Good evening, everyone. It's time for another
edition of HamTalk Live. It's episode number
34, School Club Roundup with Lou Malchik. Into
our queue. Recorded live on Thursday, October
6th, 2016. I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of HamTalk
Live. Tonight we'll be joined by School Club
Roundup leader, Lou Malchik. Into our queue.
and how you can talk to schools during a very
special week. And we'll take your calls live
in just a few minutes. Last week, Ralph Fedor
K0IR was here to talk about the upcoming Bouvier
Island De -Expedition. If you missed the show,
you can listen anytime. Just go to HamTalkLive
.com. You can also download it on a podcasting
app. through a service like iTunes, Stitcher,
Google Play, TuneIn, SoundCloud, or you can even
catch us over on YouTube. Tonight we're talking
about some operating activities that are open
to everyone. We have several, so first a few
quick reminders. Coming up this weekend on the
air it's the 100 watts and a wire fallout. Get
outside if you can with 100 watts or less and
get on the air. Details are at 100WattsInAWire
.com and on HamTalk Live episode number 32. And
we've posted a list of all of the frequencies
that are being used for the hurricane nets on
our Facebook page and Twitter feed this afternoon.
Make sure you stay away from those frequencies
during the fallout or any other operating. Of
course, the main ones are 14 .325 and 7 .268.
But the complete list is up there. The AWRL compiled
that and we retweeted that and sent that out
on Facebook. So be sure to check that out and
try to stay away from those locations. Also,
before we go to break, I want to remind you that
JOTA is coming up, the Jamboree on the Air. That's
coming up here. next weekend, so don't forget
about that. And also, don't forget you have a
chance to work the set of Last Man Standing on
Tuesday. Special guests Amy and Ed Woodrick.
That's K -E -4 -I -K -F and W -A -4 -Y -I -H.
They'll be visiting the Last Man Standing show.
They'll be on D -Star Reflector 30 Charlie from
the Mike Baxter office set. on the last man standing
stage in Studio City, California. The show usually
operates from the set. They shoot every Tuesday
night, and so during the dinner break, they get
on the air. Usually about 2245 UTC for an hour,
so be sure you give them a call. Well, tonight
during the show, we're going to be talking about
yet another operating opportunity for everyone.
It's called School Club Roundup. Get you all
your questions ready to go after the interview.
You can call us At our phone number. It's eight
one two net ham one. That's eight one two six
three eight four two six one You can also call
us on Skype. The username there is ham talk live
You can also send us a question via Twitter or
Twitter handle is at ham talk live There's also
a comment section on the website. If you're listening
live you can post comment in there and a question
in the comment section as well. I'll be right
back with Lou into our queue right after this
word from Tower Electronics right here on HamTalk
Live. This episode of HamTalk Live is brought
to you by Tower Electronics. Tower Electronics
has been the Ham's dime store since 1978, bringing
connectors, antennas, cables, and other parts
to the world. Scott and Jill travel the country
bringing their store to you at HamFest, but you
can also order online at PL -259 .com or by calling
920 -435 -2973. Stock up on those supplies like
PL -259 and end connectors, audio cables, mobile
antennas, and hamsticks. Their silver plated
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Live. Your host, Neil Rapp, would tell you a
chemistry joke, but he probably wouldn't get
a reaction. Now, more HamTalk Live. And we're
back. I'd like to thank Scott and Jill at Tower
Electronics for sponsoring the show once again
tonight to help bring you HamTalk Live. They
were supposed to be at the Melbourne, Florida,
HamFest this weekend, but there's this thing
called Hurricane Matthew, and they had to postpone
that, so the HamFest has been postponed to October
21st and 22nd. So instead, Scott and Jill will
be at the LaGrange Georgia Ham Fest on Saturday
and then they will resume their normal schedule.
