Bloomington High School South, The Gothic, 2013, Page 38

Description:	^^^mHAMMirHAM Radio Club participated in a worldwide radiocompetition that resulted in a second place finish.In October, Bloomington SouthsHAM Radio Club participated in aglobal contest, The School ClubRoundup. In order to score points,the group contacted othercompeting radio clubs andindividuals around the world. Outof 40 teams, South finished insecond place, an improvementfrom fourth and fifth places inprevious contests.During the grueling, week-longcontest, club members spent two ormore hours a day contacting otherclubs around the world usingspecific radio frequencies. Pointswere determined by location;contacting a variety of locationsyielded high scores. Usually wellask them where they are and whatkind of equipment they have, saidjunior Padraig Lysandrou.The club occasionally faced alanguage barrier within theirworldwide communication network.Although many contacts spokeEnglish, Spanish and Italian wereamong the languages transmittedover the radio equipment.Weather is usually a topic ofconversation, and they like to bragabout their equipment, said juniorCole Evans. These conversations,though seemingly trivial, reflectlarge accomplishments on the partof the club.Our club is very proud of ourrecent achievement of connectingwith all 50 states, said seniorBenjamin Richmond. It took quitea while to get that many differentcontacts.HAM radio cites itscorrespondence with Antarctica asan interesting and memorablemoment of the competition.With The School Club Roundupsuccessfully behind them, the clubplanned to focus on other goals,such as setting up a new antenna,which would give them a greaterradius of possible contacts. HAMradios accomplishments in thisinitial event afforded them a senseof confidence for the future. Wereall really happy, said Evans. Inthe next contest, were shooting forfirst in the nation.-ELEANORE FUQUAcasting aelMembers of Bloomington Souths Spell Bowl team share the mostdifficult words they encountered during the season.dirrrdl[n] A skirt that gathers at the waistbandspeller: junior Noni FordThe hardest part was learning tospell 3,500 words, and the hardestword to spell was dirndl.spele»ol«ogist[n] a person who explores cavesspeller: freshman Cilka Brisudahad the most trouble with the wordspeleologist1 because I couldntunderstand it.Bordeaux[n] The capital of Gironde, inSouthwest Francespeller: freshman Joshua AndersonBordeaux because most Frenchwords ending in this soundend with an -eau.
Source:	http://cdm17129.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/hs-bloomsouth/id/8590
Collection:	Bloomington High School South

Further information on this record can be found at its source.