December 15, 2023
We met Hanna, KK7EKD, at the recent El Tour de Tucson, which had over 40 amateur radio operators assisting with communications. Hanna is the current President of the University of Arizona Amateur Radio Club.
Hanna graciously agreed to be interviewed by the RST web team on the U of A repeater (146.960 / 147.360 CTCSS 127.3) at 10:00am this morning. We had a great time talking to Hanna and learned a lot about the U of A club activities. We think you will agree, that the future of amateur radio looks very bright with young people like Hanna becoming hams! The recorded interview is available, along with an AI transcription (i.e. not completely edited to remove AI transcription errors.) Thank you Hanna!!
Reported by: Ken, N7NBV
| Position | Question |
| 1:45 | Hanna introduction |
| 2:28 | What got you interested in amateur radio? |
| 5:34 | How was the experience of taking your test with the RST/Laurel VEC ? |
| 7:41 | Why did you run for president of K7UAZ? |
| 10:50 | What are the duties of the K7UAZ president? |
| 12:50 | How many members are in the K7UAZ club? |
| 18:50 | What are some of the 2023 K7UAZ activities? |
| 21:39 | How do people find more about K7UAZ? |
| 23:47 | Open Q&A |
| Start time | Speaker tag | Transcript |
| 0:1.3 | N7NBV | This is N7NBV. My name is Ken. I’m with the radio Society of Tucson web team. |
| 0:10.2 | N7NBV | And this morning we will be running a directed interview net with Hannah. KK7EKD who is the president of the University of Arizona amateur radio club. |
| 0:24. | N7NBV | This will be a directed net. So we asked that you only transmit if the net control operator myself ask you to do. So if you have emergency traffic, please announce break with your |
| 0:37.1 | N7NBV | Sign a call sign and you’ll be acknowledged this net will probably last approximately 15 minutes. We’d like to thank the University of Arizona amateur radio club for the use of their repeater. Now break for timeout. |
| 0:54.8 | N7NBV | So we ran into Hannah at the recent El Tour de Tucson which had over 40 amateur radio operators assisting with Communications and found out that Hannah is the president of the current president of the University of Arizona amateur radio club, so she graciously |
| 1:14.7 | N7NBV | Agreed to be interviewed by us since I think our members would be highly interested in what happens at the U of A. And we want to thank you Hannah for joining us. Why don’t you give us a radio check and get tell us a little bit about yourself over to you. This is N7 nbv. |
| 1:45.2 | KK7EKD | Hi, my name is Hannah. My call sign is Kilo. Kilo 7 Echo kilo Delta. KK7EKG right now. I’m a senior at the University of Arizona. My major is in neuroscience and cognitive science actually, but I am also president of K7UAZ which is the amateur radio club at the University of Arizona. So I’m very happy to run into you at the El Tour de Tucson event. |
| 2:16.3 | N7NBV | Okay. Well very good. Well just your area of study sounds interesting enough for a whole half hour just on that itself fascinating, but we’ll try to stick to amateur radio this morning and I see that you received your license in 2022. How did you become interested in becoming a ham and what led you to get your license? |
| 2:40.7 | KK7EKD | So I think I first begin knowledge of the club at the U of A in Spring 2022. The university has a like every semester. They have a club fair and that semester in the spring of K7 uaz was tabling and I remember seeing their radios and I was literally like on the way to class and I was like wait like this looks so cool because I thought they were like a history Club because they had like a bunch of little plaques from like contest and like the radio’s out and I thought it was I thought it was some kind of like historical artifact club |
| 3:13.6 | KK7EKD | And I really like studying like, you know ephemeral like history just kind of like physical pieces of History. So I was like, oh like this is such a cool like history Club thing. And then it was not an antique Club at all. It was actually an adventure radio and it’s like, oh have you ever heard of it and of like no, I haven’t actually but they were like, oh like you could you totally learn more about you can do all these cool like two-way communication activities with it and they invited me to join the Discord which is like a kind of like a texting social media like platform where you could just like have conversations and like communicate things as well as inviting me to like check out their Shack basically when I was free and so I joined my Discord and I was like, yeah, I’m not free right now, but maybe sometime later this week I can visit and I was able to visit later and I’m gonna reset the repeater real quick. |
| 4:3. | KK7EKD | So later that week I met with I think he was the current president |