They'll be in Greenville, Tennessee on October
15th and then Chattanooga, Tennessee on October
21st and 22nd. Of course, you can do what I did
this week. You can give them a call at 920 -435
-2973 or visit their website at pl -259 .com.
order whatever you need. I got some jumper cables
and DC cord to get ready for this weekend and
some projects that we're working on at school.
So give them a call, tell them you heard it on
HamTalk Live. HamTalk Live is on the air every
Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time right
here on HamTalkLive .com and if you missed the
show be sure to check out the archive on the
website. download it from one of those podcasting
things. Lou Malchik, N2RQ, is the amateur radio
club advisor and former chemistry teacher at
Brooklyn Technical High School. Lou was first
licensed in 1959 as WV2FBX while in eighth grade.
He's a past president of the Erasmus Hall High
School Amateur Radio Club and the Brooklyn College
Amateur Radio Society. He was the faculty advisor
at Brooklyn Tech W2CXN from 1977 through 2003.
He has administered the school club roundup since
its inception more than 30 years ago. Lou is
a VE, has taught classes and mentored students
mostly at Brooklyn Tech. He's a life member of
ARRL and QCWA. He's active in Aries, He's a Hudson
Division Assistant Director and also served more
than 30 years in Army Mars. He's the co -chairman
of the Education Committee and a director of
the Long Island Mobile Amateur Radio Club or
LIMARC, which sponsors the event in cooperation
with the ARRL. In 2005, He was awarded the Grand
Ole Ham Award from the ARRL Hudson Division,
and Lou has also received an award from the American
Chemical Society chapter in his area for his
many years of work at Brooklyn Tech with chemical
education and safety. And since Lou and I both
have teaching chemistry and sponsoring high school
ham radio clubs in common, I cannot be responsible
for any bad chemistry jokes that may occur throughout
this broadcast. Because all the good ones are
gone Right Lou, right? We were swapping chemistry
jokes before the show. So here we go Lou. Welcome
to ham talk live. Thanks for coming on Well,
it's pleasure to be here. Well, tell us a little
bit about school club roundup Tell us when it
is and how that got started Okay. Well, I'll
start with how it got started, really. The upcoming
session this month will be the 41st session of
the School Club Roundup. It did not start quite
that long ago. It started in either 1985 or 86.
And if you think about it, our late colleague,
Marty Smith, K2NRR, came up with this idea and
It really fit We constantly tell our children
do not talk to strangers and Then we put them
on the radio and say now talk to strangers there's
a basic conflict there and Marty came up with
the idea of having a straightforward exchange
It was inspired by the old Novice Roundup, and
we made it so that it runs from Monday morning
through Friday evening for an entire week, so
that it's running during a school week. And the
next session begins Monday morning, the 17th
of October, and runs through the 23rd. No, it's
the 21st, right? 21st, yes, 21st. And one of
the things that we found is that, well, we used
to run it in February only. And by popular demand
and a great deal of resistance that had to be
overcome from me, we added a second one. It's
rather time consuming to take care of the The
logs and checking and stuff like that But we
added the October session and now they are both
popular And So we're looking forward to it Well
having everyone come on yeah, we've we've participated
in it for quite a while now and we've done both
the October roundup and the February roundup
and it's always one of the highlights of our
year So it's always great to have a way to get
the kids on the air where everything is It's
kind of scripted. It's kind of a contest format.
Although we'll talk a little bit about that whether
Truly a contest or or not and I know what your
answer is already, but we'll talk about it but
It's a scripted predictable way to get kids on
the air and get them over some of that mic fright
and So it's worked out really well for us And
I know that there's a lot of other schools out
there that that feel the same way so We want
to get more schools involved in this of course,
but we realize that most of the people listening
tonight Probably aren't associated with the school.
