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we go! Welcome to Hamtop Live! Calling Let's
Talk, Neil's your guy! Hamtop Live! Here we go
on Hamtop Radio! Hey! Hey everyone, it's time
for HamTalk Live, episode number 304, The Collegiate
QSo Party 2022, recorded on Tuesday, September
20th, 2022. I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of HamTalk
Live. Tonight, we're joined by Andy Melusi, KK4LWR
and Tony Melusi, KD8RTT. Last episode, Audrey
McElroy came for BUN and Don Wilbanks at E5DW.
We're here to talk about the Newsline Young Ham
of the Year award. So congratulations to. Ms.
McElroy, and if you missed the show, you can
listen anytime at HamTalkLive .com or on your
favorite podcast app or on YouTube and We're
on WTWW on the weekends at Saturday afternoon
at about 3 30 p .m. Eastern Time. That's five
zero eight five on your AM dial WTWW. So check
it out there as well. So we'll talk with Tony
and Andy right after this word from Tower Electronics
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anywhere at PL -259 .com Here's the snap, Rapp
takes the rig, he breaks through the pile up,
he's on 80, now 40, now 20, 15, 10, 2 meters,
touchdown, Hamtok live! Welcome back to ham talk
live tonight The brothers Mellusi are back, AndyKK4LWR
and TonyKD8RTT. They join us on the Orlando Amateur
Radio Club and Hamcation Zoom line. Andy Mellusi,
KK4LWR is the past president of the Gator Amateur
Radio Club at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
He is currently a senior ride control systems
engineer for Walt Disney Imagineering. And Andy
is a key leader in the ARRL Collegiate Amateur
Radio Program, a group that's been formed to
share ideas and promote and rejuvenate amateur
radio clubs in colleges and universities in North
America. And trying to get in a word edgewise
is his brother Tony KD8RTT. He is an aviation
systems engineer with Garmin. He attended grad
school at Ohio University. where he was the amateur
radio club president. During undergrad, he was
president of the Rose Tech Amateur Radio Club,
W9NAA, over in Terre Haute, Indiana. And he is
a pilot and also a key leader in the AWRL Collegiate
Amateur Radio Program. And you'll find him on
satellites or operating CW or portable on HF.
So Tony and Andy, welcome back. Thanks, man.
Yeah, thanks for having us and look Tony already
got a word in edgewise I was thinking could be
a more accurate way to describe how the talks
gonna go tonight Yes, if you tuned in that's
usually how it goes with these two So so Tony
will have to fight for you to get some airtime
here Yeah, that's yeah, that's always Well, it's
great to be with you once again and fall is here
and I'm kind of excited actually we'll talk about
this offline, but but something happened yesterday
that That is kind of exciting at my college with
ham radio, so we'll see how that plays out but
We may have another entry one of these days.
We're working on it. But the Collegiate QSO party
is something that you all have kind of spearheaded
and got going in the last few years. So let's
talk a little bit about what the Collegiate QSO
party is and some of the history behind that.
Yeah, the collegiate QSO party is to celebrate
our colleges and universities and trade schools
on the air. It's open for any and every amateur
radio operator to join and try and make as many
contacts as they can with all of these awesome
school clubs. One of the cool things about it
is many of these students are getting on the
air for the first time. Don't worry, we have
some seasoned veterans in there too, but many
getting on the air for the first time, the first
sort of experiences with amateur radio. great
way to sort of welcome them to the hobby. And
this is something that you kind of planned at
the beginning of the school year to kind of get
a jumpstart for things on the collegiate level,
right? Yeah. One of the big challenges with college
club is just getting activity going in the beginning
of the school year. We've done this right kind
of at the beginning of the fall semester or fall
quarter. The goal being that schools can have
their activities fair where they'll show off
their club. to other students and then invite
them to this event, you know, within a few weeks
afterwards, just show them what ham radio is,
get them talking, being in kind of a more comfortable
environment, not such a fast paced contest necessarily,
but a fun and competitive way to show people
what ham radio is. They've never seen it before.
