Yesterday, I taught the latest in my series of on-day Tech classes. 17 students actually took the test, and we were joined by four people at the end of the class to take the test.
I had a lot of University of Michigan students yesterday. Many of them were students in the graduate class, SPACE 584 — Space Instrumentation. This class is described as, “a survey of physical principles and engineering of instrumentation used throughout the many related fields of space science. Upon completion of the course, students will have a firm grasp of the principles and techniques used to sense and measure photons, neutral gases, charged particles and cosmic dust.” Now, they will also have a Technician Class amateur radio license.
The instructor for this course is Dr. Susan T. Lepri. QRZ.Com does not show that she’s licensed, so I’m going to work on her and maybe get her to attend my next class.
I also had some students from the Michigan Balloon Recovery and Testbed (MBurst). MBuRST is a student team that flies high-altitude balloons and track them through APRS. I got an email from their project manager Thursday night, who asked if he could bring some members of their team to the class. I warned him that it might be tough to cram for the test in less than 48 hours, but he shrugged it off.
With good reason, too. All of his team members passed the test. In fact, everyone who took the class passed the test, except for one high school girl. I had warned her parents that often teenagers often don’t do well in this class, but I guess she decided to give it a go anyway.
With that in mind, I’m claiming a 100% pass rate. What do you think?
Before I end this post, I want to thank the VEs:
- Ralph, AA8RK
- George, K9TRV
- Mark, W8MP
- Joe, AC8ES
- Russ, KB8U
- Jim, K8JBD
- Jeff, KN8A
Steve C - KE8HXM says
I wonder if this new group of Technicians will be using their new license for work or for recreation? I think it is pretty amazing that the potential for radio to continue well into the next century is evident with this class alone. Who knows, maybe some of them will discover a new long distance communications technology (ala Star Trek’s subspace communications – after all the cell phone can be traced to that TV series and Gene Roddenberry’s prolific imagination). Congrats on bringing more Technicians into the world of radio! You are kind of like the obstetrician of radio frequency communication.
73!
Dan KB6NU says
I sometimes joke that I am the “godfather of amateur radio in Ann Arbor.”
Brad C says
Thanks for everything Dan, the class was great. Steve, I’ll be using mine for recreational purposes. It’s exciting starting this journey because there is so much to learn!