West Georgia Amateur Radio Society

Gold Rush Special Event 2025

Looking for your contact certificate? Click Here to view, download, and/or print.

The West Georgia Amateur Radio Society will hold its third annual “Villa Rica Gold Rush” special event September 27^th, 2025 using the W4G Call Sign on 15,20,40, and possibly 80 meters in CW, Phone, and Digital modes. Operation on all modes and bands, including the 10 meter “bonus band”, will occur on September 27^th from 12:30Z until 19:30Z from the original Pine Mountain Gold Mine Operations Building at the Pine Mountain Gold Museum in Villa Rica, GA. W4G will operate outside those hours using bands and modes chosen by our individual operators.

Certificates for making a single contact, all bands, all modes, and bonus band contacts will be made available. When the event begins we'll put up a status page which will include the operators and bands they are operating on, as well as recent contacts.  Please note that some operators will manually log their contacts and may not immediately appear on our status page. Certificates are normally available within moments of making contact, however it may take up to 24 hours for digital and manually logged contacts.

You can view our operating status here!

WGARS Weather Balloon Launch

Keep your eyes to the sky (as well as this website and facebook) for the upcoming WGARS Balloon Launch.  This will be a weather balloon with a payload containing APRS, a Fox, and assorted sensors and cameras.  The challenge here is to track the balloon on its ascent and descent to retrieve the payload.  These balloons generally rise and travel for approximately two hours.  Then when reaching their critical altitude (which is determined by the pressure inside the balloon vs. the pressure outside the balloon and around 110,000 feet) they burst and parachute down for approximately an hour.  Now we need to go get it!  

The launch is slated for Saturday July 26th.  The launch site is yet to be determined.  Check back here for more details.

Skywarn Operations for those “just passin’ through.”

Recently, my wife and I were on a camping trip/Hamvention/family visit adventure.  This adventure took us to Buck Creek State Park in Clark County, Ohio during spring thunderstorm season.  Thursday night May 15th and Friday May 16th were beautiful southern Ohio spring day’s.  Temps in the high 70’s with a nice breeze and a few scattered clouds.  While at the Hamvention on Friday, I spoke with a gentlemen who was part of the local skywarn network. I made the smart remark that I hoped his services wouldn’t be needed anytime soon, only to hear his reply of “definitely will get called out tonight.”  He indicated we all might need to hunker down for what lay ahead that evening.

Preparing For Winter Field Day

Winter Field Day [January 25^th & 26^th, 2025] is just around the corner. It is always on the last full weekend of January, beginning at 16:00 UTC on Saturday and running through 21:59 on Sunday. If you have participated in several Field Day club events, you may think there is no reason to prepare. Well, you are wrong!

Good To Know – Now, Put It To Practice!

Every Thursday evening, the West Georgia Amateur Radio Society (WGARS) repeater hosts the Carroll County ARES training Net at 8:00 p.m. EST on the W4FWD repeater, on a 146.640 Mhz frequency, with a negative offset and a 131.8 Hz sub-audible tone. These nets provide our club with an abundance of information, operating techniques, and ways to improve our radio skills when operating over the repeater or as a participant in a net. During the net, those participating are able to ask questions, bring up issues related to ARES and EMCOMM, or ask questions related to the Amateur Radio world.

On this past ARES Net, December 26, 2024 ARES Emergency Coordinator (EC), WX4BK, went over several important communication skills, radio

2025 WGARS Election Results

Well, the results are in......nominations were slim...your present officers of 2024 will be back for another year in 2025.  This includes:

President - WD8LQT, John

Vice President - KM4WQC, Matt

Secretary Treasurer - KM4UPX, Brian

WGARS Fall Activities

So what’s been  going on with WGARS this fall you ask?  It can be described in one word – Lots!  Activities have included a high altitude balloon launch and chase, two stage fox hunt, POTA (Parks on the Air) operation at Mt. Cheaha and an organized NVIS (Near Vertical Incident Skywave) experiment.  Since we have already reported on the balloon launch/chase and NVIS Exercise, this article will serve as a run-down of some of the other activities.

 The Fox Hunt – September 28, 2024.