Classroom: HBH 223, 6:15 - 9:15 pm MONDAYS (Jan 5 - April 13) plus at least one field trip
Also used: HBH 355
Text: "Ham Radio LIcense Manual" (ARRL, $25, available from campus store): "HAM RADIO CD" ($10, from The Rice Space Institute)
Also helpful: A personal GPS receiver (will be provided for students who do not have one); calculator.
Prerequisites: basic algebra.
Students accepted: This class is suitable for students of all levels: undergrad, grad student, and teachers, but at present does not count for restricted distribution. It is strongly recommended for teachers in the Master of Science Teaching program but may or may not count towards other graduate degree programs: check with your advisor. Auditors allowed up to the 15-person limit on enrollment.
This class teaches the basics of electromagnetic waves, simple circuit and antenna theory, radio propagation, GPS theory and operation, ionosphere, magnetosphere, and space weather. The course midterm is the FCC "technician"-level ham radio test. It is expected that all students will pass the test before the end of the semester (retakes are acceptable), allowing legal broadcasting on all frequencies above 50 MHz (including popular 2m repeater networks and talking to the ISS) and selected HF frequencies. The second half of the course covers GPS and space weather topics. The students will have one general electrical circuit lab and also construct a simple AM receiver. The 06-07 course will construct a receiver suitable for monitoring realtime space weather. Hardware expenses for the course are paid for by the Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling http://space.rice.edu/CISM. Antenna installation costs were paid for by the Physics and Astronomy Department.
A short paper on the uses of amateur radio is required as one of the homework sets. To see the papers from the 2007 Spring class, go to this folder: http://space.rice.edu/Phys401/SPR2007Papers/. All students who enrolled in the Spring 2007 class passed their "technician"-level FCC license exam, and several have passed their General level. One student who began as a "General" passed his extra. CONGRATS!!!
Click here for an article about the success of the 2005 class, including their names and new callsigns, and more details about the class.
Click here for a Quicktime of a "HISD Today" program (14 MB) which features HISD teachers learning ham radio along with students at HMNS summer camp. Here is a larger format (640x480, 23 MB) version of that HISD program.
Image at left is Master of Science Teaching alumna Katrina Miguez teaching a student electronics at summer camp at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Students as young as 9 years old passed their "technician" exam after an intensive one-week course.
Last Update: Feb 26, 2009