Author Archives: Barbara Curtis

February 21, 2026 Fox Hunt

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All those who participated had a fun filled morning.  Three clubs were represented well,13 in all.  Weather looked bleak early in the morning but cleared out for a wonderful
day.  Everyone present were talented enough to find both foxes (although a few were seen wandering aimlessly at times). Door prizes were handed out, followed by a
good round of tech talk. Talks were held about a hunt for next month; all were exited about it.  A third fox was donated by Carl of the Enterprise club.  Many, many thanks for that.  That will make the next hunt even more fun.  Thanks again Carl!

Al declared himself the winner as he found both foxes first, way to go Al.

                  

February 12, 2026 ARES Meeting

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Thursday, February 12th, 2026, the WARC ARES members met at the Red Cross building in Dothan.  After welcome and roll call, task books were signed off for completed works by our Emergency Coordinator, Alan Curtis.  Current ID badges were distributed.

Discussion of Upcoming Events:

February 21st Fox Hunt at Eastgate Park in Dothan.  Coordinator Jimmy Hassell has it under control.  Eastgate is located at 2049 Sanitary Dairy Road.

SkyWarn Basic Training.  Virtual Class signups going on now.  Dates:  Feb 19 & 25.  2 more in March.  Advanced Class is March 10th.

Jim Bell Wireless Association Club Visit March 7th.

Camping Trip at Blue Springs for POTA activation.  April 11th date selected.

Project for NNSN Workshop:  Clint’s Jungle Antenna

Discussed June 6th Tri-State Bike Ride.

Routine Message recaps.  Phone Tree exercise information.

After some lively discussion on antennas and POTA, we adjourned at 7:25pm.

BLC

February 5, 2026 WARC Club Meeting

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We had two visitors last night, both of whom are already licensed. Very nice gentlemen.
It was great to hear how many participated in some way for Winter Field Day!  Thank you all for making that happen 🙂
We discussed the April 25th Tri-Club Tailgate being held in Headland.  Daleville and Enterprise are working with us to make this a fantastic event.  We have classes planned, testing, an antenna park, and a raffle with a sweet grand prize.
We are cancelling our October 24th Tailgate in Headland and moving testing to the American Red Cross because we voted to combine with DARC and EARS again for a HAMFEST to be held at the Daleville Convention Center/Armory on September 12th, 2026.  Hopefully we will have a bigger event with more classes and more vendors if we can gear-up enough at the Spring Tailgate in Headland.
Charles Woodall has agreed to head up the Rookie Roundup this year at our clubhouse.  It will be April 19th.  More info to come on that.
Doug Bates gave a talk on Half Wave Dipoles and created a lively discussion.  Great job Doug and we are looking forward to Saturday’s (tomorrow’s) Workshop on them.

January 3, 2026 WARC Meeting

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The first meeting of WARC was this morning.  No new guests or visitors, just the home crowd.
Under topics, the Future Activities Events Sheets was passed around.  Some additions were added.  There is still more, especially for Demo/Informational Talks during the monthly meetings.  Jimmie Hassell is the head of the committee to hog tie y’all into doing these, but I thought I’d ask sweetly first 🙂  He also could use a few folks to help organize these or help come up with ideas.
January 24th-25th is Winter Field Day.  Ed Winkler and some others will be out at Blue Springs State Park.  Alan and I will make a plan to be there and support this event.  (Ed, please send times/itinerary so we can all be up to speed.)
April 19th will be the Rookie Roundup.  This is a chance to wrangle up all newbies (those licensed 3 years or less and maybe some wanna be’s).  Al DeWeese has offered to open the station.  Charles doesn’t know that we have him as coordinator – surprise Charles 😉
April 25th is the Spring Tailgate which will be a joint effort with Daleville and Enterprise Clubs.  We should have more details and flyers soon.  Any input or comments would be greatly appreciated.  Yes, we will be looking for vendors… could use help in asking them to come.
And,…. we would like a few volunteers to be on the Club Events Team.  This team just keeps an eye on all things Ham Radio and opportunities to make our club shine and then suggest these ideas to the club in a timely manner.  I confess, that I do not have enough time to keep up on all fronts and could really use the help here.  I would like our club to have a really fun, educational and successful year.
Thank you to all you participated today!
KM4RBE
Barbara
Jimmie Hassell did an informational talk on putting together a portable antenna which created quite a lively discussion.  Thank you Jimmie!

Saturday, August 9, 2025 New-and-Not-So-New Hams Workshop

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On Saturday, August 9, 2025, at the W4DHN Workshop, Hams met to have a “practice” Fox Hunt.  Antenna’s were tuned and tweaked and radios prepped.  There was a general explanation of what was going to happen and then Doug went out and hid the Fox for all the participants.  The action then began.  Participants scoured all directions looking for the elusive transmitter.  The first hunt really got folks on their toes trying to “bond” with their equipment and figure out all the nuances.  Therefore, the second hunt went pretty smoothly; well, you had to get below the trailer bodies to get a better signal:-)

We had 15 participants and a really fun time!  Thanks to Jimmy and Greg for getting this together for us.  We will be coming up with another one in the near future with a little more difficulty.  Hurah!

