This episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you
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to the ham talk live theme music good evening
everyone. It's ham talk live episode number 201
frat house ham radio recorded live on Thursday
February 27th 2020 I'm your host Neil rap WB9
VPG. Thanks for tuning into this episode of HamTalk
Live. Tonight we're joined by Maxwell Zines,
W of M4TH, and we'll take your calls live in
just a few minutes. Last week on the show was
episode number 200, and we took a look back at
some of the favorite moments of the first 199
episodes and gave away a bunch of fabulous prizes.
If you missed the show, you can listen anytime
at HamTalkLive .com or on your favorite podcast
app. YouTube or you can catch the rebroadcast
on WTWW 5085 a .m. Saturday evenings at about
6 30 p .m. Eastern Time well I apologize for
the voice the voice is holding up, but barely
tonight been Under the weather for a few days
and just kind of trying to get this all cleared
up and bounce back but We will try to talk with
Maxwell here and he'll tell us all about his
fraternities ham radio station. So if you have
questions just give us a call and if you're listening
to us live on Thursday night you can give us
a call after the interview is over. We'll talk
to him a little bit first. but I'll give you
the phone number so you have that ready to go.
It's 859 -982 -7373. Again, 859 -982 -7373. You
can also tweet us if you'd rather type than talk.
You can tweet us. It's at HamTalk Live on Twitter
and I'll be back with Maxwell right after this
word from Tower Electronics right here on HamTalk
Live. the PL -259s? Anywhere? No, I haven't.
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A clean house is a sign of a broken radio. You're
listening to HamTalk Live with Neil Rapp. Thanks
to Scott and Jill at Tower Electronics for sponsoring
the show once again tonight to help bring HamTalk
Live your way each and every week. HamFest calendar
for them coming up March 7th they'll be in Cave
City, Kentucky. And then March 15th they'll be
in the Toledo area in Maumee, Ohio. And then
April 18th up in Wisconsin back home for them.
toward Madison, though, in Stoughton, Wisconsin,
April 18th. So you can visit them at any of those
hamfests or you can visit them online at PL -259
.com. Maxwell Zines, WM4TH, is a freshman at
the University of Tulsa currently pursuing a
triple major in mathematics, electrical engineering,
and physics. His passion for radio came from
his dad who also got an early start in ham radio.
His dad has advanced class as a teen and has
always been a passionate tinkerer and taught
his son well. He taught him a lot of the technical
skills he uses in the fraternities ham radio
shack today. Maxwell and his dad also share great
enthusiasm. for the technical side of electric
guitars. And so Maxwell spent a great deal of
his childhood listening eagerly as his dad went
through the circuitry and the guitar amp and
explained what each vacuum tube and sub -circuit
did to the signal to convert it to sound. All
this inspiration led him to continue studying
the tools of figuring out electronics and brought
ham radio with him to college. So Maxwell, thanks
for joining us on the show tonight. It's great
to be with you Neil. Thank you for having me.
Oh Sorry had to clear my throat again there well
We've seen actually we picked this up on reddit
and my friend Joe fitter k7joe who is the faculty
sponsor at the Indiana University amateur radio
club Sent sent me an email and said hey, have
you seen these guys on reddit and You know, they
set up a shack in the fraternity. So tell us
all about the ham radio club there at the fraternity
and how that all started up. Well, sure. So,
uh, as is common with the fraternity men, we
really like to keep up with what everyone is
doing. We have a, we have a chat where we just
like to keep each other up to date what's going
on in our lives. And, uh, actually earlier last
semester. When I was going to take my exam to
get my technician's license, I just put it in
the group chat. Hey guys, wish me luck and When
all was said and done at the end of the day five
of us went home with our technician class tickets,
so really surprised there what I thought was
just kind of a friendly shout the At the group
chat ended up turning into something a lot lot
bigger and What we've actually turned this into
is a great opportunity to put forth our volunteerism.
