Author Archives: Charles Woodall

ARRL Field Day Coming June 24-25

The Wiregrass Amateur Radio Club will once again participate in ARRL Field Day on Saturday and Sunday, June 24-25. The club will be set up at Northside Methodist Academy, located at 2600 Redmond Road in Dothan. We will be set up in rooms 509 and 511, which are are the backside of the school, directly behind the gym. There will be signs showing directions. The club will be operating starting at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, June 24.

The purpose of ARRL Field Day is to practice portable operations and hone our emergency communications skills. Amateur radio plays a huge role in the community, especially in the event of a natural disaster when normal communications are down for any period of time. Field Day gives us the opportunity to practice set-up and operation of our stations, so we can better respond when the need arises.

If you are a ham radio licensee, regardless if you are a club member or not, we invite you out to participate. Even if you do not have an amateur radio license, we invite you to come out and see what it’s all about. We’ll even let you get on the air if you like!

What – ARRL Field Day with the Wiregrass Amateur Radio Club
When – Saturday and Sunday, June 24-25, starting at 1:00 on Saturday
Where – Northside Methodist Academy, 2600 Redmond Road, Dothan, AL 36303

Hope to see you there!

WARC Supports Tri-States 100 Bike Ride

WARC Spring Tailgate 2023 Wrap-up

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Thanks to Alan Curtis – KQ4ELM – for this post

Thanks to everyone for another successful Wiregrass Amateur Radio Club (WARC) event. It was a great Saturday morning. We had nine vendors, and a lot of good conversations. There were operators making contacts on CW in multiple countries, and after a great lunch our team went into testing for new licenses and upgrades. It was just a great day all in all and the weather was perfect.

We started our day with breakfast at Hardee’s with the usual suspects, making any last-minute arrangements, then off to the tailgate.

Area Vendor’s and Operators set up their tables and tailgates with radios, antennas, meters, and other goods.

There were four prizes for the hourly drawing with the grand prize being this new Yaesu FT-2980. Oh yes, did I mention there were free cookies and tea?

Here is one of our members making contacts around the world with his portable CW equipment.

When lunch was over our VE team went to work setting up for today’s testing.

They had three candidates pass, (1) new Technician (1) upgrade to General and (1) upgrade to Amateur Extra.

Thanks for all the help from the club members and the vendors.

We at WARC hope to see you there next year!

WARC Spring Tailgate Event

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The Wiregrass Amateur Radio Club Spring Tailgate is scheduled for Saturday, April 22, on the square in Headland. The WARC Spring Tailgate is an opportunity to come out to find radio and related equipment for sale, see demonstrations of various equipment and set-ups, and mix and mingle with fellow ham radio enthusiasts. The tailgate starts at 8 a.m., with door prizes given away each hour. The final grand door prize will be given away at noon, followed by lunch. Please bring a side dish to go with fried chicken.

The Wiregrass Hams VE team will hold a testing session immediately following the tailgate, starting at around 1:00 p.m. To reserve a seat for the testing session, send an email to info@wiregrasshams.org.

April 2023 Club Meeting

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The Wiregrass Amateur Radio Club held its monthly club meeting on Thursday evening, April 6, at the American Red Cross office in Dothan.

Old business discussed –

A reminder that The Wiregrass 100 Bike Ride is scheduled for Saturday, May 6. For those that signed up to help with communications for the ride, post assignments will be given out in the coming week or two. Our club is coordinating with the Chipola Amateur Radio Club in Marianna to supply comms for the entire ride. Also, since May 6 is the regularly scheduled date for our New and Not So New Ham Workshop, there will not be a workshop that day. The next New and Not So New Workshop will be held on Saturday, June 3.

The club was asked to come up with names of silent keys that were club members for a plaque that will be displayed at the club station. We will spend the next couple of months compiling names of silent keys, then decide the size plaque needed based on that number. If you know of a previous Wiregrass Amateur Radio Club member who is now a silent key, please email the name and callsign to info@w4dhn.org.

New business discussed –

A discussion was held regarding improvements and upgrades to the club website, w4dhn.org. David Schwab, K4FOO, is handling the maintenance of the site, and offered several suggestions for improvements, including a new layout, making it mobile friendly, and a membership directory. Other changes were suggested by those in attendance, including a members only area.

Presentation-

Further discussion was held on different HF antennas. John Willis, KB4DU, showed some army surplus fiberglass poles that he uses to get antennas up in the air when working portable. Charles Woodall, W4CLW, demonstrated the setup of his Wolf River Coils portable antenna system that he uses for Parks on the Air activations, as well as an end fed half wave quad band antenna that he also uses.

In total there were 15 people in attendance. The next club meeting will be held on Thursday, May 4.