So tell the folks out there listening how they
can get involved with school club roundup and
support what these kids are doing. Even if they're
not a part of a school club or sponsoring one
of those. Okay. The first of all, I just want
to correct something in the intro. Although I
retired in 2003 from Brooklyn tech. I have still
been the advisor and or trustee there to this
day And so we're getting ready now but the whole
idea is there aren't that many school stations
out there and For the kids to get on the air
and make contacts during the week there have
to be other stations that they can work and So
that's where individual stations other non -school
clubs, stations, anyone can make contacts. As
a matter of fact, anyone can make contacts with
anyone. It's just that the scoring is different.
If you're familiar with contest -style scoring,
you have points for each contact. Phone is one
point, and CW and digital modes are two points
each. And then there are multipliers. Multiplier
for a school contact is five. The multiplier
for a non -school club is two. And then there
are multipliers for states and Canadian provinces
and territories and for DX entities. And so it
gets to be rather fun competing. And I know Neil
finds that it's more of a competitive piece.
And what I have to tone people down on is you
don't have to be competitive. If you want to
be, you don't have to be competitive with anyone
but yourself. I have, I'm fond of saying, you
know, there's only one station that has been
in every one of the previous 40 sessions of the
School Club Roundup, and that is W2CXN at Brooklyn
Tech. And there's only one operator who has been
in all of the sessions, and that's me. Not that
I have been competitive most of the time, nor
has Brooklyn Tech been competitive most of the
time. We operate with a very modest station.
We once had a very good station, but because
of changes in the building and things like that,
we are now running a hundred watt radio into
a mobile whip and whatever resonance we can get
out of that system, that's it. And it's sometimes
quite challenging, but we get the kids on the
air. and they have fun. And talking about mic
fright, I actually had a kid operating, not in
the roundup, but just operating, with an old
grip, I'm trying to remember, the G -stand, that's
what it is, the oldest static D104. And he made
a contact, and got so excited that he could not
release the push to talk. I literally had to
pry his fingers loose. And so this is something
that I have not seen happen in the Roundup. It
really makes it very easy to do. We have different
levels of categories for the different schools
so they're not mismatched. We have elementary,
middle school, high school, and college university.
We also separate DX from domestic stations. But
again, anyone may participate. We have had entries
from six continents and really interesting experiences.
And, you know, getting back to the contest thing
and whether it's a contest and whether it's not.
And I always kind of chuckled whenever you'd
say, well, it's like field day. You know, it's
not a contest. And I'm sitting here thinking,
wait a minute, field day is a contest. And so
it's really both. It's a chance that you can
contest if you're competitive, which my high
schoolers, they're all about it. I mean, they
formed a rivalry against another school that
I won't mention on the air, but they're always
gunning for them and they want to beat them and
they want to get in there and they want to, you
know, rack up the score and that's what they
want to do. They want to see how many they can
get and how well they can do. But there's other
schools that are out there just to get kids on
the air and get them talking. And so it's really
great that it's both. It's competitive if you
want it to be, and it's not competitive if you
don't want it to be. Absolutely. And I've seen
plenty of field day operations that are not competitive.
Oh, yeah. Awful lot of fun. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
That's always kind of a... The thing you know
is it or isn't it and and I guess the answer
to field day early is it's both I mean it can
be and some people do that and some people you
know tend to just you know, hey Let's have a
good time and let's set up and operate and see
what we get one of the things that I've been
asked recently is From new people, you know,
how do we what do we have to do to enter? Just
this week I had an email from somebody from a
home school. And the question was, are you going
to have a category for home schools? I don't
foresee a category for home schools, but we've
accepted entries from home schools for decades.
All we ask is put yourself in the category that
corresponds to one of the school levels. And
usually if you have multiple grade level equivalents,
you pick the highest grade level of the operators.
So if somebody's equivalent to eighth grade,
so you know, they'd maybe be, or seventh grade
or something like that, maybe it'd be at middle
school level. Somebody a little higher, high
school level, it all works. And what we've seen
an upsurge in the last couple of years is colleges
and universities coming in in greater numbers
than they used to. And from what I understand,
the ARRL is now involved in sponsoring a push
to revitalize college radio clubs. Absolutely.