Volunteerism is the concept that every organization
at our school holds in really high regard in
consideration of being allowed to operate on
campus. Especially the Greek organizations take
a lot of pride in organizing community service
events. The club station had actually started
as a unique way to satisfy our fraternities volunteer
quota. We, especially as tornado season approaches
in Oklahoma, are hoping to get a lot of time
working with MCOM. We also really, really enjoy
planning radio -related STEM activities, outreach
programs, because we have a great deal of teachers
and organizations, STEM organizations in Tulsa
who are reaching out looking for engaging, fun
lessons and plans. We really like to share that
with them as well. Moreover, our club really
serves as a common ground in our fraternity.
We have a lot, a lot of guys. Most of us are
engineers or student engineers. All of us, every
single one of the five of us have a tie to either
electrical or mechanical engineering. So we love
the design aspect of this hobby. We love building
antennas and... Fixing our equipment. That's
really truly what sells it for us So We haven't
even mentioned the name of the fraternity so
I guess we should do that and then You've set
up the shack there and you said you've got five
others that that just went and took the test
with you So so that's your club Yes, so We were
the Sigma Nu fraternity at the University of
Tulsa and Yeah, absolutely. So we started actually
as five We were the first five to go take the
test and we have a wealth of material We've written
a lot of college -friendly study material for
this exam so that we can have The rest of the
fraternity and hopefully, you know other people
in the school once we get our club growing Take
the exam. We've got two people planning to take
their technicians next month Very cool. So you
guys have just been getting on the air from time
to time and Just kind of kicking back and making
a few Q so's or if you got into You know Contesting
or anything more serious than that or Q so parties
or anything like that or you just you know, every
once in a while, hop on the band. Well, truth
be told, we're pretty limited in what we can
do just by living in a fraternity house, living
on campus. One of our biggest considerations
is housing. They don't like antennas. We've tried.
We've tried every which way. I've been told to
take it down every time. So we're running about
50 watts average on single sideband, about 10
watts on CW. For the most part, we just love
to sit in my room, pop out our quick five -minute
antenna, we call it, before campus security notices
and see what we can do. We work a lot of local
guys, really, really friendly. They've been super
welcoming, given us a lot of tips, really encouraged
us to keep going with it, which has meant a lot.
We're chasing our first DX right now. We're trying
our best. We designed an amplifier. We're hoping
to build it soon. That'll help a lot too, but
we're working towards our DX right now. No contesting
yet. Again, hopefully the amplifier will help
with that once we get it designed and built,
but right now it's a lot of local rag chew and
chasing that first DX. Antennas are always the
challenge. I'm looking at moving and getting
a new shack built with a tower and a beam and
everything. Even then, the restrictions on property,
oh my goodness, it's been a nightmare trying
to find someplace that will allow antennas and
university campuses. or even worse. So I wish
you luck on that and hopefully you can get that
worked out. And I know you're working with the
university to actually make the club an official
university club. That's our hope. It's been going
really well so far. That what started is a friendly
thing in our fraternity. We really do want to
grow it because we see this excellent opportunity
to get out there. help the community, volunteer,
especially as tornado season comes about in Oklahoma.
We'd really like to see some fellas get their
technician, get their general, and help us out
in the field. Well, tell us a little bit about
the equipment that you use and this five -minute
antenna. Let's hear how you can put that antenna
up so fast. be able to use that, and I understand
Dad helped out with a rig. He did. So our base
rig is a Kenwood TS940. That's all modes, all
HF bands, and a big old beefy trans match that
sits on top of it. So that's a... much more set
up than our antenna can handle. The antenna itself
is definitely a challenge. We're working with
a lot of restrictions in terms of structures
and maximum permissible exposure to different
radio waves and whatnot. Our shack has one window
that points out right at a well -trafficked sidewalk,
so we're pretty restricted in that space. We
can't send a lot of power out. We don't have
a lot of space to build out. So we just built
straight up. We've got a big old PVC tower. It
was the thickest, strongest PVC that a hundred
bucks could buy at a hardware store. And we taped
a die pull to it. That's what we're running right
now. It's called improvise. So you just... put
the PVC tower together and then tape it up, or
can you leave part of it together, or how do
you do that? Well, so it's about 10 pieces of
PVC. They all fit behind my bed when they're
not in use. And we have a hand -sketched plan
for how it all goes together. It's pretty structurally
sound. We had the mechanical engineers of the
club help us out with it, but... It's about 20
meters tall and holds a 40 meter dipole on top.
