Synton Amateur Radio Club
University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign
Open Lab Space - ECE Building
306 N. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801
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W9YH Synton Amateur Radio Club University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign Open Lab Space - ECE Building 306 N. Wright St. Urbana, IL 61801 |
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Home Officers Equipment Area Repeaters Links Photos Email List Possible Projects Hellschreiber |
Chat |
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Matrix Discord (bridged to Matrix) |
Syntogram |
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Current Issue Archives |
History |
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General |
QSL Mailing Address |
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Synton Amateur Radio Club c/o Debbie Fligor 1304 W Springfield Ave Urbana, IL 61801 USA |
Synton Net |
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Mondays at 9 PM Central Time on the W9YH repeater: 444.525 MHz (+) PL 162.2 Hz (active during the semester only) |
| Meetings every Thursday at 5 PM in Open Lab (ECEB2026). |
| News - 3/24/2026 Update: AI5OD |
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Subject: Free licensing exam for students/anyone 25 or younger this Saturday! We have an exciting update to share! W9YH has formed a VE team with the W5YI VEC, allowing us to hold our own licensing exams. The best part about joining W5YI is their youth licensing program, which allows anyone 25 years old or younger to take the exam for free. Additionally, for newly licensed individuals 25 or younger, W5YI will cover your $35 license fee as well, making getting licensed much more accessible to students! With that said, we will be offering our first exam session with W5YI this Saturday, 3/28, at 1 PM in MEL room 1009. The exam session is open to everyone, whether a student or not! Please sign up before the exam at this link. |
| News - 2/9/2026 Update: AI5OD |
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Subject: Spring 2026 stuff Hi all and apologies for the late update on the website! Happy new year and welcome to a new (but very cold) semester. Of most importance to note is that Synton is testing out moving our weekly meetings to Thursdays at 5 PM. As always they will be in the ECEB OpenLab, and lab access is required to attend meetings. It looks like this time change may have been a good idea as we had some new faces show up at our first meeting! We're hoping to have some exciting new projects this semester, such as:
Finally, in other news, we now have an (unofficial) Synton net, held at 9 PM central time on the W9YH repeater hosted by Noor, KF0TNJ! See the area repeaters link on our website for info on accessing the repeater. Additionally, the exam session scheduled in Janurary by TCARC had to be cancelled due to the winter storm and will now be on Feb 22 at 1 PM central time. Sign up for the exam here. |
| News - 9/28/2025 Update: AI5OD |
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Subject: 9/27 Exam session results! The license exam session held on campus yesterday in MEL went great!!! We had a total of 13 candidates show up for the exam. Of them,
In other news, Synton is exploring the possibility of getting VEs accredited with a VEC like W5YI or GLAARG. With this we could possibly host our own exam sessions whenever we would like, and also offer the exams to students for free. W5YI also covers the $35 new license fee, so this sounds very appealing. We'll see what they say! |
| News - 9/12/2025 Update: AI5OD |
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Subject: Meeting in OpenLab tonight, details on license exam on campus Hi everyone, in the spirit of keeping the website up to date, here's an update on our activities. Synton's first general meeting on 9/5 was a HUGE success. Thank you to all who came; it was a really good turnout and we hope to keep up the momentum with lots of interesting events, projects, and learning opportunities. Following up from that meeting, we'll be holding a small meeting tonight at 6 PM in the OpenLab for those who have access now. Activities include a tour of the ham shack for those members new to the club, a discussion on what we want to do or talk about at next week's meeting regarding the crystal radio project (which will hopefully be our first project of this semester), and we'll also give a demo on using HamStudy.org for those interested in studying for their license. For more announcements or info on our meeting times, please make sure you're in our Discord chat (see sidebar to the left). Finally, on that note, we're pleased to announce that Synton, in cooperation with TCARC, will be holding a licensing exam on campus on 9/27 at 1:30 PM in 1009 MEL! Please sign up beforehand here. |
| News - 8/27/2025 Update: AI5OD |