And that's always the key is to get people on
the air. It's not always the most fun thing to
tell people that they have to go take another
test. It's about getting them on the air and
get them hooked and that's a great way to do
that. And there's been some creative things go
on. I love the whole mascot on APRS thing that
one college was doing. Some of the associated
stuff here with the... Q so party so so every
year when we talk about this Andy and I have
this this this kind of trash talk thing going
on and and so, you know, Kentucky has always
played Florida pretty early on and so you know,
it's usually about the time of the the Q so party
that My Kentucky Wildcats and his Florida Gators
end up playing each other in football. And of
course, as soon as the game was over, the first
thing I had to do was text Andy. And I saw that
text come in literally as time ran out. Neal
did not waste a moment to let me know that the
Gators, again, did not do so well against Kentucky.
And to be fair, since that game they've also
played South Florida and that one was light.
Sounds like it's not the Gators time right now,
but don't worry, they will come back and lay
up the chomp on the Wildcats. I know they will.
Maybe not this season, but definitely in the
future. I mean, that's also part of the fun of
the QSO party is getting that opportunity to
trash talk your favorite friends as you work
them on the air or let the different schools
know who you're supporting that weekend in football.
Yeah, there you go. So the final score Kentucky
26 Florida 16 and for those of you playing along
home and and and I was going to change the intro
music Figured that might be rubbing it in too
much. So so anyway, wait, the trash talk is kind
of fun Yeah, I mean definitely a fun part I'll
get you some go gators music for you know For
your next episode where you can just play that
instead of the usual hand talk live stuff I mean,
oh instead of the theme song. I'm supposed to
play play go gators now Yeah, but seriously though
connecting this with with the Q so party and
and and some of the other collegiate Operating
events like the North American collegiate championships,
you know, there's a level of trash talking and
competitiveness. And, you know, I found back
when I was teaching high school and we were competitive
in the school club roundup that that was a thing.
I mean, it was, you know, oh, you know, this
school, I won't mention any, any names, but yeah,
we're taking them down. I mean, that's part of
the fun, right? I mean, amateur radio is a social
hobby, right? And that's some of the fun of when
you participate in some of these events year
over year, you know who's the strong competitors,
you know who are the ones out there, and it's
great just to have fun and heckle them a little
bit. I mean, you want everyone to be successful
and to continue the hobby and grow it, but it's
also a fun way to sort of poke at each other
and get into the spirit. When I was working school
up, because back in the day when I was in college,
we didn't have the collegiate Uso party. I'd
work at the school called Roundup, and you bet
I worked all 24 hours that week, because I knew
there were other stations out there that were
also gunning for it. And there was, of course,
some appropriate trash talk on the Yahoo group
back in the day. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. That's definitely
fun. Yeah, and I think we've even seen at Dayton
Hamvention, the Collegiate Amateur Video Program
presence there. We've had school do, you know,
continue that trash talk in person from last
year's QSO party. So it kind of builds a nice
community competitiveness, but fun. Yeah, it's
all the fun and it's something to keep life interesting.
keep it going on the air. So, so yeah, I always
get that in, but it's always more fun when Kentucky
wins. Cause you know, for the last 50 decades,
Florida would crush us. So, you know, so I had
to bring it up while I can. So, Oh, yeah. Yeah.
You'll be waiting for it next year. There you
go. Well, Tony, tell us a little bit about the
event info for 2022. How do people participate?
How do people get their college club involved?
And then how do just everybody, you know, join
in the fun here on the collegiate QSO party?
Yeah. So this year, the collegiate QSO party
is October 1st and 2nd. the full UTC days of
that weekend. Like we said before, everyone's
welcome to participate, whether you're a college,
university, or just an individual. You can actually
head over to our website, collegiateqsoparty
.com. We have a link there to an info packet
that has all the rules, all the information,
some existing scripts for contacts, if you frequently
ask questions, all that sort of thing. So I would
encourage people to take a look there. A couple
things to note is we've had a totally new format
for this year. We're doing it more like a state
QSO party in that we're asking all the colleges
and universities to pre -register and provide
some information on what call sign they'll be
using and then their school identifier they'll
use in the exchange. So again, if you go to our
website on the main page, there's a link to see
all the registered colleges and universities.
We're up to 15 already, and they keep coming
in every day. Everyone from University of Florida,
the Case Western Reserve, Dominion, Ohio State,
St. Louis University, Missouri S &T, there's
just a bunch. So they've got links there. You
can check out more about their club. Perhaps
they'll post some information about their operations.
