Stanford Amateur Radio Club

Monthly Club Meetings

[American Radio Relay League] [W6YX QSL Card] Meetings are usually held on the second Tuesday of each month at 7:30 PM in Room 202 of the Packard Electrical Engineering Building, except during the summer months when meetings may be held in the club shack at Site 530.

Prospective new members, faculty, and staff are welcome.

Next Meeting Date: Tuesday, Oct 13, 2015
Future Meeting Dates: Nov 10, Dec 8, Jan 5
Time: 7:40 p.m.
Place: Packard Building, Room 202.
Talk-in: N6BDE repeater, 440.200 MHz (+5 MHz offset, 123.0 Hz tone).



Monday Night Net

Latest News

New Member Recruitment Drive Underway
The Stanford Amateur Radio Club invites prospective members to its monthly meetings. Information about the club is available on this web site and from the club President.
ARRL Field Day 2011 - June 25-26, 2011
ARRL Field Day 2011 LogoOver fifty participants and visitors were involved in this year's Field Day event. Five officers from the Department of Public Safety visited and witnessed first hand the service that the Stanford Amateur Radio Club provides to the campus community. Our ARRL and ARES section leaders also visited our operation. Officers from the Cal Poly Amateur Radio Club, W6HBZ, also stopped by. W6YX operated in class 1F (single transmitter from an established emergency operations center site). Since a free GOTA and VHF station are not allowed in the 1F category, our GOTA station submitted its own entry as K6SU. VHF contacts were made in exhibition. The preliminary results look promising with 1983 HF QSOs, 957 of them CW, for a total of 3,430 HF points, plus 56 satellite QSOs, 11 of them CW and 5 solar powered contacts, 3 of them CW. These contacts combined with 1,150 bonus points add up to approximately 4,650 points, edging out the existing 1F record of 4504 points.
  • A video of KH6J in Oahu, Hawaii, making a satellite contact with W6YX is available at http://youtu.be/pNXHsHVqJsI


  • ARRL Field Day 2010 - June 26-27, 2010
    ARRL Field Day 2010 LogoOver the weekend of June 26-27, 2010, the Stanford Amateur Radio Club participated in the annual ARRL Field Day operating event. The participants operated on UHF, VHF, and HF using CW, Digital Modes, and Phone. Visitor turn-out was very high, including an entire junior high school class. The club entered in Class 2F (two HF stations operating from an Emergency Operations Center) and finished with a score more than 1,000 points higher than the previous record in this category. Bonus points were earned in all categories including operating on 100% emergency power, media publicity, operation in a location accessible to the public, deployment of a public information booth, message handling including a report to the section manager, completing QSOs using satellite and natural power, presentation of educational activities, operation of a "Get on the Air" station for new hams, submitting our results via the web, and site visits by an elected official and an official of a public agency served by W6YX.

    ARRL Field Day 2009 - June 27-28, 2009
    ARRL Field Day 2009 LogoField Day was held at Site 530 on the weekend of June 27-28, 2009. Approximately thirty people participated on UHF, VHF, and HF using CW, Digital Modes, and Phone. The Club earned bonus points in the categories for operating on 100% emergency power, media publicity, operation in a public place, deployment of a public information booth, message handling including a report to the section manager, completing QSOs using satellite and natural power, presentation of educational activities, operation of a "Get on the Air" station for new hams, submitting our results via the web, and site visits by an elected official and an official of a served agency. The Club operated this year in category 4F (four transmitters from an established Emergency Operations Center) and its preliminary score indicates that it set a new record in this category.
  • A summary prepared by Risto W6RK is available at http://lists.contesting.com/pipermail/3830/2009-July/177972.html.
  • Photos from Field Day 2009 are available here.

    Stanford Amateur Radio Club Continues Tradition of Space Contacts
    It all started with the first the first manned amateur radio operation conducted in space. In 1983, Astronaut Owen Garriott on board the Space Shuttle Columbia used "ham" radio gear to make Earth-Space radio contacts during mission STS-9. Stanford Amateur Radio Club, W6YX, used the big dish to track the Space Shuttle's orbit and participate in this momentous historical event. W6YX can be heard at the 27 second mark of Owen Garriott's personal tape recording from the mission, available here. The tradition continues to this day. The morning of April 7th, 2009, the Stanford Amateur Radio Club made contact with Stanford Alumnus and space flight participant Charles Simonyi aboard the International Space Station. Charles sent his best wishes to the club and praised the education Stanford provides its students. The audio from the contact is available here.

    March 2009 Meeting
    Prof. Leeson, W6NL, provided a preview of his talk about Stanford's W. W. Hansen, the subject of an invited paper to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society. Prof. Hansen, who earned his Ph.D. at Stanford in 1933, is recognized as the founder of microwave electronics. Among other things, he invented the cavity resonator and the RF cavity linear accelerator. In 1937, he was approached by his former roommate Russell Varian to collaborate on inventing the klystron, the famous "$100 invention" that made World War II microwave radar possible and also lifted Stanford into the front ranks of physics research. Prof. Leeson plans to publish, in time for the centenary this May of Hansen's birth, Hansen's "Notes on Microwaves" with permission of the Stanford Library Archives.
  • More information on the APS presentation is available at http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR09/Event/94505
  • Notes from past meetings.

