If you’ve ever noticed the antennas on top of Sisson Hall, they belong to the Amateur Radio Club, one of the longest-running student organizations at Bradley University.
While Bradley hosts other organizations dedicated to radio, like the Edge, a student-run FM radio station, Amateur Radio Club focuses on the technology side of radio communication.
“Amateur radio is one of these things where there are about a hundred subclasses of what you can do with it,” Devon Simmons, a senior electrical engineering student and president of the club, said. “[There’s] everything from [talking] to somebody across town on your handheld, to [talking] to another country on a [high frequency] station.”
Beyond just communicating with peers, Simmons said the club has also focused on emergency communication in the past. In the event of natural disasters with communication blackouts, the Amateur Radio Club is set up for emergency communication.
“Last year we did a fox hunt … [which uses] a handheld [transmitter], and you put a pre-recorded message on it, and we’ll have someone agree to hide it. So we go out to the middle of one of the public parks and hide it anywhere … and [the] whole goal is to find … the transmitter,” Simmons said.
Steven Craig, a staff engineer for university communication and engineering services and Amateur Radio Club advisor, describes the club as a “one-room schoolhouse of radio operators.”
“We just had a new member, Joe, [who] just tested over the weekend and got his [FCC audio] license,” Simmons said.
As the students learn their way around radios, sometimes they have what Craig call “super successes,” and other times they face failure.
“I like to help the student to find success,” Craig said. “[I] don’t give [it] to them, [but I] help them to find it … sometimes they have smoke things; sometimes they have super successes.”
According to Craig, students with different skill levels help each other learn more, and also garner long-term friendships.
“These guys can come in, not knowing the name of one connector, and [when they] leave and graduate, they know a hundred different kinds of connectors,” Craig said.
To get involved with Amateur Radio Club, contact buamateurradio@gmail.com.