I love having it. I use it, by the way, having
the colleges on there. I use it to try and point
out to the school administration that it's a
worthwhile activity. Otherwise, why would all
these big name schools that we want our students
to aspire to be sponsoring them? I use that as
a selling point. I also have at least one student
who I refer to as my mentor. And he got an ARRL
scholarship and he's doing very well. So there
you go. Well, you know, we've had a lot of kids
from here get scholarships too and they've done
really well and the school club roundup has been
an important part of that and so we can't thank
you and your crew enough and of course Marty
when he was around to start it and help out with
it. We worked him several times in the roundup
and Just can't thank you all enough for providing
that opportunity And let me tell you as a high
school teacher I'm I'm glad that I'm in the high
school division because that middle school division
is fierce I mean Who? It just it just blows my
mind now in the world these middle schools. Oh
the competition is Up at the top is just is totally
fierce You're right. It's it's amazing. But you
know, there's one thing that you bring to mind
We have seen a problem Not just with radio clubs,
but just in general but the radio clubs in particular
almost always a school club is tied to an individual
operator who is the advisor or sponsor of the
club and Year after year, we hear of teachers
or other staff people who were sponsoring the
club, retiring, and not being able to find someone
to pick it up afterward. And I'd like to put
this out here. You don't have to be a staff person
at a school to operate in the roundup from a
school. I've been telling people this for a long
time. If you are a parent or even a friend of
somebody who works in the school and you can
develop some kind of a relationship, it doesn't
matter what kind of an operation you have. You
can set up a temporary station in the school
parking lot, operate from the mobile or something
like that, anything to get on the air. You may
have seen, oh boy, Jay, who's the trustee for
K -3 FBI. There was an email from him today.
It was posted that he's fully retired now. But
I remember the first time he entered the school
club roundup from Virginia, and it wasn't from
K -3 FBI. It was from his own station. I can't
remember the call sign now. But he was operating
as a parent at his daughter's school. And he
did that for a few years. Nobody says you have
to be on from Monday through Friday. Some people
just get on one day. And there is a limit, by
the way, of 24 hours maximum operation and also
a maximum of six hours per day. It's not a super
marathon. Well, that's some great ideas on how
schools can get on the air, and we do need to
take a break. But real quick, some comments about
how schools should go about getting involved
if they want to participate in this coming up
here in just a couple of weeks. Well, the ARRL
website is featuring School Club Roundup on the
home page. I think that's probably the best place
to look. If you want to contact us at Limark,
we have an email address that is scr at limark
.org. Limark is Long Island Mobile Amateur Radio
Club. It's just the initials. And that comes
to me and to at least one other member of our
committee. We also have a Yahoo group that is
SCR -L SierraCharlieRomeo -Lima at yahoogroups
.com and both of those are excellent ways of,
especially the Yahoo group, for getting in touch
with the other people. Yep, very good. We do
that quite a bit and always some lively conversation
on there around this time of year, so check those
out. Again, that's SCR at Limark .org and SCR
-L on Yahoo Groups. Well, we're going to take
a break. We'll be back and we're going to take
your calls live with Lou right after this word
from the ham station right here on HamTalk Live.
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Well, it's time for your calls. If you have a
question for Lou about school clubs or school
club roundup, give him a call. It's 812 -NET
-HAM -1. It's 812 -638 -4261. If you're a Skype
person, you can call us on Skype at HamTalk Live.
You can also tweet any questions that you have
at HamTalk Live, or you can post in the comments.
Again, the phone number is 812 -NET -HAM -1.
