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Olin Collegiate Amateur Radio Club
(OCARC)

About OCARC

Olin Collegiate Amateur Radio Club (OCARC), originally founded years ago, was rebooted in 2019. Amateur radio, or ham radio, is a service and hobby that brings people, electronics, and communication together. Instead of using a cell phone or a computer to communicate, Hams use radios, antennas, and specific frequencies to talk to each other across the globe. If you have a radio and a license, you can communicate with anyone.

 

Our club wants to take our love for this hobby and create a ground station at Olin that can be used to participate in contesting, communication, receiving data from and transmitting to satellites, and more. As of now, we have build several antennas and are learning to use our software defined radio (SDR).

Ham Radio Recruiting & Licensing

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Olin Collegiate Amateur Radio Club (OCARC) and OSSTP have been hard at work licensing new amateur radio operators (HAMs). As part of our program, we provide complimentary materials, lessons, and testing to anyone affiliated with Olin, Babson, or Wellesley College. Our goal is to improve representation and awareness around the vital role wireless communications play in our daily lives and how they can make our world a better place.  We are proud to announce that in 2022 we licensed 31 new HAMs. Here is a breakdown of their demographics:

 

  • 52% identify as female

  • 23% are from an underrepresented minority group

  • 30 members are Olin students or Administration and one is from Wellesley

Volunteering

It's become a tradition for OCARC members to volunteer their HAM skills at events like the Boston Marathon. Read about their experiences from past events here.

 

Projects

antenna 6.png
 
In order to learn how antennas work, we decided to build and test four simple omnidirectional eggbeater antennas: two 2m (VHF) antennas and two 70cm (UHF)  antennas. The 2m band and the 70cm band are very common ham and small satellite bands and let us transmit and receive on the frequencies in those bands. This project allowed for both groups to get hands on experience with creating antennas as well as learning the process of testing antennas. 
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OCARC conducted extensive research before building our ground station. After comparing many types of radios, antennas, and ground station set-ups, we decided an SDR and a directional antenna best fit our ground station needs. We decided that the best way to test this completely new setup was to build and test four simple omnidirectional eggbeater antennas. We chose to use an SDR because it is easily programmable and allows us to simulate a radio using our computers. Eventually, our ground station will be able to contact other ham stations as well as satellites, space stations, and more.

Antenna 5.png

Club Members

Daniel Deng

Bernard Adjei-Frimpong

KC1SBD

Tolulope Oshinowo

KC1QDO

Regan Mah

KCIMGR

Aditya Sudhakar

KC1SBC

Aydin O'Leary

KC1SBA

Abby Omer

KC1SBB

Andrew Phillips

KC1ROH

Lillian Shoemaker

KE8VGY

Ethan Chen

KC1ROF

Vaughn Rhinehart

KC3VBR

Jon Tse

KC2WAC

Jerry Goss

KN6WTU

Braden Oh

KI6VCC

Zach Sherman

KC1NXK

Lilo Heinrich

KC1SAL

Lauren Xiong

KC1SBE

CJ Hilty

KC1QNF

Brooklyn Wakefield

KC1ROI

Gia-Uyen Tran

KI5TGE

Phillip Post

KM4VNZ

Angela Huang

KC1SRG

Linda Vanasupa

KC1QZN

Alex Butler

KC1SAY

Caitlin Coffey

KC1SAZ

Isabel Serrato

KC1QDP

Sree Chalimadugu

KC1RRP

Grant Miner

KN6WLO

Katie Fleming

KI5WNX

Stephanie Cho

KN6VBK

Kat Canavan

KC1ROG

Kate McCurley

KC1ROQ

Whitney Lohmeyer

KC1LGC

Laurel Rodriguez-Mitton

AJ6AS

Declan Ketchum

KF0KTN

Rohil Agarwal

KD2YPP

Andrew Mascillaro

KE2AHM

Lila Smith

KC1RAZ

Ally Bell

KC1QJL

Ben Eisenbraun

KC1ROM

Meredith Alley

KQ4EDE

Brooke Moss

KC1QDN

Club Alum

Argyris Kriezis

KC1MYK

Annie Chu

KC1QAV

Anusha Datar

KC1IQU

Bryce Mann

KD9TZG

Megan Ku

KC1QDG

Alissa Tinney

Kristtiya Guerra

Pranavi Boyalakuntla

KC1OIB

Thomas Jagielski

KF0HCR

Jenna Ocheltree

Sparsh Bansal

KC1MGP

Cali Wierzbanowski

KC1KNQ

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