But we really built this event to be pretty easy
to participate in. and really focus on the colleges
and universities and help build awareness for
them. Well, you know, I also might just go out
there and say this, Neil. I heard him mention
the University of Florida and the Gator Amateur
Radio Club W4 DFU, but I didn't hear him mention
anything about Kentucky. And, you know, you can't
win if you're not in the game. Yeah, well, our
bunch are too busy building CubeSats, apparently.
I'm just saying, you know, that still might pull
one out this season. I got faith in the club.
This is true. All right. So you've got the hours
here, you've got the dates, you've got the website,
fill us in on the exchange bands, modes, all
that kind of thing. All right. Andy, do you want
to take it or? I mean, I can. You know, the exchange
is a little different than in years past. So
this year our exchange is adding in, besides
your call sign and sort of the signal report
that you're used to, we're adding in a school
identifier where you get to You get to basically
use a shortcut to identify your school. Some
people might not recognize your call signs. So
that's a great way for schools to, you know,
sort of, you know, be unique and make it easy
for stations that are not schools to log them
because there are a lot of bonus points for work
in the school. So they've all picked some. Um,
you know, fairly unique to their station. It's
about five characters or less. I think Mississippi
state is the longest one, um, up there, but all
of them are about five characters or less. And,
uh, that that's a unique way to identify them.
If you're not a school station, if you're not
a, you know, a college university or trade school,
um, you would identify with which you would share
that as well. Um, for the school, you got out
there, you identify what is what with your, with
your QTH. your, uh, your home station location.
Okay. So very good. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a good
way. So that way, if you don't have all these
club call signs memorized, like I seem to have
from doing school club roundup for years, uh,
that's a great way to instantly know what, you
know, who you're talking to. Exactly. I mean,
there's a few of these call signs that I can
see well, like when I see EEE or W8EDU pop in
there, but then there are some that, you know,
I haven't seen, like K7BYI for Brigham Young
University, Idaho, who are going to be participating
this year. So, you know, that's cool to see them
in there and, you know, their identifier is BYUI,
so that makes a lot of sense. exit from that.
But there's some other ones in there too. University
of Arizona has Wilbur as their call sign, which
I think is their mascot, if I'm not mistaken.
So there's some really cool ways that some of
these schools are identifying and having fun
with it. Well, and even more chance of trash
talk. So that is all right. Well, there you have
it. The rules and how to get involved in the
collegiate QSO party so we're going to take a
break here and when we come back we're actually
going to open up the phone lines. It's been a
while so we're going to open up the phone lines
and talk some more with Tony and Andy right after
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At HamTalk Live we have a million dollar request
guarantee. You give us a million dollars and
we'll do a show about whatever ham topic you
request. Guaranteed. And welcome back to HamTalk
Live. Be sure to check us out on Facebook, Twitter
and Instagram and you'll know when. New episodes
are coming your way, but before we get back to
Andy and Tony, it is time once again for the
N9GSU Joke of the Week. Now it's time for the
HamTalk Live Ham Radio Joke of the Week, the
part of the show where Rick tells us a ham radio
joke. The HamTalk Live Ham Radio Joke of the
Week is brought to you by QRM Labs. Now, here's
Rick Garrett in 9GSU with today's HamTalk Live
Joke of the Week. It's always a struggle for
me to get antennas up in trees when I'm out doing
POTA activations. I swear I have tried everything.
I finally hit on the bright idea of using a boomerang.
I'd forgotten where I threw it, but it finally
came back to me. This has been the Ham Talk Live
Ham Radio Joke of the Week with Rick Garrett
in 9GSU. Tune in again next week for another
joke from Rick. Oh boy. It finally came back
to me. Did it come back to you, Andy? No, I'm
still waiting for mine to come back, Neil. Oh,
you're still waiting. Well, we're coming back
to Tony and Andy Maluzzi, KK4LWR and KD8RTT with
the collegiate QSO party coming up October 1st
to a radio near you. Make sure you check that
out. collegiatekisoparty .com, was it? Yep, that's
right. .com. All right. Well, okay. So rare opportunity
here. We're actually going to open up the phone
lines because since we were doing this recorded
and not live anymore, we don't always get to
open up the phone lines. But tonight we've got
a chance to do it. So good evening. Welcome to
HamTalk Live. Good evening, Whiskey for India
Papa Charlie. Well, good evening, Connor. And
you're down at Old Dominion University and you've
been working on getting them going again. So,
so tell us what's going on down there. That's
right. We're at the Old Dominion University,
not the New Dominion University down here in
Norfolk, Virginia, next to the largest Navy base
in the world. We've got the club restarted here
after I believe 30 to 40 years of inactivity.