  • November 2008 Meeting
    The second meeting of the school year was held on Tuesday evening, November 11
    • Prof. Stewart Gillmor of Wesleyan University spoke on Stanford radio history. As an undergraduate, he was a member of the Stanford Amateur Radio Club from 1956 to 1960. Prof. Gillmor is the author of "Fred Terman at Stanford: Building a Discipline, a University, and Silicon Valley."
    • Dues are due! Dues are free for Stanford students and $95 suggested ($50 required) for others, with a $10 discount if a domestic-partnership joins together. You can bring cash or check payments to our club meetings or mail a check made out to Stanford Amateur Radio Club, PO BOX 19212, Stanford, CA 94309
    • We'd like to encourage more hams to check into our Monday evening nets at 7:30PM on the N6BDE repeater, 440.200 MHz (+5 MHz offset, 123.0 Hz tone).
    • Please conserve water in the shack.
    • Notes from past meetings.

    Frank Bauregger W6QI - SK - May 21, 2008
    Frank Bauregger WQ6IFrank N. Bauregger, Ph.D., age 38 of Mountain View, California, died Wednesday, May 21, 2008. He was a 1991 graduate of Pennsylvania State University and earned graduate degrees from Stanford University. Frank was a veteran of the United States Navy and was employed as an electrical engineer at Agilent Technologies in Santa Clara. Frank's professional career included research projects and publications about airborne anti-jam GPS antenna designs. He was a member of the Stanford Amateur Radio Club where he gave presentations on VHF/UHF communications topics. His accomplishments include being the co-holder of the world distance record for 47 GHz terrestrial communications. Frank was also a fine guitar player and enjoyed the outdoors, hunting, fishing, and hiking. Most recently, his interests expanded to include automobile drag racing.
    APRS Debuts at W6YX
    W6YX has implemented an APRS internet gateway at the shack that listens for APRS packets on 149.390 MHz and forwards them to the internet. For more information, see the APRS Information Page.

    W6YX Celebrates 60th Anniversary of the First Amateur Radio Single Side Band QSO
    Prof. O.G. Mike VillardThe October 2007 edition of QST, the monthly publication of the American Radio Relay League, notes that September 21, 2007 was the sixtieth anniversary of the first amateur radio single side band transmission. The contact was made by W6YX and W0TQK in 1947. The mode was championed by Stanford University researcher and author Oswald Garrison "Mike" Villard Jr, W6QYT, but it was just one of his many accomplishments. During his career at Stanford (and later at Stanford Research Institute--SRI), Villard pioneered the concept and development of a program to design and build an over-the-horizon radar system to detect incoming military aircraft and high-altitude missiles. In addition, he demonstrated the feasibility of the "stealth aircraft" concept by using specially treated low-impedance surfaces. For those achievements he received the Department of Defense civilian Medal of Honor. Another accomplishment was the design of a simple, small high-frequency receiving antenna that aided in nulling out signals that jammed broadcasts of the Voice of America, the BBC and others. While a student at Stanford, Villlard served as president of the Amateur Radio Club, and from the 1950s through the early 1980s he was the trustee of W6YX. For a picture of him (then W1DMV) operating W6YX in the late 1930's as student president of the club, see the history section. An ARRL member for many years, Villard was also a past scientific advisor to the Northern California DX Foundation. Prof. Villard died on January 7, 2004 at age 87.

    Foothills Fire Spares W6YX
    On Monday afternoon, June 25, 2007, a brushfire consumed 178 acres in the foothills near W6YX. According to a Stanford News Service Report, human rather than electrical or mechanical activity was the likely cause of the blaze.
    Paul Flaherty N9FZX - SK - March 16, 2006
    Paul Flaherty N9FZX SKIt is with deep regret that we announce the sudden passing of Paul Flaherty N9FZX, a longtime member, and past president of W6YX. Paul received his doctorate in Electrical Engineering from Stanford in 1994 for his work in computer architecture, digital radio communications, radio science and RF engineering and was considered one of the world's leading authorities on communications protocol design. After Stanford, Dr. Flaherty joined Digital Equipment Corporation's Network Systems Laboratory, where he invented and managed the Alta Vista search engine. Since then, he worked as a corporate strategist and management consultant, independently and for firms such as Zindigo and Accenture. Author of the forthcoming book, "A Better Mousetrap: Corporate Strategy for Emerging Technology", Paul has delivered international keynotes for COMDEX, Internet World, DECUS, and other trade shows in the US and throughout the world.
    • Please see the announcement.
    • Further details are available at http://www.talkplus.com/PaulFlaherty.html.
    • Paul's W6YX webpage is located here.
    • Paul's railroad website is located here.
    • On May 19, 2007, Paul was inducted into the CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame, which honors individuals who: (1) have made significant contributions to amateur radio; and/or (2) As licensed amateurs, have made significant contributions either to amateur radio, to their professional careers or to some other aspect of life on our planet.

    W6YX Claims First Club 47 GHz EME Contact
    During an afternoon break in work party activities on June 11, 2005, Gary, AD6FP, using the W6YX club call and the 47 GHz station at Site 530, managed to make what we believe is the first 47 GHz moonbounce contact ever made by a club station. Gary is part of the team that completed the first 47 GHz contacts via the moon earlier this year.

    Archive of Older News can be found here.


    [SU] Up to the Stanford University page.
    Stanford Amateur Radio Club - W6YX / w6yx-info@w6yx.stanford.edu

    Please note that W6YX is not a broadcast radio station.
    Please refrain from sending press releases, music, add requests, or non amateur radio related event announcements.

    Contact the Webmaster at webmaster@w6yx.stanford.edu
    Information Privacy Policy
    Page last updated
    Free Hit Counter
    Visitors since March 21, 2005