Ham Radio U at Long Island University draws hundreds of students, longtime professionals

Rick Bressler leaned over a laptop with flashing radio frequencies and a list of communications with far-flung countries — Wales, Bosnia-Herzegovina and dozens of others — his ham radio setup in Connecticut was reaching in real time.

Radio enthusiasts, from longtime operators to students, stopped by Bressler's remote setup at the 27th annual Ham Radio University, an annual event held Saturday at LIU Post in Brookville designed to engage people interested in running their own amateur radio station and share new advancements in the field.

Bressler, 81, doesn't have an engineering background, but now his 36-foot antenna has connected with more than 300 of the 340 geographical ham radio entities, or regions, that exist worldwide. Events like Ham Radio University let him share his passion and learn more about the tight-knit community.

"I've learned so much," Bressler said. "I love it."

Ham Radio University featured more than two dozen presentations, including introductions to amateur radio and a forum on women in ham radio. The event brings together Long Island-based clubs and organizations under the national American Radio Relay League with around 300 attendees interested in learning more about the technology.

A main goal of the event, said Dennis Boyé, co-chairman of Ham Radio University, is to connect the younger generation to the still-advancing world of radio communication.

"The technology changes year after year," Boyé said. "Getting younger kids into it is so important because we need to keep it going for the generations going forward."

Ham radio uses basic equipment to send messages without traditional networks, bouncing radio signals off the Earth's ionosphere to deliver transmissions, according to NASA. 

A ham radio setup can consist of a simple antenna and a power source and can be built for as little as a few hundred dollars. More advanced versions of ham radio can have digital interfaces, like a computer or cellphone screen, and large antennas capable of reaching anywhere in the world.

Daniel Garcia, 21, is part of the next generation of radio operators. The Bay Shore resident was a forum speaker at the event, talking to a packed auditorium of more than 70 people about Meshtastic — an open source program that uses small nodes to send basic messages on a frequency that doesn't require a license like typical ham radio frequencies.

The program is "a cellphone that can only be used locally but doesn't require any cell service," said Garcia, a student at Five Towns College in Dix Hills.

He said he was surprised by the size of the crowd Saturday and said he hopes the turnout "gets more people involved in Meshtastic."

Ham radio is vital in emergency situations. It can establish communication in areas where power and internet service has been wiped out by natural disasters.

It also has the power to be set up in remote locations devoid of typical communication infrastructure.

Adrian Ciuperca, an attendee of Ham Radio University, is part of an upcoming ham radio expedition to Bouvet Island, a remote, uninhabited island located about 1,000 miles north of Antarctica.

Ciuperca, 51, and about two dozen other amateur radio operators will set off from Cape Town, South Africa, on Feb. 1 and embark on a two-month mission to establish ham radio communication on the small spit of land in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with other amateurs around the world.

"You can compare ham radio with stamp collecting — you want to have a stamp from every possible place on Earth," Ciuperca said. "But if that place has no people, there's no way to find the stamp."

The group will stay on the island for up to three weeks and, Ciuperca said, "try to survive the harsh environment" using an icebreaker ship and a helicopter to transport the group and their equipment to the island, which is so remote that the closest humans reachable by ham radio — at times — are those passing overhead on the International Space Station.