The Bridge - Issue 2, 2019 - 26

Feature

GREAT IMPEDANCE MATCH FOR KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER:
Amateur Radio as Part of Electrical and Computer Engineering Education

Dennis Derickson (callsign AC0P)
received his BS, MS, and Ph.D. in
electrical engineering from South
Dakota State University (1981),
the University of Wisconsin in
Madison (1982) and the University
of California in Santa Barbara (1992). His farming
background and youth ham radio hobby heavily
influenced his career in engineering. He worked
on spectrum and network analyzer measurement
equipment at Hewlett Packard (HP) in Santa
Rosa, CA in the 1980's. He joined the Electrical
Engineering faculty at Cal Poly in 2005 and has
been department chair since 2010. He is a founding
member of the start-up company Insight Photonics
Solutions that is commercializing research initiated at
Cal Poly (http://www.sweptlaser.com/). His outreach
activities include summer science camps and
robotics programs for local schools. As department
chair, he has focused on Industry/Alumni/Partner
outreach, entrepreneurship, enabling a project-rich
hands-on environment for diverse students, and
supporting a strong graduate program.
Charles "Chuck" Bland (callsign
NA6BR) is an Engineering
Technology Engineering alumnus
of California Polytechnic State
University in San Luis Obispo
(1982), and completed his Master's
in Computer Science at California State University,
Sacramento (1995). Chuck received his amateur
radio license while attending Cal Poly and has been
actively involved in the Cal Poly Amateur Radio Club,
technical, public service, and training activities. Upon
graduating, Chuck joined Motorola Communications,
designing and implementing voice and data
communications systems for Public Safety. His
duties included training of technical staff on system
maintenance and operation, consultation with
customers and their vendors on system hardware
and software interfaces, evaluation of system
performance, and providing support services. Chuck's
background in amateur radio was an expression of
his skills professionally and in the areas he explored
as a hobby. After 35 years, Chuck returned to Cal
Poly, joining the Electrical Engineering Department as
an adjunct lecturer.

THE BRIDGE

Jack Gallegos (callsign KK6YWG) is
an Electrical Engineering student at
Cal Poly. He is currently the president
of the Cal Poly Amateur Radio Club,
and is actively involved in public
service and radio experimentation.
Jack has been involved in amateur radio since 2015
and has been licensed since high school. Jack is also
a volunteer examiner and has helped license over
300 people at test sessions hosted at Cal Poly. He
has also been working with Tom Tengdin WB9VXY
to incorporate electronic grading and improve
exam efficiencies. Jack's primary hobby is currently
amateur radio, though he has found many ways
to tie his existing hobbies together; using radios
on land, air, and sea to test novel communication
systems. He also has applied his amateur radio skills
to his professional life, completing internships in
radar system and antenna design, and is looking to
establish a career in the world of RF.
Marcel Stieber (callsign AI6MS) is
an Electrical Engineering alumnus of
California Polytechnic State University
in San Luis Obispo (2012). He
serves on the Cal Poly Electrical
Engineering Industry Advisory
Board and currently works as a Hardware Systems
Integration Lead at Amazon Lab126 in Sunnyvale,
CA. Marcel was former Club President and is
currently Industry Advisor to the Cal Poly Amateur
Radio Club (www.w6bhz.org). Marcel got his job
through amateur radio and regularly gives back at
local repeater workdays as an RF technician and
volunteer tower climber. He serves as a Technical
Advisor for several event management companies
and local repeater groups. His Master's Thesis,
based on his amateur radio experiences, was titled:
Radio Direction Finding Network Receiver Design
for Low-cost Public Service Applications (https://
digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/889/). Marcel
helped to establish the Freshman Licensing Initiative
and regular licensing sessions which have brought
over 1,500 new licenses to amateur radio since
2009 (see: https://w6bhz.org/content/licensing).

http://www.sweptlaser.com/ http://www.w6bhz.org http://www.marconisociety.org/ https://www.ethw.org/Milestones:Marconi's_Early_Experiments_in_Wireless_Telegraphy,_1895 https://www.ethw.org/Milestones:Marconi's_Early_Experiments_in_Wireless_Telegraphy,_1895 https://www.ethw.org/Milestones:Transmission_of_Transatlantic_Radio_Signals,_1901 http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/889/ http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/889/ https://www.ethw.org/Milestones:Transmission_of_Transatlantic_Radio_Signals,_1901 https://www.w6bhz.org/content/licensing https://hkn.ieee.org/ https://hkn.ieee.org/

The Bridge - Issue 2, 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Bridge - Issue 2, 2019