West Georgia Amateur Radio Society

The World comes to Little Tallapoosa Park

Over the weekend of June 22 and 23 the West Georgia Amateur Radio Society (501 c3) participated in a nationwide emergency communications exercise.

The objectives of the exercise included setting up communications equipment in a remote location, exchanging information with other stations around the country and the world over a 24-hour period, providing education, and having fun while learning.

Spring POTA 2024

The West Georgia Amateur Radio Society held a Parks On The Air (POTA) event at Cheaha Mountain in Cheaha State Park, Alabama on Saturday, April 20th, 2024 in conjunction with "Support Your Parks" weekend. Participants experienced unusually cool temperatures for late April, brought on by a cold front and accompanied by some early morning light rain, and fog.

Vanity Call Signs

Amateur radio operators are issued call signs by the FCC upon qualifying for their Technician license, and have the option to be issued new call signs that reflect their new class when they upgrade to General or Extra. The form of call sign is limited by license class, where higher class of licenses allow simpler/smaller call signs.  For instance, a Technician class licensee may be issued something like KX4XTT (often referred to as a two by three, two letters before the number and three after); however an Extra class licensee may have a call sign like W4BK (often referred to as a one by two). There are various call sign formats between these extremes, often limited by license class. You can view the "rules" by going to this link and clicking on "Sequential Call Sign System".

Winter Field Day January 27th-28th, Little Tallapoosa Park

Winter Field Day will be held January 27th and 28th, 2024 at Little Tallapoosa Park Equestrian Campground located at 1930 Hwy 113 N., Carrollton, GA. 

WGARS 2024 Officers

Elections were held at the November meeting.  Your officers for 2024 are:

Board Members:  KO4DKS, Wayne and KF4DVW, Joshua
Secretary Treasurer:  KM4UPX Brian
Vice President:  KM4WQC Matt
President:  WD8LQT John

POTA Weekend 2023

 WGARS members participated in POTA Weekend 2023 at Cheaha State Park and KK4Z was among the participants. Scott blogged about it at his site ...

"The West Georgia Amateur Radio Society (WGARS) is a great group. We like to do three things: 1) talk on the radio, 2) get together, and 3) eat. We did all three this past weekend during the Fall Support Support Your Parks on the Air weekend (POTA). We like to do about 4 gatherings a year namely Field Day, Winter Field Day, and the Spring and Fall Support Your Parks on the Air Weekends" ... Read The Article.

AF4BA Joins AFMARS

During our September 12, 2023 club meeting at First Christian Church, 306 College Street, Carrollton, GA., we had an awesome presentation from Tony, AF4BA, on \Air Force Military Auxiliary Radio System.

 First, let me tell you just a little bit about AF4BA. In 2020, he started getting involved with Amateur Radio and decided this complex but yet simple communication style really interested him. In the same year, AF4BA joined WGARS with just a Technician barely in his pocket. He pressed on, asking questions, learning, digging for information, attends meetings regularly, helping out at events where is could and always participating, Tony is now the club’s Net Manager. Pressing on, he obtained his “General”, in a very short time, and then he made that “Extra” all his! Congratulations AF4BA.