We really did design it so that we could assemble
it in my room, place it outside through the window,
and then have it telescope upwards. That way,
if we get any complaints, if we need to take
it down real quickly for whatever reason, that's
possible to do. It takes about five minutes.
It's our five minute antenna. All right, that
sounds like a good plan now I noticed that on
this reddit post and excuse me just a second
Okay, I noticed on this reddit post That we were
looking at and actually I sent the picture out
on social media there of the the station Someone
had asked the question. So we got it. We got
to ask it so What do the sorority girls think
about the station? We've gotten some puzzled
stairs especially when we're setting up and taking
down the tower our window points right at sorority
row So whenever we put it up, it's no secret.
Everyone can see it Aside from the puzzled stairs
The benefit of going to a smaller school is that
you know between the five people who serve as
the core of the club We know most of the sorority
girls on a friendly basis. We've certainly not
gotten any rude comments, anything like that.
They're very, very engaging, very interested
in what we're doing. We have friendly conversations
about our tower and our station, what we're doing,
but really the main struggle is justifying it
to our girlfriends. I think part of the antenna
sleeps in the bed with me just because that's
how it all fits. So, most of our time is actually
spent justifying our hobby, our passion to our
girlfriends. None of them are sorority members.
They're just really good people who like to hang
out and we try to get them on the air too as
third -party traffic when we can. I had my girlfriend
calling to her Peter once. Not her thing, unfortunately,
but they're really supportive. They're good to
us, and so are the sorority girls. Well, that's
always good to have some support. Who knows?
Maybe you'll convince some of them to get into
ham radio. So tell me how you got into ham radio.
Well, my dad was instrumental in that. As you
mentioned, he had his advanced license when he
was my age. Back when he was my age, unfortunately,
the technology was a little bit different. His
transceiver was a big old tube number. Unfortunately,
just not feasible to take to college with him.
So he let his license expire as he was in college.
Luckily, he actually ended up picking up the
electric guitar when he moved away and he started
taking a... interest in guitar amplifiers and
guitar effects pedals. And that's a passion that
he's shared with me. We spent a lot of time when
I was young building guitar projects. The first
thing we ever built together was a tremolo pedal
for him to play his guitar through. And under
his supervision, especially as my skills advanced,
I graduated to building tube amplifiers actually.
My curiosity for amplifier circuits led to my
foray into amateur radio. And luckily, unlike
my dad, I actually was able to take my passion
to college. You know, as I mentioned earlier,
I've got that nice solid state rig. It's about
40 pounds packed real, real nice into my car.
So I was able to take it to college with me.
The antenna is still a struggle, but we're doing
the best we can. And with that smaller rig, we're
able to keep up in college. Well, I hope you
can continue to grow and and progress and get
through some of the red tape and get a more permanent
arrangement set up. But I think the idea of the
fraternity having its own station is also pretty
cool that you guys can just hop on one night
and kick back and make some contacts. That's
a pretty cool thing to do and I'm sure that it...
ties into a lot of what you're studying. Yeah,
it really does. So we've got three people, three
people right now that are tied into electrical
engineering in some way or another. And we have
fun just coming up with the wackiest antenna
designs and testing them, seeing how they work,
benchmarking them, building them in MATLAB. That's
what we like so much about this hobby. It really
supports the maker attitude and the idea that
you can build and create. We love that. We really
do. As student engineers, that's something that
we hold in high regard. Well, I think it's good,
too, that you're doing this together with your
fraternity, with your colleagues, because I'm
involved with the... you know, bringing the youth
on the air camp to the US and one of the big
fundamental core values of this is that peers
are teaching peers and I think that's something
that a lot of times we miss is, you know, we
can't always, you know, have, you know, an older
person, you know, just show up to a university
and say, hey, how would you like to do ham radio?