| 4:15.5 | KK7EKD | But yeah, I met later with the president then and we visited the shack and I learned all about the ionosphere right? That was the first time I’d ever heard of it and you know after about like an hour and a half I think of just like learning everything in the in the shack and all of this public imagery works. I was like, so how hard is the exam like how hard is the licensing there? And you know, it wasn’t that hard. They got together the station manager at the time hurt pay seven zero and another one of the club members Haley w7hil. They got together and made like a little like curriculum thing so that people could learn more about like students could study for the technicians exam during like spring break which is coming up and so with that help I was able to study for the exam and I passed hat spring. |
| 5:8.5 | KK7EKD | That’s how I started with amateur radio. |
| 5:15. | N7NBV | Okay, very interesting. You know, I I bet our rst members do have a lot of plaques from contests. They’ve won we might consider displaying some of those that are our radio day in the park that we have. Anyway, I understood that. You took your FCC Test at one of the sessions provided by the Radio Society of Tucson and the Laurel VEC team. How is that experience? |
| 5:46.6 | KK7EKD | I thought it was really exciting on because it’s you know, I like visiting like new places in Tucson, you know as a student. I don’t have a car so I like don’t go that many places. So it was like really fun to just kind of like, I guess like check out a new community and I think everyone there was like pretty nice pretty it’s very excited, you know for us to be taking the exams because it was myself and one other student from the U of A. And so it’s like wow like, okay like new young faces. This is cool. And I remember being like really nervous because the friend I was taking like them with he was like a he was an ECE major electrical Computer Engineering and you know, I was sitting here and I just heard about Ohm’s law like two weeks ago. So I was like, oh, okay, like kind of nervous but you know, they’re very they’re pretty nice and getting me like I guess like comfortable with the exam and then I you know I passed and they were like, hey, like congratulations like you have your call sign will come to you in a couple of days. So I was very satisfied with my experience and I think other students from the U of A have also continued to get their license at the artists that the rst thing this is good. |
| 7:1.5 | N7NBV | Well, excellent. Thank you very much for that report. I’ll just mentioned for anyone listening that the Radio Society of Tucson does provide monthly a free exam session. The schedule is posted on our website K7 rst.club. We also run two classes per year to help people study for their Technician class and we have any number of members who would volunteer to be in Elmer. What amateur radio |
| 7:31.7 | N7NBV | People say is someone who helps others. So anyway, great. Thank you Hannah for that rundown on your experience. Then you seem to me to be quite the go-getter because then in May of 23, you were elected president of k-7, uaz the University of Arizona amateur radio club. Why did you decide to run for president back to you? |
| 7:58.2 | KK7EKD | I think at that time I was previously the treasure and I think I became the treasure because |
| 8:6.1 | KK7EKD | U of A like student governing bodies, it’s all clubs require a president vice president and the treasurer and I think at the time there were not enough students to like there were I guess they might not have been enough students. |
| 8:19.2 | KK7EKD | Interesting positions. So in that like spring they invited me to be or I guess like that transition of school years. They invited me to be |
| 8:28.4 | KK7EKD | The treasure for that for my junior year, so that was last year and then in the following year it was like, okay, so it’s I’m treasurer the other I think Sarah Lee K7 SLI. She was President I think for that for last year, but she was because we’re all really close as officers. She was telling me how like her next semester. She’s kind of difficult and she was wondering if like anyone was available to like touched up as president for the next year that she could be my president and I kind of thing and at first I was kind of reluctant because it’s just like I think at that time, you know, I don’t even licensed for a year. Like I felt like I didn’t really have the technical knowledge. |
| 9:8.3 | KK7EKD | Feel like a presidential role. However, I did acknowledge that like, oh like this would make you know things much easier for everyone else and it was probably just be like, you know, if we all work together as like students as student officers like we would be able to |
| 9:22.2 | KK7EKD | Come together and make it a pretty successful year for the club. So I decided to. |
| 9:27.2 | KK7EKD | instead become president at the |
| 9:31.6 | KK7EKD | but I mean like we’re only it was only like one person running for each thing. Anyway, so it works out I’m gonna reset the repeater. |
| 9:41.6 | KK7EKD | but yeah, so I decided to run for president just because I felt like it would be most helpful for everyone and I was definitely like I was really |
