Recent Ham Radio Workforce Development Outreach

July 22, 2024 - by Nancy Austin

Building Bridges Workforce Summit at CCRI – Newport

Kudos to the Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) for hosting the Building Bridges Workforce Summit in Newport last week on July 17, 2024. It was an inspiring snapshot of the collaborations already taking place to transform learning pathways and connect Rhode Islanders with in-demand skills and sustainable careers across the key sectors of Labor, Defense, Finance, Healthcare, Hospitality, and the Integrated Maritime Blue Economy.

All presenters encouraged us to think more broadly about career entry points and the transferable skills gained. For example, hiring needs in a hospital are not unlike the scope of skills required to run a small city: from food services to niche-needs (like who will sterilize the surgical tools and how to find and train these workers as older one’s age out), to administrative and tech support. Joe Caparco, the LiUNA New England Region Apprenticeship Director, gave a compelling pitch for why we need to think more broadly about what it means to be skilled “Labor” and the breadth of opportunities.

But! “We need to have a trainable person in the seat”. Someone who has learned what it means to be dependable. Heather Singleton helped the audience reflect that many got their first jobs in Hospitality. (Nationwide, 8 in 10 Americans.) These early work experiences can deliver lifelong learning dividends about fundamentals like showing up, greeting your customer and hearing their needs. Demonstrating personal persistence through speed bumps as you navigate finding your allies to mentor you and support growing on the right team in the right role. She shared research from Jason Dorsey that younger generations now are not getting that first job experience until they are in their 20s, with then a decade until in a job and able to pay for their own basic needs. One action item brought up over and over was the request to focus on the soft “communication” workforce-readiness skills that are actually hard – and in demand.

The ham radio community is fortunate to have this opportunity unfolding as we raise awareness to new stakeholders of our enduring commitment to free cross-generational civic mentoring in a hands-on learning community that is all about communication. (“Ham Radio – the original Social Media”!) We offer a unique place where a growth mindset attitude matters more than degrees, and everyone is open to learn from and mentor anyone interested. This experimental tech innovator educational mission was a founding part of the FCC-mandate granting electromagnetic spectrum worth billions to licensed hams. https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-division/amateur-radio-service

Radio amateurs offer practical learning about electronics, wireless communication, spectrum propagation, structured communication, and the hard “soft skills” that all industry representatives mentioned as far more important than this or that technical skill. Are you curious and willing to learn? Also dependable? Accountable contributing on a team? Able to navigate feedback and keep working toward a shared goal? Communicate what matters most about the situation at hand? Problem-solve next steps?

Interested to learn more about “How Hiring Managers see a Ham Radio license“? Check out this post: https://ri-arrl.org/ri-section-newsletter-2024-04-30/

Join us as we bring the benefits of being able to communicate without internet access or commercial power to new generations and more Rhode Islander stakeholders. Find out more about getting licensed here: https://hamstudy.org/

Radio Tune-Up at the Tech History New England Wireless & Steam Museum campus – East Greenwich, RI

If you love to nerd out on tech problem-solving and/or Rhode Island’s world-class history of industrial innovation, then the New England Wireless & Steam Museum (NEWSM.org) community gatherings are for you. Last weekend’s Radio Tune-Up was no exception. Great to see the NEWSM.org volunteer President Randy Snow, along with many volunteer Board members, including entrepreneurial tech start-up engineering innovator Terry Jones of Kuva Systems (Cambridge,MA), and Newport’s Don DeLuca, an accomplished industrial designer and entrepreneurial consultant on product invention and market IP for consumer and marine products.

I pitched the idea of the New England HamXposition Tech in a Day license class to these NYAH (Not Yet a Ham) highly-technical engineers, and hope they will follow up. Then, they could join fellow hams on their NEWSM board, including Ken Carr, KE1RI and Mike Thompson, recently licensed with the NCRC. All would be a big help as we continue outreach this October and February via the ARRL School Club Round-up – with the collegiate focus on URI and Brown.

This weekend’s New England Wireless & Steam Museum Radio Tune-Up brought vendors from across New England, and even northern Rhode Island. Great to catch up with RI ARES Emergency Coordinator SKYWARN net control, Wayne Burkett, KA1VRF.

I was amazed to learn his mother, June Burkett, W1VXC (1929-1982) was the ARRL RI Section Communications Manager in the 1950s, and “worked Civil Defence for hurricanes and was a Morse Code speed award winner.” She was the President of the Rhode Island Young Ladies Radio Club, organized in 1955. (QST-1956-11: 63) and ran their CW net.

Among other things, the Radio Tune-up gathering was my chance as the new ARRL RI Section Manager to meet many hams I might not otherwise get to meet or hear from. Some longtime hams shared their unhappiness about the recent ARRL dues increase – and where was ham radio’s relevance for today? But this only reinforces in my mind the need to help older radio amateurs communicate their stories to new generations about how our mentoring community directly offered career entry paths in the past – and is more relevant than ever today. We have a shared goal to keep our ham band privileges available. Amateur radio has so much to contribute right now.