And that's probably not the best approach. And
I think if you all kind of work together and
help each other, you said right away you had
five people that just went and took the test
with you, just on the spur of the moment. So
I think building those relationships just fits
into the whole fraternity thing. And you can
make even more relationships through ham radio.
And I think that's a great approach and a lesson
that a lot of people can take away from what
you're doing. So, all right. Well, we're going
to take a break and then I'll come back with
Maxwell and we'll take your calls and your tweets
about fraternity ham radio clubs right after
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Give us a call at 859 -982 -7373. Again, the
number to call is 859 -982 -7373. Or, if you'd
rather type than talk, tweet us at HamTalk Live.
Now, here's Neil Rapp with more HamTalk Live.
You're listening to HamTalk Live, the most popular
podcast with the words ham, talk, and live in
the title. Here's your host, Neil Rapp. Be sure
to visit ICOM America at icomamerica .com slash
amateur and be sure to visit us here at HamTalk
Live every Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern
Time right here at hamtalklive .com Be sure to
check us out on Facebook Twitter and Instagram
and it's time for your phone calls now Excuse
me here. Just a second All right, if you have
a call for Maxwell or question give us a call
at eight five nine nine eight two seventy three
seventy three again the phone number to call
is eight five nine nine eight two seventy three
seventy three or You can tweet us. It's at ham
talk live on Twitter and if you're listening
to us on WTWW or on the podcast edition Sorry,
it's Thursday night right now and we're live,
so you won't be able to hear us and call in and
ask questions. So, Maxwell, while we're waiting
on some calls and tweets, let's talk a little
bit about getting students more involved in ham
radio. What are some of your ideas of how you
can get more students involved? Well, I think
especially with my generation, 18 to 22 right
now. When they try something new, it's because
they heard about it from a friend. A lot of social
media sites have taken off that way. Pretty much
anything, it's just by word of mouth. And when
I got into ham radio, I noticed that it was because
of something my dad shared with me. And when
I was able to convince the five other guys to
take the test, it was because I said, hey, let's
do this. So I think the biggest, most important
thing is just spreading awareness, especially
using people our age, ham radio, operators that
are my age. The best thing you can do is share
it with your friends. Let them get on, make third
party contacts. It's really cool and it's something
to be shared. I definitely think so. And also,
for everyone that's more... passionate about
the technical side of the hobby, ask your local
schools if they're looking for lesson plans because
we've actually been reached out to by different
organizations and also reached out to quite a
few organizations for lesson plans and ideas
for talking about radios and the electromagnetic
spectrum. That's all stuff that they need to
teach and this is a great hands -on way to do
that. Yeah, it's definitely a great way I use
it in chemistry when we're talking about electromagnetic
spectrum and that kind of thing and do some demonstrations
and Well, you know I said something about you
know, some of the older ones, you know Just showing
up and saying hey, you know, how would you like
to do ham radio? That's a way that you can be
older and kind of help mentor is you get the
stuff ready you get the plans you get the ideas
there and you know support with the gear and
the equipment and that kind of thing but also
you know there's a role in mentoring and helping
out and Passing things along and you've had an
experience with that just even on the the local
repeater getting your handheld setup Absolutely
mentors have been a big part of what we do when
we just got our technician tickets We were pretty
much clueless. We had the HT's that we bought
on Amazon Really really pretty much thrown into
deep water. And as we started figuring out how
to connect to repeaters, we had a lot of guys
say, hey, your signal's weak. Are you holding
your antenna upright? Are you outside? Is it
line of sight? And hearing those guys be patient
with us and give us step -by -step explanations
and troubleshooting as we try and get our signal
strong, it really means a lot. And it keeps us
engaged as we get frustrated as we... have our
equipment fail on us or call CQ with no response,
hearing those people, you know, give us those
tips, give us that troubleshooting, that mentorship
is really what keeps us going and allows us to
stay engaged in the hobby. And I think you've
got some in particular you wanted to mention.
