Brooksby	UPDATED: Thursday, May 01, 2008
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Good timing for Brooksby’s radio amateurs

Posted on Thursday, May 01, 2008

By Setarreh Massihzadegan
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

He may be an “amateur,” but Bill Santelmann is no novice to radio. The founder of Brooksby’s Radio Amateur Group has 53 years of experience under his belt and has connected as many as 1,000 people from around the world—in one weekend.

Radio amateurs, or hams, are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to operate radio equipment for personal or public service use. They are known as “amateurs” because they do not receive compensation for their radio use, not because they are inexperienced. Santelmann has a working station set up in his Brooksby apartment home.

Now Brooksby’s Radio Amateur Group (BRAG) is setting up its own station on the sixth floor of Canterbury Court, one of Brooksby’s residence buildings.

Bragging rights
BRAG has been meeting regularly for more than a year, but the only station at Brooksby was Santelmann’s, run from an almost invisible antenna he secured from his apartment home balcony.

Now, with help from Brooksby’s administration, BRAG’s licensed members will be able to put their equipment and knowledge to use in a shared facility. BRAG’s station will be complete once the vertical antenna has been installed on the Canterbury Court roof and ventilation has been put in the station’s room, which was previously used for storage.

“Brooksby has been very cooperative,” Santelmann says. “I have noticed that a lot of people have had interest in amateur radio during their working lives, but didn’t have the time to get into [it]; and now they have the time. We want to make it possible.”

Sunny forecast
A little help from the cosmos will be making it possible for BRAG to maximize the use of its antenna. The station will use both shortwave and long wave frequencies, which carry sound waves to different parts of the world.

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Sunspots, or regions of low temperature and high magnetic activity on the sun’s surface, create charged particles which reflect frequencies even farther. Sunspots occur in 11-year cycles, and this year marks the beginning of a few years of heightened activity.

“Our timing here for BRAG is fantastic,” Santelmann says. “Sunspots will be back and everybody will have a thrill.”

Calling all hams
The U.S. has about 600,000 licensed radio amateurs, Santelmann says, which equates to about 1 in 500 people. But BRAG boasts nine licensed radio amateurs and almost as many planning to take the test.

Santelmann expects that number to grow once BRAG’s station is set up, thanks in part to changes in the FCC licensing test, which no longer requires knowledge of Morse code. Those who pass the test are given a unique call sign, or a series of letters and numbers indicating their geographic location. When making a general call, amateurs say their call sign and “CQ,” which can elicit a response from any country.

On a recent afternoon in Santelmann’s apartment, a quick scroll through the radio dial zeroed in on conversations in Spanish, Japanese, and Morse code.

“If you call ‘CQ,’ you don’t know who’s going to answer—it’s a pleasant surprise,” Santelmann says. “I enjoy the thrill of the chase, if you will. It’s just fun.”