Amateur radio club talks to people across the globe, galaxy

For some IU students, long distance phone rates no longer apply if they want to talk to anyone around the country or the world. Members of the K9IU Amateur Radio Club can do that for free -- and talk to people in outer space for fun as well.\nWhile radio stations such as WIUX provide music and the news, K9IU takes a different approach to radio. Club members said they're club's more interested in making contact with other people from around the world, as well as teaching others how to operate radios.\n"Amateur radio is about communicating with other people via the radio," club member John Johnson said. "Most of the time, it's amateurs talking to amateurs for fun, but for events like the Science Olympiad (Nationals) or the upcoming IU Mini Marathon, we're passing messages for other people as a way of helping out the community."\nIn their hideaway at the top of the IMU, members of the amateur radio club spend their time conversing with other amateur radio operators from all over the world, as well as some from out of this world from time to time. The club uses high-tech and high-cost equipment that many beginning radio operators would not be able to afford.\nThrough the use of their technology, K9IU operators have been known to contact astronauts and cosmonauts on the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station, as well as the late King Hussein of Jordan.\n"Every so often, the astronauts and cosmonauts onboard will talk to people down here," president Andrew Ragusa said. "We can download live pictures of them and ask them a question like what it's like to be weightless, which is pretty cool."\nWhile one of the main features of the club is to make contact with other radio operators from around the world, K9IU also assists in many other activities, such as weather spotting, assisting the police or fire department and practicing emergency communication.\n"When the airplane carrying the five music students crashed (April 20) the amateur radio community was contacted by the emergency management people to come out and provide radio support to help find the airplane," Johnson said. "In the case of severe weather, amateur radio operators will communicate to the National Weather Service so that they can get a much more detailed picture of weather than they could with just radar or their own assets."\nRecently, however, K9IU has added another facet to its already diverse club. For the second year in a row, the amateur radio club will be assisting other prospective radio operators in obtaining a license, issued by the Federal Communications Commission. Classes will be held 7-9 p.m. Sept. 12 and 19 in Ballantine Hall room 015 and 4-6 p.m. Sept. 17 and 24. To take the class, students must pay $14, which covers the cost of the license, and bring two forms of identification.\n"We decided that we would offer a class that would be taught by some of the faculty that are in the club," Ragusa said. "Last year, we had seven people take the test, and every one of them passed it."\nThe club will hold four classes prior to taking the test. To take the test, all prospective radio operators must attend each class. After the fourth class is finished, a half-hour review session will be held, and then the test will be administered.