The Bridge - Issue 2, 2019 - 8

Feature

Amateur Radio and Careers in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

frequencies! In setting up a station, you quickly learn that every
wire, cable, and cabinet is part of your antenna system, including
the operator. You start thinking in terms of a wave instead of just
voltage and current.

Everything Matters
Given the limited resources available to most hams, you quickly
learn that even the most expensive radio can be quickly rendered
non-operational by any of its supporting components. Power
supplies have to meet specifications over a wide range of loads
and environments. Cables and their connectors have to be installed
properly and weatherproofed securely. Software interfaces and
protocols have to be configured correctly. Antennas have to be
pointed in the right direction and held there. Propagation changes
every day, every hour, and every minute, challenging the ham to
maintain communication in the face of often wild swings in signal
strength and quality. And the sun, the geomagnetic field, the
atmosphere and the ionosphere have to cooperate. In wireless
communications, everything really does matter.
You get very good at estimating what it takes to make the system
work and troubleshooting it when it doesn't. Troubleshooting is
probably the hardest skill to teach in any field and is one of the
most important things amateur radio has to offer an engineer. You
learn about breaking down a problem, isolating and testing system
components and recognizing signatures of various behaviors. You
also learn to respect design and operating margins in a way that
"book learning" simply cannot teach.

The System Big Picture
Here we arrive at what really makes amateur radio experience
valuable - recognizing that you are really working with a system,
not a collection of bits and pieces. In addition, you might not have
control over some of the most crucial elements. If your team
supports the local emergency communication systems, you'll have
to work with public safety agencies and comply with the National
Incident Management System. In your university club, you'll have to
work with budgets and the administrators of the building housing
the station. All of these things are part of your system, just like an
amplifier, modem or tower.

The American Radio Relay
League (ARRL)
The national organization for
amateur radio in the US, ARRL
(www.arrl.org) is one of the world's
oldest. Formed in 1914, the ARRL
serves amateurs with technical
references, sponsorship of activities
and organizations, and represents
amateur radio to municipal and
national government agencies.
You can obtain your license with
the aid of study guides from the
ARRL and even take your FCC
license exam through the ARRL's
Volunteer Examiners, part of the
service's largest such program.
You'll find a wealth of information
on amateur radio via the ARRL's
website, such as the Technology
section at www.arrl.org/technology.
Many professional engineers are
ARRL members and include ARRL
publications in their professional
libraries. Howard E. Michel
(WB2ITX), the 2015 President of
IEEE and member of the Gamma
Kappa HKN chapter, is the current
Chief Executive Officer of ARRL.
We'd love to welcome you as an
ARRL member!

A Community of Hams
Not only does amateur radio depend on equipment, it depends
on the hams to make it work - several million around the world,
with three-quarters of a million here in the US. Your ham license

THE BRIDGE

ARRL is the national (U.S.) association for
amateur radio. Used with permission of ARRL.
http://www.knlnetworks.com http://www.arrl.org http://www.arrl.org/technology http://www.yasme.org/ https://hkn.ieee.org/ https://hkn.ieee.org/
The Bridge - Issue 2, 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Bridge - Issue 2, 2019