| 9:51.8 | KK7EKD | I was super super nervous. But again, I think this working alongside. Our other officers has been really helpful and then also having like a station manager like a station Trust. |
| 10:5. | KK7EKD | EE and they really help a lot in terms of like just kind of understanding K7UAZ and it’s like association with you know clubs on campus greater like amateur radio clubs in the Southern Arizona area and like parka very simple like the Council of Arizona, so it’s been fun, and I’ve enjoyed it actually quite a lot. |
| 10:30.1 | N7NBV | Okay. Well excellent. This is N7 nbv for identification. |
| 10:36.9 | N7NBV | So I appreciate your volunteering. I think that’s a great thing about the amateur radio community in large is that there’s a very willing Spirit to help and to to serve and to volunteer. So what are some of the duties that the president of the k7uaz performs? |
| 11:10.2 | KK7EKD | also identify KK7EKD with N7NBV |
| 11:16.2 | KK7EKD | and so as when it comes to duties typically it’s a lot of like administrative work. I didn’t I I feel like my previous officer positions and other clubs were more. Like I had a specific thing that I had to do all the time, but it wasn’t like sending emails and like organizing things. It was just like meeting those things but I realized now that you know, when you’re president when you’re doing that like higher up stuff like, okay, like I’m the one who’s like coordinating all these emails like getting in contact with these people like and before it was yeah I gave you this person to talk. |
| 11:48.6 | KK7EKD | So as president of K7UAZ I represent the club at like things like just think that things in the community I coordinate with the building like managers and the College of Engineering when it comes to like planning our meetings or not planning our meetings, but at least hosting them is their vice president. |
| 12:14. | KK7EKD | So I lead our club meeting and I just kind of maintained that like friendly like cordial like relationships with a bunch of other people in our community to make sure that they’re like |
| 12:27.5 | KK7EKD | But you know who to talk to like how to get more information. |
| 12:33.1 | KK7EKD | So it’s a pretty it’s a pretty social but also administrative role which I like. |
| 12:43.7 | KK7EKD | Okay, very good. Thank you for that. |
| 12:47.5 | N7NBV | And I was wondering how many members are in K7UAZ and you mentioned station trustee. Do you have faculty advisors who are amateur radio operators or how does your continuity provided for the station with the club? So how many members and maybe a little bit about the members? |
| 13:10.2 | KK7EKD | so I was looking this up before our interview and it looks like we have about 41 members I’d say maybe I didn’t look at the exact number, but I’d say maybe like |
| 13:21.2 | KK7EKD | 15 or less might be students, which is actually a really really good number considering that I think when I joined the club, like there may be like six active students. It wasn’t it was not a very big number but the club is really grown a lot in like number and everything and sometimes sometimes I like to joke. I’m like maybe I was like a personality hire because I I love talking about imagery radio with other people and encouraging like other people even if I know that they’re just like very big he related vaguely interested and Engineering or like radio or like Communications in some way. I’m like, hey, have you ever heard of amateur radio? Like we have a club here totally check it out. It’s mostly for like classmates who aren’t in engineering because I feel like it provides such an interesting like look into engineering and it provides a lot of opportunities to explore the like feel without having to be an engineering major. But we also have you know, our faculty advisor right now is Doctor Melody and she’s not |
| 14:21.1 | KK7EKD | She’s not a licensed person, but she is very very expertise and antenna and antenna design and she’s wonderful. She’s very I think she’s actually done a presentation with rst, or it might have been with a different Club, but we went through presentation and she talked a lot about antenna things. |
| 14:42.3 | KK7EKD | And yeah for our stations like manager and like patient trustee person. Um, it used to be a hurt case of India over right now. It’s Steve Wood w1sr. I think it’s called call sign is and yeah, so both of them have been very very instrumental community members and I think really the community having the community members who are like, you know constantly into like they live in Tucson that kind of thing. It really helps to kind of like transient nature of having like a student Club because it’s like for most clubs it’s like, you know, there’s zero activity during the summer but like for an amateur radio club, it’s like summer is kind of one of your biggest like season because you have like field day and like kind of big events like that. So I’m really like grateful for like the community members and just like people who are like kind of more permanent for an amateur radio club affiliated with the university. So, |