Want to learn about satellite operation? Space weather? Make Earth-Moon-Earth contacts? Find someone who knows how to solder? Build and legally fly their own drones? Nerd out on SDR? Welcome to today’s Amateur Radio!

For example, Tom Lapointe, WA1LBK (above left) from Fall River, MA was filled with stories about his wonderful life-changing introduction to RF technologies he credits to his High School’s hands-on electronics and radio club at the (now-closed) Bishop Connolly. He got his first FCC-Technician class license at 16 before he knew how to drive! After high school, Tom WA1LBK went on a familiar southern New England worker skills-pathway of on-the-job vocational training. The Math required by a college engineering degree was not for him, and so Tom followed ever-changing job opportunities in electronics repairs, analog and digital circuitry, field radios, and everything he saw coming as new tech from his never-ending involvement as a licensed ham exploring UHF, VHF, and satellite contesting capabilities – informed also by his model aircraft and railroad hobbies. Tom was eager to show us the tiny circuitry of his latest (cheap and dependable) model aircraft. He remarked on the future of electronics as the cost of entry makes experimentation open to everyone. Decades later, his enthusiasm and willingness to invent new solutions and share them is as strong as ever.

Tom, WA1LBK and Jeremy, K1JST, the RI Section Emergency Coordinator, talked at length about the value of understanding how RF analog waveforms work. Digital natives are comfortable with 0s and 1s. Something is on or off. But how does that help software engineers, for example, quickly understand an RF fiber optic interface board? Software engineers are welcome to join in and discover for themselves why ham radio is the “greatest hobby of a lifetime.” A career springboard. And so much more.

Hope to see you at the New England Division HamXposition annual convention next month in nearby Marlboro, MA. NOTE: conference hotel discounts end July 23, 2024.

Not to miss: Space weather rock star Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW, will be the invited guest speaker for the HamXposition Saturday evening Grand Banquet . Known as the “Space Weather Woman” on network TV and in social media, she forecasts and analyzes space weather processes in the heliosphere and exosphere.

Many thanks to the New England Wireless & Steam Museum for their ongoing collaboration with the Fidelity Amateur Radio Club. Scenes here from the club’s June Summer Field Day and January Winter Field Days held on the NEWSM.org campus in East Greenwich, RI.

Satellite QSO set-up Summer Field Day 2024

Field Day / RI ARES / Situational Awareness / SKYWARN

How Rhode Island Hams Help RICOMU Deliver Millions $$$ to RI Cities & Towns

July 9, 2024 - by Nancy Austin

RICOMU at the 2024 WA1USA Field Day Open House

The RI ARES Situational Awareness Mission & Economic Value

Ground truth “situational awareness” reports from your neighborhood matter. Here’s a great example Gil Woodside, RICOMU leadership shared during my 2024 Field Day visit to ARRL-Affiliated Club, WA1USA. [Recording transcript lightly edited for clarity.]

Nancy Austin, KC1NEK, ARRL RI Section Manager: Hello Gil, WA1LAD – Great to meet you during Field Day today at WA1USA. You were just sharing an example of how the situational awareness capabilities of every ham delivering, for example, weather reports really matters. So could you tell that anecdote again that you just shared with me?

Gil Woodside, WA1LAD, RICOMU:

Sure! This January 2024 Rhode Island had damaging rainstorms. The state had gone to FEMA and said that we were going to go through the process of getting a disaster declaration, which will bring Federal money in for Recovery. The issue was that FEMA said the storm was actually multiple storms over multiple days. But we worked with the National Weather Service and their forecasting office. And we gathered all the reports from the local hams and Skywarn spotters, and we took all that information to the Weather Service. They got all this data; they collated it all and they were able to show FEMA that it was a single weather event. Not multiple events over multiple days. And that information alone allowed us to complete the paperwork with FEMA and successfully get a disaster declaration for our state for the January storms. …

This mattered! For example, Galilee had significant damage down there to the beaches, buildings, etc. and they were looking at about $12 million dollars for that area. And so, that’s a really good example of how any ham could really have an impact. Getting involved in Skywarn, as one example, can really matter.

Whether you are a trained Skywarn Spotter or not, you can say that, you know, my street has a foot of water on it. It’s those types of reports that they look at at the National Weather Service. Their radar and their forecasting is essential, but we still need real world boots on the ground, in the street, reporting from everybody. It REALLY MATTERS. We take situational awareness reports from hams, from Public Safety and other other professionals … cities, towns, DPW’s, RIPTA, RIDOT. So, we are constantly gathering this information to make informed decisions. It also helps us get disaster declarations – such as shared in the example here. Federal money provides funding to get things done. …

Thanks so much for visiting WA1USA on ARRL Field Day 2024. We look forward to continuing to serve Rhode Island and working with the amateur radio community in shared support of our situational awareness mission.

Are you a licensed RI Ham interested to learn more and make a difference?

Please join the RI-ARES monthly Zoom meeting tomorrow, Wednesday July 10, 2024 from 8-9:30 pm as we set priorities for the year ahead. RIARES.org [calendar]

Check-in to the RI-ARES monthly 2m SIMPLEX net tonight as we test a shorter net format based on the Western MA (WMA) weekly Sunday morning 80m EmComm net.

