Synton offers students a chance to build, use their own communication devices

4/17/2015 Daniel Dexter, ECE ILLINOIS

Synton is open to all students who have an interest in working with ham radio equipment and is in the process of moving its radio station into the new ECE building.

Written by Daniel Dexter, ECE ILLINOIS

Since 1925, Synton has been giving Illinois students a chance to communicate with people all over the world.

Synton is open to all students who have an interest in working with ham radio equipment. The club is in the process of moving its radio station into the new ECE building. Once it is set up, students with ham radio licenses will be able to get on the air using the club’s FCC issued call sign, W9YH.

Graduate student Kaizhi Qian is the current president of the club, which has 45 active members on its roster. He believes radio is one of the most important forms of communication.

“Wireless communication is a traditional and representative branch of electrical engineering,” Qian said. “I think it is really cool to be able to communicate to everyone in the world using some small devices.”

During his time in the club, one of the most interesting projects Qian worked on is a Morse code adapter. The device allows the user to communicate through Morse code from the convenience of a cell phone without any prior knowledge of Morse code.

Club trustee Debbie Fligor (BSEE ’91) joined Synton as a freshman in 1987 and considers it one of the best decisions in her college career. She said the club provided an excellent environment for students to interact through a common interest in ham radios.

Today, she continues to be involved with club as it continues builds its membership base.

“If you like to build stuff and use it, as opposed to just get a grade, you can actually build radios and get on the air with those radios,” Fligor said. “If there is a facet of amateur radio that appeals to you, there are people that could provide you with information, help, and support to get you on the air and talking to people on a global scale.”

Qian said that even though ham radios aren’t as prominent today as they have been in the past, Synton still helps students develop essential engineering skills.  Students collaborate to build unique communication devices and then get the opportunity to use them.

“There is more weight put on the process of designing and building wireless communication devices,” Qian said. “We also enjoy the collaborating with each other in the field to actually use your device to reach some corner of the world. It doesn't matter what you want to communicate, but what you use to communicate and how you communicate."


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This story was published April 17, 2015.