Yeah, absolutely. So a really, really friendly
guy, Ron, comes on the local repeater and He
was instrumental in getting me up and running.
As I was connecting to the repeater and saying
Whiskey Mike for a Tango Hotel listening, he
was pretty quick to get on and say, hey man,
your signal is, it's pretty weak, it's a little
bit noisy. Are you sure that your antenna is
pointed up right? And at that time I didn't know
about polarization, so I was just holding it
kind of lazily in my hand. So I pointed my antenna
up right pretty much instantly got better reception
and from his words, better transmit too. So Ron
especially, but really everyone on that repeater
has been so friendly and so good about getting
us on the air and making sure that we're doing
everything right. Yeah, mentors are always good
for getting some pointers and getting some help
and that's a Critical role as well While you
know a lot of your peers Are working to help
you know kind of spread the word and get into
stuff You need those resources And I think that
may be A bit of a shift in how we do things because
a lot of times The approach is, hey, I'm here.
How would you like to do ham radio? How would
you like to take another test? And that may not
be the greatest introduction to that. But then,
when you're interested in it and you're doing
some things with it, then that's kind of the
time when some of the experience can step in
and say, hey, OK, have you tried this? Have you
tried that? And get some pointers. and get things
improving and learn from their experience. So
it's a bit of a shift in how we do things sometimes,
but I think it's been effective. Absolutely.
So my first piece of radio equipment, if you
will, was a WSPR. another member of our club,
his first was an SDR, software -defined radio,
and the fact that you can get those inexpensively,
and they allow you to experiment with so much
of what holds true with the HF bands too, antenna
design and filtering, that's a really great place
to start, and you can get an SDR online for 20
bucks and at least get receiving, so that's a
great option. A great way to get started, hands
on. If you have a question or comment for Maxwell,
give us a call right now at 859 -982 -7373 or
you can tweet us at HamTalk Live on Twitter and
we'll be here for a few more minutes. So give
us a call 859 -982 -7373. We mentioned a little
bit about, you know, you're trying to work with
the university to try to get the club organized
and I've been through that process before and
many have and some people may not understand
some of the process of getting that. So can you
talk a little bit about how that's gone so far
and what you have to do to make that a possibility?
Well, you know surprisingly enough getting the
club declared an official through the FCC has
been a lot easier than getting it declared and
official through the university The FCC requires
two signatures whereas as I've started asking
around at the university seeing if there's a
If there's a greater opportunity for us, there's
been requirements such as you know finding finding
a club sponsor That's been a big one, but also
just finding a place to meet where we can put
our antenna up, have all our gear, our base transceivers,
40 pounds. So finding a place where we ideally
can set up our station without having to lug
that big thing across campus. Just all of that,
all the logistics have to come together and it's
been a struggle, but we're working towards it
for sure. some professors that are doing some
RF work already. Yeah, absolutely. So we've got
an RF class at our school. We've actually got
one guy, two, enrolled in that right now. Two
have gone through it. Yep, two of our club members
have gone through that class. So it seems like
a great place to start also approaching that
professor to ask for help with designing those
antennas that'll work from our dorm room. We've
got some really good leads. It seems like we're
on a pretty promising track to getting this official
or at least supported by the university itself.