| 15:41.9 | N7NBV | Okay, thank you for that Insight. Yeah, of course. We’re using a K7 uaz repeater right now. And again we want to thank the club for the use of the repeater for this directed quote interview. Net. Does the universe Arizona radio club have any other repeaters or other stations that are in active and in use? |
| 16:16. | KK7EKD | Not that I can think of, this repeater is our main one, it has a pretty strong reach I think we just installed a Mosley antenna on the roof a couple of I think last spring that one is a pretty big Endeavor. And so like now we have a lot of access to different like fans and everything. That was pretty cool and it’s actually also in qst magazine. Thanks to Sarah our treasurer. |
| 16:41.2 | KK7EKD | So that one’s in qst anyone’s curious. But yeah, we just have this on repeater it has access to like echolink things like that. But we also have like an HF station and like satellite stuff available to like we have a lot of |
| 16:55.3 | KK7EKD | Like available, but I think our repeaters what gets the most use out of anything in addition to like a soldering station as well in our physical shack and everything. |
| 17:8.2 | N7NBV | Since you brought that up and I noticed on your qrz page you have a pretty nice picture of you operating in the in the shack there does the club offer any open houses or anything to for visitors to see what the station looks like? |
| 17:32.8 | KK7EKD | Sometimes we do it on an appointment basis, last year where we did shack nights like we invited like students and like anyone to like come in and we could just like start operating on the equipment and just you know, figuring out how to use these things on because I think outside of I guess those shack nights the only other times that people come in with me on their own like volition or if you had like contest going on but I think probably in the next semester hopefully, we’ll kind of bring that back because I think it’s you know, it’s good to bring people into the shock using the equipment and also like learning this learning how to use you equipment. We had a |
| 18:13.9 | KK7EKD | That thing going we’re studying how to be like a satellite station operator person. I think a couple of our student members. It was like kind of like student run and a couple of our student members were also like involved in that I |
| 18:28.2 | KK7EKD | Oh, sorry, but I think in the next semester, it would be nice to continue doing that. So I’ll keep that I’ll keep for planning. |
| 18:40.4 | N7NBV | Okay, thank you very much. And we’re getting toward the end. So don’t get too tired yet. But what are some of the highlights that the of the K7 uaz club during 2023? |
| 18:55.4 | KK7EKD | Okay, so we did parks on the air earlier this like back in March that was fun. We went parks on the air and Summits on the air so together with some students and community members. We hiked up to Picacho Peak and we operated on their using doing both pota and sota there and I was really fun. I’d never been there. So it was like fun to like hike up there and then also like operate, you know, it’s like close to this operating the community because it’s like oh like what are you doing? How many points is this? Like I’ve never heard of this before so it’s fun like teach people about that. And then I think we also we also like to visit ham Fest together because I think it’s a very like blue stakes like ways just introduce like you people to the Hobby like, oh look at this like fun spot me with a bunch of Technology. It’s kind of cool. We all do I’ve been trying to get us into more emergency communications activities. So we also have a smaller one that we did in October which |
| 19:55.3 | KK7EKD | Is a pink out the park or like making strides like which was like a breast cancer awareness walk put together by a Community member and so we did the emergency communications for that. It was only like a mile long, but it’s a very good opportunity to just like kind of get your feet wet when it comes to emergency communication. That was an October of this year. Oh, we also had of course, we didn’t field Day this year. We operate we typically |
| 20:20.6 | KK7EKD | operate from senoida Arizona and we try to just kind of make it into like a cool like camping trip when we can when we have the resources. So we are operating there. We kind of like |
| 20:34. | KK7EKD | I think it must have been like maybe seven students seven or eight students which is a big increase in student attendance from like other years. So that was a really really wonderful. That was a really wonderful like, you know, like team bonding kind of thing and then I think coming up at the end at the end of the year. I mean like it’s already December. So in addition all of this, we also have like monthly net or weekly Nets on Mondays at 8pm on this repeater and then our regular like club meetings, which are going I think they’re still gonna be on the first Thursday of every month typically in person next one though for January will be a different date. It has not been decided yet. |