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Subject: First meeting of the semester! Greetings Syntonites! I know it's been a while since the last website post, but hopefully we can keep the news and updates more regular this academic year. Synton made a showing at Quad Day and ECE Liftoff this year, both of which were a huge success. Photos coming soon! With that said, our first unofficial meeting of the semester will be this Friday, 8/29 at 6 PM in the OpenLab. Meet familiar faces, and have a nice chat with others! We'll also discuss what to talk about during our first official meeting. Note: please only attend if you have OpenLab access. Our first official general meeting of the semester will be next Friday, 9/5 in a room in ECEB (specific location TBD). Please stay tuned to our Discord where we'll announce the specific location at a later date. This will be an informational meeting for all new members to learn about what Synton is all about as well as some planned projects and activities for the semester. We hope to see you there! I hope everyone has a fantastic semester, and remember that Synton is celebrating its 100 year anniversary this year!!! |
| News - 5/4/2025 Update: KD9FMW |
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Subject: Matrix, Discord and Photo Gallery We have a Matrix and Discord chat set up now! See links below! Matrix: #w9yh:matrix.org Discord: Server Also, the website has been tidied up a bit. Check out the newly-organized Photo gallery! |
| News - 4/25/2024 Update: N9DN |
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Subject: Website and Slack It's been a minute since the website was updated, but we're getting it cleaned up. Current club discussions happen on a combination of Slack and Discord, and very occasionally the mailing list. If you are an Illinois/UIUC ham and want to get on the slack or discord, reach out to Debbie, N9DN or one of the current officers and we'll get you set up. |
News - 1/25/16 Update: KC9LXT |
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Subject: Monthly Net Synton nets will be held monthly on the first Wednesday at 8 PM of every month that regular classes are held. Our next net will be February 3rd, 2016 on 444.525 PL 162.2. Hope to see you there! |
News - 1/23/15 Update: n9dn |
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Subject: Spring plans Synton has moved our equipment into the Student Open Lab in the new ECE building. We need help unpacking and setting up the station. We could also use some officers! If you have a Ham license or are interested in getting one, join our mailing list and help us get things setup at the new location. |
News - 8/29/11 Update: n9dn |
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Subject: Fall plans Synton has a table for Engineer's night. Stop by and visit, then join the mailing list Synton-L to be part of the fall planning. Classes? Fox hunts? what are you interested in? |
News - 12/10/08 Update: n9dn |
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Subject: Website update After a long hiatus, the website is being brought back into a semblence of support, with this year's officer info, etc. |
News - 09/08 Update: n9dn |
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Our Meetings (subject to change per request): Time: 2pm Thursdays on the 1st and 3rd full week of the month. Place: 330D Everitt |
News - 08/19/06 Update: kc8plb |
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Our Meetings (subject to change per request): Time: 12 noon Thursdays on the 1st and 3rd full week of the month. 8 pm Thursdays on the 2nd and 4th full week of the month. Place: 330D Everitt |
News - 09/11/05 Update: kc8plb |
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Subject: Synton Open House, September 15, 2005 Everyone is invited to join us at the Synton Open House, Thursday, September 15, 2005 at 8 PM. We will be meeting in room 330d of Everitt Lab. Come find out about the club, and get a tour of the shack. There will be pizza and drinks to follow. |
News - 09/11/05 Update: kc8plb |
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Our Meetings (subject to change per request): Time: 12 noon Wednesdays on the 1st and 3rd full week of the month. 8:00 PM Thursdays on the 2nd and 4th full week of the month. Place: 330D Everitt |
News - 01/22/05 Update: kc8plb |
| Token Update: Start of the new semester, meetings are in room el330d, at 12p on Wednesdays. Please feel free to stop by! | News - 08/24/04 Update: kc8plb |
| Synton made a showing at Quad Day today. Information will be sent out to everyone regarding the first meeting of the hear shortly. Synton will resume it's Wednesday @ 12pm lunch meetings, and have an informal meeting Thursday nights at 8pm, before the TCARC 2m net @ 9pm. | News - 04/25/04 Update: kc8plb |
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From Steve Hilberg: I just wanted to thank all of you again for helping out Saturday morning with the March of Dimes WalkAmerica. It's a good opportunity to publicize the public service aspect of ham radio and help out a good cause at the same time. Pictures are here. |
News - 04/10/04 Update: kc8plb |
| Congratulations to the team consisting of Synton member Chris Viger and area ham Josh Tolbert for finding the fox. | News - 04/08/04 Update: kc8plb |
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A couple people expressed interest in the foxhunt I proposed in