So Lou, welcome back and want to talk a little
bit about Lymark and their support while we're
waiting for some calls. Again that number 812
-NET -HAM -1. Give us a call and we'll talk here
while we're waiting on people to do that. Talk
a little bit about Lymark and how Lymark has
supported this event. Marty and I were doing
this for a long time I was doing it with the
kids at Brooklyn Tech helping to do the scoring
and This is all almost all before computer logging
People would send in stacks of paper and After
I retired I realized that and especially after
Marty passed We weren't going to go on forever
and I wanted to try to get the event to continue
and I brought it to the Limark Board of Directors
and proposed that they pick it up as sponsoring
and so we formed a committee. They adopted it
and we formed a committee. Mainly I have a friend
who's a computer person. Ken, WB2KWC, who helps
a great deal with the anomalies in the logs and
things like that. We're looking to expand the
committee within the club, but Limark just celebrated
its 50th year. Right now we're somewhere around
400 members on Long Island. Wow, we're good.
Very good. Well, we do have a couple of questions
coming in here on Twitter first of all Kg0ufo
wants to know how many schools are involved I've
talked it says I've talked with some SCR schools
Whenever I hear them on the air and got QSL cards
from some so about how many schools are involved
and I'm going to go ahead and answer this call
to so on the phone stand by there and Go ahead
and answer that one and then we'll we'll move
on to the call It's actually a little bit hard
to say Typically We will see 60 70 clubs but
What I know is that there are definitely more
of them out there Just like in any other operating
event, there are people who will make contacts
and will not send in a log. And I make a point
of asking for every log. I don't care if you
made a single contact, we'd like to hear from
you. And we've had a few of those. And one thing
I wanted to mention about logging, if I may,
Neil, There's been a tremendous transition to
computer logging. And we have two logging programs
that have been created specially for School Club
Roundup. One is by Scott N3FJP, and I believe
it's Windows only. And then we have from Dave
AD8B SCR log. And he's been supporting us for
quite a few years. And SCR log is available for
both Windows and Mac OS. But anything will work.
Whatever logging program or paper is welcome.
Generally, if it's paper, we like it to be not
more than 100 contacts. But your choice. Yeah,
SCR log is bailed us out many many times. So
thanks Dave and Sterling coffee in zero SSC is
on the line. Good evening Sterling. Thank you
for waiting so patiently. No problem evening,
Neil I just want to call in and say just give
Lou a big. Thanks I'm the former president of
a college club at the University of Missouri
Arala or it's now called Missouri S &T As some
might know, their call sign is Whiskey Zero Triple
Echo. And School Club Roundup was always a big
staple for us and a lot of college clubs and
always helped us get huge numbers interested
and involved and participating and doing all
this on the air thing. At the same time, we did
things like little mini field days and took the
whole week out of the semester to really promote
Ham Radio in college and colleges and schools
around the area. So it was always a lot of fun.
Lately I've been trying to work on since I graduated.
I'm you know, no longer in college obviously,
so I have a little more time to kind of devote
to promoting ham radio in educate like colleges
and schools and youth in general so lately I've
been working on a big database of Colleges like
a mailing list so to speak so that we can go
out and distribute this You know big school club
roundup go do this or no sweepstakes has a school
club category the November sweepstakes as well,
so I don't know, if you guys want any help, because
we have a few ideas maybe to improve the contest,
or not contest, improve School Club Roundup,
and help promote it too, because I always see
after the fact, sometimes there's somebody like,
oh, School Club Roundup was last week? Dang,
missed it. So anything you guys need to help,
I'm willing. Well, thank you. Thank you for your
comments, and appreciate it. It's always nice
to have positive feedback. Yeah, it really has
surprised me how much publicity and promotion
it has received, especially in recent years.
ARRL has really featured it. Ward, I'm blanking
out on his call sign. Thank you. Ward Silver
has put together a plan or a goal of having a
school -related activity each month. And School
Club Roundup is two of those. And of course,
the school category in the November sweepstakes,
which has always been before school club round
up, that was always my favorite activity. Yeah,
same. It was a big capstone for us for the year.
