Welcome to the MSU ARC!
The first radio station at Michigan State University was established through the efforts of the Amateur Radio Club in 1919 using the call letters of 8YG – broadcasting weather reports and farm market prices.
In 1925 8YG became WKAR, the public broadcast station of Michigan State University, while a ham radio station was formed using the call letters 8XBU. In 1927 the call 8SH was issued to the amateur radio station. Today the MSU Amateur Radio Club operates W8SH and W8MSU from the campus in East Lansing.
ARRL School Club Roundup
The ARRL’s contest for school radio clubs!
The ARRL School Club Roundup is a call to school clubs from the collegiate level all the way down to elementary to get on the air and be heard! Major universities use this as a way to introduce contesting to their new “hams” and is a great way to practice copying Morse code, understanding the phonetic alphabet on voice, and instilling best operating practices.
Receiving ISS SSTV with Homebrew Yagis
This last week, several students including Rohan, Sawyer, and club president Charlie KE8ZRH were able to pull slow scan TV pictures from the ISS with their home-made 2 meter Yagis! If you’re interested in building antennas or contacting the International Space Station, let us know and we’ll get you started.
2 Meter Yagi Build Meeting
Thank you so much for coming to last night’s ARC meeting for the 2 meter Yagi build! A total of 10 students were in attendance plus 2 alumni and myself. About half the antennas were finished last night, with the remaining half very close to completion. We’ll have a makeup day scheduled very soon, followed…
MSU ARC POTAVis Launch
Dong, student member of the MSU ARC, has written a web app for visualizing POTA (Parks On the Air) entities. It displays both hunted and activated parks plus optionally any unactivated parks as well. It’s clean, simple, and fast.Check it out here! Just dump your POTA Parks CSV file into the app. For more information…
Sparticipation 2025
Great job yesterday at Sparticipation! Excited to see what comes from the new faces we saw. We collected over 50 names on the show-of-interest form and demonstrated both digital and CW forms of communication. Ed taught a ton of Morse code names yesterday with his QRP lightbulb setup, and every continent was represented on the…
W8MSU Repeater Final Alignment!
The W8MSU repeater has been professionally aligned by Jeff Broughton WB8RJY, owner of Communications Services in Mason, MI. As a result, we are able to reconnect the forward amplifier and put some power behind the system! Coverage has expanded into the greater Lansing Metro Area, including Bath, Dewitt, Grand Ledge, Williamston, and Mason. The repeater…
Michigan QSO Party 2025 – After-Action Report
April 21st, 2025Jason Weisberger, NT0Yjason@weisb.netRE: MI QSO Party 2025The inaugural MIQP following station renovations (or at least the majority of them) was extremely successful. Brennan KE8JVZ and Jay NT0Y started off the event, first by setting up a third station with an FT-710 and then by setting up a 40 meter doublet on the roof…