so much room and I didn't want it to be over-loaded (back to explaining Ham radio so its not so technical.. its hard for me to do). I put pictures in it and tried to lay it out in an interesting way so that people would want to read it. I am a creative person to a certain extent, but this flyer really wasn't easy for me to make. I got it done and I think it is a decent, informative piece of information on what Ham radio is and what the club does.

I hope the flyer is the beginning of an interesting period in my time at OSU. It still can be improved. With the collaboration of club members I think it will turn in to a wonderful document. I planted the seed, now hopefully it grows!

Edit:
I am now the Treasurer for the club. We sorta had elections at the start of the school year and needed someone to step up to the plate. I figured Ill be here long enough, now, that I can hold an official position. So that's what I'm doing!

OSU - School

This is a long ride I have been on for a while now. Currently I am
in the Technology Education program. How I came to this program is
because I have tried a few different programs and found out they aren't
for me. I was in an engineering program the last two years of high
school. This is what has kept me on this engineering/technology/hands-on path. I learned a lot in that program and I don't want to waste that experience.

After high school I got a 2 year scholarship to Sinclair Community College to continue on in an engineering-related field. So I took advantage of that and
decided to major in Mechanical Engineering. That is what I wanted to do
anyway - I like mechanical things the most, but I also like electronics. I also knew I wanted to go to OSU . That left me one option at Sinclair - a 2 year university parallel program that was laid out to transfer to a 4 year university. That is what I had set in writing, but in practice it worked differently.

I couldn't get in to any of the physics and basic engineering classes until I took calculus. So I had to build up my math courses to get there. I ended up not taking
calculus until the last quarter I was there, spring 06'. I had applied to OSU that winter and had already been accepted. However, once I got in to calculus everything changed. I realized how hard of a ride it was going to be and decided to do something else besides engineering. I dropped calculus half way through. It was either finish it and not have a life other than calculus (which I had other classes I needed to study for also) and MAYBE have a chance at passing, or drop and keep my GPA up. I chose to drop and move on with things.

Since I was already accepted to OSU, and that's where I wanted to be in the first place, I looked around at other options. It appeared the only other option was Industrial Design. However, the entrance process is very competitive. They only accept 18 students a year and you have to submit entrance exam/portfolio for evaluation. So I took some basic courses in design (mainly drawing, perspective, drafting) and took a chance at getting in last winter. Well, it was a LOT of hard work for nothing. They didn't accept me. So, I could either risk everything again the following year and just finish my prerequisite courses (which I have most of them completed already) or I could find another program. Since I have been in college for 3 years I decided to find another program and get going in something.

At OSU the only other program was Technology Education. To be quite honest, I
looked at the curriculum and it just looked like a program for the people who were not so smart. It looked like a way to go to OSU and get an easy degree. That's not exactly what I was after. I wanted something that applied more to engineering. The name of the program is Technology "Education" - so yes, you can get a teaching license with it. Also not what I wanted to do. However, you can get a BS degree and not teach, instead get a job somewhere. So I figured I would at least give it a try.

School has started and I have been to a couple classes. I wasn't thrilled going in
but once I sat through some class material it actually seems pretty interesting. The topics we have covered in class so far have all been ideas I have thought about before and I know about them. Even more, once I picked up the books I flipped through one (energy, power, and transportation) and every chapter of the book was something I am knowledgeable about or at least have some idea of how it works! So, that is a good thing.

The other good thing I realized is there are other people in the program
who didn't want to beat their heads against the wall to get through engineering, like myself . There are also people in here that have made quite a bit of progress in engineering, math, and physics too. So, the people in the program seem like an intelligent, cool batch of folks. I can't wait to get deeper in to the program.