| 21:29.3 | N7NBV | This is N7NBV for ID with KK7EKD Hana the president of the U of A amateur radio club. |
| 21:39.5 | N7NBV | Wow. It seems like you have a lot of activities there. So how do people find out more about k7uaz, back to you? |
| 21:51.3 | KK7EKD | Sometimes I wonder the same thing because I mean we have our like we have the club fairs. Also, there’s a plane passing by sorry, but we have our clubs when it comes to students getting more information on the club. We |
| 22:5. | KK7EKD | typically try to table at Club fairs that are put on either by the student government or by the College of Engineering specifically. And so sometimes you know, we get a student who’s like, oh my God loves this stuff. Like let me check it out and that one’s always really fun because it’s like, oh your dad’s gonna freak out when he finds out like all the cool stuff that we have in our Shack that kind of thing and then |
| 22:27.2 | KK7EKD | Getting information out to the Greater Community. I think this like connecting with like other clubs like and just like building relationships with them. Like we’re having an interview right now. I think that’s been pretty fruitful and just kind of like spreading the word like, oh like have you heard of amateur radio? Would you be interested? Do you happen to have a really nice home here at the UofA? I I really love that having that conversation with people and just like if I meet like another like engineer person. I’m like |
| 22:56.1 | KK7EKD | I’m like, oh, yeah, I happen to actually be like an amateur radio operator. Like I have a license and everything and it’s like really cool because it’s like I I feel like I do not see the type of person to have that but yeah. |
| 23:10.9 | N7NBV | Okay, thank you very much. There may be people who have been listening that want to ask you a question. So if that’s okay when the repeater breaks here, if you are within repeater range here listening to this and you want to ask Hannah a question, I’ll take one or two stations, please station ID and first name now. |
| 23:45 | KK7MOK | KK7MOK, this is Paul |
| 23:46. | N7NBV | KK7MOK go ahead with your question. |
| 23:47 | KK7MOK | Hi Ken I just had a quick question about the U of A radio club. Is it only for U of A students? And if not do you allow sponsorships? Over |
| 24:10.1 | N7NBV | Go ahead Hanna. |
| 24:11.8 | KK7EKD | Ok Paul, I think that was your name, our club is not restricted to. |
| 24:16. | KK7EKD | Is only it’s open to anyone in the community students do students do not have to pay dues. But we also have like plenty of community members active in the club. They paid duess of like 20 dollars and community community members are totally free to attend like any of our meetings like be a part of the club in any way that they wish we had free pizza other meetings, which is really cool. And I think like if you’re interested in if you’re interested in amateur radio, but you’re also interested in a kind of like mentorship like or just kind of like teaching aspects of life in general. I think that like joining the university like k78uaz Club is pretty fun because it’s also just like a fun way to like learn more about other amateur radio communities. |
| 25:4.7 | KK7EKD | With like new people and stuff like that open to everyone. |
| 25:12.5 | N7NBV | Okay. Thank you very much. That was great. Is there anyone else or Paul if you have a follow-up question, go ahead. Is there anyone else who would like to identify to ask Hannah a question? Please call sign and first name now. |
| 25:36.5 | N7NBV | Okay, |
| 25:36.7 | N7NBV | I didn’t hear any other questions. But Hannah that was this is our first ever Radio Society of Tucson interview net and I think because of your great great input I have to label as as a great success. So thank you so much for taking the time to do this with us. It was highly interesting and engaging we want to thank you for your time and for your contributions to the amateur radio Community. It’s encouraging to see such bright young people join amateur radio with such enthusiasm. Thank you Hannah very much and best wishes for the future. |
| 26:17.1 | KK7EKD | Thank you as well Ken. This is really fun. Um, I want to be like, oh you’re free to use the K7UAZ repeater for this stuff in the future, but whatever whatever repeater you’ll be doing future interviews on I think I will be checking in because it’s cool. It’s very fun. So, thank you again for doing this. |
| 26:37.4 | N7NBV | Okay. Thank you very much. Hanna, KK7EKD. You can find out more about the amateur radio or the Radio Society of Tucson at our web page K7rst.club. |
| 26:48.7 | N7NBV | And you can also send a suggestions or request to the web team by sending an email to K7rst Dash web at Google Groups Comm. We will now return return the repeater to its normal use at 10:27am we like to thank all the participants all the listeners and especially Hannah. Thank you very much 73s. This is N7NBV clear. |