Subj : Newsline Part 2
To : All
From : Daryl Stout
Date : Fri Feb 03 2017 09:27 am
A WORLD RADIO DAY PREVIEW IN LONDON
ANCHOR/PAUL: World Radio Day is coming, and London's getting a sneak
preview. We hear more from Amateur Radio Newsline's Jeremy Boot, G4NJH.
JEREMY: World Radio Day London will be held on Friday the 10th of February,
between 3 and 8 p.m. local time, just a few days before World Radio Day.
That global event, organized by UNESCO, is devoted to exploring radio in
all its incarnations. It's a day for education and celebration among
industry professionals, academics, radio enthusiasts, and people curious
about the art and science of radio. The worldwide event is in its sixth
year.
The London event will be a free radio fair hosted by SOAS Radio, with
exhibits, workshops and speakers from the BBC, Refugee Radio Brighton,
and the University of Sunderland. The event is being cohosted by the
Communication for Development Network and Centre of African Studies.
For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Jeremy Boot, G4NJH.
(WORLD RADIO DAY)
**
HONORS FOR HAM IN MAUI
ANCHOR/PAUL: One radio amateur on the island of Maui has just distinguished
himself as a Volunteer Examiner. He's been overseeing exams since 1982.
Here's Amateur Radio Newsline's John Williams, VK4JJW, with the details.
JOHN: You've heard of the Worked All States and Worked All Counties awards
but what's it like being honored with the "Administered 100 Exams" award?
Ask Mel Fukunaga (Foo-Koo-NAH-Gah) KH6H, an amateur in Maui, who was
recently honored for his work as a Volunteer Examiner with just that prize.
Mel has overseen the license testing process on Maui since 1982, and on
December 2, he showed up for his 100th VE session. He administers the
exams three times a year - in April, August and December.
Mel was given a personalized "V-E-C-C" award engraved with his name by the
Maui Amateur Radio Club KH6RS. Celebrating the occasion, the blog on the
club's website noted [quote] "If you received your license on Maui in the
last 25 years or so, you most likely have tested with Mel." [ENDQUOTE]
Of course, when he's not giving tests or training volunteers to assist
with emergency communications, Mel hosts the Maui Emergency Net on Monday
nights on the Hawaii State Civil Defense VHF Repeater Network.
Congratulations Mel, from all of us here at Amateur Radio Newsline. I'm
John Williams, VK4JJW.
(DARREN HOLBROOK KH6OWL, MAUI AMATEUR RADIO CLUB)
**
BREAK HERE:
Time for you to identify your station. We are the Amateur Radio Newsline,
heard on bulletin stations around the world, including the W0CRA repeater
system in Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Springs, on Sundays at 9 a.m.
local time.
**
HAM RADIO GOES IVY LEAGUE
PAUL/ANCHOR: There are quite a few ham radio clubs around the world. But,
few of them can claim to be as old as W-1-Y-U, the Amateur Radio Club at
Yale University, now in its 85th year.
I spoke with James Surprenant, AB1DQ, who works for the Yale School of
Medicine, and is the club president:
SURPRENANT: I became involved with the Yale Radio Club last year in the
Spring of 2016. I started working at Yale the previous summer, and I was
curious to whether Yale had a radio club or not. So I searched around on
the website, and found that they did in fact have one, but it was somewhat
inactive, so I reached out to the officers at the time, and got together
with Ed, W1YSM, who is a faculty member I work with, and we've been working
on reviving the club, and making it a more active club.
PAUL/ANCHOR: I asked Surprenant how the club has fared over the years:
SURPRENANT: Like a lot of college clubs, the Yale club has waxed and waned
in student involvement since the year when it was first founded in 1931.
Around 1990, it actually lost its status as a student club, it was no
longer falling under the Dean's Office, and in fact the Dean's Office took
away our last fixed station on campus.
PAUL/ANCHOR: One of the ideas to get the students involved was to hold a
introduction to ham radio workshop on campus, which they did last Fall.
They talked about the history and gave demos. I asked how it went:
SURPRENANT: It was well-received - we had over twenty participants for the
fifteen slots that were available, and we gained at least one new member
from that session. K-C-1-G-T-O, a new licensee, Han Zhang actually who's a
senior engineering student at Yale, joined the club and sat for his Element
2 and 3 test at our VE session and earned his General.
PAUL/ANCHOR: In today's internet-connected world, getting young people
interested in radio can be challenging. I asked Surprenant how the club
is approaching recruitment:
SURPRENANT: Some of the things we've discovered that students are
interested in is the whole builder/maker aspect of ham radio. If you do
hands-on projects like kitbuilding, Arduino, micro-controllers - they're
interested in that. We've also discovered that young students are also
fascinated by fox hunting and strangely enough, they're actually interested
in passing traffic, and how the NTS works! So those are areas where we are
targeting our programs, and this month we're returning to the CEID, and
we're going to be doing a build-a-thon with our student members there, and
we're going to build a 20-meter QRP regenerative kit with our students.
PAUL/ANCHOR: Hopefully, Yale's plan to work with other school clubs will
help to build a network of ideas that, in turn, will increase the number
of young people discovering the hobby.