Thanks to all who came out and made this a success!

 

August 7th, 2024 W4DHN Meeting

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At our August 7th, 2024 W4DHN Club Meeting held at 6:30pm in the American Red Cross Building on Montezuma Avenue, Vice President Dave presided over the meeting.  There was a call to order and introductions of visitors and then general introductions.

Reports were given.  There was a special report by Alan regarding the October Simulation Emergency Test.  All States will engage in this testing with each state competing against each other.  The state with the most points gained during the activation wins.  Last year, Alabama won (and we didn’t compete).  September is the season prep month for emergencies.

A recap of the 2025 Field Day was given. (There is one on the website for those of you who missed it.)  We had over 300 contacts.

There was a discussion of the repeater equipment that needed to be purchased which was a rack for the UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) to get it up off the floor and out of the way for the building maintenance guy.

Requests for volunteers to come up with a program for a club meeting was made.  A program should be between 5 to 15 minutes or so.  It can be anything from technical (How to Make something) or social (How you contacted a specific contact) or travel (A special trip making various contacts.  There is a wide band of Ham Radio Operations and our club only touches a few.  If you are involved or want to be involved in another area of Ham Radio, bring your research or how you got involved and sign up for a date.

For those of you who haven’t joined the W4DHN Groups.io, or if you aren’t getting all the messages, make sure to ask Al if you haven’t joined and then check that your own profile is set up and make it public.  This will only be visible inside our group.

We then had a recap program from Greg for Saturday’s Fox Hunt.  Byonics.com is where he got his Fox from.

Meeting was adjourned.

BLC

Fox Hunt Information and Exercise

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On Thursday, August 7th, 2025, during the W4DHN monthly meeting which starts at 6:30pm, Greg will give information and tips for what to do in Ham Radio Fox Hunting.  This is another skill available to Ham Radio Operators that involves finding a hidden radio transmitter.  It’s a lot like a scavenger hunt, orienteering, or geocaching involving radios.  It requires simple direction finding equipment.  It is relatively easy to learn with just a few basic skills needed.  Also, it is recognized as a competitive sport called ARDF.

Why is Fox Hunting an important skill?  It is used in Search and Rescue (crash sites, stranded people, wildlife beacons, and distress signals).  It is also used for locating interference (i.e., jammers, illegal transmissions, stuck transmitters, and other sources of noise).

On the following Saturday at the New-and-Not-So-New Ham Workshop, held at the Red Cross building, 1004 Montezuma Avenue, Dothan (same place at the monthly meetings), we will meet at 9am and progress to the next door parking lot and work on actual skills.  Bring your antenna finding rig and your thinking caps and have some fun as Jimmy and Greg will put us through the paces of becoming adept at finding the “Fox”.  This will be sure to be an informative and fun time.  Hope to see you there!

       

 

June 28, 2025 Summer Field Day

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Saturday, June 28th and Sunday, June 29th, the Wiregrass W4DHN Ham Radio Club participated in the Summer Field Day by setting up and hosting visitors at the Northside Methodist Academy located at 2600 Redmond Road in Dothan, Alabama.  Set up began the Friday night before, but was open to the public beginning at 9am on that Saturday.  License Testing was offered at 11am.  Four folks showed up for testing and all passed,  Congrats to them and welcome to the Ham Radio Community!  Communications from all over the US and a few other regions were made and folks curious about what Ham Radio does got a taste of what fun we have.

Here are some pictures of a fun day!  Thanks to all the operators who showed up and help make this event a success!

June 12, 2025 ARES Club Meeting

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Thursday evening at 6:30pm, the W4DHN ARES group had it’s monthly meeting.  After the roll call and information dissemination and Task Book updates, we assembled in the radio room and Al DeWeese gave us a run down on how to turn on/turn off/ and how to use the antennas with the club radios.  A very informative time!  We decided to have a Saturday workday that we each do it a few times to make sure we have a firm grip on the process.  We also decided to get a copy of the manuals for the radios for familiarity with each one and to make sure that they are loaded on the computer in pdf form for ease of use should the need arise.  Al said he would check into that.

We then reassembled back in the meeting room and discussed the Radiogram Multiple Frequency Exercise and decided to table it until August.

The Rag Chew on 80 meters was discussed and was voted to move to Friday evenings at 8:30pm beginning in August.  A discussion of the Rag Chew on our ARES net each Tuesday night to see if folks liked it or not and was agreed upon to keep it on the Tuesday 2M FM nets.

Bruno discussed the QST articles regarding the FEMA disasters and the Ham operator that was such a blessing to many by getting information to loved ones and to get help to the areas that needed it.

We discussed about finding the highest areas around the Houston and Dale County areas for ease of line of sight Simplex communications.  Dan said that he would find some topo maps for next meeting.

The July ARES meeting is cancelled.   We will resume August 14th.

Another fantastic ARES meeting!

     

BLC