He actually helped us get, one year we participated
in CW sweepstakes and Ward Silver, Enzo AX was
his call. He won us first place. So it was a
big help to the triple E, the dit dit dit. But
man, he was a huge help. So that's really good
to hear that he's on it. Thanks so much Sterling
for giving us a call appreciate it my pleasure.
Thank you All right, take care eight one two
net ham one is the phone number or you can Skype
at hand talk live Let's go to our other Tweet
here Dr. Scott right key zero MD says great show
and Wants to know what the best way to have students
work in pairs is during SCR, and what's the best
thing that adults can do working in schools in
SCR to encourage the students to be more active?
I'll take the easy one first. They're working
in pairs. One operates, one logs. That's sort
of an obvious one to me. Very often I'll have
more kids in the shack than two. And the additional
thing I do is I hand out paper logs and I ask
everyone to practice logging because the listening
skills are most important whether on phone or
CW. Of course the digital modes, most of us are
not listening, but all three work out. What I
have found in terms of getting kids excited or
within school and stuff like that is to be an
example. When I was actively teaching it was
easier for me to get the kids going because I
would talk about it when I could in class and
many of my students would come. disproportionately
to the overall school. So if you're not directly
in school and you have a friend who's teaching
or something like that, we've had building custodians
who are advisors to clubs, that sort of thing,
anything works. And one thing that we found years
ago, I happen to like digital and We got feedback
that said Digital is too much like texting they
like phone Other places say hey the CW is great
Others prefer the digital Everybody's got their
own thing and that's one of the greatest things
about ham radio anyway And that's one of the
things that I've noticed is that some years My
group is all about doing digital they want to
get on PSK 31 they want to run the macros they
want to do everything on there and then I have
other groups that They don't want to do that.
They want to get on the microphone They want
to get on there and talk and so we we vary a
lot on that from year to year Just depending
on the group of kids we have You know, I think
it's a great chance to offer both and That's
definitely a possibility with school club roundup
Well, why don't we just got a couple of minutes
left so Lou why don't you remind everybody again
about the the times and the dates and get everybody
making contacts that week with schools and then
the addresses again in case There's a school
out there that wants to sign up and get going,
how they can do that. OK. I'll repeat, first
of all, the scr -l at yahoogroups .com. That's
the longest running and most active discussion
group for this. And if you want a direct question
here, it's scr at limark .org. The and of course
the a double RL website has full listing of the
rules and times and all of that this This October
session is going to run from Monday the 17th
of October through Friday the 21st and it starts
Off the top of my head. I really don't have it
in front of me I think in daylight saving time.
It's 8 o 'clock Eastern and goes through 8 o
'clock p .m. on Friday 2359 Friday UTC and It
is about 1300 UTC on Monday morning And you do
not have to sign up in advance. You don't have
to do anything like that. Just get on the air
and have some fun. Okay, and there are recommended
frequencies. Those are posted up there too, so
you can know where the schools are more likely
to be. It doesn't guarantee they'll be within
those regions, but they're more likely to be
there. So get on the air and work some of these
schools and give them some contacts during school
club roundup. Great way to Show off amateur radio
in a school and then maybe you take it further
and, you know, do some more work with the kids
and get them going into a club and maybe even
do a little contesting. So, Lou, thanks so much
for coming on the show. Appreciate it and look
forward to talking to you on School Club Roundup
here in a couple of weeks. My pleasure. Thank
you. Alright, that is a wrap for this week's
edition of HamTalk Live. I'd like to thank my
guest Lou Malchik into our queue and everyone
out there in cyberspace for listening and calling
in and invite you back next Thursday night at
9 p .m. Eastern Time when Marty Solaway, KC1CWF,
Chicken with Fries will be here to talk about
setting up a remote station. So for a list of
all of our upcoming guests, be sure to visit
HamTalkLive .com. So for now, this is Neil Rapp,
WB9VPG, saying 7375, and may the good DX be yours!
Thanks for watching