4/23/2003 Hello and welcome to the home of the Cal Poly Pomona Amateur Radio Club, or ARC for short. My name is David Chen and although it is not official yet, I will be acting as president until the officers retreat in May.

First I'd like to thank all those who came before me for laying the ground works for the ARC. There is; however, still much work to be done in getting the club up to speed.

My agenda starts with recruiting new club members and welcoming back previous members. For the time being, meetings will be every Wednesday between 1:00-1:30. The meetings will be held in room 9-512, also known as the HAM Shack. This will give potential members a feel for what the club is about and a first hand look at the HAM equipment we have. There is no membership fee and we are currently seeking a couple officers to attend the officers retreat. The following are just a few goals I have set for the club for the coming year:

• Establishing the HAM shack as an emergency communications center.
• Geting a tower set up on the hill over-looking the campus.
• Founding what I believe is Cal Poly's first legitimate FM radio station.
• Raising enough funds to sponsor special RF projects on campus which can be used by members as senior projects.
• And Much Much More...

6/6/2002 Wow. It has been a long two years since the spring of 2000. It is now the summer of 2002 and I am graduating. I was only at school part time this year and have had little time for the club now that I am working. It is unfortunate for the club that all of the members became too busy with senior projects, work, and other priorities to keep the momentum going. I know of at least two freshman who will be attending Cal Poly during the fall of 2000 who are HAMs. I sincerely hope that they read this and become involved. There is a lot that the club can do. There is a monthly HAM swap meet in the parking lots on the 3rd Sat of every month that the club could become involved with. The Dean of Engineering is open to putting a tower on the roof of bld 9, and we already have a yagi we can use. The Univ. has been open to the idea of working the club station into the official emergency plan, which would include providing us with emergency power. There is also some work to be done. The shack is not in great shape, and I don't think we ever did get that 440 repeater together. The HF vertical on the roof of building 9 may need some work, and the coax may be water logged as there seems to be too much attenuation. However, DX is still attainable on a regular basis and the PC works for the soundcard based digital modes on HF.
          Amateur radio has a lot to offer engineering students, especially those interested in communications, radio frequency engineering, signal analysis, and computers. Yes, you computer guys have a lot to do with radio design. Microcontrollers are at the heart of today's transceivers where they process input from the user to control DSPs, direct and PLL digital frequency synthesizers, and select the proper filter and tank circuits for the given frequency or band. Furthermore, DSPs have become an integral part of filter technology, not only at audio frequencies, but also at the IF. An amateur radio license is not just a license for a bigger 'CB', but a license to experiment with radio communications, RF circuits, RF amplifiers, and digital or analog communications. There is tremendous opportunity for simple fun projects that are not only useful but also able to fulfill your senior project requirement. For example, design and build a QRP PSK31 transceiver for the 20 meter band. Using a microcontroller and a direct digital synthesis (DDS) chip you could implement the transmitter, minus amplifier, with only two or three chips! Finally, amateur radio may help you land a job. HAMs have a reputation for being tinkerers and technologically adept. The club is small enough that there is a great opportunity to be a cabinet member (looks great on the resume). Who knows, your interviewer may be a HAM too - after all, it happened to me.

Well, Cal Poly is removing my account on the 17th so I suppose this is my last update. Thank you very much for visiting and I look forward to checking in from time to time.

73,
Paul Laufer, KG6DKI

2/8/2000 At this weeks meeting we made permanent arrangements to use room 9-401 for our Thursday meetings at noon. Vice President David Laag gave us an update on the 440 repeater. He has obtained a frequency pair, and is now waiting for his friend to return the repeater, which is currently out on loan. Professor Ronen gave us an update on the club application. All the paperwork has been sent to the office of student life, and so we are well on our way. Member Kris Leung suggested that we announce our meetings on the repeater and called for more activity on the repeater. All present agreed that those are good ideas. Finally, it was decided that fliers will be made up and posted on various bulletin boards around campus to help get the word out and increase membership.

1/25/2000 The CPPARC web site now has a new look. I hope you all enjoy it. Also, work is in progress to register CPPARC with the Office of Student Life in order to make the club official. This was a necessary step toward achieving our goal of putting an antenna tower on the roof of the engineering building.

12/22/2000 CPPARC recently acquired a new PC which will be used for the new soundcard based digital modes on HF (PSK31 and MFSK16). The machine was graciously donated by Brian Sheasby. PSK31 is a low bandwidth mode useful for local and some DX communications, whereas MFSK16 uses a slightly wider signal but retains solid copy even under the worst propagation and weak signal conditions. I am looking forward to copying ARRL's digital bulletin this January which will be sent using both of these new modes.

12/22/2000 CPPARC has acquired a new beam antenna and rotator for HF! However, we still need a tower to sit the thing on. We are currently in the process of locating a suitable spot on the roof of Building 9 (the engineering building) and determining what tower will best fit our needs. Thus, for the moment we continue use of our current vertical antenna.

12/22/2000 CPPARC has a 440 repeater coming! Yes, you heard right, we're going UHF. We are currently in the process of obtaining the frequency pair and setting up the machine. We'll let you know when the machine goes on the air. Expect us on a test pair some time during Winter 2001.