Going forward, the RI monthly Simplex net is likely going to call for basic check-in reports from key stakeholder partners – including ARRL and ARES leadership, Public Safety, Skywarn, NTS, RI County involved stations, outside RI, and Relays. It will help build awareness of stakeholders and call signs, and help highlight gaps we need to address. (Are you the next NTS lead for RI?)

2m FM Simplex Net 7:30PM @147.42 MHz

(Monthly, 2nd Tues, KC1NEK NCS)

147.42 MHz Simplex

TONIGHT: 19:30 Local Time – Tues July 9, 2024

Please be prepared to check-in when called with this report template:

Call Sign, Name, Location,
Power Source (commercial/battery), Power Level (ie. 50 watts)
Traffic or Issues to report in your area? (Negative? Something to report?).
Over
NOTE: We will not have a later round of comments on this test Simplex net format. You can choose to make a note of which stations you can hear and how well. A future goal would be to later collect and collate this via a follow-up Google Doc. Share your suggestions tomorrow during the RI-ARES Monthly Zoom call.

Careers / Ham Outreach / STEM / Young Professionals / Youth

Please welcome RI’s new Section Youth Coordinator

July 8, 2024 - by Nancy Austin

Hello! I am Rowan Eggert, WO1P.

I am thrilled to accept the position of Section Youth Coordinator (SYC) for the Rhode Island ARRL section. I am proud to be the youngest SYC in the New England Division at 21 years old. With a passion for amateur radio and a commitment to youth engagement, I look forward to fostering a vibrant and inclusive community of young radio enthusiasts as well as supporting our dedicated team of volunteers, including Nancy Austin, KC1NEK, RI Section Manager.

Something to know about me is that I am very new to Rhode Island. I grew up in rural Illinois with a passion for STEM and attended the Illinois Math and Science Academy (IMSA). After graduating from IMSA, I first attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University for aerospace engineering on a full scholarship with the Army. However, after scholarship funding fell through, I transferred to Indiana State University to study Intelligence Analysis. During my time at ISU, I found myself involved in amateur radio and it reignited my love for technical challenges as well as a leadership opportunity in my community. After a few years at ISU, I decided to finish my degree online and move to Rhode Island in April 2024 to be with my better half and pursue a career in banking. I hope to move into fraud investigations after I graduate from Indiana State in May 2025.

My journey in amateur radio is still young, much like me. I punched my ticket in April 2022, upgraded to general the following July, and earned my extra class license in April 2023. This hobby has combined my passions for public service, youth engagement, and STEM education. During my time at Indiana State University, I helped re-establish the Amateur Radio Club at ISU after years of inactivity. We grew quickly with the support of the university and the local amateur radio community.

While club president of ARC@ISU, I enjoyed our Parks on the Air (POTA) events at Turkey Run State Park, seeing Scouts make their first contacts, encouraging individual operator growth through hands-on activities, free license testing, and so much more.

We gained popularity in October 2023 after competing in the ARRL Collegiate QSO Party and placing fourth in our first ever competitive event as a club.

In this year’s 2024 spring semester, we were involved in data collection for Case Western Reserve’s W8EDU and HamSci solar eclipse research project being one of the only universities in the path of totality. This work was presented at the 2024 ARRL National Convention at Dayton Hamvention.

ARC@ISU received the “Best Emerging Student Organization” award from the university for our efforts in revitalizing the club on campus and received almost $10,000 in grants and donations. It was a very valuable and rewarding experience as a student leader and I hope to use the knowledge gained to help Rhode Island youth amateur radio clubs succeed.

As Section Youth Coordinator, my primary goal is to engage, educate, and empower the next generation of amateur radio operators in Rhode Island. During my appointment, I hope to focus on four key aspects: ARRL School Club Round-up (SCR), Scouting Jamboree on the Air (JOTA), outreach, and communication. I plan to collaborate with schools, youth organizations, and local clubs in a whole-community approach to increase youth participation in the ARRL, coordinated resilience, and the importance of STEM education in amateur radio. By promoting hands-on and inclusive learning experiences, we can cultivate technical skills, foster curiosity, and build lasting connections for Rhode Island youth.

I am dedicated to creating an inclusive and welcoming environment where all young enthusiasts feel safe, valued, and supported. Together, we will explore innovative ways to utilize amateur radio for educational and community-building purposes, ensuring that the spirit of amateur radio thrives for years to come.

Thank you for this opportunity to serve and contribute to the growth of our amateur radio community. I am excited to embark on this journey and work alongside all of you to inspire and nurture the future of amateur radio in Rhode Island.

If you are excited to see more youth engagement, come talk to me! I’ll be at the New England Division annual HamXposition (August 22-25) in nearby Marlboro, MA. The Rhode Island Section Meet and Greet is scheduled for Saturday August 24th from 4pm-5pm. Hope to see you there. Meanwhile…

Stay tuned!

73, Rowan WO1P