West Georgia Amateur Radio Society

Convoy On The Air Ends

WGARS was one of thirteen clubs across the United States to participate in the "Convoy On The Air" event.  Approximately seventy vehicles made their way from Washington, D.C. to San Diego, California over a one month period, re-enacting the original convoy from 1920, which took place to demonstrate military vehicles could be moved across country.

At the time of the original convoy there was no Interstate Highway system, just a patchwork of state and federal highways that interconnected. One of them, "Bankhead Highway", was just such a network of roads.  Over a period of 116 days the original convoy completed the route, with Villa Rica, Georgia being one of the rest stop locations.

As an event station operating concurrently with the convoy, WGARS made 400+ contacts in various modes and bands using the call sign of "K2G" over a period from September 18th thru October 19th.

Thanks to all those participating, including WD8LQT (John Playford), W3RWT (Gerald Roman), KM4BYH (Wayne Hitch), and WX4BK (Brian Keahl) for their participation.

Field Day Wrap Up

Although Field Day officially started on Saturday at 2:00PM, preparation started much earlier and really hit high gear Friday evening. First, thanks to John (WD8LQT) who spent considerable time ahead of the event helping to get a lot of the advanced preparation done.

We had a fantastic turnout Friday, and THANKS to those who came out to help: Club President Charles Surginer (KK4CTV), Wayne (KM4BYH) and his wife, Debbie, Dennis (KM4FQI), Blake (N4BWR), Tom (N4FWD), Mike (KE4OBE), Brian (WX4BK), Andrew (KM4KRG), and Nick (KE4NIA), If I missed anyone, please let me know, as everyone's participation helped make this event successful.

Despite our hoisting ropes being removed from the usual spots, we managed to get new ones thrown pretty easily, maybe even better than the originals, thanks to Wayne's "Pocket Fisherman" and Dennis' skill at sending the lead weight over high tree limbs! After about two hours on site we had three tested antennas and one experimental ready to get put to work Saturday afternoon!

2015 Field Day Results

It's that time of year again, where we all start looking for the annual Field Day results - and the wait is over! ARRL posted the results and WGARS has a lot to be proud of!

WGARS Participated in class 3AC this year, logging 199 contacts, scoring 1158 points, and placing 1398 out of 2720 participating groups.  This year's Field Day setup went very well and participation was fair, however a Solar CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) began degrading band conditions Saturday night and by Sunday morning conditions had degraded to the point all bands were closed.

Despite losing about a third of our operating hours we still logged about the same number of contacts the previous year, scoring 284 MORE points (1158 this year vs. 874 last year) as a result of our additional operating modes & GOTA participants. We also placed higher in the rankings - at the 48 percentile this year vs. 38 percentile last year.

WGARS March 28th Fox Hunt

WGARS members had a great time at our recent Fox Hunt at McIntosh Nature Preserve on March 28th! No, we didn't unleash the hounds! Fox Hunting is a fun activity where members hunt down a hidden transmitter using radio direction finding techniques. It's also great practice for assisting in finding emergency beacons and Emergency Locater Beacons from marine and aircraft.

About a dozen members showed up on the chilly Saturday morning to participate in the hunt. John Playford (WD8LQT) hid the fox, while other members participated in the hunt.