Unfortunately, we haven't really been able to
find much history of the club except for exactly
two pictures that I was able to get the university
archivist to dig up. But other than that, we're
pretty much a first time club at the university.
We've got several radios in the shack rack mounted.
that the Navy has actually purchased for us.
We're doing experiments with the Navy on HF radio
and automatic link establishment. And we're pretty
excited to operate the upcoming Collegiate QSO
party from there, where we will probably do it
via remote control from a shared space on University,
where we can all sit down together and have some
University -sanctioned pizza party. Over. Yes,
the pizza is always a requirement. Andy and Tony,
you kind of left that part out, but it's a college
club, therefore pizza must be involved. It's
the best way to make sure people come. We have
a pizza budget in our club activities fund from
the university. They gave us a pizza budget.
What's the old saying? If you feed them, they
will come? That's true. So so y 'all are going
to be on and and you're going to use some you
know remote technology and sometimes that's that's
a way to overcome some of the obstacles You know
getting a dedicated space on campus or getting
some antennas up on campus Sometimes that could
be a challenge and and might take a while To
jump through all the red tape and get through
uh... everything that make that happen so sounds
like uh... you've definitely got a plan there
and and and pizza yes are our main problem is
they gave us a really nice space is probably
a hundred by hundred foot room but uh... i'm
currently in the talks to fix this but currently
uh... undergrads can't access that room without
a professor uh... which which lends a problem
we can only be in there for things or you know
club activities or open shack when we have a
professor with us unless you're me so basically
all the entire shack is remote controlled so
we don't have to really go in there for anything
and that's that's our major stepping stone there
is to sort of get the university to trust us
enough to let us actually into our own room Yep,
that's not unusual. And these are some of the
challenges that colleges run into, that college
clubs run into. I remember ours was in a mop
closet. And, you know, same thing. I couldn't
get into it. I had to have one of the professors
with me. The mop closet wasn't real great for
the radio either, but that's that's a whole nother
story But they know that with all the new remote
technology. That's a that's a great way to do
it. So Andy anything else to throw in here or
Tony? Well, I'll mention that one thing we haven't
talked too much about tonight is the collegiate
amateur radio program that we're involved in
And we actually have monthly Calls that we discuss
items and Connor was on this this past month
a little bit a week ago and actually showed off
their shack so You go to a double RL org slash.
We want the letter you we want you There will
be a link to the recording of that and you can
actually check out the station He was talking
about so he did a great job showing us how they
got that all set up And also, we've mentioned
it a few times here, the Collegic Amateur Radio
Program, CARP, as we affectionately call it.
But that's also news. It wasn't always called
CARP. We were Cary for a while. We were the Collegic
Amateur Radio Initiative. You know, the league
started this initiative sort of thing. But, you
know, after a half decade of doing it and literally
thousands of members... on our Facebook group
here. We're, you know, pushing about 1 .2 thousand
members, so 1200 folks, you know, representing
colleges and universities all across the world
even at this point. We've graduated from being
an initiative to something that's really a sustainable
program and really a hallmark now of college
stations around the world. So, you know, you
can join the calls. We are hosting Hamfest forums
at Dayton. and Orlando. So if you'd come down
to Orlando Hamcasian in February or if you go
to Dayton Convention in May, there will be a
forum just for you if you're a college student
or if you want to support college, university,
and trade school students and help them be successful.
So yeah, lots of great growth going on this year
with the program. Yeah, and you got a new logo.