an email a while ago, and here are the details: This saturday, hunters will meet between Engineering Hall and Everitt Lab at 11am. The fox will be hiding on campus between the bounds of Lincoln Ave & University Avenue, to First St. & Flordia Ave. Since we are on campus, this is an on foot hunt. The frequency being used will be 446.50 MHz. If anyone needs some equipment, let me know and I can get some stuff togother. We have a spare antenna, a couple offset attenuators, and an HT. So the rundown: Saturday Apr 10 @ 11am. Meet at Everitt lab/Engineering Hall Lincoln & University - First & Flordia 446.50 MHz David kc8plb |
News - 02/22/04 Update: kc8plb |
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The 2m FM challenge is tomorrow night, Febuary 23, from 8 - 9 pm CST. We will be meeting in 330d at 7:30 to get setup. If anyone wants to be the club webmaster, let me know... (On a side note, I have fixed our old uiuc rso hosted web page to redirect to here now.) |
News - 08/28/03 Update: kc8plb |
| As the Fall semester starts, look here for information about the start of Synton for the semester. The meetings are going to be at a different time this semester; most likely Turrsday evenings at 1900 or 1930. I'll send mail to the list for when the first meeting is. Hope to see some new faces this year. And I'll try on keeping this website much more up to date than I have in the past. | News - 02/24/03 Update: kc8plb |
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After long waits, and much trial and tribulation, W9YH/R is now operational.
The club received the repeater (Motorola) last Thursday afternoon, and we got it operational that day. However, the next day after cleaning the repeater and trying to power it up again, we 'disturbed' the former residents of the power supply, and burnt them out... After yet another cleaning, and evicting the hornets nest and spiders, we had the machine back online, except it didn't transmit anymore. After spending a large chunk of time on Saturday, by the evening the machine was finally transmitting again after a mosfet mod. Thanks to n9goc for helping us test the machine... ~5 min after getting it on the air again. Today, we received the controller, and successfully interfaced it to the repeater via the mod to the squelch card that Mark did. Initially, the controller did not work, but after tracing down bad components, the controller finally started to respond on the air, but would not allow us to program it. Back to the drawing board, we were noticing that the receive audio was horrid, despite working fine on Saturday night. We later note that the metal plates for RFI shielding really do work, a lot. So all in all, the repeater is in pretty good shape now, the controller is programmed, and the audio is in relatively decent shape now. However, the machine is on a 'control op next to the repeater' mode right now, until we ensure the stability of the machine. Mark is going to be in the office most of the day tomorrow, so the machine will be up most of the day. Feel free to drop in or try it out. I'll post pictures of the machine on the club site soon. W9YH/R 444.65 DUP + PL 103.5 David |
News - 01/30/03 Update: kc4enn |
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Well, Even with access to a sane editor our updates are still slow. Sorry folks, We're students.
The first general meeting of Synton was held Wednesday January 29, 2003. We were delighted to receive one new ham. Several projects have been suggested, but most should wait until it is warmer. |
| News - 09/28/02 Update: kc8plb |
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Our site is now hosted at w9yh.ece.uiuc.edu on our 'new' Sun Ultra 1. Now that we can actually use a sane editor to modify the site, it will be updated more often. |
| News - 01/31/02 Update: kc8plb |
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The Synton Amateur Radio Club now has a new web site. Standby for further updates while I upload all the content. |
| (Very) Old News |
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Ex-president Tim Shy, KM4KS, tooks photos as our old building, Physics House III was being demolished. You can see them here . Please note that until I get an index page name, you'll have to click on each file name to see the picture, most pictures are 32k in size. They're in time order. |
| Upcoming Exams |
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The Twin Cities ARC sponsors exams this year on April 21, July 21, and October 20 at the Fire Service institute in Champaign. The exams start at 1pm. Please contact Debbie, N9DN, (n9dn@arrl.net) for more information. |
| Newsgroup |
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Synton has a net-news group, uiuc.org.synton (click here if you want to read it with your browser) for discussion of Amateur Radio & Synton related topics. |
| Mailing list |
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Synton also has a mailing list, synton-l (click here to browse the archives, and to sign up for the list.) The purpose of this list is for the discussion of Amateur Radio & Synton related topics. |