And you know one thing we haven't even mentioned
your club call sign. So you do have an official
club call sign for the fraternity. Yes, KI5HSS.
Okay and where can people find you guys typically?
And when? Well, so I try and get on every night,
at least a little bit. I've got my antenna, build
it, put it out the window. I've been trying real,
real hard to get those long distance contacts.
I've been pretty much just going with the QRP
operation, but to the best of our ability right
now without an amplifier, calling CQ on... 20,
40, 80, and seeing what we pull in. Okay, very
good. Well, listen for these guys and you can
find them on the air and kick back and get a
nice little Q -so with the fraternity here at
the University of Tulsa. So, Maxwell, thank you
so much for coming on the show and for telling
us all about you're set up and it's very interesting
and a lot of people don't know some of the challenges
of of making that work in college when you have
all these restrictions and rules that you have
to to go through and you're getting a good start
on that early since you're freshmen so you know
maybe before too long you'll have all those bugs
worked out and you'll have a more permanent antenna
and can do even more and we wish you the best.
Well, it was great to be on with you Neil. Thank
you for having me. Thank you to everyone who's
listening. We love to talk about this. We could
go on for hours. It means a lot to be here and
sharing our story. All right, and who else do
you have? You've got some of your fraternity
brothers and club members in the shack. Who else
do you have with you tonight? Yeah, right here
right now. I've got Cameron, Willie, and Cameron
here with me tonight. Ki5, Hjn, Ki5, Hj0, Ki5,
Hjq. I'm Hjp. Hjp, sorry. No, sorry, Hjm. You're
Hjp, I'm Hjm. Right. We have consecutive call
signs and so it makes things a little bit confusing,
but yeah. Yeah, I went through that when I grew
up. I took my class With my dad and and everybody,
you know kind of passed all at once. We had WB
9 UK a B C D E G and H we're not sure how that
one slipped in there, but But somewhere F didn't
didn't fall into the the list, but yeah that
That became kind of confusing but three of them
or four of them actually were in one family so
it was kind of nice on the QSL card you just
check the last letter. So that was kind of cool.
Well great to hear from all of you. Congratulations
on the efforts and wish you luck and hope to
hear more from you guys in the years to come.
Awesome. Thank you very much, Neil. Again, it
was wonderful to be here chatting with you tonight.
All right. Well, that is Maxwell Zein's WM4TH.
And that's going to be a wrap for this week's
edition of HamTalk Live. Thanks to Maxwell and
his fraternity crew there and everyone out in
cyberspace for listening. And I invite you back
next Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern time for
a list of our upcoming guests. Just go over to
hamtalklive .com Oh, we do have a comment here.
I'm sorry Chris A4CB says he was introduced to
ham radio in eighth grade junior high school
and had teachers with a License and even had
a two meter repeater to high school. So But it's
32 years later now. So that changes. And that's
another challenge is keeping things going. And
I run into that at the high school club as well.
Four years, you have a new group of students.
So that's always one of the challenges. And that's
the same at the university. So hopefully these
guys can get the ball rolling and keep it going.
Well, I invite you back next Thursday night,
9 p .m. Eastern Time. Again, go to HamTalkLive
.com to see the upcoming guests. And also I want
to remind you that the Young Ham Lends a Hand
contest is still going on. Carol Perry, WB2MGP,
is accepting nominations for that. And a young
ham, age 19 or younger, who has demonstrated
some basic tenet of service and volunteerism
can be nominated. It could be... someone who
helps recruit or mentor other young people, assists
at local community events, or helps out with
the elderly or military personnel. All nominations
go to WB2MGP. That's Whiskey Bravo 2, MikeGolfPapa
at gmail .com. Before the end of April, the winner
will be announced at the Dayton Hamvention Youth
Forum and the prize is $100 for that young ham.
And if you like the show, HamTalk Live, please
leave us a review. That helps us out as well.
So for now, this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying
7375, and may the good DX be yours.