I was like, wait a minute. The first time I saw
it I was like, wait a minute, I thought it was
Carrie, not Carp. And all of a sudden there's
a new logo and everything. Yeah, there's a new
logo. I would say if you are a college student
out there and that logo maybe gives you an idea
of a particular sea -going animal, maybe you
should join Discord and see how we've had some
fun with that logo. It's a whole bunch of hams
doing amateur radio for each other and sharing,
you know, and enjoying the hobby together. So,
you know, I encourage everyone to sort of get
involved and jump in on there. And from that
ARRL website, ARRL We Want You, you can actually
get a link to Ford in there and, you know, help
make collegiate amateur radio loud, you know,
and who knows, you might hook your carp. All
right. Well Connor, thanks so much for calling
in tonight and telling us a little bit about
Old Dominion and and best of luck in the college
or collegiate rather Q so party coming up October
1st Yeah, good to be here and make sure everybody
listening works whiskey for Oscar Delta uniform
very important I'll give you well, I'll give
you a handshake if I ever meet you There you
go or a thousand nano bonus points There you
go. Yeah There you go. All right. Thanks, Connor,
for calling in. Thanks for having me, Neil. All
right. Well, Tony and Andy, let's talk a little
bit about CARP here and we'll see if we have
any other calls here. But we want to talk a little
bit about CARP and the resources that are there
for college clubs that are trying to get started
or trying to get restarted. What are some things
that are offered to help them out? Yeah, so in
addition to those monthly calls we just mentioned
and the discord group we have another kind of
repository of resources Linked there you can
get sample club constitutions Information about
other clubs out there. We also have a Facebook
group. So that's kind of the companion to the
discord What people are pretty active posting
all sorts of things online courses that clubs
are hosting? Schools asking for advice on how
to do a project or get started with their club
So we really you know, we've got some basic resource
people to start with and we have this nice community
of people It's a go -to place that you can try
to build your club out start a club And just
kind of give back to college clubs as well. So
Again, that's all accessible from a double RL
org slash. We want you the letter you there's
links to all that stuff including recordings
of all our previous calls And there's a lot of
good material in there. All right, so some excellent
resources out there for colleges that are trying
to get started again or Keep going for that matter.
Be sure to check them out as well as the the
Facebook group. So We're going to wrap things
up here for tonight, but Andy, you know, we've
known each other for a long time and we've talked
to each other and our clubs have talked to each
other. I think more importantly, uh, over the
years, all, all the time. And we discovered this
week that we were never in each other's personal
logs. And lo and behold, I'm sitting on FT eight.
and about to just give up and shut everything
down because I can't find any more Tasmanian
stations. I'm trying to get that Tasmanian Devil
Ward thing. And all of a sudden I see your call
sign flash across the screen. So we finally got
a contact. Yeah, nearly a decade in the making.
We finally got a contact. So that was fun. Your
home state, your new home station to my new home
station. Uh, yeah, that was, uh, a ton of fun.
It was, uh, it was make that contact and then
immediately pick up the phone and be like, Hey
Neil, we finally made a contact. It was great.
With our own call signs for once. Yeah. There
was a bit of a, hold on, let me search my log.
Wait, I really don't have them in the log. Wow.
And now it's on you, Neil, because I dropped
in the mail today a QSL card your way, because
I'm starting to collect them now that I have
a station to display them. So I need to get yours
up on the wall. Yeah. Well, we'll have to get
that taken care of. I got to get some new ones
too with the new QTH. So I put it in my order.
So they're on the way, hopefully. We'll get that.
And Tony, Tony, I get on satellite. So I think
we've worked actually several times. Yeah. I
think over the past few years we've worked. Yeah.
Multiple robes of, uh, for both of us, I think.
Yeah. From, from, from all kinds of locations.
Yeah. Yeah. That's been pretty cool. Tony does,
uh, does some pretty cool roving out in the,
uh, out in the Midwest and, uh, in some rare
places, so you have to watch for KD8RTT out there
and check that out. All right, well, oh, and
Andy, you know, your big announcement here, you're
running for AWRL Southeast Division Vice Director,
so congratulations on that and good luck with
that. Yeah, thanks. I threw my hat in the ring.
I've had a lot of fun helping with the gang carry
and now carp going and being on the PR committee
as well as local clubs and stuff and I want to
get back to the league at a bigger level, represent
the Southeastern Division and help lead the second
century of amateur radio. Yeah, well good luck.
I wish you well in that. All right, well... That's
going to do it for this edition of HamTalk Live.
Thanks to my guests, Andy Maluzzi, KK4LWR, and
Tony Maluzzi, KD8RTT, and everybody out there
in cyberspace for listening. And invite you back
next time. And for our upcoming guests, you can
see those at HamTalkLive .com. So for now, this
is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying 7 -3. Seven five
and may the good DX be yours